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2 Foreigners Shot to Death in Kabul
By CARLOTTA GALL and SANGAR RAHIMI October 25, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two foreign men, the director and deputy of an international courier service, were shot dead in central Kabul Saturday morning just outside their office, apparently by one of their security guards
More than 1,000 Afghans protest Taliban killings
By FISNIK ABRASHI Associated Press October 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan – More than 1,000 people shouted anti-Taliban slogans in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, protesting the slayings this week of 26 young men from their community by militants in the south.
Notorious Taliban commander arrested in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police on Thursday carried out an operation against a notorious Taliban commander, Mullah Juma Gul, Thursday morning and arrested the target successfully in southern Afghan province
Two Turkish engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan-agency
25 Oct 2008 10:57:39 GMT
ISTANBUL, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Two Turkish engineers have been kidnapped in Afghanistan, Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency reported on Saturday.
Bangladeshi men kidnapped in Afghanistan: aid official
Sat Oct 25, 3:37 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – Two Bangladeshi development workers in the Afghan province of Ghazni have been kidnapped, their employer said Saturday, in the latest of a string abductions in the troubled country.
US, UN differ on Afghan opium ebb
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Fri Oct 24, 7:47 am ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. and U.N. experts agree that Afghanistan will harvest fewer poppy plants bound for the drug trade in 2008 after two years of record crops. But they have radically different estimates
US training Pakistani forces to fight Taliban
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 25, 2:53 am ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – U.S. special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides
AFGHANISTAN: ONCE A SIGN OF HOPE, AFGHAN HIGHWAY BECOMES A TALIBAN HUNTING GROUND
10/24/08 By Salih Muhammad Salih, Abubakar Siddique A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
Following its reconstruction in 2003, the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway was seen as a logistical lifeline that would bring hope and promise for Afghanistan’s future.
Hot air and improbable peace
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / October 24, 2008
KARACHI - The recent Saudi Arabia initiative to instigate a peace process with the Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan was doomed to failure as the main actors - the Taliban
US' Afghan market dreams faltering
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul Source: Al Jazeera
A dormant industrial park cordoned off by a wall stands on the main highway outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar e Sharif.
Pakistan revives tribal militias but risks backlash
Reuters October 24, 2008 By Zeeshan Haider
Pakistani authorities are encouraging Pashtun tribesmen on the Afghan border to revive traditional militias to counter rising Islamist militancy but analysts fear the move could backfire if not properly handled.
Jolie returns from Afghanistan visit
world entertainment news via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie is back on US soil after a secret two-day trip visiting poverty-stricken families in Afghanistan. Skip related content
Thought of Taleban deal alarms jihadists
By Frank Gardner BBC Security Correspondent Thursday, 23 October 2008
There is a growing fear among some hardline supporters of al-Qaeda that talk of an eventual peace deal between the Taleban and the Afghan government could lead one day to al-Qaeda losing its foothold in the region.
Survivor tells of harrowing escape from Taliban bus hijacking
The Globe and Mail - International JESSICA LEEDER October 25, 2008
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - Four gun-wielding Taliban forced their way onto the bus – two through the front door and two through the back – and tied the hands of all of the passengers so they could march the 24 hostages off.
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2 Foreigners Shot to Death in Kabul
By CARLOTTA GALL and SANGAR RAHIMI October 25, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two foreign men, the director and deputy of an international courier service, were shot dead in central Kabul Saturday morning just outside their office, apparently by one of their security guards, the chief of the criminal police department, Mirza Muhammad Yarmand, confirmed at the scene.
The Afghan guard was also killed, and two other Afghans were seriously wounded in the shooting that ensued, two plainclothes investigators told reporters at the scene. Neither of the police officials gave their names.
First accounts indicated that one of the guards from a private security firm guarding the office opened fire on the two foreigners as they arrived at the office in their car. “There was a clash between these people and the guard, and then the guard was shot by someone else,” one of the police investigators said. Two other Afghans were seriously injured in the clash, one was a guard, and one was a customer, he said.
There were bullet holes in the side of the car and blood spattered on the windows and interior of the vehicle. The bodies of the two foreigners lay on the ground under a tarpaulin shortly after the shooting mid-morning until police took them away. Police detained three or four Afghan men and women from the courier office. A police officer carried away from the scene spent cartridges and a baseball cap in a plastic bag.
The shooting, at a busy intersection opposite the Iranian embassy, and close to several other embassy compounds, follows the fatal shooting of a female aid worker on Monday in western Kabul and further raised security concerns for the thousands of foreigners working in the Afghan capital.
A rash of killings and kidnappings have occurred in recent weeks in Kabul. The Taliban is known to have increased its attacks, in particular to raise ransom money from kidnappings and spread terror and insecurity among the public through targeted killings. They are also known to have urged members of the movement to seek positions inside Afghan and foreign institutions to work as informants.
Diplomats and Afghan officials have also suggested the sudden increase in violence is criminal and aimed at undermining the position of the newly appointed interior minister, Hanif Atmar, who took up his post on Tuesday. Mr. Atmar is expected to introduce tough reforms to combat corruption and criminality inside the ministry.
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More than 1,000 Afghans protest Taliban killings
By FISNIK ABRASHI Associated Press October 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan – More than 1,000 people shouted anti-Taliban slogans in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, protesting the slayings this week of 26 young men from their community by militants in the south.
The unprecedented demonstration in the eastern Laghman province was one of the largest anti-Taliban gatherings since the fall of the hard-line Islamist regime following the U.S. invasion in late 2001.
On Sunday, Taliban stopped a bus in southern Kandahar province's Maiwand district, a militant-controlled area, and killed 26 of the passengers — beheading at least six of them. A Taliban spokesman said the men were targeted because they were members of Afghan security forces.
But Afghan officials disputed that any soldiers were on the bus, saying the Taliban insurgents had killed innocent civilians who were on their way to find jobs in neighboring Iran.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans cross illegally into Iran every year, seeking jobs and refuge.
Protesters from Laghman's Alingar district — where most of those killed came from — shouted "Death to Taliban" and "Death to killers" in the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam. They waved black flags in a sign of mourning.
"They were innocent people, trying to find jobs, and they killed them," Abdul Wakil Attock, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said about the victims.
The protest in Laghman, a province next to Kabul, underscores the growing rivalry among Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan that also form the core of the Taliban fighters.
An anti-Taliban protest by Pashtuns, like Friday's, will likely provide the U.S. and other international forces with an opportunity to exploit the rift to drive a wedge between the insurgent group and the civilian population.
Separately, a U.S. coalition raid in Paktika killed three insurgents Thursday; four others were detained, the coalition said in a statement.
The troops were targeting an insurgent leader accused of facilitating the movement of foreign fighters and weapons throughout eastern Afghanistan.
The region borders Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, which the U.S. says militants use as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks in both countries.
There has been a spike in violence in Afghanistan this year. More than 5,200 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency-related violence, according to figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.
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Notorious Taliban commander arrested in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police on Thursday carried out an operation against a notorious Taliban commander, Mullah Juma Gul, Thursday morning and arrested the target successfully in southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, said a police official on Friday.
Juma Gul Humat, the provincial police chief told Xinhua that police forces ambushed the regional Taliban leader Mullah Juma Guloutside his hideout in Chahar Chinu district of Uruzgan, arresting him and one of his fellows Mullah Abdul Hakim.
"Mullah Juma Gul, who has over 150 armed men, was suspected of facilitating and involving in several attacks against Afghan and international troops," the police chief said.
During the search of their hideout, two satellite phones, two AK-47s, some pistols and walkie-talkies were found and seized by police, he added.
However, Taliban militants have yet to make any comment.
Separately, the U.S.-led Coalition forces killed three armed militants and detained four suspected militants during an operation targeting the Haqqani terrorist network in eastern Afghan province of Paktika on Thursday, said a Coalition statement issued here on Friday.
"Coalition forces searched a compound in Ziruk district, targeting a Haqqani commander suspected of foreign fighter and weapons facilitation," it said.
"Coalition forces engaged militants as they searched the compound and they returned fire, killing three armed militants," it said.
"A search of the compound revealed multiple AK-47s and other military style equipment," it added.
Spiraling conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency have left more than 4,700 people so far this year in Afghanistan while Taliban insurgents recently have vowed to intensified assaults against interests of Afghan government and international troops before the coming winter.
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Two Turkish engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan-agency
25 Oct 2008 10:57:39 GMT
ISTANBUL, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Two Turkish engineers have been kidnapped in Afghanistan, Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency reported on Saturday.
The agency quoted sources at the Turkish embassy in Kabul as saying the engineers had been kidnapped two days ago.
"Efforts to rescue our engineers are continuing at the highest level," a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman told the agency.
No further details were immediately available.
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Bangladeshi men kidnapped in Afghanistan: aid official
Sat Oct 25, 3:37 am ET
DHAKA (AFP) – Two Bangladeshi development workers in the Afghan province of Ghazni have been kidnapped, their employer said Saturday, in the latest of a string abductions in the troubled country.
Mahbub Hossain, executive director of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the largest foreign development organisation in Afghanistan, said it was not known who abducted the men.
"Our Kabul office informed us Friday two of our Bangladeshi men were abducted as they were going to a branch office in Ghazni," Hossain said.
"We don't know who abducted them and where they have been taken," he said.
Brac is the biggest private charity working in Afghanistan since 2002. It works on development projects, including building schools, roads and clinics.
Its micro-finance programmes in Afghanistan work largely with poor and disadvantaged women. It also operates a bank in the country.
The charity employs 4,700 people, the majority of them Afghans, in the health, education and micro-credit sectors. Some 200 of its employees in Afghanistan are from Bangladesh.
In September 2007, one of its Bangladeshi workers was shot dead and another man was abducted by unknown kidnappers. He was freed last December.
The insurgent Taliban movement, which controlled Afghanistan until it was ousted by a US invasion in 2001, has been behind a string of abductions of Afghan and foreign nationals in the country.
The Taliban have tried to use hostages to barter with the government and have killed a number of them.
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US, UN differ on Afghan opium ebb
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Fri Oct 24, 7:47 am ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. and U.N. experts agree that Afghanistan will harvest fewer poppy plants bound for the drug trade in 2008 after two years of record crops. But they have radically different estimates about what that decline will mean for opium production.
In a report obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its planned release Friday, the Bush administration claims that production of the heroin precursor will plunge by 31 percent, from 8,800 tons in 2007 to 6,100 tons this year. That's more than five times the drop in production predicted by the United Nations in late August.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy maintains its estimate is accurate. Director John Walters says the U.N. report may contain "methodological anomalies" related to on-the-ground surveys of poppy fields and stocks and not factor the effect of poor weather into its production estimate.
The Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, which compiled the U.N. report, was not immediately available to comment, but an official at its New York branch defended its estimate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
When the U.N. report was released on Aug. 26, officials said that despite a 19 percent drop in cultivation, opium production would go down by only 6 percent because of a rise in yield in fields still under cultivation.
The U.S. report estimates that poppy cultivation is down a similar amount — by 22 percent — but says yields have also fallen. Walters' office noted that the U.S. and U.N. use different data collection and analysis techniques to compile their estimates.
Walters said the U.S. estimate included factors affecting opium production, such as drought, that the U.N. may not have used. Both reports, however, did factor the weather into cultivation.
U.N. experts said the drought was a crucial reason, along with anti-drug campaigns, for the significant decline in poppy cultivation from 477,000 acres in 2007 to 388,000 acres in 2008.
The U.S. report estimates that cultivation fell from 499,000 acres in 2007 to 388,000 acres in 2008.
Regardless of the difference in opinion over what the drop will mean for opium production, Walters said the decline in cultivation — particularly that 18 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are now poppy-free, up from 15 in 2007 and 12 in 2006 — is "good news" and a sign that counternarcotics efforts are working after years of failure.
"It gives us a clear indication that we can do this, we just need to sustain it," he said, noting that anti-drug campaigns were working especially well in Afghanistan's north and east, where incentive programs aimed at rewarding local officials for declines in poppy cultivation have been most successful.
The Bush administration has spent $2.8 billion on fighting drugs in Afghanistan since 2002 but until this year, it had seen poppy cultivation on the rise with record harvests in both 2006 and 2007.
Afghanistan is still the largest opium producer in the world. Were it a country, just one province, Helmand, in the south, would hold that title, as it accounts for more than 60 percent of the country's crop.
The illicit drug trade is financing the Taliban, which could reap as much as $70 million from the 2008 harvest, and fueling rampant corruption that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been slow to address.
Key to sustaining and improving on the 2008 reduction will be stepped-up eradication and crop substitution efforts, along with a focus on fighting corruption and the insurgency.
"Terrorists, opium and corruption have to be attacked together," Walters said.
U.S. defense officials are pressing NATO to conduct more counternarcotics operations in Afghanistan, although they are facing resistance from allies.
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US training Pakistani forces to fight Taliban
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 25, 2:53 am ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – U.S. special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides of the border with Afghanistan.
The sensitive mission puts rare American boots on the ground in a key theater in the war against extremist groups, but it risks fanning anti-U.S. sentiment among Pakistani Muslims already angry over suspected CIA missile attacks on militants in the same frontier region.
"The American special forces failed in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ameerul Azim, an official in the hard-line Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami. "Those who failed everywhere cannot train our people."
Despite such complaints, the training program comes as some tribes in the frontier zone are setting up militias to help the Pakistani government combat extremist movements. The new forces have been compared to the Sunni Arab militias in Iraq that helped beat back the insurgency there.
Still, the U.S. training program is reportedly smaller than originally proposed and was delayed, apparently reflecting misgivings in Pakistan's government about allowing U.S. troops on its territory.
Its start has not been officially announced. But Pakistani army officers confirmed Saturday that 32 Americans were training 116 senior personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps at an undisclosed location in the restive northwest, adjacent to Afghanistan.
The officials said the course included classroom and field sessions and that the mission would last around six months.
"We need this training to use modern equipment and weapons," Frontier Corps commander Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan said.
A U.S. defense official said the trainers were U.S. special operations forces and that they arrived in Pakistan last week. The official, who asked for anonymity because some details had not been made public, said the program would likely be a one-time effort and that there were no plans to send more trainers.
Asked about the program on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman contrasted it with much larger U.S. training efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. soldiers are embedded with local units on the battlefield.
"It is a train-the-trainer type of concept," Whitman said. "They are not actually conducting operations."
The Frontier Corps is a relic of British rule that was long a poorly armed, untrained police force that the government hopes can be remade into a potent unit capable of confronting Taliban militants.
Its troopers are local men, in contrast to the army, which is dominated by ethnic Punjabis and is viewed as an occupying force by the Pashtun tribes living on both sides of the border. U.S. and Pakistani officials argue that the corps' local knowledge and cultural sensitivities make it the best tool in a battle where winning hearts and minds is crucial.
The goal is that a strong Frontier Corps can take on most combat duties, allowing a gradual pullback of the army that is hoped will ease tensions in the northwest.
The U.S. has poured some $10 billion into Pakistan since the then-president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, turned against his former Taliban allies in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Most of the money has gone to the army, including the $70 million earmarked for the Frontier Corps program.
U.S. forces already trained Pakistan's Special Services Group, a commando unit that crushed militants holding Islamabad's Red Mosque last year. Washington also has supplied the helicopter gunships that are seeing heavy use in army offensives in several Pakistani border regions.
But with the war dragging in Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers and commentators have questioned why Pakistan still seems unable to eradicate militant sanctuaries on its side of the border.
"This thought has come pretty late in the day," Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of political sciences, said of Pakistan's decision to let the trainers in. "But still I don't think it is too late, given the fact that this is going to be a very long war."
With many Pakistanis accusing their army of fighting a proxy war against its own citizens at Washington's behest, U.S. officials have said Pakistan was reluctant to accept foreign training, but softened its stance in the light of mounting losses.
Musharraf, who was forced out of office earlier this year, announced a plan in 2007 to build up the Frontier Corps so it could confront Taliban fighters.
At the time, its troops had no body armor, few vehicles and an arsenal of only aging rifles. With U.S. help, the corps has received several more battalions, been armed with tanks and artillery and is now heavily involved in fighting in the Bajur and Swat areas.
American officials have said they are also supplying equipment such as helmets, flak vests and night-vision goggles.
"The hope is that the more trainers we train, the more effective they will be in training their forces and the more capable forces will then be able to take the fight to the militants in the tribal areas where they operate," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
The training program has begun despite strains in Pakistani-U.S. relations.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who replaced Musharraf as army chief, and the former leader's successor as president, Asif Ali Zardari, have maintained close ties with Washington. But they have condemned the recent U.S. missile strikes, the latest of which killed nine people Thursday.
Cooperation has also been chilled by an incident in June when U.S. warplanes killed 11 Frontier Corps troopers at a border post. U.S. officials said the action during a skirmish with militants was justified. Pakistan's army insists no shots were fired from the post.
U.S. officials suspect some Frontier Corps troops sympathize with the Taliban and ignore militants sneaking though mountain passes into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and NATO troops.
Pakistani officials agree the corps has problems, but analysts say a better trained force is more likely to have the confidence to take on the militants. American officials also hope it will become a better partner for cross-border cooperation.
___
Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor in Washington and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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AFGHANISTAN: ONCE A SIGN OF HOPE, AFGHAN HIGHWAY BECOMES A TALIBAN HUNTING GROUND
10/24/08 By Salih Muhammad Salih, Abubakar Siddique A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
Following its reconstruction in 2003, the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway was seen as a logistical lifeline that would bring hope and promise for Afghanistan’s future.
But today the nearly 500-kilometer route, known as Highway One, might arguably symbolize the dangers ahead as the country continues its efforts to defeat the Taliban and other "enemies of Afghanistan," to borrow the government’s phrase for insurgents and other brigands undermining central authority.
Afghans who use the road warn that it has become exceedingly treacherous, with Taliban and other armed gangs frequently kidnapping and killing travelers between the capital and the southern city of Kandahar.
Locals working with the government, aid agencies, or connected to Westerners are targeted. So, too, are Western and Afghan convoys ferrying supplies between foreign military bases along the route.
"Armed people, Taliban, or whoever it is using their name stop vehicles on the highway," Kandahar resident Zainullah says in describing a recent experience on Highway 1 to RFE/RL. "[The armed men] take a few passenger buses away and search them thoroughly; they take away people whom they suspect [work for the government or are their opponents] and kidnap and kill them."
He complains that "Afghan police or the Afghan National Army are nowhere to be seen along the road."
"The Taliban even stop and confiscate vehicles very close to the police checkposts," Zainullah says, "but the police do little to stop them."
Insurgent Tactic
Over the past six months, security concerns about Afghanistan’s main highway, or ring road -- portions of which stretch from the capital in east-central Afghanistan to Kandahar in the south, and from there to Herat in the west -- have risen dramatically.
Last week, a bus carrying 50 people traveling from Kandahar to Herat was ambushed by Taliban forces. Days later, a purported Taliban spokesman announced that 27 of the passengers had been executed after a Taliban court determined that they were Afghan National Army troops.
On the Kabul-to-Kandahar route in late June, a convoy carrying fuel and food supplies for the U.S. military came under attack. The ambush reportedly left seven drivers dead.
The incidents are part of an apparent Taliban strategy to put pressure on the government by increasing attacks on three major routes leading from the east, southeast, and southwest to the capital, Kabul.
Disrupting Highway One, whose reconstruction was a joint effort funded in large part by the United States, Japan, and Saudi Arabia -- is a major part of that strategy.
Once a symbol of the Cold War struggle for influence -- the Kandahar-Herat section was built by the Soviets, the Kabul-Kandahar route by the United States in the 1960s -- it had most recently been showcased as evidence of the West’s commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan.
The Kabul-to-Kandahar route was reconstructed after eight months of work in 2003, at an estimated cost of nearly $200 million.
The reconstruction of the 560-kilometer Kandahar-to-Herat route began in 2004, was projected to cost another $300 million, and was slated for completion in 2006. That has not happened, largely for security reasons, and subsequent U.S. estimates have suggested the road will be completed by the end of this year, "as stipulated in the Afghan Compact" with the United States, according to US AID.
Reversing Progress
The reopening of the Kandahar-to-Kabul route raised hopes among Afghans, and reduced a two-day, bone-jarring journey between the two cities to a mere six hours.
During a ceremony in Herat in 2005, then-U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad called the highway "a symbol of Afghan renewal and progress."
The Kandahar-Herat section, too, was expected to cut a 12-hour trip in half.
But with dozens of bridges along the route destroyed, and the increase of violent attacks, the highway today highlights the overall increase in insecurity and the relative success of the Taliban.
Afghan authorities, meanwhile, maintain they are doing their best to improve security along the highway. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zmari Bashari reiterated his government’s resolve during a recent interview with RFE/RL, saying the ministry "has taken important steps to improve security along the major highways."
But he also acknowledged that "now we are working on new plans to find answers to the new threats along these roads."
Everyday Afghans see sophisticated conspiracies behind the recent spate of attacks on Highway One.
Khalid Pashtun, a member of the Afghan parliament from Kandahar, blames "elements working for foreigners" for the recent destruction of many important bridges along the road.
"We have complete information about the destruction of bridges -- the Pakistanis and other foreigners in Taliban ranks are responsible for blowing up the bridges at the behest of other countries," Pashtun says. "In some cases we have conveyed to the [Afghan] Taliban through intermediaries that they should not destroy their country’s infrastructure as they, too, use it; but they strongly deny participating in such activities. Such actions are indeed atrocities against the Afghan people."
Pashtun adds that, apart from the Taliban, organized criminal gangs with high-level backers in the capital benefit from insecurity on the vital link between Kabul and Kandahar.
"The most interesting aspect of this is that people are taken to Kabul, and then freed after paying a ransom," Pashtun says. "The parliament has asked the police and the military to explain this. They have been told to establish new checkpoints and search everyone."
The Afghan Defense Ministry has responded, recently deploying troops at strategic locations along Highway One and establishing fresh checkpoints. It claims that patrols have also been increased.
But despite recent efforts, there is no denying that the symbolic road to recovery today serves as a reminder of an increasingly violent conflict.
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Hot air and improbable peace
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / October 24, 2008
KARACHI - The recent Saudi Arabia initiative to instigate a peace process with the Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan was doomed to failure as the main actors - the Taliban - were not included, leading them to summarily dismiss any notion of talks.
Indeed, Afghan President Hamid Karzai concluded that the only result was to give the Taliban an unprecedented moral boost, beside tacit legitimacy. And the Taliban have said they want to wind the clock back to when they were in power before the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, and may even be prepared for the first time to continue fighting throughout the winter.
Despite this, another peace track is underway, that of a mini-council (jirgagai) to be held in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad from October 27 to October 28. Yet, once again, the main players have not been invited to participate.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta is in Islamabad talking up the prospects of the jirgagai, yet, given the failed Mecca initiative, it can be expected that instead of bearing any fruit, the gathering will result in further humiliation for Washington and its allies.
Senior Pakistani and Afghan officials on Tuesday agreed on an agenda for the jirgagai, saying that it would review the implementation of decisions taken at a grand joint jirga of Pakistani and Afghan delegates held in the Afghan capital Kabul in August of last year.
At this much-trumpeted but ultimately failed event, it was decided to hold dialogue with the Taliban and other factions for peace and floated the idea of mini-jirgas.
At Tuesday's preliminary meeting for the jirgagai, the six-member Afghan side was led by Farooq Wardak, the deputy chairman of the Jirga Monitoring Commission of Afghanistan. The Pakistani side was represented by Owais Ahmed Ghani, chairman of the Pakistani component of the Jirga Commission, and also governor of North-West Frontier Province.
It was unanimously agreed that the jirgagai would be attended by 25 members from each side and that they would "discuss ways and means to enhance cooperation among tribals and elders to restore peace in both countries and along the border regions". The mini-jirga will also discuss the next grand joint jirga, scheduled to be held in Pakistan.
The Afghan delegation will include Dr Abdul Qadeer Ranjbar, a member of the Afghanistan National Assembly, or Wulasi Jirga, and Dr Bakhtar Aminzai, a member of the Senate, or Masharanu Jirga.
Let's talk about it
In essence, it was the idea of the British Embassy in Kabul to start talking to selected Taliban, and it was on this basis that the grand jirga agreed to set up small jirgas on a regional basis, including in North Waziristan and Quetta in Pakistan and Kandahar and Khost in Afghanistan. (See Talks with the Taliban gain ground Asia Times Online, August 24, 2007.)
Crucially, though, these were to involve tribal elders and related parties, including the Taliban, to be run by acceptable mediators. They were scheduled for last November, but the crackdown on a radical mosque in Islamabad had repercussions in the Swat Valley, which turned into a full-blown insurgency in Bajaur Agency, South Waziristan and North Waziristan, and the jirgas were postponed.
This month's jirgagai revives the process - but without the Taliban, and it can only be regarded as an act of political posturing to shore up the rapidly dwindling credibility of the Karzai administration in Washington.
Absurdly, the jirgagai not only excludes the Taliban and the Hezb-e-Islami (HIA) associated with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but also those who have contact with these groups.
The chief of the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, Abdul Hadi Argundwal, commented to Asia Times Online, "The Saudi talks did not have any official position or locus standi as the real players of the game were missing."
Argundwal is a veteran mujahideen commander from the resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s and a close confidant of former Afghan premier Hekmatyar. After Hekmatyar decided to fight against American forces, Argundwal and other HIA members joined hands and announced their separation from the insurgency and registered HIA as a political party.
Even before registration, HIA members contested in elections in their personal capacity and emerged as the single-largest party in the Afghan National Assembly, with 40 seats. In the past six months, HIA, the largest mujahideen faction before the emergence of the Taliban, has opened offices throughout Afghanistan and once again emerged as the most organized political force. It is tipped to be the most important factor in next year's presidential elections.
Talking to Asia Times Online by telephone from Kabul, Argundwal, whose party members were part of the talks in Saudi Arabia, maintained that the real players in the game are the armed opposition groups, not the former Taliban or those members of the HIA who have disassociated themselves from armed opposition.
"The same goes with the jirga. It is necessary to improve ties between the two brotherly Muslim nations [Pakistan and Afghanistan], but it is without substance if the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are not given representation," said Argundwal, adding that his party had not been invited to the latest process of jirgas.
Commenting on the Saudi initiative, retired Pakistani Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who is close to the Saudi establishment, told Asia Times Online, "You should not call it a Saudi-sponsored peace process. It was simply Hamid Karzai's personal initiative and Saudi Arabia, being a well-wisher of another Muslim nation - Afghanistan - cooperated."
Gul, recognized as one of the architects of the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan against the Soviets when he was Pakistan's chief spy master, continued, "There was no representation on behalf of the Taliban or on behalf of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Taliban do not recognize people like Mullah Zaeef [former Afghan ambassador to Pakistan during the Taliban regime] or [Wakeel Ahmed] Muttawakil [Afghan foreign minister during Taliban rule]. That was a straight forward move on behalf of Hamid Karzai to save his sinking ship. His credibility at home is already non-existent due to the corruption of his government ... Through such moves Karzai tried to buy some face-saving for the next presidential elections.
"The same goes with the upcoming mini-jirga. Have you ever heard of dialogue without a party of the conflict?", Gull questioned. "In jirgas, all parties of a conflict are given representation and then through mediation the conflict is resolved. Here, the Taliban are missing.
"There is a sanctity and significance of jirgas - they are held in a big crisis situation to resolve a problem. In the whole of Afghan history, four grand jirgas have been held. In the 40 years of King Zahir Shah's period, only two grand jirgas were held. Now they have made a mockery of jirgas. Mini-jirgas are held every now and then, but these mini-jirgas are limited to smaller places - not at the level of two countries," Gul said.
"The Soviets were advised in 1986 not to adopt an unsteady approach, to talk directly with the mujahideen and leave. Russia did not adhere to the advice and withdrew from Afghanistan in disgrace three years later. Today, if the US does not adhere to the right advice, that is, talking to the rightful resistance, it will face the same fate as the Soviets," Gul said.
The vital point is that non-state actors in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have the potential to play a role in any dialogue process, but neither the Afghan government nor Washington aims to involve them, let alone include the Taliban, rendering any hopes of peace illusory.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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US' Afghan market dreams faltering
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul Source: Al Jazeera
A dormant industrial park cordoned off by a wall stands on the main highway outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar e Sharif.
Funded by USAID, the US government's development aid arm, the park was the representation of hopes for a flourishing market-led economy in Afghanistan, an economic policy that was supposed to put the war-torn country back on its feet.
But it lies strangely silent, lacking the hum of machinery and noise of human activity. A non-starter in the absence of basic requirements such as power and water.
In a reconstruction effort led by Western countries and dominated by the US through its sheer political clout and large financial contribution, Afghanistan adopted the free-market approach with little debate, less research and none of the existing conditions that have presaged a shift to such an economy in western countries.
The ideology was enshrined within the 2002 National Development Framework, but there were "no discussions with civil society or political parties" says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, a policy research manager with Action Aid in Afghanistan.
"It was formulated by citizens or Afghans residing in the US and led by the World Bank," he says.
More recently, the approach was enshrined as one of the defining tenets of the vision for Afghanistan as "a society of hope and prosperity based on a strong private sector-led market economy" in what is known as Afghanistan's National Development Strategy (ANDS), finalised and adopted at the Paris Conference in June 2008.
Four months later, despite the spectacular collapse of the market in Western countries and an ongoing debate over the pros and cons of the value of the market-led economy in those nations, there is little discussion here in Afghanistan about the approach and what it has delivered.
Endorsing ANDS, Michael Yates, the Afghanistan mission director of USAID, said: "The US government and the broader donor community are committed to helping Afghanistan achieve this important vision."
But Bahman Hares, an Afghan working with Action Aid, laments the fact his country has become "a laboratory" for different policies from other countries.
And Haroun Mir and Idrees Rahmani, researchers for the Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, argue that ambitious economic reforms were launched without adequate thought and planning.
"International institutions have brought policies studied by foreign experts and imposed them on the government for implementation," they say.
Afghanistan has had to follow these policies in order to get debt relief and access to financial and technical assistance from these institutions.
Yates argues that the telecom sector is a good example of the private-sector model.
Afghanistan's four mobile companies recently surpassed $100 million in combined quarterly revenue and have invested more than $1.3 billion in the economy.
The beneficiaries of this 100 per cent, private-sector led, market-oriented achievement are Afghans, he says.
The investments stay in Afghanistan, the jobs go to Afghans, the taxes paid by the telecoms companies go to the Afghan government – allowing the government to offer greater public services to its people.
The success of Afghanistan's telecoms sector serves as a model to the rest of the economy, and to the world, of what can be achieved with the right policies, he says.
But is the telecom sector a model or an exception?
Deregulation has not automatically translated into growth and the industries to supply even basic goods is almost non-existent.
Lack of competition
A walk around Kabul, one of the most economically active areas of the country, tells its own tale.
Mushrooming houses, shops stocked with goods, the chaos of traffic and throngs of people suggest the hustle and bustle of economic activity.
A second look however reveals a different story.
Walk into the shops stocked with goods and a look at the manufacturer's origin will reveal that the goods are imported.
Food items are largely sourced from Pakistan and Iran while household goods are largely Chinese.
While few countries in the world are exempt from the threat of cheap imports, Afghanistan's tragedy is that here there are no indigenous competitors, no local industry that can even provide an alternate source of goods and services beyond the subsistence agricultural economy that has always existed.
Despite this, the Afghan government and its international backers follow a low-tariff regime in the name of a free-market economy, even while countries exporting a massive amount of goods into Afghanistan continue to follow protectionist policies and impose tariffs on Afghan carpets, raw hides and plants.
Six years into reconstruction, the promise of a better economic future, stable environment and improved security still remain elusive.
Despite growth figures that are quoted frequently in a bid to prove signs of economic recovery, the benefits of economic growth remain skewed and despite a high rate of growth (13.5 per cent in 2007), food insecurity has increased with 4.5 million people facing severe food shortages, according to the World Food Programme.
According to the WFP, more than half the population, estimated at 24.9 million, live below the poverty line and the 2005 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment found that around 6.6 million Afghans do not meet their minimum food requirements.
Targeting the poor
Opinion is divided on the reasons for the lack of economic development.
In a recent paper, ACBAR, the umbrella organisation for more than 10 non-governmental organisations, argued that a pilot participatory survey had revealed an urgent need for pro-poor targeted schemes rather than the "trickle down" theory of the market place.
The government, it said, must develop policies and programming that "explicitly contain components and programmes that directly included the poor in targeted initiatives".
For an effective trajectory of poverty reduction, the poor cannot be an add-on category, it said.
Yates, however, argues a strong free-market economy "attracts new businesses, creates jobs and ensures higher demand is met by higher productivity, not higher prices".
Freddy Bob-Jones from the British government's aid arm, DFID, in Afghanistan, also argues in favour of the free-market approach, saying "recent evidence shows the failure of the market economy has been caused primarily by state failure through corruption, lack of policy clarity and good infrastructure".
"The state is standing in the way of the growth of the private sector.
"Growth in the telecom sector shows the potential for commercial success - the government has deregulated in that area and the sector has grown massively."
But some economic analysts feel that the free-market policy does not take into account the very real absence of power, water and roads, which continue to present the biggest stumbling blocks to the growth of indigenous industry, along with the prevailing insecurity.
Power failures
According to current government statistics, only 20 per cent of the population have access to public power (grid-supplied) "on certain days for a limited number of hours".
On a per capita basis, the electricity generating capacity is "well below what it was in 1978", while on water resources the national development strategy refers to the current "unclear delineation of responsibilities between ministries with regards to the water strategy" adding "co-ordination between water-related institutions remains weak".
While a considerable amount of roads have been built or repaired, they are highly unstable due to the increasing insecurity.
Rahmani and Mir say Afghanistan is far away from meeting other basic free-market prerequisite conditions as well.
"A market-led economy without basic requirements like power, water and roads leaves investors with no incentive to invest," says Action Aid's Siddiqui.
Siddiqui feels some form of protectionism is required to allow the domestic industry to grow as, without that, it is more cost-effective for businessmen to import cheap goods than produce them in Afghanistan.
Jones agrees that "there could be some protection in a neutral way, by creating infrastructure, some limited protection in areas like value-added agriculture" but insists that this has to be limited.
An earlier assessment of the free-market policy by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit had, however, argued for more, rather than less, state intervention, saying the market on its own would not deliver the wider benefits expected of it.
Asked whether the market-led approach could work in Afghanistan if privatisation was on track and in the absence of corruption, Jones states: "I cannot give a definite answer to this. It needs more analysis."
Both Mir and Rahmani, however, feel the debate has never included Afghans.
"Unfortunately the debate is among experts from donor countries and international multilateral organisations and it does not include Afghan voices from civil society and the business community," they say.
Both, it seems, would seem to have some grounds for their critique.
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Pakistan revives tribal militias but risks backlash
Reuters October 24, 2008 By Zeeshan Haider
Pakistani authorities are encouraging Pashtun tribesmen on the Afghan border to revive traditional militias to counter rising Islamist militancy but analysts fear the move could backfire if not properly handled.
Under a centuries-old tradition, ethnic Pashtun tribes raise militias, known as lashkars, in their semi-autonomous regions to fight criminal gangs and enforce their tribal codes.
Pakistan, a front-line U.S. ally against al Qaeda and Taliban militants, has been under tremendous U.S. pressure to root out Taliban and al Qaeda militants responsible for rising violence in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan.
The Pakistani military has sent more than 80,000 troops to the northwestern Pashtun lands along the Afghan border and launched offensives in two areas in August.
Authorities are now nudging the fiercely independent tribesmen, who carry guns as a symbol of honour, to raise their lashkars to reinforce the military's efforts.
"Now the Pashtun people themselves have risen against those who have turned their lives into hell," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of North Western Frontier Province.
"The threat of militants cannot be countered without the support of the people. These people need to be organised and we support any such move," he told Reuters.
Pakistani officials say they plan to supply assault rifles to thousands of tribesmen to fight the militants.
The strategy of supporting tribal militias to evict militants bears a parallel with the Awakening Council movement in Iraq, in which Sunni tribesmen have risen against al Qaeda and driven them from their neighbourhoods with help from the U.S. military.
Pentagon officials said U.S. military officers had advocated a similar plan for Pakistan for some time. "The concept is welcome," said a senior military official.
"SICK OF THE TALIBAN"
Last month, a lashkar of about 3,000 men was organised in the Bajaur region, a militant sanctuary where security forces launched a major offensive in August.
The lashkar began to take action against the militants early this month, demolishing houses of many militants, including that of Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban.
Several areas have been cleared of militants, said Malik Bacha Zain, a pro-government tribal elder.
"We raised the lashkar because we have become sick of the Taliban," he told Reuters by telephone from Bajaur. "We thought they'd bring peace but they brought war."
Similar lashkars are being raised in the Orakzai and Darra Adam Kheil tribal regions as well as in the Swat Valley northwest of Islamabad where security forces have been fighting militants loyal to a pro-Taliban cleric.
Analysts say the militias might succeed in driving out militants in some areas but there was risk they could turn into private armies.
"If these lashkars expel militants then it's OK but there's no guarantee the lashkars won't get out of control and become personal militias of tribal elders," said Rahimullah Yousufzai, a newspaper editor and expert on Pashtun affairs.
He said Islamist militant groups were raised and armed in a similar way during the U.S.-backed jihad or holy war against Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
That support contributed to the emergence of al Qaeda and allied groups now intent on battling the West and bringing down the Pakistani government.
"These militant groups are now working independently. We risk many more private armies in the shape of lashkars. It's a big gamble," Yousufzai said.
Analysts say the tribal elders raising lashkars also risk reprisals from the militants.
More than 50 tribesmen were killed this month in a suicide car bomb attack at a tribal meeting in Orakzai called to raise a lashkar. On Thursday, eight men were gunned down when they were returning from a similar tribal gathering.
Up to 300 pro-government tribal elders have been killed in North and South Waziristan, two other main militant sanctuaries, over the past few years.
Some analysts said rather than relying on militias, the government has to put more stress on the development of the backward tribal areas. The government highlights the importance of development but little has been done.
It has allocated 8.4 billion rupees ($104 million) for development in the region this year but given an economic crisis, it remains to be seen how much is spent. The United States has earmarked $750 million for projects in the tribal areas.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Jolie returns from Afghanistan visit
world entertainment news via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie is back on US soil after a secret two-day trip visiting poverty-stricken families in Afghanistan. Skip related content
Jolie spent Wednesday and Thursday with former refugees who have returned to the country and are attempting to build new homes, in her role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
Speaking after her return, Jolie, 33, says, "The courage, resilience and quiet dignity of returnee families rebuilding their lives against the kind of adversity few of us can imagine shows the human spirit at its best."
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Thought of Taleban deal alarms jihadists
By Frank Gardner BBC Security Correspondent Thursday, 23 October 2008
There is a growing fear among some hardline supporters of al-Qaeda that talk of an eventual peace deal between the Taleban and the Afghan government could lead one day to al-Qaeda losing its foothold in the region.
The Taleban's official spokesman Zahidullah Mujahid has denied reports of peace negotiations.
But Saudi officials say a meeting between representatives of the two sides did take place in Saudi Arabia this month, although there is no indication that any actual negotiations were conducted.
In the shadowy world of extremist internet forums, even talks about talks are enough to provoke alarm in some quarters.
Are the Taleban preparing to sell out their old allies, al-Qaeda, as the price for getting back into government?
Absolutely not, says the Taleban's official spokesman, but supporters of violent jihad on the internet are clearly rattled.
They see internal division, known as "fitna" in Arabic, as the greatest threat to the global jihadi project to drive western forces out of the wider Middle East and establish an Islamic state.
'Wicked propaganda'
Over the last few days, jihadi supporters on the internet have been trying hard to smother rumours of any peace talks between the Taleban and President Hamid Karzai's representatives.
"Mullah Omar and the Taleban," they say, "would never abandon the jihad in the way the Iraqis did."
"The mujahidin must watch out," says another, "an important Gulf state is hatching a plan to transfer the Awakening project to Pakistan and Afghanistan."
The Awakening project is Iraq's successful tribal rebellion against al-Qaeda, backed by US and Iraqi government money and troops, while the "important Gulf state" is Saudi Arabia, which hosted the recent Afghan talks.
"Saudi Arabia," say the online jihadis, "is working to preserve the interests of its US protector, trying in vain to divide the militants and lure them into the political process."
This, they insist, will not succeed.
"This is just a wicked propaganda campaign to smear the Taleban's image," says an online contributor in Arabic. "Don't be afraid brothers," he adds, "the Taleban are not the kind of people who would sell out al-Qaeda in exchange for political power."
Another suggests that if the Taleban were ever going to surrender Osama Bin Laden to America they would have done it long ago.
In practice, al-Qaeda abandoned its Afghan bases when the US launched Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001 and the Taleban were driven from power.
Since then, both the Taleban and al-Qaeda have successfully established a number of havens in Pakistan's tribal territories where the Pakistani authorities have been fighting an intermittent but costly campaign to suppress them.
Any deal between the Afghan Taleban and the Afghan government - if it were ever concluded - could potentially have a major negative impact on al-Qaeda's fortunes.
But there is little to indicate this is about to happen, nor that al-Qaeda is in any immediate danger of losing its Pakistani bases.
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Survivor tells of harrowing escape from Taliban bus hijacking
The Globe and Mail - International JESSICA LEEDER October 25, 2008
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - Four gun-wielding Taliban forced their way onto the bus – two through the front door and two through the back – and tied the hands of all of the passengers so they could march the 24 hostages off.
Three dark, terrifying nights later, Bashar was the only one left, the lone survivor of a mass slaughter that was one of most brazen attacks in this country's war-ravaged south.
In an exclusive interview this week, Bashar, who goes by only one name, spoke with The Globe and Mail in his hospital room in Lashkar Gah, a small city 100 kilometres west of Kandahar. With one foot wrapped in bandages, he explained in detail how he witnessed the Taliban slaughter his friends, and how he pulled off his narrow escape.
The attack, which took place Oct. 16, went unnoticed by police until four days later, when clusters of dead bodies, some of them beheaded, were found by local residents in pockets along a rural section of highway that connects Kandahar city to far-flung Herat, a stretch that is virtually unpoliced.
The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the killings, saying the people were slain because they worked for the Afghanistan National Army.
Bashar, the Afghan police and government deny this. A formal investigation is under way.
The passengers in the ill-fated bus, Bashar said, were travelling to Iran, as many Afghans do, in search of work. After spending Wednesday night, Oct. 15, in Kabul, Bashar's group settled into the second bus of a double convoy.
The plan, he told a Globe researcher, was to go to Baram Chah, a dangerous town straddling the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They would make one stop in Pakistan, then move on to Iran.
Not long after the convoy cruised through Kandahar city, their plans went awry.
As the buses were crossing the highway in Maiwand district, a team of armed militiamen driving three Toyota Corollas and a handful of motorbikes screamed ahead on the dusty highway and tried to force the lumbering vehicles to stop.
The lead bus blew by the pack. Furious, the militants fired after it, killing a man and his son onboard, police said.
After that, no one on Bashar's bus was brave enough to attempt an escape.
The passengers sat helpless as the Taliban began to confiscate their cellphones and money.
“We want to ask some questions,” Bashar remembers them asking. “All the things that we had in our pockets we had taken by them. They didn't find any documents to link us with the government. We were passengers and wanted to earn money in Iran.”
The Taliban rejected the story and accused the passengers of lying about their identities.
“They said, ‘If you were really labourers and wanted to go to Iran, we would give you all the things [back] and free all of you,'” Bashar recounted. “And then they said, ‘But you are the people of the government and the governor's soldiers.' ”
When passengers weren't able to produce documents, militants began making calls on the passengers' cellphones to check their identities, Bashar said.
About 10 people deemed to be civilians were set free. The others, Bashar said, were led into a small village. As darkness fell, the Taliban packed all 24 hostages into a shipping container and sealed it for the night. It wasn't long before the air grew thin, and a layer of perspiration coated the container walls.
“We couldn't breathe,” Bashar said, explaining that “all the guys became in coma position.”
Early Friday morning, one of the older-looking militants opened the container and began dragging out those who were unconscious. He explained, Bashar said, that his colleagues were still trying to get information about the group.
“If you didn't have a link with the government, we would free you,” one of the Taliban told the group, adding that the only other thing that could save them was a directive from “our leaders in Quetta [Pakistan].”
Information about the passengers was slow in coming. They were forced to spend two more nights in that stifling container, Bashar said.
“After three nights they divided us in groups, five persons [each] and tied our hands and brought us near the highway.”
In the rural Afghan countryside at night, in spite of the spectacular spread of stars, there is little light. Bashar could not see the faces of his four comrades as the militants shot them down, but he heard the guns crack and the thud of the bodies as they hit the ground.
After the fourth dropped, Bashar took one bullet to the foot. Then he made a split-second decision to try running away.
“I fled,” he says, proud of himself. Bleeding, he ran off into the night, and kept running until he found a hiding place he thought would allow him to evade the Taliban for the night.
When the sun came up, he limped to a mobile antenna post.
“Police came and brought me to Lashkar Gah city hospital for treatment,” he said. He feels lucky to have escaped with only a foot injury.
“My health is better now,” he said.
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