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Karzai Asks US-NATO To Explain Civilian Deaths In Afghanistan
KABUL (AFP)--Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday asked the overall commander of U.S.-led and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan to explain recent civilian casualties inflicted by foreign troops.
New NATO chief is Islam's "major enemy": Taliban
Thu Apr 16, 5:13 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents say the incoming NATO chief is the "major enemy" of Muslims for defending the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad when prime minister of Denmark.
US in Afghanistan transit talks with Turkmenistan
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AFP) – *The United States is discussing the possibility of using Turkmenistan's airspace to support the battle in neighbouring Afghanistan, a top US State Department official said Thursday.
Western troops concede more Afghan civilian deaths
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, April 16 (Reuters) - Western forces in Afghanistan acknowledged on Thursday they had killed six civilians in an air strike, just days after apologising for a similar incident that killed five.
Security developments in Afghanistan
April 16 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported as of 0800 GMT on Thursday:
Taliban behead gov't employee in NW Afghanistan
KABUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Taliban insurgents beheaded a government employee in Badghis province northwest of Afghanistan, a local official said Thursday.
Blasts kill NATO soldier, Afghan policemen
Thu Apr 16, 8:29 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – A series of makeshift bomb attacks killed a NATO soldier and three Afghan policemen in eastern and southern flashpoints of the war-torn country, authorities said Thursday.
Afghan law does not allow rape, cleric backer says
Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:46am EDT By Emma Graham-Harrison
KABUL (Reuters) - A new Afghan law that has drawn Western condemnation for restricting women's rights does not allow marital rape as its critics claim, but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, the cleric behind it says.
Afghans arrest two over murder of woman activist
Thu Apr 16, 6:00 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's police have arrested two men accused of gunning down a women's rights activist in the southern province of Kandahar, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
Attacks up as US pushes into Afghan Hindu Kush
by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson Wed Apr 15, 10:49 pm ET
TSUNEL VALLEY, Afghanistan (AFP) – The US army intercepts a chilling threat -- an intelligence report says Islamist insurgents plan to ambush their convoy in Afghanistan, and have enough ammunition to kill them all.
Afghanistan's decisive daysObama has made wise strategic decisions, but the crucial test will come in the leadup to elections
Francesc Vendrell The Guardian, Thursday 16 April 2009
Seven and a half years after the US intervention in Afghanistan, it is little surprise that questions about its purpose have abounded. In that light, the Obama administration's clarification of its primary goal in the country - to "disrupt,
Afghan Lawmakers Accuse a Governor of Graft
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and SANGAR RAHIMI The New York Times April 16, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan parliamentary commission has called for the governor of Ghazni Province to be suspended from office until a corruption investigation can be carried out.
Drug Addiction, And Misery, Increase In Afghanistan
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR
Morning Edition, April 16, 2009 · A growing number of Afghans — including children — are escaping the pain of war and poverty by using opium or heroin, for as little as a dollar a day.
Afghan nomads warn to boycott presidential polls
April 16, 2009 People's Daily
Afghan Kuchis or nomads have warned to boycott the upcoming presidential elections in the post-Taliban country if the government continues to overlook their rights, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
Afghan-Canadian strategy aims to defeat Taliban town by town
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service Wednesday, April 15, 2009
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- A town south of Kandahar City is to become the focus of intense attention as part of a new Afghan-Canadian strategy to try to defeat the Taliban insurgency town by town.
U.S. based Afghan to contest Afghan presidential elections
April 16, 2009 People's Daily
One American Afghan Sarwar Ahmadzaiwho had been in the United States for past two decades intends to run for the presidential polls set for August 20 in his motherland, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Taliban's Biological Weapon
Strategy Page - Thu Apr 16, 5:18 am ET
The Pakistani Taliban are again preventing public health teams from vaccinating children against polio. The Taliban leadership says this is not exactly true, that the real issue is recognizing who is in charge in the Swat Valley
Most precise Int'l Iran-Afghanistan border clarification begins
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) 15 Apr 2009
Tehran, April 15, IRNA – Most precise clarification of Iran-Afghanistan Border line began Wednesday in presence of both countries' concerned officials.
In Brief: Afghan flash floods cause mayhem
KABUL, 15 April 2009 (IRIN) - Flash floods due to heavy rain have killed at least 19 people and damaged hundreds of houses in different parts of the country over the past two weeks, Afghanistan's National Disasters Management Authority told IRIN on 15 April.
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Karzai Asks US-NATO To Explain Civilian Deaths In Afghanistan
KABUL (AFP)--Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday asked the overall commander of U.S.-led and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan to explain recent civilian casualties inflicted by foreign troops.
Six civilians, including women and children, were killed and 14 wounded in NATO-led air strikes in eastern Kunar province last Monday.
Afghan officials also said a U.S. military raid of April 8 killed four civilians in Khost province.
Karzai "asked the commander of NATO-coalition forces in Afghanistan for explanations on incidents which recently caused civilian casualties in Khost and Kunar provinces," the president's office said.
The Afghan president met Gen. David McKiernan on Thursday at Karzai's palace in Kabul during a security meeting.
"Expressing deep regrets Gen. McKiernan said, despite continued precaution and efforts by NATO-coalition forces, civilians sustained casualties in Kunar and Khost province," said the statement from the presidency.
NATO and U.S.-led forces, in cooperation with Afghan security forces and provincial authorities, investigated each incident and accepted responsibility for them, the statement quoted the top general as saying.
"NATO-coalition forces apologize to the families of the victims for the civilian casualties," the statement also quoted McKiernan as saying.
Provincial authorities said two children, a woman and three men were killed and 14 people wounded in the Watapour district of eastern Kunar province.
In Khost, a U.S. army raid killed the wife, two children and a brother of an Afghan army colonel, Afghan officials and witnesses said.
Increasing civilian deaths during military operations targeting Taliban and other Islamist insurgents is one of the main sources of tension between Afghan authorities and U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.
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New NATO chief is Islam's "major enemy": Taliban
Thu Apr 16, 5:13 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents say the incoming NATO chief is the "major enemy" of Muslims for defending the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad when prime minister of Denmark.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Danish premier until earlier this month, is due in August to become secretary general of NATO, which leads a 56,000-strong international force fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The publication of the cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2006 led to riots across the Muslim world, including bloody protests in Afghanistan in which several people were killed. Rasmussen had defended the publication of the cartoons on the grounds of free speech and refused to apologize to Muslim countries.
In an article posted on the Taliban's website (http://alemarah1.org/english/), the insurgent group said Rasmussen's appointment would "further strengthen the faith of the Muslims" to fight against NATO and would lead to "intensification of war" in Afghanistan.
"The major enemy of Islam's Prophet...has become the secretary general of NATO," said the undated article.
Turkey, NATO's only mainly Muslim member, dropped its veto to Rasmussen's appointment this month after U.S. President Barack Obama offered promises that one of Rasmussen's deputies would be a Turk and Turkish commanders would be present at NATO command.
Turkey had said Rasmussen's appointment would exacerbate hostility toward the West in Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, where NATO's military operation is the biggest in its history.
The Taliban have made a comeback in recent years after being driven out of Kabul by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001.
The al Qaeda-backed group has vowed to drive the foreign troops out of Afghanistan.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by David Fox)
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US in Afghanistan transit talks with Turkmenistan
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AFP) – *The United States is discussing the possibility of using Turkmenistan's airspace to support the battle in neighbouring Afghanistan, a top US State Department official said Thursday.
US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said that he discussed the possibility of using the Central Asian state's airspace with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and was hopeful an agreement could be reached.
"We talked about permitting American aircraft to fly via their territory and transport various supplies. We have raised this question with every country in the region. We are hopeful of cooperation in this area with Turkmenistan," he told reporters through a translator.
Berdymukhamedov first raised the possibility of opening up his isolated country's airspace to the transport of non-military cargo at a press conference in neighbouring Uzbekistan in February.
The United States has been actively searching for alternative supply routes into war-wracked Afghanistan since Kyrgyzstan announced earlier this year that it would be expelling coalition forces from a key airbase on its territory.
The announcement of negotiations comes at a time of increasing tensions between Turkmenistan and Moscow over a gas pipeline explosion last week, and as Ashgabat appears to be opening up to greater cooperation with the West.
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Western troops concede more Afghan civilian deaths
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, April 16 (Reuters) - Western forces in Afghanistan acknowledged on Thursday they had killed six civilians in an air strike, just days after apologising for a similar incident that killed five.
Civilian deaths caused by foreign troops hunting the Taliban have become a major cause of friction between the Afghan government and its Western backers, and sapped support for the presence of international forces in the country.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said in a statement on Thursday that it had concluded after a joint investigation with Afghan authorities that six civilians were killed, along with four insurgents, in Monday's air strike in Kunar province.
Fourteen civilians were wounded.
U.S.-led troops acknowledged last week that they killed five civilians in Khost province.
President Hamid Karzai on Thursday summoned the commander of Western troops in Afghanistan, U.S. General David McKiernan, to demand an explanation, Karzai's office said.
"DEEP REGRET"
The general expressed "deep regret that despite continued efforts by NATO and coalition forces, civilians were mistakenly killed" in the two incidents, it added.
McKiernan's NATO-led force had initially said that Monday's raid had been targeting militants in an area where it saw no evidence of a civilian presence. Afghan officials said the attack killed six civilians, including two small children.
The number of civilians killed in operations by foreign forces fighting a Taliban-led insurgency has steadily climbed, reaching hundreds last year, according to human right groups and the Afghan government.
Western commanders have lately acknowledged that killing civilians -- often because of an over-reliance on air power -- has cost their troops vital support among ordinary Afghans.
Commanders say they are now taking new measures to reduce civilian casualties, and also to investigate and apologise more quickly when they do kill them.
U.S. and NATO commanders say insurgents are still responsible for the majority of civilian deaths. Violence has surged in recent years with Taliban fighters having managed to extend the size and scope of their attacks. (Editing by David Fox)
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Security developments in Afghanistan
April 16 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported as of 0800 GMT on Thursday:
HELMAND - Three militants were killed while planting landmines on Wednesday in Helmand province, which lies 590 km (365 miles) to the southwest of the capital, the interior ministry said.
KANDAHAR - Afghan police have arrested two men accused of assassinating a female member of the provincial council of Kandahar, 450 km (280 miles) southwest of Kabul, at the weekend, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
KANDAHAR - A roadside bomb killed two police officers in Kandahar on Wednesday, the interior ministry said, adding two more officers and two women were wounded in the explosion.
EASTERN AFGHANISTAN - A soldier from the NATO-led force in Afghanistan was killed by an explosion in an eastern part of the country on Wednesday, the alliance said. It did not specify the soldier's nationality.
(Compiled by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Taliban behead gov't employee in NW Afghanistan
KABUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Taliban insurgents beheaded a government employee in Badghis province northwest of Afghanistan, a local official said Thursday.
"The militants abducted Wali Mohammad Akhundzada from Balamurghab district Wednesday and beheaded him on the charge of spying for foreign troops based in the province,"Abdul Ghani Sabiri the deputy to provincial governor told Xinhua.
The late Akhundzada was on his way to the provincial capital Qalai Now when the insurgents took him away to unknown location and abandoned his beheaded body in the area, the official added.
Taliban outfit, in an attempt to discourage government employees, often attacked administration's service members.
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Blasts kill NATO soldier, Afghan policemen
Thu Apr 16, 8:29 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – A series of makeshift bomb attacks killed a NATO soldier and three Afghan policemen in eastern and southern flashpoints of the war-torn country, authorities said Thursday.
"An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service member was killed by an improvised explosive device in eastern Afghanistan yesterday," the alliance said in a statement without giving further details.
NATO does not release the nationality of casualties prior to notification of next of kin, leaving the job for their home countries.
The latest death takes to 86 the number of international soldiers to lose their lives in Afghanistan this year, most of them in hostile action, according to a tally maintained by icasualties.org.
ISAF numbers more than 58,000 troops from 42 countries, according to its latest information. The force works alongside a US-led coalition that is estimated to number around 10,000 although the figure is not made public.
Two Afghan policemen were killed and four people wounded, including two women passers-by, when a roadside bomb ripped through a police vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar on Wednesday, the interior ministry said.
A third policeman was killed and one wounded in a similar attack in neighbouring Helmand province on Thursday, a statement by the ministry said.
It also said three "terrorists" were killed while the bomb they were planting on a road in the Nad Ali district of Helmand went off prematurely.
In western Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents beheaded a government employee on charges of spying for foreign forces in the Bala Murghab district of Badghis province, Wali Mohammad Akhundzada deputy provincial governor told AFP.
"He was stopped, taken out of the vehicle in which he was travelling to the provincial capital and beheaded," said the deputy governor.
The incident happened on Wednesday.
Akhundzada said the victim was working for the transport ministry in Bala Murghab district and had nothing to do with foreign forces.
NATO and US-led coalition troops are fighting alongside Afghan government forces against an increasingly deadly Taliban insurgency that has undermined a post-Taliban reconstruction drive and institution-building in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, which was in government from 1996 until the US-led invasion in late 2001, is fighting a bloody insurgency to topple the Western-backed government and regain power.
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Afghan law does not allow rape, cleric backer says
Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:46am EDT By Emma Graham-Harrison
KABUL (Reuters) - A new Afghan law that has drawn Western condemnation for restricting women's rights does not allow marital rape as its critics claim, but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, the cleric behind it says.
Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni's Shi'ite personal status law sparked controversy abroad because of a provision that "a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband."
This was read by some as an open door to marital rape, and together with clauses restricting women's freedom of movement denounced as reminiscent of harsh Taliban-era rules.
The law has been criticized by Western leaders with troops fighting in Afghanistan, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who called it "abhorrent."
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the law last month, has since put it under review.
But Mohseni said the law -- which only applies to the 15 percent of Afghans who are Shi'a Muslims -- has been misinterpreted by critics. Its sexual clauses aimed only to ensure men's sexual needs were met within marriage, because Islam prohibited them seeking satisfaction with other women.
"Why should a man and woman get married if there is no need for a sexual relationship? Then they are like brother and sister," he told Reuters in an interview in his recently built central Kabul mosque and university complex.
A man and wife can negotiate how often it is reasonable to sleep together, based on his sex drive, and a woman has a right to refuse if she has a good reason, said the bearded cleric.
"It should not be compulsory for the wife to say yes all the time, because some men have more sexual desires than others," he said, adding that husbands should never force themselves on their wives and the law does not sanction that.
But women do have a duty to meet their husband's needs.
"If a woman says no, the man has the right not to feed her," Mohseni said. The law allows women to work, so they could theoretically refuse sex and support themselves, but in mainly rural Afghanistan most women are dependent on husbands.
The law is milder than the severe restrictions imposed by the Sunni Muslim Taliban, who banned all women and girls from any work or study, and from leaving the home without a male relative. But opponents still consider it a step backwards.
They also want to strike down a provision that says women can leave their home freely for work, education or medical care, but otherwise require their husband's permission to go out.
Mohseni said this was not a final word -- if women want more freedom of movement, they can ask for it to be included in their marriage contract: "If he says no, she can marry someone else."
But in Afghanistan most marriages are arranged and women's low social status would make it hard for most to refuse a union.
MAKE-UP ON DEMAND
Another measure in the law described as demeaning by rights groups is a requirement that women wear makeup if their husbands wish. The soft-spoken cleric said this was to protect relationships.
"When men venture outside they see lots of other women with makeup, but he comes home and finds his own wife with a dirty face," Mohseni said.
"This is mentioned to encourage men to have more interest in a social and personal life with his wife."
Opponents of the law say it codifies traditional practices that are in fact not required by Islam.
Qazimiya Muhaqaq, professor of Political Science at Katib University and one of a group of women involved in a street demonstration against the law this week, told a news conference on Thursday the law makes women bow to their husbands.
"A woman and man must satisfy each other, it's natural, they are in a relationship. But this law states that whenever a man wants, the woman is obliged to satisfy her husband," she said.
Reuters asked Mohseni several times if he could detail the religious reasons for restricting women's movements, and requiring them to wear makeup, but he did not provide them.
Mohseni has been closely following the international debate about the law, condemning NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer for his criticism and saying U.S. President Barack Obama had spoken in ignorance when he called it "abhorrent."
The cleric had hoped that after speaking about the law last week its critics would seek him out to get a better understanding of its contents, but said he was disappointed by them.
"After my press conference I was expecting a delegation from the West to come and meet me but they are just playing politics." "Without proper reading people make their own opinions about the law, which I really regret," he added.
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Afghans arrest two over murder of woman activist
Thu Apr 16, 6:00 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's police have arrested two men accused of gunning down a women's rights activist in the southern province of Kandahar, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
Sitara Achakzai, a member of the Kandahar provincial council and rights activist who held dual Afghan-German nationality, was gunned down on Sunday, and Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility.
The incident garnered attention abroad, especially in Germany, where Achakzai had long lived, and in Canada, which has a contingent of troops in Kandahar as part of a NATO force.
The Afghan interior ministry did not identify the suspects and gave no further details about the arrests.
The slaying comes amid escalation of Taliban attacks in recent years, the bloodiest period in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces drove the Islamists from Kabul in 2001.
On Monday, a couple was executed publicly for eloping in southwestern province of Nimroz by a group of pro-Taliban clerics, a provincial official said.
The Taliban have killed scores of pro-government officials as part of their campaign to drive out foreign forces stationed in the country.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Attacks up as US pushes into Afghan Hindu Kush
by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson Wed Apr 15, 10:49 pm ET
TSUNEL VALLEY, Afghanistan (AFP) – The US army intercepts a chilling threat -- an intelligence report says Islamist insurgents plan to ambush their convoy in Afghanistan, and have enough ammunition to kill them all.
A patrol of American soldiers are stranded up a boulder-strewn mountain road, a flat tyre having brought their heavily armoured convoy to a temporary halt.
Gunners grip their weapons and scan rugged peaks towering on either side of the Tsunel Valley in the Hindu Kush mountain range of Kunar province. An hour later, the vehicles pull into Nishagam village without incident.
Two military helicopter gunships swooping low through the valley may have deterred the Taliban-linked fighters this time, but attacks against coalition troops in this volatile area near the Pakistan border are soaring.
In four isolated districts where Kunar and Nuristan provinces meet, attacks rose 120 percent in February and March from a year earlier as coalition forces pushed into harsh terrain where militants have fought for decades.
"It's like trying to fight from the bottom of the Grand Canyon," said Lieutenant Colonel James Markert, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force based at Camp Bostick in Kunar.
Markert partly blames a mild winter. Snow melting early on the mountains allows fighters to operate, but renewed international focus on the war has also unnerved the insurgents, he believes.
"You've got the announcement of troop increases coming, there is a lot of pressure on the enemy as we continue to expand our presence," he said.
It is nearly eight years since a US-led coalition overthrew the Taliban, but as attention switched to the war in Iraq, the fundamentalist movement re-emerged, launching a violent bid to regain power that has gained pace.
US President Barack Obama has brought the spotlight back to Afghanistan, last month unveiling a new strategy that includes the deployment of 21,000 more troops, most of them headed for battlefields in the south.
The troops who have travelled from Camp Bostick to Nishagam, a 10-kilometre (six-mile) journey that takes hours because of the state of the roads, prepare for their first patrols up the verdant mountains circling the village.
Until about three months ago, there was no ISAF presence in this district of Ghaziabad. Mistrust and hostility line the faces of many villagers watching the military vehicles crawl past. A gaggle of children shoot imaginary weapons.
"A lot of people are not bad. They are not Taliban. They are just helping them because they think they are doing a good job for our culture, for our religion," said Ghaziabad's governor Haji Mursalin.
"They are Muslims. They think if you kill Americans, if you kill the people who are helping the Americans, then it will be like jihad, you will go to heaven if you die."
Charlie Troop 3rd Platoon 1st Infantry Division commander Captain Jay Bessey said Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters -- including Pakistanis, Uzbeks and Chechens -- infiltrate from Pakistan's lawless tribal regions.
They traverse frontier mountains, cross the Kunar river and head deep into Afghanistan, taking advantage of swathes of rugged terrain that neither ISAF nor Afghan forces have the resources to police.
"What the enemy is doing is planning, staging and resupplying. He has the safe haven here because of lack of manpower issues," Bessey told AFP.
Security forces have set up checkpoints to monitor two bridges spanning the Kunar river, forcing the insurgents to navigate its choppy rapids by flimsy raft or makeshift rope bridges instead.
"It's been a success amidst some challenges... It has really caused a significant strain on their resupply operations. As a result they have decided to up attacks here to deter us," Bessey said.
But trying to convince the local community to work with ISAF is proving difficult, he added, especially as many police and elders have long-standing tribal or family ties with the fighters.
Mursalin, the governor, said locals have to be won over by going village to village and engaging the elders, a huge challenge in an area where some hamlets are many days' travel by road or only accessible by foot.
Kunar and Nuristan have been geographically and culturally isolated from Afghanistan's central government for centuries, with Nuristan the last province to convert to Islam at the end of the 19th century.
"There are some areas here that just don't want to be bothered by anybody, good or bad," said US Sergeant Gilbert Gonzales.
"They don't want things to change."
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Afghanistan's decisive daysObama has made wise strategic decisions, but the crucial test will come in the leadup to elections
Francesc Vendrell The Guardian, Thursday 16 April 2009
Seven and a half years after the US intervention in Afghanistan, it is little surprise that questions about its purpose have abounded. In that light, the Obama administration's clarification of its primary goal in the country - to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaida - is welcome. The task of discerning the "defeat" of al-Qaida may be near impossible, but the new US policy linking the conflict in Afghanistan with the situation in Pakistan is a step in the right direction.
The strategy review, presented at the end of last month, rightly emphasises links between the Afghan insurgency and its access to sanctuaries in Pakistan; the importance of reducing tensions between Pakistan and India (with the implied reference to Kashmir); and a redoubling of efforts to build up the Afghan security forces.
There is a welcome demand for a more accountable Afghan government and recognition that "rampant corruption" undermines its legitimacy; improved sub-national governance; a crackdown on corruption; and clear benchmarks to ensure that international assistance is used for the benefit of the Afghan people, combined with an acknowledgment that much development assistance is being spent on international consultants and overheads.
And it is surely sensible to back attempts to reconcile those Taliban elements believed to be fighting less out of ideological conviction than local grievances or lack of employment. Such talks must not, of course, provide a means for the return of "medieval rule", nor harm the quest for human rights and the advancement of women. Yesterday's demonstration in Kabul reminds us that women's rights are far from guaranteed in the new Afghanistan.
But is greater US involvement the answer? At the Bonn conference in 2001 some of us favoured a deeper UN footprint out of a conviction that, after 22 years of conflict, international forces would be welcomed by Afghans, ready for a period of international tutelage to rebuild their country and be rid not only of the Taliban but also of the Northern Alliance warlords. The opportunity was lost. And it is too late to revive it now.
If more US troops leads, as unfortunately seems only too likely, to more civilian casualties, it will backfire. Afghans increasingly resent the international military presence and react with growing anger at reports of civilian deaths, night searches of homes, arbitrary arrests and the indefinite detention of suspects by the US military.
Regrettably there is as yet no commitment by the administration to abide by the Geneva conventions and additional protocols, or to close US detention centres, where conditions are at least as harsh to those in Guantánamo. Nor is there a promise to start negotiations with the Afghan government on a status of forces agreement that - like the one recently concluded in Iraq - would regulate the presence and conduct of US forces in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama has so far rightly ignored calls for an increase in the Afghan security forces to 400,000, opting for a 134,000-strong army and 82,000 police. The emphasis should be on quality; expanding security forces without parallel efforts to build civilian institutions risks handing Afghanistan to a future military-led government. Indeed, the forthcoming presidential elections present a major security and political challenge. To ensure a level playing field urgent measures are needed, including special security protection for presidential candidates.
President Karzai's mandate constitutionally ends on 22 May, months before the proclamation of the winner of the August elections. The supreme court has backed the president's decision to stay on, but its competence is challenged on constitutional grounds. Given the disputed independence of the election commission, a UN-agreed consensus among the major candidates and political forces on how to proceed is essential. Otherwise there is every risk that the outcome will be widely regarded as fraudulent, leading to deepening ethnic polarisation, widespread cynicism about electoral politics and a president divested of legitimacy - all excellent news for the Taliban.
• Francesc Vendrell was the EU special representative for Afghanistan, 2002-2008, and the UN secretary general's personal representative for Afghanistan, 2000-2001
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Afghan Lawmakers Accuse a Governor of Graft
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and SANGAR RAHIMI The New York Times April 16, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan parliamentary commission has called for the governor of Ghazni Province to be suspended from office until a corruption investigation can be carried out.
The decision this week by the commission follows an unusual demand by the 19-member Ghazni Provincial Council to have the governor, Usman Usmani, an ally of President Hamid Karzai, permanently removed from office because of what it characterized as his involvement in corruption and abuse of power. Members of Parliament from Ghazni also support removing the governor, said legislators who attended a hearing in Parliament on Tuesday.
Calls for the governor’s ouster are the latest test for Mr. Karzai’s government, which has been criticized as weak and undermined by corruption. The commission’s action must be ratified by Mr. Karzai before it can be carried out, said the commission chairman, Abdul Jabar Sholgari, who said he also supported removing the governor, a Karzai appointee.
A spokesman for Mr. Karzai said Wednesday that the office of the president was evaluating the Parliament’s suggestion and declined to comment further.
A spokesman for Mr. Usmani, Ismail Jahangir, referred questions to the governor, but repeated attempts to reach Mr. Usmani were unsuccessful.
In Ghazni, 80 miles southwest of Kabul, provincial council members have been refusing to work for almost two months to protest what they describe as the governor’s involvement in corruption.
In a written complaint to the Parliament, the council said corruption in Ghazni included the smuggling of chromite; the theft of gasoline tankers; the sale of passports for $300; the sale of government jobs; and the support of illegal armed militias.
The director of the Afghan Independent Directorate for Local Governance, which is involved in the appointment of governors and reports to the president, said a delegation must investigate before action could be taken.
“I am sure there is a problem, but I can’t do anything unless it is proven by an impartial delegation,” said the director, Jelani Popal.
But some Ghazni provincial council members and legislators said they feared that a delegation would be subject to intimidation or official pressure.
“I am sure you are going to face pressure from people who can do this and that to you,” Daoud Sultanzoy, a member of Parliament from Ghazni and a potential presidential candidate, told Mr. Popal and an Interior Ministry official. “We have sympathy with you. But the people of Ghazni should be heard.”
Last week, in an article in The New York Times, American soldiers training the police in Ghazni described corruption that had deeply undercut efforts to improve policing in the province.
Habib Rahman, chairman of the Ghazni Provincial Council, said the problems cited by the troops reflected only a fraction of the corruption. A large percentage of aid from the United States and other donors is siphoned away by corrupt officials, he said.
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Drug Addiction, And Misery, Increase In Afghanistan
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR
Morning Edition, April 16, 2009 · A growing number of Afghans — including children — are escaping the pain of war and poverty by using opium or heroin, for as little as a dollar a day.
A United Nations survey begun this month is widely expected to show that at least 1 in 12 people in Afghanistan abuses drugs — double the number in the last survey four years ago.
Experts say that the alarming trend is not being addressed by the Afghan government and its international partners, even though most officials acknowledge that the drug scourge threatens lasting stability in Afghanistan.
Many of the addicts, especially the women, feed their habit in secret, inside walled, mud-floor family compounds.
An Afghan Mother Hooked
One addict, a woman named Karima, shares her home with her addicted parents and other relatives in a poor hillside neighborhood in Kabul. Local drug counselors say the neighborhood is home to thousands of addicts.
On a recent afternoon, Karima draws the curtains shut on the window of the room she shares with her six children. Her hands shaking, she pulls an old envelope out from underneath a plastic mat. Inside are opium pellets, which she smashes into an emptied cigarette casing and lights up.
"When I smoke this, I don't experience any unhappiness. My nerves calm down. If I don't do this I go crazy," Karima says.
Her young children suffer ill effects of being bathed by opium and heroin smoke since birth. They do not attend school.
The oldest is Fahima. At 12, she is the size of a child half her age. She has big brown eyes and bald spots on her head from malnutrition.
Fahima is the one her mother sends out to buy drugs to stoke her habit.
"My mom nags me to go get hashish and opium so she can be happy. If she doesn't use it, she gets angry and hits us all," Fahima says.
The soaring rates of drug abuse are driven in part by Afghanistan's widespread unemployment and social upheaval under the Taliban and the U.S.-led war, begun in 2001. Another factor is the flood of returning Afghan refugees from Iran, many of whom became heroin addicts there.
And fueling it all is an overabundance of opium and heroin in Afghanistan, the world's largest cultivator of poppies in the world.
The addicts say that heroin is a cheap way to forget their miserable existence.
Men Gather Amid Drugs And Filth
In Kabul, men gather daily at what used to be the Russian Cultural Center to get their heroin fix. At least 1,500 of them huddle in the darkened ruins, guarded by policemen in riot gear.
They use lighters to heat heroin paste on foil. Then they inhale it through thin plastic tubes or emptied cigarette casings. Heroin-laced smoke surrounds the men like a thick blanket.
Some of the addicts are lying on the ground. There are trash, feces and urine everywhere.
But they seem oblivious. They are all smoking and begging for money.
Abundance Of Drugs Fuels Demand
The U.N.'s Jean-Luc Lemahieu calls it the "Coca-Cola effect." The widespread abundance and affordability of the drugs have made them as ubiquitous and available as soft drinks.
"What people always forget is that not only demand creates supply, but supply creates demand," said Lemahieu, the representative in Kabul for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
But even at $1 or $2 a day, an opium or heroin fix in Afghanistan can easily become unaffordable.
Back in the hillside slum in Kabul, Karima starts to cry during a visit by local drug treatment counselors.
Karima says she took her 5-year-old daughter, Raisa, to the market last month to sell her because she was desperate for cash. But she couldn't find a buyer.
For months, workers from a local drug treatment center have tried to get Karima and her family into a treatment program.
Saeeda, a counselor from the Nejat ("Rescue") drug treatment center, is aghast.
The Children Suffer
"How could you be so selfish?" she asks Karima. "Don't tell me you would have used the money to feed your family. You would have spent that money on drugs and then gone out and sold another one of your children."
Saeeda and her colleagues visit the compound a few days later to find an even nastier surprise.
Fahima, the 12-year-old daughter, is taking a deep drag off her mother's cigarette filled with heroin, opium and hashish.
The women ask: "Why did you do that? Do you like the taste?"
Fahima admits that she does.
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Afghan nomads warn to boycott presidential polls
April 16, 2009 People's Daily
Afghan Kuchis or nomads have warned to boycott the upcoming presidential elections in the post-Taliban country if the government continues to overlook their rights, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
"Over 40,000 Kuchis living in the southern Ghazni province would boycott the coming presidential elections and would not attend the voting process if the government does not consider their civil and social rights," Daily Outlook quoted a Kuchi elder Mohammad Gul Kuchi as saying.
Gul Kuchi, the newspaper added, had accused powerful people of occupying their pastures.
A minority without particular lands, the Kuchis with their herds of cattle often travel across the country. Kuchis or nomads in the neighboring Wardak province clashed with locals in Behsood district over land dispute last year which had left several dead.
Afghanistan's presidential elections set for August 20 this year is going to be held amid tight security as several NATO member states and U.S. have announced to send additional troops ahead of elections in the war-torn nation.
Source: Xinhua
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Afghan-Canadian strategy aims to defeat Taliban town by town
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service Wednesday, April 15, 2009
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- A town south of Kandahar City is to become the focus of intense attention as part of a new Afghan-Canadian strategy to try to defeat the Taliban insurgency town by town.
The innovative approach is to start in the town of Deh-E-Bagh in Dand District, where the Taliban recently launched a major attack. Afghan-led, it's to involve targeted Canadian aid, technical assistance, and mentoring within a robust security bubble established by Afghan and Canadian forces.
"We want this to be absolutely tangible to the 800 or 1,000 people in that community," said Brigadier-General Jon Vance, who commands Canadian troops in Afghanistan. "We develop the district in governance and R & D (reconstruction and development), and re-establish the social, political and economic fabric of a town in a district, and then another town, and another and another."
Kandahar's governor, Tooryalai Wesa, chose to begin in Deh-E-Bagh after consultations with his government and conferring closely with Canadian officials about making "a commitment to a defined community," Brig.-Gen. Vance said. The pilot project, also discussed with Ken Lewis, Canada's top diplomat in the south, will involve all levels of the Afghan government, as well as Canada's joint military/civilian provincial reconstruction team (PRT), which draws on experts from several federal departments and receives much of its funding through the Canadian International Development Agency.
While Canada's area of military responsibility in Kandahar is to be split in half when a U.S. army Stryker brigade arrives this summer, the Canadian PRT, which is based in Kandahar City, is to retain primacy for economic development across the entire province.
Many of the initiatives to be started in Deh-E-Bagh are expected to fit within five of Ottawa's six stated priorities in Afghanistan. Those are: mentoring security forces, basic services, humanitarian services, democratic development and political reconciliation.
The sixth priority is border security, but the town is 80 kilometres west of Pakistan.
"We did some analysis to make sure about tribal sensitivities, where the insurgency is, and the doability of it," the general said. "It is a whole of government joint view that this is the town that meets the criteria."
Individual projects will be determined and prioritized by district leaders and village ‘malaks,' and will employ large numbers of locals.
The Taliban are still hugely unpopular across most of Afghanistan, according to a recent ABC/BBC poll, but 64% of those who responded in their traditional stronghold of Kandahar reported that there was some support for the insurgents in their area, up from 41% last year. If the new strategy succeeds, it would create safe havens where Afghans could thrive without living in fear of militants, thereby setting a positive example for other towns.
The Afghan-Canadian initiative bears some resemblance to the "hearts and minds" strategy the U.S. pursued in selected villages and hamlets during the Vietnam War. Where this approach differs significantly is that Afghans will be in charge, and there will be much more civilian involvement
"It is not delivering a bunch of stuff," Brig.-Gen. Vance said. "They (Afghans) are going to be in the lead and work for it. The level of aspiration is limitless. These are the first steps."
The project, which will, over time, be expanded to include many more communities across Kandahar province, is designed to show Afghans what they can do for themselves in a secure environment, and to push out of town the insurgents who threaten the communities and use them as a base of operations.
"It was decided to concentrate on a small community, rather than at the district or provincial level, because "you can pour in things at the provincial and district level, but it does not trickle down to the people as fast (as we would like)," Brig.-Gen. Vance said.
"What needs to be done in a town, who does it and how - that will be determined over the next month and a half or so. There is a lot of analysis going on. It is a very complex operation.... Timing and the scheme of manoeuvre is still up in the air."
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U.S. based Afghan to contest Afghan presidential elections
April 16, 2009 People's Daily
One American Afghan Sarwar Ahmadzaiwho had been in the United States for past two decades intends to run for the presidential polls set for August 20 in his motherland, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.
"Ahmadzai, who headed the Afghan Student Union from 1990 to 1996, is planning to run for the upcoming presidential elections, "Daily Outlook said.
It added that Ahmadzai visited Afghanistan early this year to have assessment of the ground realities in the war-torn country.
Seven more Afghans, including two former finance ministers and one former interior minister, have offered their candidacy for the top slot of the post-Taliban country.
Source:Xinhua
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The Taliban's Biological Weapon
Strategy Page - Thu Apr 16, 5:18 am ET
The Pakistani Taliban are again preventing public health teams from vaccinating children against polio. The Taliban leadership says this is not exactly true, that the real issue is recognizing who is in charge in the Swat Valley, where the Islamic radicals and the federal government are disputing who is giving orders for what. But in the recent past, the Taliban have actively opposed efforts to prevent outbreaks of polio.
Two years ago, the Afghan Taliban backed off on their opposition to polio vaccinations for children. As a result, there were only 17 cases in 2007, and 31 in 2008. Most of those were "leakage" from Pakistan, where the local Taliban were not as understanding with regard to polio treatment. Radical Islamic clerics in Pakistan took the lead in pushing the idea that vaccinations for diseases are a Western plot to poison Moslem children. This particular fantasy has been rattling around for nearly a decade, and has prevented the UN from wiping out polio.
Like small pox (which was wiped out in the 1970s), once there are no people with polio, the disease is gone for good. That's because it can only survive in a human host or, like small pox, as a few samples, frozen in a heavily guarded government lab. The Islamic clerics urging parents not to vaccinate their children against polio, has the effect of providing the disease with hosts, and keeps it going. In 2006, 24,000 children were not vaccinated in northern Pakistan because of this paranoid fantasy. In Afghanistan, it was even worse, with 125,000 children denied vaccination by Taliban terrorists (who attack the vaccination teams) that year. It took a major information and diplomatic effort by more clear thinking Islamic clerics and politicians to turn the situation around. But the paranoid opposition to vaccinations always seems to return.
The victims (usually children) either die, or are crippled for life. When confronted by angry parents, the Taliban say that it's "God's will" that the kid is dead or crippled from polio. Most Moslem parents accept that, because Islam means, literally, "submission" (in this case, to a bearded guy with a gun). But popular anger at this Taliban policy forced many radical clerics to drop their opposition to polio vaccinations (administered via a drop of vaccine a child's tongue).
Islamic radicals in northern Nigeria (which is largely Moslem) have been waging a similar campaign against medical personnel trying to wipe out polio. Islamic paranoia about Western medicine has, for nearly a decade, been the major obstacle to wiping out polio.
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Most precise Int'l Iran-Afghanistan border clarification begins
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) 15 Apr 2009
Tehran, April 15, IRNA – Most precise clarification of Iran-Afghanistan Border line began Wednesday in presence of both countries' concerned officials.
According to IRNA Political Desk, the Defense Propagation Office of the Ministry of Defense and Logistics of the Armed Forces announced on Wednesday morning that in the presence of a delegation from Afghanistan and an Iranian delegation comprised of Ministry of Foreign Affairs representatives as Legal Affairs Committee, IRI Geographical Association as Technical Affairs Committee, and IRIP Border Police, the most precise clarification of International Iran-Afghanistan Border Line began.
The project is in line with policies aimed at strengthening friendly relations, mutual respect, amicable coexistence, and keeping in mind that the last time that the two countries' borders were clarified was about a century ago and a noticeable number of the existing border posts are worn out, or even annihilated.
With the beginning of this move in addition to elimination of ambiguities from the border documents, taking advantage of the most updated photography and mapping technologies, as well as the satellite images received from Sepehr-Iran Space Station, the objective of conducting the most precise regional border clarification project would be achieved.
After the completion of this project the mutually agreed upon documents would be registered at the respective office at the United Nations.
The almost 945-km long, highly porous Iran-Afghanistan International Border is along a route extending from the Zolfaqar passage – the joint border point among Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan – in the north and the Malek Sepaah Mountain (Iran-Pakistan border) in the south.
Some 709 kilometers of this line is comprised of land border and the remaining 236 kilometer is water border.
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In Brief: Afghan flash floods cause mayhem
KABUL, 15 April 2009 (IRIN) - Flash floods due to heavy rain have killed at least 19 people and damaged hundreds of houses in different parts of the country over the past two weeks, Afghanistan's National Disasters Management Authority told IRIN on 15 April.
Local officials in Badakhshan and Daykundi provinces (in northeastern and central Afghanistan respectively) are warning of shortages of food and clean water and the risk of diseases breaking out in flood-affected areas.
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