 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Taliban leadership denies report of Afghan talks
29 Sep 2008, 7:33 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban leadership on Monday denied a report they were negotiating with the Afghan government to end the war and the insurgents repeated their pledge to keep fighting till foreign troops were expelled from the country.
Afghan warlord Hekmatyar claims French ambush: report
September 29, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has claimed responsibility in a video message for an August ambush that killed 10 French soldiers, an Afghan news agency reported Monday, saying it had seen the footage.
4 Afghan bodyguards die in attack on politician
Mon Sep 29, 4:24 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen targeting an Afghan provincial council chief killed four of his bodyguards, while a Taliban leader died in an airstrike in central Afghanistan, officials said Monday.
British soldier kills Afghan civilian after warning: official
Mon Sep 29, 7:23 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - A British soldier shot dead an Afghan civilian on a motorbike Monday who failed to stop as he approached a military patrol in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry here said.
Militants pouring in from Afghanistan: Pakistan
By Zeeshan Haider September 29, 2008
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants battling Pakistani forces are getting weapons and reinforcements from Afghanistan, security officials said on Monday, vowing no let-up in their offensive in the northwest.
Some 20,000 refugees flee Pakistan for Afghanistan
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Some 20,000 people from Pakistan's northwestern tribal region of Bajaur have fled to Afghanistan this summer due to intense fighting between government forces and militants, the United Nations said on Monday.
Weak government allow Taleban to prosper in Afghanistan
The collapse of security in Helmand owes as much to government failings as to any military action
The Times Tom Coghlan in Lashkar Gar September 29, 2008
The wild-eyed policemen were high on opium, harassing locals and demanding bribes from drivers on the road so recently built at the expense of the British taxpayer.
Security on Afghan border is a job for Pakistan, not US: Zardari
Sun Sep 28, 3:51 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Islamabad's military is capable of quelling militant elements on its border with Afghanistan
FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan
September 29, 2008 Reuters
Following are security developments in Afghanistan:
KANDAHAR - A suicide bomber blew himself up in a bazaar in the town of Spin Boldak of Kandahar province, some 470 km (290 miles) southwest of Kabul, killing six people including four police
Taliban revival sets fear swirling through Kabul
Attacks are on the rise and civilians, especially educated women, are increasingly nervous with the jihadists now just 20 minutes from the capital
Christina Lamb, Kabul - The Sunday Times, September 28, 2008
Maryam Rahmani was asleep in her parents’ house in Kabul last month when she was woken by loud praying in the street. “Most of us when we heard that thought, ‘This is it, the Taliban have come to the city’
In Afghanistan, hit 'em where they aren't
Christian Science Monitor, MA By F. Jordan Evert September 29, 2008
Washington - Faced with the daunting prospect of fighting the Japanese among the jungles, swamps, and volcanic rocks of the islands of the south Pacific, Gen. Douglas MacArthur's tactic of "island-hopping
Pakistani villagers start armed anti-Taliban push
SAEED SHAH Globe and Mail September 29, 2008
WARI, PAKISTAN — Amid the brutal march of Islamic extremism in Pakistan, the beginnings of a popular resistance movement is emerging that could challenge the stranglehold of militants in the country's burning northwest.
Afghanistan: Taliban rejects reports of imminent peace deal
Kabul, 29 Sept. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - International efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban collapsed late Sunday when militant leaders rejected any attempt to engage in negotiations.
Troops in Afghanistan to get 600 new armoured vehicles
guardian.co.uk, UK By Richard Norton-Taylor Monday September 29 2008
Hard-pressed and vulnerable British troops in Afghanistan will be supplied with 600 new armoured vehicles under a £500m deal agreed between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury, government sources said yesterday.
Sales of bootleg vodka with Russian label on rise in Afghanistan
KABUL, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Sales of bootleg spirits posing as Russian Stolichnaya vodka are on the rise in Afghanistan, the independent Afghan daily Arman-e Melli reported on Monday.
Food crisis competes for Afghan "hearts and minds"
By Alistair Scrutton September 29, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - Muhammad Nabi reflects one of Afghanistan's microcosms - a farmer once besieged by the Taliban, then by drought, who then fled to the city and now rails against food prices he blames on the very government he voted for.
Afghan tailors work round the clock for Eid rush
September 29, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — Mobin Frough's eyes are red and bleary. He and two other young men squeezed into his tiny shop in northern Kabul have been working at their sewing machines day and night to
Alkozai foundation distribute aid to destitute families
Zarghona Salihi - Sep 28, 2008 - 18:19
KABUL (PAN): Alkozai welfare foundation dished out foodstuff to around 2000 families in Kabul.
Police kill five thieves in ambush
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 28 September 2008
Thieves accused of stealing goods and money killed in the north
CLASHES between police and armed thieves have left five thieves dead in the northern province of Balkh, officials said.
Back to Top
Taliban leadership denies report of Afghan talks
29 Sep 2008, 7:33 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban leadership on Monday denied a report they were negotiating with the Afghan government to end the war and the insurgents repeated their pledge to keep fighting till foreign troops were expelled from the country.
Britain's Observer newspaper said on Sunday the "unprecedented talks" involved a senior ex-Taliban member travelling between Kabul, the bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and European capitals.
Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta on Sunday declined to confirm the report which said the talks were being mediated by Saudi Arabia and backed by Britain.
The Taliban leadership said the report was part of a plan aimed at creating concern and mistrust between the Taliban and its supporters abroad.
It said the al Qaeda-backed Taliban would not resort to covert talks and would only negotiate in the interests of Islam and Afghanistan.
"Our struggle will continue until the withdrawal of foreign forces and the establishment of an independent Islamic government," said the statement sent to Reuters on Monday.
Despite the denial of talks and the hard-line rhetoric, the statement appeared to maintain a softening of the Taliban line on the Afghan government begun this year in that it did not call for the toppling of President Hamid Karzai's administration.
Karzai has led Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Islamist Taliban government after it refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Driven from power, the Taliban retreated to hideouts along the Afghan-Pakistan border, but regrouped and launched a virulent insurgency in 2005, benefiting from frustration with the presence of foreign troops and the slow pace of economic change.
This year has been the bloodiest so far with 2,500 people killed in the first six months alone, 1,000 of them civilians.
Despite the presence of some 71,000 foreign troops and more than 130,000 Afghan security forces, the Taliban have extended the scale and scope of their insurgency. Western diplomats admit there is no purely military solution to the conflict.
But talks with the Afghan Taliban have proven problematic. "They keep changing what they are asking for. One day it is one thing, the next another," the Observer quoted one Afghan government adviser with knowledge of the negotiations as saying.
One aim of the initiative is to drive a wedge between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the paper said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan warlord Hekmatyar claims French ambush: report
September 29, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has claimed responsibility in a video message for an August ambush that killed 10 French soldiers, an Afghan news agency reported Monday, saying it had seen the footage.
In the video statement, Hekmatyar also said he lost 10 men in the battle in Sarobi, the independent Pajhwok Afghan News agency reported.
The insurgent Taliban movement, which has unclear links with Hekmatyar's faction, has also claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the deadliest for the French military in 25 years.
Pajhwok told AFP the video was delivered to its office in Peshawar in Pakistan on Sunday.
In it, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami faction names nine of his party members killed in the fighting and expresses condolences to their families, the news agency said.
He warns of "more guerrilla assaults on US forces besides the French soldiers," the agency said in a report on its website.
The mountain ambush in Sarobi, east of Kabul, was the deadliest ground attack on international troops since they were sent to Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the hardline Taliban regime.
The attack, in which 21 troops were also wounded, shocked France and sparked debate about the country's involvement in war-torn Afghanistan.
But France announced last week it would beef up its mission in Afghanistan with helicopters, drones and other military means.
French officers have said the ambushed soldiers were confronted by about 170 heavily armed rebels who were better organised than usual.
They said they killed between 40 and 70 enemy fighters, but acknowledged they only recovered one body from the battlefield as they withdrew under the cover of darkness.
French authorities have denied a report in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that its soldiers were no match for the better-equipped and trained fighters who attacked them on August 18.
The Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, had immediately claimed the attack.
However, the extremists generally operate in southern and southeastern Afghanistan, while the areas around Kabul and in northeastern Afghanistan are said to be the domain of Hekmatyar.
The Taliban had previously rejected working with Hekmatyar's faction, but analysts have suggested they could be involved in some joint activities.
Hekmatyar, who served as prime minister briefly during the 1996 to 2001 civil war, is known as one of the most radical warlords in Afghanistan. The United States has offered a multi-million-dollar reward for his capture.
Back to Top
Back to Top
4 Afghan bodyguards die in attack on politician
Mon Sep 29, 4:24 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen targeting an Afghan provincial council chief killed four of his bodyguards, while a Taliban leader died in an airstrike in central Afghanistan, officials said Monday.
Gunmen in the southern city of Kandahar tried to kill Mohammad Hashim, the provincial council chief of neighboring Zabul province, said Fauwzia, a council member who goes by one name. The attack late Sunday sparked a clash between Hashim's bodyguards and the militants in which four bodyguards were killed, she said.
In Ghazni province, Abdul Rahim Deeceewal, the district chief of Andar, said a targeted airstrike killed a Taliban leader as well as three other people in Andar.
But the U.S. coalition said it had no reports that its soldiers carried out any operations in Andar.
Afghanistan has seen record levels of violence in 2008. More than 4,600 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-fueled violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.
Back to Top
Back to Top
British soldier kills Afghan civilian after warning: official
Mon Sep 29, 7:23 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - A British soldier shot dead an Afghan civilian on a motorbike Monday who failed to stop as he approached a military patrol in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry here said.
A spokesman said the man "failed to react to two verbal warnings and two warning shots" as he approached troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Helmand province.
After the man was shot, he was treated by medics at the scene but "unfortunately he did not survive", the spokesman said.
The incident took place at about 5:00 pm (1330 GMT) near Forward Operating Base Inkerman in the Upper Sangin Valley, described by the defence ministry as "one of the most dangerous and austere bases that UK troops occupy".
In July, British troops killed four civilians who failed to respond to warning shots as their car approached a checkpoint in the same district.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Militants pouring in from Afghanistan: Pakistan
By Zeeshan Haider September 29, 2008
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants battling Pakistani forces are getting weapons and reinforcements from Afghanistan, security officials said on Monday, vowing no let-up in their offensive in the northwest.
Government forces launched an offensive in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border in August after years of complaints from U.S. and Afghan officials that Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan were getting help from Pakistani border areas such as Bajaur.
Now the tables have turned and the militants locked in heavy fighting with Pakistani forces are getting help from the Afghan side of the border, officials said.
"The Pakistan-Afghan border is porous and is now causing trouble for us in Bajaur," a senior security source in the military told a news briefing.
"Now movement is taking place to Pakistan from Afghanistan," said the official, who along with a colleague at the briefing, declined to be identified.
The officials did not blame the Afghan government for sending militants across the border but called on Kabul and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan forces to stop the flow.
Bajaur is the smallest of Pakistan's seven so-called tribal agencies, semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun tribal regions.
U.S. officials say Taliban and al Qaeda-linked fighters, financed by drug money, use the tribal regions as an operating base to launch attacks into Afghanistan.
Pakistan has been under pressure from the United States to block cross-border militant incursions into Afghanistan.
But in a sign of growing frustration with Pakistan's efforts to stem the flow, U.S. forces have carried out six cross-border missile strikes by pilotless drones and a commando raid on a border village this month.
The Pakistani offensive had made Bajaur a "center of gravity" and "magnet," and even though up to 1,000 had been killed, the region was drawing militants from as far as Central Asia via Afghanistan, the officials said.
"Stop the reverse flow in Bajaur. It's coming. Heavy weapons are coming. The militants are coming," a second Pakistani official said.
In the latest fighting, jets hit militant hideouts after the Taliban announced a ceasefire for the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr, killing 10 militants, a paramilitary officer said.
REFUGEES IN AFGHANISTAN
The fighting has displaced several hundred thousand people and about 20,000 had sought refuge across the border in Afghanistan, the United Nations said.
Security forces launched the offensive in Bajaur after a year of deteriorating security with militants carrying out 88 suicide attacks across the country since July last year in which nearly 1,200 people were killed. A suicide truck bomber attacked a hotel in capital Islamabad on September 20 killing 55 people.
Worsening security has coincided with a widening current account deficit, an unsustainable fiscal deficit and inflation running at more than 25 percent.
An economist serving on the prime minister's economic advisory council said on Monday Pakistan needed a capital infusion of $3 billion to $4 billion "up front" to stabilize its economy and bolster rapidly dwindling foreign reserves.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan's support is crucial for the U.S. war against terrorism and for the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
The security officials said they were not sure if any top al Qaeda member was in Bajaur. Pakistani intelligence officers have said al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahri was believed to have visited in recent years. In 2006, a U.S. drone fired missiles at a house in Bajaur in the belief he was there.
The officials said tribesmen there were raising a militia to expel foreign militants from the Mamund district even though some Arabs linked to al Qaeda had family links with the valley.
"The Mamund valley is likely to erupt, in our view, in about 48 to 72 hours," one of the officials said.
The officials said could not say how long the offensive would last but said it should be followed with reconciliation efforts and aid.
(Editing by Robert Birsel and Valerie Lee)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Some 20,000 refugees flee Pakistan for Afghanistan
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Some 20,000 people from Pakistan's northwestern tribal region of Bajaur have fled to Afghanistan this summer due to intense fighting between government forces and militants, the United Nations said on Monday.
The Pakistani military launched an offensive in August for control over the strategically key region of Bajaur and have been involved in heavy fighting since then.
"More than 3,900 families, or around 20,000 individuals, have fled fighting in Bajaur ... into Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan," said the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan.
"In the last two weeks alone, over 600 Pakistani families have fled into Afghanistan," it said.
Bajaur is the smallest of Pakistan's seven so-called tribal agencies, semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun regions along the Afghan border, with a population of one million people.
U.S. officials say Taliban and al Qaeda-linked fighters, financed by drug money, use the tribal regions as an operating base to launch attacks inside Afghanistan, where Western forces are struggling to stem a growing insurgency.
Around 9,000 Pakistani soldiers are deployed in Bajaur and up to 1,000 militants have been killed in clashes this month, according to the Pakistani army.
Several hundred thousand people have fled their homes because of fighting, seeking refuge in other parts of the country or in neighbouring Afghanistan.
"They have mainly been provided accommodation by relatives and friends," UNHCR spokesman Nadir Farhad told reporters. But some 200 families are already living without shelter, he said.
UNHCR has been coordinating aid efforts and hopes the refugees will be able to return soon but said it was prepared for the winter.
"It's very difficult to predict the security situation on the other side of the border but what we hope is that the security gets better and people will be able to go back," he said.
"But if it continues, we will definitely provide them with ... assistance ... so we can get them through the winter months."
Around 70 percent of the families are Pakistani, said Farhad, the remainder being Afghan.
In the past, refugees crossed the other way, to escape from violence in Afghanistan. Some four million Afghans escaped civil war in the 1980's and 1990's seeking refuge in Pakistan. More than half have now returned.
While Pakistani refugees have crossed into Afghanistan to escape tribal or sectarian violence in previous years, this recent influx is biggest yet. (Editing by Valerie Lee)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Weak government allow Taleban to prosper in Afghanistan
The collapse of security in Helmand owes as much to government failings as to any military action
The Times Tom Coghlan in Lashkar Gar September 29, 2008
The wild-eyed policemen were high on opium, harassing locals and demanding bribes from drivers on the road so recently built at the expense of the British taxpayer.
“I might as well shoot myself in the head,” said one officer, jaw slack and eyes unfocused, as he leant on his Kalashnikov. “We have no life, no salary, and no respect from the people.”
His tattered uniform flapping, he added, with apparent self-loathing: “It is true what people say: the police are the robbers round here.”
The scene illustrated the central problem facing the UK in Helmand province, where 8,000 British troops are trying to impose order. British counter-insurgency doctrine has a single, central objective: to deliver security to the people. Without this, the Taleban and the raft of other challenges cannot be met.
Since the arrival of British forces in 2006, however, security across the province has collapsed and British forces now face a swirling, toxic cocktail of Taleban infiltration, tribal feuding, banditry and drug-funded anarchy.
Among the most visible sources of criminal behaviour are the demoralised, underpaid and predatory Afghan police - and it is now the Taleban, with their reputation for brutal but impartial justice, who appear to be gaining ground in this war of popular perceptions, successfully presenting themselves as the guardians of the public.
Through the window of an estate agent, Maleeq Khan watched the antics of the police and sighed wearily. “This construction is pointless,” he said, gesturing at the road. “We just want security. If I rent a house to someone I can't even carry the money home without people killing me. The British are completely useless.”
The message was remarkably consistent across several dozen interviews The Times conducted on the city streets. Most also contrasted the local instability with the situation in the swaths of territory the Taleban hold.
In early September there was panic in Lashkar Gar when Marja and Nad Ali, two districts west of the city, fell to the Taleban after local police and militiamen allegedly abandoned their posts. It was the closest the Taleban had been to the Helmand capital and, as they moved openly around the outskirts, rumours swept Lashkar Gar that the city was about to fall.
An assault has yet to materialise, but in the weeks since stories have reached the city of a dramatic improvement in security in Nad Ali and Marja under Taleban rule. Two weeks ago the Friday bazaar in Marja was reopened, with the Taleban in control.
“When the Government was in charge, the police were beating people and stealing from them,” said Mr Khan. At the first bazaar under the new Taleban regime, there was no stealing by the Taleban and the only beating was of a man caught stealing a motorbike.
“The Taleban covered his face and clothes in the black oil,” said Mr Khan approvingly. “Then they paraded him through the bazaar. The children were throwing things at him and they made the thief stand on a platform and state his name, his father's name and his crime to the people. Then they beat him and threw him out. He won't do it again.”
Others in the city had similar tales. Many reported an apparent Taleban public relations drive which has seen such unpopular Taleban social edicts as bans on music, television, kite-flying and shaving of beards quietly dropped. There are also persistent reports of a Taleban amnesty for government officials and police who swap sides and a promise that the Taleban will defend poppy fields from government eradication.
“Support for the Taleban is up a lot,” said one man among a lounging group of shopkeepers. “They are completely different to how they used to be,” said another.
The Taleban have rebranded themselves, insisting that they should now be called Mujahidin (holy warriors) - a word that links them to the earlier Jihad against the Soviet forces.
At the British base in the city there is a belief that their forces are making gains on the battlefield, notably pushing back in Nad Ali and Marja, and that reconstruction efforts are starting to have a visible impact. There is also great hope in the new governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, who enjoys widespread approval as an honest and impartial public servant.
However, there is also frustration at the chronic weakness of Afghan government structures and a conviction that provincial powerbrokers and even figures in central Government are working to frustrate British efforts.
“The perception of the threat from the Taleban continues to outstrip the reality,” said the outgoing British commander in Helmand, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith. “This struggle is more down to the credibility of the Afghan Government rather than the threat of the Taleban.”
British and Afghan government figures accuse a cabal of former provincial officials, many of them figures sacked at British insistence because of their alleged links to the Helmand opium trade, of aiding the Taleban efforts. Their aim, apparently, is to create anarchy and present their own return to power as the only solution.
The accused include the former governor of Helmand, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada; the former police chief, Abdul Rahman Jan; and the latter's son, Wali Jan, an MP in the Afghan parliament.
They are blamed for the loss of Nad Ali and Marja to the Taleban. It was members of Abdul Rahman Jan's Noorzai tribal militia who occupied six key checkpoints that fell to the Taleban apparently without a fight.
“Since they were sacked, they have not let one governor, chief of police or government official do their job,” said one government official.
“The Taleban have been trying to get people to like them,” said a local reporter, who asked not to be named after a colleague was beheaded in June. “If we ask people: ‘Do you remember the old Taleban?', they say: ‘Yes - when they get the power again they will take out the stick again'.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Security on Afghan border is a job for Pakistan, not US: Zardari
Sun Sep 28, 3:51 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Islamabad's military is capable of quelling militant elements on its border with Afghanistan, and again urged the US military against launching incursions into its territory.
"Let us do the job, we can do a better job than anybody else can. It's partly and mainly our war. We fight it. Let us do it," Zardari said in an interview on CNN.
His comments came after Pakistani and US troops last week exchanged fire along the Pakistani-Afghan border last week, after Washington said two US military helicopters came under fire.
Zardari said only flares were fired last week toward the US helicopters to "warn that they have crossed over" into Pakistani territory.
The Pakistani leader, downplaying the confrontation, said it resulted from a misunderstanding.
"It's a murky border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Half the hill is here, half the hill is in Afghanistan," he told CNN.
The Pentagon last week also called Thursday's events involving the US helicopters "an unfortunate misunderstanding"
"They are confident that they were in Afghan air space the whole time," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
Back to Top
Back to Top
FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan
September 29, 2008 Reuters
Following are security developments in Afghanistan:
KANDAHAR - A suicide bomber blew himself up in a bazaar in the town of Spin Boldak of Kandahar province, some 470 km (290 miles) southwest of Kabul, killing six people including four police and wounding 17 more on Sunday, officials said.
ZABUL - Taliban insurgents killed four bodyguards of the head of the provincial council of neighbouring Zabul province, some 325km (200 miles) southwest of Kabul on Sunday, an official said.
HELMAND - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan security forces killed several insurgents during a security patrol in Nahr Surkh district of Helmand province, some 580 km (360 miles) southwest of Kabul, on Saturday, the U.S. military said.
KANDAHAR - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan security forces killed three militants during a search operation in Maywand district of Kandahar province, some 400km (250 miles) southwest of Kabul, on Sunday, the U.S. military said.
ZABUL - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan security forces killed two insurgents in Arghandab district of Zabul province, some 300 km (190 miles) southwest of Kabul, on Friday, the U.S. military said.
EASTERN AFGHANISTAN - A soldier from the NATO-led force was killed in an attack by insurgents in an eastern area on Sunday, the alliance said.
(Compiled by Sayed Salahuddin and Jonathon Burch; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban revival sets fear swirling through Kabul
Attacks are on the rise and civilians, especially educated women, are increasingly nervous with the jihadists now just 20 minutes from the capital
Christina Lamb, Kabul - The Sunday Times, September 28, 2008
Maryam Rahmani was asleep in her parents’ house in Kabul last month when she was woken by loud praying in the street. “Most of us when we heard that thought, ‘This is it, the Taliban have come to the city’,” she said, nervously fingering the orange shawl wrapped round her against the autumn chill.
In fact it was a lunar eclipse and people had come outside to offer special prayers. But Rahmani’s reaction reflects the jumpiness in Kabul as the Taliban move to within 20 minutes’ drive of the Afghan capital.
“Everyone’s nervous, particularly educated women,” said Rahmani, 26, who works at a women’s project and is completing an economics degree at Kabul University. “I’m hurrying to finish my thesis so I can get my diploma in case the Taliban come back. All my friends are applying for Indian visas.”
Nobody seriously thinks the Taliban could take Kabul. The capital is surrounded by mountains, has only a few routes in and remained almost untouched during the Russian occupation. Afghanistan has more than 71,000 foreign troops under the leadership of Nato and the US, neither of which can contemplate defeat.
It is hard to find any Afghan families who hanker after a Taliban regime that banned everything from girls’ schools to television and regarded public amputations and executions as entertainment.
However, the fear among Kabulis is palpable. “There is a sense of dread of return to the dark days of the past,” said a western diplomat.
Nato spokesmen may reel off statistics of schools and clinics built, but even the wildest optimist would be hard put to talk up Afghanistan at present. This year 232 soldiers have been killed, the most since the Taliban fell in 2001, and last year civilian deaths tripled to more than 4,500. The highways, paid for with billions of foreign dollars, are now regarded as out of bounds for foreigners and many Afghans.
“The number of violent incidents has jumped from an average of 700 per month last year to 900-1,000 in the last two months,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Afghanistan. “I don’t think anyone is contemplating an invasion of Kabul but the Taliban are much closer to the capital - within kilometres.”
The spiralling violence has forced the Bush administration to order a review of Afghan policy. All eyes are now on General David Petraeus, who has just taken over US Central Command, where it is hoped he will work the same magic with Afghanistan as he did with his troop surge in Iraq.
This week he will be in London meeting military commanders and Britain’s ambassador to Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. He will be told in no uncertain terms that military force alone is not the answer, and America needs to take a lead on development and political negotiations, even with the Taliban, if all is not to be lost.
While the focus has been on the south where British troops are based, and the east where the Americans are concentrated, recent months have seen an alarming shift. According to the UN, the Taliban now have a significant presence in five of the six provinces surrounding Kabul. On Highway One, the main road leading south from the capital, you have to drive for only 20 minutes before coming across craters in the road where an improvised explosive device has detonated. Two weeks ago the governor of Logar and two of his bodyguards were assassinated half an hour from the capital.
On Wednesday a bomb on the edge of the city killed two police and wounded General Ali Shah Paktiawal, the chief criminal investigator, who had gone to investigate the fatal poisoning of three policemen at a checkpoint. One of the bodies had been booby-trapped.
“The security situation overall has worsened,” admitted Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). But he said: “It can be turned around - it’s not a lost cause.”
Kabul is calmer than a year ago with fewer suicide bombs, but it is hard to escape the sensation of living in a bubble. Security in the capital has been visibly stepped up over the past year. The Wazir Akbar Khan district favoured by diplomats, aid workers and the odd warlord is a maze of concrete barriers and road blocks.
Thirty-six international private security companies are operating in Kabul and 11 more are setting up, despite having to pay a $300,000 bond to the interior ministry.
The insurgents appear to be targeting charities and aid organisations. Thirty aid workers have been killed this year. Last month three foreign women working for the International Rescue Committee, one of whom was a British-Canadian, were shot dead on a road in Logar province, just outside Kabul.
As one of the few organisations to stay on during the Taliban regime, the UN has traditionally been left alone. But a fortnight ago two doctors vaccinating children were killed in the southern town of Spinboldak by a suicide bomber.
In the midst of this violence voter registration is supposed to get underway next month for presidential elections next summer. “It’s a nightmare,” says one of the UN officials coordinating security.
The four-phased voter registration was supposed to start with the most secure provinces - those around Kabul, including Wardak, Logar, Kapisa and Parwan. But in the few months, since the schedule was drawn up, security has worsened dramatically.
Afghan Logistics, which provides cars to foreigners, considers them no-go areas. In just one month in Wardak 51 trucks were burnt, while in Logar 10 schools have been set on fire. The Afghan Women’s Resource Centre, which runs education projects in Kapisa and Parwan, sends its workers out in burqas, travelling in unmarked cars, and has stopped taking foreign donors on visits.
In most cases the Taliban presence is not open but consists of sending night letters warning people not to collaborate with foreign “infidels” or to send their daughters to school.
“It’s like the bogeyman,” says Haji Ahmed, an agricultural trainer from Logar. “They come out at night and walk through the villages, turning off the music at weddings or going into houses and threatening anyone who works with foreigners.”
According to an American adviser to the energy ministry, four of the country’s 19 regional electricity companies are now run by Taliban. “The Taliban are a fact of life,” said a Canadian development worker in Kandahar. “We have to deal with them or get nothing done.”
Through private contractors, ISAF forces are having to pay the Taliban so they can transport fuel and water supplies. The company providing fuel to the British headquarters at Camp Bastion pays more than £2,000 a tanker, of which they estimate a quarter goes to the Taliban.
The Taliban cause has been helped by the number of civilians recently killed in airstrikes by US forces under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom, the mission begun after 9/11 to hunt Al-Qaeda.
Forty seven people were killed at a wedding in Nangahar in July. A few weeks later US forces killed nine police officers in Farah province. Last month between 30 and 90 people were killed in US bombings in Azizabad, apparently the result of false information.
Even so it is astonishing that a movement so reviled seven years ago could have regained so much influence. “The people are caught between a rock and a hard place,” says Dr Ashraf Ghani, who was finance minister from 2002-4. “As the government cannot protect them against the threat of the Taliban, they have to opt for an insurance policy of not blocking them.”
Ghani has spent the past few months travelling round the country and says the Taliban revival is a result of the weakness and corruption of President Hamid Karzai’s government. “Karzai had never even run a two-man office before he became president,” he says. “What people want is order so they can manage their lives. Instead they have uncertainty and corruption where just a few become obscenely wealthy.”
Ghani, who many expect to run for president, has sent his wife to Washington for security and he predicts a wave of political assassinations in the coming year.
Afghanistan last year suffered its harshest winter in living memory, followed by severe drought. This, along with rising food prices, has seen the cost of wheat quadruple.
Colonel Abdul Karim, director of procurement for the Afghan army, says the government and world need to act quickly. “The government needs to find work for these people so they don’t have economic problems and time on their hands to think whether to support the Taliban or the government.”
The frustration that development is lagging behind military gains is a view shared in ISAF. “There’s nobody here who thinks we’re going to have a military victory, this is not what we’re aiming at,” says the ISAF’s Blanchette. “Governance is the steepest hill we have to climb. We’re still spending a whole lot more on defence rather than on improving quality of life and that has to change.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
In Afghanistan, hit 'em where they aren't
Christian Science Monitor, MA By F. Jordan Evert September 29, 2008
Washington - Faced with the daunting prospect of fighting the Japanese among the jungles, swamps, and volcanic rocks of the islands of the south Pacific, Gen. Douglas MacArthur's tactic of "island-hopping" isolated his enemies and rendered them strategically irrelevant. His unorthodox principle: Hit 'em where they aren't.
As US policymakers reassess how best to use American and NATO troops, money, and political capital in light of a 30 percent increase in violence in Afghanistan and a worsening situation in Pakistan, they would do well to keep this principle in mind.
Recent US attacks inside Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) follow the prevailing, conventional logic: To win in Afghanistan, kill, coerce, and capture in Pakistan.
A successful strategy must attack the insurgency's true center of gravity: the protection, well-being, and state of mind of each Afghan. Secure these and you win; fail and you lose.
How to go about accomplishing this?
First, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) should work to protect a 30-mile wide corridor along Afghanistan's Ring Road, which passes through four of Afghanistan's five major cities and where two-thirds of all Afghans live.
Instead of relying on overwhelming conventional forces, ISAF should build up solid logistic bases in the cities and towns along the road, particularly in the violent southern region between Kandahar and Kabul inhabited by a third of the population. From these bases, special operations forces and civil action teams can partner with Afghan National Security Forces to improve the security situation in the countryside while maintaining a light military footprint.
Second, ISAF must use a similar mix of Special Operations Forces and qualified advisers to improve the well-being of Afghans by strengthening institutions, curbing corruption, and enabling legitimate local leaders to govern. ISAF needs to integrate these issues in the context of Afghanistan's drug-based economy, which destroys institutions from within, spreads violence and fear, and lavishes weapons and political power upon the insurgents.
Good governance is inextricably linked with a solid counternarcotics strategy. Only a coordinated program of opium eradication and interdiction with simultaneous crop substitution and diversification can begin to create conditions favorable to free, fair, and transparent market activity.
Third, public diplomacy must accomplish on an intellectual level what protection and good governance achieve at the elemental level. Soldiers and advisers do not need to engage in a "war of ideas." Rather, they must expose the insurgents' ideology of fear, violence, and repression – an ideology that offers Afghans no hope for the future.
Public diplomacy is the responsibility of every soldier and adviser working at the local level. They should use education and support to enable Afghans to bolster their own unique conceptions of open markets, transparent politics, and international engagement.
Though MacArthur's island-hopping strategy faced considerable opposition from conventionally minded politicians and generals, he succeeded despite a paucity of resources. And he suffered fewer casualties in his entire campaign than Dwight Eisenhower did in the Battle of the Bulge.
Once again, America's leaders need to recalibrate their strategy to defeat a group of implacable foes. They can continue to further the cycle of violence in Afghanistan and undermine stability in Pakistan through a stubborn adherence to the kill, coerce, and capture strategy, or they can pursue a strategy designed to improve the well-being of the ordinary Afghan.
If political leaders in Washington and Europe help the new civilian leadership in Pakistan undertake similar endeavors, we will isolate the enemy. Hit 'em where they aren't, and the insurgency will wither away.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Pakistani villagers start armed anti-Taliban push
SAEED SHAH Globe and Mail September 29, 2008
WARI, PAKISTAN — Amid the brutal march of Islamic extremism in Pakistan, the beginnings of a popular resistance movement is emerging that could challenge the stranglehold of militants in the country's burning northwest.
Villagers in parts of the North West Frontier Province and the tribal territory, faced with the violent advance of the Pakistani Taliban, have started to organize an armed indigenous resistance. They have decided that the state can't - or won't - come to their aid so they must defend themselves against a radical, and alien, form of Islam that is seeking to impose itself on them down the barrel of an AK-47.
The resistance relies on fierce tribal customs and widespread ownership of guns in the area to raise traditional private armies, or lashkars, each with the strength of hundreds, or several thousands, of volunteers.
These tribal armies cannot stop individual acts of terrorism, which now plague the entire country. But they may be able to stop the development of an extremist mini-state in the northwest which would threaten the existence of both nuclear-armed Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.
The lashkars are appearing in many areas, including Bajaur, in the tribal zone, and Dir and Buner in the "settled" areas of NWFP. But a confrontation between ordinary tribesmen and the Taliban could be bloody. The Taliban are heavily armed and entrenched in a line that runs along the Afghan border from South Waziristan, northward through Bajaur and Mohmand, in the tribal area, and in adjacent districts in NWFP, including Swat.
"There's going to be a civil war. These lashkars are spreading," said Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Awami National Party, which runs the provincial government in the NWFP. "It will be the people versus the Taliban."
Recently, in Dir - a long narrow valley in the NWFP sandwiched between Taliban strongholds in Bajaur and Afghanistan on its west side, and more militants in the valley of Swat to its east - about 200 elders from the Payandakhel tribe met in Wari, a small northern town. Using the dusty front yard of a high school to hold a traditional tribal meeting, or jirga, rousing speeches were given that resulted in a resolve to assemble their own lashkar. Anyone sheltering Taliban in the area would be severely punished, the elders also decided.
"The government forces cannot even save themselves; what good will they be to us? They are just silent spectators," Malik Zarene, a tribal elder, told the crowd. "We will rise for our own defence."
Many of the men at the jirga came with machine guns, some dating back to the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The meeting was a reaction to a scare a few days earlier, when a group of Taliban tried to seize a local school and take 300 children hostage. Without waiting for the authorities to act, tribesmen successfully tackled the assailants.
Those at the jirga said they have watched with horror in recent years as extremists pounced on neighbouring Swat, which used to be known as a tourist destination. A full-scale army operation in Swat since last November has not quelled the insurgency.
In Dir, local tribes have demanded that the army not be deployed, which has been agreed. "Once the army comes in, these Taliban fire at the army, and the whole thing escalates," explained a senior security official in Dir. "It is best this is tackled in the traditional way."
In southern Dir, the Sulthankheil tribe raised their anti-Taliban lashkar a month ago in villages around the town of Khall. There, 10,000 residents registered to serve. Every night now, 20 armed men patrol each village, with orders to shoot any intruders.
"If we had not formed this lashkar, we could soon be like Swat or Waziristan," said Akhunzada Sikandar Hazrat, a Sulthankheil tribal chief. "The police only exist inside their stations. If the people show they are against the Taliban, how can they come here?"
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: Taliban rejects reports of imminent peace deal
Kabul, 29 Sept. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - International efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban collapsed late Sunday when militant leaders rejected any attempt to engage in negotiations.
The Taliban emphatically denied a British media report that suggested that its leadership was engaged in talks with the Afghan government to end the war and reiterated their determination to rid the country of all foreign troops.
The British weekly, The Observer, said on Sunday that the Taliban had been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a 'peace process' sponsored by Saudi Arabia and backed by Britain.
"The mainstream media is reporting a 'peace process' between the Taliban and the Kabul puppet administration which is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain," the statement said.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta had previously announced at a media conference that there would be "good news" in a few days regarding a deal with Taliban leaders.
But the statement issued by the Taliban from Kabul in Pashto and later in English on Monday categorically denied any such negotiations.
It rejected claims that that there were "unprecedented talks" involving a senior ex-Taliban member who is travelling between Kabul and the alleged bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan.
"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan rejects all these false claims by the enemy who is using this propaganda campaign," the statement said.
"The aim of this propaganda is to create an atmosphere of disunity among Muslims in order to weaken the Ummah (Muslim faithful). Our struggle will be continued until the departure of all foreign troops."
The statement was signed by the pseudonym of 'Dr Talib' on behalf of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
It also said that former members of the Taliban who had surrendered or were under surveillance were not associated with their organisation.
The statement was issued after news broke that the most prominent female police officer in Afghanistan was murdered by the Taliban at the weekend.
Malalai Kakar, who specialised in rescuing abused women, was shot dead outside her home in Kandahar.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Troops in Afghanistan to get 600 new armoured vehicles
guardian.co.uk, UK By Richard Norton-Taylor Monday September 29 2008
Hard-pressed and vulnerable British troops in Afghanistan will be supplied with 600 new armoured vehicles under a £500m deal agreed between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury, government sources said yesterday.
The new troop carriers should enable the phasing out of the lightly armoured "Snatch" Land Rovers in which more than 30 British soldiers have been killed over the past five years in southern Afghanistan.
The Land Rovers, first used in Northern Ireland, protect troops from small arms fire but provide little protection against roadside bombs, which have been increasingly deployed by the Taliban and other insurgents. "We want to get to a point where we do not have to use the Land Rovers," a defence source said. Defence officials have defended the Land Rovers in the past, saying that they can travel relatively fast over rough ground and are more appropriate for "hearts and minds" missions.
Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first British female soldier killed in Afghanistan, and three SAS reservists died in June when their Land Rover was destroyed by a landmine. Susan Smith, whose son Phillip Hewett died in Iraq in 2005, has taken an action for damages against the MoD alleging "failures" over the use of the vehicles.
Under an agreement which Des Browne, the defence secretary, has been pushing for some time, the Treasury will pay £400m of the cost for the new carriers, with the MoD paying the remaining £100m from its own overstretched budget. Military commanders hope most of the 600 promised vehicles will be delivered to Afghanistan by next spring.
They will include Mastiffs, a version of American Cougars adapted for the army by a Coventry-based company, about a hundred smaller but heavily-armed 4x4 Jackal patrol vehicles, and a number of lighter vehicles to replace the existing fleet of Viking personnel carriers.
An MoD spokesman said it was "constantly looking to improve the equipment provided to its forces on the frontline". However, ministers and military commanders have made no secret of their frustration over the length of time it has taken. Part of the problem has been the severe pressure on the defence budget as billions of pounds have been committed to long-term projects, such as aircraft carriers and Eurofighter/Typhoon fast jets, of little relevance to the conflict in Afghanistan.
As a result of a joint UK-French initiative, European members of Nato who have not deployed combat troops to Afghanistan have now agreed to contribute about £30m to supply idle military helicopters, with fully-trained crews.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Sales of bootleg vodka with Russian label on rise in Afghanistan
KABUL, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Sales of bootleg spirits posing as Russian Stolichnaya vodka are on the rise in Afghanistan, the independent Afghan daily Arman-e Melli reported on Monday.
The paper said the Afghan-produced 'Stolichnaya' is made from sultana grapes, unlike the genuine article, which is made from wheat, rye and artesian water. The fake vodka is produced mainly in northern provinces of Afghanistan, and put in Pakistani-made bottles.
On the Afghan black market, the bootleg vodka is even more expensive than original liquors smuggled from neighboring countries.
In 1980, before liquors were banned in the country, genuine Stolichnaya along with Moldovan brandy were readily available in Afghan stores.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Food crisis competes for Afghan "hearts and minds"
By Alistair Scrutton September 29, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - Muhammad Nabi reflects one of Afghanistan's microcosms - a farmer once besieged by the Taliban, then by drought, who then fled to the city and now rails against food prices he blames on the very government he voted for.
His fight to feed his family is echoed across this country and may undermine the "hearts and minds" reconstruction campaign by the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai to win over Afghans as a battle against a Taliban insurgency rages.
"I don't see any improvement since the Americans came," said Nabi, who says he is around 35. He stood by his wheelbarrow that allows him to eke out a back-breaking living by ferrying goods around the old quarter of the capital.
"I voted for Karzai but it was a waste of time," said Nabi, who is the main breadwinner earning around $2 a day to help support a family of nine. "I'm hungry now.
Afghanistan is facing one of its worst food shortages in years as winter approaches, with prices of the staple wheat rising 60 percent in the first half of the year after Pakistan slapped export bans, a poor harvest and drought.
Rising prices are hitting what is already one of the poorest countries in the world, with more than half of the population living below the poverty line.
Households dependent on wage labor can afford to buy a quarter of the wheat they bought in 2007, according to the World Food Program. This in a country where the majority of household wages are spent on basic foods such as cereals.
The crisis has added to the woes of Karzai, already facing a strengthening Taliban insurgency in the south and east. His government is criticized in many parts for its reliance on corrupt officials to rule.
"You see that along the highway (linking Kabul with the south) kidnappings happen," said Ahmad Wali Karzai, a brother of the president and head of the provincial council for Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan.
"Attacks take place regularly. The reasons for all these are shortage of jobs, the bad economy and high food prices."
Across the country, high food prices have proved just one more blow for Afghans, already frustrated by what they see as a slow rate of development since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban.
"People's frustrations about the Karzai government are increasing," said Maria Kuusisto of Eurasia risk consultancy group. "The Taliban are trying to tap into this frustration, especially in areas where they are not strong militarily."
Dependent on food imports and aid, global food price rises have hit Afghanistan more than many other countries.
Export curbs by Pakistan, its main source of food imports, have pushed up prices despite some stability in the last two months.
"I have five people in my family, but we cannot afford to have a full meal even once a day," said Mohammad Ghani, 33, in western Herat province, where he has been living for three years after returning from Iran as a refugee.
"I think for their survival, I would resort to anything, theft, abduction and even joining the Taliban."
The WFP says a $400 million emergency appeal for food should allow most Afghans to survive the winter, when hundreds of villages can be cut off from the outside world.
But underlying high prices of basic goods will not go away.
"Unfortunately, expectations for the remainder of the year are not promising," the WFP said in its semi-annual report.
"Food prices in Afghanistan are expected to remain at levels far higher than in past years, while the country is again facing a very poor cereals harvest.
EXTORTION, ATTACKS
In Kabul's main wholesale market of Bagh-e-Qazi, traders blame corrupt police and officials for rising costs of transporting lorries from the south.
"Everyone extorts money," said Mohammad Hassan, a wholesaler. "There is just no security."
The insurgency has already sparked fears that much of the south and east of the country could become ungovernable.
And while most villagers will not die from famine thanks to food aid, hardships may push them toward government opposition.
In the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban are using food prices and lack of jobs, along with coalition bombings, to persuade people to join their movement, inhabitants say.
"The Taliban will take advantage of food shortages," said Professor Wadir Safi, a politics professor at Kabul University and former cabinet minister.
"They look at us, analyze us, look at ways to take advantage of our problems. If the winter sets in with food shortages, they will find it much easier to recruit people."
Karzai himself expressed his worries at a South Asian summit two months ago that high food prices were a key problem.
"High food prices are putting reforms, growth strategies, and most importantly, lives, at risk," Karzai said.
Even in middle class districts of Kabul, anger at food prices are heard. Some people express nostalgia for life after the 1979 Soviet invasion, despite despising the occupation itself.
"American soldiers are here but there is no food or peace," said Jan Agha, an attendant at a Russian-built swimming pool still operating. "When the Russians were here, food was cheaper."
Other Afghans worry how much they can take.
"It is really getting tougher and tougher as the day goes. People are hungry and angry and hungry people can do anything," said shopkeeper Abdul Mateen in the northeastern province of Badakhshan.
"People are losing hope in the government and foreigners. I do not know what will happen, but it does not look good."
(With additional reporting by other Reuters reporters in Afghanistan)
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan tailors work round the clock for Eid rush
September 29, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — Mobin Frough's eyes are red and bleary. He and two other young men squeezed into his tiny shop in northern Kabul have been working at their sewing machines day and night to complete orders of clothes in time for the start of Eid al-Fitr this week.
"It's good business but it makes us very tired and very impatient," says the 24-year-old.
This is boom time for the city's tailors, with many Afghans getting at least one new outfit for the three days of socialising that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Such is the demand, Frough's one-room shop opens at 8:00 am, and he and his team will work until three or four the next morning.
Tea and cigarettes keep them going, they joke. "I have worked as a tailor for 10 years, so I can do it," Frough says.
In a street market outside, women in blue burkas stand out in a crowd sifting through stalls of bright fake flowers, coloured bangles and plastic versions of gold and gem necklaces that go for 80 afghani (1.5 dollars).
These markets do brisk trade ahead of Eid, along with cookie makers, dried fruit sellers and boutiques of expensive Turkish and Iranian fashions that are startlingly revealing in conservative Afghanistan.
But it is the tailors that put in the hours, working well into the wee hours in rooms of fluorescent light, standing out like beacons in dark and empty streets.
Aisha, 40, says she has had four punjabi suits -- Indian-style long tops and loose trousers -- made this year. An olive one is for the most important occasion, morning prayers on the first day of Eid.
Covered in black with only her face and hands bare, she says she has spent less then 48 dollars.
"Some women will spend 100 dollars, some make six outfits and then everywhere they go they will change," she says in a courtyard where boys at machines sew on buttons and finish seams, coils of zips and bias binding hanging above them.
"This is the time we have to work hard to make money," says Safar Mohammad, 22, a tailor since he was 10.
A measuring tape around his neck, Mohammad stands at a sewing machine that is hand-operated. Electricity is irregular, sometimes just a few hours a day.
On a tall workbench an iron for pressing seams rests on a gas flame; about 20 plastic bags holding completed piran tunban -- men's long shirts and baggy trousers -- hang from nails in a line from the ceiling.
Mohammad says his small business has made about 100 of the outfits this Eid. Last year they made about 60. In ordinary weeks, they make seven to eight.
His monthly income at Eid is about five times that of the rest of the year, although New Year in March is another good time for tailors.
He and his team also work almost around the clock, snatching a few hours of sleep in the early morning.
"For me it is boring," he says. "If I could find another job, I would do it."
Across town, Habibullah Walizada has a larger operation in a wealthier area close to parliament and about half of his Eid customers have chosen Western-style jackets and trousers over traditional wear.
In his workroom electric sewing machines and irons are plugged into a web of cables that run across the ceiling to a generator chugging outside.
"The orders are really high and they want them on time, so we have to work really hard," Walizada says while his staff of 20 men take a break before the graveyard shift.
"For 20 days it's not too bad. It is hard but we have to."
But running a business in Afghanistan presents a myriad of problems, says the 31-year-old, who returned six years ago from exile in Iran.
Just months back, material and other items worth 9,000 dollars were stolen from another of his shops. He believes the police may have been involved -- a common suspicion in Afghanistan.
"But I can't say anything because if I do, I could go to jail and would have to pay to get out," he says.
Then there was the government official who wanted 300 afghani to overlook an expired business licence. He refused and paid a fine of half that sum.
His generator costs a fortune to run, rent is high and he sees no benefit from the tax he pays the government. In a good month, he makes just 300 dollars.
Walizada is thinking about leaving again. "I know that living as a refugee is difficult but here I have so many problems, it is making me depressed."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Alkozai foundation distribute aid to destitute families
Zarghona Salihi - Sep 28, 2008 - 18:19
KABUL (PAN): Alkozai welfare foundation dished out foodstuff to around 2000 families in Kabul.
Danish Karokhel consultative board member of the foundation while speaking in the ceremony held to distribute the aid in Khushal mena residential scheme of this capital said that the assistance was to mark arrival of the Eid-ul-Fiter.
He said the step was aimed to join the poor and needy people in the auspicious days of Eid. The aid was provided to around 100 teacher and staffers of the nursery.
Every family will be provided ten kg of rice, 4kgs cooking oil and one kilogram of tea, he added, the aid will be distributed in two days to the deserving families and staffers of Library of Kabul University, Afghan Blind Association, Allawudin Orphanage, Sayed Ismail Balkhi High School, Ghulam Muhammad Maimanagi school and Sirajulkhawatin none governmental institution.
The foundation had also dished out first aid and needed materials to the destitute in the past, he added, the foundation will continue its cooperation with the needy families in the winter.
Maliha Mehrabi an official of the kindergarten told Pajhwok Afghan News there were over a hundred staffers in this nursery including 70 teachers and 35 workers.
Munesa a teacher of the nursery appreciated the assistance from Alkozai foundation and urged similar initiatives from other welfare associations and national traders.
Gul Shirin 45 a worker of the nursery said: "may Allah help with them they helped us ahead of Eid days," she added:" we had not a single drop of cooking oil at home."
By the same token those poor families who received the assistance urged other welfare NGOs and traders to help the poor in the times of need.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Police kill five thieves in ambush
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 28 September 2008
Thieves accused of stealing goods and money killed in the north
CLASHES between police and armed thieves have left five thieves dead in the northern province of Balkh, officials said.
A spokesman for the provincial police chief, Shir Jan Durrani, said the five thieves were killed after police ambushed them in Balkh district on Sunday.
Durrani said the thieves had stolen money, goods and kitchen appliances from a family home.
The head of Balk’s police force said the relatives of the family were also involved in burglaries and that one of the thieves killed was recognised by the owner of the house as his brother-in-law.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).