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Official: 34 Taliban killed in Afghan offensive
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan official says 34 Taliban were killed in an operation by Afghan and foreign forces near a key southern Afghan city.
2 German soldiers killed by blast in Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News
KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan official says a suicide bomber in northern Afghanistan has killed two German soldiers and five children.
NATO's political will "wavering" in Afghanistan
LONDON (Reuters) – NATO members are wavering in their political commitment to Afghanistan, one of the alliance's top commanders said on Monday, describing the near seven-year campaign against the Taliban as disjointed.
Iran warns West against talks with Taliban
October 19, 2008
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned the West on Sunday not to push for talks with the Taliban militia which had stormy relations with Tehran when it ruled Afghanistan up to 2001.
Russia worried by Iran urging peace with Afghanistan Talibs
15:41 | 20/ 10/ 2008
TEHRAN, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is worried by tendencies among some political forces in Iran to have Talibs engaged in peace efforts in Afghanistan, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on Monday.
Former Afghan Presidential Candidate Kidnapped In Kabul
KABUL (AFP)--Unknown assailants kidnapped a one-time Afghan presidential candidate and a relative of the late king near his home in the capital Kabul, police said Monday, in the latest in a spate of abductions.
Taliban kill British Christian aid worker in Afghanistan
By Amir Shah, The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban gunmen on a motorbike killed a Christian aid worker in the Afghan capital on Monday, and the militant group said it had targeted the woman because she was proselytizing.
Security developments in Afghanistan
(Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 11:30 a.m. GMT (12:30 p.m. British time) on Monday: Skip related content
* denotes new or updated items.
NATO claims more than 20 Taliban rebels killed in Afghanistan
EARTHtimes.org - Mon Oct 20, 3:01 am EDT
Kabul - NATO forces killed more than 20 suspected Taliban militants during a two-day operation in central Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement Monday. The insurgents were killed in combat
Pak seeks US help to halt infiltration from Afghanistan
Rezaul H Laskar Press Trust of India, India
Islamabad, Oct 19 (PTI) Pakistan today asked the US to help stop the infiltration of militants into its tribal areas from Afghanistan, saying the proceeds of drug trafficking in the neighbouring country is being used to foment terrorism in its territory.
Afghanistan: Italian foreign minister rejects call for extra troops
Islamabad, 20 Oct. (AKI) - On a visit to Pakistan, Italian Foreign Minister,Franco Frattini, announced no extra troops would be sent to war-torn Afghanistan."I do not think sending more troops is the right solution today
Afghanistan: Fighting In A "Hornet's Nest"
CBS News - Oct 19 9:30 PM
(CBS) This past year in Afghanistan was the deadliest yet for American troops. Seven years into this war, U.S. commanders from Kabul to Washington are pleading for more soldiers
An Old Afghanistan Hand Offers Lessons of the Past
By JOHN F. BURNS October 20, 2008 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — It is one of a flow of disarming asides that Russia’s ambassador to Kabul deploys while warning of the grim prospects that he says will doom the American enterprise in Afghanistan
Is it safe again to debate Afghanistan?
Kris Kotarski The Calgary Herald Monday, October 20, 2008
It is no secret that news services and newspapers have pre-written obituaries for major figures in public life. Sometimes, these obituaries get printed by mistake, when an eager editor jumps the gun
Police look for Afghan antiques
Monday, 20 October 2008 09:17 UK BBC News
Volunteers from the art industry are being trained by the Metropolitan Police to spot looted Afghan antiques.
Afghanistan's emerging antiwar movement
By Anand Gopal The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Mon Oct 20, 4:00 am EDT
Kabul, Afghanistan – In a musty room near the edge of town, a group of bearded men sit on the floor and heatedly discuss strategy. The men are in the planning stages of an event that they hope will impact Afghan politics
US eyes a 'grand' Afghan bargain
By Jim Lobe Oct 21, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
WASHINGTON - Increasingly frustrated by the "downward spiral" that the United States intelligence community sees in Afghanistan, the Pentagon appears to be moving towards engaging leaders of the resurgent
David Davis: We are losing Taliban battle
Monday, 20 October 2008 Independent (UK)
In an alarming dispatch from Afghanistan, the Conservative MP reveals the rampant corruption that has infected public life and threatens to destroy Nato's hopes of bringing peace to this traumatised country
Microfinance changing lives of Afghan women but sector has its challenges
The Canadian Press October 19, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Plump and jovial, with a grin running ear to ear, 35-year-old Nasreem operates a successful carpet weaving and embroidery business with the help of her two daughters.
Minister fails to answer corruption allegations
www.quqnoos.com Written by Parwiz Shamal Monday, 20 October 2008
Commerce minister disobeys request to appear before Parliament
Afghanistan seeks early recovery of kidnapped diplomat
Pakistan Dawn, Pakistan By Zulfiqar Ali Oct 19 , 2008
PESHAWAR - The Afghan government has voiced serious concern over the continued disappearance of its missing ambassador-designate Abdul Khaliq Farahi, who was kidnapped from Peshawar on Sept 22. His driver was shot dead.
MPs demand end to Herat protests
www.quqnoos.com Written by M Reza Sher Mohammadi Monday, 20 October 2008
But council says 20,000 workers will strike unless rampant crime is tackled
Police find body of 'raped and shot' teenage girl
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 19 October 2008
Body handed over to parents after police find signs the 16-year-old was raped
Parliament to investigate claims of jail torture
www.quqnoos.com Written by Parwiz Shamal Monday, 20 October 2008
About 170 prisoners sew their mouths shut to protest jail conditions, inmates say
Sierra Leone Beat Afghanistan
PETALING JAYA, Oct 19 (Bernama) -- Sierra Leonne beat Afghanistan 6-1 in a Group A match in the 40th Merdeka Cup football tournament at the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) Stadium here Sunday night.
US hands over helicopters to Interior Ministry
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 19 October 2008
Ministry will use the eight helicopters in its battle against drug smuggling
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Official: 34 Taliban killed in Afghan offensive
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan official says 34 Taliban were killed in an operation by Afghan and foreign forces near a key southern Afghan city.
Daud Ahmadi says the Afghan forces battled the militants south of Lashkar Gah on Sunday evening. Ahmadi is the spokesman for Helmand's governor.
Ahmadi says the authorities recovered a number of weapons, ammunition, motorbikes and other vehicles used by the Taliban. Two policemen were wounded.
Last week, Taliban fighters launched several barrages of rocket and mortar fire into Lashkar Gah, which is the capital of Helmand province.
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2 German soldiers killed by blast in Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News
KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan official says a suicide bomber in northern Afghanistan has killed two German soldiers and five children.
The governor of Kunduz province, Mohammad Omar, says two other German soldiers and two children were wounded in the blast Monday.
NATO confirms that some of its soldiers were killed and wounded in the attack in the province's Chahar Dara district.
Omar says the soldiers were patrolling on foot when the bomber riding a bicycle hit them.
Taliban militants regularly use suicide bombers to attack foreign and Afghan troops. But many of their victims have been civilians.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban gunmen on a motorbike killed a Christian aid worker in the Afghan capital on Monday, and the militant group said it had targeted the woman because she was proselytizing.
The woman, a British national, worked with handicapped Afghans and was killed in the western part of Kabul as she was walking alone around 8 a.m., police said. Najib Samsoor, a district police chief, originally said the woman was from South Africa, but the British government later said she was British.
The gunmen shot the victim in the body and leg with a pistol, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary. Officials did not release her name.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the slaying, saying the woman was killed because she was spreading Christianity.
"This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to people of Afghanistan," Mujahid told the Associated Press. "Our (leaders) issued a decree to kill this woman. This morning our people killed her in Kabul."
The woman's organization — SERVE, Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises — describes itself as a Christian charity registered in Britain. The group's Web page says the charity has been working with Afghan refugees since 1980 in Pakistan.
"SERVE Afghanistan's purpose is to express God's love and bring hope by serving the people of Afghanistan, especially the needy, as we seek to address personal, social and environmental needs," SERVE's Web page says.
Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic nation and has little tolerance for outside religious interference. Proselytizing is prohibited by law, and other Christian missionaries or charities have faced severe hostilities.
Last summer a group of 23 South Korean aid workers from a church group were taken hostage in southern Afghanistan. Two were killed and the rest were released.
In 2001, eight international aid workers, including two Americans, were imprisoned and charged with preaching Christianity. The eight were freed by Afghan mujahedeen fighters attacking the Taliban after the U.S.-led invasion.
In 2006, an Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity was sentenced to death by an Afghan court. Following an international outcry Afghan authorities declared the man insane and he was granted asylum in Italy, where he now lives.
Monday's attack adds to a growing sense of insecurity in Kabul. The capital is now blanketed in police checkpoints. Embassies, military bases and the U.N. are erecting cement wall barriers to guard against suicide bombings.
Kidnappings targeting wealthy Afghans have long been a problem in Kabul, but attacks against Westerners in the city and surrounding provinces have also increased recently. In mid-August, Taliban militants killed three women working for the U.S. aid group International Rescue Committee while they were driving in Logar, a province south of Kabul.
Meanwhile, assault helicopters dropped NATO troops into Jalrez district of Wardak province on Thursday, leading to a two-day battle involving airstrikes in which more than 20 militants were killed, the military alliance said in a statement Monday.
Wardak province, just 40 miles west of Kabul, has become an insurgent stronghold on the doorsteps of the capital.
Militants have expanded their traditional bases in the country's south and east — on the border with Pakistan — and have gained territory in the provinces surrounding Kabul, a worrying development for Afghan and NATO troops.
Those advances are part of the reason that top U.S. military officials have warned that the international mission to defeat the Taliban is in peril, and why NATO generals have called for a sharp increase in the number of troops here.
Some 65,000 international troops now operate in Afghanistan, including around 32,000 Americans.
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NATO's political will "wavering" in Afghanistan
LONDON (Reuters) – NATO members are wavering in their political commitment to Afghanistan, one of the alliance's top commanders said on Monday, describing the near seven-year campaign against the Taliban as disjointed.
Pointing to more than 70 "caveats" that give individual countries a veto over certain operations, and the fact that troop commitments remain unfulfilled, General John Craddock said he was fearful the operation was being short-changed.
"We are demonstrating a political will that is in my judgment sometimes wavering," Craddock, a U.S. general and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said in a speech to policymakers and defense analysts in London.
"It's this wavering political will that impedes operational progress and brings into question the relevance of the alliance here in the 21st century," he said.
Craddock defended the view expressed by Britain's outgoing commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, that the Taliban could not be defeated militarily and that at some level insurgents needed to be drawn into a dialogue.
"His comments are generally in line with what our military and political leaders have been saying all along... The conflict in Afghanistan cannot be won by military means alone," Craddock, who serves as NATO's operational commander, said.
"We in the international community must come together as part of a truly comprehensive approach (in Afghanistan). The current effort remains disjointed in time and space."
The 26-member NATO alliance currently has about 50,000 troops in Afghanistan but commanders say they need at least 12,000 more. Most NATO countries are reluctant to commit.
Afghanistan is now widely seen as more precarious than Iraq, with the Taliban becoming more sophisticated in its ability to carry out ambushes and bombings. Yet there are half as many foreign troops operating in Afghanistan as there are in Iraq, a country that is smaller than Afghanistan.
As well as a lack of military muscle to take on the Taliban, U.S. and NATO forces struggle to coordinate with aid and reconstruction teams, seen as vital if Afghans are to benefit and not be drawn back into the arms of the Taliban.
Craddock was critical of aid coordination, whether with non-government or government-backed groups, saying the overall military strategy of "clear, hold and build" was often lacking the third component.
"We clear and hold and then we turn around and say 'come on', but the build is inconsistent," he said. "We can't win it, we can only create conditions."
Addressing Pakistan, Craddock emphasized the need for close cooperation with its security forces and appeared to defend the U.S. military's policy of pursuing militants across the border into Pakistan, saying self-defense was paramount.
He also said he believed there had been an increase in foreign fighters in Afghanistan, but did not say from where or how many. Many Taliban are Pashtun tribesmen from Pakistan.
(Editing by Matthew Jones)
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Iran warns West against talks with Taliban
October 19, 2008
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned the West on Sunday not to push for talks with the Taliban militia which had stormy relations with Tehran when it ruled Afghanistan up to 2001.
"Today, the whole world knows about the strategic failure of foreign forces in Afghanistan and we advise them not to try a new failure," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference.
"We advise them to think about the consequences of the talks (with the Taliban) which are taking place in the region and in Europe and avoid being bitten in the same spot twice," Mottaki said, citing a Persian proverb.
Last month, Afghan government representatives met Taliban leaders in the Saudi holy city of Mecca for talks on ending the insurgency that has plagued Afghanistan ever since the militia was ousted from power in a US-led invasion seven years ago, the Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported.
The Afghan government denied the report but President Hamid Karzai has long called for talks with the Taliban on condition that they accept his government's constitution and are not involved with Al-Qaeda.
Several Western countries have expressed support for negotiations with the militia.
"The West should not think that they can confine extremism to Afghanistan, Pakistan and central Asia," Mottaki said, warning that extremism would one day also reach Europe and the West.
The hardline Sunni Taliban had hostile relations with Shiite Iran, which was a major backer of the Afghan opposition to the militia's rule.
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Russia worried by Iran urging peace with Afghanistan Talibs
15:41 | 20/ 10/ 2008
TEHRAN, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is worried by tendencies among some political forces in Iran to have Talibs engaged in peace efforts in Afghanistan, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on Monday.
Speaking after talks in Iran on Sunday with the country's top security and Foreign Ministry officials, Sergei Ryabkov said: "We expressed concerns about recent tendencies toward reconciliation with Talibs demonstrated by certain circles [in Iran]."
Ryabkov said at UN Security Council talks on an extended mandate for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Russia has insisted the radical movement Taliban should not be engaged in the settlement process.
The UN Secretary General's envoy for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has backed a dialogue between Kabul and some of Taliban leaders. Earlier reports said Saudi Arabia had hosted talks between Afghan authorities and Talibs.
Ryabkov, however, said Russia and Iran have good prospects for cooperation in fighting drug trafficking in Afghanistan.
Both countries have voiced concerns about drug production in the country which has kept growing since the 2001 U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign that toppled Taliban, criticizing ISAF forces for ineffective measures.
Ryabkov said at talks in Iran, they also discussed developments in Iraq and Lebanon.
The United States and Israel have accused Tehran of supplying arms to radicals active in regional countries - Talibs in Afghanistan, Hezbollah movement in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian West Bank - and of arming Shia militants in Iraq. Some analysts, however, suggested the Iranian government might not be behind illegal Iran-made arms transfers.
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Former Afghan Presidential Candidate Kidnapped In Kabul
KABUL (AFP)--Unknown assailants kidnapped a one-time Afghan presidential candidate and a relative of the late king near his home in the capital Kabul, police said Monday, in the latest in a spate of abductions.
Humayun Shah Asifi, who stood in the 2004 presidential elections won by Hamid Karzai, was snatched at gunpoint while returning home from a dinner late Sunday, deputy Kabul police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.
There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction.
"Mr. Asifi was returning from a dinner at about 11:00 p.m. As he was near his home, four armed men kidnapped him. His driver and one of his servants were with him when he was kidnapped," Ahmadzai said.
It wasn't known who might have been behind the abduction but kidnapping of wealthy Afghans or their relatives, most often for ransom, is rife in Kabul and other cities amid weakening security since the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime.
The police chief blamed the abduction on "the cowards, the enemies of our country".
Asifi, aged in his 60s, was a brother-in-law of former King Mohammed Zahir Shah who died last year. Zahir Shah was overthrown in a 1973 coup.
Asifi studied law and political science at Dijon university in France and spent around 20 years in exile.
He had retired from politics and hadn't intended to stand in presidential elections expected next year, according to his brother Haroun Asifi.
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Taliban kill British Christian aid worker in Afghanistan
By Amir Shah, The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban gunmen on a motorbike killed a Christian aid worker in the Afghan capital on Monday, and the militant group said it had targeted the woman because she was proselytizing.
The woman, a British national, worked with handicapped Afghans and was killed in the western part of Kabul as she was walking alone around 8 a.m., police said. Najib Samsoor, a district police chief, originally said the woman was from South Africa, but the British government later said she was British.
The gunmen shot the victim in the body and leg with a pistol, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary. Officials did not release her name.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the slaying, saying the woman was killed because she was spreading Christianity.
"This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to people of Afghanistan," Mujahid told the Associated Press. "Our (leaders) issued a decree to kill this woman. This morning our people killed her in Kabul."
The woman's organization - SERVE, Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises - describes itself as a Christian charity registered in Britain. The group's Web page says the charity has been working with Afghan refugees since 1980 in Pakistan.
"SERVE Afghanistan's purpose is to express God's love and bring hope by serving the people of Afghanistan, especially the needy, as we seek to address personal, social and environmental needs," SERVE's Web page says.
Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic nation and has little tolerance for outside religious interference. Proselytizing is prohibited by law, and other Christian missionaries or charities have faced severe hostilities.
Last summer a group of 23 South Korean aid workers from a church group were taken hostage in southern Afghanistan. Two were killed and the rest were released.
In 2001, eight international aid workers, including two Americans, were imprisoned and charged with preaching Christianity. The eight were freed by Afghan mujahedeen fighters attacking the Taliban after the U.S.-led invasion.
In 2006, an Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity was sentenced to death by an Afghan court. Following an international outcry Afghan authorities declared the man insane and he was granted asylum in Italy, where he now lives.
Monday's attack adds to a growing sense of insecurity in Kabul. The capital is now blanketed in police checkpoints. Embassies, military bases and the United Nations are erecting cement wall barriers to guard against suicide bombings.
Kidnappings targeting wealthy Afghans have long been a problem in Kabul, but attacks against Westerners in the city and surrounding provinces have also increased recently. In mid-August, Taliban militants killed three women, including two Canadians, working for the U.S. aid group International Rescue Committee while they were driving in Logar, a province south of Kabul.
Meanwhile, assault helicopters dropped NATO troops into Jalrez district of Wardak province on Thursday, leading to a two-day battle involving airstrikes in which more than 20 militants were killed, the military alliance said in a statement Monday.
Wardak province, just 64 kilometres west of Kabul, has become an insurgent stronghold on the doorsteps of the capital.
Militants have expanded their traditional bases in the country's south and east - on the border with Pakistan - and have gained territory in the provinces surrounding Kabul, a worrying development for Afghan and NATO troops.
Those advances are part of the reason that top U.S. military officials have warned that the international mission to defeat the Taliban is in peril, and why NATO generals have called for a sharp increase in the number of troops here.
Some 65,000 international troops now operate in Afghanistan, including more than 2,000 Canadians.
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Security developments in Afghanistan
(Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 11:30 a.m. GMT (12:30 p.m. British time) on Monday: Skip related content
* denotes new or updated items.
* KABUL - Two gunmen killed a British woman working for a Christian aid agency in the Afghan capital, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying she was killed for spreading Christian propaganda.
* KUNDUZ - A suicide bomber hit a convoy of German troops in the northern province of Kunduz, some 240 km (150 miles) northwest of Kabul, killing five children and seriously wounding at least two of the soldiers, a senior police official said.
A spokesman for the NATO-led force said there were "some fatalities" among the troops but declined to state the nationalities of the soldiers.
MAYDAN WARDAK - Soldiers from the NATO-led force killed more than 20 insurgents during two days of fighting in the Jalrez and Nirkh districts of Maydan Wardak province, 55 km (35 miles) southwest of Kabul, the alliance said.
* FARYAB - Unidentified gunmen ambushed a police vehicle in Gorziwan district of Faryab province, 350 km (215 miles) northwest of Kabul, killing four policemen, including the district police chief, the provincial police chief said.
HELMAND - A suicide bomber on foot blew himself up in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, 555 km (345 miles) southwest of Kabul, the British military said. There were no other casualties as a result of the blast.
PAKTIA - U.S.-led coalition forces detained eight suspected militants in Zadran district of eastern Paktia province, 135 km (85 miles) south of Kabul, on Sunday, the U.S. military said.
(Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait)
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NATO claims more than 20 Taliban rebels killed in Afghanistan
EARTHtimes.org - Mon Oct 20, 3:01 am EDT
Kabul - NATO forces killed more than 20 suspected Taliban militants during a two-day operation in central Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement Monday. The insurgents were killed in combat supported by air assaults on Thursday in Wardak province, 60 kilometres west of Kabul.
A statement by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that the militants were pushed south from Jalrez to Nerkh district of the same province in the first engagement.
"Upon their arrival in Nerkh, the ISAF soldiers once again received heavy enemy fire," the statement said, adding, "After 10 hours of fighting, ISAF troops countered the insurgent threat and secured both the Jalrez and Nerkh Districts."
No ISAF soldiers were killed during the engagements, it added.
Taliban militants have edged closer to Kabul and launched attacks around the capital city, which houses thousands of foreign troops and is the seat of the Western-backed Afghan government.
Following their ouster from power in late 2001, Taliban militants turned southern and eastern regions of the country into their main strongholds in the fight against Afghan and international forces.
Taliban-led attacks are on the rise despite the presence of around 70,000 foreign troops deployed to Afghanistan from 40 nations. The conflict so far this year has left more than 4,000 people dead.
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Pak seeks US help to halt infiltration from Afghanistan
Rezaul H Laskar Press Trust of India, India
Islamabad, Oct 19 (PTI) Pakistan today asked the US to help stop the infiltration of militants into its tribal areas from Afghanistan, saying the proceeds of drug trafficking in the neighbouring country is being used to foment terrorism in its territory.
President Asif Ali Zardari sought American assistance to plug infiltration from Afghanistan during a meeting with visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. They discussed bilateral ties, the war on terror, the regional security situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and the anti-militancy operations in the tribal areas.
The ties between both the nations had hit a new low over America's unilateral cross-border drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal region which had killed many.
Zardari was quoted by TV channels as saying that the militants were getting support from Afghanistan and there was "heavy infiltration" of rebels into Pakistan. He said that money from drug trafficking in Afghanistan is being used to stoke terrorism in Pakistan, the channels reported.
The US and the world community should help in halting the infiltration from Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal areas, Zardari said. Pakistan is fighting the war against terrorism with a comprehensive strategy and the US needed to understand the ground realities in the country, he said. PTI
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Afghanistan: Italian foreign minister rejects call for extra troops
Islamabad, 20 Oct. (AKI) - On a visit to Pakistan, Italian Foreign Minister,Franco Frattini, announced no extra troops would be sent to war-torn Afghanistan."I do not think sending more troops is the right solution today," Frattini told the media on Monday, while en route to Pakistan. Frattini arrived in the country's capital, Islamabad, for talks on bilateral ties and regional issues with his counterpart, Makhdoom Qureshi.
Frattini's visit is his first official to Pakistan and he is due to meet President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, and Pakistan's army chief of staff.
Frattini said that Italy had recently made "a further effort sending four Tornado aircrafts to reinforce defence" and that "the troops that are present make Italy the fourth (largest) contingent in Afghanistan controlling a strategic province that the Taliban want to make, or make seem, less secure."
The Italian Tornado aircraft will carry out surveillance flights over the country's troublespots.
"Italy's strategy is right because it does not respond (to aggression) with raids, instead, continues to cooperate with the people," he said.
Frattini said Italy has set an example by using a combination of cooperation and peacekeeping, winning the sympathy and admiration of the people, an Italian model the other should follow.
Frattini also rejected the idea of dialogue with the Taliban.
"If the Taliban is legitimised, we will be making a mistake. The Taliban do not have any interest in supporting (Afghan President) Karzai and the coalition forces. Therefore there should not be negotiations that will make them legitimate actors," concluded Frattini.
Italy currently has about 2,350 troops taking part in the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan.
The Italian troops are stationed between the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the western province of Herat.
There are almost 53,000 troops in Afghanistan from around 40 countries that make up NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Last month, Frattini said Italy was planning to organise an international conference to look at ways of stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Frattini said Italy would stage the conference in 2009, when it holds the presidency of the G8 group of the world's leading industrialised nations and Russia.
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Afghanistan: Fighting In A "Hornet's Nest"
CBS News - Oct 19 9:30 PM
(CBS) This past year in Afghanistan was the deadliest yet for American troops. Seven years into this war, U.S. commanders from Kabul to Washington are pleading for more soldiers, exposing an uncomfortable truth: there aren't enough troops on the ground to get the job done.
We are going to tell you about a small group of American soldiers who deal every day with that reality under the worst of circumstances. 60 Minutes lived with them for a month on a small forward operating base in Eastern Afghanistan, not far from the Pakistani border. This is where the real fight against al Qaeda is happening - in canyon valleys and jagged mountain hideouts, which as we witnessed, are crawling with enemy fighters.
There is a reason the base 60 Minutes and correspondent Lara Logan traveled to is called "Wilderness." It's in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but desolate mountains stretching endlessly into the distance, until you drop onto a tiny patch of ground not much bigger than a football field in the heart of enemy territory.
"I thought it was gonna be a little bit quieter here. But we landed in a hornet's nest when we got here," explains Staff Sgt. Jake Schlereth.
When Schlereth, 27, and 33-year-old Sgt. First Class Anthony Barnes were sent to Afghanistan, they thought the fight was mostly over.
When he arrived in Afghanistan, Sgt. Schlereth didn't think he'd be landing in a hornet's nest. "I guess I really didn't know what to expect when I got here. I'd never been here before, I'd only been to Iraq. And you didn't hear too much about Afghanistan on the news. It was all about Iraq."
"Iraq, yeah. … Roles are reversed," Sgt. Barnes comments.
"Yeah. Reversed. And now it's all about here," Schlereth agrees.
It's all about "here" because the fight in Afghanistan is worse than ever. The tiny base has been hit by rockets and mortars at least 30 times since these soldiers arrived in March.
And that's only part of it: Barnes, Schlereth and their fellow soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division have survived 20 ambushes on their patrols.
American casualties are highest in the East, where they are fighting an Afghan warlord, Jalauddin Haqqani and his son, who are closely allied to al Qaeda and share al Qaeda's goal of driving America out of Afghanistan.
They've also publicly stated that targeting the base is one of their top priorities.
The base commander, 29-year-old Captain Thomas Kilbride, has seen more combat than any of his soldiers, constantly deployed since 9/11.
Asked if now, on his third tour in Afghanistan, things have changed in the country, Capt. Kilbride tells Logan, "In regards to enemy activity, I think it's increased. We need to deal with them deliberately, and, you know, immediately."
Their mission for 12 months is to protect a road, which is the only direct link between the East and the capital Kabul. "The road is a livelihood for everybody, it's a line that connects the rest of Afghanistan. It's a bloodline, an opportunity for all of Afghanistan to kind of develop," Kilbride explains.
Part of that development is a planned $121 million project to rebuild the road, paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
The enemy doesn't want to see that happen, so Kilbride is unrelenting about going after them. And doing that there means getting up every day to face these mountains, every inch of them enemy territory.
Asked how bad this area is, Kilbride says, "It’s one of our worst areas. They have the advantage, they know this terrain more than we do."
It often takes eight hours or more of climbing to 10,000 feet, even if they don't find the enemy, just to let them know they're not out of reach.
"The first time I did it, I thought I was gonna die because I'm from the East Coast. I'm from the South. The highest mountain we got's 5,000 feet," Barnes recalls.
"The terrain here will kick your ass. I mean, it's not a joke. You can feel it in your lungs. Feel it, you get that feeling in your chest when you're like 'Wooh!'" Kilbride explains.
He says it's a daily experience.
On one mission, after a steep - at times vertical - climb to the top of the mountain to search for a weapons cache, they found nothing.
The terrain and the enemy are relentless.
Asked if he ever let his guard down, Schlereth says, "Can't. Security's a must around here. Don't take anything for granted."
"If they catch you slippin', they will definitely make your day hard," Barnes adds.
The 60 Minutes team found that out one night during our visit when an Apache helicopter pilot spotted a suspicious group of armed men.
Kilbride ordered the pilot to engage.
That started an intense battle, with Kilbride and his men right in the middle of a more deadly type of warfare, facing a new breed of fighter, strengthened by their ability to carry out sophisticated, conventional tactics.
As daylight came, the advancing soldiers had no idea they were heading straight into a close fight to the death, the type of close engagement hardly ever seen in this war.
Gunfire suddenly rang out, bullets coming at the soldiers out of nowhere, whizzing just over their heads and hitting the wall behind them.
Machine gunners fired from Humvees to clear the way forward.
Kilbride's men tossed hand grenades, and moved in after their enemy, pursuing them through thick cornfields.
The captain says moving through those cornfields wasn't easy. "You start losing, you know, you're sense of where everything is."
"You couldn't see," Schlereth remembers. "Just like walkin' through a forest. You know, big, thick foliage. They got cornstalks, and they were laying in the prone. And every once in a while, I had to get down on the ground and look and see if they were down there. 'Cause you knew they were in there, just you just couldn't see 'em."
Somehow in the midst of all that, a soldier found a camera that would provide valuable intelligence later.
As First Sgt. Eddie Heater led his group of men out of a cornfield, they suddenly encountered a fighter hiding in a ditch. "He was right beside me. As we came over that berm the soldier to my left was shot," he recalls.
Asked what he did, Heater says, "I immediately you know turned and…killed the enemy."
The gunman was dead, his body slumped in the nook where he had been laying in wait.
A young sergeant, Marcus Vasquez, had been shot in the shoulder. Vasquez was lucky: the bullet passed straight through and he was quickly stabilized.
The MedEvac chopper arrived within minutes, and Vasquez was taken away to one of the main U.S. bases for surgery.
"That's the day we'll remember. It's the closest fight we've had," Barnes says. "They were pretty well armed. Most of the time when these guys hit, they hit from a position of advantage to them. They don't wanna fight you on even terms, because they'll lose."
At least 12 enemy fighters were killed that day.
"And what have you learned about the enemy that you're fighting from, you know, this attack and previous attacks?" Logan asks Kilbride.
"We're not fighting an inexperienced army," the captain replies.
Major General Jeffrey Schlosser says the enemy knows what they're doing. When Schlosser, Deputy Commander of all U.S. troops in Afghanistan, arrived at the base shortly after the battle, 60 Minutes pressed him on U.S. claims that the mission is succeeding.
"In 2005 I was told the same thing as 2006 and in 2007, 'Oh it’s not that the enemy’s stronger, it's that we're more successful,'" Logan remarks.
"Well, you know I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you that the enemy did increase from 20 to 30 percent this last year and you haven't asked yet but I'll tell you that they are doing more complex activities, which concerns me greatly. So I'm not here to blow smoke up anybody's dress. I'm not," Schlosser says.
A video Kilbride's men found in the cornfields shows an unscripted view of the enemy you never see, and it was surprising - from the enemy's discipline and organization to their many new weapons.
When Kilbride reviewed the tapes right after the battle, he counted over 50 heavily-armed fighters in the pictures. The gunmen had also filmed their own attacks and training.
Then, there was an eerie discovery: Kilbride found evidence the militants carried out video surveillance of U.S. troops on patrol, possibly even his own men.
"Seeing it is interesting - to see where they set up. Their vantage point," says Kilbride, who thinks the enemy is watching his troops every time they leave the gate.
More and more of the fighters they face are foreigners, Schlosser told 60 Minutes, coming over the border from Pakistan's tribal areas, where they have sanctuary.
Schlosser believes the fight against the enemy will remain difficult without access to the enemy’s safe havens in Pakistan.
"That seems like an impossible task," Logan says.
"I think it makes it extraordinarily difficult. There's no doubt in my mind. Americans should know that we defend ourselves and we fire right back inside into Pakistan because it is a threat," the general says.
"Well you're right, they do need to know that because it's seven years on," Logan points out.
"And we didn't say this very much. I'm telling you the truth. We do," Schlosser replies.
Still, U.S. soldiers are not authorized to operate at will on Pakistani soil.
Asked if he would like to be able to conduct raids across the Afghan-Pakistani border, Schlosser says, "There's a lot of things I'd like to be able to do in life, Lara, but I'm a professional soldier after 32 years. I do what is legally permissible under the laws, and so here I am."
"But it's got to be frustrating though. I mean I know it's frustrating for the soldiers," Logan says.
"It is," Schlosser agrees. "There's no doubt. There is no doubt."
The general says he can do something about the fight he sees the enemy planning for the winter, which he predicts will be the most violent yet. Given what he's expecting, how under-resourced is he?
"I've been very clear that I need more resources, more soldiers and more assets," Schlosser.
Those assets can't come soon enough for Capt. Kilbride and his men, as 60 Minutes found out on a mission in search of a reported roadside bomb.
They didn't find it that day. But the morning after the 60 Minutes team left, a U.S. Humvee hit a roadside bomb in the same area. Photographs from the scene show the vehicle was obliterated, killing everyone inside - an Afghan interpreter and four of Kilbride's soldiers. For the captain, who was putting out the flames moments after the blast, it was the bloodiest day so far.
"Nothing’s easy," he says. "It's gonna be a long fight. I'm not telling you that it's gonna happen tomorrow. I'm not gonna tell you it's gonna happen next year. But, you know, it might be 12, 15 years from now and we're still in Afghanistan."
Asked how he sees the purpose of his mission in Afghanistan, Sgt. Barnes says, "I tell you like I told my daughter when I left. She asked my why was I leavin' again. And I told her, I said, 'I gotta go over, and I'm gonna help the good people. I'm gonna help their army. And I'm gonna try to get, you know, put their bad people away.' And she was like, 'Okay.' And that's my goal, to help as many good people as I can help, to get rid of as many bad people as I can get rid of, and to take as many of mine back home with me as I can take."
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An Old Afghanistan Hand Offers Lessons of the Past
By JOHN F. BURNS October 20, 2008 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — It is one of a flow of disarming asides that Russia’s ambassador to Kabul deploys while warning of the grim prospects that he says will doom the American enterprise in Afghanistan if the United States fails to learn from mistakes made during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s.
“I know quite a lot about the past,” the ambassador, Zamir N. Kabulov, said in polished English with a broad smile during an interview in Kabul one morning last week. “But almost nothing about the future.”
In fact, it is precisely because of a belief that the Soviet past may hold lessons for the American future that a talk with Mr. Kabulov is valued by many Western diplomats here. That is a perception that has drawn at least one NATO general to the Russian Embassy in Mr. Kabulov’s years as ambassador, though the officer involved, not an American, showed no sign of having been influenced by what he heard, Mr. Kabulov said.
“They listen, but they do not hear,” he said with another wry smile.
“Their attitude is, ‘The past is the past,’ and that they know more than I do.” Perhaps, too, he said, “they think what I have to say is just part of a philosophy of revenge,” a diplomatic turning of the tables by a government in Moscow that is embittered by the Soviet failure here and eager for the United States to suffer a similar fate.
Mr. Kabulov, 54, is no ordinary ambassador, having served as a K.G.B. agent in Kabul — and eventually as the K.G.B. resident, Moscow’s top spy — in the 1980s and 1990s, during and after the nine-year Soviet military occupation. He also worked as an adviser to the United Nations’ peacekeeping envoy during the turbulent period in the mid-1990s that led to the Taliban’s seizing power.
Now he is back as Moscow’s top man, suave and engaging, happy to talk of a time when the old Soviet Embassy compound was the command center for an invasion that ended in disaster and speeded the collapse of the great power that undertook it.
The compound, ransacked during the warlord turmoil of the mid-1990s and given over for a decade to refugees who squatted amid the rubble, is spanking new again, with fresh marble and sparkling chandeliers, as well as a memorial commemorating the 13,500 Soviet troops who died here.
Nearly 20 years after Soviet troops withdrew in humiliation, in February 1989, Mr. Kabulov has become a gloomy oracle, warning that the fate that overtook the Russians here may be relived by the Americans and their coalition partners.
“They’ve already repeated all of our mistakes,” he said, speaking of what the United States has done — and failed to do — since the Taliban were toppled from power in November 2001 and American troops began moving into old Soviet bases like the one at Bagram, north of Kabul.
“Now, they’re making mistakes of their own, ones for which we do not own the copyright.”
The list of American failures comes quickly. Like the Soviets, Mr. Kabulov said, the Americans “underestimated the resistance,” thinking that because they swept into Kabul easily, the occupation would be untroubled. “Because we deployed very easily into the major cities, we didn’t give much thought to what was happening in the countryside,” where the stirrings of opposition that grew into a full-fledged insurgency began, he said.
He places that blunder in the context of a wider failure to understand the “irritative allergy” among Afghans to foreign occupation, one that every invading power since the British in the 1840s has come to rue, and which, Mr. Kabulov said, grows into a fire if the invaders, especially non-Muslims, don’t pull out soon. “One of our mistakes was staying, instead of leaving,” he said. “After we changed the regime, we should have handed over and said goodbye. But we didn’t. And the Americans haven’t, either.”
Confronted by an elusive insurgency and unable to maintain a presence in the hinterland because of a lack of troops, the Soviets, like the Americans, resorted to an overreliance on heavy weapons, especially airpower, he said. The resulting casualties among the civilian population only worsened the situation.
“We abused human rights, including the use of aggressive bombardment,” he said. “Now, it’s the same, absolutely the same. Some Soviet generals gave instructions to wipe out the villages where the mujahedeen were entrenched with the civilian population. Is that what your generals are going to do?”
The son of an Uzbek father and a Tartar mother, Mr. Kabulov said his family name is a corruption of an old Arabic term meaning capability.
“But the name’s been my fate,” he said, running through a career that has given him a front-row seat at almost every stage of Afghan’s turbulent history for the past 25 years. In 1995, negotiating for the release of a Russian air crew forced down by the Taliban, he became one of very few foreigners to meet Mullah Muhammad Omar, the one-eyed former mujahedeen fighter who founded and still leads the Taliban.
Rebutting the suggestion that Russia hopes for an American failure here, Mr. Kabulov noted that Moscow supported the 2001 invasion as part of an international coalition against terrorism that was as much a threat to the security of Russia as to that of the United States. Russia still has nothing to gain from an American defeat, he said. “We have always said that it’s better to fight the mujahedeen in the suburbs of Jalalabad than in Ashgabat,” he said, referring to the capital of Turkmenistan, on Russia’s southern border.
“How can they believe that we are so stupid and shortsighted?” he added. “Our approach is pragmatic. Why should we be jubilant at the prospect of the Americans being defeated by people who will take us on again, as they did in the 1990s in Chechnya?”
Still, the ambassador spoke with irritation at what he regards as an American distortion of the Soviet record here, one that ignores the “modernizing mission” Moscow pursued from the 1950s on, with billions of rubles spent on education, advancing the role of women and building roads, dams and an industrial infrastructure. “Where, I ask, are the big American projects to match those?” he said, and answered his own question.
“I’ll tell you. There aren’t any.”
American generals, he said, have avoided contact with him. But with Gen. David D. McKiernan, the American commander, now pushing for a major increase in the 65,000 coalition troops that he commands, he said the Americans are replicating another of Moscow’s mistakes: trying to turn the tide of the war by bringing in more troops.
Soviet troop strength in Afghanistan, he said, reached its peak in 1987 with a force of about 140,000.
“The more foreign troops you have roaming the country, the more the irritative allergy toward them is going to be provoked,” he said.
The solution, he said, is to shift the fighting as quickly as possible to Afghan troops. This is something the United States and its partners have already embarked on, with a decision this summer to double the size of the Afghan Army. But even that, Mr. Kabulov said, will accomplish little unless the Americans turn the army into a genuine national force, with a sense among the troops that they are fighting for their country, not as “clients” of the Americans, as Mr. Kabulov believes they see themselves now.
One emblem of the American approach, he says, is the decision to re-equip the Afghan forces with NATO weaponry. Mr. Kabulov said this would mean retraining Afghan soldiers to fight with American M-16 rifles, in place of the Kalashnikov assault rifles that have been ubiquitous here for decades.
“Afghans have been very adept at using Kalashnikovs for 30 years, as we know only too well, and now you’ll send them to Pakistan to be melted down into scrap? I ask you, how much sense is there in that?”
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Is it safe again to debate Afghanistan?
Kris Kotarski The Calgary Herald Monday, October 20, 2008
It is no secret that news services and newspapers have pre-written obituaries for major figures in public life. Sometimes, these obituaries get printed by mistake, when an eager editor jumps the gun, or when a news service gets a false tip. For example, Pope John Paul II was declared dead three times before he expired, once by CBS (1981 -- false report), once by CNN (2003 -- website error) and once more by Fox News (2005 -- jumped the gun). Bob Hope was declared dead by the Associated Press in 1998, five years before the iconic comedian actually passed away. Representative Bob Stump lamented Hope's passing on the floor of the U.S. Congress, where lawmakers rose in chorus to "thank him for the memories," as the venerable comedian ate his breakfast at home.
Not being privy to the inner workings of the Herald's news department, I cannot say for sure which obituaries -- if any -- this paper keeps on file. Yet, it is safe to say that there is one story that is probably ready to go, whether every last word has been committed to paper by a prudent news writer or not.
Soon, perhaps this week, Canada's casualty count in Afghanistan will reach 100. Although that number should be no more important than 12, 33 or 65, round numbers are round numbers, and this one will surely be used as a milestone for our nation's involvement in the faraway war.
Speaking to CBC reporters last week, former Liberal foreign minister John Manley said that the symbolic figure will "remind Canadians again (that) this hasn't been going that well. We don't get very much good news out of Afghanistan," said Manley, who chaired the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan earlier this year. "It'll raise the temperature somewhat for the government in terms of how it's managing the mission."
It will also, hopefully, put Canada's involvement in Afghanistan back on the public agenda, after its conspicuous absence from the just-completed election campaign.
It has become obvious that the Afghanistan mission makes our politicians squirm, as evidenced by the almost total lack of focus on the issue after the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Liberals voted this past March to extend the Canadian mission until 2011.
During the campaign there was only one significant announcement -- on Sept. 10, just three days after Parliament was dissolved, Prime Minster Stephen Harper told reporters that "by 2011, we will have been in Kandahar, which is probably the toughest province in the country, for six years. . . . At that point, the mission, as we've known it, we intend to end."
With the Liberals internally divided on the issue, and with the other opposition parties not taken particularly seriously on foreign affairs, Afghanistan went away for a month, until Oct. 9, when Parliament's budget officer Kevin Page released a report outlining that Canada is likely to spend more than $18 billion on the Afghanistan mission, not $8 billion as previously estimated by the Harper government. A political battle ensued over accounting methods, but not over the effectiveness or the merits of the mission itself. Once more Afghanistan was pushed aside, and not debated seriously by the same politicians who hoped to be elected to positions where they will make life and death decisions affecting Canadian troops.
During a visit with the Herald's editorial board last month, Senator Colin Kenney lamented the fact that Afghanistan "is a major part of our foreign policy, but is now completely gone from the public debate." We don't wring our hands when formerly allied Afghan officials cross over to the Taliban, as was the case of Ghulam Yahya Akbari, who left (or was let go) from a high-ranking post in Herat province to join the growing insurgency.
We treat dire predictions by intelligent and well-regarded British diplomats with only a passing curiosity, and when U.S. airstrikes kill scores of Afghan civilians, we momentarily feel bad for victims, without considering and debating the wisdom of fighting off an insurgency with air strikes and not boots on the ground.
It's easy to feel ambivalent -- Afghanistan is far away, and the burden of the fight falls primarily on our military families. Yet we owe far more to those soldiers whose collective obituary is already set in type, and we should not allow our politicians to sweep this issue under the rug for the sake of predictable political debate. Now, with all that pesky democracy out of the way, is it safe to talk about Afghanistan again?
Kris Kotarski completed his Master's thesis at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. His column appears every second Monday. kkotarski@gmail.com
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Police look for Afghan antiques
Monday, 20 October 2008 09:17 UK BBC News
Volunteers from the art industry are being trained by the Metropolitan Police to spot looted Afghan antiques.
The 12 Special Constables will be trained by experts at the British Museum.
The ArtBeat officers will visit art venues in London to raise awareness and give advice on items bought by dealers, museums and auction houses.
Last month the International Council of Museums issued a "Red List" of Afghan antiquities which could be targeted.
Illicit trade
The list describes several categories of pre-Islamic and Islamic cultural objects that are protected under Afghan legislation, banning their export and sale and are thought to have been targeted by smugglers since the 1990s.
Officers will distribute the list and will advice them on what to do if any such banned item is sold to them.
Police hope to double the number of the special officers.
Det Sgt Vernon Rapley, of the Met's Art and Antiques Unit, said: "The Met is committed to working together with industry to combat the illicit trade in cultural objects from Afghanistan; however policing should be considered the last line of defence.
"The message is clear: do not purchase any Afghan antiquities without clear title and established provenance."
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Afghanistan's emerging antiwar movement
By Anand Gopal The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Mon Oct 20, 4:00 am EDT
Kabul, Afghanistan – In a musty room near the edge of town, a group of bearded men sit on the floor and heatedly discuss strategy. The men are in the planning stages of an event that they hope will impact Afghan politics – a peace jirga, or assembly, that will agitate for the end of the war between the Taliban and Afghan government by asking the two sides to come to a settlement.
"People are growing tired of the fighting," says Bakhtar Aminzai of the National Peace Jirga of Afghanistan, an association of students, professors, lawyers, clerics, and others. "We need to pressure the Afghan government and the international community to find a solution without using guns."
Mr. Aminzai is not alone in his sentiments. As violence and insecurity grow in this war-ravaged nation, a broad network of peace activists have been quietly pushing for negotiations and reconciliation with the Taliban.
This push coincides with recent preliminary talks in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government hosted a secret high-level meeting in September with former Taliban officials and members of the Afghan government. The event was intended to ultimately open the door to direct talks with the Taliban.
Analysts interviewed say that the majority of Afghans favor some sort of negotiated settlement between the warring sides, but many peace activists are critical of the Saudi talks. "We want reconciliation with the Taliban through a loya jirga," or grand assembly of Afghans, says Fatana Gilani, head of the Afghanistan Women's Council (AWC), a leading nongovernmental organization (NGO) here. "We don't want interference from foreign countries or negotiations behind closed doors," she says.
Like the AWC, many local NGOs have incorporated antiwar activities into their routine and are joining with other civil society groups to promote the idea of dialogue. The AWC convened a "peace assembly" this past Spring and invited members of the Afghan government and the Taliban to attend. It has also run seminars and conferences in Kandahar, the Taliban's heartland, promoting negotiation.
The National Peace Jirga also organized a series of peace assemblies in recent months, drawing thousands of people. The meetings often feature fiery speakers who condemn international forces for killing civilians – but who also criticize the Taliban.
"Afghanicide – the killing of Afghanistan – must be stopped," says Israir Ahmed Karimizai, a leader of Awakened Youth of Afghanistan, a prominent antiwar group. After seeing the violence grow sharply last year, Mr. Karimizai and a group of friends formed Awakened Youth with the aim of creating a movement that is independent of both the government and the Taliban. In late September the group headed an initiative to observe International Peace Day with speeches, rallies, and a pledge from both the international forces and the Taliban to lay down their arms for one day. When both sides mostly complied, making that day one of the least violent in the country's recent history, Awakened Youth members and other activists say they were inspired to redouble their efforts.
Awakened Youth is just one of the many Afghan-run civil society organizations that have sprung up in recent years. While international NGOs receive most of the attention, Afghan NGOs actually make up the bulk of the NGO presence in the country, says M. Hashim Mayar, deputy director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella organization of NGOs active in the country. "Local NGOs are playing more of a role, especially as the security situation deteriorates," he says. ACBAR estimates that of the roughly 1,400 registered NGOs, nearly 1,100 are purely Afghan operations.
Sheila Samimi, manager of the Afghan Women's Network (AWN), another prominent NGO that focuses on women's rights, says that local NGOs are well-suited to deliver an antiwar message to Afghans. AWN is composed of 63 small women-oriented NGOs that work around the country.
In a small, crowded schoolroom outside Kabul students watch a video of a young girl forced into marriage. The girl, unable to run a household at such an age, gets viciously beaten to death by her in-laws. In the closing scene, the girl's tearful parents regret having given their daughter for marriage and beg the viewer for forgiveness.
The AWN also uses their classroom visits to teach young rural Afghans about politics and the benefits of peace.
Meanwhile, members of the Afghanistan Women's Council are trained in making arguments based on Islamic law. In poor, conservative Afghan villages, the AWC dispatches women to teach about women's rights and the virtues of supporting peace negotiations.
Despite these strengths, Afghan peace groups are also beset by weaknesses, says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of the Sciences. "A lot of these parties are organized along ethnic or tribal lines," he says. The Awakened Youth and the National Peace Jirga, for instance, consist mostly of Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group.
Many Afghan NGOs rely on foreign donors for support, which may weaken their ability to act independently. "Afghan civil society operations are very much framed by the budget lines of the donor" says Nader Nadery of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
For Ms. Gilani and other peace activists, this doesn't mean however that they let the West off lightly, however. "We are against Western policy in Afghanistan," she says. "They should bury their guns in a grave and focus on diplomacy and economic development."
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US eyes a 'grand' Afghan bargain
By Jim Lobe Oct 21, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
WASHINGTON - Increasingly frustrated by the "downward spiral" that the United States intelligence community sees in Afghanistan, the Pentagon appears to be moving towards engaging leaders of the resurgent Taliban - if they are prepared to disassociate themselves from al-Qaeda.
The seeds for the strategy are already being planted. The next US president - be it the current front-runner, Democratic Senator Barack Obama, or his Republican rival, Senator John McCain - will likely be advised by Pentagon chief Robert Gates and the new chief of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, that this strategy is the most effective way to stabilize Afghanistan.
They will also likely ask the new president to support a much broader regional diplomatic initiative, designed to reassure Pakistan about its security concerns, especially with regard to its long-time nemesis, India, whose influence in Afghanistan has grown substantially since a US-orchestrated military campaign ousted the Taliban in late 2001.
The predominantly Pashtun insurgency has penetrated deep into southern and eastern Pakistan, and even into Kabul itself over the past two years. Regional experts here and overseas have largely concluded that the Taliban and its allies cannot be defeated - so long as Islamabad continues to provide them with safe haven and other assistance in the tribal areas across the border.
The engagement plan was spelled out in considerable detail last week in an article entitled From Great Game to Grand Bargain, published in the influential Foreign Affairs journal. It was written by Pakistani analyst Ahmed Rashid and New York University Professor Barnett Rubin - both frequent visitors to Washington whose views on the region are highly regarded.
Rashid was named last week by the Washington Post as one of a number of key experts recently consulted by Petraeus and members of his new Joint Strategic Assessment Team, which has been tasked with developing a new campaign plan for Afghanistan scheduled for completion in about 100 days, or shortly after the new president moves into the White House.
According to the Post, Petraeus has ordered the team to focus on two major themes, "government-led reconciliation of Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the leveraging of diplomatic and economic initiatives with nearby countries that are influential in the war".
Those are precisely the strategies Rashid and Rubin highlighted in their article as critical to achieving their "Grand Bargain".
According to a New York Times article written earlier this month, the draft of a National Intelligence Estimate - a consensus document of all 16 US intelligence agencies - found that the security situation in Afghanistan was in a "downward spiral".
It cited rampant corruption in the government of President Hamid Karzai; the exploding drug trade which now accounts for half of the country's economy; and increasingly sophisticated attacks by the Taliban that have so far taken the lives of more US and NATO troops in 2008 than any previous years.
The British commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, also told London's Sunday Times that he did not believe that the war in Afghanistan could be won. His comments followed the disclosure in a leaked diplomatic cable that Britain's Ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Cowles, told his French counterpart that the next US president "must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan."
Both Obama and McCain have called for increases in US and NATO troop strength in Afghanistan, and President George W Bush currently intends to send 8,000 more US troops to join the 34,000 who are already there before he leaves office. The NATO commander in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, who commands a total of nearly 70,000 troops, said last week he will need another 15,000 for next year.
But while the forces may help keep the lid on, they cannot defeat the Taliban, according to Rashid and Rubin. The article criticizes the Bush administration's "war-on-terror" rhetoric that "thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous 'terrorist' enemy".
They argue the US must "redefine its counterterrorist goals", and try to separate Islamist movements with local or national objectives from groups like al-Qaeda seeking to attack the United States or its allies directly, instead of "lumping them all together."
Those willing to sever ties with al-Qaeda should be engaged, according to the authors.
" ... An agreement in principle to prohibit the use of Afghan (or Pakistani) territory for international terrorism, plus an agreement from the United States and NATO that such a guarantee could be sufficient to end their hostile military action, could constitute a framework for negotiation. Any agreement in which the Taliban or other insurgents [which] disavowed al-Qaeda would constitute a strategic defeat [for al-Qaeda]," said the two authors.
At the same time, Washington and its allies should pursue, "[A] high-level diplomatic initiative designed to build genuine consensus on the goal of achieving Afghan stability by addressing the legitimate sources of Pakistan's insecurity ... ".
They call for the UN Security Council to establish a contact group consisting of its five permanent members, and possibly NATO and Saudi Arabia, to promote dialogue between India and Pakistan on Afghanistan and Kashmir, and between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The group would concentrate on delineating the nations' borders with the central aim of "assuring Pakistan that the international community is committed to its territorial integrity". It would also provide security assurances to Russia and Iran about US and NATO intentions and promote regional economic integration and development.
Some of the seeds for the new strategy, particularly efforts at co-opting some elements of the insurgency, have already been sown. Late last month, Saudi King Abdullah reportedly hosted a secret four-day exploratory meeting between representatives of the Karzai government, former Taliban officials and others with ties to various factions in the insurgency.
While Washington reportedly played no role in the talks, and may even have been taken somewhat by surprise with them having taken place, Gates last week told reporters in Budapest that he would support engagement with any insurgent faction that disavows ties to al-Qaeda.
"There has to be ultimately, and I'll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this. That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us.''
Petraeus, whose courtship of former Sunni insurgents who broke with al-Qaeda in Iraq was hailed as a major contribution to reducing the violence there - although it did not achieve a political settlement - has echoed that view.
"I do think you have to talk to enemies," he told the right-wing Heritage Foundation here last week. "Clearly you want to try to reconcile with as many as possible.''
He also told the Post last week that the problem also had a strong regional dimension that required the involvement of Afghanistan's neighbors, including India.
Petraeus reportedly promoted a similar approach as commander of coalition forces in Iraq, though the White House reportedly denied him permission to visit Damascus and channeled all official contacts with Iran through the US ambassador in Baghdad.
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/)
(Inter Press Service)
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David Davis: We are losing Taliban battle
Monday, 20 October 2008 Independent (UK)
In an alarming dispatch from Afghanistan, the Conservative MP reveals the rampant corruption that has infected public life and threatens to destroy Nato's hopes of bringing peace to this traumatised country
It is time to face facts in Afghanistan: the situation is spiralling downwards, and if we do not change our approach, we face disaster. Violence is up in two-thirds of the country, narcotics are the main contributor to the economy, criminality is out of control and the government is weak, corrupt and incompetent. The international coalition is seen as a squabbling bunch of foreigners who have not delivered on their promises. Although the Taliban have nowhere near majority support, their standing is growing rapidly among some ordinary Afghans.
In Kabul, foreign delegations huddle behind concrete and barbed wire, often with the Afghans' main roads shut. That causes jams throughout the city, exacerbated by convoys of armoured four-wheel drives loaded with bodyguards that push their way through the traffic. These vehicles carry warning signs telling ordinary Afghans that the occupants reserve the right to shoot anyone who comes within 50 metres. Afghans veer between resentment of the high-handed foreigners and fear of the Taliban, who appear to be inexorably seizing the provinces around the city.
In Britain's area of responsibility, Helmand, the governor admits the Taliban control most of the province. While we were, properly, celebrating the delivery of the turbine to the Kajaki dam, we were being forced out of one of the richest poppy growing areas, and the Taliban fought their way to within 12km of Lashkar Gar, the provincial capital. Time after time, our soldiers win tactical victories, only to have the advantage lost because of a lack of coherent international strategy.
The regime we are defending is corrupt from top to bottom. While the President's brother faces accusations of being a drug baron, some three-quarters of the Afghan National Police actively steal from the people. The irony is that Afghan expectations of government are traditionally low, and their faith in President Hamid Karzai was initially high.
The government appears to have been run for the financial benefit of 20 families. From the allocation of mineral rights to the awarding of contracts, ministers frequently intervene to favour families and friends. Even more disturbing, the beneficiaries of this corruption are old-time warlords and faction leaders responsible for past atrocities. Today, they operate with impunity, even over acts of violence and attempted murder. Many public officials, from police chiefs to governors to ministers, have acquired multi-million dollar fortunes in office.
This angers the ordinary Afghan, whose family may have to get by on £10 a week. The government exercises enormous patronage through the appointment of officials, most notably governors and police chiefs. A chief of police post in a district which includes a narcotic trafficking route can sell for $150,000. The new chief recovers his "investment" by demanding a cut in the proceeds of corruption from his juniors. At the bottom of this pyramid, officers make money out of ordinary Afghans by exacting "tolls"at roadblocks and by straight theft and extortion. An Afghan trying to take produce from Lashkar Gar to Kandahar will typically pay at 12 roadblocks – destroying any value he might gain from growing anything other than opium.
It can be worse. An Afghan doctor was stopped and arrested by police, who demanded a $20,000 ransom – a fortune. He borrowed the money and paid. The alternative was death.
For an ordinary Afghan trying to scratch a living out of the arid soil, this must be almost unbearable, particularly so when he sees rapists and murderers, even failed suicide bombers, released without charge after payment of a bribe.
That is the regime we are defending and are perceived to be supporting.
The Taliban play on this. They offer a system of courts which is fast, decisive, and effective. An Afghan living in a non-Taliban part of a southern province, who has a dispute – over property, immigration rights, or a criminal matter – is quite likely to go to the Taliban area and ask them to arbitrate. They will summon both parties, hear their petitions, spend a few days collecting evidence – and then issue, and enforce, a judgement.
They can be vicious and evil at times. They hanged an old woman for the crime of talking to a foreign development officer. They behead people who oppose them or help Nato. These executions are carried out in town centres, where they strike most terror.
The Taliban make about 40 per cent of their funds from drug trafficking, which Nato, and the UK, facilitated by initially naive and incompetent policies. This allows the Taliban another grip on the rural population.
So the ordinary Afghan must feel caught between competing protection rackets in the police, the Taliban, the narco-bandits and the warlords.
There are some glimmers of light. The Afghan Attorney General is in a battle with warlords and cabinet ministers, although, without action from the President, he cannot win.
Helmand, the province defended by the British, is near the centre of this maelstrom of crime and violence. It has recently got a governor, Gulab Mangal, who appears determined to crack down on crime and corruption.
A senior Foreign Office official tells the story of two brothers and their attractive sister who were stopped at a roadblock. The officer had the brothers arrested and dragged the girl to his office, presumably intent on rape. An ordinary soldier knocked the officer out and called Governor Mangal's new helpline, rescuing the girl and brothers. So there are signs of change.
Afghan despair at this breakdown of justice has been a factor in the Taliban resurgence. In the past few years, it has led to 14,500 deaths. Monthly deaths of Allied soldiers here now exceed those in Iraq. Aid workers are being kidnapped and killed. The major road network is largely unusable because of risk of attack. In Helmand, we control five town centres, but rural areas and roads are dominated by the Taliban. Kandahar is little better. The problem is spreading.
So we need a new strategy. It should include a new command structure that co-ordinates the various forces. Short term, we need more coalition troops – ones that will fight, unlike some Nato forces. In the longer term, we need a bigger Afghan National Army – one British officer said at least double its projected size. To match Iraq it would need to be at least five times its projected size.
Most of all, we must deliver a much better life for ordinary Afghans. That requires better justice. At the national level, the impunity of the drug barons, warlords, and political influence peddlers must be broken. This will take high-profile trials of powerful people. At the local level, it means a quicker, more traditional justice by councils of tribal elders. And it means root and branch reform or replacement of the Afghan National Police.
Along with more rapid development efforts and a more focused counter-narcotics effort, this will deliver a better life for Afghans, and deny the Taliban legitimacy.
Whoever wins the US presidential election will have a clean slate on Afghanistan, and should tell the Karzai government that Western support comes with a price, namely clean government and decent justice. Mr Karzai himself faces elections next September. His success is not guaranteed. The biggest election issues will be justice and security.
There are other good omens. It seems that in the past few months the Pakistani government has at last started doing something about the Taliban safe houses in the tribal areas. Back in Britain, the newly promoted General David Richards has experience of Afghanistan, and a clear-eyed view of the need to increase force levels to achieve an acceptable outcome. At last, the West has stopped deluding itself that it is winning this battle, and will recognise that the consequences of not rethinking our strategy are too dreadful to contemplate.
David Davis is the MP for Haltemprice and Howden and the former shadow home secretary. He has recently returned from a 10-day fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
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Microfinance changing lives of Afghan women but sector has its challenges
The Canadian Press October 19, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Plump and jovial, with a grin running ear to ear, 35-year-old Nasreem operates a successful carpet weaving and embroidery business with the help of her two daughters.
The Kabul family is of moderate means. Her husband Korban works as a government security officer. They were spared the harsh years in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, having fled to Pakistan where she worked as a carpet weaver in Peshawar.
Upon their return to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, she once again began working for others until she learned of MISFA - the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan, and its partner agencies that are making small-business loans available to the country's poorest entrepreneurs.
"I went there and talked to the manager of the organization and said I have skills of making carpets and embroidery and I need money to become an independent business woman," she said through a translator at her cosy workshop in the village of Shahrakay Sabz, on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.
After receiving an initial 30,000 afghanis, or $700 Cdn, she was able to buy clothes, needles and other materials to get started. A friend with contacts at Bagram Airbase, a major U.S. military facility outside Kabul, has since helped secure a steady client base of foreign soldiers who often seek custom designs.
She has now received two more loans of 45,000 ($1,050) and 90,000 ($2,100) afghanis which has helped her hire a staff of about 20 women.
At 9:30 a.m., after they've completed their own household chores, the women begin streaming into the workshop.
They come six days a week for about eight hours to do embroidery, make carpets and other handicrafts. While their monthly wages peak at about 1,000 afghanis, or just under $25, most say they enjoy the opportunity to socialize and get out of the house.
The pocket change also helps cover the cost of personal items or the odd surprise expense like school supplies, said Laila, one of the older workers whose husband is a labourer struggling to support their six children.
"It's a great skill but it doesn't pay that well," she said. "It's good to keep busy and pass the time."
Nasreem won't discuss her profit margin in front of her staff, but she admits she's successful, that her husband is happy because her work has not taken her far from home and that she is pleased to be able to help others in the process.
"It's a great honour for me and I really feel happy that I'm helping these women," she said. "At least I provide them some money."
According to MISFA, the microfinance sector in Afghanistan has grown exponentially since 2002 when just a few providers were offering small-business loans to about 12,000 Afghans.
MISFA was created a year later by the Afghan government and registered as a limited liability non-profit company to oversee the microfinance sector and pool funding from international donors so it could be fairly distributed to the partner institutions that deliver the services.
Within five years, the sector grew from three microfinance institutions to 15 serving nearly half a million people with small-and medium-sized enterprises in 23 of the country's 34 provinces including restive Kandahar, where the bulk of Canada's military and development activity is centred.
About 70 per cent of microfinance clients are women and 40 per cent live in rural areas. The Canadian International Development Agency has remained MISFA's top donor with a total contribution of more than $96 million since 2003.
A baseline impact study conducted last fall found there were 3,782 widows receiving small-business loans as well as 92 disabled clients.
It's estimated that every client generates 1.5 employment opportunities which translates to some 500,000 spin-off jobs.
"The challenge in many developing countries is that the banking system is not yet developed to serve the poor or small-scale enterprises because of the perception of (the) poor (being a) credit risk," said George Saibel, CIDA's head of aid.
"The reality of microcredit operations, particularly those aimed at women, is quickly debunking this perception and contributing to banking sector reforms which are connecting the poor to more formal commercial and banking possibilities."
A review of the microfinance sector conducted two years ago, however, suggested providers are not necessarily reaching the poorest of the poor. The report said lending institutions tend to approve applications primarily on the individual's "ability to pay" rather than their "relative vulnerability."
According to the report, while providers "implicitly strive to make social impacts," they don't explicitly target the most vulnerable households.
While banks and credit unions are among MISFA's partner agencies, managing director Katrin Fakiri said most of them are non-profit groups that reach out to marginalized populations like women, widows and orphans. That said, Fakiri said MISFA has recently taken measures to ensure partner agencies don't "lose sight of the double-bottom line."
Products are designed to appeal to the poor and it's estimated that three-quarters of clients are at or below the poverty line, she said.
Building Afghanistan's microfinance sector is not without challenges.
Because of the sector's "remarkable growth," the "professionalization" of the partner agencies is not yet up to international standards, she said.
There have been concerns over their long-term sustainability, essentially their ability to move away from donor-funded lending to more commercial sources of funding so that when "donor fatigue" sets in, the sector can continue functioning.
But MISFA's operations director Dale Lampe said even that's changing. Three institutions are already 100 per cent self-sustainable and a fourth is expected to be by the end of the year.
On the security side, Fakiri said the insurgency has often prevented microfinance institutions from "rolling out their services and expanding outreach to underserviced populations in volatile regions."
It's why the volatile south accounts for just three per cent of the microfinance sector countrywide.
The only institution operating in all of Kandahar is BRAC, or Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. Regional manager Mahiuddin Azad said it began providing small-business loans about a year and a half ago.
Now more than 60 male shopkeepers are receiving anywhere from 50,000-500,000 afghanis ($1,170-$11,700) to improve their existing businesses under BRAC's small-enterprise program.
About 90 women are receiving more modest loans worth 20,000-30,000 afghanis ($470-$700) as part of its microfinance program for tailoring, handicrafts, farming and animal husbandry-type enterprises.
"Security is the big problem," Azad said, noting all the clients are in Kandahar city because the rest of the province isn't safe enough. "We can't come down here all the time to deliver the program. Often we deal with things over the phone from Kabul."
Because of security and the strict religious customs many in the south adhere to, female participants must be married in order to facilitate collections as men are not supposed to interact with women who are not their relatives.
BRAC has also encountered problems with some shopkeepers and local religious leaders because charging interest goes against Islamic law, area manager Rafiqul Islam said.
Other times, men have expressed outrage at the idea of operating a program for female business owners, Azad added.
But assistant area manager Zabiullah Tokhi said BRAC has managed to keep proper tabs on clients and report just one case in which a woman misappropriated funds, spending the cash on herself rather than her business.
Fakiri insisted measures are in place to ensure microfinance funds aren't being funnelled into illegal activities like the lucrative opium and marijuana industries, or the insurgency, and that such problems haven't come up.
Loan officers regularly monitor their clients, and group lending programs encourage clients to monitor one another's activities as indiscretions could affect the entire group, she said.
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Minister fails to answer corruption allegations
www.quqnoos.com Written by Parwiz Shamal Monday, 20 October 2008
Commerce minister disobeys request to appear before Parliament
THE HEAD of the law enforcement commission has called the new attorney-general and the commerce minister before Parliament to answer allegations of corruption.
But Commerce Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang (pictured), whose ministry is accused of widespread corruption, failed to turn up to Parliament.
The Parliamentary Affairs Ministry said it had been informed that Farhang would not be able to make Sunday’s session, but the law commission said it had not been notified of this.
Last week, the attorney general, Mohammad Ishaq Alako, said he had launched an investigation into Farhang’s ministry following allegations that the ministry’s oil and gas department was plagued by corruption.
The investigation is still under way.
Alako came to the post of attorney-general promising to clamp down on government corruption, but his office now faces corruption charges of its own.
President Hamid Karzai’s government is coming under increasing pressure to stamp out widespread corruption in his government.
Alako, who was catapulted into the chief prosecutor’s chair in August 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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Afghanistan seeks early recovery of kidnapped diplomat
Pakistan Dawn, Pakistan By Zulfiqar Ali Oct 19 , 2008
PESHAWAR - The Afghan government has voiced serious concern over the continued disappearance of its missing ambassador-designate Abdul Khaliq Farahi, who was kidnapped from Peshawar on Sept 22. His driver was shot dead.
“The Pakistan government should take concrete steps for immediate and safe recovery of the ambassador-designate,” Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said while talking to newsmen on Sunday.
The spokesman expressed satisfaction with the government’s assurances, but urged security organisations to take steps for the recovery of the diplomat.
He said that Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, who was due in Islamabad on Oct 22, would discuss the matter with Pakistani officials.
“The kidnapping of Mr Farahi will be on top of the agenda during Mr Spanta’s visit to Islamabad. He will also discuss with his Pakistani counterpart a joint strategy to combat terrorism in the region,” he said.
Soon after the incident, the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Security, Mr Rehman Malik, stated that the missing diplomat had been shifted to Jamrud, in the Khyber tribal region.
Mr Baheen said the Afghan government had been discussing the issue with senior officials in Islamabad and members of parliament to speed up efforts for the recovery of Mr Farahi.
“As far as the government’s assurances are concerned we are satisfied, but Pakistani security organisations should take serious action for the recovery of the diplomat,” he said, adding that the Afghan government had not been provided any information about whereabouts of Mr Farahi and the group involved in the kidnapping.
He said a month had passed but the Afghan government was still without any clue.
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MPs demand end to Herat protests
www.quqnoos.com Written by M Reza Sher Mohammadi Monday, 20 October 2008
But council says 20,000 workers will strike unless rampant crime is tackled
MEMBERS of political parties and well-known personalities in Herat have joined together to demand an end to large-scale demonstrations triggered by soaring violence in the western province.
They promised the government that large-scale protests against what is seen as the government's failure to halt robberies and kindappings would come to an end on Monday, four days after the demonstrations began.
But merchants, artisans, social institutions and the provincial council vowed to continue their protest until the government solved the current "crisis".
Herat’s Member of Parliament Salih Muhammad Suljuqi urged Heratis to end their demonstration against soaring levels of crime in the region.
He said Herat’s MPs would continue the fight in Parliament.
On Saturday, MPs from Herat said they would resign from Parliament unless the government tackled the soaring levels of crime in the province, which they blame for deep instability in the western region.
Sunday marked the third day since mass demonstrations erupted in Herat city, triggered by the violent robbery of a money exchanger.
Head of the provincial council, Humayun Azizi, said: "Teachers and doctors also supported the protests, but they continued to do their jobs."
The artisans’ council said more than 20,000 factory workers who will go on strike and it warned that the province, one of the country’s richest, will lose more than $10 million everyday if the protest continues.
The governor or Herat, Said Hussain Anwary, said security forces were doing their duty day and night to prevent any violent clashes involving the protestors.
Earlier in the year, thousands of Herat’s doctors and nurses went on strike to protest the government’s failure to clamp down on the rising number of kidnappings in the province.
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Police find body of 'raped and shot' teenage girl
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 19 October 2008
Body handed over to parents after police find signs the 16-year-old was raped
POLICE have found the dead body of a 16-year-old girl, who police say was raped and then shot, in the south-eastern province of Khost.
The head of the province’s anti-crime branch, Gul Dad, said the body was found on Saturday and was handed over to the girl’s parents the next day.
He said the girl’s body showed signs that she had been raped before being shot.
No post mortem was carried out on her body because the province lacks the correct facilities.
Earlier this week, police found the dead body of another woman whose throat had been slit with a knife in the same province.
In Kapisa province, clashes between coalition forces and the Taliban left one civilian dead and two others injured, police said.
Two foreign soldiers were also injured in Saturday’s attack, the head of the police said.
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Parliament to investigate claims of jail torture
www.quqnoos.com Written by Parwiz Shamal Monday, 20 October 2008
About 170 prisoners sew their mouths shut to protest jail conditions, inmates say
PARLIAMENT is set to discuss the treatment of Pul-e-Charki prisoners after as many as 170 inmates sewed their mouths shut to protest conditions in Kabul’s most notorious jail.
The judicial, the complaints and the investigative commissions will look into allegations of abuse in the prison, which triggered a hunger strike six days ago.
Prisoners say that about 170 fellow inmates have sown their mouths shut with needles and thread and many vowed to continue the strike until the government improves conditions in the jail.
Inmates demand the immediate removal of the prison’s chief, better healthcare and an end to torture.
But the head of the prison said his staff were carefully monitoring the jail, an action he blamed for the prisoners’ strike.
Joint governmental and non-governmental commissions will now investigate the inmates’ allegations.
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Sierra Leone Beat Afghanistan
PETALING JAYA, Oct 19 (Bernama) -- Sierra Leonne beat Afghanistan 6-1 in a Group A match in the 40th Merdeka Cup football tournament at the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) Stadium here Sunday night.
First half: Sierra Leone 1-0 Afghanistan
Scorers:
Sierra Leone: Alusine Turay (20th minutes), Amara Kamara (51st), Mohamed Kabia (60th), Dwight Foray (76th) (86th), Sulaiman Kamara (88th)
Afghanistan: Hafizullah Qadami (47th minutes)
Teams:
Sierra Leone: Lasana Jalloh (GK), Dwight Foray (Mohamed Kanu), Alfree Sanu, Gibrilla Fofanah, Salify Samura (C), Mumino Khomson Kamara, Alusine Turay, Mohamed Kabia (Lahai Freeman Chandus), Issa Kamara, Amara Kamara, Mamadu Lajor Bah.
Afghanistan: Shamsuddin Amiri (GK) (C), Bashir Saadat, Zohib Islam, Qudratullah Hussaini, Ali Ahmad Yarzada, Israfeel Kohistani, Sayed Bashir Azimi, Hashmatullah Barekzai, Mohammad Ibrahim Jebran (Mohammad Salem Nahemi)(Faisal Sakhi Zada), Hafizullah Qadami, Masood Hashemi.
Referee: Rosdi Sharul (Malaysia)
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US hands over helicopters to Interior Ministry
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 19 October 2008
Ministry will use the eight helicopters in its battle against drug smuggling
THE US has handed over eight helicopters to the Ministry of Interior’s counter-narcotics task force.
The deputy head of counternarcotics at the ministry said the role of the air force was vital in the fight against the country’s drug smugglers and he said the helicopters would help double efforts to catch them.
About $230 million has been pumped into the creation of an air force and anti-drug task force.
There are about 93 pilots and technicians stationed in the ministry’s air force.
Drug smuggling and opium growth are frequently blamed for continuing insecurity in the country and money from the drug trade lines the Taliban's pockets, the UN says.
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