 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Afghan kidnappings damage business revival
By Hamid Shalizi Sun Sep 7, 8:06 PM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - When foreigners are kidnapped in Afghanistan it always makes headlines, but it rarely rates a mention when Afghans are abducted in their own country as worsening security and poverty fuel crime.
Marines hand ex-Taliban stronghold to Afghans
By Sanjeev Miglani
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. Marines handed over control of a former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan to the Afghan army and their British mentors on Monday after killing more than 400 militants
6 Afghan civilians killed in explosion
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 8, 4:18 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A roadside blast in southern Afghanistan killed six civilians Monday, and a Canadian soldier died in another explosion in the same region, officials said.
Video shows dead Afghan children after US raid
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - The bodies of several children lay dead in two videos that show the aftermath of a U.S.-led operation the Afghan government and U.N. say killed 90 civilians.
US to begin new inquiry into Afghan civilian deaths
Mon Sep 8, 3:34 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The US military has reopened an investigation into air strikes that Afghan and UN teams say killed more than 90 civilians after new video evidence emerged, officials said Monday.
Divergent Accounts of Afghan Strike Raise Tension
The New York Times By Carlotta Gall 09/07/2008
AZIZABAD-To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
Human Rights Watch warns of backlash to rising Afghan deaths
Mon Sep 8, 7:08 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Civilian deaths from international air strikes in Afghanistan nearly tripled between 2006 and 2007 with new deadly strikes fuelling a public backlash, Human Rights Watch said Monday.
U.S. drones kill 16 in missile attack in Pakistan
By Haji Mujtaba
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Missiles fired by U.S. drones killed 16 people, including Pakistani and Afghan Taliban fighters, on Monday in a strike targeting a religious school founded by an old friend
Karzai calls for unity among Afghans
September 08, 2008 The News International (Pakistan)
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for unity among his people in a ceremony on Monday to mark the assassination by Al-Qaeda seven years ago of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Buddha statue find at Afghan site
Monday, 8 September 2008 14:53 UK BBC News
A giant statue of a Buddha has been discovered in central Afghanistan, near to the ruins of the world-famous Bamiyan Buddhas.
Afghanistan, economy, environment top Canada election agenda
Sun Sep 7, 5:10 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - The role of Canada's military in Afghanistan, the global economy and climate change are expected to top the agenda in upcoming snap elections called on Sunday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Afghan leader to attend Zardari's inauguration
08 Sep 2008 13:34:53 GMT
KABUL, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will attend the swearing-in ceremony of Pakistani president-elect Asif Ali Zardari, the Afghan leader's office said on Monday, in what is seen an attempt to make a fresh start in strained relations.
IT Can Help Beat Taliban in Afghanistan
Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service via PC World - Sep 08 3:13 AM
In one of the final scenes of the movie, "Charlie Wilson's War," the story of America's part in Afghanistan's victory over the Soviet Union, Congressman Wilson is shown asking for more funding to rebuild Afghanistan, a request that is denied.
Afghanistan: Taliban behind failed attack on Italian convoy
AKI - Adnkronos International
Kabul, 8 Sept. (AKI) - The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a failed suicide attack that targeted an Italian military convoy in the western Afghan province of Herat on Sunday.
Afghanistan: Minister disputes call to boost refugee returns
KABUL, 8 September 2008 (IRIN) - The Afghan Minister of Refugees and Returnees, Shir Mohammad Etibari, has rejected calls by the head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to boost the repatriation of Afghan refugees.
Taliban learning how to win key propaganda battles
PAUL KORING From Monday's Globe and Mail September 8, 2008 at 4:01 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — The Taliban, once dismissed as too stupid to know they would lose if they dared to fight well-trained Canadian and allied troops, have proved themselves resilient
Etisalat to develop Afghan telecom sector
8 Sep, 2008, 1654 hrs IST, IANS
ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates' leading telecom services provider Etisalat is concentrating its efforts on developing the telecom industry in Afghanistan.
Etisalat receives delegation from Afghanistan government
Etisalat's chairman and a high-level delegation from Afghanistan's government met yesterday to discuss the ongoing cooperation between the two organizations.
United Arab Emirates PRESS RELEASE / September 8, 2008
The Afghan delegation included H.E. Eng. A. Sangin, Minister of Communications and IT and H.E. Dr Anwarul Haq Ahady, Minister of Finance, H.E. Abdul faried Zakaria, Afghanistan Ambassador
Journalists warned to get out of Afghanistan
September 9, 2008 Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
AUSTRALIAN journalists in Afghanistan have been targeted by terrorists and were warned yesterday by the Federal Government to consider leaving the country.
Council orders hawkers off Kabul's streets
www.quqnoos.com Written by Zabiullah Jhanmal in Kabul Sunday, 07 September 2008
Capital's authorities tell street-sellers to take down their stalls
THE FIRST mission to clean up Kabul’s streets got underway on Saturday as the capital’s authorities pinned notices to shop fronts telling street sellers to dismantle their stalls.
Scores protest governor's 'Taliban ties'
www.quqnoos.com Written by M Reza Sher Mohammadi in Herat Sunday, 07 September 2008
Governor denies having links with militants and rejects corruption claim
SCORES of people marched on the capital of Badghis province for the third time in protest against the governor for his alleged support of the Taliban.
Urgent aid for Pakistan
International Herald Tribune, France By Anatol Lieven September 7, 2008
The Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, has drawn up an excellent long-term plan for the United States to help Pakistan economically, thereby strengthening the state against Islamist extremism.
Back to Top
Afghan kidnappings damage business revival
By Hamid Shalizi Sun Sep 7, 8:06 PM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - When foreigners are kidnapped in Afghanistan it always makes headlines, but it rarely rates a mention when Afghans are abducted in their own country as worsening security and poverty fuel crime.
Rather than being seized by Taliban insurgents bent on pressuring foreign armies and aid workers for political ends, Afghans are more often kidnapped for ransom by criminal gangs.
Many of the victims are from families of Afghanistan's fledgling business class and the kidnappings are driving abroad the few investors willing to put money into the struggling Afghan economy which relies on foreign aid to fund 90 percent of expenditure.
Sayed Mustafa, a businessman importing fuel in the Afghan capital, received a call from his family two months ago saying his 10-year-old son had not returned home from school.
Frantically, he scoured the streets and hospitals but by night-time there was still no sign of the boy.
Then he received a phone call.
"'Don't try to inform the police or we will kill your son'," Mustafa said the caller told him. "'Listen carefully, the price of your son is $200,000. Give us the money and we'll free him'."
"I didn't believe him until I heard my son crying and calling out 'where are you father?'," he said.
"I didn't get another call from the kidnappers for two days. On the third day they called and asked if I had the money ready.
"I wanted to negotiate, to bring down the price," Mustafa said, fighting back tears. "But I didn't know it would cost my son's life ... They killed my son because I hesitated to pay."
Security is deteriorating as Afghan and foreign forces fail to bring the Taliban insurgency under control. Rising food prices only add to poverty in a country which is already one of the poorest in the world. Life expectancy is only around 44 years.
"The security situation is worsening day-by-day. The government is still in a deep sleep. There are no jobs, no good income, so it is obvious that kidnappings will increase," said Jawed Rashidi, a doctor in Kabul.
Some 130 people have been reported kidnapped in the last five months, the Afghan Criminal Investigation Department (CID) says, but the real number is believed to be far higher.
"We have about 130 cases of abduction registered, about 100 people are still with the kidnappers, and more than 100 individuals involved in abduction have been detained," said CID chief Mirza Mohammad Yaarmand.
Five kidnap victims have been killed.
Of those kidnapped since March, only 13 have been foreigners, most of them either Western aid workers, or businessmen and construction engineers from Turkey, Iran, India and Nepal.
"The cases are either political or financial. The kidnappers disguise themselves as minister's guards, as U.N. guards, as foreign troops or Afghan army or police," Yaarmand said.
INVESTMENT AT RISK
Afghan businessmen, many of whom returned to invest in their homeland after the 2001 fall of the Taliban, are particularly at risk. The general state of insecurity and the lack of personal security is driving them abroad again, officials say.
Sayed Mustafa is planning to take his family to neighboring Iran or Pakistan. Other businessmen have already fled.
"I think that is a very dangerous trend that is continuing to grow for both Afghan and foreigners," a security analyst Abdullah Hashimzai said.
"The lack of jobs, extreme poverty, the inability of the police force to respond and corruption further add to the problem," he said. "Investment in Afghanistan is high risk. Many businessmen have been kidnapped."
Such is the scale of the problem that Afghan businessmen sent a delegation to President Hamid Karzai in June to demand he set up a special court to try kidnappers.
Doctors briefly went on strike in the western city of Herat this year after a spate of kidnappings of medical professionals there.
"Kidnapping has become a profession in Afghanistan because of the weakness of the rule of law ... The children of wealthy people, traders or those who have returned from abroad or whose relatives - brother, father or uncle - work abroad are kidnapped," said the Hewad state newspaper.
"Kidnapping is truly a serious crime. Such criminals must be severely punished. This is the desire and demand of all Afghans," it said.
But the government, seemingly overwhelmed by Afghanistan's multitude of problems, has yet to take serious action.
Legal cases can take years to process and the court system is notoriously corrupt. Cases are frequently decided on the basis of bribes.
Some Afghans are beginning to hark back to the harsh, but quick and cheap justice of the hardline Taliban.
"We haven't seen any trial of any abductors during Karzai's government," said student Ghiasuddin Usmani, whose cousin was kidnapped and later released after a ransom was paid.
"I prefer the Taliban era because violators were severely punished and people did not dare to think about any crime," he said.
"Nowadays abduction has become ... an easy income. You don't have to work hard. Just target a wealthy family member and you are rich overnight."
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Marines hand ex-Taliban stronghold to Afghans
By Sanjeev Miglani
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. Marines handed over control of a former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan to the Afghan army and their British mentors on Monday after killing more than 400 militants in a four-month operation, the NATO-led force said.
The northern part of Garmsir district in Helmand province, known as the snake's head for its appearance on a map, served as a transit and logistics hub for Taliban fighters.
About 2,400 Marines moved into the insurgent-held area along the Helmand river in late April and seized control after 35 days of intense fighting.
"During these 35 days, the Marines were in 170 engagements in which they caused severe insurgent casualties, more than 400 according to the Helmand governor, and zero civilian casualties," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
Mounting civilian casualties, especially in U.S.-led coalition air strikes, have fuelled public anger across Afghanistan and driven a wedge between the government and its Western backers.
By restoring stability in the Garmsir area, the Marines allowed many Afghans to return to the district, some of them after an absence of two years, the ISAF statement said.
The main market and the hospital in Garmsir have been reopened, the canal system evaluated for repairs and the first shura, or council, held in three years, it said. Schools have also been repaired.
"Coming here I told the Marines that wherever we went had to be better for us having been there. Today I can say we have accomplished that," said Colonel Peter Petronzio, commanding officer of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
However, violence has surged across Afghanistan this year, including in Helmand, with some 2,500 people killed, up to 1,000 of them civilians.
On Monday, six civilians were killed in a landmine blast in southern Zabul province, police said.
The Afghan army's 4th battalion, helped by British forces, is now responsible for maintaining peace in Garmsir.
A British commander said last month the two forces would ensure that the gains made by the Marines in Garmsir would not be lost after fears were raised that the Taliban could be lying low, waiting for the Marines to leave.
The Marines, who were deployed to Afghanistan to make up for shortfalls in troops that Washington failed to persuade other NATO allies to fill, will head home, the ISAF said.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
Back to Top
Back to Top
6 Afghan civilians killed in explosion
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 8, 4:18 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A roadside blast in southern Afghanistan killed six civilians Monday, and a Canadian soldier died in another explosion in the same region, officials said.
The six civilians, including a woman and a child, died when their private vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Naw Bahar district of Zabul province, said district chief Zarif Khan. Two other civilians were wounded in the explosion.
Khan blamed Taliban militants for planting the device.
Also in the south, a Canadian soldier was killed when another roadside blast hit a patrol on Sunday, the Canadian military said. Sgt. Scott Shipway became the 97th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan when his armored vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency. Militants regularly attack Afghan and foreign troops with roadside and suicide bombs.
On Sunday, a pair of suicide bombers entered the police headquarters in Kandahar city, killing five policemen and wounding over 30 other people, officials said.
The two bombers targeted Gen. Abdul Raziq, a border police commander, two police officers at the scene in Kandahar said. The blasts went off Sunday within a minute of each other, one on a ground floor and one on an upper floor.
Kandahar is the Taliban's former stronghold. Militants unleashed a massive attack on the city's prison in June, killing about nine police and setting free almost 900 prisoners.
More than 4,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western and Afghan officials.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Video shows dead Afghan children after US raid
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - The bodies of several children lay dead in two videos that show the aftermath of a U.S.-led operation the Afghan government and U.N. say killed 90 civilians.
The video obtained Monday, apparently taken by a cell phone, is grainy and details such as a precise body count are difficult to make out. A second video shows gruesome detail of children severely disfigured.
The two videos, both obtained by The Associated Press, give weight to Afghan and U.N. findings that scores of civilians, including 60 children and 15 women, died in the Aug. 22 raid in the village of Azizabad.
A U.S. investigation found that only seven civilians died. But the U.S. on Sunday said it would reopen the investigation because of emerging new evidence.
Back to Top
Back to Top
US to begin new inquiry into Afghan civilian deaths
Mon Sep 8, 3:34 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The US military has reopened an investigation into air strikes that Afghan and UN teams say killed more than 90 civilians after new video evidence emerged, officials said Monday.
The US-led coalition has steadfastly rejected the civilian tolls from the August 22 strikes on the village of Azizabad in the western province of Herat, saying only five to seven civilians died along with 30-35 Taliban rebels.
But it had agreed to a review on the request of General David McKiernan, the most senior US officer in Afghanistan, the US Central Command -- which is responsible for the region -- said in a statement received by AFP Monday.
The Florida-based command "will appoint a senior US military officer to review the investigation into the combined Afghan National Army (ANA) and US Forces operation," said the statement forwarded by the US military here.
"This review will consider new information that has become available since the completion of the initial investigation," it said.
If the toll of 90 is confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest such incidents since the United States led troops into Afghanistan seven years ago to remove the Taliban from government and round up extremist militants.
McKiernan said in a statement late Sunday there was "emerging evidence" about the incident.
In light of this, "I feel it is prudent to request that US Central Command send a general officer to review the US investigation and its findings with respect to the new evidence," he said.
McKiernan heads the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which works alongside the US-led coalition, but he is the most senior US commander in Afghanistan.
He was referring to images captured on mobile telephone by one of the residents of the village, ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Richard Blanchette told AFP.
Images received and seen by AFP -- apparently the same ones referred to by Blanchette -- show at least 30 bodies packed into a mosque and covered with blankets.
Some of the covers are lifted to show several children, some only toddlers, and at least one with the back of its skull blown off.
An Afghan investigation, appointed by President Hamid Karzai, said the dead included around 50 children aged under 15 years, 19 women and some men.
The team also said there was video evidence which it sent to its intelligence services.
A separate United Nations investigation came up with a similar conclusion but US officials reportedly cast doubt on the allegations citing lack of physical evidence.
The US-led coalition has said it called in the strikes after a joint patrol came under attack. It says the killed civilians were relatives of an important Taliban commander, who was among the dead.
Afghan locals say the strikes hit people gathered overnight ahead of a ceremony to mark the death of an important local figure, and seven to eight houses were destroyed.
The incident prompted Karzai to sack two senior Afghan army officers and his government to demand a review of the regulations governing the presence of international troops in Afghanistan.
New York-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch warned in a report released Monday that civilian deaths from international air strikes were creating a public backlash against the government and its allies.
Such killings had nearly tripled between 2006 and 2007 with at least 119 in the first seven months of this year, it said.
"Mistakes by the US and NATO have dramatically decreased public support for the Afghan government and the presence of international forces providing security to Afghans," HRW Asia director Brad Adams said in a statement accompanying the report.
"Civilian deaths from air strikes act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security to the people of Afghanistan," he added.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Divergent Accounts of Afghan Strike Raise Tension
The New York Times By Carlotta Gall 09/07/2008
AZIZABAD-To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.
Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.
For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”
“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.
The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.
The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad on Thursday to pay his respects to the mourners, condemning the strikes, and vowing to arrest an Afghan he says misled American forces with false intelligence.
President Bush expressed his regrets and sympathy in a call to Mr. Karzai on Wednesday. And General McKiernan has issued several statements voicing sorrow for civilian casualties.
The Afghan government is demanding changes in the accords defining the United States military engagement in Afghanistan, in particular ending American military raids on villages and halting the detention of Afghan citizens.
“People are sick of hearing there is another case of civilian casualties,” one presidential aide said.
Differing Accounts
The accounts of the airstrikes’ aftermath given by Afghans and Americans could not be further apart.
A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves. Thirteen of the graves were so small they could hold only children; another 13 were marked with stones in the way that Afghans identify women’s graves.
Villagers questioned separately identified relatives in the graves; their names matched the accounts given by elders of the village of those who died in each of eight bomb-damaged houses and where they were buried. They were quite specific about who was killed in the airstrikes and did not count those who died for other reasons; one of the fresh graves, they said, belonged to a man who was killed when villagers demonstrated against the Afghan Army on Aug. 23.
At the battle scene, shell craters dotted the courtyards and shrapnel had gouged holes in the walls. Rooms had collapsed and mud bricks and torn clothing lay in uneven mounds where people had been digging. In two places blood was splattered on the ceiling and a wall. An old woman pushed forward with a cauldron full of jagged metal bomb fragments, and a youth presented cellphone video he said was shot on the day of the bombing; there was no time stamp.
The smell of bodies lingered in one compound, causing villagers to start digging with spades. They found the body of a baby, caked in dust, in the corner of a bombed-out room.
Cellphone images that a villager said that he shot, and seen by this reporter, showed two lines of about 20 bodies each laid out in the mosque, with the sounds of loud sobbing and villagers’ cries in the background.
An Afghan doctor who runs a clinic in a nearby village said he counted 50 to 60 bodies of civilians, most of them women and children and some of them his own patients, laid out in the village mosque on the day of the strike. The doctor, who works for a reputable nongovernmental organization here, at first gave his name but then asked that it be withheld because he feared retribution from Afghans feeding intelligence to the Americans.
The United States military, in a series of statements about the operation, has accused the villagers of spreading Taliban propaganda. Speaking on condition that their names not be used, some military officials have suggested that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites — and, by implication, that other investigators had been duped. But many villagers have connections to the Afghan police, NATO, or the Americans through reconstruction projects, and they say they oppose the Taliban.
The district chief of Shindand, Lal Muhammad Umarzai, 45, said he personally counted 76 bodies that day, and he believed that more bodies were unearthed over the next two days, bringing the total to more than 90. Mr. Umarzai has been praised for bringing security to the district in the three months since his appointment and is on good terms with American and NATO forces in the region.
American military investigators said that they had interviewed him and that he had told them that he had no access to the village. But Mr. Umarzai said Taliban supporters came into the village in midmorning after the airstrikes, forcing him and the police to leave the village, but that later he was able to return and attend the burials.
The United Nations issued a statement pointing to evidence it considered conclusive that about 90 civilians were killed, some 75 of them women and children. Villagers and relatives said that the bodies were scattered in different locations; many of the victims were visiting Azizabad for a family memorial ceremony, and their relatives took their bodies back to their home villages for burial. This reporter did not visit the other villages, but was given a detailed list of names and places where the remaining victims were buried.
Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them. Most of the village families were asleep when the shooting broke out, some sleeping out under mosquito nets in the yards of their houses, some inside the small domed rooms of their houses, lying close together on the floor, with up to 10 or 20 people in a room.
“I woke up when I heard shooting,” Zainab, a 26-year-old woman who doctors said was wounded in the attack, said in an interview in the Herat city hospital. “The shooting was very close to our house. We just stayed where we were because it was dangerous to go out. When the bombardment started there was smoke everywhere and we lay down to protect ourselves.”
Yakhakhan, 51, one of several men in the village working for a private security firm, and who uses just one name, said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor’s sons running.
“They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old,” he said. In the compound next to his, he said, four entire families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. “They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us,” he said of the Americans. “God will punish them.”
A policeman, Abdul Hakim, whose four children were killed and whose wife was paralyzed, said she had told him how an Afghan informer accompanying the American Special Operations forces had entered the compound after the bombardment and shot dead her brother, Reza Khan; her father, and an uncle as they were trying to help her. She said she had heard her father plead for help and ask the Afghan: “Are you a Muslim? Why are you doing this to us?” Then she heard shots, and her father did not speak after that, he said.
A United States military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, said in an e-mail message that she was unaware of such an allegation, and that the American military did not have Afghan civilian informers accompanying its forces during the mission. Soldiers treated wounded people at the scene, which indicated that the Laws of Armed Conflict were followed, she said.
No Taliban, Villagers Say
While the American forces reported they had come under fire upon entering the village, it is not clear from whom. The villagers and the relatives of some of the people killed in the raid insisted that none of them were Taliban, and that there were no Taliban present in the village. Eight of the men killed were security guards supplied by Reza Khan to a private American security company and did possess weapons, said Gul Ahmed Khan, Reza Khan’s brother. Two other security guards and three members of the local Afghan police were detained by United States forces during the raid. Four of them were released a week later.
The Khan brothers are from the most prominent family in the village and were hosting the memorial ceremony for their brother, Taimoor Shah, who was killed in a business dispute a year ago. They had cards issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated each of them as a “coordinator for the U.S.S.F.” Another brother, Haji Abdul Rashid, blamed a business rival for falsely telling the Americans that their family supported the Taliban.
American military officials in Afghanistan and Washington have stood by their much lower body count. Capt. Christian Patterson, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, said that an investigating officer, a Special Forces major, visited the village after the airstrikes. Guided by aerial photographs, he visited six burial sites within a six-mile range of the attack; only one had any freshly dug graves, about 18 to 20 in total, Captain Patterson said. The 12-page investigative report does not indicate whether they were the graves of children or women. The officer did not interview villagers, he said.
Mr. Khan, whose house is just yards from the main graveyard, which contains 24 fresh graves, said no members of the American military had entered the village since Aug. 22. Villagers living around the graveyards would have seen them, he said.
The American military also said that it had found only two wounded people, a woman and a child, at the scene, and that in a survey of clinics, doctors and hospitals of the area it had found no other wounded.
U.S. Defends Operation
In a series of statements about the operation, the American military has said that extremists who entered the village after the bombardment encouraged villagers to change their story and inflate the number of dead. Yet the Afghan government and the United Nation have stood by the victims’ families and their accounts, not least because many of the families work for the Afghan government or reconstruction projects. The villagers say they oppose the Taliban and would not let them in the village.
“You can see our I.D. cards,” said a police officer, Muhammad Alam, 35, who was accused by the Americans of being a Taliban supporter and was detained for a week after the airstrikes, then released. “If the Taliban caught me, they would slaughter me.”
Two families in the village have lost men serving in the police during recent Taliban attacks. Reza Khan, whose house was the main target of the Special Operations Forces operation, and who was shot dead in the episode, was a wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport, and with a cellphone business in the town of Herat. A recent photo of him shows a clean-shaven, slightly portly man in a suit and tie — far from the typical look of a Taliban militant.
His brother, Haji Rashid, said the American forces “should question the people who gave them the wrong information.”
“We want them brought to trial and punished for what they have done,” he added.
His claim was supported by the district chief, Mr. Umarzai, who said, “The victims did not fire on the Americans.” He said he suspected that an informer falsely told the American forces that Taliban fighters were in the village and also staged the firefight. The gunmen first fired on the police checkpoint on the edge of the village that night, he said. “When the Americans came, they laid down heavy gunfire and then they left the area. Then the Americans called in airstrikes,” he said.
Villagers also challenged the American military’s claims that it successfully conducted its planned operation against a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and a group of his men.
A man claiming to be Mullah Sadiq called Radio Liberty several days after the raid and declared that he was alive and well and was never in the village of Azizabad that night. Reporters at the radio station, who asked not to be identified, said they knew his voice well and double checked the recording with residents of Shindand and they were sure the caller was Mullah Sadiq.
American military officials have said that the man who called the radio program was an imposter and that they are confident they killed their target.
A senior American officer who has been briefed on the military investigation’s findings said in an e-mail message: “I will simply say that the soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — reported what they saw and found at each building site as they looked for material, weapons, bodies. I cannot explain why later the numbers are so far apart.”
Members of the Afghan government investigation commission said that the Americans were just covering up the truth. “The Americans are guilty in this incident: it is much better for them to confess the reality rather than hiding the truth,” said Abdul Salam Qazizada, a member of Parliament and the government commission from Herat Province, where the village is located.
Villagers suggested that the soldiers just counted those who died in the open and did not try to dig under the rubble. A local journalist, Reza Shir Mohammadi, said that when he visited the village on the second day after the attack, women and children were still weeping at one collapsed house, saying they still had not found their mother and siblings.
The operation in Azizabad once again raises questions for the military about whether it is worth pursuing members of the Taliban with airstrikes inside a densely populated village where civilian casualties and property damage can be so high. A similar raid in the same district by American Special Forces in April 2007, which killed 57 people, led American and NATO commanders to tighten rules on calling in airstrikes on village houses.
“This is not fair to kill 90 people for one Mullah Sadiq,” said Mr. Umarzai, the district chief. “If they continue like this, they will lose the people’s confidence in the government and the coalition forces.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Human Rights Watch warns of backlash to rising Afghan deaths
Mon Sep 8, 7:08 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Civilian deaths from international air strikes in Afghanistan nearly tripled between 2006 and 2007 with new deadly strikes fuelling a public backlash, Human Rights Watch said Monday.
Insurgents were also guilty of causing civilian deaths by using ordinary people as "human shields" against troops, including by deploying into villages, the New York-based rights group said in a report.
But the international forces, and the US military in particular, needed to "end the mistakes that are killing so many civilians," Asia director Brad Adams warned in a statement accompanying the report.
"Mistakes by the US and NATO have dramatically decreased public support for the Afghan government and the presence of international forces providing security to Afghans," he said.
"Civilian deaths from air strikes act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security to the people of Afghanistan."
The report comes less than a fortnight after Afghan government and UN investigation teams said US-led coalition air strikes killed more than 90 villagers, most of them children, on August 22 in the western village of Azizabad.
The coalition rejects the figure saying only five to seven died along with 30-35 Taliban.
If the toll of 90 is confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest such incidents since the United States led troops into Afghanistan seven years ago to remove the Taliban from government and round up extremist militants.
Human Rights Watch said that in 2006 at least 699 Afghan civilians were killed in militant attacks, including suicide bombings, and at least 230 in international military action, around half in air strikes.
In 2007, at least 950 died in attacks by insurgent forces, including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and at least 321 in air strikes.
"Thus, civilian deaths from US and NATO air strikes nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007," it said.
In the first seven months of this year 2008, at least 367 civilians had been killed in insurgent attacks and at least 119 in air strikes, it said, adding its data was based on conservative estimates.
The air strikes that accounted for almost all the civilian dead were unplanned and called in to help troops under attack, Human Rights Watch said.
"Rapid response air strikes have meant higher civilian casualties, while every bomb dropped in populated areas amplifies the chance of a mistake," Adams said.
Besides civilian casualties, strikes also caused people to flee their homes and villages in fear of future bombardments, resulting in another problem of displacement, Human Rights Watch said.
The watchdog accused US officials in particular of a "poor response" when civilian deaths did occur, saying the US military often immediately denied responsibility or placed all blame on the Taliban.
Its investigations had been "unilateral, ponderous, and lacking in transparency" and undercut relations with local populations and the Afghan government, the group said.
Compensation payouts to survivors or relatives of victims had not been timely or adequate, it said, calling for the international forces to improve their method of assessing damages.
"While Taliban shielding is a factor in some civilian deaths, the US shouldn't use this as an excuse when it could have taken better precautions. It is, after all, its bombs that are doing the killing," Adams said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. drones kill 16 in missile attack in Pakistan
By Haji Mujtaba
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Missiles fired by U.S. drones killed 16 people, including Pakistani and Afghan Taliban fighters, on Monday in a strike targeting a religious school founded by an old friend of Osama bin Laden, intelligence officials and Pakistani villagers said.
"There were two drones and they fired three missiles," said a resident of Dandi Darpakheil, a village in the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border.
A military official said a house and madrasa founded by Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani were the targets.
Haqqani is a veteran commander of the U.S.-backed Afghan war against the Soviet invasion in the 1970s and 1980s, and his links with bin Laden go back to the late 1980s.
He is said to be in ill-health and his son, Sirajuddin, has been leading the Haqqani group.
The missile strike killed 16 people, most of them Pakistani and Afghan Taliban fighters, though four women and two children were also killed, according to a senior intelligence officer.
"They belonged to Sirajuddin Haqqani group," said the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"No foreign militant was killed," he added, although a junior intelligence official had said earlier that Uzbek and Arab militants had been staying in the school complex.
One of Haqqani's younger sons said his father and brother, also a militant, were nowhere near when the attack took place.
"Haqqani and Sirajuddin were in Afghanistan at the time of the attack. They are alive," Badruddin, the commander's third son, told Reuters by telephone.
Fifteen to 20 wounded people, most of them women and children, had been taken to hospital in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, doctors said.
Badruddin said one of his aunts had been killed in the attack on the family home. He said six missiles had struck the house, which the family had owned for 30 years.
Residents said militants cordoned off the bombed site.
Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said an "incident" had taken place and its cause was being ascertained.
CLOSE LINKS WITH ISI
Haqqani has had close links with Pakistani intelligence agencies, notably the military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The New York Times reported in July that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had given Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani evidence of the ISI's involvement with Haqqani, along with evidence of ISI connections to a suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed nearly 60 people on July 7.
Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, was due to be sworn in on Tuesday, after winning a vote on Saturday by lawmakers in parliament's two chambers and four provincial assemblies. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony, a foreign ministry official said.
Zardari, who forced former army chief Pervez Musharraf to step down last month after nine years in power, has vowed to defeat the Taliban and support the West's mission in Afghanistan.
But the civilian coalition has to pay more heed to public opinion than Musharraf did.
U.S.-led forces recently stepped up cross-border attacks against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistani tribal areas.
Helicopter-borne commandos carried out a ground assault in South Waziristan last Wednesday, the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials said 20 people, including women and children, were killed in the attack which drew a furious response from the government and stoked anti-American sentiment.
A day later, four Islamist militants were killed and five wounded in a suspected U.S. drone attack in North Waziristan.
Security officials said five people were killed in another drone attack on Friday, but the Pakistan military denied it.
Anger over the U.S. commando raid and repeated territorial violations prompted the government to partially block supply lines to Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan on Saturday.
Rehman Malik, the top Interior Ministry official, said on Monday the road was unblocked after a few hours, and that it had only been shut for security reasons, contrary to earlier comments by the defence minister that it was a response to the violations.
Separately, the army killed 10 militants in clashes in the northwestern Swat Valley on Sunday night, while police arrested a teenaged suicide bomber who had planned to attack army installations in the northwestern garrison town of Nowshera.
Thirty people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack in the nearby city of Peshawar on Saturday.
(Additional reporting by Alamgir Bitani, Syed Salahuddin and Kamran Haider)
(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Jerry Norton)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Karzai calls for unity among Afghans
September 08, 2008 The News International (Pakistan)
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for unity among his people in a ceremony on Monday to mark the assassination by Al-Qaeda seven years ago of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.
"Let's join hands and unite in rebuilding our country," Karzai told a gathering of about 3,000, including government officials and former fighters in the resistance to the 1980s Soviet occupation known as the mujahedeen.
"Whenever we have been united, we have succeeded, and when we are divided, we have lost," Karzai said.
Karzai's call was directed largely at anti-Soviet factions and their powerful commanders who led their country into civil war after the Soviets were removed in 1989 and still hold influence today, many forming the opposition.
"My demand from our nation and our political parties ... is that despite having different ideologies and political views, let us unite in strengthening the system (government) and rebuild our country," Karzai said.
Post-Taliban Afghanistan is a fractured country with the ethnic divisions behind the civil war still evident as extremist violence, corruption and a booming narcotics trade undermine attempts to rebuild from decades of conflict.
Massoud, remembered as an anti-Taliban and anti-Soviet "hero", was killed in a suicide attack by two Al-Qaeda operatives who had posed as journalists.
He died two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in United States which led to the US-led "war on terror", its first act being the ouster of Afghanistan's Taliban regime that had sheltered Al-Qaeda.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Buddha statue find at Afghan site
Monday, 8 September 2008 14:53 UK BBC News
A giant statue of a Buddha has been discovered in central Afghanistan, near to the ruins of the world-famous Bamiyan Buddhas.
Archaeologists say the 19m (62ft) statue is in a sleeping position and dates back to the Third Century.
Other relics such as coins and ceramics were also found.
The Taleban blew up two giant standing Buddhas carved into the mountainside at Bamiyan - once a thriving centre of Buddhism - in 2001.
The statues, the tallest such standing Buddhas in the world at the time, were considered by the Taleban to be un-Islamic representations of the human form.
Archaeologists are working on restoring the largest of the two Buddhas in a project that is expected to take a decade.
A local official in Bamiyan said the newly found statue had been badly damaged, but some parts of it, such as the neck and right hand, were in a good condition.
He said measures were being taken to protect it, and it was hoped the statue would go on public display next year.
The latest find gives hope to archaeologists searching for a 300m long statue recorded by a Chinese pilgrim centuries ago.
Iconic Buddhist art works, now thought to be the oldest oil paintings in the world, have also been found in the caves at Bamiyan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan, economy, environment top Canada election agenda
Sun Sep 7, 5:10 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - The role of Canada's military in Afghanistan, the global economy and climate change are expected to top the agenda in upcoming snap elections called on Sunday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Harper called the October 14 vote after nearly two-and-half years of struggling to govern with a minority government.
The Conservative leader, who is hoping his party can get closer to an absolute majority in the 308-seat legislature, told reporters the election would lay out for voters the stark contrast between right and left economic and environmental policies.
"We have come to a moment that requires the people of Canada to choose a way forward," Harper said after asking Governor General Michaelle Jean, Canada's titular head, to dissolve parliament.
"Between now and October 14th, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interest in a time of global economic trouble," Harper said.
"They will choose between clear direction or uncertainty, between common sense or risky experiments, between steadiness or recklessness."
The leader of the Liberal Party, Stephane Dion, meanwhile said the election was pivotal because "there has never been a federal election that has more clearly provided to Canadians such a stark choice between two visions for our country."
Dion called Harper's government "the most conservative government in our history" and pledged to reduce poverty in Canada by one-third overall and one-half among children.
Harper's announcement came with Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan expected to figure prominently during the campaigning, as Ottawa announced the combat death Sunday of another Canadian soldier -- the fourth this week. It was the 97th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan since 2003.
There are some 2,500 Canadian soldiers currently in Afghanistan. Ottawa's mission was extended to 2011 by the Conservatives with qualified support from the Liberals, but recent opinion polls suggest a slight majority of Canadians oppose Canada's role in the mission.
The Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats meanwhile have been consistently opposed it.
Harper said the Conservatives would run on a record that includes lowering taxes, changing rules to prevent funding of political campaigns by large corporations and unions, lengthening mandatory criminal sentences and allocating money for family child care.
The sagging economy is also expected to be a major campaign theme, despite a historically-low unemployment rate of 6.1 percent, amid fears of a recession.
Before dissolution the Conservatives held 127 seats, the Liberals 95, the Bloc Quebecois 48, and the New Democratic Party 30. Four seats were vacant while Independents held another four seats, including the seat of one member of Parliament who announced this week he would join the relatively new Green Party.
Opinion polls in the past year have suggested only a slight difference between support for the Liberals and Conservatives.
Recent surveys showed a strengthening of support for the Conservatives, and some pundits suggest the party could win a majority. But Harper downplayed that possibility Sunday, telling reporters, "in all likelihood it will be a minority."
He launched his campaign in the Francophone province of Quebec, where for the first time polls put the Conservatives neck-and-neck with the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, compared Harper and the Conservatives to the administration of US President George W. Bush.
"Let us never forget, never, that Stephen Harper wanted to take Canada into the Iraq war in 2003," said Duceppe, adding the main election choice is between his vision and "a society where the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer."
Jack Layton, leader of the New Democrats, suggested the governments of the past quarter-century run by either Conservatives or Liberals were more alike than not.
Meanwhile, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, whose party is hoping to capture its first elected seat, urged Canadians not to be cynical about politics and to get involved, and demand better environmental stewardship.
"Our species stands on a precipice," she said. "It's a moment of great peril ... and right now many Canadians are tuned out. There is no other planet which we can move to."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan leader to attend Zardari's inauguration
08 Sep 2008 13:34:53 GMT
KABUL, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will attend the swearing-in ceremony of Pakistani president-elect Asif Ali Zardari, the Afghan leader's office said on Monday, in what is seen an attempt to make a fresh start in strained relations.
Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan's spy agency of secretly backing Taliban insurgents, and last month Karzai urged the world to target the Taliban in Pakistan.
Islamabad rejects the charge and says the Afghan government is trying to divert attention from its own failure to quell the Taliban insurgency.
Karzai earlier spoke to Zardari to congratulate him on his election and was invited to attend the inauguration of the Pakistani leader, his office said.
"President Karzai left Kabul for Abu Dhabi this afternoon to meet the president of United Arab Emirate and will fly to Islamabad to attend the swearing ceremony tomorrow," the presidential palace said in a statement.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, swept a presidential election by legislators on Saturday, winning 481 of 702 electoral college votes to cement his hold on power in nuclear-armed Pakistan. (Reporting by Hamid Shalizi,; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Back to Top
Back to Top
IT Can Help Beat Taliban in Afghanistan
Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service via PC World - Sep 08 3:13 AM
In one of the final scenes of the movie, "Charlie Wilson's War," the story of America's part in Afghanistan's victory over the Soviet Union, Congressman Wilson is shown asking for more funding to rebuild Afghanistan, a request that is denied.
The message was clear: extremists gained a foothold in Afghanistan after the war because nobody else was willing to step in and rebuild the government, schools and other institutions. Instead, civil war broke out, and fighting continues today despite rebuilding efforts.
Still, technology is playing a growing part in rebuilding Afghanistan, said Amirzai Sangin, [CQ] Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Afghanistan.
Mobile phones, for one, have become popular in the nation. Now, people can call for help in medical emergencies or to report suspicious activity. Mobile phone base stations have been targeted by the Taliban over such calls.
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) association also wants to help reshape Afghanistan. The group is working with the Afghan government, U.S. Department of Defense and others, including Afghan mobile phone operator Roshan, to start distributing its green low-cost XO laptops to school kids in the country.
Such measures are small today and difficult to carry out for a variety of reasons, but kids in Afghanistan are excited about the Internet and want to know more, says Sangin. The laptops, and other technologies, could be instrumental in keeping kids in school, and away from extremist groups.
The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Sangin at the ITU Telecom Asia show in Thailand.
IDG News Service (IDGNS): What role can technology play in Afghanistan?
Sangin: If we can invest in our youth, with ICT (information and communications technology) and with a quality education, it will make a huge difference in the future of Afghanistan.
I think it will help us to stop them from joining groups like the Taliban.
How can it be that hundreds of people are so easily brainwashed to blow themselves up? It's because of a lack of education.
A lot of our problems in Afghanistan today, why this war is going on, why so many youngsters are joining the Taliban, is because of a lack of education. These people have never gone to school, they do not have any education and they are without work. Can you imagine young people just going around with nothing useful to do?
The good thing is, the young generation has a tremendous interest in ICT, for computers, for going on the Internet.
IDGNS: What are some of the hurdles?
Sangin: We are getting a lot of support from other countries but after 35 years of war, what happened?
Afghanistan was a less developed country before the war but the war destroyed everything we had, so from the end of the war in 2002, we're starting from zero.
Many people probably cannot imagine: no roads, no education, no hospitals, no infrastructure, no schools, no defense, no army, no police, and you want to start a country and build all these sectors in parallel? The task is enormous.
The task has been made more difficult because we still have terrorism living next to us. You build a road or bridge and the next day they blow up the bridge. You build a telecom tower and the next day they blow up the telecom tower. We don't have an easy job.
IDGNS: What are the schools like today?
Education is one area our government gives high priority, but you cannot ignore health care and other areas, either.
Also, because of the war, many teachers have left the country, many have died, many are now old so they don't want to keep teaching.
Afghanistan has 5 to 6 million school-age kids. If you want to teach 6 million people suddenly, where do you get the teachers? It takes a long time to gather the right teachers with the right background and I'm talking about teaching from a book, not ICT teaching.
So it will require some training. It's not going to be a short, quick effort. It's going to be a long process.
IDGNS: What's the plan with OLPC in Afghanistan?
Sangin: This is still in the talking stage. We have agreed to sign an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with them. Roshan has also said they will buy a limited number of these (XO laptops) to give to a few schools.
The concept is good. The laptop is cheap and that's good, and it also requires less power so that's good for rural areas...the bottleneck for us will still be connectivity. We don't have connectivity in most areas.
We also will need to solve the problem of recharging the laptops. Most of the country has no electricity.
But if you really want the project to be successful, you have to have content. Content will be a problem.
OLPC is just the hardware, but what will you do with it? What software will you put into it? What content will you put into it for the Afghan schoolchildren? Who will prepare the programs and other materials that will be useful for the children, especially in the local language?
IDGNS: How do you see implementing OLPC's laptop program in the country?
Sangin: We will likely start on a small scale, a pilot in different areas of the country, in a rural area, in a small town, and in a big city and try it with the students. That way, we gain experience and see the results, see if the investment is worth it.
In Afghanistan we have about 6 million people of school age, so if you have to pay $200 per laptop, that is a lot of money.
IDGNS: What kind of technologies has your government promoted since taking over?
Sangin: Well, you see when we first started back in 2002, initially we put in place policies that would pave the way for fast telecom development.
Looking at the country's situation at that time, we had almost no telecommunication infrastructure. You know, the Afghan people had to go to neighboring countries to make a phone call, the situation was as bad as that.
We also knew that to build a telecom infrastructure in Afghanistan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. So the answer was to create an environment to draw private investment. We created a fair and transparent way of giving out licenses, and putting in place a regulator to regulate the telecom market.
IDGNS: What kind of incentives did you offer?
Sangin: Our incentives were in the form of giving companies a large amount of spectrum, which is a problem in many countries, but in Afghanistan the spectrum is minimally utilized so you can give companies a lot of spectrum.
The other support was to limit the number of licenses initially to attract strong investors. This is probably one of the key things. We introduced first two operators, saw how the market was going, and then introduced two more. The first two came in 2003 and another in 2005 and one in 2006.
Fortunately it has worked well.
We have strong investors. We have Afghan Wireless, which is an American-based company, and the first license holder. We have Roshan, which is the second license holder, we have Etisalat from United Arab Emirates, and Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) from South Africa. So we have good investors.
All of them have so far invested US$1.2 billion in Afghanistan. The telecom sector is actually the largest receiver of foreign investment in Afghanistan.
IDGNS: What are your plans for the future?
Sangin: We are building a fiber-optic backbone in Afghanistan which is a vision for the future. We currently don't have land connectivity with the outside world, which means that any broadband connectivity becomes very expensive because you have to go through a satellite connection and with satellite, as you know, the bandwidth is limited and the cost is very high.
So we are actually putting in a fiber-optic backbone which is in the form of a ring around all the major provinces of Afghanistan. This ring will be connected to our neighboring countries, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran and Pakistan.
Once we have this fiber-optic backbone in place, then we can implement broadband.
The demand for broadband is there, but it should not be overestimated because Afghanistan is one of the least-developed countries in the world. You don't bring broadband services to areas where people don't have electricity.
IDGNS: What about wireless broadband such as WiMax?
Sangin: WiMax is definitely going to come but how widely it will be used, how successful it will be we'll have to see from its success around the world.
But definitely from a technology point of view, WiMax is attractive with the large coverage area as well as with unlimited high speed broadband connectivity. But it will depend on its commercial viability. What will be the terminal pricing? how well will it be accepted globally? This is something we will have to see.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: Taliban behind failed attack on Italian convoy
AKI - Adnkronos International
Kabul, 8 Sept. (AKI) - The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a failed suicide attack that targeted an Italian military convoy in the western Afghan province of Herat on Sunday.
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a bid to target the convoy a few kilometres from the city of Herat in the province as they were returning to their base.
But jihadi forums have disputed the damage caused by the attack.
In a message published on jihadi forums by Qari Muhammad Yusuf, said "at 11 a.m. a hero of the Islamic emirate, Mujahid Shir, attacked a convoy of NATO forces occupying the area of Hud Karbaz near the city of Herat".
While the Italian government said no one was injured in the bomb attack, the Taliban has told its sympathisers on the web that "two of the convoy vehicles were destroyed and six soldiers on board were killed and another six were injured".
The Taliban also claimed to have carried out a second suicide attack in a nearby province against the secret services of the Afghan government.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: Minister disputes call to boost refugee returns
KABUL, 8 September 2008 (IRIN) - The Afghan Minister of Refugees and Returnees, Shir Mohammad Etibari, has rejected calls by the head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to boost the repatriation of Afghan refugees.
Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, was quoted as calling for more Afghan refugees to return home, particularly from Iran.
"[I]t is very important to commit the Afghan government and to commit the international community to strongly invest in Afghanistan to create the conditions for these voluntary repatriations to be able to pick up again," Guterres reportedly told a news conference at the end of his visit to Tehran on 6 September.
But Etibari said his government did not have the capacity or resources to facilitate basic services to encourage refugees to return.
"We don't have the means to provide an encouraging environment for refugees to repatriate," Etibari told IRIN on 7 September.
Etibari criticised international donors and UN agencies for not doing enough to enable the government to provide a sustainable solution to the Afghan refugee crisis.
"They only make promises but do little," he said.
Virtual halt in returns
More than five million Afghans migrated, mostly to Pakistan and Iran, over the past 26 years of recurring conflict, according to aid agencies.
In the immediate years after the ouster of the Taliban (2002-2005) millions returned home.
About 4.3 million refugees have returned since 2002 (3.46 million from Pakistan and up to 860,000 from Iran), UNHCR said.
However, return rates started plummeting in 2006 as security deteriorated, largely due to a resurgent Taliban.
Meanwhile, aid agencies and the government point to poor socio-economic conditions, high unemployment and the lack of basic services as discouraging refugees from returning.
As a result, the repatriation drive virtually halted in September, particularly from Iran.
UNHCR statistics show that only 242 Afghan refugees returned home from Iran in August 2008, against 63,000 in August 2002.
Return rates from Pakistan have also slumped significantly from 140,000 in August 2002 to 38,000 in August 2008, UNHCR said.
The agency says more than two million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan and up to a million in Iran.
In addition, a substantial number of Afghans live and work in both countries. They are not considered refugees and are widely described as "economic migrants".
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban learning how to win key propaganda battles
PAUL KORING From Monday's Globe and Mail September 8, 2008 at 4:01 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — The Taliban, once dismissed as too stupid to know they would lose if they dared to fight well-trained Canadian and allied troops, have proved themselves resilient, if still ill-equipped, warriors, learning from their early defeats and adapting to stage sophisticated attacks, inflicting serious casualties and winning key propaganda battles.
"They are showing greater political savvy, too," said a military analyst, who asked not to be further identified. "They understand they don't have to defeat us, they just have to defeat the will of the people back home."
The analyst, who is familiar with the counterinsurgency being fought in Kandahar, added: "We are in a very dangerous time, we have an election coming up and they [the Taliban] know we have a rotation going on and that we are close to the 100 [killed] number which will provoke re-examination" of the mission at home.
Last week's well-executed ambush of an armoured Canadian column is only the latest in a series of Taliban battlefield successes. The Canadian losses - three dead, five injured after a clever, daylight ambush and a fierce gun battle - were only the latest in a high-profile series of setbacks for the U.S.-led coalition that now numbers more than 50,000 troops but has so far failed to defeat the Taliban.
Canada's new Chief of Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, conceded that the Taliban ambush was "worrisome in the kind of sophistication of the attack."
Better communications, better intelligence and a growing cadre of young, battle-hardened new insurgent commanders all contribute to recent Taliban success.
While senior Canadian military sources insist the casualty counts remain hugely lopsided - as many as 50 or 100 killed Taliban for every Canadian combat casualty - the body-bag ratio does not determine victory in any counterinsurgency.
In August, 10 French soldiers were killed and 21 injured in a similarly well-executed ambush. More than 100 fighters blocked a road, forced the French out of their vehicles and then hammered them with mortar and heavy machine-gun fire from carefully placed positions.
A month earlier, scores of Taliban fighters and several suicide bombers launched waves of attacks on a newly established U.S. base close to the Pakistan border. Nine Americans were killed and 15 injured in what was - until the French losses - the worst single combat defeat for foreign forces since the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban.
"They are not only Taliban. They were [Pakistan-based] Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hezb-i-Islami, Taliban and those people who are dissatisfied with [President Hamid Karzai's] government after these recent incidents," said a former Afghan governor, Tamim Nuristani. "They all came together for this one."
August was the deadliest month since 2001 for foreign troops in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks killed 43 coalition soldiers. "The three summer months have been the worst since 2001," admitted NATO spokesman Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, adding the Taliban remain "well organized [and] still in a position to mount attacks."
Just as foreign armies have adapted - for instance by shifting to ever more heavily armoured vehicles and increasingly turning to helicopters to move troops and supplies in response to the Taliban's mastery of roadside bombs - so too have the Taliban tactics changed to focus on attacks with more far-reaching impact. In June, in a spectacularly successful attack in the heart of Canada's patch, Taliban fighters blew up a tanker truck outside Sarpoza prison in Kandahar city, freeing hundreds of fellow fighters, many captured by Canadian troops over the previous three years. "These spectacular attacks have psychological impact that far exceeds their tactical significance," said Christine Fair, a senior political scientist at U.S.-based think tank the Rand Corporation and an expert on Afghanistan. "But that is, of course, the point."
Yesterday, a double-suicide attack on the Kandahar police headquarters again demonstrated the Taliban's capacity to strike at the heart of Afghanistan's inadequate and often unreliable security forces, the police and army that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government hopes will be capable of coping once Canada pulls out in 2011.
None of the attacks tipped the strategic balance. NATO and U.S. forces, with the growing Afghan army, remain, by far, the most powerful military force in the country. But all the attacks bore the hallmarks of better training - likely in camps in Pakistan - more effective command and control and a growing awareness by the insurgents that they, too, need to win the battle for "hearts and minds."
Other analysts, like Professor Douglas Bland, chairman of the Defence Management Studies program at Queen's University in Kingston and a former army officer, believes the military prowess of the Taliban is still extremely limited. "They have some low-level commanders who are learning, but their attacks are still hit-and-miss and not a lot of consequence," he said. Prof. Bland said he believes the Taliban have underestimated the will of Western democracies to stay the course in rebuilding Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the Taliban's capacity to plan and stage spectacular attacks - beginning early this year with the assault on the heavily guarded Serena Hotel in the centre of Kabul that had the Norwegian foreign minister cowering in the basement - has dispelled any notions that they are a defeated force.
Rather, both in the Afghan hinterlands and in the minds of Western voters, the Taliban are increasingly regarded as more potent, more powerful, more credible.
The Pentagon is planning to shift to southern Afghanistan 5,000 troops originally destined to go to Iraq next month. Both U.S. presidential candidates have vowed to pour more American soldiers and money into winning the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Etisalat to develop Afghan telecom sector
8 Sep, 2008, 1654 hrs IST, IANS
ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates' leading telecom services provider Etisalat is concentrating its efforts on developing the telecom industry in Afghanistan.
In this connection, a meeting was held between a visiting high-level Afghan government delegation and Etisalat chairman Mohammad Hassan Omran here Sunday, the state-run Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported on Monday.
"The Ministry of Communications and IT and Etisalat are working together to develop the communications industry in Afghanistan," the report quoted Omran as saying after the meeting.
"Etisalat always enhances the services available in any market in which it operates," he added. The visiting delegation included Afghanistan's communications and IT minister A. Sangin, Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahady, the country's ambassador to the UAE Abdul Faried Zakaria, and Omar Zakhilwal, senior economic advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The two sides discussed areas of cooperation between Etisalat and its subsidiary in Afghanistan. They also discussed different services introduced in Afghanistan since Etisalat won the fourth mobile licence in that country. The Abu Dhabi-headquartered Etisalat is one of the largest telecommunications companies globally and the largest operator in the Arab world. It has over 64 million subscribers across 16 countries.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Etisalat receives delegation from Afghanistan government
Etisalat's chairman and a high-level delegation from Afghanistan's government met yesterday to discuss the ongoing cooperation between the two organizations.
United Arab Emirates PRESS RELEASE / September 8, 2008
The Afghan delegation included H.E. Eng. A. Sangin, Minister of Communications and IT and H.E. Dr Anwarul Haq Ahady, Minister of Finance, H.E. Abdul faried Zakaria, Afghanistan Ambassador to the UAE and H.E. Dr Omar Zakhilwal, Senior Economic Advisor to the President.
The two sides discussed the cooperation between Etisalat and its subsidiary in Afganistan.
They also discussed the different services introduced to Afghanistan since Etisalat won the fourth mobile license in the country.
'The Ministry of Communications and IT and Etisalat are working together to develop the communications industry in Afghanistan. Etisalat always enhances the services available in any market in which it operates. We are also committed to enriching the social welfare of the community at large,' said Mohammad Hassan Omran, Chairman of Etisalat.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Journalists warned to get out of Afghanistan
September 9, 2008 Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
AUSTRALIAN journalists in Afghanistan have been targeted by terrorists and were warned yesterday by the Federal Government to consider leaving the country.
"Credible reports suggest terrorists may be targeting journalists, including Australians, in Afghanistan," an updated travel advisory from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says.
"We continue to advise Australians not to travel to Afghanistan. If you are [there], you should consider departing."
The advisory had previously warned of the continuing strong threat of kidnapping against Westerners, including journalists and those working for non-government and international organisations.
The department yesterday contacted senior management at large Australian media outlets to advise them of the threats and is seeking to contact freelance journalists in Afghanistan. At least four journalists have been killed there in the past year.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Council orders hawkers off Kabul's streets
www.quqnoos.com Written by Zabiullah Jhanmal in Kabul Sunday, 07 September 2008
Capital's authorities tell street-sellers to take down their stalls
THE FIRST mission to clean up Kabul’s streets got underway on Saturday as the capital’s authorities pinned notices to shop fronts telling street sellers to dismantle their stalls.
The City Services Commission (CSC) hit Kabul’s 11th district as part of a drive to clean-up a further 22 districts by ordering the city’s hawkers off the streets.
The CSC, which is made up of Kabul Council, the national security department, the traffic department and the Ministry of Transportation, said the programme was designed to clear crowded and dirty streets.
Designated market places for street sellers have been set up in the Mirwais Maidan and Microroyan areas of the city, the CSC said, and will soon be ready for trade.
Deputy head of Kabul Council, Wahabuddin Sadat, said: "We have planned the program in co-ordination with the ministry of transportation, interior ministry and the traffic department in all parts of Kabul. We will implement it seriously."
Some Kabulis said the CSC’s actions would cause unemployment.
One of the street sellers said: "We were not at all aware of the council’s plans and today they came and kicked me out of my work place."
A female Kabul citizen said: "Karzai sends his son to the United States, but he is not aware of his own people’s condition."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Scores protest governor's 'Taliban ties'
www.quqnoos.com Written by M Reza Sher Mohammadi in Herat Sunday, 07 September 2008
Governor denies having links with militants and rejects corruption claim
SCORES of people marched on the capital of Badghis province for the third time in protest against the governor for his alleged support of the Taliban.
The protestors, who gathered in front of the governor’s office on Saturday, accused the governor, Mohammad Ashraf Nasiri, of having strong ties with militants in the north-western province and of involvement in corruption.
They demanded the governor resign immediately from his post.
The protestors, who warned they would continue their protests until Nasiri stepped down, also gathered outside the United Nation’s provincial office to chant anti-Nasiri slogans.
The governor of Badghis said the demonstrations against him were started by young, sensitive people.
He denied the allegations of corruption and of having links with the Taliban.
This is the third time people in the province have marched against the governor in the past month.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Urgent aid for Pakistan
International Herald Tribune, France By Anatol Lieven September 7, 2008
The Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, has drawn up an excellent long-term plan for the United States to help Pakistan economically, thereby strengthening the state against Islamist extremism. This is a vital American interest, not just because of the role of Pakistani Pashtuns in supporting the Taliban's campaign in Afghanistan, but even more importantly because Pakistan itself risks becoming a source of threats to the West that will vastly outweigh those from Afghanistan. It is to be hoped that if John McCain wins the presidential election, his administration too will devote far more attention to helping Pakistan.
The problem is, however, that Pakistan may not be able to wait that long. By the time a new administration has begun to work out its plans, it will be next spring. And as the editor of a leading Pakistani newspaper said to me in Lahore last Monday, "if the government here can't do something serious to help the population economically within six months, it will be finished."
He and others have warned that mass anger at rising food prices and lengthening electricity cuts could combine with hostility to the government's campaign against the insurgents and to Pakistan's alliance with America. Sporadic violent protests against power cuts have already occurred in several cities. The resulting instability could wreck any hope of Pakistan continuing its tough campaign against the insurgents.
Pakistan's new president, Asif Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party, is already hated by much of the population, in part because he is seen as too pro-American. His government's prestige is being damaged still further by intensifying American raids into Pakistan's tribal areas.
The main opposition party, the Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, will undoubtedly try to exploit all this as much as it possibly can. Sharif's popularity has soared in recent months, partly due to his opposition to Pakistani help to the Americans in Afghanistan and criticism of the Pakistan Army's campaign against the insurgents.
This does not mean that the United States should treat Sharif as an enemy. If he comes to power, he will probably follow a course of pragmatic cooperation with Washington. Nonetheless, initially at least, his return to power would be a blow to U.S.-Pakistani cooperation.
The Pakistani population is suffering acutely from the twin effects of the surge in the international price of oil, almost all of which Pakistan has to import, and the surge in international food prices. The latter should at least have benefited farmers - but their gains have been largely wiped out by the increased cost of fuel for their tractors, transport and water pumps.
Electricity cuts, meanwhile, have reached 16 hours a day in some areas, including the North-West Frontier Province, where the insurgency is gathering strength. The cuts stem from a number of long-term factors, including poor management and inadequate new investment in power generation. The most immediate problem, however, is that the state cannot pay some $1.4 billion in debts to the power companies, which in turn do not have the money to import necessary fuel.
The United States should make these funds available to Pakistan immediately for this specific purpose. Secondly, America should give emergency aid to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the Pakistani military offensives in Bajaur in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Swat in the North-West Frontier Province. This should be treated with the same urgency that the United States approaches natural disasters like the Pakistani earthquake four years ago.
America should also use its influence with the IMF to procure its assistance to Pakistan. It is essential, however, that this should not be made conditional on cuts in subsidies and social programs that will further hurt Pakistan's poor; such cuts would undermine the Pakistani government still further.
Limited American financial help can tide Pakistan over its immediate crisis. At the same time, the United States should urgently craft longer-term aid programs intended to strengthen resistance to the spread of insurgency.
These should be focused on the North-West Frontier Province. The planned $750 million for the tribal areas is a good idea in itself, but given the security situation and lack of basic infrastructure in these areas, it will be many years before this money can be spent effectively. Meanwhile, the North-West Frontier Province itself is in grave danger from the militants.
Unlike the tribal areas, the province does have a basic industrial infrastructure. American help should be devoted to building that infrastructure, above all in the areas of hydro-electric plants and communications. The province also badly needs hard cash to combat the militants directly. At present, for example, the North-West Frontier Province's demoralized policemen earn only two thirds of the salary of their comrades in Punjab - and half what the Taliban pays its fighters.
The Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, has drawn up an excellent long-term plan for the United States to help Pakistan economically, thereby strengthening the state against Islamist extremism. This is a vital American interest, not just because of the role of Pakistani Pashtuns in supporting the Taliban's campaign in Afghanistan, but even more importantly because Pakistan itself risks becoming a source of threats to the West that will vastly outweigh those from Afghanistan. It is to be hoped that if John McCain wins the presidential election, his administration too will devote far more attention to helping Pakistan.
The problem is, however, that Pakistan may not be able to wait that long. By the time a new administration has begun to work out its plans, it will be next spring. And as the editor of a leading Pakistani newspaper said to me in Lahore last Monday, "if the government here can't do something serious to help the population economically within six months, it will be finished."
He and others have warned that mass anger at rising food prices and lengthening electricity cuts could combine with hostility to the government's campaign against the insurgents and to Pakistan's alliance with America. Sporadic violent protests against power cuts have already occurred in several cities. The resulting instability could wreck any hope of Pakistan continuing its tough campaign against the insurgents.
Pakistan's new president, Asif Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party, is already hated by much of the population, in part because he is seen as too pro-American. His government's prestige is being damaged still further by intensifying American raids into Pakistan's tribal areas.
The main opposition party, the Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, will undoubtedly try to exploit all this as much as it possibly can. Sharif's popularity has soared in recent months, partly due to his opposition to Pakistani help to the Americans in Afghanistan and criticism of the Pakistan Army's campaign against the insurgents.
This does not mean that the United States should treat Sharif as an enemy. If he comes to power, he will probably follow a course of pragmatic cooperation with Washington. Nonetheless, initially at least, his return to power would be a blow to U.S.-Pakistani cooperation.
The Pakistani population is suffering acutely from the twin effects of the surge in the international price of oil, almost all of which Pakistan has to import, and the surge in international food prices. The latter should at least have benefited farmers - but their gains have been largely wiped out by the increased cost of fuel for their tractors, transport and water pumps.
Electricity cuts, meanwhile, have reached 16 hours a day in some areas, including the North-West Frontier Province, where the insurgency is gathering strength. The cuts stem from a number of long-term factors, including poor management and inadequate new investment in power generation. The most immediate problem, however, is that the state cannot pay some $1.4 billion in debts to the power companies, which in turn do not have the money to import necessary fuel.
The United States should make these funds available to Pakistan immediately for this specific purpose. Secondly, America should give emergency aid to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the Pakistani military offensives in Bajaur in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Swat in the North-West Frontier Province. This should be treated with the same urgency that the United States approaches natural disasters like the Pakistani earthquake four years ago.
America should also use its influence with the IMF to procure its assistance to Pakistan. It is essential, however, that this should not be made conditional on cuts in subsidies and social programs that will further hurt Pakistan's poor; such cuts would undermine the Pakistani government still further.
Limited American financial help can tide Pakistan over its immediate crisis. At the same time, the United States should urgently craft longer-term aid programs intended to strengthen resistance to the spread of insurgency.
These should be focused on the North-West Frontier Province. The planned $750 million for the tribal areas is a good idea in itself, but given the security situation and lack of basic infrastructure in these areas, it will be many years before this money can be spent effectively. Meanwhile, the North-West Frontier Province itself is in grave danger from the militants.
Unlike the tribal areas, the province does have a basic industrial infrastructure. American help should be devoted to building that infrastructure, above all in the areas of hydro-electric plants and communications. The province also badly needs hard cash to combat the militants directly. At present, for example, the North-West Frontier Province's demoralized policemen earn only two thirds of the salary of their comrades in Punjab - and half what the Taliban pays its fighters.
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).