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Afghanistan counter-drug officials destroy 6.5 tons of drugs, chemicals
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sunday via New York Daily News April 26th 2009, 6:55 AM
KABUL - Afghan counter-drug officials destroyed 6.5 tons (6 metric tons) of drugs and precursor chemicals in a raging bonfire Sunday they said symbolized recent successes in Afghanistan's fight against opium poppies and heroin.
Bomb kills 2 guards from Afghan community force
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A roadside bombing in Afghanistan killed two members of a new U.S.-funded civil defense force Sunday, while authorities destroyed 6.5 tons (6 metric tons) of drugs and chemicals seized in the battle against the rampant narcotics trade.
Afghan blasts, shootings kill 14
KABUL (AFP) – Fourteen people, including 11 policemen, were killed in shootings and explosions across insurgency-plagued Afghanistan, authorities said Sunday.
Afghan government official, three police killed in attacks - Summary
EARTHtimes.org Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:23:48 GMT
Kabul - An Afghan government official was gunned down in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, while three border police forces were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the country's eastern region, officials said. Abdul Zahir
Karzai signed law not knowing contents-campaigners
By Golnar Motevalli
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai told women activists Sunday he had signed a law that caused an international outcry over its effect on women's rights because he had not read it properly, the activists said.
ANALYSIS-Split Afghan opposition helps Karzai's chances
26 Apr 2009 12:54:44 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, April 26 (Reuters) - Supporters and foes of Afghan President Hamid Karzai agree on one thing: his rivals must unite to have any hope of mounting a serious challenge in an upcoming presidential poll, and that looks increasingly unlikely.
On Afghan peak, French show Old Europe's mettle
26 Apr 2009 10:05:34 GMT By Laurent Hamida
OVERLOOKING THE ALAH SAY VALLEY, Afghanistan, April 26 (Reuters) - The American gunner gives a hand signal and French commandos from the 27th Alpine Battalion leap out of the back of the Chinook onto a moonlit Afghan mountaintop.
Pakistan must shore up security on border with Afghanistan:defence minister
By Lisa Arrowsmith, The Canadian Press Sat Apr 25, 6:38 PM
EDMONTON - The mission in Afghanistan could "rise or fall," depending on whether the government of Pakistan can stem the flow of insurgents and weapons along its borders, Canada's defence minister said Saturday.
In reversal, Army issues lighter gear for Afghanistan deployments
By Thom Shanker, New York Times
04/25/2009 08:34:48 PM PDT
WASHINGTON — The Army has ordered that $3 million in new, lighter combat gear be sent immediately to two battalions preparing for Afghanistan, officials have disclosed.
UK troops in Afghanistan are fighting 'as hard as soldiers in the Second World War'
By Mirror.co.uk 26/04/2009
UK troops in Afghanistan are fighting as hard as soldiers in the Second World War, the Armed Forces Minister has warned.
Tribeca film focuses on beheaded Afghan "fixer"
By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When the coffin of Afghan journalist and "fixer" Ajmal Naqshbandi was carried through the streets of Kabul in 2007, locals wailed that the world didn't care.
U.S.-led forces destroy anti-aircraft weapon system in S Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-26 13:46:42
KABUL, April 26 (Xinhua) -- An anti-aircraft weapon system was destroyed Sunday morning by the strike of U.S.-led Coalition forces in southern Afghan province of Helmand, said a Coalition statement.
Tough Choices at Korengal Outpost
Washington Post - World By David Ignatius Sunday, April 26, 2009
Recently the New York Times carried vivid war reporting from Afghanistan. C.J. Chivers described the "bloody standoff" in the Korengal Valley between American troops and die-hard tribal warriors.
Pakistan in danger of falling to Taliban
Joel Brinkley San Francisco Chronicle Sunday, April 26, 2009
As everyone knows, President Obama inherited a multitude of domestic and international problems. But of all the foreign dilemmas right now, none rivals Pakistan. It is in serious danger of falling to the Taliban.
Taliban shave Pakistan men for listening to music
Sun Apr 26, 3:40 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Taliban militants in northwest Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music, according to one of the men.
Frontier wisdom
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online April 24, 2009
PESHAWAR - A year ago, the United States brokered a deal in Pakistan between then-Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf and opposition parties to bring Pakistan back onto the path of real democracy,
Afghanistan's wheat crop looks good
WASHINGTON, April 24 (UPI) -- Agriculture analysts say beneficial rains should lead to a healthier wheat crop in Afghanistan this year, although prices will be lower as well.
Rising Drug Addicts in Ghazni Province
www.quqnoos.com Written by Tamim Shaheer Saturday, 25 April 2009
According to a UN survey, 20,000 Ghazni residents are addicted to drugs
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Afghanistan counter-drug officials destroy 6.5 tons of drugs, chemicals
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sunday via New York Daily News April 26th 2009, 6:55 AM
KABUL - Afghan counter-drug officials destroyed 6.5 tons (6 metric tons) of drugs and precursor chemicals in a raging bonfire Sunday they said symbolized recent successes in Afghanistan's fight against opium poppies and heroin.
The drugs, which were burned in a large pile on a sloping mountainside on the outskirts of Kabul, were confiscated by authorities over the last three to four months, said Gen. Khodaidad, the country's counternarcotics minister.
"This is a big success against terrorism, against people who are producing poppies," said Khodaidad, who like many Afghans goes by one name. "Poppy mainly supports the insurgency in Afghanistan."
The Taliban and other warlords may have earned almost a half billion dollars from Afghanistan's 2008 opium trade, the head of the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime has said. Afghan officials have also been implicated in the trade.
Khodaidad acknowledged that the 6.5 tons of drugs - including heroin, opium, hashish and chemicals used to turn opium into heroin - was only a symbolic drop in the bucket. A U.N. report last year said Afghan farmers produced 7,700 tons (7,000 metric tons) of opium in 2008 with an export value estimated at $3.4 billion.
Gen. Dawood Dawood, the top counternarcotics officer in the Interior Ministry, said officials hoped to increase the number of poppy-free provinces from 18 last year to 26 this year. Khodaidad, perhaps providing a more realistic assessment, said he hoped the number increased to 22 or 23 this year.
Dawood said Sunday's drug burn was a "big achievement" for the country's counternarcotics police.
"If we do not burn the drugs, thousands of others will become drug addicts," he said. "By burning this amount of opium and narcotics we show the people we are committed to the fight against drugs."
In the country's latest violence, police on Sunday said a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Khost on Saturday killed three border police. Three police were also wounded in the attack.
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Bomb kills 2 guards from Afghan community force
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A roadside bombing in Afghanistan killed two members of a new U.S.-funded civil defense force Sunday, while authorities destroyed 6.5 tons (6 metric tons) of drugs and chemicals seized in the battle against the rampant narcotics trade.
The two guards from the Afghan Public Protection Force were the first members of the new program to die in the line of duty, said Shahidullah Shahid, the spokesman for Wardak province's governor. Three vehicles were patrolling in Nirkh district of Wardak when the explosion ripped through one truck, he said.
The program trains and equips villagers to provide security in their own areas. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Wardak last week to inspect the program and said early reviews were positive.
Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said this month that if the Wardak program is successful, the defense initiative will be expanded to other parts of the country.
Meanwhile, drugs confiscated by authorities over the last three to four months were burned Sunday in a large pile on a sloping mountainside on the outskirts of Kabul, said Gen. Khodaidad, the country's counternarcotics minister.
"This is a big success against terrorism, against people who are producing poppies," said Khodaidad, who like many Afghans goes by one name. "Poppy mainly supports the insurgency in Afghanistan."
Underscoring the dangers of the drug fight, another roadside bomb Sunday killed five counternarcotics police and two civilians while the police were surveying poppy fields in Kandahar province, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
"This incident shows the enemies of Afghanistan work together with the smugglers of the country, and they are trying to prevent the fight against poppy cultivation," the ministry said.
The Taliban and other warlords may have earned almost a half billion dollars from Afghanistan's 2008 opium trade, the head of the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime has said. Afghan officials have also been implicated in the trade.
Khodaidad acknowledged that the 6.5 tons of drugs — including heroin, opium, hashish and chemicals used to turn opium into heroin — represented only a symbolic drop in the bucket. A U.N. report last year said Afghan farmers produced 7,700 tons (7,000 metric tons) of opium in 2008 with an export value estimated at $3.4 billion.
Gen. Dawood Dawood, the top counternarcotics officer in the Interior Ministry, said officials hoped to increase the number of poppy-free provinces from 18 last year to 26 this year. Khodaidad, perhaps providing a more realistic assessment, said he hoped the number increased to 22 or 23 this year.
Dawood said Sunday's drug burn was a "big achievement" for the country's counternarcotics police.
"By burning this amount of opium and narcotics we show the people we are committed to the fight against drugs," he said.
Elsewhere, police on Sunday said a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Khost on Saturday killed three border police. Three police were also wounded in the attack.
Afghan police, who have less training and equipment than the Afghan army, have borne the brunt of Taliban attacks in recent years. Close to 1,000 Afghan police were killed in militant attacks last year — more than 1 percent of the country's 82,000-member force.
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Afghan blasts, shootings kill 14
KABUL (AFP) – Fourteen people, including 11 policemen, were killed in shootings and explosions across insurgency-plagued Afghanistan, authorities said Sunday.
A roadside bomb blast killed five policemen and two civilians in the Zhari district of southern Kandahar on Sunday, the interior ministry said in a statement. Two other police were injured, it said.
The ministry said the police were on patrol "inspecting the opium fields".
"Planting mines by the enemies of Afghanistan indicates that there is close link between drug traders and the terrorists," it said.
Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's illicit drug supplies from its poppy crops which the government has a policy of eradicating.
Another three policemen were killed and two wounded in a similar incident in central Wardak province, just south of the capital Kabul, the ministry said.
The ministry blamed the attacks on the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a term authorities use to refer to the remnants of the Taliban, who are leading an insurgency after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted them from power.
On Saturday, three other policemen were killed and two wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in eastern Khost province near the border with Pakistan, said senior police official Sher Ahmad Kochi.
A senior civil servant was killed in Kandahar on Sunday in a drive-by shooting by gunmen speeding past on a motorbike, an official said.
About 70,000 foreign troops are stationed in Afghanistan, with the United States preparing to deploy an extra 21,000 troops as part of a sweeping new strategy to counter the increasingly deadly Taliban-led insurgency.
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Afghan government official, three police killed in attacks - Summary
EARTHtimes.org Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:23:48 GMT
Kabul - An Afghan government official was gunned down in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, while three border police forces were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the country's eastern region, officials said. Abdul Zahir, head of public transport in southern Kandahar province, was gunned down by two attackers riding on motorbikes on Sunday morning as he made his way to his office in Kandahar city, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The attack came a day after three suicide bombers stormed the office for Kandahar's provincial governor, located in the heart of the city, killing themselves and five policemen. The provincial governor was unharmed, but nine people were wounded.
Three border police forces were killed and as many were wounded on Saturday afternoon when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Babrak Tani area of south-eastern Khost province, Abdul Qayoum, a police official said Sunday.
Roadside and suicide attacks have become common tactics for the Taliban militants, who are waging a seven-year-old insurgency against Afghan and international forces since the ouster of their government in late 2001.
Separately, US-led coalition forces destroyed a Taliban anti- aircraft ZPU-2 weapon in a "precision strike" in the Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province on Sunday, the US military said in a statement.
The Taliban recently obtained anti-aircraft weapons that pose a serious threat to NATO-led forces stationed in the country, who mostly rely on use of air power as part of their anti-insurgent operations.
The coalition had destroyed two more rebel anti-aircraft weapons in the district in the past one week.
In another incident, a coalition drone crashed in south-eastern province of Paktika on Sunday shortly after it took off, the US military said in a separate statement.
The statement said the unmanned aircraft experienced technical problems and that there was no "enemy activity" in the area at the time of the crash.
More than 70,000 international troops deployed from 42 nations are stationed in Afghanistan. More than 25,000 more troops, with most of them Americans, are expected to arrive in the war-shattered country in coming months to provide security for the presidential elections in August.
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Karzai signed law not knowing contents-campaigners
By Golnar Motevalli
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai told women activists Sunday he had signed a law that caused an international outcry over its effect on women's rights because he had not read it properly, the activists said.
Karzai has ordered the Justice Ministry to review the Shi'ite Personal Status Law, which he signed two months ago.
The law, which applies to a Shi'ite Muslim community that makes up about 15 percent of the population, requires women to satisfy their husbands' sexual desires, which some critics say could be used to justify marital rape.
It sparked an outcry from leaders of Western countries with troops in Afghanistan, including U.S. President Barack Obama who called it "abhorrent." A group of 30 women parliamentarians and rights advocates met Karzai Sunday to discuss it.
"Karzai told us 'When the law was signed, I was not aware of the articles. I became aware later that some of the articles were unacceptable'," said Fatima Hosseini, a rights campaigner.
Female lawmaker Shinkai Karokhel quoted Karzai as saying he only later learnt of articles affecting women through media reports when he was attending a U.N. conference at The Hague.
"He said to us 'I'm sorry, I did not know all the contents of the law' ... He admitted he did not read it properly," she said, adding that he said he initially thought the reports were coming from journalists only interested in pressuring him.
The passages that caused outrage are buried in the 239-page law, much of which is written in complicated Islamic theological language.
Some lawmakers have accused Karzai of signing it hastily because he faces an election on August 20 and wants to curry favor with Shi'ite voters, who can swing the contest.
Karokhel, who has been campaigning against the law since it was first introduced to parliament three months ago, said Karzai promised to complete the review of the law before the presidential election.
Karzai could find it difficult to scupper the law without offending powerful Shi'ites. In a statement, Karzai's office said the women had agreed with the law in principle but wanted assurances that parts of it would be reviewed and made compatible with the country's civil law and constitution.
"We will insist on our struggle and we will contact the Ministry of Justice within a month to see if the process of amendment is continuing," Karokhel said.
(Reporting by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Diana Abdallah)
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ANALYSIS-Split Afghan opposition helps Karzai's chances
26 Apr 2009 12:54:44 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, April 26 (Reuters) - Supporters and foes of Afghan President Hamid Karzai agree on one thing: his rivals must unite to have any hope of mounting a serious challenge in an upcoming presidential poll, and that looks increasingly unlikely.
This week marks the start of a two-week registration period for candidates to sign up for the Aug. 20 vote. A wide selection of technocrats, ex-cabinet ministers, regional bosses and perhaps even an ex-U.S. ambassador have hinted they may run.
The poll will be a defining event for Afghanistan, even as thousands of additional foreign troops are being poured into the country to battle an escalating Taliban insurgency.
Karzai, who was installed in power in 2001 and won the country's first democratic election in 2004, has since lost much of the enthusiastic support he once enjoyed among both the public at home and his backers in the West.
Yet the opposition has had little success agreeing on a standard bearer. A leader long seen as weak, Karzai appears to be in as strong a position as ever ahead of the vote.
Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, a likely candidate and former finance minister, told Reuters key contenders have met several times to field a single rival against Karzai, but had not agreed.
"Unfortunately, there has been no agreement so far. Each thinks his chance of victory is greater than the other," he said.
Among other challengers are ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, ex-Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, Nangarhar Province Governor Gul Agha Sherzai and perhaps even Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born ex-U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations.
Abdullah is expected to stand as the candidate of the main opposition bloc, the National Front, which was formed two years ago hoping to build a coalition across feuding ethnic groups to unseat Karzai. But with the vote looming, the bloc appears to be divided by ethnic factionalism.
Several of its founders have voiced disagreement over who should be their candidate. Last week the Alliance said one founder, powerful former deputy president Mohammad Qasim Fahim, had deserted the group to back Karzai.
"The Front is no longer united. It could not shine as expected, given its political and ethnic broadness," said Helaluddin Helal, a former deputy interior who now sits in the parliament and is a critic of the president.
"The only way for the candidates to defeat Karzai is through forming a team or a front," Helal said.
OTHER GROUPS
Karzai is a member of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. Fahim is a rich Tajik, a member of Afghanistan's second-largest ethnic group, who commanded the anti-Taliban forces that ousted the mainly Pashtun militants in 2001.
If Karzai has Fahim's support, the president can now court leaders of other groups, such as the Hazaras and Uzbeks.
Many of his key rivals are technocrats who also served as ministers in his government and have double citizenship in Western countries where they lived in exile. They lack traditional power support bases and are seen by critics as out of touch with Afghanistan's day-to-day realities.
Wahid Tahiri, a pro-government parliamentarian, said they also lacked experience in running a complex nation like Afghanistan, and people "saw none of them as alternative to Karzai who could bring change and improvement".
Even critics of Karzai think his rivals are flawed.
"Karzai's key rivals are those who served under him or worked with him and were involved in corruption and in inefficiency in the past. People will ask 'Are they any better than him?'", said Daad Noorani, a political analyst and opponent of Karzai.
Some key Pashtun tribes have agreed to back a single candidate to avoid splitting the Pashtun vote, Noorani said, adding that their choice seemed to be Karzai.
Karzai has had trouble in the past winning support among some Pashtuns who saw him as an American puppet. But lately he discussed efforts to negotiate with the militants and has criticised Western troops for killing civilians, steps that will win some sympathy among disgruntled Pashtuns.
His access to government resources, especially helicopters and security forces, will give him advantages in his campaign.
"I have my manifesto ready," Abdul Ali Seraj, a member of Afghanistan's former royal family who intends to stand against Karzai, told Reuters. "But at the end of the day, I have to go to all of the 34 provinces to talk about it to people and my supporters. I can't. I don't have the resources."
The stance of the United States could also play a role. Washington, which calls Afghanistan its top foreign policy priority, says it is not picking sides. But many Afghans believe that the United States has too much money and too many troops in their country to leave the outcome to chance.
Officials in the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama voiced criticism of Karzai when they first took office this year. They have since toned down that criticism, possibly reflecting a realisation that he is likely to stay in office.
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On Afghan peak, French show Old Europe's mettle
26 Apr 2009 10:05:34 GMT By Laurent Hamida
OVERLOOKING THE ALAH SAY VALLEY, Afghanistan, April 26 (Reuters) - The American gunner gives a hand signal and French commandos from the 27th Alpine Battalion leap out of the back of the Chinook onto a moonlit Afghan mountaintop.
U.S. Apache gunships provide cover as the French troops spread out, taking up positions in the eerie dawn light.
The dizzyingly high sheer rock outcrop, nicknamed "the castle" by NATO, was in Taliban hands days ago, giving the militants a stronghold that overlooked the massive U.S. Bagram airbase, which now lights up a distant plain in the darkness.
The Alah Say valley below was a stubborn Taliban bastion. Now it is in NATO's hands. Credit "Old Europe".
Forget the days a few years back when France opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed his NATO allies as part of "Old Europe" and American restaurants back in the states started serving "freedom fries".
Today a small but highly effective French task force is fighting seamlessly under U.S. command in Afghanistan.
Unlike some other NATO allies, such as Germany, Italy and Spain, the French have lifted so-called "caveats" that kept their contingent in Afghanistan from being deployed in combat areas.
For years the French contingent was mainly deployed in the relatively safe environs of Kabul. But since mid-2008, President Nicolas Sarkozy has made his troops available to fight the Taliban in strongholds beyond the capital.
American commanders say they are thrilled to have them.
"They have brought significant capabilities to our campaign plan," said Colonel Scott Spellman, the U.S. NATO commander in the mountains north of Kabul, studying a map with Colonel Nicolas Le Nen, the Frenchman he calls "Nick".
"Five weeks ago, the provincial reconstruction team could not even go into the Alah Say valley," he said, referring to the valley in Kapisa province where Le Nen's commandos are deployed.
"As a result of Colonel Le Nen's operations, he has now set the foundation where the governor has been able to travel to Alah Say for the first time for over a year and a half."
BONJOUR AND 'OW YA DOING
One French soldier and four Afghan army soldiers were killed last month in six days of fighting for the valley. The French have since deployed overwhelming force there to discourage the Taliban from resisting.
French troops have set up combat outposts in the valley for Afghan soldiers and U.S. mentors, using the counter-insurgency tactics U.S. forces brought to Afghanistan from Iraq, which call for quickly deploying local troops and mentors to cleared areas.
"Because this valley was the centre of gravity of the enemy in Kapisa, so it was very important to take control of the valley. Now I can say we got control," said Le Nen.
"When you can conduct your operation without shooting a bullet, it's a good indication of success," he added. "Our main goal is to persuade the population that we are here to protect the people. We are not here to kill bad guys."
In a separate operation, another 800-strong French force with U.S. air support this month recaptured the Uzbin Valley, a pro-Taliban stronghold where 10 French soldiers were killed last year in the war's single biggest combat loss for foreign troops.
Franco-American relations in the field are easygoing. French forward air controllers call in American support on their radios in English. At their shared base you can hear an American-accented "bonjour" or French accented "'ow ya doing."
While Reuters was out in Alah Say, one French commando broke his leg. An American chopper swooped in, a U.S. medic was lowered down by cable and hoisted the Frenchman up.
Le Nen says he sometimes has to concentrate extra hard to decipher one American counterpart's New Jersey accent. But he has nothing but praise for "our U.S. brothers in arms".
"We have the same view of operations and the same view of tactical manoeuvres, so it is very easy working under American command," he said. "We always feel as a full member of NATO." (Reporting by Laurent Hamida; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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Pakistan must shore up security on border with Afghanistan:defence minister
By Lisa Arrowsmith, The Canadian Press Sat Apr 25, 6:38 PM
EDMONTON - The mission in Afghanistan could "rise or fall," depending on whether the government of Pakistan can stem the flow of insurgents and weapons along its borders, Canada's defence minister said Saturday.
Speaking at a symposium on the war in Afghanistan, Peter MacKay suggested Pakistan's border with Afghanistan is like an imaginary line drawn on a map, and that lax security there is a threat to Canadian soldiers.
"We know that Afghanistan at one time was the incubator for terrorism and now it's Pakistan," he said.
Once inside Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaida groups are able to "exponentially" influence what's going on in that country, MacKay said.
Demanding that Pakistan improve its border security is something that Canada and other international forces in Afghanistan are pressing for, he said.
"This issue of free travel between the two countries, the crossings that allow for the transport of weapons and highly motivated terrorists that are coming into the country that are killing Canadian soldiers, international soldiers and Afghan citizens - that's the concentrated effort we all have to address and we're all seized with."
Problems with insurgents are concentrated in Kandahar province partly because of poor border controls with Pakistan, the defence minister said.
That's why Canada and its international partners are now taking a regional approach to security issues in Afghanistan, MacKay said.
Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of defence staff, said Taliban fighters are resting and resupplying along the Pakistan border and it's posing a danger to Canadian soldiers.
"It's a very difficult situation if Pakistan gets even worse than it is today."
"As goes Pakistan's security, so goes Afghanistan's security, there's no doubt about that, " Natynczyk said.
Canadian troops are examining the use of donkeys and even dogs to carry people and supplies into rugged mountainous regions, he told a crowd of politicians, military officials and retirees.
Despite the frustrations Canada faces in combating Taliban forces, the defence minister also remarked that given the right conditions, Canada could also support the Afghan government's attempts to reach out to the group.
"If individuals are prepared to lay down arms, renounce violence, accept a democratic government, accept that human rights have to be respected - those are individuals that the Afghan government should talk to," MacKay said.
But MacKay called it "demoralizing" that the Afghan government would flirt with the introduction a law that would impose severe restrictions on some women.
There was a strong rebuke from the international community earlier this month after the government introduced a law making it a crime for a Shia woman to refuse to have sex with her husband or go outside.
"It runs counter to everything we're trying to do in Afghanistan," MacKay said.
But to Lauryn Oates, 27, a project director for a Canadian charity group that provides educational programs for women in Afghanistan, there was a silver lining to all of that controversy.
At least with Canadian soldiers inside the country, Canada could make its voice clearly heard on the issue, said Oates, a spokeswoman for Canadian Women For Women in Afghanistan.
"Because we were there, that's how we were able to pressure the Afghan government to repeal it. It's precisely because of that presence that we have an influence on what happens in Afghanistan," said Oates.
President Hamid Karzai is up for re-election in August.
Oates said after many conversations over dinner with friends in Afghanistan, she thinks Karzai made a miscalculation in signing such a law - which she said was done to curry favour with a Shia conservative group.
"On the other hand, I think it totally isolated him from a lot of people. A lot of people were against this, men and women alike."
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In reversal, Army issues lighter gear for Afghanistan deployments
By Thom Shanker, New York Times
04/25/2009 08:34:48 PM PDT
WASHINGTON — The Army has ordered that $3 million in new, lighter combat gear be sent immediately to two battalions preparing for Afghanistan, officials have disclosed.
The decision lifts a hold that the Army had ordered last month on the experimental effort. The Army's turnabout came after The New York Times reported April 18 on the decision to halt the shipment and after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked the Army to explain the delay.
"Secretary Gates takes a special interest in all force protection matters," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "He wanted to know why this latest body armor design had not yet been provided to our soldiers in the field. He asked his staff to get to the bottom of it."
On Friday, Army officials said the predeployment tests of the equipment had been completed, and that the service's leadership was satisfied that the new gear would adequately protect soldiers while helping to relieve exhaustion and reduce injuries, and enable greater mobility.
Among the equipment being sent to Afghanistan, about five pounds will be cut with the use of a lighter, more comfortable vest and carrier system for bulletproof plates that cover the chest and back, Army officials said. However, the Army decided not to send a lighter model of bulletproof plates as originally proposed, but instead will continue using the current Army-approved plates that are about four pounds heavier.
The lighter plates have been adopted by the military's Special Operations Command, which includes the Army's elite light infantry troops, the Rangers. But senior Army officials said the extra protection offered by the heavier plates was important to protect soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan, given the increase in insurgent violence.
Together, the new body armor, boots, rucksacks, weapons and slings for carrying extra bullets will shave at least 13 pounds from the load of the average soldier and almost 25 pounds for those who carry heavy machine guns.
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UK troops in Afghanistan are fighting 'as hard as soldiers in the Second World War'
By Mirror.co.uk 26/04/2009
UK troops in Afghanistan are fighting as hard as soldiers in the Second World War, the Armed Forces Minister has warned.
Bob Ainsworth told Legion magazine: "Unless you came all the way up with the Eighth Army from El Alamein and through Italy, you didn't do much more than lads are having to do now." Yesterday, a car bomb killed 17 people in Syria and three suicide bombers killed five police officers in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Sixty died in two suicide blasts at a Shia shrine in Baghdad, Iraq, on Friday.
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Tribeca film focuses on beheaded Afghan "fixer"
By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When the coffin of Afghan journalist and "fixer" Ajmal Naqshbandi was carried through the streets of Kabul in 2007, locals wailed that the world didn't care.
A documentary "Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi," showing at the Tribeca film festival this week, examines the life of Naqshbandi as one of Afghanistan's best "fixers" -- the local people who translate and arrange interviews for foreign journalists. And it questions how the world values an Afghan's life compared to a Westerner's.
"For many Afghans the case of Ajmal proved what they suspected -- that the international community didn't care about Afghanistan, they cared about their own and the life of an Afghan is worth less than that of a foreigner," film director Ian Olds said.
Olds, a 34-year-old American, decided to make the film after seeing the importance of fixers in Iraq, where he shot his previous film, "Occupation: Dreamland" that took an in-depth look at a squad of U.S. soldiers.
Olds was filming Naqshbandi as part of a documentary on fixers. After his death, Olds said he almost abandoned the project but then decided to make him the film's central figure.
"It seemed tragic and very distasteful to me to use a friend of mine's death as a dramatic device," Olds said. "But then the more I thought about Ajmal, the more it felt like an obligation."
In Iraq and Afghanistan, human rights groups say fixers are more at risk of being killed than foreign journalists because they are seen as traitors by their local captors and their lives carry little bargaining power.
Naqshbandi was kidnapped with Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo and Afghan driver Sayed Agha in early 2007 on a remote road in lawless Helmand province, an area most foreigners considered a no-go zone.
PLEAS FOR RELEASE
The film shows partly redacted footage of Agha's beheading, and Naqshbandi's and Mastrogiacomo's subsequent pleas for release in footage taken by the Taliban. Two weeks later, after interventions by the Italian government, Mastrogiacomo was released in exchange for five Taliban prisoners.
While the Italian's release made world headlines, Naqshbandi's family say he was forgotten and when the Taliban then demanded the release of insurgents in exchange for the Afghan's life, the Afghan government refused. Naqshbandi, 24 and recently married, was beheaded.
"He became this pawn in the battle in this larger power play between the Italian government, the Afghan government, the U.S. and the Taliban," Olds said.
For much of the film, Naqshbandi, who worked as a fixer for several years, is seen shepherding American journalist Christian Parenti to various locations and interviews.
As one of Afghanistan's best fixers, Olds said Naqshbandi made up to several thousand U.S. dollars a month compared to a regular Afghan wage of $70 a month in a government job.
"The film is not about the journalists that you often see, but is about this off-screen presence and voice, the unseen person that facilitates the journalist," he said.
The film broadens its scope to examine how, like Naqshbandi, Afghanistan has its own history of being caught between two sides as in its long conflict with the former Soviet Union in which the United States quietly backed the Afghan mujahideen resistance.
Afghans, according to Olds, are now skeptical of western intervention.
"I hope people see it because there is this perception that Iraq is the bad war and Afghanistan is the good war and somehow it is a simple war and we just have to put more resources and money and all will be fine. But it is a disaster," Olds said. "It will get much worse before it gets better."
(Editing by Mark Egan and Vicki Allen)
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U.S.-led forces destroy anti-aircraft weapon system in S Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-26 13:46:42
KABUL, April 26 (Xinhua) -- An anti-aircraft weapon system was destroyed Sunday morning by the strike of U.S.-led Coalition forces in southern Afghan province of Helmand, said a Coalition statement.
"Coalition Forces learned through villagers in Nad Ali district that insurgents in the area had obtained a ZPU-2 anti-aircraft gun and were staging it on the back of a pick-up truck for use against friendly forces' aircraft," the statement said.
It added that after ensuring there were no non-combatants in the area, the Coalition Forces destroyed the weapon system with a precision strike.
"In recent months, militants in the area have unsuccessfully attempted to use surface-to-air fire against Coalition aircraft," it noted. "No Coalition Forces or non-combatant injuries were reported as a result of the precision strike."
Editor: Xiong Tong
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Tough Choices at Korengal Outpost
Washington Post - World By David Ignatius Sunday, April 26, 2009
Recently the New York Times carried vivid war reporting from Afghanistan. C.J. Chivers described the "bloody standoff" in the Korengal Valley between American troops and die-hard tribal warriors. Photographer Tyler Hicks snapped an unforgettable front-page picture of a U.S. soldier in a mad dash to escape a riverside ambush.
But I found myself wondering: Why is the United States fighting insurgents in the remote Korengal Valley in the first place? The story described the enemy as "Taliban," but it said the locals are angry "in part because they are loggers and the Afghan government banned almost all timber cutting, putting local men out of work." There's apparently no sign of al-Qaeda in the valley, where people are fiercely independent and speak their own exotic language.
While applauding the bravery of the U.S. soldiers, we should also ask the baseline question: Is this use of American military power necessary or wise? When I was in the area a year ago, I visited an Army forward base near Asadabad that was firing large-caliber artillery shells into the Korengal to keep the local fighters at bay. The percussive roar of the outgoing fire was so loud it was hard to hear the comments of members of the U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Team, who were explaining their efforts to win over the local population by building roads and schools.
The fighting in Korengal illustrates a bigger problem that's at the heart of President Obama's strategy for the Afghanistan war. The strategy is leaning in two directions at once. Obama described his war aims in limited terms, as preventing al-Qaeda from launching attacks on the United States. But to accomplish that goal, he advocated a broader nation-building effort that could last many years. In military jargon, it's an "enemy-centric" strategy that employs "population-centric" tactics of counterinsurgency warfare.
The problem isn't so abstract for the young soldiers at Korengal Outpost: Are U.S. foot patrols and artillery barrages needed to stop al-Qaeda in this Afghan wilderness? Or is there a better, cheaper way, with less loss of Afghan and American lives?
The senior officials who drafted Obama's strategy agree that it has this inherent tension, but they say it's inescapable. They believe that a successful counterinsurgency fight has both a soft, road-building side and a kinetic, kill-the-enemy side. The challenge, the officials say, is combining the two approaches to splinter the insurgency. If the strategy works, says one of the people who drafted it, the United States will dismember the "syndicate" of insurgent groups by the end of the summer fighting season this year or next.
To get an Afghan view, I spoke last week with Ashraf Ghani, who was finance minister from 2002 to 2004 in the first post-Taliban government and who is now running for president. He's a supremely articulate man who earned a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University and worked at the World Bank. He's probably a long shot for the presidential palace in Kabul, but he has a clear analysis of what's needed -- from Americans and Afghans, both -- to put this war on a better track.
"Choices have to be made in terms of how the U.S. strategy is implemented -- counterinsurgency tactics, or kinetic. Right now, they're attempting to do both," says Ghani. He favors the former and cautions that "months of counterinsurgency work can be undone by one kinetic action."
Ghani is running on several issues that need to be addressed, no matter who wins. He wants greater Afghan self-reliance, reform of the country's corrupt and feeble government, and a jobs program. The definition of the average Taliban supporter, he says, is "unemployed youth."
I was encouraged by Ghani's comments about reconciliation with some elements of the Taliban alliance. Take Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who's part of the insurgent syndicate. Ghani has read four books written by Hekmatyar and says that the bearded warlord has a "very modernist vision." He also cites a new book by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, a Taliban leader who was held at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2005. Ghani says the mullah mirrors the evolution of the Taliban away from jihadism and toward nationalism and development.
The idea of using military force alone to suppress the fierce tribesmen of Afghanistan is as mistaken now for America as it was for the British in the 19th century or the Russians in the 1980s. But Ghani and others seem serious about building a modern Afghanistan with U.S. help -- a long, slow but entirely worthwhile process.
The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.
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Pakistan in danger of falling to Taliban
Joel Brinkley San Francisco Chronicle Sunday, April 26, 2009
As everyone knows, President Obama inherited a multitude of domestic and international problems. But of all the foreign dilemmas right now, none rivals Pakistan. It is in serious danger of falling to the Taliban.
Can you imagine - a large, nuclear-armed state in Central Asia, ruled by cousins of the people who governed Afghanistan when it served as a congenial home for Osama bin Laden and all his murderous minions?
But the warnings are coming fast and thick from the highest officials, including Gen. David Petraeus, commander of American forces in that part of the world. The Taliban and allied extremists, he told the Senate this month, "could literally take down their state." Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, reflecting on American proposals for saving his nation, told a group of reporters: "It's a long walk. And in that long walk, I am losing the people of Pakistan."
In February, Taliban extremists fought the Pakistani army to a draw and won agreement to establish a safe haven in the Swat Valley, just 100 miles from Islamabad, the capital. At that time, I.A. Rehman, head of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, said the Taliban and their militant allies were poised to take over the Punjab province, home to 60 percent of the population. That has begun. Militants are taking control, one by one, of poor villages in northwest Punjab - beginning the spread of an insidious fungus that could eat the state.
On Wednesday, Taliban militia took control of the Bunar district, just 70 miles from Islamabad, prompting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to warn: "I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances" of the Taliban.
The Pakistani police and military seem powerless to stop it. They lack the will to take on this fight, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has been arguing in recent days.
"They're in denial," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan. "There's no sense of urgency," even though Pakistan is staring down the barrel "of a full blown, indigenous insurgency."
Even now, with the state's very existence at stake, military leaders continue their feckless debate over whether their central mission should be to prepare for a war with India - or take on these domestic threats. At the same time, American officials have begun urgently warning (what everyone already knew) that Inter-Services Intelligence agency officers are actually aiding the militants.
Meantime, Zardari provided a powerful symbol of his government's impotence. Earlier this month, a cell-phone video showed a Taliban enforcer flogging a 17-year-old girl lying face down in the dirt. Her crime: refusing a marriage proposal. The video made its way onto the Web and spawned outrage across the nation and the world; Pakistan's Supreme Court opened an investigation.
Well, amid all of this, Zardari signed an order codifying the Taliban's right to extend Islamic law across the Swat Valley. A Taliban spokesman said that if the order had been signed earlier, the Taliban would not have merely whipped that unfortunate girl. They would have shot her.
Haven't we seen this play before - in Cuba, Cambodia, Nicaragua? In all three states, richly corrupt governments that were ill-serving the people still received unqualified support from Washington. American patronage of corrupt leaders fed enthusiasm for Fidel Castro's guerrilla army in Cuba, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.
Certainly each of these previous revolutions had its own unique dynamics, but in each case Washington and the threatened foreign leaders remained in denial until it was too late.
This time, Washington is waking up. But there's not much the United States can do. As Weinbaum put it, "if we put our hands on it, it's not helpful." He also told me that he used to discount the doomsayers who prophesied Pakistan's downfall. "This is not Afghanistan," he would say. "Pakistan has institutions and people advantaged by them who won't let Pakistan fall apart."
But he has changed his mind. "It's a feudal conflict now, class warfare. We weren't thinking of it in the terms that we are today."
At a conference in Tokyo this month, a dozen nations pledged $5 billion in aid to Pakistan. At the same time, a prominent radical leader in Islamabad made a loud public call demanding imposition of Islamic law nationwide. Which, I wonder, had the greatest impact inside Pakistan?
Pakistan's oligarchy is beginning to realize it cannot rely on the military for protection; the generals now know that they cannot assume all of their men are on their side. Soon, as the situation deteriorates, we could begin to see wealthy political and business leaders pack up and move out of the country. The Pentagon may have to pull up its contingency plans for safeguarding Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
Get ready.
Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times. To comment to him, e-mail brinkley@foreign-matters.com. Contact us at forum@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page H - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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Taliban shave Pakistan men for listening to music
Sun Apr 26, 3:40 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Taliban militants in northwest Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music, according to one of the men.
Buner has been subject to huge US concern after hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced into the area from the neighbouring Swat, where the hardliners fought a brutal, nearly two-year insurgency to enforce Islamic law.
Although Taliban and local officials said the fighters retreated from Buner by Saturday, local members of the movement remain. Residents said many fighters were still present in the hilly outskirts of the district.
In one incident late Saturday, Taliban hardliners shaved the heads and moustaches of four men for listening to music, a young man from Buner told AFP by telephone, requesting not to be identified.
"I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches," he said.
"The Taliban also beat us and asked us not to listen to music ever again," said the terrified man.
Local police said they had no information about the incident.
The victim said neither he nor his friends lodged a complaint with police, as this would have been "useless."
"It might have annoyed the Taliban further and I fear for my life," the man said.
Residents in Mingora, the main town in Swat, said Taliban posters had been put up in streets and markets ordering women not to go shopping. The posters had appeared after the Taliban's controversial agreement with the government to enforce Islamic law in the region.
"We will take action against women who go out shopping in the markets and any shopkeeper seen dealing with women shoppers will be dealt with severely," read the poster from the Swat branch of Tehreek-e-Taliban.
"The peace agreement does not mean that obscenity should be re-born," it added.
Hardline Islamists in the extremist Taliban consider it "obscene" for women to leave their homes, and ban females from venturing out in public without an immediate male relative -- namely a father, brother, son or husband.
For years, Swat was a popular ski resort frequented by Westerners but the Pakistani government effectively lost control of the mountainous district after the violent Taliban campaign to enforce sharia law.
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Frontier wisdom
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online April 24, 2009
PESHAWAR - A year ago, the United States brokered a deal in Pakistan between then-Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf and opposition parties to bring Pakistan back onto the path of real democracy, at the same time returning the military to the "war on terror" front. The goal was to empower the political parties to defeat domestic militancy through consensus and broad-based government, with a civilian president.
This happened to some extent following elections in February 2008 and the subsequent formation of a civilian administration under President Asif Ali Zardari.
However, on the first anniversary of those polls, Pakistan has changed horses in midstream by striking deals with militants and stopping all military operations against militants. In other words, Pakistan is refusing to fight the American war in the region, as was the grand plan.
On the front line
Pashtun-dominated North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), although the smallest of the four provinces of Pakistan, is center-stage in the struggle against militancy as it borders Afghanistan to the north and the troubled tribal areas to its west.
The man who presides over the province, sitting in Governor's House in the capital Peshawar, is Owais Ahmad Ghani, previously a successful governor of southwestern Balochistan province and a former trusted lieutenant of Musharraf. He took over in January 2008 after four-and-a-half years in his previous position.
Governor's House reflects some of the rich history of the Pashtuns; its walls have murals of Alexander the Great's army in battle as some Pashtuns believe they are descendents of the leader's Greeks. There is also Koranic calligraphy showing their Muslim legacy.
With his background and given his present position, Ghani is intimately informed of the intricacies of Pakistan's evolving policy with regard to militants. In an extensive interview with Asia Times Online, he says that the move towards peace deals with militants was not the result of any blackmail or pressure from the side of militants.
Rather, it grew from the realization that the seven-year-long strategy of military operations only aggravated the situation. Now, with peace deals, Pakistan is returning to the pre-1979 setup when, under the aegis of the state, tribes decided their terms of peace through their riwaj (customary laws).
Ghani admits that the situation can at best only be contained as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. The Taliban and other groups consider this a reason for jihad, and Pakistan territory is used to fuel this cause. Probably the most important peace deal in NWFP is the one concluded in February with militants in the Swat area after two years of fighting.
Asia Times Online: There is a perception of you that you initiate political negotiations, and then follow with military operations. That's what you did when you were governor of Balochistan, and some say that is why you were brought to NWFP.
Owais Ahmad Ghani: This is a perception that you have from the outside. But let me explain to you in detail. The situation we face has always revolved around this question: Is this a law-and-order issue, or is it an insurgency?
This is the first question I raised when I came here [NWFP]. Law and order is not a protracted activity. It is temporary and there are some immediate issues. It can be criminal issues and it can also be issues of public agitation. For example, against [power] loadshedding, against inflation or political issues.
After some debate we came to the conclusion that this is an insurgency in which there is an attempt to dislodge the state of Pakistan and create space for another state. So we started from this premise. I can today state with a degree of confidence that insurgency has now been downgraded to militancy. But certainly last year in January and February our conclusion was that we were facing an insurgency, and we designed a strategy accordingly.
Now in such a situation there are two concurring battles being fought. One is the battle of ideas. The other is the battle of arms. The battle of ideas is always a lead battle and the battle of arms is always subservient to the battle of ideas. Please understand this.
Here [NWFP] I found a very strange situation in which the battle of arms had been joined, but there was no battle of ideas. The battle of ideas is a political approach. It is the same approach which I have been telling the Americans to adopt in Afghanistan. In 2003-04, I predicted to various American personalities, like ambassadors Ryan Crocker, Nancy Powell, their senators etc, that they were going to fail in Afghanistan because there was an over-emphasis on a military strategy, and I did not see any robust parallel political strategy at work.
I said [to the Americans] that what you are doing is that you are trying to find a military solution to an issue which is essentially political in nature. So that is the mistake happening there that I felt was also happening here [in Pakistan]. That's why the Americans have fought in Afghanistan for six or seven years, and I keep on asking them whether they have improved law and order - no. Has security improved? No. Has political stability been achieved? No. Has socio-economic development taken off? No. So obviously they were doing something wrong. We need to step back and review as exactly the same questions can be asked of Pakistan.
For three or four years, we [Pakistan] have been fighting in the tribal areas. Have we reduced violence? Have we brought in political stability? Have we brought in security and law and order? Is social economic development taking place? No ... no .... no. So let's step back and let's review. Where are we going wrong? And according to our analysis - you need to understand this analysis, only then will you be able to understand the strategy - that it is not 9/11, it is 1979, which was the trigger which brought instability to this region.
Before the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was a two-power environment in the tribal areas. One was the tribes themselves, the other one was the government of Pakistan. The entire administrative system and the law-enforcement system were designed according to this two-power environment.
[In the Pakistani tribal areas] you had the maliks [tribal chiefs], you had the political administration, which I will explain later. However, post the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, we were supported by the West and the United States and we used the tribal areas ... Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA] ... as the launching pad for the Afghan jihad against the Soviet army.
Whatever happened after that is the fallout of an unintended consequence of that conflict. Those jihadi organizations morphed into militant organizations [at the end of the Afghan jihad in 1989] and therefore a third power emerged and the old equilibrium was disturbed.
Our administrative systems and law-enforcing agencies were not designed to cope with this three-power environment. A steady decline was there, but it was the shock of 9/11 which brought out the total inadequacy and the weakness of the system. And therefore as a temporary measure to bring about some control and stability, the army had to be inducted.
But the main challenge is to reform our administrative and law-enforcing systems to cater for this new environment, which is going to remain for some time. This is our reading because everything is dependent on Afghanistan. If a certain degree of normalcy returns to Afghanistan, normalcy according to Afghan standards, only then can the issues the tribal areas and our provinces and Pakistan face subside.
To correct the situation and to bring about stability and control, we fell back on old traditional systems. We had the original power-based tribes, but they had become weakened. Why? For three or four reasons. The militant organizations, they are highly organized because of their background, they are battle-hardened and heavily armed and very well funded. And very importantly, while tribal influence is limited to its own area, its own people, the militant organizations have cross-tribal linkages, cross-border linkages, international linkages. And while tribes are bound by their tribal traditions and customary laws [riwaj], the militant organizations are not. So they have out-gunned, out-funded and out-organized the tribal malik and his tribe, and that's why that system could not respond.
So our strategy was very simple, we needed to prop up the tribes because the real strength is the people. No government, whether a civilian government or a military government, can really function or succeed until it has brought public support behind it ... sentiment behind it.
For us to prop up the tribal system again, this could only be done by weakening the militants, militarily, so that at a certain point we could make the tribes strong enough. This is the basic approach - the state of Pakistan owes its first loyalty to its own citizens, and its own citizens are the tribes.
There were previous agreements, previous to my tenure, but they were flawed. I was sitting in Quetta [as governor of Balochistan] and I said these were flawed and could not succeed because they were between the military and the militants [for example, one signed in September 2006]. The agreements should have been between the government of Pakistan and the tribes.
Our approach has been that it is the government of Pakistan dealing with the tribes and making agreements with the tribes. For example, we have conducted only one written agreement, and that is in North Waziristan [tribal area]. There is no other agreement in my period [as governor of NWFP]. On February 17, 2008, we signed an agreement in North Waziristan. Over 380 tribal maliks and tribal elders signed that agreement.
ATol: Do the tribal elders matter?
OAG: They do. Obviously, we understand that 20-25 of those tribal leaders are very closely aligned with militant elements. I would not call them the Taliban because that has a different connotation altogether. They were with these militants because they were in that society. But we are talking to them on the basis of them being tribal leaders, and they have a certain relationship. Let me explain that relationship.
The tribesmen of FATA are fully fledged Pakistani citizens. They are entitled to a passport, a national ID card, they can join the civil services, the armed forces - they are there from soldier to general. And very importantly, they can own, purchase and manage property anywhere in Pakistan.
However, due to historical reasons, a different politico-administrative system evolved from the old British Empire policy, creating buffers between the advancing Russian imperial army, then as Afghanistan as a buffer with the Russian empire, then the tribal areas as a buffer between the Indian empire and Afghanistan, and the frontier regions as a buffer between the tribal areas and settled districts.
So that created a system of buffers. Each has a slightly different administrative system. In this there was a political agent whose administrative authority was limited to protected areas, that is, roads and government buildings, and no more. In the rest of the [tribal] areas there are customary laws - riwaj. The political agent is also bound by the riwaj when he operates in those areas, that is why he is called a political agent, he is not an administrative officer. He has to deal with the tribes politically.
Secondly, this is simplified, there is no thana [police station] no katchari [lower courts] no police etc. You have tribal laws, the riwaj, the jirga system [tribal councils]. There are major concessions from taxation, but all this is not free, sir.
In return for all these concessions, and these are collective concessions from which the tribes collectively benefit, there is a collective responsibility, a trade-off that every tribe is responsible for the security of its own respective areas, which is called Apni Mitti ki Zamdari [responsibility for one's own land].
This entails that roads in those areas should be open, the political administration in that area should carry on its traditional responsibilities without any hindrance. And the traditional law-enforcing agencies, like the Frontier Corps, Khasadars, carry on their traditional activities unhindered. It is most important that a tribe will not allow the use of its territory as a sanctuary for any criminal and anti-state elements to act against the interests of Pakistan ... which are diluted now.
So, we talked to the tribes and said, "Look, you have this concession and this is your collective responsibility. Now, if you want to enjoy these concessions, come up with your collective responsibility that you cannot allow your territory to be used as sanctuary for anti-state elements for criminals as is happening now."
We tell them that we understand they have problems and that they are weak, but the state of Pakistan is there to help them. This was the basis of our agreements with them.
Now, if there is a violation of the agreement, then there are the FCR [Frontier Crime Regulations], which are generally called draconian laws or black laws. These provide a system of redress, and it is a graduated response system.
First, say there is a violation by a tribe or an individual in that tribe, the first step is to call a jirga of the tribal elders and give them a reasonable period of time [to rectify the problem].
If it does not happen, then you can put pressure, through penalties, stoppage of allowances etc. If that pressure does not work, then you can start with a system of risks, where you start with the near family of the individual and slowly move towards the tribe. This is how it happens, to put more pressure, you arrest them under the FCR. But because it is a collective responsibility, the response is also collective and if it does not work then the FCR allows for any economic blockade, you can block the roads, you can seal their shops, you can freeze their accounts.
If nothing works, then military punitive action can be taken.
If you examine the FCR, it is an adaptation of tribal culture because if there is a dispute between two tribes or two individuals, what would they do? First they have a jirga to talk it out. If it does not work, they block the roads, and if that does not work, they catch each other persons ... if that does not work, they form a lashkar [militia] and they fight.
That is why when last year on the floor of parliament the prime minister announced the intention to repeal the FCR there was an immediate major reaction - two reactions. The first was that it was a black law, that it was draconian, so get rid of it. Very good. That reaction came from non-tribal Pashtuns who were either living in the [cosmopolitan centers of] Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar or Islamabad, Dera Ismail Khan, but not in the tribal areas.
From inside the tribal areas there was a different reaction. They said, "Look, this is our law and we understand it is according to our custom and traditions, don't abolish it. If you want, maybe make small reforms, but if you are really bent on removing it, then we don't want that." This is what they said to me: "Governor sahib. Give us the sharia [Islamic laws]." If you remember, it was all over the newspapers that there was the demand for sharia by the evening [after the prime minister announced his intentions]. It was because the FCR are very similar, it is basically an adaptation and modification of tribal culture, that is why they have an acceptability there.
So our response to the problem was three-pronged. One was to deal with the tribal people on the basis of their own traditions. Two was to reconstruct and restrengthen the administrative system according to the FCR and the old tribal system. We talked to these people [and said], "Look, you have to get your lives in order, this is not on and you are suffering, we are also suffering. If your people are going and crossing into Afghanistan, you are creating problems for Pakistan, this has to stop. We understand you are weak and we will help you, but you get your act in order." When they did not get their act in order we tried jirgas and everything, and when they did not work, eventually it came to military punitive action.
North Waziristan, yes there are problems. However, since February [2008], because of this agreement, it has been quiet. But there are [still] problems, we understand this, but we are working through the system now to slowly, slowly, solve them. Otherwise, it is a conflict zone, the administration is out and everybody is out. This is what I told our allies, that in a conflict zone there is nothing you can do, it will continue to radicalize society. You have to stop the fighting and let normal economic and social activities take place. You have to let the administration go back in there so that you can create space and restrict the space for militants, otherwise the entire space is a conflict zone and is available to the militants, as it is available to our forces also.
Now there is another thing which people don't understand. Each agency [tribal area] has its own peculiar character and its own peculiar conditions, its tribal balances and each has to work separately. I will give you an example. In South Waziristan, we have the Ahmadzai wazirs [tribe] who are traditionally a quarter [of the population] and we have the Mehsud [tribe] who are three-quarters. But the Mehsud does not have borders with Afghanistan and they have to travel to each other's territory for their normal activities, and that decides the tribal balance and the tribal politics. However, after 1979 there was a migration of the Ahmadzai wazir from Afghanistan into this area and in that old population the demographic balance was disturbed. So a new set of conditions has come in.
In Kurram Agency there is a Shi'ite and Sunni thing and in addition there is a third outside element - militants, which complicates the situation. So each requires a different approach. We have done it successfully in Bajaur [Agency] and successfully in Mohmand [Agency]. If militants surrender and stop fighting, the civilians, for example in Mohmand Agency, the Tarakzai tribe, they said they will take responsibility for this person [militant] for his good conduct.
We have done this in the major parts of Khyber Agency, we are doing it in Dara and we have the same agreements now in North Waziristan, in South Waziristan, in the Wazir area, and we have some sort of stability.
[However,] in the Mehsud area [in South Waziristan] we took action last year, we talked, but when it did not happen [peace] and an attack came from the other side, we started military actions. But we did it in the traditional way, that whenever we used to bomb an area we would give notice for women, children, old men and non-combatants to get out. There was an immediate exodus of 170,000 and we were ill-prepared for that but we quickly vacated schools for them, erected tents etc and put them up while we took action. As soon as the operation was over, they went back.
The same happened in Bajaur Agency before we started action, we told the tribal chiefs that action was going to happen and they should vacate the area and that is why 300,000 people went out, 40,000-50,000 in camps. The rest stayed with families and friends in different areas. Now [since the operation is over] they are in the process of going back.
ATol: You mentioned the agreement in North Waziristan. It resulted in peace undoubtedly, but immediately after the peace agreement the militants formed a shura, a shura of mujahideen
OAG: The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] ...?
ATol: No, I am talking about the shura of mujahideen.
OAG: No, sir. We had the TTP. The shura of mujahideen has come now [not immediately after the agreement], just a month or two ago.
ATol: Anyway, they have turned their guns towards Afghanistan. Peace came here in Pakistan, but at the cost of more insurgency in Afghanistan.
OAG: The world is responsible for Afghanistan, all the troubles we face here are from Afghanistan, the roots of the problems are in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan. We have been battling the fallout from Afghanistan and I say it is not Pakistan's responsibility. Nobody should blame Pakistan because, number one, we never invited the Soviet army into Afghanistan. It was the Afghans themselves. We never brought international terrorists into Afghanistan. It was not our ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] or anybody, it was international intelligence agencies, over and above the objections of the ISI.
There was a basic agreement that only Pakistani intelligence would deal with the [Afghan mujahideen groups in the 1980s] and jihadi organizations and everybody in Europe and the US supported this. But they started their own operations and they were warned that they would not be able to control these people. And that is exactly what happened. But Pakistan was not responsible for that.
The second time, when al-Qaeda came into Afghanistan [in the mid-1990s during mujahideen rule], Pakistan did not invite them. It was among the Afghans themselves. Today, if the USA and NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] are in Afghanistan, they are not there on Pakistan's invitation, they are there because of an Afghan invitation or whoever invited them.
Secondly, in Pakistan, every AK-47 bullet till now comes from Afghanistan, every gram of explosives comes from Afghanistan, every heavy weapon comes from Afghanistan and every gram of heroin comes from Afghanistan. This is fueling the militancy and giving rise to the activities of criminal gangs in Pakistan.
Afghanistan today is practically a narco state and it is not that we did not warn them [US] in 2003-04 on the record and I especially told them they were going to fail in Afghanistan, that they must not allow opium cultivation in Afghanistan. Ryan Crocker is a witness, Nancy Powell is a witness. In 2006, president Musharraf sent me to Washington and LA [Los Angeles] and I delivered talks on that. I predicted that they would fail because of two reasons. One, politically you got it wrong and, two, narcotics.
Let me explain the narcotics first. At that time when I gave them the warning there were 10,000 acres [4,000 hectares] under cultivation in Balochistan. I was then the governor of Balochistan. There were 28,000 acres in NWFP and 38,000 acres under cultivation in Afghanistan - this is United Nations data. Within two years in Balochistan, it was zero. They [US] would not believe us. They came and they surveyed for themselves and said, "You guys have done it!" I said that if we could, you could too. In FATA and the frontier region [NWFP], from 28,000 acres it came down to 4,000 acres. In Afghanistan it shot from 38,000 acres to over 400,000 acres [within two years from 2003-04 to 2005-06] and today Afghanistan is supplying over 93% of world demand for opium and heroin, these are United Nation figures, and it is valued at $38 billion per annum on the international market. Only three to four billion dollars comes back into Afghanistan and the rest goes into the hands of the international narco mafia.
Today, about 56% of Afghanistan's GDP [gross domestic product] is narco, it is practically a narco state. We warned them that if they allowed this two things would happen. One, you would provide a funding lifeline to the insurgency. This has happened now. And second, you would create such a massive vested interest of the international narco mafia, which is so powerful in the West, that with the local narco mafia in Afghanistan they would develop such a huge vested interest in continued conflict in Afghanistan that they would never allow Afghanistan to settle. And today that has happened, and now they are publically acknowledging that narcotics is the problem. Is Pakistan responsible for that?
Is it fueling the militancy? Last year we conducted, in September, an analysis that showed that about 15,000 militants in arms [in the Pakistani Tehrik-i-Taliban] on an average then, today it is more, were getting a 8,000 [US$100] to 10,000 rupees salary. Their rations were free. All their arms and ammunition were free. They were highly mobile with 4x4 off-roaders, diesel free, petrol free, everything was free. They had fantastic communication equipment, including satellite phones. So who was paying for them? We estimated that they were spending at least 20,000 rupees per person [per month]. A very conservative estimate, 20,000 times 15,000 men times 12 months equals a 3.6 billion rupees per annum budget.
We asked, "Where is this money coming from?" Pakistan has not given this money. no zakat [charity] or donation is going to raise that sort of money. Please tell us where this money is coming from. The route is Afghanistan. They, [US] talk about cross-border intrusions from Pakistan into Afghanistan. What about the reverse, which has been taking place for years, this ammunition, money, narco, everything is coming from Afghanistan.
And physically, in Bajaur [Agency] under Qari Ziaur Rahman, there were militants by the hundreds coming in pick ups. The Afghan army and the coalition forces have nothing to stop them. We fought them ... hundreds ... 800 ... 900 ... 1,000. They [US] know about them, so this is all very wrong. Basically, I feel Afghanistan is lost and they are now trying to divert attention by saying that it is in Pakistan [the roots of the militancy].
They have lost Afghanistan for another reason. Their strategy is muddled and I have said this very openly. The global war on terrorism. I said to them that when you call it a global war on terrorism, what about terrorism in Sri Lanka? What about terrorism in Basque, Spain, in Ireland, are they going there to fight with them and bomb them? You should rephrase it to read as a war on global terrorism so that you can differentiate between the international global terrorist who has a global agenda and global reach and separate them from local terrorists who have a localized agenda and localized reach. There is now cooperation between the two because you lump them together [local militants and al-Qaeda, for example].
So we are not responsible for Afghanistan. They are responsible - Afghanistan and those people in Afghanistan who accepted the responsibility for Afghanistan [coalition forces] are responsible for the mess and problems we are facing in Pakistan. I am very clear about it.
ATol: The thing is, the militants are stretching their borders. You are a signatory of the Nizam-e-Adal Ordinance concerning Malakand Division and Swat [which guaranteed a peace deal in Swat]. Immediately after the ordinance was signed, there was an attack in Charsada and an attack on law-enforcement agencies in Hangu. Law-enforcement agencies are saying it was militants from Swat. And then there was a very controversial statement from Maulana Sufi Mohammad [who brokered the deal on Swat], who completely rejected Pakistan's judicial system and even democracy.
OAG: I just explained the FATA [tribal areas] to you. The dynamics of FATA are very different from the dynamics of Swat. Swat we have to treat totally different from FATA, where by the grace of God our strategy and our approach are working and the people are trusting. Today, 98% of the people are solidly behind the state of Pakistan in FATA. The militants are there and their supporters, but this will never stop until Afghanistan achieves a degree of normalcy. We can contain this to a level we can tolerate, but Pakistan has to work with the global community to bring political stability and normalcy to Afghanistan, because without that we will never be at peace. So it is a long-term problem.
Our strategy is very realistic. Incidents will happen, however, what is important is the state's response to it. Previously, it was state paralysis; it was not even responding. Today, the machinery [state] is responding. It is doing patrolling. It is manning posts. The militants are on the run. They are hiding. They are resorting to attacks out of desperation. These attacks will take place. [Owais switches from English to Urdu] Listen to me. The nation has to show courage and be brave in front of these attacks. Pakistan has courage. We have made sacrifices in the past, present and we will in the future. It is a long-term effort. Now we discuss Swat.
The dynamics of the Swat Valley are different. It was a princely state and was merged into Pakistan in 1969. Then different districts came into being, like Shangla, Buner, Kohistan, Swat, Chittral, Dir etc.
ATol:When the militancy started in Swat, they never demanded the implementation of sharia. There were different reasons why they took up arms. Don't you think they are taking cover under the demand for Islamic laws to create some breathing space?
OAG: This is not the case. People are jumping to conclusions very quickly. Success happens when you correctly analyze a situation and then work out your strategy. This is what I told [US Central Command chief] General [David] Petraeus and [US Assistant Secretary of State Richard] Boucher. I said that you are new in this business. Tell me what is your approach. Where is your political strategy? Because the right thing is that you analyze the problem and formulate your political strategy.
The first step of this modus operandi is supposed to be that you lay down aims and objectives, then you formulate your political strategy through which you achieve those political objectives and you tailor your military strategy according to the needs of your political strategy. So I asked, "Gentlemen, what are your strategic objectives and what is your political strategy? Only then can you plan your military strategy. If you want to blunder in just by ... you know ... putting in more troops, and you don't have any robust political strategy, you are going to fail."
The Soviets failed [in Afghanistan in the 1980s], the British were more clever. When they militarily failed, they pulled back and they came up with a political strategy, as a result of which they managed to survive in this region for 85 to 100 years, otherwise they would have also been out. So you must analyze Swat.
After Swat merged into Pakistan, in 1973 it was shaped as a PATA [Provincial Administered Tribal Area] after various options were tried. Earlier, it was tried to make Swat a part of the Pakistani mainstream [district status], but this failed. Then they gave them provincial tribal status. In 1975, they were given jirga laws [instead of Pakistani civil laws]. Jirga laws caused dissatisfaction, it was a hybrid and naturally it did not yield the correct results.
In 1969, they had been promised a justice system based on Islamic laws, which would provide quick justice. But jirga laws are not exactly Islamic laws. Then, from 1975 onwards, jirga laws were shot down. That created a vacuum and caused agitation. Then the TNSM [Tehrik-i-Nizam-i-shariat-i-Mohammadi] movement came into being [for the enforcement of Islamic laws] and in 1994 the first incident of agitation happened in which Ms [Benazir] Bhutto's government issued an ordinance which was named the Nizam-e-Adal [system of justice for Islamic laws]. Actually, it was the same system but they renamed it. As a result, neither the Islamic system was enforced nor quick justice, therefore agitation continued.
Then in 1998-1999, Nawaz Sharif's government modified it, but there was a problem. An appeal against a judgement had to be heard in Islamabad for the Supreme Court and for the High Court in Peshawar. The local people had to go all the way to Peshawar or Islamabad, and cases could be pending for months. That was not acceptable for them. They demanded that there be a time limit and second, they be provided with an appeal forum in Swat.
So we complied with their demand. We had prepared this [Nizam-e-Adl ordinance] in February and March 2008 [under Musharraf], but then the elected government took over so we passed the buck to them. What happened in between, why there was so much fighting, it was quite unfortunate and heart-breaking because there are Muslims on the both sides. They are one people and from one country and this is not supposed to happen.
But I can say one thing about myself. I took over [as governor of NWFP] in January 2008. This is my challenge to everybody, to prove that the government never used power first. Every time we conducted military operations, it was as retaliation. Whether it is the tribal areas, Swat, or elsewhere, we only responded to violence committed by the militants.
ATol: You have presented an account from your side, including your achievements. Now I present some ground realities. Soon after your peace overtures, Hakeemullah Mehsud [a Taliban leader in Orakzai Agency] levied a jazia [a tax on non-Muslims] on 50 Sikh families and collected 15 million rupees.
OAG: [Laughing] A plain case of abduction for ransom. This is not the only case, they collected this so-called jazia even from Muslims.
ATol: Over 70% of the Shi'ite population of Dera Ismail Khan [a city in NWFP near South Waziristan] has moved to the district of Bakhar due to target killings. This is happening in your province ... even after peace deals.
OAG: It has nothing to do with the peace agreement. Shi'ite-Sunni conflict is old. It has been aggravated from time to time. Even before 9/11, it was there. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi [an anti-Shi'ite underground militant group] started from southern Punjab. I have warned that these organizations, like the Sepah-e-Sahaba [an anti-Shi'ite political movement] are poison. It is a great challenge for the entire Muslim ummah [community] to reconcile between these two Muslim sects.
ATol: Attacks on NATO supply lines have increased drastically. At present, 66 Humvees, according to my information, are in the possession of Pakistani militants and they are moving in those vehicles in the tribal areas. Your government failed to provide protection to NATO convoys passing through your province on the way to Afghanistan.
OAG: Only two Humvees. I know precisely. One of the two was destroyed by us. One is there [in the possession of militants].
ATol: You failed to get a kidnapped Iranian diplomat released. This is despite that you are aware of the location of his captivity.
OAG: The Iranian diplomat is not alone. There is an Afghan diplomat, there is Khadija Abdul Qahar [a Canadian journalist and a Muslim convert], and a Polish engineer unfortunately was killed. Then there was an attack on an American who was killed [in Peshawar]. This is a very difficult period. This area is heavily destabilized because of the superpowers' regional interests. If you think that somebody could clean up this mess in seconds. No, sir.
I told you earlier that I am not really concerned why incidents are happening, they will continue to happen because of the circumstances. We have to confront the situation gradually. This is a long-term struggle, and it does not mean this agreement is wrong. The issue is whether we are moving forward or not. Yes, sir, we are moving forward. Last year in March and April, people were speculating on the fall of Peshawar. By the grace of God, leave Peshawar apart. Areas like Warsak, Mithni, Bajaur and Mohmand, Jamrud, Bara, Dara Adamkhail, Hangu, Doaba, those were no-go areas, nevertheless, incidents will happen.
ATol: Do you support some militants and condemn others?
OAG: We do not support a single militant.
ATol: You praised Taliban leader Mullah Omar in an interview with a British newspaper. You praised mujahid Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
OAG: You mean Afghan Mullah Omar? Where have I praised him?
ATol: You mentioned them as friends and that there was no threat to Pakistan from these people.
OAG: I said that they were not interested in jihad in Pakistan. The focus of their jihad is in Afghanistan, which is a fact. Look, you have to take in the viewpoints of everybody, including the militants. The adversary is saying that there is a non-Muslim occupation army in my home. They say that when the Soviets invaded, it was jihad, they were also non-Muslims, so it was a jihad. If this is not a jihad [now], then it was also not a jihad [against the Soviets].
They say that it is a jihad for them and they call it a war of liberation against the foreign occupation army. Their focus is not Pakistan at all. Does it mean that we are supporting them? No, sir. It only means that their focus is Afghanistan and not Pakistan. I had only said that this Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] has a strange approach on jihad in that their entire focus is Pakistan - they don't fire a single bullet on Afghanistan. As a Muslim, I cannot comprehend their [TTPs] concept of jihad.
ATol: You have called Pakistani militants criminals. You have accused them of having nothing to do with religion, that they don't even offer prayers.
OAG: You took it wrong. They [militants] have developed a concept under which their leader's [ameer's] religious decrees override entire old Muslim schools of jurisprudence. Whatever their ameer declares is considered correct. If he declares that you are in a state of war and if you skip prayers, never mind. So I mentioned instances. I was only reinforcing a point that they have a strange system because we have old schools of jurisprudence that all Muslims follow, like Hanafi, Shafai, Malaki, Hanbali and others. But they have developed a concept that the existing religious decrees of an ameer override everything. I was explaining that.
ATol: We are running out of time ...
OAG: In Pashtu it is said "Don't do shaf shaf ... called shaftalu [don't say half words]. The time has gone to cover up things. We must speak openly about issues. Maybe my viewpoint will be wrong. But here I have a responsibility and assignment and this is how I look at things and this is how I intend to fulfill them.
I told the Americans, Petraeus and Boucher were sitting here. I asked, "Gentlemen, for seven years you have been fighting, what is your result?" We have been fighting. What is our result? So we have had to step back and review our strategy and we have come to the conclusion that we will proceed like this.
However, if you have differences with my strategy, then you had better have a better idea to put on the table. If you don't have a better idea, then don't tell me to go back to the old strategy because that patently did not work. Therefore, let me try this, if it does not work, we will come back and discuss it. I told them our strategy was working and we are moving forward. We have turned the tide and it will take some time. I asked them what they have done in Afghanistan. I told them that they had admitted that 70% of Afghanistan is out of government control. That's why I told them that al-Qaeda etc does not need Pakistan and FATA, they have plenty of space in Afghanistan to have their bases, their training - whatever is happening is happening over there.
ATol: There is a perception that US Predator drone attacks inside Pakistan have been a success. What is your opinion?
OAG: I consider this as totally irrelevant. This debate is irrelevant. The basic principle is the sovereignty of Pakistan. Any action that takes place inside Pakistan will be by Pakistan itself, that is the foundational principle. Therefore, I consider this debate as irrelevant and irrational.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Afghanistan's wheat crop looks good
WASHINGTON, April 24 (UPI) -- Agriculture analysts say beneficial rains should lead to a healthier wheat crop in Afghanistan this year, although prices will be lower as well.
A report issued Friday by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network concluded that while Afghanistan's mountain snowpack is less than it was last winter, the March rains were "significantly better" than in 2008, and fell in areas of the north and northwest that had been experiencing a dry spell.
"Taking into consideration all factors, even with the recent uncertainties about the actual amount of rainfall, we assume that food security conditions will be better than in 2008, after the harvest," the report stated.
Pakistan's wheat and rice crops look good as well, which will provide a source of import grains if they are needed, the report said.
Potential problems include late-spring flooding as the snowpack melts and an outbreak of weeds that has been keeping farmers busy in Kunar and Nangarhar. There has also been a dearth of information on possible crop diseases and potential logistical problems in some parts of the country due to a lack of security and instability, the report cautioned.
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Rising Drug Addicts in Ghazni Province
www.quqnoos.com Written by Tamim Shaheer Saturday, 25 April 2009
According to a UN survey, 20,000 Ghazni residents are addicted to drugs
Poverty and unemployment are the two major challenges which provoke drug addiction in the southern Ghazni province.
Dr. Sayed Hamidullah Jamal, head a healthcare centre for addicts in Ghazni province said the returnees from the neighbour countries are majority of drug users.
According to him, only 2,000 of the addicts have been treated in the health centre.
Mohammad Nabi, 24, who smokes opium five times a day, said his survival is impossible without drugs.
“I went to Iran and there my bad friends encouraged me to try once, so I smoked and it turned to my habit which I know would kill me one day,” Nabi said.
The UN survey estimates 1 million Afghans are addicted to opium and hashish in the country.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan is the top drug producer in the world, most of the poppy opium are being cultivated in the southern Afghan provinces, where a stong Taliban presence is known.
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