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Afghanistan: European MPs want action on Taliban funding
Brussels, 10 July (AKI) - A group of European MPs have called for urgent action to stop the Taliban from trafficking drugs and drawing financial support from outside Afghanistan.
Afghanistan: Taliban commander 'killed'
Kabul, 10 July (AKI) - Afghan and international forces have killed a Taliban commander involved in planning suicide attacks in the capital, Kabul, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force announced on Thursday.
British Minister sees `long haul' in Afghanistan
By BARRY SCHWEID Associated Press / July 10, 2008
WASHINGTON - Iraq is headed in the right direction in struggling against insurgents, while it will be a longer haul to achieve success in Afghanistan, British Defense Minister Des Browne said Thursday on a visit for talks at the Pentagon and White House.
NATO commander seeks AWACS planes for Afghanistan
BRUSSELS, July 10 (Reuters) - NATO's commander in Afghanistan has asked the alliance to send surveillance planes to the country to help the battle against insurgents, an official said on Thursday.
India caught in the Taliban myth
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online / July 10, 2008
The horrendous terrorist attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday has no precedents. Never has the mission there been attacked in this fashion - not even during the darkest periods of the civil war in the 1980s and 1990.
Militant agrees Khyber peace deal
Thursday, 10 July 2008 BBC News
A leading militant in Pakistan's Khyber region, Mangal Bagh, has struck a peace deal with the local administration to end nearly two weeks of fighting.
Pakistan rejects foreign troops
Associated Press / July 9, 2008
Pakistan's top diplomat Wednesday rejected the idea of any foreign troops operating inside Pakistan, reinforcing its refusal to accept U.S. military aid in battling insurgents near the Afghan border.
Afghanistan: UN seeks $400 mln for food crisis and drought victims
New Yori, 10 July (AKI) - The United Nations and the Afghan government have appealed for just over 400 million dollars to feed 4.5 million people who are struggling as a result of rising food prices, poor harvests and drought.
Russia ready to help hunger-stricken Afghanistan
UN, July 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to provide Afghanistan with additional humanitarian aid to help tackle a food shortage following severe drought and a poor harvest in the country, Russia's UN envoy said.
North Struggles With Severe Drought
Warnings of imminent starvation as thousands of families move in search of food and water.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 296, 10-Jul-08)
The wailing of children pierces the air over the tent city on the banks of the Shulgara river, just south of Mazar-e-Sharif. But even that sound may soon be stilled – so many children are dying of dehydration, starvation and disease that families
Female Afghan Outlaw Comes in From the Cold
The government has finally won over a woman who made her name as a militia commander – but plans to give her a job to keep her out of trouble are proving controversial.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 296, 09-Jul-08)
The Afghan government scored a minor victory last month by reeling in a rebellious “warlord” who led a band of warriors over nearly three decades. What really set this case apart is that the militia commander is a woman.
Journalists Demand Justice for Kambakhsh
The appeals process has stalled and there seems to be little political will to ensure a fair outcome.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Hafizullah Gardesh and Noorrahman Rahmani in Kabul (ARR No. 296, 09-Jul-08)
All over Afghanistan, journalists, writers and activists gathered on July 8 to press their government to release Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh.
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Afghanistan: European MPs want action on Taliban funding
Brussels, 10 July (AKI) - A group of European MPs have called for urgent action to stop the Taliban from trafficking drugs and drawing financial support from outside Afghanistan.
Three Italian MPs from the conservative People of Freedom party - Stefano Zappala, Giuseppe Gargani and Marcello Vernola - and their German colleague Klaus-Heiner Lehne have expressed concern about the situation in Afghanistan.
In a joint statement, the MPs have raised key questions with the European Commission and the European Union's Council, its main decision body.
"Considering the EU's commitment to the reconstruction of the country, with other international players, does the EU Council intend to reinforce action to support the stability of the country and the fight against drug trafficking and in what way?" said the European MP's.
"Bearing in mind that the situation in Afghanistan represents a major threat to global stability, Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium in the world," they said.
"Since the Soviet invasion of 1979, drugs have represented a key sector of the national economy, of which 40 to 60 percent depends on the opium trade."
"The proceeds from this drug trafficking helps to finance Taliban groups and terrorists. The difficult situation in Afghanistan is making a large number of the Afghan population turn against and no longer support the government," said the MPs in the statement.
"This is a good opportunity for the Taliban, that enjoys broad support inside the country, led by (Afghan President) Hamid Karzai, but also outside the country."
In the statement, the MPs say that the Taliban are drawing strength from abroad.
"The Taliban have money and power. Weapons and money arrive from Iran, Russia and Pakistan," they said.
"According to some international sources, the market of Dubai is also playing an important role. The Taliban finance their activities through the sale of opium, thus becoming a source of subsidy."
"All the income coming from the opium (trade) ends up in the pockets of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The main problem for Afghanistan is that of security, and its long and porous border."
"The long and uncontrolled border between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan makes Afghanistan vulnerable to drug trafficking."
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Afghanistan: Taliban commander 'killed'
Kabul, 10 July (AKI) - Afghan and international forces have killed a Taliban commander involved in planning suicide attacks in the capital, Kabul, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force announced on Thursday.
Mohammed Daud Rahimi was killed Wednesday in Lowger province, south of Kabul, ISAF said in a statment.
An unnamed woman was wounded in Wednesday's operation, given medical care and released after testing positive for recent contact with explosives, the ISAF statement said.
Daud Rahimi had recently had been recruiting Taliban fighters, identifying targets for suicide bombers in Kabul and transporting suicide bombers into the capital, according to ISAF.
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British Minister sees `long haul' in Afghanistan
By BARRY SCHWEID Associated Press / July 10, 2008
WASHINGTON - Iraq is headed in the right direction in struggling against insurgents, while it will be a longer haul to achieve success in Afghanistan, British Defense Minister Des Browne said Thursday on a visit for talks at the Pentagon and White House.
Affirming Britain's longtime "special ties" with the United States, Browne said over the past six months "we have seen a change for the better" in Iraq.
There, Britain has fought alongside the United States, while many other European countries criticized the U.S.-led campaign and kept their distance. In Afghanistan, there is more European support for the NATO-led campaign.
Browne last month announced a boost of 230 troops in the British contingent to a total of more than 8,000. More than 100 have died since 2001, most of them in fighting with a resurgent Taliban since 2006.
In the long run, speaking at the Brookings Institution, Browne was upbeat about trends in both countries. In the last year, he said, Afghanistan was transformed from a "failing state" to an emerging democracy.
And yet, in contrast to Iraq where violence is subsiding, Browne said there was "far less advance" in Afghanistan. "I have no doubt it will be a longer haul," he said.
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NATO commander seeks AWACS planes for Afghanistan
BRUSSELS, July 10 (Reuters) - NATO's commander in Afghanistan has asked the alliance to send surveillance planes to the country to help the battle against insurgents, an official said on Thursday.
The request, if approved, could pose political problems for Germany, which supplies many of the personnel for the planes and which might need parliamentary approval for the deployment.
"COM-ISAF has requested it in a letter to SACEUR," a NATO official said of a request by U.S. General David McKiernan to NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General John Craddock.
"There's been no decision yet," added the official, who requested anonymity.
No details were available on the reasons for the request, but NATO commanders have long complained about the difficulty of carrying out proper surveillance of a country the size of France with poor or non-existent internal infrastructure.
NATO owns a fleet of 17 Boeing Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar aircraft based in Geilenkirchen, central Germany. According to its website, it has a second but smaller component comprising seven British-manned planes in Britain.
Equipped with radar capable of tracing air traffic over large distances and at low altitudes, the planes would be useful in coordinating the helicopters on which the 53,000-strong NATO-led mission depends for much of its mobility.
Nearly a third of the 1,600 personnel on the Geilenkirchen base are German, although the planes could theoretically be deployed with crews of other nationalities.
The German presence in Afghanistan has for months been close to the limit of 3,500 troops allowed by its parliament mandate.
That expires in October and Berlin wants to raise that threshold by an extra 1,000 troops in a new mandate. German involvement in the AWACS deloyment could mean having to raise the upper limit further and define the tasks of the AWACS.
Some opposition parties are critical of the mission and polls show a majority of the population is also sceptical.
Parliament last October backed the deployment of six Tornado reconnaissance jets only after a long and difficult debate.
(Reporting by Mark John and Sabine Siebold; Editing by David Brunnstrom)
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India caught in the Taliban myth
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online / July 10, 2008
The horrendous terrorist attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday has no precedents. Never has the mission there been attacked in this fashion - not even during the darkest periods of the civil war in the 1980s and 1990. Nor has any other diplomatic mission in Kabul been so targeted in the current phase of the civil war that began with the United States invasion in 2001.
The suicide attack claimed the lives of 41 people, with more than 140 injured. Among the dead were Indian Defense Attache Brigadier R D Mehta, diplomat Venkateswara Rao and two Indian paramilitary guards.
Unsurprisingly, Indian opinion makers have been swift in depicting the terrorist act as a moral evil, which it probably is. All the same, it is necessary to draw a line while presenting what happened as a kind of morality play of good versus evil. The danger is when the narrative begins depicting a moral universe where we are hated solely on account of our altruistic motives and intrinsic goodness.
Whereas, the reality is that we live in savage times where realpolitik and not morality often enough happens to be the guiding force inciting our monstrous enemies. A need arises, therefore, to take a more honest look at any hidden sewers that may exist. Such an exercise cannot and should not in any way detract from the total condemnation that the terrorists deserve. But it will serve an important purpose in so far as we do not fall into a false sense of innocence.
Even the death of a sparrow is a tragedy. Too many Indian lives are being lost in Afghanistan. The death of a brigadier, certainly, is a huge loss to India's armed forces. It is about time to ask questions why this is happening. First and foremost, do we comprehend the complexities of the Afghan situation?
The primary responsibility for this task lies with the Indian mission in Kabul, which should assess the situation correctly and report to Delhi. The Ministry of External Affairs will be the best judge to decide whether there have been any lacunae in putting in place the underpinnings of India's Afghan policy. After all, a distinct pattern is emerging in the recent past. Is it mere coincidence?
Each time an Indian life was lost, top officials in Delhi reiterated their resolve not to be deterred by terrorists. A high-level meeting of officials ensued to take stock of the security of Indian personnel in Afghanistan. Apart from diplomatic and other staff, several thousand Indians are involved in reconstruction work in the country.
We then moved on. But does that approach suffice? Is anyone listening out there in the Hindu Kush? Isn't a comprehensive re-look of policy warranted? Something has gone very wrong somewhere. The government owes an explanation.
One thing is clear. The Taliban are a highly motivated movement. They are not in the business of exhibitionism. Their actions are invariably pinpointed, conveying some distinguishable political message or the other. This has been so all along during the past decade. Anyone who interacted with the Taliban would agree.
Even on the eve of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, they were prepared to deal, but by then the Gorge W Bush administration was bent on the military path. In the present case of India's embassy, the terrorist attack was carefully targeted. Equally, its timing must also bear scrutiny. The overall fragility of the security situation or the prevailing climate of violence in Afghanistan alone cannot account for it. India is not part of the tens of thousands of coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan. But why is India being singled out? After all, Iran has been no less an "enemy" for the Taliban or al-Qaeda - or Russia and Uzbekistan for that matter.
The first point is that the Taliban have once again chosen to target Indian interests, which are located on Afghan soil. They haven't stretched their long arm to act on Indian soil. Even though India's army chief recently speculated that Kashmiri militants could have tie-ups with the Taliban or al-Qaeda, such a link seems highly improbable. (Why there should have been such a speculative statement at all on a sensitive issue at such a responsible level, we do not know). The Taliban message is that they have a score to settle with India's Afghan policy; that it is best settled on Afghan soil; and that they do not have any hostility toward India as such.
Two, the Taliban have ratcheted up the level of their attacks on Indian interests. Targeting the Indian chancery makes it a very serious message. It is unclear whether the Indian defense attache was specifically the target. Conceivably, he was. If so, the timing of the attack is relevant. India has sharply stepped up its military-to-military cooperation with Afghanistan. Media reports indicate that India is training Afghan military personnel and possibly supplying military hardware to the Afghan armed forces. The Indian authorities have not cared to deny these reports.
Needless to say, the Taliban would be keeping a close tab. The Taliban have infiltrated Afghan security agencies and would know the nature of the India-Afghanistan military cooperation. In any case, in the Kabul bazaar, nothing remains secret for long. The Taliban seem to have sized up that the Afghan-Indian "mil-to-mil" cooperation is assuming a cutting edge, and the resent it, seeing it as unwarranted Indian interference in their country's internal affairs.
Arguably, India's cooperation is within legitimate parameters. Delhi is dealing with the duly elected Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, which enjoys international legitimacy. But such things are never quite that simple in war zones. It took all the persuasiveness on the part of India's envoys to get the mujahideen to accept, with the benefit of hindsight, that India's erstwhile ties with president Mohammad Najibullah's regime in the 1980s were history and were not directed against the mujahideen but merely signified government-to-government relations, which were usual.
Again, as India learned at enormous cost, in the ultimate analysis, it became completely irrelevant that the Indian Peace Keeping Force saga in the mid-1980s in Sri Lanka began at the insistence of the established government in Colombo under the leadership at the highest level. The dividing line between the judicious and injudicious becomes thin when an outsider becomes involved in a fratricidal strife.
In this particular case, there is an added factor. The Afghan army has pronounced ethnic fault lines. Ethnic Tajiks account for close to 70% of the officer corps of the army. So, when India trains Afghan army officers in its military academies to fight the Taliban - who are a predominantly Pashtun movement - India is needlessly stepping into a political minefield of explosive sensitivity. Either India does not comprehend these vicious undercurrents in Afghan politics or it chooses to deliberately overlook them. In any case, it demands some serious explanation.
Three, the United Progressive Alliance government in Delhi has incrementally harmonized its Afghan policy with the US's "war on terror". This is most unfortunate. India ought to keep a safe distance from the Bush administration's war against militant Islam. Besides, the US has complicated motives behind its intervention in Afghanistan - its geostrategy toward Russia and Central Asia, its agenda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion as a global political organization, its crusade against "Islamofascism", etc.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh recently revealed in the New Yorker magazine what was an open secret - Washington has been using Afghanistan as a base for training and equipping terrorists and planning and executing subversive activities directed against Iran with a view to speeding up "regime change" in that country.
India does not share these diabolical US policy objectives and hare-brained dogmas. But unfortunately, influential sections within the India security community have labored under the notion that acquiring a sort of frontline status in the US's "war on terror" in Afghanistan would have tangential gains with regard to Pakistan. The temptation to harmonize with the US is all the greater when we see that US-Pakistan security cooperation has come under strain on account of Islamabad's growing resistance to the American attempt to shift the locus of the war into the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the tribal areas within Pakistan that border Afghanistan.
Again, some others in India's strategic community hold a belief that it is time India began to flex its muscles in its region. Indeed, US think-tankers routinely encourage their counterparts to believe that India is far too shy and reticent for a serious regional power in the exercise of its muscle power.
At any rate, there is a widespread perception in the international community - including former US officials who held responsible positions and even British statesmen - that Afghanistan is the theater of a proxy war between Pakistan and India. But we can certainly do without such a proxy war. There are five good reasons for saying so.
First, it is tragic, immoral and contemptible if India indeed is cynical enough to overlook the suffering that it would be inflicting on the friendly Afghan people - who barely eke out a living as it is - by making them pawns in India's "low intensity" wars with Pakistan. Second, such a proxy war is contrary to India's broader regional policy, which is to make Pakistan a stakeholder in friendly relations with India. Third, India would be annoying or alienating the Pakistani military, which is a crucial segment of the Pakistani establishment. Fourth, it undercuts the climate of trust and confidence, which is gathering slowly but steadily in the overall relationship with Pakistan.
Finally, it is plain unrealistic to overlook Pakistan's legitimate interests in Afghanistan. It would be as unrealistic as to expect that India would sit back and take with equanimity if it perceived creeping Pakistani influence in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal or Bhutan. (Three top Indian officials recently visited Colombo to make precisely such a point about trends toward Sri Lanka's expansion of ties with China and Pakistan.)
Call it "sphere of influence", call it the "Monroe Doctrine" [1], but there are geopolitical realities that cannot be overlooked. Afghanistan poses fundamental challenges to Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Therefore, Pakistan is highly sensitive about Afghanistan's external relations. It is inconceivable that Pakistan would take in its stride any Indian activities in Afghanistan, which it perceives as threatening its security interests. (Sophistries apart, Delhi's calculated political decision to maintain consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif is a case in point.) A futile cycle of tit-for-tat will ensue whereby India and Pakistan would end up bleeding each other.
From the Indian perspective at least, its national priorities at the present crucial juncture of economic growth and development should be very obvious. It can do without mindless distractions and extravaganzas. It needs a peaceful external environment. China's fascinating example of national priorities is in front of India - almost mocking it.
The biggest danger is that in the present climate of euphoria over India's so-called strategic partnership with the US, Washington may egg Delhi on to a "proactive" role in Afghanistan. Indeed, this may be happening already to some extent. India (and China) has been approached by the Bush administration to send troops to Afghanistan. Understandably, with the Afghan war posing such a profound dilemma to the US, Washington would be immensely pleased if India, with its surplus manpower, geared up for a bit of load-sharing in the "war on terror".
Nothing would be more foolhardy on India's part than to be drawn into the US stratagem. There cannot be any two opinions that when the chips are down, the US would know that Pakistan is a fundamentally more valuable ally in Afghanistan than India ever could aspire to be. Simply put, geography favors Pakistan, and geography delimits a direct Indian role in Afghanistan.
India can only end up as a doormat for US regional policy. However, there are disturbing signs that sections of the Indian strategic community, egged on by the armchair cheerleaders in its media, are raring to go for a bit of action in the great game. Indeed, the great game in the Hindu Kush is a heady, exhilarating game. But it is also a high-risk one. It can even end up tragically, which was what happened to imperial Britain and the Soviet Union - and quite probably will happen to the US.
It is understandable if India were to retaliate against the Taliban for its hostile activities towards India. But that is not the case here. The case is more of the powerful pro-American lobby in India's security community hoping against hope that somehow or the other a justification could be found for a raison d'etre for India to get involved in the Afghan war. The easy route is to cast the Taliban as inimical to India's national security.
Part of the problem is also India's lack of understanding about the phenomenon of political Islam and its manifestations in its neighborhood. Carnegie scholar and author of Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy, Fawaz A Gerges, has tackled the intellectual challenge of disentangling myth from the reality of Islamism. He came up with some facts to consider: a) Islamism is highly complex and diverse; the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates which form the overwhelming majority (over 90%) of religiously political groups embrace democratic principles and oppose violence; b) Mainstream Islamists have become unwitting harbingers of democratic transformation in Muslim societies, learning to make compromises and even rethink some of their absolute positions; c) Mainstream militants serve as a counterweight to ultra-militants like al-Qaeda; d) Islamists, like their secular counterparts, are deeply divided among themselves and the intensity of the fault lines are very real.
Interestingly, Gerges had this to say about the Taliban: "There is nothing uniquely 'Islamic' about their internal governing style except the rhetoric and the symbolism. They have not offered up an original model of Islamic governance." Thus, once in power in the late 1990s, the Taliban did face a Herculean task of coping with political reality. If not for their cynical manipulation in the 1990s by outsiders - the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - the Taliban would not have been driven into the welcoming arms of al-Qaeda.
Much of the currently perceived threat to regional stability from the Taliban is a dark illusion that has been exaggerated and distorted. But then India became trapped by a fear and adversarial perceptions had crystallized by the late 1990s. India promptly, unconditionally, surrendered the right to question the myth about the Taliban. Indeed, Taliban functionaries kept conveying to India directly and through intermediaries that they didn't harbor ill will toward India to provoke such vehement Indian support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
Maybe India overreacted; maybe the searing pain of the blood-letting in Jammu and Kashmir in the late 1980s and early 1990s percolated into India's thinking; maybe the specter of Islamic extremism genuinely haunted the country; maybe Pakistan's hostile manner prompted India to retaliate; maybe the hijack of the Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan in 1999 and the humiliation that followed was too much to accept; maybe the destruction of the famed Bamyan statues in Afghanistan in 2001 was already an affront to India's civilization. Certainly, one thing led to another.
But 2001 was a cut-off point. India should have stopped in its tracks and reassessed. The Bonn conference in the winter of 2001 following the invasion of Afghanistan was the occasion for an ancient country like India to have pointed out to the world community that there could be no durable peace unless the vanquished and the defeated party was also brought into the settlement. The Europeans would have understood. But India's political leadership let the country down. Instead, India revived belief in its role to battle evil. On the other hand, if India had plodded through, the myth might have easily fallen away. And that might have offered a permanent solution to India's Taliban problem.
Note
1. The Monroe Doctrine is a US doctrine which, on December 2, 1823, said that European powers were no longer to colonize or interfere with the affairs of the newly independent nations of the Americas. The United States planned to stay neutral in wars between European powers and their colonies. However, if later on, these types of wars were to occur in the Americas, the United States would view such action as hostile. President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress, a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States. Most recently, during the Cold War, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (added during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt) was invoked as a reason to intervene militarily in Latin America to stop the spread of communism. - Wikipedia
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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Militant agrees Khyber peace deal
Thursday, 10 July 2008 BBC News
A leading militant in Pakistan's Khyber region, Mangal Bagh, has struck a peace deal with the local administration to end nearly two weeks of fighting.
Paramilitary troops started an operation in late June against Mangal Bagh and other Islamist militants.
It came amid growing concern for security in the nearby city of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.
The US says that such peace deals allow militants to flourish.
But Pakistan's new government is committed to ending militant violence through negotiations.
Pakistan's leading militant, Baitullah Mehsud, who is based in South Waziristan, suspended negotiations with the central government in protest at the military action in the Khyber agency.
Government's authority
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that under the terms of the Khyber agreement, the paramilitary forces will end the operation and release some activists of Mangal Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam group.
Mangal Bagh and his men will accept the government's authority and not carry arms in Bara town, Mr Bagh's base.
Our correspondent says that normally there are no restrictions in the carrying of arms on the tribal areas along the Afghan border as tribesmen are often involved in blood feuds and need to defend themselves.
The agreement was mediated by a local jirga, or council of elders.
Earlier this week, four soldiers were killed when there convoy was ambushed in the Akakhel area of the Khyber district. It was the first major attack on troops during the operation.
Two other militant groups were also targeted by the paramilitaries.
Correspondents say that the militants have been increasingly brazen in their activities in Peshawar. In one case, 16 Christians were briefly abducted from the city centre.
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Pakistan rejects foreign troops
Associated Press / July 9, 2008
Pakistan's top diplomat Wednesday rejected the idea of any foreign troops operating inside Pakistan, reinforcing its refusal to accept U.S. military aid in battling insurgents near the Afghan border.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi's comments during a U.N. Security Council session on Afghanistan's future could deal a blow to the United States' efforts to kill or capture al-Qaida leaders.
"Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used against other countries. However, no foreign troops will be allowed to operate inside Pakistan," Qureshi told the 15-nation council. "The new democratic government in Pakistan cannot but be sensitive to the sentiments of our people."
The council's session was shadowed by Monday's suicide car bombing at India's Embassy in Kabul that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 130. Afghan officials quickly raised suspicions that Pakistani operatives had worked with the Taliban to set off a bombing that could play into the long-standing struggle for power between Pakistan and India.
The Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, Jayant Prasad, said the death toll from Monday's bombing had risen to 58, up from 41, and that several school-age children were among the dead.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta described the car bombing as another "in the succession of increasingly brutal attacks that targeted the people of Afghanistan, the region, and the world."
Qureshi condemned the Indian Embassy attack as "highly reprehensible" and pledged greater cooperation with Afghanistan. But he suggested new limits to Pakistan's cooperation with the U.S. military.
Without directly referring to the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, Qureshi said, "The military option should be used but as a last, and not the first, resort. Military tactics should not create more alienation, more opposition and more enemies."
The U.S. has offered military support to help Pakistan's military put more pressure on al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds in Pakistan's tribal areas. In recent days, news reports also described Washington as taking steps to make it easier to launch covert special missions in Pakistan's remote tribal areas, where al-Qaida is believed to be rebuilding its global terror network.
The U.S. has voiced increasing frustrations that Pakistan does not seem willing to apply even more pressure to those areas where the insurgents are thought to inhabit.
"Afghanistan should not used as a geopolitical battleground and we call on Afghanistan's neighbors not to arm or finance insurgents or allow them to operate from their territories," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.
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Afghanistan: UN seeks $400 mln for food crisis and drought victims
New Yori, 10 July (AKI) - The United Nations and the Afghan government have appealed for just over 400 million dollars to feed 4.5 million people who are struggling as a result of rising food prices, poor harvests and drought.
The 12-month appeal aims to ensure food aid for 450,000 urban and rural households that have been hit hardest by the surge in the prices of staple foods such as wheat - by 50-100 percent in some parts of the country.
Afghanistan’s wheat harvest is expected to be 36 percent lower this year than in 2007, the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has predicted.
Last year the country was able to produce over 90 per cent of its own food.
However, the harvest for this year is forecast to meet around two-thirds of the domestic requirements.
Around two million tonnes of grain will have to be imported.
“There is an urgent need to provide life-saving assistance to Afghanistan’s people, the needs are great and the time is limited,” said UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General Bo Asplund.
“We urge donors to step forward with commitments of support that will enable us to provide essential food, water and health services to vulnerable groups over the next 12 months,” Asplund said.
The appeal will also provide some 300,000 farming families with vital livestock and agricultural assistance, and 550,000 women and children with help to protect them from malnutrition.
The funds will be used to provide safe drinking water, promote good hygiene in drought-affected communities and improve disease control.
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Russia ready to help hunger-stricken Afghanistan
UN, July 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to provide Afghanistan with additional humanitarian aid to help tackle a food shortage following severe drought and a poor harvest in the country, Russia's UN envoy said.
The United Nations and Afghanistan's government launched a $400-million food aid appeal Wednesday to help feed 4.5 million vulnerable Afghans affected by rising global food prices and a poor harvest, which saw the country's annual grain output cut by around 36% according to UN figures.
"The Russian president has already instructed the government to arrange the urgent supply of 15,000 metric tons of wheat as part of humanitarian aid after an earlier appeal launched earlier by Afghanistan," Vitaly Churkin told a UN meeting on Afghanistan Wednesday.
"In addition, Russia is planning to donate $4 million to the multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) in 2008-2009," he said.
Since its commencement of operations in 2002, the ARTF has successfully mobilized $2.3 billion in grant contributions from 27 international donors.
Churkin said Russia had already made a significant contribution to the country's economic stabilization by writing off last August around 90% of Afghanistan's Soviet-era debt, a sum totaling $11.1 billion, with the remainder to be repaid over 23 years.
The Russian diplomat also said Russia is concerned by the worsening military and political situation in Afghanistan amid an ongoing rise in extremism and drug production.
Since the Taliban regime was overthrown in the 2001 U.S.-led campaign, Afghanistan, with almost all its arable land being sown with poppy, is the world's leading producer of heroin.
Afghanistan's opium production increased from 6,100 tons in 2006 to 8,200 tons in 2007, according to the UN. The narcotics trade has become an acute problem for Russia and the Central Asian republics due to a continual flow of illegal drugs from Afghanistan.
Churkin said regional security organizations could make a significant contribution to combating the inflow of drugs from Afghanistan and ensuring regional security.
"We must use more extensively the potential and experience of regional security organizations, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which have proven their effectiveness in the fight against illicit drug-trafficking," he said.
The CSTO comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, while the SCO also includes most CSTO countries and China, apart from Armenia and Belarus, with Mongolia, India, Iran and Pakistan having SCO observer status.
Last year CSTO drug squads seized over 28 metric tons of narcotics on the border with Afghanistan during a joint anti-drug operation, dubbed Channel, which has been running since 2003.
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North Struggles With Severe Drought
Warnings of imminent starvation as thousands of families move in search of food and water.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 296, 10-Jul-08)
The wailing of children pierces the air over the tent city on the banks of the Shulgara river, just south of Mazar-e-Sharif. But even that sound may soon be stilled – so many children are dying of dehydration, starvation and disease that families no longer mark the occasion.
“In the past, when a family member died, we would hold a mourning service,” said Mohammad Zaman, who has a tent at the camp. “But now all we can think of is ourselves. No one pays attention to children dying any more.”
With the fierce summer sun sending temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius, life is becoming untenable for the 2,500 families camped out in the desert that borders the river.
The Shulgara has been their only source of potable water since the spring rains failed to arrive. Rivers and brooks have dried up in the scorching heat, and well water levels have sunk to record lows. Livestock are dying due to lack of fodder, while the soaring price of wheat and rice is making it difficult for families to purchase even the most basic foodstuffs.
“We have not been given any assistance,” said Mohammad Zaman. “We drink the river water, but if the government doesn’t do anything, we will all die when winter comes.”
The displaced people brought with them only bags of clothing, food, and other essentials, as well as carpets to sit on. They say they will remain by the river for as long as necessary.
They are receiving some help from the Red Crescent, along with assistance from the government and from local merchants. But they say it has been woefully inadequate.
Much of Afghanistan has affected by drought this year, and the situation in the northern provinces, especially Jowzjan and Faryab, is approaching disaster.
No one has precise figures on the scale of the problem.
“This year there is a state of emergency,” said Mir Shafiuddin Mirzad, who heads the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation in northern Afghanistan. “But no survey has been done due to the lack of adequate budget funding, so all the figures are based on guesses.”
He added that the lack of reliable survey data was creating serious problems, making it difficult to determine how much aid is needed, and of what type.
“We have no exact information about what kind of threat people are facing, so this could be very dangerous. We’re urging donors to pay more attention to this situation,” said Mirzad.
The figures available so far are worrying..
According to Abdul Haq Shafaq, the governor of Faryab province, more than 100,000 families in this northwestern region are in imminent danger.
“Ninety-eight per cent of agriculture and livestock in Faryab has been affected,” he said. “If assistance is not delivered soon, we will have a humanitarian crisis on our hands.”
He said hundreds of people were coming to his office every day in hope of receiving assistance, but he had nothing to offer them.
“We need 120 tonnes of flour immediately to keep people from starvation,” said the governor.
In Sar-e-Pul province, east of Faryab, officials are fearful of food riots.
“People are very hungry,” said Sar-e-Pul governor Sayed Iqbal Munib. “They are leaving their districts to look for food. I am afraid that one day, people will storm in from the villages and take everything from the government offices. The situation is very dangerous.”
Badghis, further to the west, has also been severely affected, according to parliamentarian Azita Rafat. She described an almost total loss of livestock and agricultural crops due to the drought.
“More than 200 families a day are leaving Badghis,” she said. “They are going to other provinces or trying to get into Iran illegally.”
In late June, the UN’s Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Sir John Holmes, paid a visit to Kabul and briefed journalists on the emerging crisis.
“The most serious immediate problem … is food insecurity as a result of the global food price rises, which have had an effect here in Afghanistan, and drought in Afghanistan,” he said. “I think the government of Afghanistan together with the United Nations and the humanitarian community were quick to recognise that, which is why we issued an appeal for 81 million dollars in January this year. That appeal was well-funded and is enabling us to help around 2.5 million particularly vulnerable people here in Afghanistan.
“But we also recognise that it was not enough, so we are working together with the government of Afghanistan on a further, larger appeal to meet some of these needs and also to tackle some of the problems facing agriculture in this country.”
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture has announced an emergency plan to deliver aid to the affected provinces.
“We have asked for 89,000 tonnes of wheat from the international community,” said Sadruddin Safi, head of the Ministry’s department food security. According to Safi, they already have promises of 83,000 tonnes, which means the ministry will be in a position to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
"The wheat is going to be distributed in the drought-affected provinces for free or in return for labor,” he said. “China has donated 4,380 tonnes, which will be given to affected families in 17 provinces.”
In addition, said Safi, the ministry has purchased 50,000 tonnes of wheat from Pakistan which will be sold at a reduced price.
“We have requested other assistance from the international community through a separate programme, and it should arrive by the end of the year. We have a plan to cover more than 6.5 million persons in 2008, which will avert a crisis,” he said.
But these promises ring hollow in the ears of the people most affected by the drought.
“All of my farmlands have dried up,” said Ekramuddin, 54, a farmer in the Dara-e-Suf district of Samangan province. “My wheat plants are destroyed. My animals are dead. I have nothing left, so I am going to Iran to work so that I can send something to my family for the winter.”
Farmers like Ekramuddin have lost any faith that the government will help them.
“There is no news of any assistance,” he said. “I’ going to Iran because I can’t wait any longer.”
Abdul Ghani, a farmer in Sar-e-Pul, echoed Ekramuddin’s complaint.
”The government always makes promises, but the assistance will be delivered to us after we’ve died of starvation,” he said. “What will our dead bodies do with that assistance? We urge the government to help us while we are still alive.”
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Female Afghan Outlaw Comes in From the Cold
The government has finally won over a woman who made her name as a militia commander – but plans to give her a job to keep her out of trouble are proving controversial.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 296, 09-Jul-08)
The Afghan government scored a minor victory last month by reeling in a rebellious “warlord” who led a band of warriors over nearly three decades. What really set this case apart is that the militia commander is a woman.
The authorities’ decision to co-opt rather than capture Bibi Aysha, who goes by the nickname Kaftar (“the pigeon”), has upset locals who say that given her record, she is unlikely to accept the strictures of civilian life, still less a job as a public servant.
Kaftar probably never meant to strike a blow for gender equality, but over the years she has shown that an Afghan woman can make just as tough and ruthless a warlord as her male counterparts.
Now 55, Kaftar has fought almost everyone from the Russians and the Taleban to the present government of President Hamed Karzai.
Until recently, she had the dubious distinction of being the only paramilitary commander – outside the Taleban and its allies – still in open confrontation with the Afghan state.
Last month, she surrendered to the government together with five armed men, most of them her relatives. It was the second time she had laid down her weapons since the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001.
Kaftar is a well-known figure in her native Baghlan province, which lies due north of the capital Kabul.
Legend has it that she became a fighter by accident, when she grabbed a gun to kill the Soviet soldiers who had shot her son during the mujaheddin war of the Eighties.
Her success later led to her appointment as local commander for the Jamiat-e-Islami faction, whose military leader was Ahmad Shah Massoud. After Taleban forces captured Kabul in 1996 and pushed north, Kaftar claims to have commanded 2,000 armed men resisting their advance.
After the United States-led invasion sent the Taleban running, Kafter surrendered her weapons under a government-run demobilisation programme. She even entered political life briefly, representing Baghlan’s Nahrin district during the Emergency Loya Jirga, the 2002 assembly that hammered out a structure for government and confirmed Karzai as head of state pending an election.
But apparently she was missing the thrill of the fight.
“After I defeated the Taleban militants, I surrendered all of my arms to the government,” she told IWPR and other reporters recently. “Then I had to sell my cows to buy back weapons."
In recent years, Kaftar has been accused of mounting an armed rebellion against the government, as well as other crimes such as robbery, extortion and drug trafficking.
Speaking to the reporters, she denied involvement in robbery or any other security problems.
This year, the government ran out of patience, and in May the security forces launched an operation to capture Kaftar.
She slipped away and holed up in the mountains with some of her men.
General Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, commander of the Afghan National Police in the northern provinces, issued a warning that his men would annihilate her and her associates unless they gave themselves up.
Since Patang had the backing of the Afghan army as well as NATO forces, Kaftar decided the time was right to come in from the cold.
But now that the government has got her, they have to decide what to do with her.
“Because she surrendered, the government will forgive her for her rebellion,” said Baghlan police chief General Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili. “But if someone accuses her of any other crime, she will have to answer for it in court.”
Baghlan’s provincial governor Abdul Jabar Haqbeen was even more conciliatory, saying, "She ended her opposition and surrendered to the government, thanks to dialogue and efforts pursued by provincial officials."
Haqbeen said his provincial administration was considering offering Kaftar an official post.
Local residents insist Kaftar is still dangerous and should be locked up.
"Kaftar is allied with a local Taleban commander Mullah Dad-e Khuda, who has recently escaped from Bagram prison,” said one resident, speaking on condition of anonymity. “She also has ties to another local warlord called Imam-e Sabz [the Green Imam]. They control all the drug trafficking routes."
According to this man, the trio have been operating in opium poppy-growing areas, offering farmers protection and fighting off the police.
“If she is not imprisoned, she will come back as she’s done before,” he said..
The whereabouts of the rest of Kaftar’s militia remains a mystery. According to local residents and officials, she had more than 200 armed men under her command.
“It absolutely true that she commanded dozens of armed men,” said a resident of Nahrin. “If she hadn’t, the government would have captured her before now.”
He speculated that Kaftar may have transferred her men to her ally Dad-e-Khuda.
“Kaftar is familiar with the techniques of warfare, and she won’t surrender all of her men at once,” he said. “This may just be one of her tactics. She may rejoin her men in the mountains.”
Officials are downplaying Kaftar’s significance, and told IWPR her life as an outlaw was over.
"These are all rumours. Where could she get hundreds of men?” said police chief Sayedkhili. “She only led some of her sons and grandsons, all of whom surrendered. She was running a few nests of robbers in the mountain areas.
“But now she has no power and can live like an ordinary Afghan citizen.”
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Journalists Demand Justice for Kambakhsh
The appeals process has stalled and there seems to be little political will to ensure a fair outcome.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Hafizullah Gardesh and Noorrahman Rahmani in Kabul (ARR No. 296, 09-Jul-08)
All over Afghanistan, journalists, writers and activists gathered on July 8 to press their government to release Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh.
Kambakhsh, who has been in prison since last October, faces the death penalty for insulting Islam. His alleged crime consists of downloading an internet text critical of Islam’s restrictions on women, adding a few comments of his own, and circulating it at his university.
The 23-year-old journalism student has denied the charges, and has claimed that security officials coerced a confession from him during his first days in detention.
A primary court in Balkh province passed the death sentence in January, and the case is now stalled at the Kabul court of appeal.
The act of solidarity was initiated by journalist unions and writer’s groups in at least 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. At each location, dozens of activists signed petitions that were submitted to the provincial government.
In Herat province, in western Afghanistan, more than 200 people signed a statement reading, “Based on the constitution and the commitments made by Afghan president Hamed Karzai to defend freedom of expression and speech, the signatories to this letter demand that the government implement justice in Kambakhsh's case.”
Ajmal Yazdani, a reporter in Herat, told IWPR that Kambakhsh was being treated unfairly.
“As far as I know, Kambakhsh is completely innocent,” he said. “The officials of this country should take all legal principles into consideration and resolve this case in an open trial.”
The original sentence was passed at a closed hearing in Balkh. While the appeal hearings have been open to the public, the process has been less than transparent.
Kambakhsh’s claims of torture were brushed aside after an inconclusive medical examination, and those close to the case have alleged that witnesses and lawyers have been pressured by the security services.
The last session was adjourned on June 15, with no date set for the resumption of the trial. (For a report on that hearing, see Saving Parwez Kambakhsh, ARR No. 293, 16-Jun-08)
Sayed Ismail Mushfiq, editor in-chief of Naway-e Kohsar in Jowzjan province, signed a petition that was submitted to the provincial governor there. It said that the government had “turned the Kambakhsh trial into a show which it wants to exploit for political ends. This is unacceptable to those who defend freedom of speech, and in signing this statement, we ask for an end to the political machinations surrounding the case.”
Qayoum Babak, spokesperson for the Balkh province chapter of the South Asia Free Media Association, told IWPR that dozens of journalists, writers and poets gathered in the public library in Mazar-e-Sharif to sign a resolution demanding an immediate review of the Kambakhsh case, and for his release.
“We submitted the resolution to the provincial governor so that he can give it to the chief justice,” said Babak. “The writers and journalists of Balkh province demand that the Afghan chief justice does not make a poor young Afghan citizen the victim of political games.”
Many have see the case as a test of the power of religious conservatism in Afghanistan. Soon after his arrest in October, 2007, Kambakhsh’s case was referred to the provincial Ulema, or Council of Religious Scholars, who demanded the death penalty. While their ruling was not legally binding, it was made so by the primary court in Balkh.
Members of the government have made both public and private promises that the case would be resolved fairly. However, there has been little movement in recent weeks, and Kambakhsh’s defenders are struggling to retain hope of a speedy release.
In Kabul, a similar petition was handed in to the Supreme Court. Few journalists and writers attended, however – perhaps because of a major suicide bombing the previous day that killed 41 and injured scores more.
“There was a state of emergency in Kabul,” said Waheed Warista, a writer, poet and member of the Pen Club, an international support network for writers.
“Therefore we were not allowed in to see high-ranking officials at the Supreme Court, and had to submit the petition at the gate.”
He said no response was forthcoming from the court. IWPR tried repeatedly to contact Supreme Court officials, without success.
Warista joined in the condemnation of the charges against Kambkahsh.
“It is not logical,” he said. “The government should ban the internet, because anyone can read any kind of information there. It really is very funny.”
Hafizullah Gardesh is IWPR’s local editor in Kabul. Noorrahman Rahmani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.
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