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Afghan violence kills 13: officials
Mon Oct 13, 10:44 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Eight civilians were killed in separate insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, as the US-led coalition said it killed five Taliban rebels elsewhere in the country on Monday.
British soldier in Afghanistan on Iran spy charges
October 13, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - A soldier who worked for Britain's top commander in Afghanistan became a spy for Iran after being passed over for promotion, a court heard on Monday.
FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan, Oct 13
Oct 13 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1100 GMT on Monday:
Momentum builds for Taliban negotiations
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. and British officials have concluded there can be no military victory over Taliban insurgents, Time Magazine says.
Clashes in Pakistani tribal regions kill 51
By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 13, 1:08 PM ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Clashes between Taliban militants and pro-government forces killed 51 people as fighting spread across Pakistan's volatile northwest tribal regions along the Afghan border, officials said Monday.
As Afghanistan Slides, Chance of a Taliban Deal Increases
By ARYN BAKER / KABUL time.com Mon Oct 13, 9:35 AM ET
As the world's finance ministers wring their hands over the global financial crisis, a quieter multi-lingual chorus of dismay is emanating from the military compounds and foreign offices of one of the planet's most powerful nations.
Japan opposition wants bigger global security role
by Kyoko Hasegawa Mon Oct 13, 1:42 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan would play a more active role in global security if the opposition wins upcoming elections and would also seek better diplomacy to bring peace to Afghanistan, the shadow defence minister said.
Women in Afghanistan 7 years after the fall of the Taliban
Source: CARE / October 13, 2008
"It is shameful for us Afghans to allow our sister or daughter to go to school" was the response that "Nasrin" (15) got from her brother when she wanted to pursue her studies.
UAE Firms to Invest $4bln in Construction in Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Kabul, 13 October / Trend News corr. A.Hakimi / The United Arab Emirates (UAE) sponsors construction of a new city in Kabul, an Afghan province.
Abbott 'supports maternal and child health in Afghanistan'
Hays Pharma (UK) / 13 Oct 2008
Abbott has said it is committing $2.5 million (£1.4 million) to the improvement of maternal and child health in Afghanistan.
Big fish among the Afghan warlords
Sara A. Carter The Washington Times October 12, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum watched an emperor angelfish swim back and forth in a large tank, competing with other brightly colored fish for a few flakes of feed drifting in the saltwater.
Afghanistan's best hope is for controlled warlordism
The Guardian Max Hastings Monday October 13 2008
The Taliban are losing the battles but winning the war. The prognosis is wretched, yet we must sustain military aid
Facing Reality in Afghanistan: Talking with the Taliban
By Aryn Baker / Kabul time.com Monday, Oct. 13, 2008
As the world's finance ministers wring their hands over the global financial crisis, a quieter multilingual chorus of dismay is emanating from the military compounds and foreign offices of one of the planet's most powerful nations.
Red Cross defends supplying aid to Taliban
Canwest News Service Tom Blackwell Monday, October 13, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Help is given to all sides under international humanitarian law
Foreign female kidnapped in Kabul
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 13 October 2008
Woman thought to be a Canadian journalist kidnapped in capital
A FOREIGN woman has been kidnapped in the capital Kabul, the Interior Ministry says.
Western troops root of Afghan turmoil
Press TV (Iran) Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:22:51 GMT
Seven years of western military presence in Afghanistan has led to insecurity, a narcotics production surge and loss of civilian lives but no stability.
Iraq, Afghanistan occupiers unable to solve problems: Rafsanjani
Tehran, Oct 12, IRNA
Chairman of State Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here Sunday that occupiers of Iraq and Afghanistan are unable to solve the problems which they themselves created.
Father-in-law murders newly-wed with axe
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 12 October 2008
Bride murdered after refusing to go home with husband during Eid
A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy has been raped and a newly-wed woman killed with an axe by her father-in-law in the northern province of Samanagan, police and officials say.
Alako to investigate corruption in Commerce Ministry
www.quqnoos.com Written by Abdulwali Arian Monday, 13 October 2008
Attorney-general launches investigation into allegations of ministry corruption
THE attorney-general has launched an investigation into alleged corruption in the Ministry of Commerce.
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Afghan violence kills 13: officials
Mon Oct 13, 10:44 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Eight civilians were killed in separate insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, as the US-led coalition said it killed five Taliban rebels elsewhere in the country on Monday.
Six civilians were killed Monday as their minivan struck a mine in the central province of Ghazni while two others died when a rebel rocket aimed at a military base hit their home overnight, officials said.
"The roadside bomb was laid by Taliban to target security forces. It hit a civilian van and martyred six innocent people," provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP.
An elderly woman and a child were killed elsewhere in Ghazni when a rocket hit their home, provincial police chief Abdul Qayoum Baqizoi said.
Two other children were injured in the attack, he said. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the children were being treated in a military hospital.
Separately the US-led coalition, which operates alongside ISAF, said it killed five Taliban in a raid on a "known Taliban militant", also in Ghazni, said to have been in contact with Al-Qaeda fighters.
"Coalition forces Sunday disrupted the foreign fighter network, killing five armed Taliban militants in Ghazni," the coalition said in a statement. It did not give details.
The hardline Taliban movement was in power between 1996 and 2001. It was ousted from government by a US-led invasion after the regime refused to hand over Al-Qaeda kingpins blamed for the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Remnants of the militia have been waging an increasingly bloody insurgency which has claimed the lives of thousands of people.
Criminal gangs are also involved in the growing insecurity in Afghanistan.
Five Afghan men who worked as translators were abducted by unknown gunmen in the eastern province of Paktia early Monday as they were driving to Kabul by taxi, a district governor said.
It was not clear if the abductors were Taliban and the taxi drivers had been taken in for questioning, said the officials, Babaker Khil.
Afghanistan has seen a spate of kidnappings, more frequently for ransom than as part of an insurgency to overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai.
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British soldier in Afghanistan on Iran spy charges
October 13, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - A soldier who worked for Britain's top commander in Afghanistan became a spy for Iran after being passed over for promotion, a court heard on Monday.
Corporal Daniel James, 45, contacted Iranian officials in Kabul while working in "a very trusted and sensitive position" as interpreter for General David Richards, the British commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, prosecutors told Britain's Central Criminal Court.
"The allegation in this case is that during the latter part of 2006, the defendant's loyalty to this country wavered and his loyalties turned to Iran, the country of his birth," prosecutor Mark Dennis said.
James denies the charges.
The court was told James made telephone contact with Colonel Mohammad Hossein Heydari who worked as Iran's military attache at its embassy in Kabul and sent him coded messages in emails.
"(James was in) a unique position to overhear and glean a good deal of operational or strategic information if he chose to do so," Dennis said.
"As General Richards himself puts it, the defendant's value as a hostile intelligence agent to a third party with aims contrary to that of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and the government of Afghanistan cannot be underestimated."
He was arrested in December 2006, a few months after contact had been made. Police found a USB computer memory storage device in his kitbag with confidential documents, including details of military troop movements and knowledge of insurgent activities.
The court heard that James, who became a British citizen in 1986 and had previously worked as a salsa dance teacher in Brighton, southern England, believed certain officers had been racist and had prevented him being promoted to sergeant.
He was also said to be a fantasist.
"He has been described as something of a Walter Mitty character who would no doubt find his new clandestine role as something exciting and special," Dennis said.
James denies three charges under the Official Secrets Act of communicating and collecting information likely to be useful to an enemy, and willful misconduct in a public office.
(Reporting by Michael Holden)
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FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan, Oct 13
Oct 13 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1100 GMT on Monday:
GHAZNI - Six civilians were killed and two wounded when their minibus hit a roadside bomb in Zana Khan district of Ghazni province, some 115 km (70 miles) southwest of Kabul, a provincial official said.
GHAZNI - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops killed five militants in an operation targeting facilitators for foreign fighters in Ghazni province, some 200 km (125) miles southwest of Kabul, the U.S. military said.
KHOST - Two civilians were killed and three wounded when a rocket, fired by insurgents, landed on their home in eastern Khost province, some 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Kabul on Sunday, the provincial police chief said.
GHAZNI - Afghan and international troops killed nine Taliban insurgents during a joint operation in Waghaz district of Ghazni province on Sunday, some 140 km (85 miles) southwest of Kabul, provincial police chief Mohammad Zaman said. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by David Fox)
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Momentum builds for Taliban negotiations
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. and British officials have concluded there can be no military victory over Taliban insurgents, Time Magazine says.
All are privately, and to a greater degree publicly, advocating negotiation of a political deal with the Islamist militants as military force has proved largely ineffective at eliminating their insurgency, the magazine reported Monday.
Karzai last week appealed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace and offered to talk, it said. The overture came after last month's Ramadan meeting of government representatives, former Taliban leaders and Saudi King Abdullah in Mecca.
Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain's top military officer in Afghanistan, told a British newspaper, "We're not going to win this war," and that at best NATO troops could only hope for is to reduce it "to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat." British Ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles reportedly said in a leaked diplomatic briefing the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan "is doomed to fail."
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates this month said the Bush administration now believes the only way to win the Afghan war is "through political means."
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Clashes in Pakistani tribal regions kill 51
By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 13, 1:08 PM ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Clashes between Taliban militants and pro-government forces killed 51 people as fighting spread across Pakistan's volatile northwest tribal regions along the Afghan border, officials said Monday.
The army media center in the restive Swat valley said security forces traded fire with insurgents the whole day in the area. The clashes killed 25 militants and two members of the security forces.
Security forces fired mortar and artillery rounds at militants in the Charmang area of the Bajur region overnight, killing nine insurgents, government official Jamil Khan said. On Monday, pro-government tribesmen exchanged fire with militants in the Nawa and Kotkai areas of Bajur, tribal elder Nazi Jan said. Thirteen militants and two pro-government tribesmen were killed, he and Khan said.
A government offensive in Bajur that began in early August has left some 1,000 people dead. It was launched as the U.S. pressured the government to crack down on militants in the restive border region where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
Pakistan's military operations have drawn praise from U.S. officials worried about the escalating insurgency in Afghanistan. Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are blamed for using the tribal regions in Pakistan as a staging ground for attacks across the border in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's secular, pro-Western government says it is trying to forge a national consensus on how to combat terrorism. However, many Pakistanis blame the violence on their country's support for U.S. policy in its pursuit of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the country's most powerful opposition leader, called Sunday for dialogue with militants, citing the example of the Northern Ireland peace process.
The government says it will negotiate only with groups that renounce violence.
___
Associated Press writer Habib Khan in Khar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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As Afghanistan Slides, Chance of a Taliban Deal Increases
By ARYN BAKER / KABUL time.com Mon Oct 13, 9:35 AM ET
As the world's finance ministers wring their hands over the global financial crisis, a quieter multi-lingual chorus of dismay is emanating from the military compounds and foreign offices of one of the planet's most powerful nations. Afghanistan, NATO's first post-cold-war, non-European experiment and the U.N.'s most significant mission to date, has been termed a failure, leading many decision makers to contemplate the unthinkable: negotiations with the very Taliban leadership that was defeated in 2001. The only problem is, negotiations are unlikely to be successful, and reliance on such stopgap solutions may only make things worse.
Among top military and diplomatic strategists, the failure of the current approach in Afghanistan has been accepted as inevitable. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain's top military officer in Afghanistan, has said, "We're not going to win this war." At best, he says international troops can hope to reduce it "to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat." U.K. ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, in a leaked diplomatic briefing with the French deputy ambassador, is said to have described the current situation in Afghanistan as "bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the government [of President Hamid Karzai] has lost all trust." The American strategy, he said, "is doomed to fail."
While the U.K. foreign office disputes the veracity of the briefing, the sentiments are echoed in diplomatic circles across Kabul and have even found traction in the United States, which has long persisted in regarding Afghanistan as the "good war." Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told reporters last week that "the trends across the board are not going in the right direction," and in a year where violence has reached its worst levels since the U.S. invasion of the country in 2001, voiced concerns that the next year in Afghanistan would be even worse. His fears echo a nearly completed US National Intelligence Assessment that has described a "downward spiral" in Afghanistan unless major improvements are immediately implemented. Meanwhile the Bush administration has launched a major review of its Afghanistan policy just as new ground-based intelligence indicates that this winter may not yield the expected lull in fighting that would have allowed a deployment of extra troops to wait until the spring. U.S. and Afghan forces patrolling the eastern border near Pakistan have uncovered caches of cold-weather gear and weapons in areas that are usually closed off during winter snows.
The Impossibility of Winning
In June, Dan McNeil, the outgoing NATO commander in Afghanistan, estimated that it would take some 400,000 troops to win the war. Currently, the total allied force stands at just over 70,000, with an additional 60,000 poorly equipped Afghan troops in various states of training. McNeil's replacement, U.S. General David McKiernan has appealed to the White House for 15,000 more U.S. troops "as quickly as possible," but has been promised less than half that number by spring of next year. More troops are unlikely to be forthcoming until the U.S. starts pulling out of Iraq. In the meantime, McKiernan has cautioned reporters, Afghanistan "might get worse before it gets better."
With the global financial situation spiraling out of control, countries are even less likely to contribute troops and treasure to a war that seems, on its face, less threatening to the West by the day. Al Qaeda has so far failed to replicate the devastating attacks of 9/11, and low intensity efforts to keep Osama bin Laden on the run appear to have been effective. With the ebbing of public support for the war, and with casualties and costs reaching record levels, world leaders and military commanders are now clutching for solutions and exits, including possible power-sharing deals with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents. Kai Eide, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan said on October 6th "If you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are relevant. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reiterated the new philosophy a day later, telling a press conference that the only way to win the war was "through political means."
President Karzai seems to be moving in the same direction. Last week he appealed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace and offered to talk. And in September, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, representatives of Karzai's government sat with former Taliban leaders and the Saudi King Abdullah in Mecca for a discussion of Afghanistan's problems over a sunset feast of more than 100 dishes. Both Karzai's government and Afghanistan's current Taliban leadership deny that any negotiations took place. But one of the attendees, Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former representative of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Pakistan before its overthrow in 2001, characterized the meeting to TIME as "a consultation about the future of Afghanistan, about stability, about peace and what we can do to bring it to our country."
The Plausibility of a Taliban Pact
Reconciliation with the opposition is an inevitable part of the end of any war, and no leader, military or otherwise, has ever said that total military victory is the only path to a stable Afghanistan. But the sudden courting of Taliban leaders appears to be more an act of desperation than strategy.
The problem with any potential Taliban agreement lies in incentives. Chaos in Afghanistan has always played to the Taliban's advantage, which makes the notion that its leaders could be seduced by promises of stability myopic. Besides, Zaeef, who is no longer a member of the Taliban leadership, but still adheres to the Taliban philosophy, says that the Taliban are not fighting for power, but for ideology. "Until the Americans and other foreigners leave, this war is not for share in the government, but a war of obligation, a holy jihad."
Taliban spokesman Zaibullah Mujahid, takes it a step further, telling TIME by telephone that, "No one from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the name of the country under the Taliban leadership from 1996-2001] is ready to negotiate with this government. The conditions that the government and the Americans offer is that the Taliban accept the constitution and the presence of American and other foreign troops in Afghanistan. Our condition would be the withdrawal of all foreign troops and without that we are not ready to negotiate."
While the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda has frayed over the years, bin Laden's group is still a principal financial supporter, and as such would have input on major decisions that the Taliban make. Needless to say, it will be impossible for any negotiations to take place unless the Taliban renounce all ties to the terrorist group. That's an unlikely scenario, says Zaeef. "I am not sure the Taliban will say to al Qaeda, 'leave the country and don't support us,' because there is no one else funding the Taliban, so there is no way they would beak with their key supporters."
Disaffection Inside the Taliban
Even if Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Karzai were able to overcome their glaring differences to hammer out a power sharing agreement, the real question would be: how much power could Mullah Omar actually wield?
While he does hold sway over a large mass of the former Taliban command structure, which has largely taken refuge in Pakistan's lawless mountain sanctuaries, the bulk of what is currently known as the Taliban currently in Afghanistan is made up of disaffected and alienated bands of Pashtun tribesman who have been leveraged out of their traditional power bases and are disillusioned by the increasingly corrupt and ineffective government in Kabul. The only point that these groups - some of which are made up of opportunistic criminals, narcotics kingpins and smugglers - can agree on is that they are against the Afghan government.
Any true reconciliation would have to include these groups, as well as the Taliban leadership, and that is an almost inconceivable task. "The West tends to imagine a rather more coherent organization than the Taliban really is," says Joanna Nathan, Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group. "They imagine there is a single element of control over a wider organization. This view that it is somehow going to be Mullah Omar sitting at one end of the table while President Karzai sits at the other as they sign a power sharing agreement and we can all go home - that is a fantasy."
A better strategy might be to cut at the roots of this dissatisfaction with the central government. The Taliban has capitalized on widespread disillusion with corrupt, centrally appointed officials to recruit to its cause. Few Afghans feel that they have an adequate outlet for settling grievances, such as land disputes, so they are more likely to turn to Taliban courts that have sprung up in government vacuums. Real reconciliation, says Nathan, should be taking place at the grassroots, with Afghans who have become alienated from the government. If they can be persuaded that the government is looking after their needs, they are less likely to support the Taliban.
This approach would also be much more palatable for Afghans from the largely non-Pashtun north who bitterly fought Taliban rule during the civil war, and are more likely to launch another war than submit to a Taliban-led government. The Taliban today operate in virtually every Afghan province, and in several places has been able to create a parallel system of government, but the Taliban do not have the support of a majority of Afghans. Most still vividly remember the deprivations of Taliban rule, and if given the choice would prefer their current situation to that of eight years ago. The international community has already wasted seven years and billions of dollars in failed attempts to reverse the depredations of Taliban rule; a far better solution to their resurgence would be correcting the mistakes of the past and delivering, for once, on international promises of democracy and development.
- With reporting by Ali Safi in Kabul
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Japan opposition wants bigger global security role
by Kyoko Hasegawa Mon Oct 13, 1:42 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan would play a more active role in global security if the opposition wins upcoming elections and would also seek better diplomacy to bring peace to Afghanistan, the shadow defence minister said.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been gaining ground in opinion polls, raising the prospect of the fall of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party which has ruled for all but 10 months since 1955.
Keiichi Asao, the defence minister in the Democrats' shadow cabinet, said he would maintain support for the United States -- which stations more than 40,000 troops in officially pacifist Japan -- but with a different attitude.
"The DPJ regards the the Japan-US alliance as very important," Asao told AFP in an interview.
"But we think that Japan should say what it needs to say to the United States. In return, we will be involved at the frontlines in UN activities.
"Our use of force will need to be endorsed not only by the United States but also by the international community as a whole, namely the United Nations," he added.
Japan has long pushed for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council to bolster its influence in global affairs. A previous bid to join flopped due to strong opposition by China, the only Asian nation in the elite club.
At 44, Asao is young for a Japanese politician. A former banker, he earned a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University in California.
Asao called for a new way of thinking about the Taliban, which is waging a bloody insurgency against Afghan leaders and foreign troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
"Theoretically we could join ISAF, but the party has not concluded on joining it because we don't think ISAF is contributing to building peace in Afghanistan," Asao said.
He called for a greater focus on diplomacy, saying it was a mistake to view the Taliban as simply the extremist regime ousted in the US-led war after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"What's important in improving the Afghan situation is to offer diplomatic support to talks between President Hamid Karzai's government and the Taliban," Asao said. "We don't think of the Taliban as a monolithic group."
Karzai has called the Taliban to the negotiating table to end the violence on condition they accept his government's constitution and are not involved with Al-Qaeda.
Japan is one of the largest donors to Afghanistan, pledging 1.24 billion dollars since the fall of the Taliban.
Japan was barred from using force under the constitution imposed by US occupiers after World War II. But leaders from the ruling party have pushed for the country to play a larger role in international security.
Most controversially, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi sent troops on a non-combat humanitarian mission to Iraq, the first time since 1945 that Japan has deployed forces to a country where fighting is underway.
The DPJ strongly opposed the Iraq war and the Japanese mission to the country.
After taking power of one house of parliament last year, the opposition also briefly forced a halt to a separate naval mission in the Indian Ocean providing fuel and other logistical support to the US-led "war on terror" in Afghanistan.
The opposition will let the bill pass through parliament this time in hopes of pressuring Prime Minister Taro Aso -- who listed renewing mission and reviving the ailing economy as top priorities -- to call an election quickly.
Shadow prime minister Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ chief and a veteran political strategist, argued that the Indian Ocean naval mission amounted to Japan taking part in "American wars."
But Ozawa proposed last year sending troops into ISAF.
While certainly more dangerous than refuelling at sea, Ozawa argued ISAF was different as the mission was backed by a UN resolution.
The proposal was put on the backburner after criticism both within and outside the DPJ.
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Women in Afghanistan 7 years after the fall of the Taliban
Source: CARE / October 13, 2008
"It is shameful for us Afghans to allow our sister or daughter to go to school" was the response that "Nasrin" (15) got from her brother when she wanted to pursue her studies.
Kabul, October 2008 - The 15 year old (we call her "Nasrin" because, as many other Afghan women, she did not want to tell us her real name) was told to quit school when she started the fifth grade. Nasrin went to her mother for assistance, but was turned down. "You should accept what your brother says. I cannot do anything about it", was the response from her mother. In many areas of Afghanistan, girls are often taken out of school when they hit puberty.
Cultural factors related to the "correctness" of sending girls to school, reluctance to send girls and boys to the same school after 3rd grade, as well as the perceived and real security threats related to girls walking to school and attending classes all contribute to slowing down the enrollment of girls in schools. Likewise, the enormous lack of female teachers, who are fundamental in a country where girls cannot be taught by a man after a certain age, is having a negative impact on girls' education.
While progress has been made since the fall of the Taliban, women are still struggling to see their rights fulfilled. Literacy rates among young afghan women are disturbingly low: only 18% of women between 15 and 24 can read. While the total number of children enrolled in primary schools is increasing tremendously, the percentage of female students is not.
Female members of families get less and poorer quality food than male members, they lose out on heritance and are approximately three times less economically well off than men. Seven years after the end of the Taliban regime, most women in rural Afghanistan are still cut of from participating actively in society. In the cities they are a bit freer, but the streets of the capital Kabul are still dominated by the light blue burkas.
14 year-old Razia is in grade seven and is worried about the future. "My mother is in the hospital and I am afraid that if my mother dies, my uncle will not allow me and my sister to continue our education", she says. Her uncle is worried about the rumors in the village. "People talk about the girls going to school. They say it is a shame that they go", she says.
Women have traditionally been considered part of the private sphere and their mobility is restricted by the family. In rural areas, women are not allowed to leave the house. Women's lack of freedom of movement is a major obstacle to women's full participation in the Afghan society. Swimming pools in Kabul are for men only and parks and open areas are largely reserved for men. "I really love to go on picnics during the holidays, but my father does not allow me to go", a 13 year-old girl tells me. "He is worried about the security and says that there is no place where women can go for picnic", she continues. "I really wish that one day I could everywhere I wanted without any risks", she concludes.
CARE is working to improve the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan. Currently, 17,138 students (70 per cent girls) are beneficiaries of CARE's community based education activities throughout Afghanistan. CARE is also providing vulnerable women, who are the main bread winners of their families, and their family members with income opportunities through vocational training and livestock projects.
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UAE Firms to Invest $4bln in Construction in Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Kabul, 13 October / Trend News corr. A.Hakimi / The United Arab Emirates (UAE) sponsors construction of a new city in Kabul, an Afghan province.
Companies of the UAE invest $4bln in construction of the new city in Kabul province of Afghanistan. Officials of the UAE Government flew to Kabul on 12 October with 16-member delegation to seek opportunities of investment in this country.
The UAE Government invests $200mln in construction.
“Relations between Afghanistan and the UAE were always good. We seek to create conditions for their further expansion. The United Arab Emirates wants to assist our country,” Farid Zikirya, the Afghan Ambassador to the UAE, said.
Private sector of the UAE invests $4bln in construction, development of agriculture and design of mineral resources of the country, officials of the Afghan Investment Support Association said.
“Karzai’s visit abroad and the current opportunities for investment are basic reasons of the Arabic traders’ concentration on investment in different fields of Afghanistan’s economy. We are trying to expand relations with our investors,” Omar Zaheval, President Karzai’s advisor for economic issues, said.
So far, the UAE has invested $300mln in communication field of Afghanistan.
“We are two Muslim states and should cooperate to strengthen our business relations in the current economic condition. I hope for positive development of our relations,” Muhammad Mubarak Almazroi, a lawyer of the UAE crown prince, said.
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Abbott 'supports maternal and child health in Afghanistan'
Hays Pharma (UK) / 13 Oct 2008
Abbott has said it is committing $2.5 million (£1.4 million) to the improvement of maternal and child health in Afghanistan.
The company stated its donation would take the form of funding and products in the country over the next year as part of its partnership with Direct Relief International and the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL).
It will provide health education and midwife training, it added, as part of its aim to tackle mortality rates among infants and their mothers.
Katherine Pickus, senior director of global citizenship and policy at Abbott, said: "With only 14 per cent of births attended by a skilled healthcare worker, Afghanistan has the second-highest maternal mortality ratio in the world."
Sakena Yacoobi, executive director of AIL, added: "Our goal is to build a foundation for quality education and health for years to come."
Meanwhile, Abbott has opened a new research facility in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
The company has said it will be used to test the large-scale production of new drug formulations as well as being used to research new technologies.
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Big fish among the Afghan warlords
Sara A. Carter The Washington Times October 12, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum watched an emperor angelfish swim back and forth in a large tank, competing with other brightly colored fish for a few flakes of feed drifting in the saltwater.
"Do you like my fish?" the general asked. "If I introduce new fish to the tank, the others attack it, kill it and sometimes bite out their eyes."
It is a simple matter of "territory and survival," the burly Uzbek explained, his bellowing laughter bouncing off the marble floors of the foyer in his heavily guarded estate in Kabul.
Seven years after the overthrow of the Taliban, the Bush administration is struggling to come up with a new strategy to salvage Afghanistan. In that effort, Gen. Dostum and the nation's 14 other warlords are a mixed blessing. Often corrupt and clinging to 14th-century notions of justice, they are an integral part of Afghanistan's past and present and are likely to remain so in the future.
Allied forces often rely on the warlords' information and mastery of the tribal system to combat a growing Taliban insurgency. At the same time, they fear that the warlords' resurgence could doom efforts to democratize the Muslim nation of 32 million and drag Afghanistan back into all-out civil war.
Afghan President Hamid "Karzai is weak so he indulges the warlords," said Peter Tomsen, the U.S. special envoy to Afghan resistance fighters during their war against Soviet occupation two decades ago.
Many of the major warlords, including Gen. Dostum and Ismail Khan, an Iran-backed leader in western Afghanistan, have been given government jobs by Mr. Karzai in an effort to cement their allegiance.
In 2004, Mr. Karzai appointed Gen. Dostum commander in chief of the Afghan Army but had to remove him seven months ago after the general kidnapped and beat a former election manager, Akbar Bai, whom the general believed was planning to kill him. Gen. Dostum remains a member of parliament representing his Jumbesh-i-Milli Islami (Islamic National Party), which is based in the northern province of Jowzjan
Violent behavior is hardly out of character for Gen. Dostum. The quintessential warlord provided crucial help as part of a U.S.-backed Northern Alliance that toppled the Taliban in 2001, but his militia has also been accused of murdering thousands of people — charges that have not been verified.
Mr. Tomsen said that the CIA made "some cardinal errors when we went into Afghanistan by passing out millions and millions of dollars to Dostum" and other warlords without comprehending the ramifications.
"He certainly should be sidelined and if he leaves the country we'll see greater success in reaching the people," Mr. Tomsen said. He said the Uzbek warlord's "Jowzjan militia" had "raped young girls in front of their families and killed thousands upon thousands of people."
In a recent interview with The Washington Times, Gen. Dostum claimed he had been the victim — not the perpetrator — of such crimes.
He confirmed that former members of the Northern Alliance are rearming, fearing that U.S.-led forces will not be able to stop the Taliban.
"I convey my preparedness to root out Taliban and al Qaeda, and I am waiting for action by the international community, otherwise opportunities are wasted and our country will see war on a larger scale," he said.
He said that even if the international community fails to defeat the Taliban, the "Afghan people will continue to fight for freedom."
Training in the old Soviet Union
The warlords emerged in the late 1970s at the end of King Mohammed Zahir Shah's 40-year reign, said Barnett Rubin, an Afghan expert at New York University. They grew in strength as they gained support from outside powers, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, India and Pakistan, in the free-for-all that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
Gen. Dostum, 54, is now a millionaire who owns Aiena Television, a local station based in his Kabul compound.
Born into poverty in the town of Khvajeh Do Kuh in Jowzjan province, he went to the former Soviet Union for military studies. He returned to Afghanistan in the mid-1970s and took a job as a foreman in the state-controlled oil fields in his home province.
He rose to power after the Soviet invasion in 1979, forming a militia made up mainly of Uzbeks, who had grown to respect his leadership supporting union workers in the oil fields. He supported the communist-run government in Kabul until 1992, when he flip-flopped and joined his former opponent Ahmad Shah Massoud. Mr. Massoud, known as the "Panshjer Lion" and head of the Northern Alliance, convinced Gen. Dostum that the communists were losing ground and that he should fight for the winning side.
"Massoud gave him two options: join or die," said a former leader of the alliance who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. "His decision to join with the Northern fighters was a turning point in the war against the communists, which eventually ended in their failure to gain control of Afghanistan," the former leader said. "He was not a communist but an opportunist, and that is how he has survived. He shouldn't be trusted, but he is a part of history that can't be ignored."
In 1994, Gen. Dostum again switched sides, joining Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a mujahadeen accused of fighting his own people more than the Soviets and who is now wanted by the U.S. for supporting al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mr. Hekmatyar also spent time in Iran and recently sent supporters to meet with Saudi King Abdullah.
Gen. Dostum's decision to join Mr. Hekmatyar was a major factor in the collapse of a government led by Burhanuddin Rabbani and Mr. Massoud. Yet, less than two years later, Gen. Dostum switched again, realigning with Mr. Rabbani and Ismail Khan, the warlord from Herat, to fight the ascendant Taliban regime. However, Gen. Dostum was betrayed by one of his own commanders, who sided with the Taliban. The general fled to Turkey in fear for his life.
Gen. Dostum returned in April 2001 at the urging ofMr. Massoud and reconstituted his militia to attack the Taliban in the north. Two days before the 9/11 attacks in the United States, al Qaeda suicide bombers posing as reporters killed Mr. Massoud
"I have played my role in decisive historical moments for liberty and independence of Afghanistan," Gen. Dostum said.
"During the internal crisis ... and during the Mujaheddin's government I gave refuge [in the Northern provinces and Uzbekistan]to thousands of intellectuals, experts, artists and cultural activists," he said.
During the mid-1990s, however, his militiamen — who were given lots of vodka before battles — killed many people and pillaged the capital, said a Kabul resident who gave his first name, Mohammed and is a former actor in "Bollywood"-style films produced in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and subsequent communist rule.
"Now all the former Afghan communist members or even those who worked for the communists are paupers," Mohammed said, pointing to an elderly man in front of a carpet shop on Chicken Street, a famous antique shopping district in Kabul.
"He used to be a commander in the military, now he has nothing," Mohammed said. "People like Dostum figured out how to survive the changes, this man didn't."
Although Gen. Dostum's enemies are legion and Mr. Karzai has called for his arrest, the Uzbek's support in the northern provinces has kept almost everyone at bay, Mr. Tomsen said.
At a time when southern and eastern Afghanistan are increasingly threatened by the Taliban, Mr. Karzai "worries that arresting Dostum could destabilize the relatively stable northern provinces," Mr. Tomsen said.
Defense Department officials are ambivalent about the man who helped the U.S. achieve victory in 2001.
The United States is not in a position to charge "Gen. Dostum for any of his alleged past offenses, that is only for the Afghan government, if they so choose," said a Defense official in Afghanistan who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the nature of his work.
"It's truly amazing how he has overcome death so many times," said another Defense official, working in Afghanistan, who also asked not to be named. "It's still hard to believe he's been able to keep himself alive. He's like a chess player and knows his enemies inside and out. Whether he's a criminal, well that depends on who you speak with. Everyone in Afghanistan has to do things against their nature to survive, particularly the tribal leaders and warlords — that changes a man."
Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, who also served in Iraq, warned recently that Afghanistan's tribal society "is far more complex than Iraq" and will require a "sustained commitment of a variety of military and nonmilitary resources" for the U.S.-backed government to prevail.
"People generally do not feel secure, do not have freedom of movement," he told reporters in Washington on Oct. 1.
Gen. McKiernan has requested more troops and equipment to augment the 33,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan, while stressing that the war will not be won through military force alone. Also required, he said, is a political system that gives voice to all ethnic groups and tribes in the nation.
Many of the ethnic groups that helped overthrow the Taliban have been marginalized by an administration headed by the Pashtun president, said Saleh Mohammad Registani, a member of the National Front Party and the only parliamentary representative from the Panshjer Valley, who once supported Mr. Karzai and is now in opposition.
"We do not trust the administration or Karzai," Mr. Registani said during a recent interview at his home office in Kabul. "People are frustrated, angry and preparing for what they see as a failing government and an international effort that is not winning against the Taliban."
Scars of war
The aroma of cooked lamb filled the general's dining room in the late evening. Itwas Uzbek pulao, rice cooked in seasoned broth with lamb, onions and carrots, the warlord's favorite dish. Surrounded by close friends, the beefy leader held out his hand.
"Go on, feel my palm," he said. Under the rough skin were fragments of shrapnel. He said he has more shrapnel in his arms and legs.
Gen. Dostum narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in 2005. He has been shot numerous times and barely escaped death by bombings.
His reputation as an ally of the U.S. was solidified in November 2001, when he led a militia of 2,000 men on horseback to liberate the city of Mazar-e-Sharif from the Taliban. It was a joint effort with U.S. Special Forces, who aided in the capture of Kabul less than a month later.
The operation made international headlines when a CIA officer, "Johnny" Michael Spann, became the first U.S. combat fatality in the country.
Mr. Spann, a member of the CIA's paramilitary Special Activities Division, was killed during a prison uprising in the town of Qala-i-Jangi, near Mazar-e-Sharif.
Gen. Dostum later invited members of Mr. Spann's family to Afghanistan to the Qala Jangi fortress, called the "Pink House," where the 32-year-old officer was killed. The Uzbek general erected a memorial in honor of the CIA agent and "it was a very humbling moment for everyone, including Gen. Dostum," said a U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be named due to the nature of his work.
The general's prison also made headlines when an American, John Walker Lindh, a student from Northern California who converted to Islam, was discovered among the hordes of Taliban prisoners captured by Gen. Dostum's militia and U.S. Special Forces.
The 19th-century fort is currently guarded by Afghan army troops. Children too young to remember the battle of 2001 now play in the shadows of its ancient walls
Without Gen. Dostum's help in 2001, "I'm not sure where we'd be," said a U.S. Defense official, who was involved in the campaign to defeat the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.
"He helped the U.S. enormously in pushing out the Taliban from the north," the official said, speaking on condition that he not be named. "He has his own bad reputation, but as a survivor, warrior, it's hard to find anyone like him."
Pictures of Gen. Dostum alongside U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the Afghanistan operation in 2001, line a mantle top in the warlord's office.
"Tommy Franks is my friend," Gen. Dostum said. "He is a great warrior. He is a man who understood how to win a war. There are few men who are great warriors today. Many don't know how to win a war — they will not survive."
Gen. Dostum said he has also met Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"I admire women in authority," Gen. Dostum said. "I am not like the Taliban."
In early July, he met with White House officials but would not disclose which ones. They asked for advice about the war, Gen. Dostum said, but "after they left I didn't hear from them again."
The general said he was asked to help a "White House delegation" develop a road map to winning the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda. The general has also met with top level NATO and International Security Assistance Force officials, he said.
He shared his thoughts and plans, which included creating an Afghan militia to fight the militants alongside international forces on the border of Pakistan, although he only gave limited details to The Times.
He asked that the advice be conveyed to "senior officials." However, he has been disappointed because they took his information and have not "responded," he said
"I have repeatedly warned the government and international community about the growing danger of Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency," he said. "Unfortunately, all those suggestions were overlooked for unknown reasons and no practical step has been taken."
The general's long green chapan, a traditional Afghan robe worn by northerners, blew backward as he strode swiftly past members of his Islamic National Party who were waiting to speak with him at his home.
In that moment, the warrior resembled a medieval painting, not a 21st-century member of parliament.
As the call to prayer wafted into his home by the warm wind in Kabul, the general retreated to his office, grabbed a beautiful old woven rug, knelt down in the direction of Mecca and prayed.
The arms bazaar
Haji Sher, a trusted friend of the general, pushed his way through the crowds of people in Kabul's central bazaar.
Two men fighting near an open shophit each other with such force that blood sprayed on bystanders caught in the commotion.
Haji Sher didn't stop. He kept walking along the bumpy dirt passages, pointing to different areas he frequents in the historic district. He finally made his way through a small dirt tunnel, where large Afghan fighting dogs, chained to posts, were being fed scraps of raw meat.
"To understand Afghanistan you have to go to the places the majority of the poor go to," he said. "The bazaar is Afghanistan."
In one of the shops, only miles from the ISAF headquarters of Gen. McKiernan, a middle-aged man was selling hundreds of AK-47s.
"You can buy almost anything on the street," Haji Sher said laughing, as the proprietor pulled an old Kalashnikov off the shelf and handed it to him.
Gen. Dostum, however, cannot leave the confines of his home and spends most of his days and nights working from his office in the diplomatic district of the capital.
He does not leave the mansion for fear of being killed or taken into custody by police.
He speaks of his situation as a sort of "house arrest" perpetrated by a corrupt government that does not accept opposition.
His boisterous laugh, hospitality and contagious smile can be deceiving. He is calculating, manipulative, good to his friends and ruthless to his enemies.
Good or bad, he is a survivor. It is the one truth both his enemies and friends can agree on.
As Haji Sher left the bazaar, sweet smelling smoke from a tin can being carried by a young beggar wafted through the rolled down windows of his car.
"It is a special grass burning to scare away the gin, evil spirits," Haji Sher said. "It really hasn't done much good in Afghanistan because our country has suffered more evil than can be imagined and has made even good men do terrible things."
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Afghanistan's best hope is for controlled warlordism
The Guardian Max Hastings Monday October 13 2008
The Taliban are losing the battles but winning the war. The prognosis is wretched, yet we must sustain military aid
While most of the world spent the weekend trembling for its wealth, in Afghanistan the Taliban busied themselves dying in quite large numbers, during an ill-advised assault on Helmand's provincial capital, Lashkar Gar. Around 50 insurgents were killed, for no loss to Nato and Afghan security forces.
This fits the war's pattern. Almost every time the Taliban fights a battle, it loses to overwhelming firepower. Unfortunately, such western successes are strategically meaningless. Nato is absent from vast areas of this intractable country, where the insurgents prosper. There is greater gloom about the conflict than at any time since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.
I spent a week in Afghanistan in September, and was shocked by the deterioration since my last visit two years ago. The British army, which justly prides itself on its "can-do" philosophy, has been sobered by recent experience. Its casualties are acceptable within a context of progress. But they become dismaying against a background of growing Taliban influence and slumping confidence in the Kabul government.
President Bush has decreed an American troop "surge" in Afghanistan. Some 10,000 additional troops will be committed under General David Petraeus, the Iraq "miracle worker" who now runs US Central Command.
Petraeus, the most impressive soldier America has produced since Colin Powell, is a clever and charismatic leader who might one day emerge as a presidential candidate. But he is well aware that Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is a far more primitive society, whose people find it hard to perceive the merits of any central government - least of all one as corrupt as President Hamid Karzai's - and which is now trapped in a narco-economy.
It is almost impossible for westerners, military and civilian alike, to engage with Afghans. Almost none speak the language. It is only possible to travel outside heavily fortified bases in helicopters or armoured vehicles. Afghan gratitude for the creation of a few schools and hospitals is outweighed by the simple fact that, in a diplomat's words: "Seven years ago most of the population felt safe. Now they don't."
He added brutally: "The British army has been irresponsible in suggesting that it could do the business in Helmand. We should never have taken it on. It's much more than we can handle."
The only bright spot in an overwhelmingly dark picture is the growing effectiveness of the Afghan army. Its troops are fighting well, as Afghans usually do, whoever they happen to be shooting at. Smart westerners argue that we should abandon any notion that Nato can win this war with its own troops, instead concentrating on helping Afghans to defend their own government - if they are willing.
The Kabul regime is pitifully short of credible people to run the country. I met Barna Karimi, the deputy local government minister, a 34-year-old former exile who spent 17 years in California before returning here to work for Karzai. Unsurprisingly, he talks the language of US business schools: "We have developed a strategic framework," he says. "We are constantly evaluating the performance of our governors and district governors. We have formulated a social outreach programme which revives the traditional role of the community. You guys" - he means westerners, of course - "don't have the problem of lacking a system. I am trying to create a system without qualified people."
Listening to this fluent but unmistakably Californian young social engineer, parachuted into Afghanistan from an unimaginably alien culture, I found it impossible to believe that Afghans relate to him as one of themselves.
The newish governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, is much more convincing. He is 52 years old and a former commissar in the Afghan army in Russian times; he was a businessman and ruler of two other provinces before he was transferred to Helmand during the summer. The British are much in love with Mangal, whom they perceive as one of the country's only honest and able officials. Their enthusiasm is dangerous, however. It feeds Karzai's morbid suspicions of him as a prospective rival.
When I told Mangal how much his efforts are admired, he said wryly: "Nobody in Kabul seems to appreciate them." He acknowledges that more than half of Helmand is today under Taliban control. "When government can't deliver," he said, "people think it better to have no government. We need to convince people that we are working for them. If we cannot do that, it would be better to go."
I found it easy to understand why foreigners are so impressed by Mangal's poise and courage. There are few people in Afghanistan whom more people want to kill. Every time he goes out to walk in a bazaar, there is a real chance that he will come back dead.
The British are desperately impatient for the impending US change of government. They believe that an Obama presidency will recognise the impossibility of military solutions in Afghanistan. It might throw its weight behind finding a substitute for Karzai and talking a way out of this shambles.
On these pages Simon Jenkins has said from the outset that the Afghan war is unwinnable. I have always shared his dismay about western blundering. Yet it seems to me that we must keep trying, though the odds against success are greater than ever. It is futile to escalate the Nato troop commitment. The only slender chance of stabilising Afghanistan lies in sustaining military and economic aid for Afghans to help themselves.
The highest aspiration must be for controlled warlordism, not conventional democracy. A civil war may prove an essential preliminary before some crude equilibrium between factions can be achieved. If this sounds a wretched prognosis, it is hard to find informed westerners with higher expectations.
comment@guardian.co.uk
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Facing Reality in Afghanistan: Talking with the Taliban
By Aryn Baker / Kabul time.com Monday, Oct. 13, 2008
As the world's finance ministers wring their hands over the global financial crisis, a quieter multilingual chorus of dismay is emanating from the military compounds and foreign offices of one of the planet's most powerful nations. Afghanistan, NATO's first post[EN]Cold War, non-European experiment and the U.N.'s most significant mission to date, has been termed a failure, leading many decision makers to contemplate the unthinkable: negotiations with the very same Taliban leadership that was defeated in 2001. The only problem is, negotiations are unlikely to be successful, and reliance on such stopgap solutions may only make things worse.
Among top military and diplomatic strategists, the failure of the current approach in Afghanistan has been accepted as inevitable. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain's top military officer in Afghanistan, has said, "We're not going to win this war." At best, he says, international troops can hope to reduce it "to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat." U.K. ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, in a leaked diplomatic briefing with the French deputy ambassador, is said to have described the current situation in Afghanistan as "bad; the security situation is getting worse — so is corruption — and the government [of President Hamid Karzai] has lost all trust." The American strategy, he said, "is doomed to fail."
While the U.K. foreign office disputes the veracity of the briefing, the sentiments are echoed in diplomatic circles across Kabul and have even found traction in the U.S., which has long persisted in regarding Afghanistan as the "good war." Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told reporters last week that "the trends across the board are not going in the right direction," and in a year in which violence has reached its worst levels since the U.S. invasion of the country in 2001, he voiced concerns that next year in Afghanistan could be even worse. His fears echo a nearly completed U.S. National Intelligence Assessment that has described a "downward spiral" in Afghanistan unless major improvements are immediately implemented. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has launched a major review of its Afghanistan policy just as new ground-based intelligence indicates that this winter may not yield the expected lull in fighting that would have allowed a deployment of extra troops to wait until the spring. U.S. and Afghan forces patrolling the eastern border near Pakistan have uncovered caches of cold-weather gear and weapons in areas that are usually closed off during winter snows.
The Impossibility of Winning
In June, Dan McNeil, the outgoing NATO commander in Afghanistan, estimated that it would take some 400,000 troops to win the war. Currently, the total allied force stands at just over 70,000, with an additional 60,000 poorly equipped Afghan troops in various states of training. McNeil's replacement, U.S. General David McKiernan, has appealed to the White House for 15,000 more U.S. troops "as quickly as possible" but has been promised less than half that number by spring of next year. More troops are unlikely to be forthcoming until the U.S. starts pulling out of Iraq. In the meantime, McKiernan has cautioned reporters that Afghanistan "might get worse before it gets better."
With the global financial situation spiraling out of control, countries are even less likely to contribute troops and treasure to a war that seems, on its face, less threatening to the West by the day. Al-Qaeda has so far failed to replicate the devastating attacks of 9/11, and low-intensity efforts to keep Osama bin Laden on the run appear to have been effective. With the ebbing of public support for the war, and with casualties and costs reaching record levels, world leaders and military commanders are now clutching for solutions and exits, including possible power-sharing deals with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents. Kai Eide, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, said on Oct. 6 that "if you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are relevant." U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reiterated the new philosophy a day later, saying at a press conference that the only way to win the war was "through political means."
President Karzai seems to be moving in the same direction. Last week he appealed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace and offered to talk. And in September, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, representatives of Karzai's government sat with former Taliban leaders and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Mecca to discuss Afghanistan's problems over a sunset feast of more than 100 dishes. Both Karzai's government and Afghanistan's current Taliban leadership deny that any negotiations took place. But one of the attendees, Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former representative of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Pakistan before its overthrow in 2001, characterized the meeting to TIME as a "consultation about the future of Afghanistan, about stability, about peace and what we can do to bring it to our country."
The Plausibility of a Taliban Pact
Reconciliation with the opposition is an inevitable part of the end of any war, and no leader, military or otherwise, has ever said that total military victory is the only path to a stable Afghanistan. But the sudden courting of Taliban leaders appears to be more an act of desperation than strategy.
The problem with any potential Taliban agreement lies in incentives. Chaos in Afghanistan has always played to the Taliban's advantage, which makes the notion that its leaders could be seduced by promises of stability myopic. Besides, Zaeef, who is no longer a member of the Taliban leadership but still adheres to the Taliban philosophy, says the Taliban are not fighting for power but for ideology. "Until the Americans and other foreigners leave, this war is not for share in the government, but a war of obligation, a holy jihad."
Taliban spokesman Zaibullah Mujahid took it a step further, telling TIME by telephone that "no one from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the name of the country under Taliban rule from 1996-2001] is ready to negotiate with this government. The conditions that the government and the Americans offer is that the Taliban accept the constitution and the presence of American and other foreign troops in Afghanistan. Our condition would be the withdrawal of all foreign troops, and without that we are not ready to negotiate."
While the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda has frayed over the years, bin Laden's group is still a principal financial supporter, and as such would have input on major decisions that the Taliban make. Needless to say, it will be impossible for any negotiations to take place unless the Taliban renounce all ties with the terrorist group. That's an unlikely scenario, says Zaeef. "I am not sure the Taliban will say to al-Qaeda, 'Leave the country and don't support us,' because there is no one else funding the Taliban, so there is no way they would beak with their key supporters."
Disaffection Inside the Taliban
Even if Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Karzai were able to overcome their glaring differences to hammer out a power-sharing agreement, the real question would be: How much power could Mullah Omar actually wield?
While he does hold sway over a large mass of the former Taliban command structure, which has largely taken refuge in Pakistan's lawless mountain sanctuaries, the bulk of what is currently known as the Taliban in Afghanistan is made up of disaffected and alienated bands of Pashtun tribesmen who have been leveraged out of their traditional power bases and are disillusioned by the increasingly corrupt and ineffective government in Kabul. The only point that these groups — some of which are made up of opportunistic criminals, narcotics kingpins and smugglers — can agree on is that they are against the Afghan government.
Any true reconciliation would have to include these groups, as well as the Taliban leadership, and that is an almost inconceivable task. "The West tends to imagine a rather more coherent organization than the Taliban really is," says Joanna Nathan, Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group. "They imagine there is a single element of control over a wider organization. This view that it is somehow going to be Mullah Omar sitting at one end of the table while President Karzai sits at the other as they sign a power-sharing agreement and we can all go home — that is a fantasy."
A better strategy might be to cut at the roots of this dissatisfaction with the central government. The Taliban has capitalized on widespread disillusion with corrupt, centrally appointed officials to recruit to its cause. Few Afghans feel that they have an adequate outlet for settling grievances, like land disputes, so they are more likely to turn to Taliban courts that have sprung up in government vacuums. Real reconciliation, says Nathan, should be taking place at the grass roots, with Afghans who have become alienated from the government. If they can be persuaded that the government is looking after their needs, they are less likely to support the Taliban.
This approach would also be much more palatable to Afghans from the largely non-Pashtun north, who bitterly fought Taliban rule during the civil war and are more likely to launch another war than submit to a Taliban-led government. The Taliban today operate in virtually every Afghan province, and in several places they have been able to create a parallel system of government, but they do not have the support of a majority of Afghans. Most still vividly remember the deprivations of Taliban rule, and if given a choice, they would prefer their current situation to that of eight years ago. The international community has already wasted seven years and billions of dollars in failed attempts to reverse the depredations of Taliban rule; a far better solution to the Talibans' resurgence would be correcting the mistakes of the past and delivering, for once, on international promises of democracy and development.
— With reporting by Ali Safi / Kabul
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Red Cross defends supplying aid to Taliban
Canwest News Service Tom Blackwell Monday, October 13, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Help is given to all sides under international humanitarian law
It is no shock that Canadian and Afghan troops found Red Cross medical supplies in a Taliban hideout last week: the organization routinely equips insurgents with bandages, drugs and other first-aid products, a top official of the agency said yesterday.
The International Committee for the Red Cross provides medical help to fighters on all sides of the conflict as part of its humanitarian mandate -- and that includes the "armed opposition," said the Red Cross head of delegation for Afghanistan.
In fact, the group could not do the important work it does -- such as sometimes helping negotiate release of foreign hostages -- if it did not maintain neutrality, said Reto Stocker.
"If you see medical material labelled ICRC (in Taliban possession) ... it is neither surprising nor frightening for us," he said in an interview.
Mr. Stocker dismissed any suggestion the Red Cross is providing support to the wrong side in the war.
"If we had given in to the language of good guys and bad guys, we would have had to leave Afghanistan in the 1980s," he said. "There are no good guys and bad guys in this situation. ... It is much more complex than that.
Soldiers taking part in an operation southwest of Kandahar City unearthed a major cache last Wednesday of weapons, ammunition, IEDs and bomb-making ingredients.
The haul also included products for treating trauma patients, including hundreds of bags of IV fluid, intravenous antibiotics, hypodermic needles and surgical implements, most of it western-made. One Canadian medic said it was enough to treat hundreds of casualties.
The find was a major blow to insurgents, said Col. Roger Barrett, commander of the Canadian battle group in Kandahar. "This is basic stuff they need to do what they're doing," he said in a weekend briefing. "I think it will rattle them quite a bit."
Mr. Stocker said the Red Cross focuses much of its support on hospitals such as one in Kandahar City and requires that the institutions accept insurgents as well as wounded soldiers and police. But it also tries to find ways to bring medical help to victims in rural areas, so injured fighters and others can be stabilized before getting to hospital.
It has first-aid posts throughout the country and works with the Afghan Red Crescent Society. It also provides bandages, antibiotics, painkillers and other medical supplies to representatives of the insurgents and of the Afghan security forces.
Its activities are in line with international treaties that require combatants to care for each other's casualties if captured, said Mr. Stocker.
"There is no such thing as going into a battle and leaving your adversaries wounded in the field," he said. "This is clear in international humanitarian law."
That does not mean, though, that the Red Cross protects insurgents who are treated in its facilities, such as orthopedic clinics for amputees and others, said Mr. Stocker.
"If you are an opposition fighter coming to exchange your prosthesis, we have no objection to the (security service) arresting that person once they are out on the street."
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Foreign female kidnapped in Kabul
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 13 October 2008
Woman thought to be a Canadian journalist kidnapped in capital
A FOREIGN woman has been kidnapped in the capital Kabul, the Interior Ministry says.
The woman, who is thought to be a Candian journalist, was dragged from her car in the Qargha district of the capital on Sunday, ministry spokesman Zalmay Bashari said.
The journalist’s interpreter and four others have been arrested for the kidnapping, Bashari said.
An investigation into the kidnapping is still on-going.
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Western troops root of Afghan turmoil
Press TV (Iran) Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:22:51 GMT
Seven years of western military presence in Afghanistan has led to insecurity, a narcotics production surge and loss of civilian lives but no stability.
“The status quo is deplorable and lamentable in Afghanistan,” Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said in Tehran on Saturday. He made the comment in a meeting with former Afghanistan president Burhanuddin Rabbani..
In reference to the significant role parliaments play in sealing nations' fate and preserving their independence, Larijani expressed the keenness of the Iranian Majlis to maintain and expand parliamentary ties with Afghanistan.
Rabbani, who is the head of the Jama'at Islami Party, noted Iran's support for the Afghan people and appreciated the fact that it has long being a host state for Afghan refugees. The head of Jama'at Islami Party also urged Tehran to assist in the establishment of security and fighting terrorism in the conflict-stricken country.
Rabbani noted the strong public resentment to the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, saying that they marched into the country declaring they were there to "establish security and fight terrorism and drugs" whereas the Afghan people are now witnessing increasing terrorism and a soaring production of narcotics.
He concluded by saying that the only feasible solution to the Afghanistan crisis lies in restoration of unity among all national Afghan forces, as well as establishment of national reconciliation among all tribes irrespective of ethnic, tribal and religious diversities.
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Iraq, Afghanistan occupiers unable to solve problems: Rafsanjani
Tehran, Oct 12, IRNA
Chairman of State Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here Sunday that occupiers of Iraq and Afghanistan are unable to solve the problems which they themselves created.
In a meeting the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, he referred to regional issues, in particular the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the insecurity in Pakistan, and said that the occupiers spread insecurity in the region and now they can do nothing to rein it.
Describing ecological issues as worrying, Hashemi said that global warming and inattention to environment will spell disasters for future generations.
Developed countries has contributed greatly to polluting the environment and should take the initiative to remove it, he said.
Pointing to poverty in the world, particularly in Africa, he further said that dealing with the situation calls for global resolve.
Annan, for his part, said that overcoming global economic crisis will take time.
Confidence building between the people and political and economic decision makers in countries facing the situation will play a crucial role in solving the dilemma, he said.
Global economy is not limited to specific countries, he said, adding that today economic powers are spread out in different parts of the world and global economy has been distributed suitably.
Annan is in Tehran to attend the International Seminar on Religion in New World, which will be held on October 13-14.
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Father-in-law murders newly-wed with axe
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 12 October 2008
Bride murdered after refusing to go home with husband during Eid
A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy has been raped and a newly-wed woman killed with an axe by her father-in-law in the northern province of Samanagan, police and officials say.
The six-year-old, Samiullah, a resident of the provincial capital Aibak was raped by 18-year-old Muhammad Ullah on Friday after the teenager lured Samiullah into his garden with offerings of fruit, the head of the province’s criminal branch, Habib-ul-Rahman Saighani, said.
Saighani said Muhammad Ullah had admitted raping the boy. A doctor in the local hospital confirmed the rape.
In a separate incident in the same city, a man murdered his daughter-in-law with an axe days after she married his son.
Najibullah, the bride’s brother, said the 18-year-old newly wed, Firishta, had visited her father’s home during Eid. When her husband came to collect her, she refused to go home with him.
Firishta’s father-in-law returned with an axe and murdered her in front of her family, Najibullah said.
He said his sister was hit seven times with the axe on the side of her head and on her neck.
The bride’s father-in-law, who is in police custody now, said: "When I wanted to take my daughter-in-law home, she wanted a divorce from my son. I got angry and brought an axe from the bazaar and killed her in front of her mother and brother. I am not sorry for my deed."
The head of the department for women’s affairs in Samangan, Hanifa Ashna, condemned the rape and the murder, urging the government to punish the criminals.
She said crime would only increase if the criminals went unpunished.
Violence against women in the province has risen, with 34 recorded incidents in the first six months of this year compared to 28 for the whole of 2007, Ashan said.
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Alako to investigate corruption in Commerce Ministry
www.quqnoos.com Written by Abdulwali Arian Monday, 13 October 2008
Attorney-general launches investigation into allegations of ministry corruption
THE attorney-general has launched an investigation into alleged corruption in the Ministry of Commerce.
A delegation from the attorney-general’s office will investigate claims of widespread corruption in the ministry’s oil and gas department.
Last week, the minister of commerce, Mohammad Amin Farhang, told a parliamentary commission that the department was corrupt, while MPs also claim that the ministry itself faces a number of problems.
The attorney-general, Mohammad Ishaq Alako, said the results of his investigation would be announced once complete.
Alako came to the post of attorney-general promising to stamp out government corruption.
Alako, who was catapulted into the chief prosecutor’s chair after Karzai forced his predecessor to resign, promised cabinet members and the Afghan people that he would focus on enforcing the law during his time in office.
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