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Spanish report links Pakistan to Taliban
By PAUL HAVEN Associated Press October 1, 2008
MADRID, Spain - A report marked confidential and bearing the official seal of Spain's Defense Ministry charges that Pakistan's spy service was helping arm Taliban insurgents in 2005 for assassination plots
General wants help in Afghanistan now
By PAULINE JELINEK Associated Press October 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - The top American military commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that he needs more troops and other aid "as quickly as possible" in a counterinsurgency battle that could get worse before it gets better.
Bush to meet commander of NATO Afghan force
Wed Oct 1, 12:54 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will meet on Wednesday the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, with 2008 already the bloodiest year for international
Top Pakistan militant 'not dead'
BBC News / Wednesday, 1 October 2008
A spokesman for the Taleban in Pakistan has denied media reports that leading militant Baitullah Mehsud has died of an illness.
Pakistan accuses US of terrorism
Press TV (Iran) Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:45:03 GMT
Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has termed the US incursions into the country's tribal belt as an 'act of terrorism'.
Bush had no plan to catch Bin Laden
By Gareth PortermAsia Times Online October 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - New evidence from former United States officials reveals that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were able to skip Afghanistan for Pakistan unimpeded in the first weeks after September 11, 2001
Trio of warlords blamed for surge in Afghanistan violence
Los Angeles Times By Greg Miller September 30, 2008
WASHINGTON-The escalating insurgency in Afghanistan is being spearheaded by a trio of warlords who came to prominence in the CIA-backed war to oust the Soviets but who now direct attacks against U.S.
The fight goes on, militants tell Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online October 1, 2008
KARACHI - When United States President George W Bush and British Premier Gordon Brown interacted with their Pakistani and Afghan counterparts on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week
5 militants arrested in central Afghanistan
Xinhua www.chinaview.cn 2008-10-01
KABUL- The U.S.-led Coalition forces on Tuesday detained five militants during an operation to disrupt an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) network in Ghazni province of central Afghanistan
Pakistani Taliban Leader Mehsud Dies From Illness, Networks Say
Bloomberg By James Rupert and Khalid Qayum Oct. 01,2008 India
Pakistan's most prominent Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, died after an illness, Pakistani television networks reported.
Activist Rangina Hamidi Works to Improve Lives of Afghan Women
Voice of America By Ibrahim Nasar Washington 01 October 2008
While many women try to get out of Afghanistan, a country where women still face enormous hardships even after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent fall of the Taliban, most don't come back.
Afghan child tests positive for polio
Dawn (Pakistan)
PESHAWAR, Sept 30: An Afghan child has tested positive for polio, taking the number of cases found in the NWFP and Fata this year to 28.
AFGHANISTAN: Subsidised Fuel Trail Winds Back to Pakistan
By Anand Gopal
KABUL, Sep 30 (IPS) - In a teeming petrol market on the outskirts of Kabul, black market traders sell fuel to everyone from individual customers to large business groups. Although much of this petrol
Tanzanian cricket team to play Afghanistan in friendly tie
Africa Press Agency / October 1, 2008
APA-Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) - Tanzania’s cricket team faces Afghanistan in a buildup match in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday to prepare for the World Division Four Cricket League which will commence in Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
Northern Afghanistan struggles against severe drought
Source: Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) September 30, 2008
Assessment conducted by ACTED's AME Team in Baghlan Province
After several years of consecutive drought, Northern Afghanistan is once more hit by below-normal precipitations and extreme heat. This year, the shock is particularly worrying since it comes after a harsh
Kabul seeks foreign funds to take on corruption
By Jon Boone in Kabul October 11 2008 03:00 The Financial Times
His right arm bandaged to cover the wounds he acquired a week previously when he was almost killed by a Taliban bomb, Kabul's chief police investigator incredulously
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Spanish report links Pakistan to Taliban
By PAUL HAVEN Associated Press October 1, 2008
MADRID, Spain - A report marked confidential and bearing the official seal of Spain's Defense Ministry charges that Pakistan's spy service was helping arm Taliban insurgents in 2005 for assassination plots against the Afghan government.The report, which was obtained by Cadena Ser radio and posted on the station's Web site on Wednesday, also says Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, or ISI, helped the Taliban procure improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, to use in attacks against vehicles.
It alleges that Pakistan may have provided training and intelligence to the Taliban in camps set up on Pakistani soil.
"The plan is that the TBs (Taliban) use these RCIEDs (remote control IEDs) to assassinate high-ranking officials," the report warns. The August 2005 document, which is marked "confidential" and topped with the Defense Ministry seal and the title of Spain's military intelligence agency, does not describe the source of the information.
Cadena Ser did not say how it obtained the report.
The Defense Ministry and the Spanish prime minister's office said it had no comment on the document. Fernando Reinares, a terrorism analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid and former chief counterterrorism adviser at Spain's Interior Ministry, said the document appeared to be an internal government report meant for the eyes of high-ranking officials.
Spain has about 800 soldiers deployed in northwest Afghanistan.
The report also warns that "it appears possible" that advanced training camps exist in Pakistan "where the Taliban receive training, help and intelligence from the ISI and where they are also developing new kinds of IEDs." The report says the Taliban had also been receiving help from al-Qaida.
Reinares said the report on the alleged ISI-Taliban link is in keeping with information from other Western spy agencies.
"The intelligence services have done nothing more then confirm a reality which has also been reported by other Western agencies," he told The Associated Press. Reinares said Spain has developed a strong military and police intelligence operation in Pakistan, particularly since the terror attacks of March 11, 2004.
There have long been suspicions that members of Pakistan's shadowy spy agency have aided the Taliban, a charge that Pakistan has vehemently denied.
A senior military official in Pakistan told the AP on Wednesday that the Spanish report had no merit. He asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media. Pakistani officials did not immediately respond to requests for on-the-record comment on the allegations.
The ISI has helped kill or capture several top al-Qaida leaders since 2001, but there are lingering doubts about its loyalty, not least because its agents helped build up the Taliban in the 1990s.
U.S. intelligence agencies suspect rogue elements may still be giving Taliban militants sensitive information to aid in their growing insurgency in Afghanistan, even though officially Pakistan is a U.S. ally in fighting terrorism.
Some analysts say elements in the spy agency may want to retain the Taliban as potential assets against longtime rival India and believe Pakistan's strategic interests are best served if Afghanistan remains a weak state.
India and Afghanistan — and reportedly the U.S. — suspect the ISI of involvement in the July 7 bombing outside India's Embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 60 people. Pakistan denies the allegations.
Pakistan's army chief this week named a general considered a hawk in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban to head the ISI.
The Taliban has regularly used roadside bombs to attack U.S. troops and Afghan security forces since the beginning of the insurgency following the fall off the movement in 2001.
The explosives used have become increasingly powerful in the past year. Such IED attacks can now rip through an armored military vehicle and kill all personnel inside.
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Associated Press Writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Pakistan contributed to this report.
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General wants help in Afghanistan now
By PAULINE JELINEK Associated Press October 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - The top American military commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that he needs more troops and other aid "as quickly as possible" in a counterinsurgency battle that could get worse before it gets better.
Gen. David McKiernan said it's not just a question of troops — but more economic aid and more political aid as well.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters, the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan said there has been a significant increase in foreign fighters coming in from neighboring Pakistan this year — including Chechens, Uzbeks, Saudis and Europeans.
"The additional military capabilities that have been asked for are needed as quickly as possible," he said.
He said he was encouraged by recent Pakistani military operations against insurgents waging cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but also said that it is too soon to tell how effective they have been.
Officials have said that violence in Afghanistan is up about 30 percent this year compared with 2007. The Taliban and associated militant groups like the terrorist network al-Qaida have steadily stepped up attacks in the last several years and more U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan already this year than in any year since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
"We're in a very tough fight," McKiernan said. "The idea that it might get worse before it gets better is certainly a possibility."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that he may be able to send thousands more combat troops to Afghanistan starting next spring.
McKiernan was scheduled to meet with President Bush at the White House late Wednesday.
The general's assessment coincides with a fresh report on the situation by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who expressed dismay that attacks against aid workers have increased in 2008.
A report released by his office Tuesday said that at least 30 aid workers have been killed and 92 abducted so far this year. At least 22 World Food Program convoys have been attacked, as have 59 schools.
"Regardless of the progress made in certain areas, my overall impression is that the situation in the country has deteriorated over the past six months," Ban said in the report. "Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the negative trend can be reversed."
Saying that security has "deteriorated markedly," the report noted that the number of U.N.-recorded security-related incidents rose to 983 in August — the highest monthly total since the Taliban's ouster in late 2001. The report did not define a security incident, but typically it refers to bombings, shootings and other violent acts.
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Bush to meet commander of NATO Afghan force
Wed Oct 1, 12:54 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will meet on Wednesday the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, with 2008 already the bloodiest year for international troops in the war-torn country since the 2001 invasion.
The meeting, set for 2:25 pm (1825 GMT), comes two days after incoming US regional commander General David Petraeus warned that parts of Afghanistan were in a "spiral downward."
Last week, a senior Pentagon official said Bush had ordered a review of US strategy in Afghanistan amid rising insurgent violence and tensions with Pakistan just four months before he leaves office.
Bush has ordered 5,000 more US troops to Afghanistan in an echo of his "surge" strategy in Iraq, seen as a major factor in bringing violence down and enabling the fledgling Baghdad government to work for political reconciliation.
"The president looks forward to hearing from General McKiernan on his view of the current situation in Afghanistan," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
An AFP tally has found that 2008 is already the deadliest year for the US-led force that is fighting insurgents in Afghanistan since the late 2001 invasion to topple the Taliban Islamist militia.
In just nine months at least 221 international soldiers, most of them Americans, have lost their lives in the US-led "war on terror" in Afghanistan, figures compiled by AFP show.
In 2007, a total of 219 troops were killed in Afghanistan
There is no official authority that releases death tolls for the ongoing conflict, but the independent icasualties.org website, which tracks casualties based on news reports and press releases, says the toll has topped that of last year.
The website puts the fatalities so far this year at 233, excluding the three soldiers killed on Monday, and including some involved in the Afghan mission who died outside of the country. The website said 232 troops died last year.
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Top Pakistan militant 'not dead'
BBC News / Wednesday, 1 October 2008
A spokesman for the Taleban in Pakistan has denied media reports that leading militant Baitullah Mehsud has died of an illness.
The spokesman, Maulvi Umar, told the BBC that Mr Mehsud was "fit and well".
Television channels reported that Mr Mehsud, who leads an alliance of pro-Taleban groups, died on Tuesday night.
Mr Mehsud is accused of masterminding the killing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He denied involvement in the attack.
Rumours of the militant's death have also been denied by his doctor, Eisa Khan.
"I spoke to him today at 9am on the telephone, and he told me that he is surprised over rumours about his death," Mr Khan told the Associated Press news agency.
Several other Pakistani Taleban spokesmen also insisted Mr Mehsud is healthy, with some even saying that he is due to marry his second wife this weekend.
Unnamed Pakistani officials had said that Mr Mehsud, head of the Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP), is seriously ill with diabetes and may even be in a coma.
"Baitullah is sick. His condition is precarious," a senior Pakistani security official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
Mr Mehsud - an ethnic Pashtun tribesman in his mid-30s - was recently named in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Newsweek has called him "more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden".
Suicide attacks
Rumours about his poor health have grown in recent weeks with Pakistani newspapers and television reporting him suffering from typhoid in addition to diabetes.
Mr Mehsud's commanders have admitted he is not well and the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says he has gone into a diabetic coma on at least one occasion.
Our correspondent says that if the militant leader were to be incapacitated or to die - questions would arise about the future of the Pakistani Taleban.
His commanders suggest that reports of his death are government propaganda.
The Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan is a network of Pashtun tribesmen linked to the Afghan Taleban - as well as the more radical jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda - which have been blamed for a lot of the recent violence in Pakistan.
Mr Mehsud, who belongs to the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, openly advocates using suicide bombers and is blamed for dozens of such attacks in Pakistan over the past year.
He is said to have played a major role in providing a sanctuary for fighters to operate in Afghanistan.
Speaking to the BBC in 2007, he said the militants were determined to free Afghanistan through jihad (holy war).
"Only jihad can bring peace to the world," he said.
The militant leader on several occasions has openly admitted to crossing the border to fight foreign troops.
Since 9/11 he has grown in strength and stature, making him the most important pro-Taleban militant commander in the Waziristan region.
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Pakistan accuses US of terrorism
Press TV (Iran) Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:45:03 GMT
Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has termed the US incursions into the country's tribal belt as an 'act of terrorism'.
A joint session of the parliament would be called soon to discuss the issue, Gilani told reporters at the Prime Minister House on Wednesday.
He added that the PPP-led government wants to unite all the political parties over 'this national issue of sovereignty', Geo reported.
Gilani's comments come after eight people were killed in a US drone strike at a house in the volatile northwest region of the country. The incident took place about midnight on Tuesday near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan.
In the past month, US forces have carried out seven missile strikes by pilotless drones and a commando raid on the Pakistani side of the border.
Washington's recent unilateral strikes inside Pakistan have triggered sovereignty debates within the corridors of the parliament in Islamabad.
Pakistani leaders including the president and premier have lashed out at the United States over violation of Pakistan's air and ground space and killing of innocent civilians.
Political analysts believe that though there's no war going on between the US and Pakistan yet, but recent exchanges of fire involving American and Pakistani forces are sounding like a sputtering fuse that's growing ever shorter.
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Bush had no plan to catch Bin Laden
By Gareth PortermAsia Times Online October 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - New evidence from former United States officials reveals that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were able to skip Afghanistan for Pakistan unimpeded in the first weeks after September 11, 2001, as the George W Bush administration failed to plan to block their retreat.
Top administration officials instead gave priority to planning for war with Iraq, leaving the United States with not nearly enough troops or strategic airlift capacity to close the large number of possible exit routes through the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area where Bin Laden escaped in late 2001.
Because it had not been directed to plan for that contingency, the US military was also forced to turn down an offer from then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in late November 2001 to send 60,000 troops to intercept the al-Qaeda leaders.
As Northern Alliance troops marched on Kabul with little resistance in November 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency had intelligence that Bin Laden was headed for a cave complex in the Tora Bora Mountains close to the Pakistani border.
The war had ended only days earlier, much more quickly than expected, and United States Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Tommy Franks, responsible for the war in Afghanistan, had no forces in position to block bin Laden's exit.
Franks asked Lieutenant General Paul T Mikolashek, commander of Army Central Command (ARCENT), if his command could provide a blocking force between al-Qaeda and the Pakistani border, according to David W Lamm, who was then commander of ARCENT Kuwait.
Lamm, a retired army colonel, recalled in an interview that there was no way to fulfill the CENTCOM commander's request, because ARCENT had neither the troops nor the strategic lift in Kuwait required to put such a force in place.
"You looked at that request, and you just shook your head," recalled Lamm, now chief of staff of the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University.
Franks apparently already realized that he would need Pakistani help in blocking the al-Qaeda exit from Tora Bora. Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told a National Security Council meeting that Franks "wants the [Pakistanis] to close the transit points between Afghanistan and Pakistan to seal what's going in and out", according to the National Security Council meeting transcript in Bob Woodward's book Bush at War.
Bush responded that they would need to "press Musharraf to do that".
A few days later, Franks made an unannounced trip to Islamabad to ask Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf to deploy troops along the Pakistan-Afghan border near Tora Bora.
A deputy to Franks, Lieutenant General Mike DeLong, later claimed that Musharraf had refused Franks's request for regular Pakistani troops to be repositioned from the north to the border near the Tora Bora area. DeLong wrote in his 2004 book Inside Centcom that Musharraf had said he "couldn't do that", because it would spark a "civil war" with a hostile tribal population.
But US ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, who accompanied Franks to the meeting with Musharraf, provided an account of the meeting to this writer that contradicts DeLong's claim.
Chamberlin, now president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, recalled that the Pakistani president told Franks that CENTCOM had vastly underestimated what was required to block bin Laden's exit from Afghanistan. Musharraf said, "Look you are missing the point: there are 150 valleys through which al-Qaeda are going to stream into Pakistan," according to Chamberlin.
Although Musharraf admitted that the Pakistani government had never exercised control over the border area, the former diplomat recalled, he said this was "a good time to begin". The Pakistani president offered to redeploy 60,000 troops to the area from the border with India but said his army would need airlift assistance from the United States.
But the Pakistani redeployment never happened, according to Lamm, because it wasn't logistically feasible. Lamm recalled that it would have required an entire aviation brigade, including hundreds of helicopters, and hundreds of support troops to deliver that many combat troops to the border region - far more than was available.
Lamm said the ARCENT had so few strategic lift resources that it had to use commercial aircraft at one point to move US supplies in and out of Afghanistan.
Even if the helicopters had been available, however, they could not have operated with high effectiveness in the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border region near the Tora Bora caves, according to Lamm, due to a combination of high altitude and extreme weather.
Franks did manage to insert 1,200 marines into Kandahar on November 26 to establish control of the airbase there. They were carried to the base by helicopters from an aircraft carrier that had steamed into the Gulf from the Pacific, according to Lamm.
The marines patrolled roads in the Kandahar area hoping to intercept al-Qaeda officials heading toward Pakistan. But DeLong, now retired, said in an interview that the marines would not have been able to undertake the blocking mission at the border. "It wouldn't have worked - even if we could have gotten them up there," he said. "There weren't enough to police 1,500 kilometers of border."
US troops probably would also have faced armed resistance from the local tribal population in the border region, according to DeLong. The tribesmen in local villages near the border "liked bin Laden", he said "because he had given them millions of dollars".
Had the Bush administration's priority been to capture or kill the al-Qaeda leadership, it would have deployed the necessary ground troops and airlift resources in the theater over a period of months before the offensive in Afghanistan began.
"You could have moved American troops along the Pakistani border before you went into Afghanistan," said Lamm. But that would have meant waiting until spring 2002 to take the offensive against the Taliban, according to Lamm.
The views of Bush's key advisers, however, ruled out any such plan from the start. During the summer of 2001 Rumsfeld refused to develop contingency plans for military action against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, despite a National Security Presidential Directive that called for such planning, according to the 9-11 Commission report.
Rumsfeld and deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz resisted such planning for Afghanistan because they were hoping that the White House would move quickly on military intervention in Iraq. According to the 9-11 Commission, at four deputies' meetings on Iraq between May 31 and July 26, 2001, Wolfowitz pushed his idea to have US troops seize all the oil fields in southern Iraq.
Even after September 11, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney continued to resist any military engagement in Afghanistan, because they were hoping for war against Iraq instead.
Bush's top secret order of September 17 for war with Afghanistan also directed the Pentagon to begin planning for an invasion of Iraq, according to journalist James Bamford's book Pretext for War.
Cheney and Rumsfeld pushed for a quick victory in Afghanistan in NSC meetings in October, as recounted by both Woodward and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. Lost in the eagerness to wrap up the Taliban and get on with the Iraq War was any possibility of preventing Bin Laden's escape to Pakistan.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
(Inter Press Service)
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Trio of warlords blamed for surge in Afghanistan violence
Los Angeles Times By Greg Miller September 30, 2008
WASHINGTON-The escalating insurgency in Afghanistan is being spearheaded by a trio of warlords who came to prominence in the CIA-backed war to oust the Soviets but who now direct attacks against U.S. forces from havens in Pakistan, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.
Militant groups led by the three veteran mujahedin are behind a sharp increase this year in the number and sophistication of attacks in Afghanistan and pose a major challenge to President Bush's hope of stabilizing the country by deploying thousands of additional troops.
Despite a flurry of U.S. airstrikes against their organizations and million-dollar bounties on their heads, the Pashtun chieftains have been able to operate, and even expand their networks, largely unmolested from bases spread along the border with Pakistan.
U.S. intelligence officials have lamented the difficulty of tracking down Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. But the hunt for the three warlords has in some ways been even more frustrating, in part because of their often high-profile roles in directing operations against U.S.-led military forces and other Western targets in Afghanistan.
Because of their battle experience and credentials, the warlords "play both an operational role and a psychological role," said a senior Bush administration official involved in tracking the insurgency.
Citing their ability to attract recruits and orchestrate attacks, "it would be a mistake to underestimate the influence of any of them," said the official, who, like others, discussed intelligence assessments about the warlords on condition of anonymity.
The three warlords are Mullah Mohammed Omar, the former leader of the Taliban government in Afghanistan; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamic hard-liner who briefly served as prime minister in the 1990s before ordering his forces to bomb the Taliban-run capital; and Jalaluddin Haqqani, a onetime Taliban Cabinet minister whose tribal group has accounted for some of the most brazen attacks this year.
U.S. officials said there was little evidence of substantial collaboration among the three, though there are indications that despite their past differences, they communicate and occasionally share information and resources.
The warlords are generally not blamed for a surge of violence in Pakistan. Instead, they are seen as exporters of violence to Afghanistan.
All three have for years been the focus of U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts. But Washington's pursuit has taken on added urgency as the warlords have expanded their influence in lawless regions of Pakistan that not only are bases for attacks across the border in Afghanistan but serve as sanctuary for Al Qaeda.
"Our government as a whole recognizes the dangers these people pose, and they are indeed targets," a senior U.S. intelligence official said. "Their operations, and their cooperation with Al Qaeda, make them more than a local or regional threat."
The official said that strikes by unmanned CIA Predator aircraft and other military operations have yielded "important successes against their organizations, their training compounds and the networks through which anti-coalition fighters are funneled into Afghanistan."
But the ability of the tribal leaders to escape harm underscores the daunting task the United States faces as security in Afghanistan deteriorates.
The three warlords' organizations are arrayed in an arc along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Haqqani and Hekmatyar have directed attacks in and around the Afghan capital, Kabul, and helped revitalize the insurgency in eastern Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are concentrated. Omar's influence is mainly in the Taliban heartland to the south, radiating outward from Kandahar.
"Because they don't hang their hats in Afghanistan, we really have got no options in terms of going after them," said Capt. Michael Erwin, an intelligence officer with a U.S. special operations forces group that served in Afghanistan in 2007. "If Americans can't get a guy like Haqqani or Hekmatyar, it's because they're deep into the FATA," Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
U.S. officials blame Islamic extremists based in Pakistan for a 30% increase in attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year. They have responded by using more unilateral force, including specially equipped Predators, on suspected bases in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The three warlords have long-standing ties to Pakistan's powerful spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which U.S. officials have accused of collaborating with insurgent groups and tipping them to American strikes. The ISI has "a desire to maintain their status as leaders," said a senior U.S. military analyst, referring to the three chieftains, who represent one way for Pakistan to influence events in Afghanistan.
Despite their similar backgrounds, the three have clashed at times and competed to take responsibility for attacks. Hekmatyar was a Taliban enemy as it rose to power, and Haqqani formally allied himself with the movement only after it had seized power and offered him a Cabinet post. Haqqani was rumored this year to have circulated a letter criticizing Omar's leadership.
Hekmatyar, who is based north of Peshawar in Pakistan, is the most mercurial of the three. As an engineering student at Kabul University in the 1970s, he was accused of throwing acid in the faces of women who did not wear a veil. He became one of the most effective mujahedin leaders in the war against the Soviets during the 1980s, leading a group that received millions in CIA funding.
The CIA and U.S. special operations teams, hoping to turn him again, have approached Hekmatyar in recent years through intermediaries, according to U.S. sources. Last year, he was also contacted by representatives of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The talks went nowhere, according to Afghan news reports.
Paul Pillar, former deputy chief of the CIA's counter-terrorism center, described Hekmatyar as a "very ambitious, very strong-willed, vicious sort of guy. Unless he were directly, physically put out of commission, he is going to continue to vie for power."
Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami group was accused of an ambush in August near Kabul that killed 10 French paratroopers.
Haqqani's group has been linked to brutal attacks over the last year, including strikes that killed seven at the Serena Hotel in Kabul and 54 at the Indian Embassy. The group is also believed to be responsible for a coordinated attack in August involving at least 10 suicide bombers at a large U.S. base, Camp Salerno, in the eastern province of Khowst, which injured three soldiers.
Haqqani, who is in his 70s, is believed to have ceded much operational control to his sons, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, 34.
Haqqani has long-standing ties to Bin Laden, and his clan operates a network of madrasas,or religious schools, and training bases in North and South Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan. The Haqqani network is considered a prime force not only in the recruitment of young men from Pakistan's tribal areas, but in funneling in fighters from Central Asia and Arab countries.
Mullah Omar, who is in his 40s and lost an eye fighting the Soviets, remains a much more mysterious figure. Whereas Haqqani and Hekmatyar have appeared in videos and news footage, Omar's visage has been seen publicly only in a few grainy photographs.
U.S. officials said there were as many as 14 disparate groups taking part in the insurgency in Afghanistan. But Omar, believed to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, remains the spiritual leader of what U.S. officials often call the "Big T" Taliban, the core tribes displaced from power in Kabul in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said Omar's location in a densely populated city put him out of reach of airstrikes. And his broad support among Pashtuns makes Pakistani authorities reluctant to target him and risk an eruption of violence in their country.
To some who were involved in the CIA campaigns of the 1980s, the U.S. effort to beat back an insurgency led by Hekmatyar, Omar and Haqqani represents something of a role reversal.
"We're trying to fend off security challenges to the government of Afghanistan from a collection of loosely allied groups chiefly of the militant Islamist variety," Pillar said. In that sense, he said, "we have assumed the place of the Soviets
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The fight goes on, militants tell Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online October 1, 2008
KARACHI - When United States President George W Bush and British Premier Gordon Brown interacted with their Pakistani and Afghan counterparts on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, they expressed satisfaction for the conflict escalation against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the South Asian War theater. (See Militants shake off Pakistan's grip Asia Times Online, Sep 29.)
This escalation, particularly in Pakistan's tribal agencies, is a gamble based on the tactics used by the US's chief man in Iraq, General David Petraeus, in 2007. Following a "surge" in the war, the US offered an olive branch to the militants. This created a wedge between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi tribal resistance and led to a significant reduction in the intensity of the resistance.
In Pakistan, there is no sign of this happening. Indeed, the reverse is true.
On Monday, Pakistani security officials warned that the militants battling Pakistani forces, notably in Bajaur Agency, were obtaining weapons and reinforcements from across the border in Afghanistan. "The Pakistan-Afghan border is porous and is now causing trouble for us in Bajaur," a senior security source in the military told a news briefing in Rawalpindi.
The call to arms to join the militants is reverberating across the tribal areas in unprecedented fashion and the flames of war from Afghanistan that have burned for the past seven years could now engulf Pakistan.
This week, the Taliban officially rejected a Saudi Arabian-British backdoor initiative to strike peace deals with the militants. The charm of Islamabad's old comrades (veteran jihadis) and official handlers (secret agents) no longer works with the Taliban.
Back-channel efforts to strike deals with the Taliban and create a wedge between them and al-Qaeda have been going on since September 11, 2001, (see US turns to the Taliban Asia Times Online, June 4, 2003).
However, for the first time, the Taliban have reacted very strongly against such efforts. On Sunday evening, the Taliban issued a press release in Pashto, followed by one in English:
"In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, the lord of all that exists and may peace and prayers be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family, companions in entirety.
The mainstream media are reporting about a "peace process" between the Taliban and the Kabul puppet administration [of President Hamid Karzai] which is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain, or that there are "unprecedented talks" involving a senior ex-Taliban member who is traveling between Kabul and the alleged bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan. The ex-members of the Taliban who have surrendered or who are under surveillance are not associated with the of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan rejects all these false claims by the enemy, who is using this propaganda campaign, the aim of this propaganda is to create an atmosphere of disunity among Muslims in order to weaken the ummah. Our struggle will be continued until the departure of all foreign troops.
Dr Talib
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Afghanistan/Kabul"
The message is clear: the Taliban and al-Qaeda are now one and the same and far from being ready to be divided they are fully geared up to themselves escalate the conflict.
Winning a lost war through Pakistan?
With the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan going from strength to strength, the Western military and political leadership figured on taking on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas, where they have strong bases. This would be followed by peace talks.
The military offensive began last month ago in Agency Bajaur, the smallest of Pakistan's seven tribal agencies, semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun regions. Troops were backed by aerial bombardment, the latter causing hundreds of thousands of people to be displaced.
And contrary to official claims, the militants have not been routed. Instead, all Pakistani pro-Taliban militants who had been rivals as well as foreign fighters have rallied under the command of the Afghan Taliban commander of Nooristan and Kunar provinces, Qari Ziaur Rahman. (See A fighter and a financier Asia Times Online, May 23, 2008.) All groups have accepted Rahman as their commander in chief for the area that spans Kunar, Nooristan, Bajaur and Mohmand Agency.
The Pakistani media have reported that Rahman's engagement in Bajaur has reduced Taliban attacks in Kunar. But this is not expected to last long, with all-out activity expected soon on all fronts.
According to the original plan, Pakistani forces were to make their attack in Bajaur and US troops across the border in Kunar would block any escape routes. The Pakistanis followed their side of the plan, but US ground troops were unable to stop the militants from taking shelter in Kunar.
The fault lay in the plan. Unlike Bajaur, which is relatively developed with a road network, on the Kunar side there are few passable tracks in the thick mountain jungles. There are also many caves from which militants and pro-Taliban villagers could target ground troops.
The Pakistani armed forces took heavy casualties, and despite official claims, the militants say they have only lost a few dozen men - and Rahman is not one of them.
Pakistan's strategic quarters now fear a military defeat could set off a chain reaction into the adjacent troubled Swat Valley, and beyond: there is even talk of relocating the provincial capital of North-West Frontier Province, Peshawar, to a non-Pashtun city such as Abbotabad.
At the same time, the low morale of the soldiers and officers is a worrying factor, especially among the Pashtun military cadre, which forms about 25% of the army. In one instance, in obvious disregard to directions from military headquarters, Pakistani border forces and tribals jointly downed a US Predator drone in the South Waziristan tribal area.
Further, following a clear demand made by Washington last week to President Asif Ali Zardari, the director general of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, has been replaced by Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who is known for his intimacy with the Americans and anti-Taliban views. The heads of the external and internal security wings of the ISI have also been replaced. (This was predicted by Asia Times Online, see Militancy dogs Pakistan's new president Sep 9, 2008.)
This move will only deepen mistrust of the government as well as pro-American Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Pervaz Kiani.
Chasing elusive peace deals
The miscalculation over Bajaur means that the second phase of the Pakistan-US plan - the defeated militants forced into peace deals - has not materialized. Yet Pakistan and its Western allies have little choice but to go after peace accords in an attempt to de-escalation the conflict.
Former jihadi leaders who once sat in the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's camp and retired military officers who are regarded as the real fathers of the Taliban are now trying to build bridges between the Pakistan military and the Taliban.
The idea, as per Petraeus' Iraq plan, is that once dialogue is successful, al-Qaeda will be purged from the ranks of the local tribal resistance, with the latter then being offered a role in mainstream politics.
The chief of the banned Harkatul Mujahadeen, Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil, has been tasked to reach out to pro-Taliban militants in the Mohmand, Bajaur and Waziristan areas to initiate dialogue between the Taliban and the Pakistani establishment.
A former ISI official and consul general in Herat in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, Amir Sultan, also known as Colonel Imam and regarded as a father of the Taliban, is another figure who has been shuttling from the tribal areas to Islamabad in an attempt to end the rift between the armed forces and the Taliban.
The militants are not responding positively to these efforts. Various militant commanders have held talks with two pro-Pakistani Taliban figures - Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur of North Waziristan - and urged them to sever all backchannel contacts with the Pakistani security forces.
Earlier, in Mohmand Agency, the militants pursued Taliban commander Abdul Wali to end his impartiality and join hands against the Pakistani armed forces.
A decisive figure could be Haqqani, a veteran mujahideen commander against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. If he decides to sever his contacts with Pakistan, the conflict in the country will become dire indeed.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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5 militants arrested in central Afghanistan
Xinhua www.chinaview.cn 2008-10-01
KABUL- The U.S.-led Coalition forces on Tuesday detained five militants during an operation to disrupt an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) network in Ghazni province of central Afghanistan, said a Coalition statement issued here on Wednesday.
Five militants were detained while Coalition forces searched a compound in Andar district targeting a Taliban sub-commander known to coordinate and direct IED attacks in the region, the statement said.
"The targeted individual is also suspected to be affiliated with anti-Afghan militant leaders who facilitate the movement of foreign fighters into the country," it added.
Taliban insurgents have staged a comeback three years ago and intensified their activities targeting interests of Afghan government and international troops despite around 71,000 foreign troops stationed in the war-torn country.
Conflicts and spiraling insurgency have claimed the lives of over 4,000 people with 1,445 civilians so far this year.
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Pakistani Taliban Leader Mehsud Dies From Illness, Networks Say
Bloomberg By James Rupert and Khalid Qayum Oct. 01,2008 India
Pakistan's most prominent Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, died after an illness, Pakistani television networks reported.
Mehsud suffered kidney problems and high blood pressure, GEO television said, citing unnamed officials. Dawn News and ARY also reported Mehsud's death, though said they had received denials from unidentified Taliban spokesmen.
Reportedly in his 30s, Mehsud is an ethnic Pashtun guerrilla commander based in the mountainous Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan. It wasn't immediately possible to confirm his death and calls to a tribal leader in the region and government officials went unanswered.
Mehsud rose to prominence after the killing, in a rocket attack, of Taliban leader Nek Mohammed in 2004. In December 2007, he formed a united front of smaller Taliban groups, calling it the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan Taliban Movement. The government of former President Pervez Musharraf blamed Mehsud for the Dec. 27 killing of Bhutto. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who was elected president in September to succeed Musharraf, hasn't repeated the claim.
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Activist Rangina Hamidi Works to Improve Lives of Afghan Women
Voice of America By Ibrahim Nasar Washington 01 October 2008
While many women try to get out of Afghanistan, a country where women still face enormous hardships even after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent fall of the Taliban, most don't come back.
Rangina Hamidi left Afghanistan for Pakistan and later moved to the United States. But the activist and entrepreneur since has returned to her native country on a mission to change the lives of Afghan women in Kandahar, a one-time Taliban stronghold.
For VOA's Ibrahim Nasar, Brian Allen narrates the latest installment of our series, Making a Difference.
Rangina Hamidi came back to her homeland after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. She says she was touched by the hardships in Afghan society, particularly among women.
"The situation in Kandahar and all over Afghanistan deeply saddens you," Hamidi said. "It's a situation when you feel and see it, you can't just stick to one work and say this is what I am doing."
Hamidi returned to her hometown, Kandahar, to work with the nonprofit organization Afghans for Civil Society.
"The goal from the day one was to help Afghans learn skills that will give them economic independence, even when the projects end. The first task was starting an independent radio station in Kandahar and then we embarked on an economic regeneration project".
Women in the economic regeneration project make and sell embroidery products in Afghanistan and abroad. It started with only 20 women and grew to 450 in five years.
Local activists and the project also established a Women's Council in Kandahar. Many gathered here for International Women's Day say they are working to advance women's rights and opportunities.
Hamidi has also coordinated aid to help schools in the Kandahar area
Hamidi's family left Afghanistan when she was a toddler, during the Soviet invasion. She says the Taliban rule that followed made life a nightmare for women. She left the country first for Pakistan and later took up a comfortable life in Stoneridge, Virginia.
Now, with the original project self sustaining, Hamidi has started a company. Kandahar Treasure, introduces and sells the women's embroidery products in the international market. She says she will hand this business over to Afghan women once it becomes successful.
Hamidi says she still worries about the future of her country as she watches reconstruction, with a foreign power deeply involved.
"Afghans themselves have to take their own share of responsibilities," Hamidi said. "Afghanistan can not have a better future if the way things are done are not changed."
Hamidi and the women she works with still face power shortages, the lack of clean water, rising corruption and danger from insurgents. None of that has stopped this Kandahar native, who says she looks forward to playing an even bigger role in the reconstruction of her homeland.
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Afghan child tests positive for polio
Dawn (Pakistan)
PESHAWAR, Sept 30: An Afghan child has tested positive for polio, taking the number of cases found in the NWFP and Fata this year to 28.
Officials said Abdul Wahab, son of Shah Jee Gul, had been confirmed as polio case by the National Institute of Health.
The nine-month-old child had received seven doses of polio drops during special campaigns but didn't get vaccination during routine immunisation.
The number of children affected with poliomyelitis in the country has now risen to 67.
Last year 37 cases had been recorded.
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AFGHANISTAN: Subsidised Fuel Trail Winds Back to Pakistan
By Anand Gopal
KABUL, Sep 30 (IPS) - In a teeming petrol market on the outskirts of Kabul, black market traders sell fuel to everyone from individual customers to large business groups. Although much of this petrol comes from Iran or the Central Asian countries, a good amount also hails from Pakistan, where government subsidies have made the fuel much cheaper than in Afghanistan.
The Afghan government and private businesses generally avoid buying petrol from Pakistan because of the spiraling insecurity on the routes into Afghanistan, but still much petrol manages to get in. How it does so and where it goes illustrates the complicated world of smugglers, border patrol agents and foreign militaries.
Afghanistan, landlocked and with an underdeveloped economy, has long relied on Pakistan for durable goods and petrol. While a handful of government-subsidised petrol pumps exist, for the most part fuel prices are substantially higher here than in Pakistan, where the government subsidises fuel for local consumption.
Fuel from Pakistan comes to Afghanistan in two ways, explains Karim Momand, oil manager for Azizi Hotak, a leading petroleum company in Kabul. Pakistani petrol, particularly from Pakistan State Oil (PSO), a state-run oil company, is sold tax-exempt to fuel traders who then legally export the product to Afghanistan.
A good amount of fuel is also smuggled in to the country, since the price of a contract with the PSO is quite high and traders can make even more profit by circumventing the border customs.
Traders and middlemen then purchase this fuel in Torkham, on the Afghan side of the Afghan-Pakistan border near Peshawar. Some of this fuel is sold in the Afghan market, mostly by small vendors who make the petrol available in jerry cans on street-sides around the country.
But the majority is smuggled back into Pakistan, say fuel traders. This practice, which has been taking place between the two countries for years, has undercut the Pakistani market and led to pressures on that country's national treasury, says an official at the Afghan Chamber of Commerce.
The PSO enters into agreements with oil traders worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, the official says. The agreement allows petrol middlemen to buy subsidised fuel for shipment to Afghanistan, usually from a depot in Taru Jabba, near Peshawar. The fuel is then transported through Peshawar, where the transporters are given a tax rebate from the PSO, into Afghanistan, and then smuggled back into Pakistan and sold in Peshawar markets at low prices.
"The whole system works because corrupt border patrol agents often look the other way or take a cut in the profits," says the official from the Afghan Chamber of Commerce.
"This is another case where Pakistani government policies end up hurting Pakistan," says Haroun Mir with the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies.
Large amounts of petrol destined for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces operating in Afghanistan also come in to the country through Pakistan. While the international forces purchase the majority of this fuel from Arab countries and elsewhere, only using Pakistan as a passageway to Afghanistan, IPS has learned that some Pakistani government-subsidised fuel may be going towards the U.S. war effort.
An official with the Tryco International Inc., a Kabul-based oil and logistics company, says that his company purchases fuel from PSO and supplies it to the U.S. military for its efforts in Afghanistan. "Some of this may be subsidised fuel and some sold directly to the company without subsidies," he says. The company, which won a nearly three million dollar contract in 2007 to procure and supply fuel to coalition forces, has spent millions purchasing petrol from PSO, he adds.
The Tryco, which registers sales of up to 50 million dollars per year, is PSO's "exclusive agent representative for Afghanistan," according to the source. While Islamabad generally does not comment on such partnerships, earlier this summer a senior official said NATO forces and private contractors are importing around 726,000 litres of subsidised fuel into Afghanistan every day. "Pakistan is losing around 32.5 million rupees (4.5 million dollars) daily due to such exports" and smuggling of fuel to Afghanistan, an unnamed source at the Pakistan Petroleum Ministry told the ANI news agency.
Once fuel for NATO or the American forces enter the country, the main challenge is to deliver it safely to its target without incurring attacks from the Taliban and other insurgents. Matthew Leeming, a Kabul-based fuel trader, estimates that over 50 tankers from one oil delivery company were destroyed in the last couple of months alone. The road from Kabul to Kandahar, considered one of the world's most dangerous highways, is particularly risky for fuel suppliers.
Often petrol delivery and logistics companies have to pay protection money to various tribal elders. In one route, between the capitals of Kandahar and Urozgan provinces, contractors pay millions in protection money, some of which may end up in the hands of the Taliban, Leeming says.
In addition, to protect fuel convoys the international forces and petrol companies often hire private security companies. The U.S.-based firm USPI, for example, has routinely provided security for such convoys -- despite persistent criticism that it has been involved in questionable activities. In addition to accusations of drug smuggling and over-billing the U.S. government of millions of dollars, the company once had suspected ties to Din Muhammad Jorat, a warlord with a history of human rights abuses. USPI officials refute such allegations.
Whatever its route, observers say that Afghanistan and Pakistan's petrol connection signals the high degree of interconnection between the two nations. "Here in Afghanistan the government generally doesn't subsidise its fuel," says Hamed Asir of the National Union of Journalists. "But we are so intertwined with Pakistan the politics of fuel subsidies there have an effect here."
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Tanzanian cricket team to play Afghanistan in friendly tie
Africa Press Agency / October 1, 2008
APA-Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) - Tanzania’s cricket team faces Afghanistan in a buildup match in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday to prepare for the World Division Four Cricket League which will commence in Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
The manager of the host side, Kassim Nasser, told APA the trial match would give a clear picture of the performance of his team in the tournament organised by International Cricket Council (ICC).
Nasser, who is also a local coordinator of the championship, said Tanzania would on Thursday play Jersey Island.
Afghanistan and Hong Kong arrived in the country last week, while Jersey Island and Italy are expected to arrive in the country on Wednesday.
Tanzanian Minister for Information, Culture and Sports, George Mkuchika will grace the championship on Friday.
Hosts Tanzania will play Jersey Island in the opening match on Saturday.
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Northern Afghanistan struggles against severe drought
Source: Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) September 30, 2008
Assessment conducted by ACTED's AME Team in Baghlan Province
After several years of consecutive drought, Northern Afghanistan is once more hit by below-normal precipitations and extreme heat. This year, the shock is particularly worrying since it comes after a harsh winter and a significant increase of the food prices all over Asia. The cumulative effect of this situation has a direct bearing on most of the households which rely on agriculture and livestock for their income and food needs. ACTED Afghanistan's AMEU team conducted an assessment in July, in the Districts of Nahrin and Burka (Baghlan Province), to understand the mechanisms of the current food crisis, and identify potential solutions.
'Ten years ago, I could get 3,000 ser (one ser corresponds to seven kilos) of rice from my land and 2,500 ser of wheat, says a farmer form the district of Nahrin, in Baghlan Province. We exported our production to other provinces. Now, we can barely feed our families for 5 months, and for the rest, we have to sell our livestock, our assets and our seeds. Now some people are even ready to give their daughter to an old man for 5,000 or 10,000 Afs (100 or 200 USD)'.
Baghlan Province used to be the bread basket of Northern Afghanistan, but the Districts of Nahrin and Burka (located in the North of the province) are more vulnerable to drought since they are part of a rain-fed agricultural and pastoral area. The decision to conduct assessments in Nahrin and Burka specifically was taken after ACTED's field staff in these districts had noticed substantial departure of families from most of the villages as well as a complete drying out of water sources in dozens of villages. The current situation in these two districts is particularly worrying since the water table has dropped brutally and the streams and river have dried out earlier than expected. In 95% of Nahrin and Burka communities, water sources have either completely dried out or significantly decreased. In Nahrin district, 20 villages rely solely on governmental water tankers' distribution as their only source of water. People (usually children) have to queue for hours to receive the 60 litres per family given every fo
ur days by the government. The water is barely sufficient for one day; for the rest, children have to travel eight to ten hours everyday to fetch water in distant villages. As a result, school attendance rates have significantly decreased this summer.
Although drinking water is the priority in most villages, growing food insecurity is another major concern since most of the crops have been destroyed by the drought. In Burka, 58% of the farmers who cultivated their land this year did not get any production. For the other farmers, yields have decreased by 50% (on irrigated land) to 70% (on the rain fed land) compared to 2007. In Nahrin, the situation is even more critical: 40% of the farmers could not even cultivate their lands this year because they had already sold their agricultural inputs and used their seeds reserve after several consecutive years of bad harvest. Among those who cultivated their land, 54% did not get any yield. If we combine farmers who did not cultivate with those who did not get any production this year, about 75% of Nahrin' farmers have no food production at all for the coming year. Considering that food prices have soared in the country, most families cannot compensate this lack of yield by food bought on the market; it is simply in
accessible for them.
Usual coping mechanisms in these circumstances include selling livestock, taking loans and looking for wage labor in other provinces or abroad. However, these strategies are likely to fail this year, for various reasons: massive livestock selling has provoked a significant decrease in livestock prices and the deterioration in the terms of trade for the farmers. For example, two months ago, a sheep could be traded for four 50 kg bags of wheat flour. Now, the value of the same sheep has dropped to less than one bag. Similarly, access to loan has become more and more difficult, because lending money is too risky and interest rates have become prohibitive. Finally, the unskilled labor market is saturated in Afghanistan and Iran has implemented immigration restrictions on labor migrants.
15% of the families in Burka's surveyed villages, and 14% in Nahrin have already left their villages (representing 3,800 families in total), and gone to Kunduz, Pakistan or Iran. ACTED Afghanistan is now looking to set up and implement water supply and food security projects in the drought affected areas.
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Kabul seeks foreign funds to take on corruption
By Jon Boone in Kabul October 11 2008 03:00 The Financial Times
His right arm bandaged to cover the wounds he acquired a week previously when he was almost killed by a Taliban bomb, Kabul's chief police investigator incredulously stabs an official document itemising all his assets.
"No, no, no - this is all wrong. I did not write this. I do not have one phennig, one cent or one penny in Dubai!" he says of a column on an official asset registration form marked "very secret" with his signature.
It shows he owns four houses, one apartment, three farms, eight commercial properties and two factories in Dubai - a $2m (£1m, €1.5m) property portfolio far beyond the means of a senior policeman in Afghanistan. Western and Afghan security officials are adamant that Kabul's top cop is also one of its top criminals, profiting handsomely from the gangs who extract huge ransoms from the families of the wealthy Afghans.
How else to explain the document, which officials at the Afghan Interior Ministry and the UN say is legitimate?
All senior Afghan officials have to fill in such forms. In the case of General Ali Shah Paktiawal, a colourful character famous for his televised police raids, the form lists all of the assets under his father's name, suggesting that it was all inherited.
But he insisted that he is not a rich man when the FT showed him a copy of the document in his office in September, claiming he had just one house in Kabul.
"In the past two months I have caught 22 kidnappers, and 3,780 criminals in one year! Eighteen terrorists have been caught red- handed. There are a lot of people who want to stop me, and that is why they try to smear me."
Such claims and counter-claims are typical in Afghanistan, and extremely hard to investigate.
"Everyone accuses everyone else of corruption in Afghanistan," sighs Christina Orguz, country manager for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "If just 20 per cent is true then the situation is still really bad, because it erodes trust in the government."
According to a recent "global corruption index" compiled by Transparency International, Afghanistan languishes in 172nd position, on its list of 180 countries.
A leaked draft of a forthcoming US National Intelligence Estimate blames rampant corruption for destroying faith in the government and exacerbating the Taliban insurgency.
But with the frustration of international donors steadily increasing, Afghanistan is anxious to show that it is taking serious steps to crack down on the problem with the establishment of a new organisation - the High Office of Oversight for the Implementation of AntiCorruption Strategy.
It has a wide-ranging remit, monitoring the police, the courts and the attorney general's office. It will have the power to launch its own investigations.
One of its most important tasks will be to improve the current system of asset registration which gives scant details about assets - often valued by the owner himself.
Foreign countries, who made the fight against corruption a condition for the $21bn dollars of aid pledged to Afghanistan at a donors' conference in Paris in June, have had their hopes for a crackdown on corruption repeatedly dashed. The previous anti-corruption office had little credibility with the international community because the man who ran it, Izzatullah Wasifi, was jailed for three years for selling heroin in Las Vegas.
At an international meeting in Tokyo in February the Afghan government presented the so-called "three plus three plus three" plan that would have made an example of three governors, three senior officials and three major landowners involved in drugs.
But nothing came of it.
In the view of a top western general in Afghanistan narco-corruption is worsening and the ministry of counter narcotics is kept weak "because there is so much money to be made from it".
Despite the difficulties, Ms Orguz says corruption is higher up the Afghan political agenda than ever before.
Optimists believe President Hamid Karzai needs to take action not just to please his foreign backers, but also his own people.
Pessimists, however, say Mr Karzai will not be able to deal with the corrupt elements in his government until after the election next year.
But Ershad Ahmadi, the deputy head of the High Office, insists there is no lack of political will to combat corruption, what's missing is generous foreign funding to make the new High Office a success.
"If they expect us to fight corruption they need to give us not just financial resources but also technical help."
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