 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Gunmen Kill Lawmaker in Southern Afghanistan
Habibullah Jan By VOA News July 5, 2008
Gunmen in southern Afghanistan have killed a member of the country's parliament.
1.4 tonnes of opium seized in Afghanistan: police
Sat Jul 5, 8:17 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan security forces seized 1.4 tonnes of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran, authorities said Saturday.
Farmers caught in the poppy trade
By Kate Clark BBC News, Afghanistan Saturday, 5 July 2008
Much of Afghanistan's Helmand Province is dependent on the poppy harvest - which locks ordinary people into a criminal economy and ends up funding Taleban insurgents, corrupt officials and drug traffickers.
Afghan link to Seoul drug arrests
Friday, 4 July 2008 BBC News
Police in South Korea say they have arrested a number of South Asian men suspected of involvement in drugs rings linked to Taleban insurgents.
Taliban fighters free two Pakistani journalists
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 5 (Reuters) - Taliban militants released two Pakistani journalists on Saturday more than 36-hours after they were abducted in a tribal region near the Afghan border.
Frontier years give might to ex-guerrilla's words
By Jane Perlez International Herald Tribune Saturday, July 5, 2008
LAHORE, Pakistan-FRESH out of Cambridge University in the late 1960s, and steeped in the era's favorites - Marx, Mao and Che - Ahmed Rashid took off for the hills of Baluchistan, a dry, tough patch of western Pakistan. He stayed for 10 years.
Clarke: Negotiate With Pakistan To Staunch Al-Qaida
National Public Radio (NPR)
Weekend Edition Saturday, July 5, 2008 · Twenty-eight American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in June, making it the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001. Much of the spike in violence is
Mullah Abdul Salaam blames Pakistanis and Iranians for attacks on British
The Times (UK) / July 5, 2008
Magnus Linklater in Musa Qala
The Governor of Musa Qala, Mullah Abdul Salaam, gave warning yesterday that infiltrators from Pakistan and Iran were deliberately attempting to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan.
Former Taliban warlord calls for country to unite
The Scottish Herald ALISON CAMPSIE July 05 2008
He held the room with his presence. Former Mujahadin warrior and reformed Taliban commander Abdul Mullah Salaam Mujahid had invited me into his home for tea and an interview. A wrong word, a missed protocol, and things could go terribly wrong.
Does Osama bin Laden Still Matter?
TIME By PETER BERGEN
Does Osama bin Laden matter anymore? You could be forgiven for thinking he doesn't. In recent months, an impressive cast of terrorism experts and counterterrorism officials around the world has coalesced around the notion that al-Qaeda's
Missing: only aspiring female Afghan to run in Beijing Games
The Times Owen Slot, Chief Sports Reporter July 5, 2008
Concern was rife in Olympic circles last night after the unexplained disappearance of Mahbooba Ahadgar, the only female from Afghanistan due to compete in the Beijing Games next month. The fears for Ahadgar are so acute because
Attacks on schools threaten development in Afghanistan
Source: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
KABUL, Afghanistan, 3 July 2008 – In spite of impressive progress made in the past seven years, the security situation in Afghanistan continues to threaten the gains made by the country's women and children.
Back to Top
Gunmen Kill Lawmaker in Southern Afghanistan
Habibullah Jan By VOA News July 5, 2008
Gunmen in southern Afghanistan have killed a member of the country's parliament.
Authorities say Habibullah Jan was shot late Friday in his home district of Zhari in Kandahar province. Jan was also a tribal leader.
A U.N. representative condemned the killing.
In a separate incident Friday, Afghan police say 10 Taliban militants were killed in Helmand province when the roadside bomb they planting exploded pematurely.
Afghan officials also said a U.S.-led coalition air strike on Friday killed 22 civilians in a remote district, Vanth Waigal, of Nuristan province, near the Pakistani border.
The U.S.-led coalition confirmed the air raid but said militants - not civilians - were killed. The coalition said the strike was in response to a militant attack on a base.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on foreign troops to minimize civilian casualties. The United Nations says close to 700 civilians have been killed this year in crossfire between Taliban insurgents and foreign forces.
Separately Saturday, Afghanistan's defense ministry says security forces have found more than 100 knives and swords, and dozens of petrol bombs and cell phones during a search of Kabul's main jail, Pul-i-Charkhi.
The clean-up operation comes after more than 1,000 prisoners, including about 400 Taliban militants, escaped the main prison in Kandahar last month, after a suicide bomber blew open the gates.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
Back to Top
Back to Top
1.4 tonnes of opium seized in Afghanistan: police
Sat Jul 5, 8:17 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan security forces seized 1.4 tonnes of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran, authorities said Saturday.
Seven men were detained in connection with Thursday's haul in Herat province, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Afghanistan is the world's top opium producer and last year produced 8,200 tonnes of the substance, or 92 percent of global production.
About 60 percent of the opium leaves the country in the form of heroin, according to UN figures.
Islamic Taliban insurgents earn millions of dollars every year from the trade, officials say.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Farmers caught in the poppy trade
By Kate Clark BBC News, Afghanistan Saturday, 5 July 2008
Much of Afghanistan's Helmand Province is dependent on the poppy harvest - which locks ordinary people into a criminal economy and ends up funding Taleban insurgents, corrupt officials and drug traffickers.
"The Holy Koran hated our fields this year," was how one farmer from Helmand described just how bad the opium poppy harvest had been.
In May, farmers scraping the bulbous seed heads of their poppy plants, found low quantities of the milky white liquid that is opium dribbling out.
Bad weather, frosts and poor rains, meant the yield was way down.
The price of opium has also fallen, after years of bumper harvests flooding the market.
Taleban tax
After paying household and farming expenses, the farmer said, he had hardly broken even, especially after everyone else took their share, the labourers who helped with the harvest and the mullah who, in rural Afghanistan, is supported collectively by the congregation.
Then there was the Taleban to pay. They take a tax, known as ushr, 10% of the harvest from farmers living in areas under their control.
It is a major revenue stream for the insurgency.
Finally - and these were the farmer's exact words - "the government takes away its share".
He was talking about local officials who demand bribes, in exchange for protecting fields from the yearly government campaign to eradicate some of the poppy crop.
These bribes can be sizeable. Last year, another farmer said, he and the 300 other families in his area collectively paid the equivalent of $50,000 (£25,000).
One farmer told us what happened when he did not pay the bribes.
It was 2007 and he had just got married. He had completed the legal ceremony, but was waiting for the harvest to pay the agreed dowry to the bride's father.
But the government eradication team chose to destroy his poppy fields.
He could not pay his father-in-law and so he could not take his wife home.
Missing wife
His story got worse. Taleban fighters took up positions in his village and fired missiles at Nato troops who retaliated with bombs dropped from the air.
The villagers, he said, fled into the desert. By the time I met him, he had lost his crop, literally lost his wife - he did not know where she was - and he was living in a tent camp.
If the fighting diminished and he could get back to his land, he said, one year's poppy crop would solve all his problems.
Eighty per cent of households in Helmand are involved in growing poppies.
But it ties farmers into a criminal economy, one where their hard labour funds the Taleban insurgency, government corruption and lines the pockets of the drugs traffickers.
At the same time it is the one crop which allows people to survive in a war zone.
If there is fighting, you can always store your opium crop. It does not rot. It keeps its value.
There is always a demand for it. Buyers will come to your door.
Corruption claims
If you grow legal crops like fruit and vegetables, you have to contend with bad roads and chronic insecurity to get them to market and you need to get your crop past check points manned by corrupt police who tax loads so heavily, farmers say, it is hardly worth their while to grow them.
The police in Helmand have a reputation for bribe-taking, drug addiction and for being a major source of crime.
There are good officers among their ranks, but also allegations that some help run the drugs trade.
The ministry of the interior is currently overhauling the force, district by district, in an attempt to clean it up.
There is a new governor, with a good track record, who was refreshingly upbeat that he could run the province properly.
I also encountered the deputy minister for rural development, who was visiting from Kabul.
A lean, hard-working, chain-smoking man in smart embroidered salwar kameez tunic, he told me with energy and determination about his development plans for the province.
This year, there was also a concerted effort by the governor, the counter-narcotics ministry and their British colleagues to target the poppy fields not of the poorest, but of wealthy farmers, those who did not need to grow poppies to survive.
The eradication teams were even persuaded to destroy part of the crop of a big commander, a former police chief. It was unprecedented.
School's out
But on the ground, there remains deep scepticism about a state that behaves more often like a predator than a protector.
Taleban and officials are often mentioned in the same breath, with not much to chose between them, with the weariness of people trying to live between rival mafia gangs.
"Our village school is shut," one farmer said.
"We're not sure who closed it. The Taleban do shut down girls' schools and non-religious boys' schools, claiming they're un-Islamic.
"But the Taleban aren't present in our area," said the farmer.
"So maybe it was the government who closed the school after local officials stole the generator and the other equipment."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan link to Seoul drug arrests
Friday, 4 July 2008 BBC News
Police in South Korea say they have arrested a number of South Asian men suspected of involvement in drugs rings linked to Taleban insurgents.
The men were suspected of trying to smuggle raw materials for heroin production into Afghanistan, a police spokesman said.
In one raid, officers seized about 12 tons of acetic anhydride.
When mixed with morphine extracted from opium poppies, the chemical produces heroin.
Separate raids
A total of nine people had been arrested in South Korea, the French news agency AFP quoted police as saying.
Two men, an Afghan and an Indian, were arrested on Wednesday when police raided a factory in a suburb of Seoul.
It was there that the 12 tons of acetic anhydride was found.
One of those arrested admitted the chemicals were heading for the Taleban, police said.
In a separate, earlier operation, one Pakistani man was held and another sought after a raid in another part of the city.
Police said they believed that group had shipped about 50 tons of the chemical to Afghanistan since April 2007.
Sixty-two tons of acetic anhydride could be used to make nearly 30 tons of heroin, Yonhap news agency quoted a police investigator as saying.
Revenue from the drugs trade is a major source of funding for the Taleban.
Last month, a United Nations agency said the insurgents made an estimated $100m (£50m) in 2007 from Afghan farmers growing poppy for the opium trade.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban fighters free two Pakistani journalists
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 5 (Reuters) - Taliban militants released two Pakistani journalists on Saturday more than 36-hours after they were abducted in a tribal region near the Afghan border.
"When it was proven that they're journalists and not spies, we freed them," Taliban spokesman Asad said.
A group of tribal elders had gone to negotiate for the release of the journalists, freelance reporter Pir Zubair Shah and photographer Akhtar Soomro, after they were kidnapped in the Mohmand region on Thursday.
Syed Ahmad Jan, a senior administrator in Mohmand, confirmed that the two men had been freed and said both were fine.
Pro-Taliban groups control large chunks of territory in ethnic Pashtun regions, like Mohmand, and al Qaeda militants are also hiding in the area along the Afghan border.
The semi-autonomous tribal regions have never come under the full control of any government and security forces rarely entered the area before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Since then, under pressure from the United States to root militants out of sanctuaries, the government has been trying to extend its writ along the border.
But a succession of military offensives and peace pacts has failed to stem the militants' growing strength.
Several Pakistani reporters covering the conflict have been killed. The government does not let foreign reporters into the tribal areas except on occasional trips with the military.
(Reporting by Shams Mohmand, writing by Kamran Haider; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Frontier years give might to ex-guerrilla's words
By Jane Perlez International Herald Tribune Saturday, July 5, 2008
LAHORE, Pakistan-FRESH out of Cambridge University in the late 1960s, and steeped in the era's favorites - Marx, Mao and Che - Ahmed Rashid took off for the hills of Baluchistan, a dry, tough patch of western Pakistan. He stayed for 10 years.
He was a guerrilla fighter and political organizer, and with a couple of like-minded Pakistani pals, led peasants seeking autonomy against the Pakistani Army. He emerged, after bouts of hepatitis, malaria and lost teeth, not exactly disillusioned but defeated, he recalled recently from the comfort of his study overlooking a garden of palms.
Yet the experience became the launching pad for his real career as a prolific chronicler of Afghanistan, Central Asia and his homeland of Pakistan, places that Western writers have often found difficult to gain access to, let alone comprehend in their full depth and complexity.
An expert on the Taliban - until 9/11 he knew them better than almost any outsider- Rashid has over the decades turned out to be something of a prophet in the region, though mostly of the Cassandra type, issuing repeated warnings that are ignored by policy makers.
As fluent a talker as he is a writer, Rashid, 59, has just published his fourth book, "Descent into Chaos, The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia," a caustic review of the mistakes by the Bush administration in tackling Islamic militancy.
His central argument is not original: that the money and blood spent on Iraq should have been invested in Afghanistan, rebuilding the country from 2001 to prevent the resurgence of the Taliban. But it is hard to argue with, now that the Taliban are indeed back, and NATO and the United States are enmeshed in a tough fight with them.
The Bush administration, he said, was too gentle with Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, after he pledged to support the antiterrorism campaign after 9/11. "The Americans never said strongly enough that Pakistan had to stop supporting the Taliban that was because Musharraf was giving them the Al Qaeda types," capturing a few top Qaeda operatives and handing them over to the United States. Bush should have insisted that Musharraf quash the Taliban too, he said.
One of his insistent themes is the seamlessness of the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban. They reinforce each other, he said, and so cannot be treated in isolation.
The Pakistani Army and Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency protected the Afghan Taliban in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, as "a strategic asset" for use in the future as a buffer against India, he said. But that makes it virtually impossible for them to deal with the Pakistan Taliban and its most prominent leader, Baitullah Mehsud.
"Until Pakistan is willing to give up the leadership of the Afghan Taliban based in Quetta, Pakistan is not going to be able to deal with Mehsud and Al Qaeda," he said. Mehsud stands accused by the Pakistani government and Washington in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Rashid has a long history with the Taliban and Afghanistan. Baluchistan, where he fought in the '60s and '70s, shares a border with Afghanistan, and in 1978 Rashid was in Kabul for the coup that put the Communists in power. He was in Kandahar a year later when the Soviets rolled in.
"I saw the invasion, when all the Soviet tanks came from the town of Herat into the bazaar in Kandahar," he said. "The soldiers got off their tanks and asked for tea. There was no tension." The tanks continued on to Kabul.
With his perfect English and British education (a photo on the wall of his study shows him as a teenager on the rugby team of Malvern College), Rashid became what he calls the "intellectual repository" for Western journalists who parachuted into the Afghan capital for the Soviet Union's last big invasion.
IT is a role he has played on a larger canvas ever since: as journalist, author and, sometimes, behind-the-scenes adviser to diplomats who have grappled with Afghanistan's troubles, not least the Taliban.
His book, "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia," an account of the rise of the mullahs in Afghanistan, was published months before 9/11 by Yale University Press. It immediately became an essential item in the backpacks of reporters covering the war in Afghanistan in late 2001. It has sold 1.5 million copies in English, an astonishing number for an academic press.
He said he was the first foreign journalist to visit the Taliban in 1994 as they emerged out of the civil strife that consumed Afghanistan after the Soviets left. He was struck immediately by how different they were from the warlords and guerrillas he had been dealing with.
"I persuaded an ABC television journalist to come with me to Kandahar, and I was shocked they wouldn't allow us to take pictures," he said of the Taliban. "I'd been living with the mujahedeen, who loved publicity. When these guys in Kandahar wouldn't be photographed, I suddenly realized this was a completely new thing."
Intrigued, he joined their battle groups, soaking in all he could, and he was in Kabul with the Taliban when they overran it in 1996. In his reporting, which appeared in The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Independent, a British newspaper, he warned against Pakistan's decision in the mid-1990s to support the Taliban. "I wrote that it meant a continuation of the Afghan civil war."
With the publication of his book, he wore out his welcome with the Taliban. These days, rather than trekking through the Hindu Kush mountains, he is more likely to be found around the dining table of his Lahore home, which is known for its fine cuisine.
NOW something of an elder statesman, Rashid is sought after for advice by diplomats in Islamabad and Kabul, and by policy makers in NATO capitals and Washington. "As recently as last summer, I said to the U.S. ambassador, you have to arrest Mullah Omar and the shura," he said, referring to the leader of the Taliban, who has taken refuge near Quetta.
When Benazir Bhutto was prime minister, she asked whether he would be interested in becoming Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan but he demurred, preferring the rough and tumble of frontier reporting.
His writings have never sat well with the Inter-Services Intelligence, a subject he said he does not want to go into beyond saying he is "unpopular." Like many Pakistanis, he has watched the unraveling of Musharraf, but declined to predict his moment of exit.
He is on good terms with Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Bhutto and leader of her party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, who is now regarded as the most powerful man in the country. But after a two-hour lunch with Zardari recently, Rashid said that he worries the new government "has no clue" about the "multilayered terrorist cake" that flourishes in the tribal areas.
As Rashid travels the world, he said he remains a patriot of Pakistan. Of the new government's attitude to the Islamic militants, he said: "They are not briefed, and I am deeply concerned."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Clarke: Negotiate With Pakistan To Staunch Al-Qaida
National Public Radio (NPR)
Weekend Edition Saturday, July 5, 2008 · Twenty-eight American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in June, making it the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001. Much of the spike in violence is attributed to a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida, both in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan.
Richard Clarke, who has served as a top counterterrorism adviser to every president since George H.W. Bush, tells Linda Wertheimer more troops are needed in Afghanistan to turn the situation around, but the troops are tied down in Iraq.
He says there is once again an al-Qaida sanctuary along the Afghan border in Pakistan, where people are being trained by al-Qaida to attack western interests, including the United States.
"There is only so much the United States can do without the cooperation of the Pakistani government," he says. "Frankly, we're not getting that cooperation. There are still elements within Pakistani intelligence who are supporting the Taliban."
According to Clarke, the U.S. should strike a new deal with the Pakistanis, telling them "if you cooperate in ending this sanctuary with the Taliban, we will help you … but we cannot have a sanctuary for al-Qaida again."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Mullah Abdul Salaam blames Pakistanis and Iranians for attacks on British
The Times (UK) / July 5, 2008
Magnus Linklater in Musa Qala
The Governor of Musa Qala, Mullah Abdul Salaam, gave warning yesterday that infiltrators from Pakistan and Iran were deliberately attempting to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan.
The Governor, who was formerly a Taleban commander, said that the insurgency attacks against coalition forces, which have accounted for the worst coalition casualty figures in a single month since the war began, were now principally the work of outsiders rather than the Taleban.
“They come from Pakistan, they come from Iran,” Mullah Salaam said in an interview with The Times and two other newspapers. “They are doing their action in Afghanistan against their enemy.”
He claimed that it was Pakistanis and Iranians who were responsible for planting improvised explosive devices, the crude but deadly homemade bombs, of which intelligence sources estimate there are 500 in the Musa Qala district alone.
“It is like a sickness that everybody is doing suicide bombs. There is nothing like suicide bombs in our religion. It is nothing to do with our religion.”
The Governor, who spoke in the office of his compound in the heavily protected District Centre of Musa Qala, insisted that the war against the Taleban and its allies was being waged in the name of democracy.
“Yes, people are ready for democracy,” he said, “but a democracy which is a little bit different from foreign democracy. We have our own Islamic rules and society. Our country has changed, our religion has changed, but they are doing their democracy in their own way.”
The Governor inevitably attracts suspicion from some of his new allies on account of his past allegiances, which led him to fight against British troops.
Asked how safe he felt personally, he said: “The best security in Afghanistan is in Helmand province in Musa Qala.
“We have good security and it will get better.”
Since Musa Qala is under constant threat from the Taleban insurgency, it seemed a bold claim to make, but the Governor was insistent that security was well guaranteed by coalition forces acting alongside the Afghan National Army.
“I think there is unity,” he said. “I don't think there is any problem for us with unity.”
As for his relationship with President Karzai, which has occasionally come under strain, he said: “It is a good relationship with our President. We have good relations because he is our Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and I don't have any problem [with that]. If I had any problems with him I don't think I would be Governor any more.”
Mullah Salaam said that relations with the British troops stationed at Musa Qala were good, on the whole, but added: “Sometimes we have a little bit of problems with the new groups coming in who are not used to Afghans. But we have a good relationship.”
Asked to explain how he became a Taleban supporter in the first place, he said: “I joined the Mullah Omar group because there was a lot of activities in Afghanistan, and it was a new group in the name of Islam. Because they were Muslim people, I joined them, and I thought they would be good people, they would make our Afghanistan better and better. But there was a lot of groups which destroyed our country in the end.”
As for his personal ambitions, he concluded: “I will do my best for my people. I will do my very best for the people of Afghanistan. It was not my ambition to be the Governor but I am serving for my people and am delighted to be taking on this job.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Former Taliban warlord calls for country to unite
The Scottish Herald ALISON CAMPSIE July 05 2008
He held the room with his presence. Former Mujahadin warrior and reformed Taliban commander Abdul Mullah Salaam Mujahid had invited me into his home for tea and an interview. A wrong word, a missed protocol, and things could go terribly wrong.
Thankfully, he welcomed me with grace and offered me a sweet.
Yesterday progress was made in relations between Britain and the emerging democratic governance of Afghanistan when I and one other female journalist became the first western women to be allowed in the home of the Musa Qala district governor.
We were also invited to meet the governor's four wives and his many children, said to be a total of 27. With women very hidden in Afghan culture this was a rare honour, to be allowed to shake hands and take photographs with them, and to receive beautiful salwar kameezes, which they were keen to run up on the sewing machine there and then.
The governor, Mullah Salaam for short, is keen to build bridges. His role is at the vanguard of a new look Afghanistan, a country without the Taliban fighters who breed fear and submission into every aspect of society.
As the leader of one of the sub-groups of the dominant tribe in Musa Qala, Mullah Salaam has pledged to bring his armed tribesmen to fight alongside British forces. It is a significant move for the Kabul government and its western allies because for the first time they have been able exploit tribal divisions within the Taliban in Helmand.
Part of the approach taken by the coalition forces, particularly by the British, is to build up strong, successful communities so that the Taliban lose their stake in Afghan life. Bringing people over "to the other side" is key in what is said to be a war for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.
Give them the confidence to run their own lives, and they will do so without terrorist control. Add new schools and hospitals and even film nights and free radios, and the draw becomes stronger.
To then have installed one of the most powerful warlords of the past on the coalition programme sets a precedent for a complete turnaround in the way the country is run.
Mullah Salaam has many enemies. Indeed intelligence suggests that a suicide bomber is planning to attack his home, which towers over Musa Qala.
Bodyguards flanked us step-by-step to Salaam HQ and we arrived in a room of many men, presumably a mixture of his private militia and his sons, and ushered into one of his parlours.
He rose to welcome us, and after some discussion between his adviser and the translator over the questions to ask, he invited us to come and sit closer to him.
His sons were ordered to go the market for fruit, greengages and oranges, and silver platters and a pot of tea and orange soda was served. Mullah Salaam eased back in his armchair, picked at a long string of prayer beads, sometimes toying with his thick ebony locks of beard.
Salaam's kinder observers describe him as utterly charismatic, to others he is a feared ruler whose militia are responsible for terrible atrocities, intimidation and extortion of the townspeople.
But he is now the key link between old Afghanistan and a new direction for the country, one without the threat of the Taliban.Yesterday he sought to distance himself between his past associations with the organisation. He has taken on many names and titles in the past but yesterday asked to be referred to as Abdul Mullah Salaam Mujahid - the freedom fighter.
"It (The Taliban) was a new group in the name of Islam. I thought they would be good people to make our Afghanistan better and better. But they are a lot of the groups who have destroyed our country," he says.
Mullah Salaam was placed in power in Musa Qala after the British army retook the town from Taliban who laid seige in 2007. The organisation reneged on a deal, brokered by the British Army during a meeting in the desert with its chiefs, to leave Musa Qala and make it a dead zone. Not long after the agreement the organisation returned with fury, hanging elders from the town monument and crippling the place with fear. Mullah Salaam was not with them during this time, but observing from the sidelines.
He said: "In 2006, Musa Qala was like a centre for terrorism and there was a lot of narcotics. There was no- one to tell the people why they were killing the people and there was no one to stop the activities.
"They were killing the people and doing every bad thing they could do. That was the reason that I joined this government and try my best for this country."
It was Mullah Salaam's decision to accept the role of governor, another deal brokered by top level security chiefs drawn from organisations such as the CIA and MI6, which triggered the British Army takeover of the area in December 2007. One of the first things to be done was to give him the security he needed and seal his new home in the army compound. To say there was a price on his head is underselling the story.
But Mullah Salaam claims that he feels 100% safe in the town despite the hatred against him.
"The best security in Afghanistan, particularly in Helmand, is in Musa Qala. I think because the society is unitary between ISAAF, the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army, there won't be a problem for us. Unity is everything for us."
While there is some criticism of the way he was installed as governor, he said that he would happily take part in an election.
"If they would like me to, I would. I would obey the order of our people. I am the son of Afghan people, I am Afghan, and I will do what the people need from me."
When asked if there was a message for Musa Quala people, who were due to hear the interview on Radio Musa Qala, the army run radio station, he immediately relayed three points as if they had been sitting around waiting for air.
"My first message to the people would be to get the education and we will do our best in reconstruction. The second message is help with the government.
The third message was seemingly directed at the Taliban: "Afghanistan is not for fighting, we should talk. There is no need for fighting us."
One thing that is clear about Mullah Salaam is that he is a family man, with a fond memory of his mother and a strong sense of duty regarding his children, including his many daughters.
When we arrived at his home, he was happy to welcome his female guests: "They are our mothers and our sisters," he said.
His own father died when he was two years old, his mother stressing the importance of religious study and academic work.
"It is my memory that my mother never hit me or beat me. Every time she was giving me advice to do the good thing. Sometimes I am crying for my mother, I miss her a lot."
He is for the education of girls, a possibility at Musa Qala school, and has a tutor for at least one of his own daughters.
Being a good father is central to his life and his religious beliefs, with the role of governor too said to be a godly act. He will be judged on both fronts.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Does Osama bin Laden Still Matter?
TIME By PETER BERGEN
Does Osama bin Laden matter anymore? You could be forgiven for thinking he doesn't. In recent months, an impressive cast of terrorism experts and counterterrorism officials around the world has coalesced around the notion that al-Qaeda's leader is no longer an active threat to the West. They point out that he has not been able to strike on U.S. soil since 9/11 or in Europe since the London bombings three summers ago. In Iraq, his most successful franchise operation is on the ropes. Across the Muslim world, opinion polls suggest his popularity has faded, and many of his early supporters — including prominent jihadi ideologues — have denounced him. Even his messages on the Internet scarcely merit headlines in the mainstream media. Did you know he posted two audio messages on the Web in May? I didn't think so.
The jihad, some experts contend, has moved beyond Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Dr. Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, lays out the view in his new book, Leaderless Jihad, arguing that "the present threat has evolved from a structured group of al-Qaeda masterminds controlling vast resources and issuing commands to a multitude of informal groups trying to emulate their predecessors by conceiving and executing operations from the bottom up. These 'homegrown' wannabes form a scattered global network, a leaderless jihad." According to this assessment, two decades since its founding in Peshawar, Pakistan, al-Qaeda remains a source of inspiration for certain extremists around the world. But it's far from clear that bin Laden commands them.
This view was shared by several European officials I met at a conference of terrorism experts in Florence in May, a few days after bin Laden's most recent Internet postings. The officials told me they've found no evidence of al-Qaeda operations in their countries. If bin Laden has any role in the jihad, say the Europeans, it is merely as an icon. Alain Grignard, Belgium's top terrorism investigator, says bin Laden is now a "Robin Hood figure; 100 people are inspired by him, but very few respond to do what he wants."
If that's true, why do so many political leaders continue to warn about the threat — or even the likelihood — of another major terrorist attack? Why did the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate say al-Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of homeland attack capability"? Why would the head of Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, say there were 2,000 citizens and other U.K. residents who posed a serious threat to security, a number of whom took direction from al-Qaeda? The struggle against al Qaeda — and, to a lesser extent, the quest to capture bin Laden — has dominated U.S. foreign policy since 9/11. But as the U.S. prepares to elect a new President, should that remain the case?
The answers to these questions don't lend themselves to easy policy prescriptions. But the best available evidence suggests that the threat posed by bin Laden's acolytes hasn't been extinguished — and his own influence over them is greater than many analysts acknowledge. In his old stamping grounds, the jihad is stronger than at any time since he fled from the Tora Bora mountains in the winter of 2001. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and in Pakistan militant groups have grown so aggressive that in late June they even threatened to take over a major city — Peshawar, once bin Laden's home and the birthplace of al-Qaeda. Farther away, extremists in Europe and North Africa continue to covet bin Laden's blessing and the al-Qaeda brand name.
As has always been true in shadowy, borderless wars, measuring the strength of the enemy isn't an exact science. It's true that many of the "leaderless jihadis" have set up operations independently of al-Qaeda, but when they turn to bin Laden's organization, it's not just for inspiration but also for training, assistance and direction — in short, for leadership. Many are able and willing to do bin Laden's bidding; they pay very careful attention to his Internet postings and follow his instructions. And although their targets have generally been close to home, their association with al-Qaeda has tended to take their ambitions beyond their borders. What's more, many of these homegrown wannabes live in the West.
It was al-Qaeda's direct involvement that helped a leaderless group of British jihadis mount the multiple London bombings on July 7, 2005, that killed 52 commuters. Two of the bombers had traveled to Pakistan, met with al-Qaeda commanders and made martyrdom tapes with al-Qaeda's video-production arm there. A year later, British investigators uncovered a plot by another cell of British Pakistanis to bring down seven American and Canadian passenger jets. According to Lieut. General Michael Maples, head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the plotters received direction from al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Bin Laden's interest in British jihadis didn't end there. Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, said last year that "over the past five years, much of the command, control and inspiration for attack-planning in the U.K. has derived from al-Qaeda's remaining core leadership in the tribal areas of Pakistan."
U.S. officials, too, worry that a new generation of jihadis is making the trek to Pakistan, seeking al-Qaeda's assistance. Sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies signed off on a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that al-Qaeda has made a strong comeback in Afghanistan and Pakistan because it has found "a safe haven in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA] in Pakistan" for its operational lieutenants and top leadership. In February, Michael McConnell, director of National Intelligence, said in congressional testimony that there had been an "influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006."
Philip Mudd, the former No. 2 in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, who is now working at the FBI to help improve its intelligence capabilities, told me, "There is a very clear, almost mathematical increase in lethality as soon as plotters touch the FATA."
If jihadis seek material assistance from al-Qaeda in the FATA, they can get guidance from bin Laden almost anywhere there's an Internet connection. He has issued more than two dozen video- and audiotaped messages since 9/11, and some of his exhortations have been acted upon. For instance, in December 2004, bin Laden called for attacks on Saudi oil facilities; in February 2006, al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia attacked the Abqaiq facility, perhaps the most important oil-production facility in the world. (Luckily, that attack was a failure.) More recently, bin Laden has called for attacks on the Pakistani state — there were more than 50 suicide bombings there in 2007, and there have been at least 19 thus far this year.
There's some comfort to be drawn from the fact that bin Laden has not been able to strike on U.S. soil since 9/11. There is scant evidence of al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the U.S. Thanks to more effective intelligence-gathering, immigration control and the heightened vigilance of ordinary Americans, it is very hard for terrorists to slip into the country. It's always possible that homegrown wannabes will mount some sort of attack, but in contrast to the situation in Europe, al-Qaeda's virulent ideology has found few takers in the American Muslim community.
Yet bin Laden remains determined to kill large numbers of Westerners and disrupt the global economy. Since 9/11, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have bombed Western-owned hotels around the Muslim world, attacked a number of Jewish targets and conducted suicide operations against oil facilities in the Middle East; we can expect more of the same in the future. Al-Qaeda has also used new tactics and weapons — like the surface-to-air missile that nearly brought down an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002. And it retains a long-standing desire to acquire a radiological bomb. But al-Qaeda's most dangerous weapon has always been unpredictability. That's why it is dangerous to dismiss bin Laden as a spent force. While he remains at large, the jihad will never be leaderless.
Bergen is a fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington and the author of The Osama bin Laden I Know
Back to Top
Back to Top
Missing: only aspiring female Afghan to run in Beijing Games
The Times Owen Slot, Chief Sports Reporter July 5, 2008
Concern was rife in Olympic circles last night after the unexplained disappearance of Mahbooba Ahadgar, the only female from Afghanistan due to compete in the Beijing Games next month. The fears for Ahadgar are so acute because, while she may be cherished in the West, in her own country, where the Taleban still battle for influence, her progressive activities have courted daily taunts, including death threats.
She has had to abandon the Sim card on her mobile phone because the number had been leaked to extremists and the death threats were becoming constant.
Ahadgar, 19, has been something of a treasure in the Olympic Movement, which likes to encourage a broad global representation within its competitions. Being from Afghanistan and a woman proud of both her athleticism and Muslim religion, and thus determined to run in Beijing in a headscarf and a tracksuit, she has clear representative appeal.
Her running times suggest that she is likely to finish nearly a full minute behind the medal-winners in the Olympic 1,500 metres. Nevertheless, she won a scholarship this year on to the Olympic Solidarity programme, which helps sportspeople from underdeveloped countries. The scholarship took her first to a high-performance centre in Kuala Lumpur, then to summer training in Formio, Italy, from where she disappeared on Thursday evening. When Ahadgar was reported missing, her luggage was gone, too, although not her passport. “I have no idea where she has gone,” Mohd Musa, who was coaching her when she was in Kuala Lumpur, said.
The police in Formio have been informed. They will know, too, that Shahpoor Amri, one of the coaches at the Formio training centre, had been instructed to be particularly vigilant with Ahadgar. Her recent history and the testimony of those who know her suggest that this is unlikely to be a pitch for political asylum. “Being a Muslim woman, we are restricted to a certain lifestyle which doesn’t [traditionally] allow us to participate actively in sports,” she said in a recent interview given as part of a series by Olympic Solidarity scholars.
“Apart from running, I just help out at home due to our family background, which requires me to take care of the house properly, as a woman. I need to change this concept and I presume my country will accept and adhere to it. I’m the model for my country, being a woman in a typical Muslim nation. I’m very proud to say that I will be participating in the Olympic Games. By virtue of these opportunities, many women from my country are participating in many sports, and this will help to develop a bettermanaged sports country.” At home, where her father earns his living as a carpenter and her family live in a poor district, they have long been worried about the baggage that comes with Ahadgar being a standard-bearer. When she trained at home in Kabul, she tended to do so at 8.30pm, when many residents are glued to the nation’s most popular daily soap opera and thus when she could run without fear of threats or harassment.
“We are really scared about the security situation in our country and of the people who have negative views about my family,” Moha Jan, her mother, said. She added: “But these problems cannot stop us from supporting our daughter.”
Ahadgar does not even view herself as dramatically progressive. If forced to abandon the headscarf, or to run in the standard athletes’ Lycra, she says that she would merely pull out of athletic competition.
While her courage and determination are admirable, the fear is that she has become their victim. She may be the victim of circumstance, too; no other female Olympian so very far from medal contention will have had international media knocking on their door. After one such visit from Western media, the police arrived at her family house as it had been reported that she was entertaining foreign men as a prostitute.
One of the first journalists to track her down, in March, was Paula Bronstein, a photographer with Getty Images, who specialises in Afghanistan. “She was a timid, normal girl and a bit overwhelmed,” Bronstein recalled. She also noticed the jealousy of some of the neighbours, particularly because Ahadgar is a female. “It’s just not normal to have a female track star in your family,” she said.
A similar level of peculiar notoriety was reached four years ago in Athens by Robina Muqimyar and Friba Rezihi, who became the first Afghan women to compete in an Olympics. There were no Afghans at all in the Sydney Olympics as the nation had been banned because of objections to Taleban rule. The hope remains that there will be a female Afghan in Beijing.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Attacks on schools threaten development in Afghanistan
Source: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
KABUL, Afghanistan, 3 July 2008 – In spite of impressive progress made in the past seven years, the security situation in Afghanistan continues to threaten the gains made by the country's women and children.
Girls' enrollment in school is up, as is female participation in government and in the private sector. Around the country, health indicators are slowly rising.
However, according to UNICEF's Director of the Office of Emergency Programmes, Louis-Georges Arsenault, nearly half the country is still inaccessible to most humanitarian aid because the security situation is too dangerous.
'Very refreshing to see'
This week, Mr. Arsenault visited the country for the first time in seven years. He was UNICEF's representative there from 1998-2001.
'During the Taliban era, there was no girls' education available throughout the country and also no women's employment whatsoever. So what I have seen now coming back seven years later is very refreshing to see,' he said.
'This being said, there's a long way to go in terms of gender issues, gender-based violence because the fabric of the society does not change overnight.'
Addressing problems
On the borders of the country, as a war between the Taliban and the Afghan government continues, civilians are threatened.
'In 2007, there were a total of 228 schools which were attacked, resulting in 75 deaths and 111 injured,' Mr. Arsenault said. 'And this year alone, as of June 2008 there've been 83 further attacks resulting in ten deaths and four injured and this is a very alarming trend.'
UNICEF has begun addressing this problem by getting local communities more involved in the development process from the start.
'Days of tranquility'
Abiding insecurity has also made it impossible to provide health care and services to all those who need it. Afghanistan is one of four countries in the world still plagued by polio; without the ability of health groups to move freely throughout the country, proper medicine and inoculations are impossible.
UNICEF and other aid groups have been negotiating with the government and the Taliban for 'days of tranquility' during which humanitarian groups can take advantage of the cease-fire to provide countrywide inoculations and reach those most affected by violence. Negotiations are ongoing.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).