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Bomb kills Afghan governor, 3 others
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 13, 4:06 AM ET
PAGHMAN, Afghanistan - A remote control bomb that witnesses said was set off by two men on a nearby hilltop ripped through an Afghan provincial governor's vehicle on Saturday, killing the governor and three others, officials said.
Pakistan claims killing 72 militants in 3 days
By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 13, 2:47 AM ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's military said Saturday it killed at least 72 militants in three days of fighting near the Afghan border, where Taliban and al-Qaida militants are believed to be hiding.
FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan
Reuters - Saturday, September 13 11:38 am
(Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported up to 11:00 a.m. British time on Saturday:
Taliban executions still haunt Afghan soccer field
By Sanjeev Miglani Sat Sep 13, 12:48 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - The grass has grown in Kabul's soccer stadium where the Taliban used to stage public executions, but few Afghans dare visit in the evenings, believing that the souls of the victims still roam the sprawling grounds.
Bush to welcome Karzai September 26
Fri Sep 12, 12:01 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will host President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan September 26 for talks on the war amid tensions with Pakistan over cross-border violence, the White House said Friday.
New Significance for bin Laden Hunt
New York Times, United States By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG September 12, 2008
WASHINGTON-Of all the unfinished business of his presidency, the hunt for Osama bin Laden may be the most vexing for President Bush.
Braving Afghanistan's dangerous roads
Saturday, 13 September 2008 12:53 UK BBC News
The intensifying fighting in Afghanistan has made it dangerous to drive on most roads out of the capital. So Kate Clark had to take special precautions as she ventured into Taleban territory.
Call to boost German training of Afghan police
13.09.2008 Deutsche Welle
The association representing Bundeswehr soldiers says Germany is not fulfilling its role in Afghanistan as the leading trainer of Afghan police recruits. Association chairman, Bernhard Gertz, says some
Redlands group helps newborns in Afghanistan
September 12, 2008 By MICHAEL PERRAULT The Press-Enterprise pe.com
REDLANDS - When Jean Arnott learned from an obstetrician that a simple yet unavailable bulb syringe was costing newborn lives in Afghanistan, she helped launch a years-long effort to ship the syringes and other items to those who needed them.
Obama may want more troops in Afghanistan
The Age, Australia Daniel Flitton September 13, 2008
PRESSURE to send more Australian troops into the rugged conflict in Afghanistan could increase if Barack Obama wins the White House.
Facing Up to Rape in Afghanistan
The Washington Post
Rape is an endemic problem in Afghanistan. Whether women are forced into arranged marriages as child brides, or attacked by family members or local warlords, they are often held responsible for their own victimization.
Militants, criminals plague south Afghanistan
San Francisco Chronicle, USA James Palmer, Chronicle Foreign Service Friday, September 12, 2008
Kandahar, Afghanistan-Nearly seven years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban government, Afghan police are battling a growing insurgency and crime wave that threatens to further destabilize the country.
Dissension in Pakistan's ranks
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong By Syed Saleem Shahzad Sep 13, 2008
KARACHI-Al-Qaeda's grand strategy is based on a simple notion - given the American cowboy mentality, if the United States is confronted, it will react in an extreme manner.
Afghans jailed for 20yrs for Koran error
The Age September 13, 2008
An Afghan court has sentenced an ex-journalist and a mullah to 20 years in prison each for publishing a translation of the Koran alleged to contain errors, friends and media rights groups has said.
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Bomb kills Afghan governor, 3 others
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 13, 4:06 AM ET
PAGHMAN, Afghanistan - A remote control bomb that witnesses said was set off by two men on a nearby hilltop ripped through an Afghan provincial governor's vehicle on Saturday, killing the governor and three others, officials said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the blast that killed Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar province. Two of Wardak's bodyguards and a driver were also killed, said Gen. Zalmay Khan, a police commander in Kabul province.
The explosion occurred only about 500 yards from the governor's home. He had been traveling in the second car of a three-car convoy that was headed for parliament. The bomb detonated directly on the governor's vehicle, shredding the front half of the SUV and flipping the remains upside down.
A resident in Paghman, the area where the attack occurred about 12 miles west of Kabul, said he saw two men on the side of a hill near the road where the explosion detonated. Mohammad Shoaib said that after the bomb went off, the two men ran away. Authorities found wires on top of the hill, he said.
Wardak, a former Cabinet member, was in charge of Logar, the province directly south of Kabul. Afghanistan has 34 provinces, each headed by a provincial governor.
Militants frequently target government leaders in their campaign of violence against Afghan authorities.
Meanwhile, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said one of its soldiers was killed Friday when insurgents fired on a patrol. No other details were released.
More than 4,100 people have died in insurgency related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.
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Pakistan claims killing 72 militants in 3 days
By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 13, 2:47 AM ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's military said Saturday it killed at least 72 militants in three days of fighting near the Afghan border, where Taliban and al-Qaida militants are believed to be hiding.
The army has intensified ground and air attacks in an effort to flush out Taliban and local militants from the Bajur tribal region.
"We killed 72 militants, while eight of our soldiers died in Bajur since Wednesday," Maj. Murad Khan told The Associated Press, adding the military was still targeting militant positions in various parts of Bajur.
Khan Mohammed, an area resident, said the military was facing "unusual resistance" from militants.
"The exchange of fire between the army and Taliban is still continuing," he said.
Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S. war on terror and Bajur is believed to serve as a safe haven for Taliban, al-Qaida and Pakistani militants.
The region has been the site of several suspected U.S. missile attacks that have killed several al-Qaida operatives, including close associates of al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
Although Pakistan has carried out several military operations in its tribal regions in recent years, the latest offensive in Bajur comes amid an increase in suspected U.S. missile attacks in Pakista's tribal areas.
Pakistan has vowed to defend its territory since a U.S.-led ground assault killed at least 15 people earlier this month, prompting Islamabad to lodge a strong protest with the United States.
Pakistan's military and civil leadership and opposition parties are perturbed over reports that President Bush secretly approved more aggressive cross-border operations in July.
The party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Friday the change in policy could make it hard for Pakistan to maintain the close alliance with Washington forged by former President Pervez Musharraf.
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FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan
Reuters - Saturday, September 13 11:38 am
(Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported up to 11:00 a.m. British time on Saturday:
PAGHMAN - The governor of Logar province, a former cabinet minister under President Hamid Karzai, was killed on Saturday in a remote-controlled blast by Taliban insurgents outside his house on the western outskirts of Kabul, police said.
Abdullah Wardak, two bodyguards and a driver lost their lives when the device hit his armoured vehicle.
GHAZNI - Taliban insurgents beheaded three men after accusing them of spying for the government overnight in Ghazni province, an official said on Saturday.
HELMAND - A soldier from the NATO-led force was killed while on patrol in an attack in southern Helmand on Friday, the alliance said.
HERAT - Five rockets landed near a U.N. compound in western Herat late on Friday, but caused no casualties or damages, an official said. The strike came hours after authorities cancelled flights from the province's only airport following a similar attack the previous night.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Paghman blast, but could not be reached for comment about other reported incidents.
(Compiled by Sayed Salahuddin, editing by Roger Crabb)
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Taliban executions still haunt Afghan soccer field
By Sanjeev Miglani Sat Sep 13, 12:48 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - The grass has grown in Kabul's soccer stadium where the Taliban used to stage public executions, but few Afghans dare visit in the evenings, believing that the souls of the victims still roam the sprawling grounds.
"Too much blood has flown here," says Mohammad Nasim as he mowed the lush green grass in the stadium under a warm afternoon sun, a little oasis ringed by brown hills away from the bustle of the street.
The goalposts, where the black-turbaned Taliban used to force convicts to kneel before executing them or from which they hung the severed arms or legs of thieves for all to see, have been given a fresh coat of white paint.
New portraits of Afghanistan's leaders, including late King Zahir Shah, President Hamid Karzai, anti-Taliban hero Ahmad Shah Masood and the country's latest star, Olympic taekwondo bronze medalist Rohallah Nikpai, hang from the empty stands.
The Afghanistan Olympic Committee has set up its office in the stadium's red building and there are pictures of Nikpai, the country's first Olympic medal winner, being feted.
But try as they might, few Afghans can put behind them the brutality of the Taliban years when men, and sometimes cowering women in their pale blue, all-enveloping burqas, were brought into the stadium to be either stoned or shot dead at close range.
Others had limbs amputated for crimes ranging from robbery to adultery and murder.
The stands would be full of people, including children, either coming of their own volition or brought in to witness how the Taliban enforced its version of justice.
"Now nobody comes here in the evening, even we don't go inside," says Nabeel Qari, a young guard at the entrance to the stadium. "Everyone believes the place is haunted, that the souls of the dead people are not at rest even now."
BODIES FLUNG INTO VANS
The Taliban also executed convicts in a huge open ground across the street from the stadium, where they would bring them in the back of open-topped vans, shoot them in the head at close range and fling the bodies back in the vans.
Nasim said he saw two of his relatives shot dead and another hanged in the soccer stadium for possessing arms that a Taliban court concluded in a summary trial were intended to be used against them.
He remembers people streaming into the stadium to watch the executions. It was usually over within minutes, with the men lined up near the soccer field's penalty spot and shot, blood oozing out as they slumped to the ground.
Some people shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) from the stands as they watched.
"My relatives were innocent, like so many others who died here," Nasim said.
So much blood has been spilled on the football field and seeped into the soil below that Nasim says a previous attempt to grow grass there failed.
Then the Afghan government asked the company that he worked for to redevelop the stadium in a project costing about $50,000. The soil was dug up to a depth of half a meter and replaced.
"We put a new layer of soil so that players would not be stepping on to the blood of so many people," Nasim said.
Last month his team worked overtime to make sure the grass was freshly watered and the stadium spruced up for taekwondo star Nikpai's welcome party.
"We are working hard to ensure this again becomes a good place for sports," Nasim says.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
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Bush to welcome Karzai September 26
Fri Sep 12, 12:01 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will host President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan September 26 for talks on the war amid tensions with Pakistan over cross-border violence, the White House said Friday.
Bush "looks forward to discussing with President Karzai the state of the international community's efforts to improve security, governance, and reconstruction in Afghanistan," spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.
The talks -- their first since a May meeting in Egypt -- will come after the US president attends his final UN General Assembly before leaving office in January 2009.
"This meeting provides President Bush and President Karzai the opportunity to discuss security, the expansion of the Afghan National Army, the upcoming Strategic Partnership talks, and the implementation of political and economic reforms," said Perino.
It also comes amid tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which accuses its neighbor of tolerating extremists who cross the border to attack US- and NATO-led forces as well as Afghan targets.
And Bush recently announced that he was increasing the number of US troops in Afghanistan because of concerns over the war with the Islamist Taliban militia and their Al-Qaeda terrorist allies.
There are about 70,000 international forces deployed under NATO and a separate US-led coalition in Afghanistan in an effort to help local forces repel the Islamist rebels.
US Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen warned Wednesday that time was running out to defeat the intensifying insurgency there and said he was "not convinced we're winning."
Mullen, the top military adviser to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said he has commissioned "a new, more comprehensive military strategy for the region that covers both sides of that border" between Afghanistan and Pakistan, an area the United States says is being used as an insurgent safe haven.
He called the recent decision by US President George W. Bush to send 4,500 troops from Iraq to Afghanistan "a good and important start" even though it fell short of commanders' requests for three more brigades or about 10,000 troops.
"Frankly, I judge the risk of not sending them too great a risk to ignore," he said at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee.
"I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can," he said.
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New Significance for bin Laden Hunt
New York Times, United States By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG September 12, 2008
WASHINGTON-Of all the unfinished business of his presidency, the hunt for Osama bin Laden may be the most vexing for President Bush.
Mr. bin Laden’s whereabouts, and why he has not been captured "dead or alive,” as Mr. Bush vowed just days after Sept. 11, 2001, invariably come up in Washington conversation this time of year, as the nation marks the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Now, with Mr. Bush just having commemorated his final Sept. 11 as president on Thursday, the question looms larger than ever.
And the answer is much different than it was seven years ago.
"This is not the movies, we don’t have superpowers,” Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday, offering up the explanation that the al Qaeda leader has proved far more elusive than anyone thought. Is Mr. Bush frustrated? She ducked the question. "President Bush is trying to get it done.”
Gone was the old Bush Texas swagger that came with the "dead or alive” comment, and persisted for months afterward. Listen to Mr. Bush on Dec. 28, 2001, at his ranch in Crawford, Tex, when asked if he was concerned Mr. bin Laden was eluding the manhunt: "He is not escaping us. This is a guy who, three months ago, was in control of a country. Now maybe he’s in control of a cave. He’s on the run.”
And still is, leaving Mr. Bush to cope, at the end of his presidency, with the expectations he himself set at the beginning. His first press secretary, Ari Fleischer, says it felt right at the time for Mr. Bush to provide ”tough talk” to reassure a nervous nation. But in retrospect, Mr. Fleischer says, it was a mistake.
"He will tell you that it was a mistake,” Mr. Fleischer said. "His wife pointed that out to him right away; she told him privately that he should not have said that about Wanted, Dead or Alive, she thought it was too gung ho. He disagreed, but he agrees with her now.”
The new tone, Mr. Fleischer said, reflects a president who is "chastened about how tough a lot of this has been,” and has "learned to be more guarded” in what he says. But if Mr. Bush has learned, the men who are vying to succeed him have not.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, has promised to follow Mr. bin Laden "to the gates of hell.” Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee, used his acceptance speech during the party’s convention in Denver to try to one-up Mr. McCain.
"You know John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell,” Mr. Obama said, "but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives.”
Democrats like to taunt Mr. Bush over Mr. bin Laden; every so often, aides to Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, circulate an e-mail message headlined "The Bin Laden Tick-Tock,” counting the number of days the al Qaeda leader has been at large since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The White House, though, is running a tick-tock of its own. When Mr. Bush dedicated a memorial at the Pentagon on Thursday, he counted the days another way: 2,557, he said, without another terrorist attack. This is the flip side of the Sept. 11 story: seven years ago, most Americans were convinced the nation would be attacked again, and many believed Mr. bin Laden would be caught.
That it hasn’t turned out that way surprises some experts. Daniel Markey, a Pakistan expert who worked in the State Department under Mr. Bush from 2003 through 2007, said he routinely begins lectures "by saying that if somebody had told us shortly after 9/11 that we still wouldn’t have captured or killed bin Laden, there would have been real shock.”
Mr. Markey says that finding Mr. bin Laden would have been difficult under any circumstances, but that the difficulty was compounded when the United States shifted its intelligence assets to Iraq – a point Mr. Obama has made on the campaign trail. "The United States never had it easy finding and killing this guy,” Mr. Markey said. "But we did things along the way that may have made it more difficult than it needed to be.”
As the Bush presidency winds down, there is evidence the hunt is taking on fresh urgency. Earlier this month, American Special Forces helicopters attacked al Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border of Afghanistan, the first publicly acknowledged United States ground raid on Pakistani soil. Officials have said Mr. Bush secretly approved orders in July for such ground assaults inside Pakistan, without the prior approval of Pakistani officials.
Experts like Mr. Markey say that catching Mr. bin Laden’s top lieutenants is as important as catching Mr. bin Laden himself, a point Ms. Perino has made repeatedly. "Fighting the war on terror has been a lot more than just hunting Osama bin Laden,” she said, adding, "As the president says, ’Osama bin Laden is not out there leading any parades.’ ”
Still, for a president who once told the journalist Bob Woodward that he kept an scorecard of al Qaeda leaders, with an X drawn over the photographs of the ones who had been captured or killed, it would almost certainly be satisfying to draw an X over Mr. bin Laden’s bearded face.
"He’s always focused on it’s not just one man, it’s the whole movement,” Mr. Fleischer said. "But knowing him, I am certain that there’s a small piece of him that would love to have bin Laden caught before 1/20/09.”
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Braving Afghanistan's dangerous roads
Saturday, 13 September 2008 12:53 UK BBC News
The intensifying fighting in Afghanistan has made it dangerous to drive on most roads out of the capital. So Kate Clark had to take special precautions as she ventured into Taleban territory.
Recently, I was sitting with two Afghan friends in Kabul, discussing footwear.
"No," they said, "you cannot wear flip flops, not with nail polish and not with that thong coming between your toes.
"They are far too sexy. It will attract attention."
They settle on some high heeled, but closed-toe sandals.
To my British eyes they look far sexier, but I bow to their judgement. It is important to look right for the trip I am making.
The following day, I am travelling south-east into the heart of the Taleban insurgency and I want to look local, in case the car gets stopped.
Burka cover
Of course, I will also be wearing a burka. Without it, this trip would be impossible.
But how strange that when the Taleban were in government, I myself used to drive along this road, and now, I am hiding in the back seat with my face covered.
What a topsy-turvy place Afghanistan has become.
Eight years ago, the problem with driving to this region was the road itself.
Vast pot-holes had eaten up most of the tarmacked road surface and you had to drive through clouds of dust or, in winter, churn through mud.
Since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, the road has been rebuilt. It is faster, smoother and sleeker, but security is now grim and this summer, it has become a lot grimmer.
United Nations staff no longer drive this way and even Afghans do not like to travel on this road after 1600.
Taleban checkpoint
There is a risk of ambushes, robberies and getting caught up in an attack on an American or Afghan military convoy.
Your car might get stopped and searched by the Taleban at one of their mobile checkposts, set up to demonstrate that they can control the road.
"Afghanistan is starting to feel like it did in 1981," said a friend from one of the villages just out of Kabul.
"During the Soviet occupation, the government also controlled our area by day and fighters from the mujahideen controlled it by night."
Wearing a burka means I am at least only facing the risks that Afghans encounter, not the additional ones which Westerners now face.
Once, travelling to this part of Afghanistan was a pleasure. This is the Pashtun heartland, where all the houses are fortresses, quite literally, and you rarely see women outside.
I once almost caused a riot when, one very hot day while filming, I ate an ice-cream.
So many men and boys gathered to see a woman who was outside with a bare face.
In 2001, in the wake of American bombing and the collapse of the Taleban across Afghanistan, commanders moved in and set up their own fiefdoms.
Terror tactics
Not in the south-east. Here, I witnessed the tribes taking control. They set up tribal councils, oversaw security and telephoned the United Nations and the BBC to say Taleban rule was over and al-Qaeda fighters had fled.
At that time, it was actually safer here than Kabul. Now the Taleban are back in full strength.
Those who were driven from power in 2001 have returned, not just Taleban, but also al-Qaeda.
The insurgency is brutal. The Taleban are not just fighting. They are using terror tactics, suicide bombing, school burnings, the murder of alleged spies.
Even so, it feels safe enough to meet Afghan Taleban, if you have the right introduction.
Afghan peace
Their reasons for fighting vary - resistance to foreign occupation, money or old grievances with the men who are now in power.
As for al-Qaeda, civilians and even Taleban, off the record, fear their cruelty.
In the spring when I planned this trip, it was feasible to get out into the rural districts. Not now.
"I can guarantee your security among our fighters," the Taleban commander I met told me.
"But I can't protect you if the foreigners know you're here."
The province I visited borders the tribal areas of Pakistan where al-Qaeda have bases.
There is nothing to stop them crossing the border and they have crossed in large numbers this summer. They are making the war a lot dirtier, I was told.
Roadside killings
The Taleban commander listed the nationalities fighting in his area - Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, Iranians, even British. Yes, he said, two British Muslim converts.
It was frustrating not being able to get out to the villages to meet civilians and see the fighting from the Taleban side, but I really did not want to risk bumping into some nutter from Yemen or Pakistan or Britain.
So I drove straight back to Kabul. The road was quiet and I wondered if all the precautions I had taken had been overly cautious.
But less than a week after I returned to the capital, news came in that four aid workers, an Afghan man and three foreign women, were ambushed on the road I had just travelled along. They were shot dead.
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Call to boost German training of Afghan police
13.09.2008 Deutsche Welle
The association representing Bundeswehr soldiers says Germany is not fulfilling its role in Afghanistan as the leading trainer of Afghan police recruits. Association chairman, Bernhard Gertz, says some of Germany's regional states, noteably Bavaria, have not contributed a single civilian police trainer. The task has often been left up to German infantry trainers in a crisis region that needed civil order. Gertz' remarks to the newspaper "Rheinpfalz" have been rejected by the German interior ministry. It says Germany currently has 63 police officers in Afghanistan and funding this year for Afghan police trainees has been tripled.
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Redlands group helps newborns in Afghanistan
September 12, 2008 By MICHAEL PERRAULT The Press-Enterprise pe.com
REDLANDS - When Jean Arnott learned from an obstetrician that a simple yet unavailable bulb syringe was costing newborn lives in Afghanistan, she helped launch a years-long effort to ship the syringes and other items to those who needed them.
The effort continues from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today as the Women of Faith group gathers in Redlands to prepare gifts to be shipped to Afghanistan this fall.
Volunteers are welcome to help sew baby gowns and quilts, crochet hats, count puppets or help in other ways at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at Fifth Street and Wabash Avenue, said Rose Palmer, a member of the Women of Faith group.
"There is a job for anyone who would like to come," Palmer said.
Donations will be accepted, she said.
Supervisors at 20 workstations will help volunteers create and prepare gifts for shipping in a 40-foot container. Nearly 1,500 birthing kits, school and hygiene items, toys, clothing, shoes, books, hats, scarves, and sports and medical equipment will be sent.
Arnott, the project's director, has been working with hundreds of volunteers over two years on the job. She spearheaded a similar gift-giving endeavor in 2005 that resulted in birthing kits and other items being distributed in Afghanistan.
To ensure the goods are delivered to Afghans in need and to keep them from being stolen or funneled into the black market, Women of Faith has networked with International Orphan Care and other experts, Palmer said.
Women of Faith, which includes women from several denominations, has received help from the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Rotarians and others in numerous cities.
Making gifts for Afghans has been a blessing for many women who have participated, Arnott said.
"Women here can put their struggles aside and find meaning because they have something that is really making a difference," Arnott said. "It's just kind of amazing to stand back and watch."
Reach Michael Perrault at 909-806-3053 or mperrault@PE.com
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Obama may want more troops in Afghanistan
The Age, Australia Daniel Flitton September 13, 2008
PRESSURE to send more Australian troops into the rugged conflict in Afghanistan could increase if Barack Obama wins the White House.
The sober message from Derek Shearer — a Democrat insider who has spent more than 20 years closely tied to presidential campaigns — comes a week after Australian special forces in Afghanistan suffered the highest number of wounded in a single battle since Vietnam.
"I don't know what the Australian population thinks in detail about Senator Obama, but I think it would be a mistake to see him as some kind of peacenik from the 1960s," Dr Shearer told The Age.
"He's certainly not that. He could well, if he were president, call on Australia to do more in Afghanistan. Hopefully that would not come as a shock and surprise to the Rudd Government — it shouldn't."
Dr Shearer arrives in Sydney today to begin a nationwide series of lectures on US politics. A classmate of George Bush at Yale, the avowed Democrat served in Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s and advised Hillary Clinton during her tilt for the nomination this year.
He now consults with the Obama camp, though he has no formal role in the campaign.
"One of the interesting things about the Obama campaign is almost all of the policy advisers are former Clinton administration people — so many of my good friends are involved day to day," he said.
Dr Shearer expects the conflict in Afghanistan will become a bigger issue as the November election draws closer, as Senator Obama argues the Bush Administration made a "huge strategic error" by shifting the focus away from Afghanistan and wasting military efforts in Iraq.
In recent days Mr Bush announced plans to send about 4500 extra US troops to Afghanistan, while a NATO commander has called on Australia and other coalition members to commit more troops to fight a resurgent Taliban.
The Canadian Government — also facing an election — has pledged to withdraw its 2500 troops from Afghanistan by 2011, but the Rudd Government has ruled out any increase beyond the nearly 1100 Australian troops in the country.
Nine Australian troops were injured in an Taliban ambush last week, one critically.
Dr Shearer said close ties between Australia and the US would remain, whether Senator Obama or his Republican rival John McCain eventually prevailed. And Australia's decision to pull troops out of Iraq had "zero cost" for the relationship.
"People understand it was a Howard government decision and now you have a new government," he said.
"But the most important thing about the Iraq war to know is the American people don't support it — they are opposed to it, they want it to end. And that is one of the reasons for Obama's success, that he was an early opponent and is very clear on that."
Dr Shearer will speak at the University of Melbourne on Thursday, 18 September, at 6.30pm.
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Facing Up to Rape in Afghanistan
The Washington Post
Rape is an endemic problem in Afghanistan. Whether women are forced into arranged marriages as child brides, or attacked by family members or local warlords, they are often held responsible for their own victimization. Afghan culture views a woman's virginity as sacrosanct, but Afghan law rarely gives her the chance to defend herself. Many women are thrown out of their families following, or even jailed.
And yet, things are changing. Earlier this summer, Afghan president Hamid Karzai pardoned three men convicted of gang-raping a woman in the northern province of Samangan. The rape took place in 2005 in front of the woman's village, after she had harangued the local warlord's men for forcing her son to become a soldier. At the time the case attracted little attention, and Mr. Karzai probably thought his pardons of three men, who had been sentenced to 11 years in prison, would also slip by unnoticed. The men all come from an influential tribe in the region.
Instead the case has been widely reported throughout the local and national media. Women's rights groups, activists and politicians are up in arms at the injustice. Some might argue that with an election approaching, Mr. Karzai's many enemies are simply using the subject to undermine him - but that does not change the fact that a rape case, and the issues of women's abuse, has taken center stage.
Our next guest voice author, Zarghuna Kargar, notes that an increasing number of rape victims and their families are going public with their cases. Zarghuna, who ran the BBC's Afghan Women's Hour for three years, has spoken to dozens of abused women and is currently writing a book about women in Afghanistan. Here, she tells the story of the family of one rape victim and their search for justice.
By Zarghuna Kargar
The girl is thirteen years old and she has been raped, and yet by Afghan standards she is one of the luckier ones. Her family has recognized her trauma and is trying to get her some sort of justice; in many families, she might be viewed as an object of shame and thrown out. The fact that her family members have chosen to stand by her, and that they even spoke out on Afghan national television last month, is an important change in how Afghans view the abuse of women. And the furor surrounding President Karzai's pardons of convicted gang-rapists in a separate case, which a few years ago probably wouldn't have raised many eyebrows, is also testament to this change.
That's partly due to the Afghan government and international organizations' work on raising awareness. The Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs has opened several safe houses for victims of domestic violence, and USAID has funded a number of publicity drives across the country. The initiative has in turn been picked up by TV and radio programs, which have deliberately confronted such taboo subjects as rape and domestic violence with the aim of encouraging people to recognize their own human rights (not to mention the dual aim of attracting a larger audience).
But I don't want to sound unduly optimistic. Although Afghans may be talking, in limited ways, about rape for the first time, incidents of rape have not decreased. Recent Afghan government sources say that in the last month, twenty five cases of rape in Northern Afghanistan have been registered with the police. The victims were mostly children, and mostly weak and vulnerable. In this girl's case, she was raped by the local warlord, a man with money and guns who expects to get whatever he wants. Those who file complaints are shunned by their communities and in some cases have been raped again by those in power.
All of this makes this case, and the victim's family's advocacy for justice, a remarkable act of courage. Her maternal uncle, Ali Khan, a farmer, notified local media about what had happened but would not name the warlord, when he appeared on television, for fear of retaliation.
"The police chief didn't listen to me - he threatened me of being killed if I spoke about it," Khan said. "I went with my sister and her disabled husband [the girl's father]. He didn't help us because the gangs who raped my niece were powerful and the police chief warned us not to talk to anyone about it." But Khan persisted with his media campaign, contacting local and international journalists. So far no one has been charged.
In another rape case in July, President Karzai dismissed five police officials for failing to act promptly enough in the case. The act by the president sends out the right message, but for every case like this girls, there are a hundred women whose plight is ignored.
Zarghuna Kargar is a broadcast journalist at BBC World Service, and the former anchor of Afghan Women's Hour. The name of the girl in this report has been changed to protect her identity.
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Militants, criminals plague south Afghanistan
San Francisco Chronicle, USA James Palmer, Chronicle Foreign Service Friday, September 12, 2008
Kandahar, Afghanistan-Nearly seven years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban government, Afghan police are battling a growing insurgency and crime wave that threatens to further destabilize the country.
Here in the southeast corner of the country along the Pakistan border, militants and criminal gangs strike with alarming frequency, residents say. Ambushes, assassinations and kidnappings for ransom are common in the Taliban's former stronghold. The Taliban were founded here in 1994 before ruling the country between 1996 and 2001.
NATO troops - there are 2,500 in Kandahar province - and the Afghan National Police are expected to bring law and order to the nation's second-largest city and its environs. But local police commanders complain of being poorly equipped, trained and understaffed. Compared to the Taliban, who have rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and high-quality AK-47 assault rifles from Russia, "our weapons are no good," said Col. Abdulghafar Noorzi, deputy police chief for this city of 450,000 inhabitants.
Many police officers also question risking their lives for little pay. Rookie cops receive $100 a month, while officers earn between $142 and $367.
"My grandmother has to go out and beg in the streets," said Abdul Malik, 16, who wore a brown utility vest packed with ammunition clips and whose salary supports a family of seven.
Security in the south is vital to the war on terror: The United States and its allies risk losing a substantial foothold in an area once dominated by the Taliban and al Qaeda. While Washington is poised to move more troops into Afghanistan from Iraq, it's widely assumed that the Taliban are poised to do the same should fragile security and increasing social frustrations sink the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, analysts say.
Going over to the Taliban In fact, some police commanders and tribal elders say that unless Karzai fulfills his pledge to provide security, new jobs, health care, adequate utilities and other basic services, he will lose Kandahar to the Taliban.
"The government is weak and hasn't kept their promises, causing many people to cooperate with the Taliban," Noorzi said.
Zarghona Kakar, a tribal elder and liaison between the government and many local communities, says her constituents "have nothing. How can they live with empty hands? They're ready to go over to the Taliban because the government is acting carelessly. The Taliban can defeat them if others continue to join."
A visit this month to a downtown police checkpoint revealed some of those frustrations. There were no sandbags, concrete barriers or fortifications to protect the officers. Many young recruits said they lacked formal training and complained about ineffective equipment.
"My gun locks after firing five times," said 23-year-old Amanullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name.
Noorzi, the deputy police chief, described many of his young recruits as "fragile hens that are let out of their cages in the open under the sun" and are "blind to oncoming ambushes and attacks."
Noorzi blames most of his woes on NATO, which he says has not provided his men with adequate training, weapons and field support.
"They're tying our hands and legs and throwing us in front of the Taliban," Noorzi said.
Anti-government sentiment continues to swell after the Taliban attacked the city's prison in June, freeing more than 1,000 inmates and 400 Taliban fighters.
Lack of trust "The police are very weak," said Najibulla, a laborer in a mineral water factory who is in his 30s. "They can't bring security."
A prevailing lack of trust between residents and police further complicates the relationship, many locals say. They accuse the police of accepting bribes in exchange for releasing militants and criminals, soliciting money from motorists and leaving their posts at night.
Mohammed Khalid, a cell phone store owner, says many police officers even refuse to wear their uniforms for fear of being targeted by the Taliban. "It's hard to tell the Taliban from the police or from the criminals," he said.
Police officers are understandably reluctant to wear their uniform. According to the Interior Ministry, 230 police officers were killed and 320 were injured in Kandahar province alone last year, primarily in counterinsurgency operations.
And just last week, two suicide attackers detonated their bombs inside the city's police headquarters, killing at least two people and wounding 37.
Uniform insecurity If I could find another job, even if it paid less, I would take it," said 19-year-old police officer Mohammed Naim, who says he survived a roadside bombing the previous day that killed five of his colleagues.
On a steamy afternoon at the northeast edge of the city along the heavily trafficked road leading to the capital, Kabul, police Col. Sultan Mohammed Mundai, 45, sat out of uniform under the shade of a platform above a checkpoint.
"It's much safer for me without the uniform," said Mundai, who wore the traditional loose-fitting shawal kameez tunic and pants. He then showed a reporter a bullet wound and winding scar below his right knee that he received after an insurgent attack last year.
"You can't make peace with these people," he said.
Efforts to reform Afghan police After spending three years rebuilding the 70,000-member Afghan army, NATO officials have embarked on an ambitious project to reform and rearm the 76,000-member Afghan National Police. The project is part of a $7 billion security initiative financed by international donors.
Lt. Col. John Pumphrey, a Canadian military police officer who oversees deployment of the Afghan police in the nation's southern provinces, says the effort includes basic training, military-style survival skills, an exchange of old weapons for new ones and a 10-month mentoring program with veteran police and security specialists.
In southern Kandahar province, there are only 3,666 police officers patrolling the region's 21,000 square miles, local police officials say.
- James Palmer
E-mail James Palmer at foreign@sfchronicle.com.
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Dissension in Pakistan's ranks
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong By Syed Saleem Shahzad Sep 13, 2008
KARACHI-Al-Qaeda's grand strategy is based on a simple notion - given the American cowboy mentality, if the United States is confronted, it will react in an extreme manner.
Hence, with the small military successes of the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, through its media campaigns, has created a sense of American failures on the battlefield and challenged the ego of the world's superpower with its rhetoric.
The response of the George W Bush administration has been as expected, with a renewed effort to go after al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas, even at the cost of isolation within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and at the cost of alienating its
frontline ally Pakistan, which is seriously divided over its role in prosecuting the "war on terror".
Islamabad was stunned by President George W Bush's speech at the US National Defense University on Tuesday in which he named Pakistan as one of the major battlegrounds in the fight against terrorism and that the US has stepped up raids into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan to attack militants.
On Wednesday there was another shock in the form of a detailed roadmap of American strategy outlined by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, during an address to the US Congress. The key element of this is the conviction that the only way to win in Afghanistan is to open a new war theater in Pakistan.
The speech was in fact a tacit admission of the failure in Afghanistan seven years after the Taliban were ousted, and Mullen conceded that the US was "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan and that simply sending in more troops would not guarantee victory.
"In my view, these two nations [Pakistan and Afghanistan] are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," he said, adding that he planned "to commission a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region, one that covers both sides of the border".
On Thursday, the US's all-weather partner, Britain, supported the US's recommendations, but NATO clarified its position that it had nothing to do with American policies and its mandate was restricted to the Afghan borders.
Bush is reported to have secretly approved orders in July allowing US special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan, and the Pakistani leadership was taken on board. Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani assured the US that the Pakistan People's Party-led government would support the policy. This was further reinforced during Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani's visit to Washington.
Nevertheless, the issue has become a litmus test for the Pakistani security forces, which are now obliged to follow the US's dotted lines in conducting military operations in the tribal areas, despite the intense hostilities these create.
The latest offensive took place on Wednesday in Bajaur Agency on the border with Afghanistan this week where troops, supported by tanks and heavy artillery, are said by Pakistani officials to have killed 80 to 100 militants, including foreigners, with two soldiers killed. Militants use the tribal areas as bases for raids into Afghanistan. On Thursday, however, when the army sent in ground forces to secure the area, militants attacked their convoys and forced them back into their forts.
Pakistan's corps commanders began meetings on Thursday to discuss the situation. They realize they are unable to prevail against the militants in the long term, but they are under intense US pressure to act. Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiani has criticized the US over this, even though he is well briefed by the US on what is expected of Pakistan and of the US's cross-border intentions.
Kiani issued a statement saying that the rules of engagement with coalition forces were well defined and "within that, the right to conduct operations against the militants inside own territory is solely the responsibility of the respective armed forces".
"There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border." Kiani said.
He referred to his meeting with senior US Army officers aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on August 27, saying they were informed about the complexity of the issue and that it required a deeper understanding and patience.
Kiani said he had impressed on the officers that "military action alone cannot solve the problem. Political reconciliatory efforts are required to go along with the military prong to win the hearts and minds of the people."
Kiani is making the correct noises, but one has to question his sincerity. This month, Pakistan announced that because of the US ground assault in South Waziristan, it was stopping NATO supplies at the Torkham border. But not only were NATO supplies allowed to continue into Afghanistan within a few hours, after two attacks on Pakistan by US Predator drones, Pakistan stayed silent. (Another drone attack on Friday in North Waziristan killed 12 people.)
Pakistan's corps commanders are clearly not convinced by Kiani's statements as they are the ones who have to send troops into the firing line, which is highly unpopular at the best of times.
The country has made a paradigm shift from Pervez Musharraf's seven years in charge as president and military chief. In his time, military operations were half-hearted and mainly targeted foreign elements such as Arabs and Uzbeks and Pakistan never discussed the Taliban and their Pakistani supporters.
The result was that the Taliban were able to establish a strong foothold in the tribal areas for their operations in Afghanistan, which is what upsets the US and NATO so much and which is why now they are forcing Pakistan to go directly after the Taliban and their supporters.
This week's operation in Bajaur was specifically aimed at clearing Taliban sanctuaries near the Afghan border. Over the past months, several thousand Taliban had assembled there in preparation for launches into Afghanistan and the last batch was about to go in the final phase of the spring offensive before the winter sets in.
Mullen explained this in his speech, "We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan, as I watched us do during a day-long trip to the Korengal Valley in July. But until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming."
This America-Pakistan "joint venture" marks a new struggle in Pakistan which can only intensify when, for instance, US special forces launch more raids into Pakistan, conceivably as deep as the capital of North-West Frontier Province, Peshawar, to nab powerful Taliban commanders.
Much will depend on how the corps commanders react, given that they are aware that their chief (Kiani) and the political leadership have agreed, if only tacitly, to the "joint venture" with the US.
Kiani does not have a strong constituency in the military, as Musharraf did, and he might stand with his military commanders and decide on a policy to limit cooperation with the US in the "war on terror".
It is also possible, though, that he will stamp on opposition in the ranks and purge any corps commanders who disagree with the new policy, as Musharraf did after he stopped Pakistan's support of the Taliban following the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
His danger in siding with his commanders is that he will then be on a collision course with the powerful new president, Asif Ali Zardari, who has it in his powers to remove Kiani. Conversely, if Kiani purges the forces, he will have the full backing of Zardari.
In this delicate situation, the balance could be tipped by India, on US instigation, mobilizing forces on the Line of Control that separates the Indian- and Pakistan-administered sections of Kashmir, as happened in December 2001. And as happened then, Pakistan will be left with no option but to surrender to America's will in both letter and spirit.
Whichever way Kiani jumps, al-Qaeda has succeeded in goading the US into opening a third war theater beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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Afghans jailed for 20yrs for Koran error
The Age September 13, 2008
An Afghan court has sentenced an ex-journalist and a mullah to 20 years in prison each for publishing a translation of the Koran alleged to contain errors, friends and media rights groups has said.
Afghan and international media rights organisations condemned the sentences handed down and called on President Hamid Karzai to intervene.
Former journalist Ahmed Ghous Zalmai was arrested in November trying to escape into Pakistan as religious clerics and parliament were in an uproar about a Dari-language version of the Muslim holy book he had published.
Mullah Qari Mushtaq, who was sentenced with him, had approved the version which other clerics and parliamentarians claimed contained errors and misunderstandings about issues such as homosexuality and adultery.
Critics also complained the book did not include the original Arabic text as required by Islamic law.
"We appeal to the president's spirit of tolerance and ask him to intercede on behalf of two men who have been given extremely severe sentences," said Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and Article 19, another rights watchdog.
"Their aim was not to violate Islamic law, but only to promote the Koran among the Persian-speaking peoples," they said in a statement.
Afghan media unions have also called on Karzai to intervene, said Hafiz Barakzai from the National Union of Journalists.
"This is an academic issue (Islamic) scholars should sit and discuss it," he told AFP.
Two brothers of Zalmai who had been arrested with him on charges of trying to help him flee the country were freed on Thursday after being held in jail for seven-and-a-half months, a friend said, labelling the detentions illegal.
Zalmai, expected to appeal, had been a fairly outspoken TV journalist in the 1980s, Reporters Without Borders said. At the time of his arrest, he was a spokesman in the office of the attorney-general.
Another journalist is appealing a death sentence handed down by a primary provincial court in January for distributing an article downloaded from the internet which questions the Koran, particularly its views on women.
Perwiz Kambakhsh, 23, has been in jail for nearly a year.
Afghanistan's judicial system is based on Islamic Sharia law which forbids criticism of Islam and rules that the death penalty should be applied in cases of blasphemy.
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