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Afghan war not lost: US general
October 12, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - The commander of international forces in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, said Sunday that the West had not lost the war against Islamic insurgents but more troops and equipment were needed to tackle the rebels.
Afghan road blast claims 5 civilians
Press TV (Iran) Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:16:01 GMT
A roadside explosion in Afghanistan's southern province of Zabul has left five civilians dead, after their vehicles hit a planted bomb.
Over 100 Taliban militants killed in S Afghanistan
Xinhua / October 12, 2008
Battles between Taliban-led militants and Afghan troops in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province have claimed the lives of more than 100 insurgents over the past three days with 64 of them killed
Pakistan raid kills 35 Islamic militants
October 12, 2008
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani helicopter gunships bombed on Sunday a meeting of Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda near the border with Afghanistan, leaving 35 fighters dead, security officials said.
Afghan President, Pressured, Reshuffles Cabinet
By JOHN F. BURNS The New York Times October 12, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Under pressure from the United States and its coalition partners to shake up his government and curb high-level corruption, President Hamid Karzai named as his interior minister on Saturday
KARZAI SHUFFLES TAINTED DECK WITH “FARCICAL” CABINET SWAP
by Arthur Kent, Skyreporter.com
President Hamid Karzai’s belated shunting of his Interior Minister to the Ministry of Refugee Affairs has been labelled “farcical” by a former senior member of the government in Kabul.
UN envoy hails Afghan cabinet reshuffle
KABUL, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- The top UN envoy to Afghanistan in a Sunday statement hailed the reshuffle of Afghan cabinet announced by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday
US may rely more on Afghanistan's tribal militia: report
Sat Oct 11, 4:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Frustrated by a potential failure in Afghanistan, the United States is scrambling to forge a new strategy expanding tribal militias' power, The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
Taliban leader killed by SAS was Pakistan officer
The Sunday Times By Christina Lamb 10/12/2008
Kabul-British officials covered up evidence that a Taliban commander killed by special forces in Helmand last year was in fact a Pakistani military officer, according to highly placed Afghan officials.
Inmates sew mouths shut in mass hunger strike
www.quqnoos.com Written by Qadeem Weyar Sunday, 12 October 2008
Prisoners complain they were left out of Eid promise to cut sentences
NATO troops withdraw from north-east district
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 11 October 2008
Taliban claim to have forced NATO-led troops from a remote district
We can reach World Cup, say confident Afghanistan
Sun Oct 12, 4:12 AM ET
DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) - Afghanistan clinched the World Cricket League Division Four title on Saturday and then claimed they are good enough to play alongside the game's giants at the 2011 World Cup.
Fremont man free after 4 years in prison
Lance Williams San Francisco Chronicle Sunday, October 12, 2008
A Fremont man who spent more than four years in prison fighting deportation to Afghanistan was allowed to go home last week.
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Afghan war not lost: US general
October 12, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - The commander of international forces in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, said Sunday that the West had not lost the war against Islamic insurgents but more troops and equipment were needed to tackle the rebels.
McKiernan commands about 70,000 mainly Western international soldiers deployed in Afghanistan to fight an insurgency led by remnants of the Taliban which was toppled from government seven years ago.
Since then, the insurgency has increased every year, raising concerns in the troop-contributing countries that the mission here is failing.
"We are not losing in Afghanistan," the four-star US general, who commands both the 40-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the separate US-led coalition, told reporters in Kabul.
"The insurgency will not win in this country. The vast majority of people who live here do not want the Taliban," he added.
Reacting to recent Western media reports about failures of international military operations in Afghanistan, the general said "I absolutely reject that idea, and I don't believe it."
But the general said he needed more troops and military gear, including helicopters, to speed up the war against insurgents.
"We have insufficient security forces to adequately provide for the security of the people of Afghanistan," he said.
Besides soldiers, there were needs "such as helicopters, such as ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), such as logistics and transportation, civil affairs or other capabilities," the general added.
He called on alliance countries to provide him with the necessary troops and equipment.
Western troops arrived in Afghanistan when a US-led international coalition ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001 in retaliation to the 9/11 attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda, then based in Afghanistan.
Since being thrown from power, the Taliban have been fighting back against government and foreign troops in an insurgency which has accelerated in the past two years.
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Afghan road blast claims 5 civilians
Press TV (Iran) Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:16:01 GMT
A roadside explosion in Afghanistan's southern province of Zabul has left five civilians dead, after their vehicles hit a planted bomb.
That attack occurred Sunday morning around 6 am local time in Ghulab in Shinkay district, said deputy provincial governor Shah Alikhil.
A civilian car passed over a bomb planted in advance by militants. The blast killed all three passengers beside two others from two tractors traveling close behind.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but officials believed it was carried out by Taliban militants.
The latest attack comes as NATO-led forces in Afghanistan announced Sunday that a series of ground battles and airstrikes had left at least 100 Taliban militants dead in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province.
Taliban have warned of an imminent surge in attacks before the coming winter.
Late Saturday, a vehicle of private Afghan guards patrolling the eastern province of Khost was targeted by a bomb, killing seven, provincial security chief General Abdul Qayom Baqizoi said.
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Over 100 Taliban militants killed in S Afghanistan
Xinhua / October 12, 2008
Battles between Taliban-led militants and Afghan troops in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province have claimed the lives of more than 100 insurgents over the past three days with 64 of them killed on Sunday, spokesman of provincial administration contended.
"Taliban militants launched a three-pronged attack on Helmand' s provincial capital Lashkar Gah at the wee hours of Sunday and the troops with the support of NATO air power pounded their positions leaving 64 dead," Daud Ahmadi told Xinhua.
The fierce attack, he added, took place at 1:00 a.m. and in retaliation, Afghan Security Forces with the support of NATO's helicopter gun ships targeted the rebels killing 64 of them on the spot.
Ahamdi also stressed that 40 more rebels had been killed in Nadali district over the past three days.
However, the spokesman emphasized that there were no casualties on the Afghan troops.
Meantime, Taliban militants, fighting Afghan and NATO troops, have yet to make comment.
Spiraling conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency have left more than 4,500 people mostly insurgents so far this year in Afghanistan.
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Pakistan raid kills 35 Islamic militants
October 12, 2008
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani helicopter gunships bombed on Sunday a meeting of Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda near the border with Afghanistan, leaving 35 fighters dead, security officials said.
Among the dead were two Taliban commanders and 12 potential suicide bombers, they said.
"Helicopter gunships carried out a successful raid at a militant hide-out in Orakzai district killing 35," a senior security official told AFP.
The attack came two days after a suicide bomber killed at least 40 anti-Taliban tribesmen at a mass meeting in Orakzai.
In a separate statement, a paramilitary official confirmed around a dozen potential suicide bombers were among those killed in Sunday's raid.
"The raid was carried out after ground intelligence that the Taliban were meeting and their commanders and potential suicide bombers would be there," he said.
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Afghan President, Pressured, Reshuffles Cabinet
By JOHN F. BURNS The New York Times October 12, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Under pressure from the United States and its coalition partners to shake up his government and curb high-level corruption, President Hamid Karzai named as his interior minister on Saturday a former official of Afghanistan’s Communist-era secret police.
The appointment of Muhammad Hanif Atmar, 40, was part of a cabinet reshuffle that a spokesman for Mr. Karzai described as aimed at bringing “positive changes in good governance.” Along with the Interior Ministry, the changes included new ministers in four other portfolios in the 26-member cabinet, including the important ministries of agriculture and education.
By moving Mr. Atmar to the Interior Ministry from his previous post as education minister, Mr. Karzai responded to insistent demands for a crackdown on corruption that have come from the Western nations that sustain his government with troops and billions of dollars in aid. The pattern of corruption, senior diplomats in Kabul say, is so pervasive that it has contributed, with deteriorating security conditions, to a collapse in the popular backing for the Karzai government.
The diplomats point to the Interior Ministry, responsible for a police force of 80,000, as the most corrupt of all government organizations, with top officials routinely taking bribes for appointing police officers and protecting from arrest a wide range of wrongdoers, including drug traffickers who run Afghanistan’s $4-billion-a-year opium trade. The diplomats say that reform at the ministry will require a wholesale clearing out of top officials, and that Mr. Atmar is likely to face vigorous, and possibly violent, opposition.
He will also take charge of efforts to reform and strengthen the police, who have been identified by American commanders of the 50,000-strong international security force here as the weakest link in the battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, whose attacks have increased by more than 30 percent in the past year. In much of the Afghan hinterland, the only uniformed presence is in the form of sparsely staffed police stations, and the incidences of desertion, or collaboration with the insurgents, have been high.
Mr. Atmar is regarded in Western embassies as well prepared for the challenge. He is a Pashtun, the ethnic group from which the Taliban draw most of their fighters. His background during his youth as a member of the Khad secret police — a bulwark of the Kabul government during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s — gives him ties to a period under President Najibullah, the last Afghan ruler of that era, which is regarded by many Afghans as a time of relative security in cities like Kabul.
In 1988, Mr. Atmar lost one of his legs fighting with a Khad special-operations unit against mujahedeen fighters besieging the eastern city of Jalalabad. When the mujahedeen captured Kabul, he joined an exodus of Communist-era officials and went to Britain, where he gained a college degree in postwar recovery.
Under Mr. Karzai, he gained wide respect for overseeing rural development programs in his first ministerial post, and he followed that with what diplomats say was a strong performance as education minister, responsible for the rebuilding of the country’s shattered school system.
According to diplomats, Mr. Karzai also intended other cabinet appointments to send a message that he plans to act decisively, after seven years in power, to bring new levels of competence to a government that is widely disparaged across the country. American and other NATO commanders here say that plans to rework their war strategy and to bring in more American and other foreign troops will mean little unless the Karzai government begins to rebuild its popular support.
Apart from the change at the Interior Ministry, where the previous incumbent, Zarar Ahmad Muqbil, was appointed minister of refugees, the most closely watched changes were at the agriculture and education ministries.
The new agriculture minister, Muhammad Asif Rahimi, takes over at a time when the United Nations and other aid agencies are concerned about the possibility that several million Afghans will face starvation this winter after years of drought that have severely damaged grain crops. The new education minister, Ghulam Farook Wardak, is a former parliamentary affairs minister and is regarded by diplomats as one of the more competent officials in Mr. Karzai’s government.
Some controversy surrounded Mr. Karzai’s appointment of Asadullah Khaled, a former provincial governor of Kandahar, to the parliamentary affairs portfolio. Western officials here said that during Mr. Khaled’s tenure in Kandahar there were widespread allegations of corruption against him, leading to his removal by Mr. Karzai. The Afghan president, a Pashtun, keeps a close watch on all Kandahar appointments, since the southern city is a stronghold of his Popolzai tribe.
As the government changes were announced, the country’s intelligence agency said that it had broken up a plot by the Taliban to attack a notorious prison on the outskirts of Kabul and to free Taliban prisoners. The agency said it had arrested three prison officers who had confessed to helping smuggle explosives into the prison, where a prisoner working as a tailor was to have sewn the explosives into suicide vests.
The agency’s description of the plan to stage suicide attacks inside the Pul-i-Charki prison, and at the prison gate, followed a Taliban attack in June on a prison in Kandahar that freed almost 900 prisoners, about 400 of them Taliban fighters. In that attack, the Taliban parked a fuel tanker outside the gates of the Sar Poza prison and detonated it by firing rocket-propelled grenades, collapsing large parts of the prison. The Kabul prison said to have been targeted in the latest plot also houses hundreds of Taliban prisoners.
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KARZAI SHUFFLES TAINTED DECK WITH “FARCICAL” CABINET SWAP
by Arthur Kent, Skyreporter.com
President Hamid Karzai’s belated shunting of his Interior Minister to the Ministry of Refugee Affairs has been labelled “farcical” by a former senior member of the government in Kabul.
“Of course Zarar Muqbul should be investigated, not rewarded with another cabinet post,” says the source, who spoke to skyreporter on condition his name be withheld for fear of violent reprisal.
“Even though there is much less opportunity for bribes and corruption at the refugees department, Zarar should answer for his complete mismanagement of the police, and for the trouble we see in all sections of the Interior Ministry.
“By simply moving him sideways, the president has shifted the problem, not taken action to resolve it.”
Zarar was profiled some 15 months ago by skyreporter in an article published by Policy Options, the monthly publication of Canada’s Institute for Research on Public Policy (please see our July, 31, 2007 blog: “U.S. & Allies Shrink From Confronting Karzai’s Crooks” in Recent Stories on this website).
Two sources, an officer with the National Directorate of Security and a respected general at the Interior Ministry, allege that Zarar has been involved in the “mushkil tarashi” bribery scams, loathed by Afghan truckers, in which policemen stop vehicles at random and demand payments.
As well, Zarar was blamed by Zabul Governor Delbar Arman with failing to stop the siphoning off of policemen’s salaries by corrupt officials in the ministry’s central office in Kabul, and elsewhere along the chain of command.
Neither Karzai’s office nor the office of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper would comment on the charges at the time (Canada is a leading donor to the police salaries and training program, known as LOTFA). As much as 30% of international funds earmarked for salaries have vanished into the Interior Ministry’s graft-ridden corridors of power.
As is sadly the norm within the Karzai regime, Zarar has retained high office despite widespread knowledge of his character and performance.
One former government minister, who has known Zarar for more than 20 years, tells skyreporter: “In the early 1990’s, he and his family owned a shop in Charikar and a few gardens in Parwan province. Now, after a number of years in the Interior Ministry, he has property holdings that really deserve to be fully investigated.
“In the top levels of power today in Afghanistan, perhaps only the president’s brothers, Qayum and Mahmood, have taken possession of more land with no understandable way to pay for it.”
Karzai has faced mounting pressure from his international patrons, notably the British and Americans, to address rampant corruption within his ministries. Ironically, these foreign powers share a great deal of responsibility for the shape and nature of Karzai’s regime.
Zarar, for example, was an ineffectual deputy of the highly-regarded Ali Jalali, who quit his Interior post in 2005 when Karzai refused to rid his government of Gul Agha Sherzai, the corrupt former governor of Kandahar province. In that instance, too, Karzai simply moved Sherzai to the governor’s post in Nangahar Province - while his younger brother Wali Karzai tended Sherzai's "business interests" back in Kandahar.
The American Embassy, meantime, demurred both to Sherzai’s reincarnation in Jalalabad and Wali Karzai's increased prominence in Kandahar. American officials also welcomed Zarar’s promotion to Interior Minister - despite warnings from responsible members of government.
This latest of Karzai’s fumbling mini-shuffles will see Hanif Atmar, who has gained a reputation for “clean hands” in the Education post, take Zarar’s place at Interior. Education will become the preserve of another key Karzai ally and adviser - Farooq Wardak - who is blamed by many Afghan parliamentarians for a number of the regime’s most controversial appointments and policies.
The shuffle comes as investigations continue into the former Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet, whose role in triggering the Kabul Airport heroin scandal was revealed last year here on skyreporter (please see our Afghan Heroin series of film reports in the early pages of “Recent Stories”).
The popular and successful airport police chief victimized by Sabet, General Aminullah Amerkhel, has now had his name formally cleared of any alleged blame – hardly surprising, since the corrupt former Attorney General had failed to file any formal charges in his vendetta against Amerkhel.
Gen. Amerkhel, sadly, has not been restored to his position at the airport, where, prior to his removal by Sabet, he routinely collared up to five heroin smugglers per week.
So it goes in Hamid Karzai’s Kabul. The big Khans of the heroin trade continue to cash in, while honest Afghans can only dream of justice.
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UN envoy hails Afghan cabinet reshuffle
KABUL, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- The top UN envoy to Afghanistan in a Sunday statement hailed the reshuffle of Afghan cabinet announced by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, saying the changes reflect "priorities" of the Afghan government and people.
The Afghan administration led by Karzai, besides reiterating resolution in fighting Taliban-led insurgents, pledged improved efforts in anti-drug and counter-corruption actions, in the Paris conference in June on Afghan issues, at which international community promised an additional 20 billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan.
"This reshuffle demonstrates political determination, the importance of implementing more rigorously the agenda set and agreed upon in Paris in June, with a team that can take these issues forward - particularly, the strengthening of the Afghan police and agricultural production," Kai Eide, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, said in a statement issued Sunday.
"I am fully committed to supporting this new Ministerial team and look forward to working with them over the coming weeks and months," he said.
President Karzai in a surprise move on Saturday replaced five ministers of the cabinet, Mohammad Asif Nang, the spokesman of ministry for parliamentary affairs said.
"The incumbent education minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar would replace Zarar Ahmad Muqbal, the serving minister for interior, and Muqbal would take over the affairs of the ministry for refugees and repatriation affairs," Nang told Xinhua.
The spokesperson said Farooq Wardak, the minister for parliamentary affairs, would be replaced by Kandahar province's former governor Assadullah Khalid, and Wardak would assume the office of education ministry.
He also added that Abidullah Ramin, the minister for agriculture, would be replaced by Asif Rahimi.
This move aimed to address mounting criticism from western officials and media on alleged corruption of local police and lack of governance capability of Afghan government, local media reports and analysts said.
The reshuffle in the cabinet took place just days after Afghanistan started voter registration process for the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for 2009.
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US may rely more on Afghanistan's tribal militia: report
Sat Oct 11, 4:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Frustrated by a potential failure in Afghanistan, the United States is scrambling to forge a new strategy expanding tribal militias' power, The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
While relying less on the central government in Kabul, "US forces would scale back combat operations to focus more on training Afghan government forces and tribal militias," the report said.
"The plan is controversial because it could extend the influence of warlords while undermining the government of President Hamid Karzai," it said, noting that such a plan also could stoke rivalries between security units in Afghanistan.
But "the US military's willingness to consider such risks reflects the growing worry about worsening conditions in Afghanistan," the report added.
"Until recently, the military would not have considered a move to bolster tribal militias, but, with relatively few troops available, military leaders believe only a new approach to the war can stanch the spreading violence."
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he has urged NATO allies to temporarily increase force levels in Afghanistan next year to protect the 2009 presidential elections.
The elections, which are supposed to be held in late 2009, will be a key test of the viability of a struggling, seven-year-old US and NATO-led effort to build a democratically elected central government in Afghanistan.
US commanders in Afghanistan have asked for four more combat brigades and support troops -- as many as 20,000 more troops -- to counter the insurgency.
The United States has some 33,000 troops in Afghanistan, about 13,000 of them in a 50,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
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Taliban leader killed by SAS was Pakistan officer
The Sunday Times By Christina Lamb 10/12/2008
Kabul-British officials covered up evidence that a Taliban commander killed by special forces in Helmand last year was in fact a Pakistani military officer, according to highly placed Afghan officials.
The commander, targeted in a compound in the Sangin valley, was one of six killed in the past year by SAS and SBS forces. When the British soldiers entered the compound they discovered a Pakistani military ID on the body.
It was the first physical evidence of covert Pakistani military operations against British forces in Afghanistan even though Islamabad insists it is a close ally in the war against terror.
Britain’s refusal to make the incident public led to a row with the Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who has long accused London of viewing Afghanistan through the eyes of Pakistani military intelligence, which is widely believed to have been helping the Taliban.
“He feels he has been telling everyone about Pakistan for the past six years and here was the evidence, yet London refused to release it, because they care more about their relations with Islamabad than Kabul,” said a source close to the president. “He knows Britain is worried about inflaming its large Pakistani population, but that is no excuse.”
So furious was Karzai that he threatened to expel British diplomats. When some months later he was informed by the governor of Helmand that British officials were secretly negotiating with the Taliban, he expelled two men and accused Britain of wanting to set up a training camp for former Taliban fighters.
Karzai will visit London next month for talks with Gordon Brown in an attempt to repair the strained relations between the two countries.
“He is very sad about the breakdown of relations with Britain,” said the source. “He loves British culture and poetry, had a British education [at a school in India], likes tea in the afternoon and thinks Gordon Brown is a very decent man, not a cheat.”
British officials in Kabul refused to comment on the allegation that they had covered up the discovery of a Pakistani soldier. They insisted Karzai’s government had been informed of the negotiations with the Taliban, adding that “the camp was just a place for them to be reintegrated, learn about hygiene and things”.
During the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, officers from Pakistani military intelligence regularly accompanied Afghan mujaheddin inside Afghanistan and directed operations.
The Afghan claims of Pakistani involvement in Helmand were backed by a senior United Nations official who said he had been told by his superiors to keep quiet after Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN apparently threatened to stop contributing forces to peacekeeping missions. Pakistan is the UN’s biggest supplier of peacekeeping troops.
The coalition’s refusal to confront Pakistan changed after the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul last July, when 41 people were killed. According to both British and US intelligence, phone intercepts led directly back to an Afghan cell of Pakistan’s military intelligence.
The past month has seen US forces carry out bombings and a ground raid on Pakistani territory. Claims of Pakistan’s involvement were rejected by Asif Durrani, the country’s chargé d’affaires in Kabul. “Afghanistan wants to blame someone else for its problems and Pakistan is just the whipping boy,” he said.
However, repeated accusations from Karzai about Pakistan’s active support for the Taliban have been backed by a senior US marine officer.
Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Nash, who commanded an embedded training team in eastern Afghanistan from June 2007 to March this year, told the Army Times that Pakistani forces flew repeated helicopter missions into Afghanistan to resupply a Taliban base camp during a fierce battle in June last year. Nash said: “We were on the receiving end of Pakistani military D-30 [a howitzer]. On numerous occasions Afghan border police checkpoints and observation posts were attacked by Pakistani military forces.”
Comments by Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith in The Sunday Times last week that a decisive military victory against the Taliban was not possible and negotiations should be opened have received widespread backing.
General Jean-Louis Georgelin, France’s military chief, said: “There is no military solution to the Afghan crisis and I totally share this feeling.”
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, who initially dismissed the brigadier’s comments as “defeatist”, said on Friday that the US was now prepared to back talks with the Taliban.
The deadly toll
— 120 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002
— At least 4,200 Afghans, including 1,450 civilians, have died this year alone
— Total cost of British operations in the Afghan war from 2001 to 2008 has been £3.2 billion
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Inmates sew mouths shut in mass hunger strike
www.quqnoos.com Written by Qadeem Weyar Sunday, 12 October 2008
Prisoners complain they were left out of Eid promise to cut sentences
ABOUT 700 inmates at one of the country’s largest jails have gone on hunger strike, with some sewing their mouths shut in protest at what they call unfair treatment.
The prisoners in eastern Nangarhar province’s central jail complain that President Karzai’s promise to reduce some convicts' sentences by as much as one and a half years to mark the holy Eid holiday had not been implemented in their prison.
About twenty five inmates have stitched their mouths shut in protest.
Inmates said they would not end the hunger strike until the government carried out its Eid promise in the prison.
A commission has been sent to listen to the prisoners’ complaints in an attempt to put an end to the strike, an advisor to the provincial governor said.
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NATO troops withdraw from north-east district
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 11 October 2008
Taliban claim to have forced NATO-led troops from a remote district
THE NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has withdrawn from a district in the north-eastern province of Nuristan, the international force said.
ISAF said it retreated from its forward operating base in the Kamdish district on Friday following advice from Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry.
But the Taliban claimed that it forced ISAF troops in the district to retreat after engaging them in fierce fighting in the district, one of the country’s most insecure.
In July, US troops withdrew from a remote base in the province’s Dara-e-Pech days after the Taliban killed nine US soldiers and wounded 15 more in the deadliest attack on US forces for three years.
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We can reach World Cup, say confident Afghanistan
Sun Oct 12, 4:12 AM ET
DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) - Afghanistan clinched the World Cricket League Division Four title on Saturday and then claimed they are good enough to play alongside the game's giants at the 2011 World Cup.
A brilliant spell of spin bowling from player of the tournament Mohammad Nabi helped Afghanistan clinch the divisional crown with a 57-run win over Hong Kong.
Nabi took 4-9 as Hong Kong were 122 all out, but it was Rais Ahmadzai (49 runs) who took the man-of-the-match award, meaning that Afghanistan has now won successive World Cricket League events following their win in Jersey in Division Five in May.
With the two finalists having already secured promotion to Division Three, the coaches of both Afghanistan and Hong Kong believe that their sides are capable of making it to the 2011 World Cup.
Kabir Khan, coach of Afghanistan, whose side recorded dramatic victories over Tanzania and Hong Kong to remain undefeated in the group stages, insists Afghanistan are good enough to play in world cricket's showpiece 50-over event.
"2011 is a dream - I am very hopeful about it. I want the players to be there as they really deserve to be," said Khan, who represented Pakistan in Test and ODI cricket.
"We are taking things as they come and obviously we have to go through Division Three to start with. Once we have achieved that target we will be through to the World Cup Qualifier and we will make another plan for that."
Khan has already begun planning for the Division Three in Argentina in January, which is a six-team event involving the two qualifiers from this event, plus Papua New Guinea, Cayman Islands, Argentina and Uganda.
The top two sides from that event will progress to the World Cup Qualifier, with the four leading Associate and Affiliate sides making it through to 2011.
"We have time on our side now. The guys have already started playing as a team. We need to raise our game a bit and be a bit fitter and be more mentally prepared for the tournament," said Khan.
"We have options for our training camp. We could go to Pakistan or India. I would prefer to have a training camp with similar conditions to Argentina. If we have a camp in Afghanistan or Peshawar it will be winter and it will be cold, while the weather in Argentina will be warm."
Hong Kong coach Aftab Habib, the former England Test batsman, was delighted with his side, for whom Zain Abbas, Butt Hussain and Tabarak Dar have been in excellent form with the bat all week. He thinks his side has the ability to compete at a higher level.
"I don't want to look too far ahead but it is a dream for me and it is a dream for a lot of our players. Our next main aim is to do well in Division 3," said Habib.
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Fremont man free after 4 years in prison
Lance Williams San Francisco Chronicle Sunday, October 12, 2008
A Fremont man who spent more than four years in prison fighting deportation to Afghanistan was allowed to go home last week.
The government has dropped its attempt to deport Afghan native Obaidullah "Chito" Rahimi, 33, said Vincent Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Ely, Ariz., where Rahimi had been held. An Alameda County official had lobbied for Rahimi's release, saying his long incarceration was unjust.
Rahimi came to California at age 12 as a refugee of the Soviet-Afghan war. He was arrested and ordered deported in 2003, when immigration authorities discovered he had pleaded guilty to having sex with his underage girlfriend six years before.
Imprisoned and denied bail, Rahimi appealed the deportation order, arguing that if he were sent to his war-torn homeland he was likely to be recognized as an American and targeted for kidnapping or murder. The government contended Rahimi had committed a deportable crime and that he faced no danger in Afghanistan.
Rahimi's plight attracted the interest of Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele, who worked for more than a year to win his release. The Chronicle reported on his case in July.
"He is a happy camper," said Steele, who spoke with Rahimi by phone Tuesday after he had flown home from Arizona. At the airport he was met by 19 members of his family, she said.
Now he faces rebuilding the life interrupted in 2003 when he was arrested while applying for U.S. citizenship: His auto body shop went out of business while he was in custody.
"He's got to find a job, but I'm sure his family will take care of him in the short run," Steele said. She said she was "absolutely thrilled" that Rahimi had been released. Rahimi didn't return a reporter's phone call.
Court records show the path to freedom for Rahimi opened last month, when the Alameda County district attorney's office allowed him to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in 1997 to a misdemeanor charge of statutory rape. Instead, he pleaded guilty to threatening a witness, a charge that is not on the government's list of deportable offenses.
He served eight months in jail on the statutory rape case, and 52 months in the immigration prison.
"He did more time than we ever would have gotten on him," Deputy District Attorney Scott Jackson said in explaining the plea. The new plea was structured so that Rahimi would no longer face "immigration consequences," he said.
Deportation case dropped
After that, the government agreed to dismiss the deportation case against Rahimi, said Picard, the ICE spokesman.
For decades, legal immigrants faced deportation only if they were convicted of murder or rape. But in the 1990s, Congress added many offenses to the list of deportable crimes.
Experts say the combination of tougher laws and improved technology for computer background checks has led to a surge in deportation orders for immigrants who commit crimes in the United States - even misdemeanors, as in Rahimi's case.
Rahimi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1974, five years before Soviet troops invaded. In court, Rahimi said his father joined the anti-Soviet resistance. As a boy, he said, he had been beaten and tortured by Russians seeking to learn the father's whereabouts. In 1984, the family fled to Pakistan. Three years later, they were admitted to the United States as refugees and settled in Fremont. Rahimi attended Chabot College in Hayward and worked as a school janitor and security guard.
In 1997, when he was 22, he began dating a 14-year-old student at Fremont's Washington High School. After they had sex, the girl accused Rahimi of raping her. He pleaded guilty to a charge of having sex with a minor and was sentenced to one year in jail, with the promise that after he served his time the conviction would be reduced to a misdemeanor.
Applying for U.S. citizenship
Rahimi contends he settled down after that. He opened his body shop in Hayward, where he said he employed two younger brothers, and he helped care for his aging mother, who had begun suffering from mental illness.
Then, in 2003, Rahimi applied for U.S. citizenship, as had his parents and siblings before him. He expected no problems. But when he appeared for an interview, immigration officers noticed his conviction in a computer database and arrested him.
In court, Rahimi said he didn't know anyone in Afghanistan, and couldn't read Farsi or speak it properly. In an unstable country where the Taliban were resurgent, he said, he was likely to be attacked for political or religious motives - or kidnapped for ransom by somebody who presumed that, as an American, he had money. But the government argued that Afghanistan was relatively safe, and in any event that Rahimi's offense made him deportable. The dispute was pending before an appeals court when the deportation order was withdrawn.
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