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Karzai controls a third of Afghanistan
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai controls just 30 percent of the country, the top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday.
Afghan interior minister survives attack: ministry
KABUL, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - Afghanistan's interior minister Wednesday survived an attack on his convoy, while clashes killed several civilians and Taliban militants around the country, the interior ministry said.
2 Polish soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By ALISA TANG, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 27, 7:09 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb killed two Polish soldiers patrolling in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday, while NATO announced the seizure of $400 million in opium in the south.
$100 million boost pegged for aid to Afghanistan
One-time spending hike will go primarily toward security initiatives, such as training police, army
Feb 27, 2008 04:30 AM Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA–Canada will have an additional $100 million to spend on Afghanistan as part of a budget plan to boost international aid.
Sarkozy wants troops deployed with U.S. in Afghanistan
France suggests sending forces to the east, not the south with Canadians
DOUG SAUNDERS February 27, 2008 Globe and Mail, Canada
LONDON -- As Canadian soldiers prepare for three more years in the deadly south of Afghanistan, signs are emerging that they won't be joined by a hoped-for contingent of French troops.
Kidnapped U.S. aid worker, Afghan driver feared dead
Wed Feb 27, 5:37 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - An American woman aid worker and her local driver who were abducted in Afghanistan may have been killed, foreign groups said.
A look at recent kidnappings of foreigners in Afghanistan
By The Associated Press AP
Recent kidnappings of foreigners in Afghanistan:
AMERICAN AID WORKER: Gunmen kidnapped American aid worker Cyd Mizell and her driver, Abdul Hadi, in a residential neighborhood of Kandahar on Jan. 26, 2008. Mizell, who was wearing the all-encompassing burqa
Taliban highlights militants' mobile tracking fear
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - A Taliban threat to attack Afghan telecoms companies is the latest sign of paranoia from militants who fear their mobile phones will betray their hiding places.
Afghan police shut down dozens of Kabul snooker clubs
Wed Feb 27, 1:53 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Police closed down dozens of snooker clubs in the Afghan capital, alleging the entertainment venues were being used by men involved in petty crimes, chiefly gambling, a city police chief said Wednesday.
Venue Changed For Appeal By Afghan Journalist On Death Row
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 RFE/RL
KABUL -- An appeal by a journalism student sentenced to death in northern Afghanistan on blasphemy charges has been transferred to Kabul in order to ensure a fair hearing, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports.
Qaeda influence grows on Afghan/Pakistani frontier
By David Morgan Tue Feb 26, 5:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda appears to be increasing its influence among Islamist militant groups along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, with offers of money, training and other assistance, U.S. experts say.
Lawyer: Afghan charged in N.Y. drug case turned over missiles
By Larry Neumeister, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — A man prosecutors portray as an Afghan drug lord with ties to the Taliban turned over thousands of arms including Stinger missiles to the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, his lawyer said in court papers.
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Karzai controls a third of Afghanistan
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai controls just 30 percent of the country, the top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday.
Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the resurgent Taliban controls 10 percent to 11 percent of the country and Karzai's government controls 30 percent to 31 percent. But more than six years after the U.S. invasion to oust the Taliban and establish a stable central government, the majority of Afghanistan's population remains under local tribal control, he said.
Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, told the committee at the same hearing that the Pakistan government is trying to crack down on the lawless tribal area along the Afghan border area where Taliban and al-Qaida are believed to be training, and from which they launch attacks in Afghanistan. But neither the Pakistani military nor the tribal Frontier Corps is trained or equipped to fight, he said.
Maples said it would take three to five years to address those deficiencies and see a difference in their ability to fight effectively in the tribal areas.
"Pakistani military operations in the (region) have not fundamentally damaged al-Qaida's position in the region. The tribal areas remain largely ungovernable and, as such, they will continue to provide vital sanctuary to al-Qaida, the Taliban and regional extremism more broadly," Maples said.
Under questioning from Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., Maples also said he considers the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding to be inhumane. That would put it outside the bounds of U.S. law, which since late 2005 has prohibited cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees.
The Bush administration has refused to rule on whether waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his or her cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world.
According to CIA Director Michael Hayden, waterboarding remains among the interrogation methods available to the CIA but must be approved on a case-by-case basis by the attorney general and the president.
The U.S. military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006. Maples said the 19 other interrogation techniques allowed under military rules are effective.
"We have recently confirmed that with those who are using those tools on operations," Maples said.
Earlier this month Congress approved a bill that would limit the CIA to the military's interrogation techniques. The White House has threatened to veto it.
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Afghan interior minister survives attack: ministry
KABUL, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - Afghanistan's interior minister Wednesday survived an attack on his convoy, while clashes killed several civilians and Taliban militants around the country, the interior ministry said.
Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel's armoured convoy was shot at about 50 kilometres (30 miles) outside of the relatively secure capital Kabul, his spokesman said, adding they had only learned of the incident afterwards.
"We received reports there was some shooting from the mountain on one or two vehicles," spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP. Police were investigating if the attack had been aimed at the minister, he said.
Bashary, who was travelling with the convoy, said even the minister did not realise that firing took place and no one was hurt in the attack in which Afghan media reports said rocket- and gun-fire were used to ambush the delegation.
Meanwhile there were new fears for the fate of a US aid worker and her Afghan driver kidnapped in the southern city of Kandahar a month ago as their employer said it had unconfirmed information they had been killed.
In the eastern province of Khost, a bomb blamed on Taliban fighters blew up a civilian pick-up truck, wounding a dozen people -- including women and children, a district police chief said.
One of the wounded died in hospital and six others were in a critical condition, Yaqoobi district chief Lutfullah Babakarkhail told AFP. "This is the work of Taliban," he said.
A similar remote-controlled bomb in the same area killed five policemen -- all from the same family -- and a young boy on Tuesday.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is helping Afghan troops confront the Taliban, meanwhile confirmed that two of its soldiers were killed in another bombing in the adjacent province of Paktika Tuesday.
The Polish military announced late Tuesday that two of its soldiers were killed in the blast and a third wounded.
ISAF also said Wednesday that eight Taliban fighters were killed in operations over the past three days in the southern province of Helmand.
The force, which includes soldiers from around 40 countries, rejected claims that it had killed civilians in the operation around the Kajaki Dam -- a vital water and power source.
However rocket fired by insurgents in the area had left five civilians dead on Monday, the separate US-led coalition said.
The Australian military reported separately that its soldiers in the southern province of Uruzgan had in the past days repelled a number of Taliban attacks on a project to build a base for Afghan soldiers.
And the Afghan army said two of its soldiers were killed in a clash with rebels on Tuesday in Kandahar province.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were removed for not handing over their allies in the Al-Qaeda network after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Last year was the deadliest of the insurgency, with around 6,000 people killed, and there are fears this year will shape up to be just as bad.
NATO civilian spokesman Mark Laity told reporters in Kabul however that he was confident of long-term success.
"As long as we stay in the right direction we will win," he said.
International commitment "is enduring, it's not today, it's not for tomorrow it's enduring, it's to accomplish the mission which we came here to do in alliance with the government and the people of Afghanistan," he said.
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2 Polish soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By ALISA TANG, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 27, 7:09 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb killed two Polish soldiers patrolling in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday, while NATO announced the seizure of $400 million in opium in the south.
The explosion hit the troops in the Sharan district of Paktika province on Tuesday, said NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
The Polish troops were returning from a humanitarian aid meeting in a village when their Humvee drove over a roadside mine, Maj. Dariusz Kacperczyk, spokesman for the Polish army operational command, said in Warsaw.
The two soldiers killed were identified as Cpl. Szymon Slowik and Pvt. Hubert Kowalewski. One soldier was also wounded. Poland has about 1,200 troops in Afghanistan.
The latest deaths bring the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan to 21 this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from ISAF and the U.S.-led coalition.
In 2007, insurgency-related violence killed more than 6,500 people, including 222 foreign troops. Last year was the deadliest yet since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
Paktika borders Pakistan's lawless tribal region, which is used by militants as a base to plan and launch attacks inside Afghanistan.
Despite the latest deaths, U.S. military officials insisted Wednesday the province has made great strides since the deployment of foreign troops. The government has extended its reach into areas that had no government presence before, roads have been built and more children are going to school, officials said.
"When we arrived in 2005 there was not one kilometer of road in Paktika province," said Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel, a U.S. military commander. "Now we have over 300 kilometers of road, and they are opening up commerce between ... districts."
NATO and Afghan soldiers, meanwhile, discovered and destroyed a massive opium haul during a patrol last week in the Sangin district of southern Helmand province, ISAF said in a statement issued late Tuesday.
The troops found 1.65 tons of opium — which ISAF said was worth $400 million — and a "significant quantity" of drug-making equipment last Thursday, it said. The $400 million figure appeared to be the opium's estimated street value once it was trafficked outside Afghanistan.
Helmand, the front line of the bloodiest battles in recent years between militants and foreign forces, is the world's largest opium-producing region.
Officials estimate that up to 40 percent of proceeds from Afghanistan's drug trade — an amount worth tens of millions of dollars — is used to fund the insurgency.
In other violence, a remote-controlled bomb hit a civilian vehicle Wednesday in eastern Khost province, killing the driver and wounding six people, said Khost public health chief Dr. Mohammadin Mohammadi.
A rocket attack on an Afghan National Army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded six others Tuesday in the Maiwand district of southern Kandahar province, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Seven insurgents were killed in two separate clashes in Helmand on Monday, the ministry statement said.
A rocket fired by insurgents in the Kajaki region of Helmand province killed five Afghan civilians on Monday, the U.S.-led coalition said.
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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
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$100 million boost pegged for aid to Afghanistan
One-time spending hike will go primarily toward security initiatives, such as training police, army
Feb 27, 2008 04:30 AM Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA–Canada will have an additional $100 million to spend on Afghanistan as part of a budget plan to boost international aid.
The one-time spending increase announced in the federal budget will go primarily toward security initiatives, like training the Afghan police and army. But part of the money could also be used for more traditional aid and development projects, officials with the Canadian International Development Agency said.
The additional funds bring to $280 million the total aid Canada will have for Afghanistan in 2008-09 and will boost the country's projected 10-year financial commitment to $1.3 billion.
The new money is also politically significant, coming at a time when Parliament is considering whether to extend Canada's stay in Kandahar province to 2011. The Liberal party says it is willing to support the Conservative government's proposal so long as Canadian efforts are focused exclusively on training and development after the current mission, primarily a counter-insurgency effort, comes to an end in February 2009.
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said the question is not about how much money is being spent, but how it is being spent.
"There's enough money in the system, in the defence budget and in CIDA's budget to do what we need to do," he said. "It's really about the focus of the mission. It's about the political will to reorganize the mission and to do that in co-operation with a number of other NATO countries that we have to work with in order to make it happen."
The Canadian Forces are also getting more money out of this budget, in the form of an automatic annual increase in defence spending to 2 per cent from 1.5 per cent. Coming into effect in 2011-12, it will give the forces approximately $12 billion over the next two decades to buy new equipment to keep up with military advances.
Beyond Afghanistan, which is Canada's top foreign aid recipient, the 2008 budget also promises to follow through on a pledge – first made in last year's budget – to double Canada's international assistance to $5 billion by 2010-11.
Part of that extra funding will complete Canada's pledge – one made by all G8 nations – to double aid to Africa to $2.1 billion in 2008-09. The Conservatives have been accused by development organizations of neglecting the continent, but the budget says Canada will outpace its G8 partners in meeting the African-aid goal one year earlier than other countries in the organization of leading industrial nations.
However, the government warns that any additional aid pledges will be subject to more rigorous standards, something that was first laid out last year.
In the 2007 budget, the government announced it would send aid dollars to fewer countries, with the aim of being among the largest five donors in the recipient states. It also vowed to make Canadian aid more efficient by reducing administrative costs and increasing accountability.
But more than a year later, Canadians are still waiting for more details on the proposed reform. The 2008 budget promises more details from International Development Minister Bev Oda "soon."
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Sarkozy wants troops deployed with U.S. in Afghanistan
France suggests sending forces to the east, not the south with Canadians
DOUG SAUNDERS February 27, 2008 Globe and Mail, Canada
LONDON -- As Canadian soldiers prepare for three more years in the deadly south of Afghanistan, signs are emerging that they won't be joined by a hoped-for contingent of French troops.
Earlier this month, France suggested that it might send soldiers southward to answer Canada's demand for 1,000 more NATO troops if it is to continue its mission there.
But aides to President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested yesterday that while France is serious about increasing its commitment to the Afghan war and playing a larger combat role, he is likely more interested in deploying troops to the east of Afghanistan, to fight alongside U.S. soldiers.
France has about 2,000 troops in Afghanistan - most of them stationed around Kabul and not engaged in active combat.
The handful of NATO countries that are directly fighting the Taliban insurgency in the south, including Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands, have encountered stiff Taliban resistance, with Canada suffering the highest casualty rate, and have been imploring other NATO countries for assistance.
Mr. Sarkozy's inclination now, leaked to the Paris newspaper Le Monde yesterday in what defence officials called a "policy trial balloon," is to play a stronger and more visible role in international military affairs, particularly in collaboration with the United States.
French defence experts familiar with Mr. Sarkozy's advisers confirmed that the Élysée Palace, Mr. Sarkozy's office, is considering this eastward option, but that there are dissenting views and that the President has not yet made up his mind. However, the "plan Canadien" seems increasingly unlikely.
"I doubt that the new, strengthened French force will go in the south; it will be in the east, close to Waziristan and the Pakistani border area," said Yves Boyer, director of the French Society for Military Studies. "I doubt the Élysée will want troops to go to the south. To go to the south is just to act as a fill-in, a stopgap, which is not a role the French want to play."
However, the eastern plan, if adopted by Mr. Sarkozy, could still aid the Canadians. According to French reports, his staff is discussing a plan whereby perhaps 1,000 French troops would go to eastern Afghanistan to replace U.S. forces there, who in turn would be moved to Kandahar to fight alongside the Canadians, thus fulfilling Prime Minster Stephen Harper's demand for more NATO forces there.
Mr. Sarkozy wants to use the Afghan war to make a dramatic display of France's muscular new military role in the world, French officials said, and he had hoped to use a key NATO conference in Bucharest in April to make a splash.
But France has committed troops to assist in bringing peace to the Darfur region of Sudan and Chad, and Kosovo's declaration of independence has required thousands more NATO troops to be stationed in the former Serbian province. That, along with the almost 14,000 troops France currently has deployed in world conflicts, has severely limited his ability to do anything dramatic in Afghanistan, a situation faced by several other European states.
"He has to balance things. There are French troops going to Kosovo, to Darfur and Chad, to the Ivory Coast," Mr. Boyer said.
"So the number of forces that France can deploy will remain limited, and it will have to be more in terms of special forces and airpower than having a huge number of people on the ground."
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Kidnapped U.S. aid worker, Afghan driver feared dead
Wed Feb 27, 5:37 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - An American woman aid worker and her local driver who were abducted in Afghanistan may have been killed, foreign groups said.
Cyd Mizell, 49, an employee of the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation (ARLDF), and her driver were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen last month while heading for work in a car in the southern city of Kandahar.
"Although we have no confirmation of their deaths, we have received information over the past few days indicating that our two aid workers have been killed," ARLDF said on its Web site.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abductions, and the Taliban insurgents behind many of the recent year's kidnappings have denied involvement.
"Yes, we have this fear that they may have been killed," an official working for a Western security group told Reuters on condition of anonymity on Wednesday.
He said there were no more details available such as who may have killed them and why. The Afghan government has yet to confirm the pair's death.
Mizell had been living for years in Kandahar, where only a handful of Western aid workers operate and live due to security problems.
She spoke the local language, Pashto, and wore the all-enveloping burqa, like most women in the former heartland of the Taliban.
Apart from the Taliban, criminal gangs, drug traffickers and armed groups are also involved in abductions of foreigners and Afghans.
The Taliban kidnapped 23 South Koreans in July last year. The group killed two of its hostages before releasing the rest after a deal with the South Korean government.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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A look at recent kidnappings of foreigners in Afghanistan
By The Associated Press AP
Recent kidnappings of foreigners in Afghanistan:
AMERICAN AID WORKER: Gunmen kidnapped American aid worker Cyd Mizell and her driver, Abdul Hadi, in a residential neighborhood of Kandahar on Jan. 26, 2008. Mizell, who was wearing the all-encompassing burqa that many Afghan women wear when she was taken, worked on aid projects for the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation. After a month in captivity ARLDF said they were both feared dead.
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RED CROSS WORKERS: Four ICRC employees _ a national from Myanmar, one from Macedonia and two from Afghanistan _ were seized Sept. 26, 2007, in the central province of Ghazni while trying to secure the release of a German captive abducted in July.
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GERMAN AID WORKER: Four armed assailants abducted a German woman who works for Ora International, a Christian group, as she ate at a restaurant in Kabul on Aug. 18, 2007. Afghan police rescued her two days later.
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SOUTH KOREAN CHRISTIANS: 23 South Korean Christian aid workers were taken hostage while traveling by bus from Kabul to Kandahar on July 19, 2007. Two of the hostages were fatally shot and two women were soon freed. The Taliban agreed to free the remaining 19 in exchange for a promise from South Korea to end missionary work in Afghanistan and withdraw its troops from the country by the end of the year, as previously planned.
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GERMAN ENGINEERS: German engineers Rudolf Blechschmidt and Ruediger Diedrich and five Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in southern Wardak province on July 18, 2007. Diedrich was found shot dead July 21, 2007. Blechschmidt and five Afghans were released.
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FRENCH AID WORKERS: French aid workers Celine Cordelier and Eric Damfreville from the group Terre d'Enfance and their three Afghan colleagues _ Mohammad Hashim and brothers Ghulam Rasul and Ghulam Azrat _ were abducted along with two French colleagues on April 3, 2007, in the southwestern province of Nimroz. All were released over the next two months.
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ITALIAN JOURNALIST: Daniele Mastrogiacomo was abducted in southern Helmand province with two Afghan colleagues on March 5, 2007. Mastrogiacomo was released 14 days later in exchange for five Taliban prisoners. Both Afghans were beheaded.
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ITALIAN PHOTOGRAPHER: Italian photographer Gabriele Torsello and his Afghan translator were abducted while driving from Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand province, toward neighboring Kandahar on Oct. 12, 2006. Torsello was left by the side of a road on Nov. 3.
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COLOMBIAN AID WORKER: Gunmen kidnapped a Colombian aid worker and two Afghan employees of a French-funded private group in southern Wardak province on Sept. 12, 2006. The three were released three weeks later.
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Taliban highlights militants' mobile tracking fear
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - A Taliban threat to attack Afghan telecoms companies is the latest sign of paranoia from militants who fear their mobile phones will betray their hiding places.
The Islamist militia on Monday gave mobile operators a three-day ultimatum to shut down their networks at night or face attacks on their towers and offices.
It issued the demand because "the occupying forces stationed in Afghanistan usually at night use mobile phones for espionage to track down the mujahideen," a Taliban spokesman told Reuters.
The threat comes several months after publication on the Internet of a "security encyclopedia" for militant Islamists which urges strict precautions when using mobiles.
Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev was assassinated after his phone signal gave away his whereabouts, and Taliban leader Mullah Omar came close to suffering the same fate, said the security encyclopedia, translated by the U.S.-based SITE institute which monitors militant use of the Internet.
It even recommends a particular handset model it says is hard for the enemy to open to implant a bugging device.
A mobile phone is actually a transmitter which sends out a radio signal. Provided it is switched on, its position can be tracked by measuring the distance the signal has to travel to reach the nearest mobile masts, and triangulating between them.
Some companies offer this as a commercial service, for example to enable parents to know their children's whereabouts.
"STEALTH DEVICES"
Howard Melamed, chief executive of U.S.-based cellular communications group CellAntenna, said the Taliban threat reflected a lack of understanding of the technology.
"Common sense would dictate: turn your phone off and it's OK," he told Reuters. "I have a feeling they're not really in tune too much with this kind of technology."
Lending support to that theory, the authors of the "security encyclopedia" admit they are unsure whether switching off the phone is enough, or whether the battery and SIM card should be removed as well. "We ask anyone who has knowledge to send us what they have, accompanied with certification from a specialized entity," it says.
Melamed said the Taliban may be concerned about the possibility of spies planting stealth devices on them that may emit signals to mobile networks.
He noted that mobiles have become a crucial device to militant groups, both for communications and for triggering remote-controlled bombs.
Among other tips, the security encyclopedia recommends never speaking for more than three minutes, avoiding "clearly prohibited words," using multiple phones and changing your accent when speaking.
Recent investigations and trials suggest militants are taking the security advice to heart.
Parviz Khan, a British-Pakistani dual national who admitted plotting to kidnap and behead a Muslim British soldier and shipping militant equipment to Pakistan, used a "multiplicity" of mobile phones and SIM cards to try to keep a step ahead of the authorities, a British court was told this month.
And analysts believe that senior leaders of al Qaeda do not use either mobile or satellite phones at all in order to avoid detection, instead relying on people to carry messages by word of mouth.
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Afghan police shut down dozens of Kabul snooker clubs
Wed Feb 27, 1:53 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Police closed down dozens of snooker clubs in the Afghan capital, alleging the entertainment venues were being used by men involved in petty crimes, chiefly gambling, a city police chief said Wednesday.
More than 200 people, including teenagers, were also picked up from the clubs in the city-wide raids on Tuesday but most had already had been bailed out by their families, Kabul police chief General Mohammad Salim Ahsas said.
"We closed about 70 clubs and detained about 200 people, most of them bad boys," told AFP.
The raids were conducted after complaints by residents that the clubs were being used by people involved in crime, he said.
"Before carrying out the operations, we had sent in our secret police who found and took pictures that people were gambling there. The venues had turned to places for bad boys and criminals," he said.
Gambling is illegal in this conservative Islamic country but it is rife, with bets placed on dog fighting and buzkashi -- a form of polo played with a calf or goat carcass -- among other pastimes.
Snooker halls were banned during the 1996-2001 Taliban regime but have since flourished becoming among the main entertainment venues in a country where basic infrastructure was destroyed during nearly three decades of war.
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Venue Changed For Appeal By Afghan Journalist On Death Row
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 RFE/RL
KABUL -- An appeal by a journalism student sentenced to death in northern Afghanistan on blasphemy charges has been transferred to Kabul in order to ensure a fair hearing, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports.
Afghan Attorney-General Abdul Jabar Sabet announced the change of venue in Kabul on February 27, saying that further proceedings would take place in open court.
Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh was sentenced to death last month by a local court in Mazar-e Sharif after he printed and handed out an Internet article that questioned interpretations of what the Koran says about the role of women in Islam. An Iranian expatriate in Western Europe originally wrote the article.
Kambakhsh says his closed-door trial lasted only four minutes before he was declared guilty and sentenced to death. He says he was not allowed to have an attorney nor to speak in his own defense.
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Qaeda influence grows on Afghan/Pakistani frontier
By David Morgan Tue Feb 26, 5:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda appears to be increasing its influence among Islamist militant groups along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, with offers of money, training and other assistance, U.S. experts say.
Osama bin Laden's group, which has been rebuilding in safe havens in Pakistan for over a year, has taken a prominent role in a new effort by Taliban and other radical organizations to coordinate their operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We are seeing an increase in cooperation between the (Afghan) insurgents as well as the terrorists led by al Qaeda. They are increasing in their coordination," U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, top commander of NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan, said on Tuesday.
"They're cross-fertilizing their tactics, techniques and procedures and also again getting resourcing mainly from al Qaeda, who is the central player in the terrorism equation," he told Pentagon reporters in a videolink from Afghanistan.
U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan's former Taliban regime and expelled al Qaeda's leadership after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. But insurgent violence in Afghanistan has increased steadily over the past two years.
Last year also saw rising violence across the border in nuclear-armed Pakistan, where suicide bombings killed hundreds of people including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Some analysts say the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan constitutes a single struggle against a cross-border militant threat in the Pashtun region.
"It really always has been. The fact is that we drove the Taliban into Pakistan, along with the other Islamist elements (after the 2001 invasion)," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
MILITANT GROUPS
Among militant groups U.S. officials say are battling NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan are three strongly linked to Pakistan:
-- Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, the armed movement of Pakistan's radical Islamist cleric Maulana Fazlullah;
-- Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group linked to Pakistani militant chief Baitullah Mehsud;
-- Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for attacks in Indian Kashmir.
Al Qaeda has long played a role in militant activity along the border region by providing training and information operations for groups in both countries. "They're a force multiplier," said RAND Corp analyst Seth Jones.
But some analysts believe al Qaeda may now be trying to compensate for weakened Taliban influence in eastern Afghanistan that resulted from NATO's capturing or killing a number of Taliban leaders last year.
"What al Qaeda has done is establish a very clever structure providing money, training, technical help and ideological efforts which reach deep into the Taliban, into the refugee camps and into the Afghan movements," Cordesman said.
"They've established ties to Pakistani groups. They've been able to do a much better job of working with tribal elements in Pakistan than the Pakistani government has."
Cordesman said coordination among militants in Pakistan was also aimed at expanding Islamist influence beyond the tribal region and reaching out to Islamist groups involved in Pakistan's dispute with India over Kashmir.
(Editing by David Storey)
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Lawyer: Afghan charged in N.Y. drug case turned over missiles
By Larry Neumeister, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — A man prosecutors portray as an Afghan drug lord with ties to the Taliban turned over thousands of arms including Stinger missiles to the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, his lawyer said in court papers.
The lawyer, Ivan Stephan Fisher, asked that drug charges be dropped against his client, Bashir Noorzai, who awaits trial in Manhattan. Fisher said Noorzai was duped into visiting the United States in April 2005 for a “vacation” only to be arrested.
Noorzai, who was on the U.S. list of most wanted drug kingpins, has been accused of smuggling $50 million worth of heroin into the United States with the backing of the Taliban.
Fisher said Noorzai was not a drug dealer and can be heard on tapes insisting so.
He said Noorzai met with CIA agents beginning in 1990 and helped them retrieve a dozen U.S. Stinger missiles that were supplied to Pakistan to support the insurgency against the Russian-controlled communist government in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
In the court papers filed under seal in August and publicly released Tuesday, Fisher said Noorzai replaced his father as an Afghan tribal chief in 2000.
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Noorzai tried to help establish a U.S.-supported government in Afghanistan by meeting with U.S. military representatives and instructing his tribe to collect and store all weaponry and munitions, Fisher said.
In January 2002, Noorzai turned over 3,000 arms, including 400 anti-aircraft missiles, to U.S. forces, he said in the court papers.
Fisher said Noorzai was asked by U.S. officials to arrange a meeting with a Taliban foreign minister, which he did, only to have his reputation and influence with his people badly damaged when the minister was taken into custody, he said.
Still thinking he was helping U.S. forces, Noorzai convinced a tribal leader to return to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where he was hiding, the lawyer said. But the tribal leader was killed in his home during a U.S. raid, leading Noorzai to fear for his own life, he said.
In December 2001, U.S. authorities took Noorzai into custody and questioned him for six days, Fisher said.
In September 2004, U.S. agents told Noorzai they were working on a special project to identify funds supporting terrorism and invited him to the United States to help with the probe, he said.
Fisher said the agents asked Noorzai to “take a vacation” to the United States for two weeks to meet with people in Washington for further discussions. He was questioned for 11 days in a Manhattan hotel and then was arrested on drug charges.
Since his arrest, Noorzai has continually tried to provide further information and co-operation but without favourable results, the lawyer said.
At a hearing earlier this month, lawyers for the government acknowledged there may have been tricks but insisted nothing violated Noorzai’s rights.
“A breached promise that does not involve a promise of immunity would merely be a lure, a deception,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David O’Neil said.
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said at the hearing that the case raises issues of law that had not been addressed by the courts before. She has not ruled.
The government had no comment on the court papers revealed Tuesday.
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