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Afghanistan's Karzai says will run for re-election
by Waheedullah Massoud April 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday ended months of uncertainty by announcing that he intended to run for re-election in the war-torn country's second ever presidential vote on August 20.
Brown takes new strategy to Afghanistan, Pakistan
By Adrian Croft – Mon Apr 27, 8:19 am ET
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday touting a new security strategy for the region as international alarm spreads over Taliban advances.
Karzai scraps parade a year after attempt on life
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, April 26 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government has ditched plans to hold an annual parade for a national holiday, a year after Taliban guerrillas used the event to attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai.
Afghanistan to amend controversial women's law: Karzai
CBC News April 27, 2009
The Afghan Justice Ministry will amend a controversial law that imposes harsh restrictions on the rights of women, President Hamid Karzai said Monday.
Afghan women's law highlights rift
By Martin Patience BBC News, Kabul Monday, 27 April 2009
It was an extraordinary scene. Dozens of young women recently gathered in the centre of Kabul to demonstrate against a new law.
Security developments in Afghanistan
April 27 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan by 1100 GMT on Monday:
Pakistan Foreign Minister visits Afghanistan
Press Trust Of India Islamabad, April 27, 2009
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday travelled to Kabul on a daylong visit to discuss the agenda of an upcoming meeting of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
Afghanistan's Frustrated Singles
The high cost of walwar, or bride price, is preventing many young men and women from getting married.
By Mohammad Zamir Sapai in Balkh and Wahidullah Omaryar in Ghazni Institute for War & Peace Reporting (ARR No. 319, 26-Apr-09)
Nahida, not her real name, just got engaged.
Rural Afghan women hungry for school
By Emma Graham-Harrison Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:17pm BST
ERAQ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Shi'ite farm women in a remote Afghan valley shrugged off a new law that has created an international uproar about their rights, saying it largely reflects the reality of lives governed by their husbands.
Afghan girls school feared hit by airborne poison
By Golnar Motevalli Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:53pm IST
KABUL (Reuters) - Five Afghan teachers and 40 of their pupils, most of them girls, have been admitted to hospital with severe headaches after a suspected airborne poison attack, the Public Health Ministry said on Monday.
Girl school burned down in NW Afghanistan
KABUL, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men set fire on a girl school in Ghor province, in northwestern Afghanistan, a local newspaper reported Sunday.
Electric Buses Returns on Kabul Streets
www.quqnoos.com Written by Zabihullah Jhanmal Sunday, 26 April 2009
Afghan government funds a project returning electric-bus-lines in the Afghan capital
In the heart of Taliban country, reluctant Afghans are restrained by loyalty and fear
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Sunday, April 26, 2009
MIR HOTAK, Afghanistan — In late March, U.S. soldiers with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment were on patrol near the village of Shahi Kariz when they were ambushed by a small group of Taliban fighters.
Taliban Kidnap 9 Cops in Stable Afghan North
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 27 April 2009
Taliban militants have killed 1 police and wounded another in a raid on a district centre in Baghlan Province, last night
Taliban Slain Afghan Official in Kandahar
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 26 April 2009
Two motorcyclists have gunned-down head of Transportation Department in Kandahar city, Sunday Morning
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Afghanistan's Karzai says will run for re-election
by Waheedullah Massoud April 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday ended months of uncertainty by announcing that he intended to run for re-election in the war-torn country's second ever presidential vote on August 20.
Karzai, who was elected head of state in 2004, had repeatedly dodged questions on whether he was willing to stand for office amid plummeting approval ratings over rising Taliban violence and government corruption.
"In a few days I too, will go to register (as a candidate), with my vice-presidents," Karzai told a news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Kabul.
He hailed the vote as "another step towards democracy in Afghanistan."
Karzai first took office in 2002, just months after the United States and its Western allies toppled the Taliban regime in a late 2001 invasion, before winning Afghanistan's first presidential election in 2004.
Under the constitution, the latest elections were supposed to take place this month with Karzai stepping down from office by late May.
But the vote was put back to August over security fears and logistics problems, and the Supreme Court extended his term until August 20.
Karzai urged war-weary Afghans to take part in the ballot.
"The election year will be a stern test for everyone, but we face a choice: confront extremism here and in Pakistan or let it come to us," the visiting British prime minister told the news conference.
He said it was a "vital year" and pledged "strong support" for fledgling democracy in Afghanistan, torn apart by decades of war.
Before winning the 2004 election, Karzai led an interim and transitional administration agreed upon at a gathering of Afghan and international leaders in Germany soon after the fall of the Taliban.
The Afghan election authorities said more than 40 people have taken registration papers from the commission intending to challenge Karzai.
Among them are two of Karzai's former finance ministers, Anwar-Ul Haq Ahadi and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, and his former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali whom experts have labelled potential serious contenders for the top job.
Ahadi, a former World Bank official, has called Karzai too weak to handle Afghanistan's complex politics, made more difficult by the bloody Taliban-led insurgency.
The fundamentalist Islamist movement was in power between 1996 and 2001. Its fighters are waging an increasingly deadly insurgency aimed at toppling Karzai's US-backed government and ousting around 70,000 foreign troops.
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Brown takes new strategy to Afghanistan, Pakistan
By Adrian Croft – Mon Apr 27, 8:19 am ET
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday touting a new security strategy for the region as international alarm spreads over Taliban advances.
"This area and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is the crucible for global terrorism," Brown told British and allied troops at a base in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, where Britain has played the leading role fighting the Taliban.
"It's important to recognize that if we do not take action and we do not fight back against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then people in Britain and in other countries represented here are less safe."
British troops in Helmand will be reinforced in coming weeks by the arrival of more than 8,000 U.S. Marines, a massive influx that NATO commanders hope will reverse what they have described as a stalemate in one of the country's most violent provinces.
After meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Brown said he would next fly to Pakistan to hold talks with President Asif Ali Zardari.
Asked what Britain would do about instability on the Pakistani side of the border, Brown said: "It's clear ... that we cannot sit by and allow this center, or epicenter, of terrorism to continue to exist without taking further action."
Although the Western forces are massing on the Afghan side of the border, attention in Western capitals is increasingly turning across the frontier to Pakistan, where Taliban influence has spread in recent weeks to valleys northwest of the capital.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that Washington was worried about the advancing Taliban seizing control of the Pakistani state, including "the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan."
NUCLEAR WEAPONS SAFE
Zardari told reporters on Monday that Pakistan's nuclear weapons were safe.
Officials traveling with Brown said the new strategy, to be published on Wednesday, will echo a plan unveiled by U.S. President Barack Obama in calling for a focus on fighting al Qaeda and Taliban militants on both sides of the border.
Like Obama's plan, the British strategy will stress the need to train tens of thousands more Afghan soldiers and police to take over responsibility for security from foreign troops.
Unlike Obama, Brown has so far promised few new troops.
Britain has 8,300 soldiers in Afghanistan, the second largest contingent after the United States, and has pledged to send 700 to temporarily boost security for an election in August.
"We are confident that we are shouldering our share of the burden," Brown said.
Obama is sending at least 25,000 more U.S. troops this year to join 40,000 Americans and 30,000 other Western soldiers.
The new British strategy document will also call for some of Britain's development aid budget for Pakistan to be diverted to the northern region adjoining Afghanistan. Britain has pledged 665 million pounds ($970 million) to Pakistan and 510 million pounds to Afghanistan in aid over the next four years.
British officials say about two thirds of terrorism plots uncovered in Britain have links to Pakistan. Ten Pakistanis were among a dozen people arrested in Britain on April 8 in what Brown said was an operation against a "very big terrorist plot."
All 12 were later released, although 11 have been handed over to immigration officials and face deportation on national security grounds.
(Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch; Editing by David Fox)
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Karzai scraps parade a year after attempt on life
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, April 26 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government has ditched plans to hold an annual parade for a national holiday, a year after Taliban guerrillas used the event to attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai.
The government said the decision to cancel the parade, which marks the victory of Mujahideen fighters over communists in the 1990s, had nothing to do with security fears or last year's attack but wanted to spend the money on disaster relief instead.
In last year's attack across the street from Karzai's palace, guerrillas opened fire with rifles and rocket propelled grenades from a nearby building.
Three people including a member of parliament were killed. Karzai, who has survived a series of attempts against his life, was hussled away and a celebration involving cabinet ministers, diplomats and Mujahideen commanders was called off.
Several government security officials have since been arrested for helping the insurgents mount the strike.
This year, Karzai has ordered that the $300,000 cash originally allocated for Tuesday's celebration be given instead as aid to those affected by an earthquake and rainstorms, said Siyamak Herawi, a palace spokesman.
"There will be no military parade, it will be marked merely with some speeches and limited celebrations," he said.
The Taliban have made a comeback in much of the country in recent years after being removed from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001, when Karzai was brought to power.
Afghans celebrate the 1992 victory of the Mujahideen over the communists as a national holiday, although it led to years of factional fighting and civil war in which tens of thousands of people were killed and much of Kabul reduced to rubble.
Many former Mujahideen leaders were part of the Northern Alliance which ousted the Taliban with U.S. support. (Editing by Peter Graff and Jon Boyle)
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Afghanistan to amend controversial women's law: Karzai
CBC News April 27, 2009
The Afghan Justice Ministry will amend a controversial law that imposes harsh restrictions on the rights of women, President Hamid Karzai said Monday.
"The law is under review and amendments will take place," Karzai said at a news conference in Kabul.
"I assure you that the laws of Afghanistan will be in complete harmony with the constitution of Afghanistan, and the human rights that we have adhered to in our constitution and in the principles of the international treaties," he added, speaking alongside visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Afghan constitution guarantees equal rights for women.
The law, passed in February, stipulates that a married Shia man has "the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night." It also requires Shia women to get a male relative's permission to leave the house or to pursue an education.
The United Nations Development Fund for Women has said the law, intended to regulate family life within the Shia community, "legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband." Shias make up about 20 per cent of Afganistan's population.
Critics of the law say it was passed hastily in order to win the support of a group of minority Shia swing voters called the Hazaras ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential elections.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and opposition leaders have expressed strong concerns about the legislation, and U.S. President Barack Obama has called it "abhorrent." Karzai has said the law may have been misinterpreted because of poor translation.
At the news conference, Karzai also confirmed he will be registering his candidacy for presidential elections.
Women now hold 89 of parliament's 351 seats and many own businesses. Millions of girls also now attend school.
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Afghan women's law highlights rift
By Martin Patience BBC News, Kabul Monday, 27 April 2009
It was an extraordinary scene. Dozens of young women recently gathered in the centre of Kabul to demonstrate against a new law.
The legislation states that a woman from the country's Shia minority must have sex with her husband whenever he desires.
It also says that a woman must wear make-up when her husband demands as well as placing restrictions on women's movements.
Following an international outcry, Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to review the law.
Critics say the reason President Karzai signed the legislation last month was to shore up support among conservative clerics ahead of this summer's presidential election.
On Sunday, women activists said he had told them he signed it without reading it properly.
The issue highlights not only the divisions in Afghan society but challenges Western expectations.
Little influence
When the Taleban were overthrown almost eight years ago it was regarded as a major victory for women.
Under the rule of the Islamic fundamentalists, women were effectively barred from education and leaving their homes.
Many in the West thought that the burkhas - the Islamic garment that covers a woman from head to toe and is regarded by some as a symbol of oppression - would come off. That did not happen.
Yes, there has been progress. Young girls go to school and women go to university. Access to health care for women has improved. Women now work outside their homes. Some choose to wear the headscarf instead of the burkha.
And on paper at least, women have power. Because of quotas, a quarter of all members of parliament are female. But that representation has not translated into power.
Fawzia Koofi, a female member of parliament, says that women have "little political influence".
She says that women like her are interested in protecting modest gains - such as the right to an education and to go to work rather than any Western-style liberation.
Some women and human rights activists also worry about the constant rumblings of possible reconciliation with the Taleban and other anti-government insurgents to end the conflict.
They feel that their hard-won - yet modest - freedoms could be washed away.
But this remains a deeply conservative society, where loyalties to religion, family and tribe are dominant.
A group of young female university students I spoke to were angry about the law because it intruded into their personal lives rather than over its actual contents.
As one student put it: "We follow our husbands anyway, so there's no need for this legislation."
And in Afghanistan there is a stark divide in attitudes between the city and the countryside - and numerous other regional variations.
By Afghan standards, the cities are relatively liberal. In the villages, it is Islam and custom that govern.
I visited a village an hour's drive from the capital Kabul.
None of the women I spoke to attending a pottery class had heard of the new legislation. All were shrouded from head to toe.
But one of the women told me that she counted herself lucky to be attending the course.
"Some families are so strict here," she said, "that their women aren't allowed to go to their neighbour's house."
Whether it is in the village or the city - women still do not have much say here.
The women protesting against this law were the exception - it is men who remain firmly in charge.
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Security developments in Afghanistan
April 27 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan by 1100 GMT on Monday:
BAGHLAN - Taliban insurgents attacked a police post in relatively secure northern Baghlan province early on Monday, killing one officer and wounding another, a provincial official said. Nine police have been missing since the Taliban attack, the interior ministry said.
The Taliban said on website www.alemarah1.org that the militants had kidnapped ten police.
NANGARHAR - Afghan border police force seized a large amount of explosives hidden in a truck by militants for attacks, the Interior Ministry said on Monday. The overnight seizure in eastern Nangarhar province included 3,720 bags of explosives and 220 guns, it added.
KANDAHAR - U.S. and Afghan forces killed five militants and detained 12 others in an early morning raid on a bomb-making facility in Zharmi district, some 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Kabul, the U.S. military said in a statement.
KANDAHAR - A landmine killed five Afghan police and two civilians on Sunday in Kandahar province, 450 km (280 miles) southwest of the capital, the interior ministry said.
Police were surveying poppy fields when the blast hit their vehicle.
MAIDAN WARDAK - A similar blast killed three officers in Maidan Wardak, to the west of Kabul, also on Sunday, the ministry said separately. (Compiled by Sayed Salahuddin)
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Pakistan Foreign Minister visits Afghanistan
Press Trust Of India Islamabad, April 27, 2009
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday travelled to Kabul on a daylong visit to discuss the agenda of an upcoming meeting of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
Qureshi, who was accompanied by senior officials of the foreign ministry, will meet his Afghan and Iranian counterparts.
A statement issued by the Afghan foreign ministry said the three foreign ministers would discuss "regional problems and their possible solutions, the campaign against terrorism and narcotics and bolstering of trilateral cooperation".
The summit meeting is likely to be held next month in Tehran. A preparatory meeting was also held in Islamabad early this month.
Qureshi is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with Afghan and Iranian officials to discuss issues of common interest.
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Afghanistan's Frustrated Singles
The high cost of walwar, or bride price, is preventing many young men and women from getting married.
By Mohammad Zamir Sapai in Balkh and Wahidullah Omaryar in Ghazni Institute for War & Peace Reporting (ARR No. 319, 26-Apr-09)
Nahida, not her real name, just got engaged. But this has not been a joyful event in the 20-year-old’s life. Instead, she is considering suicide.
“I am being forced to marry a 60-year-old man,” she said. “My father beat me until I agreed, and then he beat me again until I stopped crying in front of my ‘fiancé’s’ relatives. He got 10,000 [US] dollars from the old man and bought a car, then leased a piece of land. He has sold me, and I do not know what to do!”
Nahida’s father had profited from the tradition of walwar, or bride price, which is a sum that prospective grooms must pay to the fathers of their intended brides. The money is supposed to be spent on household goods for the newlyweds, but is often taken by the girl’s family for their own needs.
In recent years, walwar has climbed to unprecedented levels, to the point where many young men can no longer afford to marry. The result, say observers, is that girls either remain single or are given to older, richer men instead.
“If I do not ask a high walwar for my daughter, people will think there is something wrong with her,” Abdul Hamid, a father of four girls in Daulatabad district of Balkh, said. “She will not be respected by her in-laws.”
In the north, walwar is now between 10,000-15,000 dollars. Elders are blaming local gunmen, who make handsome profits from drugs, guns, and extortion, for the steep inflation.
“Commanders have a lot of money,” Hamid said. “And a father knows that if a commander asks for his daughter’s hand, he cannot refuse. If he tries, the commander will just take her by force. So he asks for as much money as possible.”
The severe drought that has blighted the north in recent years has also contributed to rising bride prices.
Farmers are in serious difficulties, and unemployment has soared as agricultural jobs have gone. So many families are trying to make up the difference by charging as high a walwar as the market will bear.
Maulawi Abdul Qahar, an imam in Balkh province, told IWPR that the excessive amounts charged for walwar are unacceptable in Islam.
“Mahar is allowed in Islam, but not walwar,” he said.
Mahar is a small amount of money that the groom gives his bride-to-be’s father to symbolise his readiness to take on support of his new family.
“The minimum mahar is just 10 afghani (20 US cents), and the maximum should not be an economic blow to the other side,” Maulawi said.
Ahmad Saqib, 28, teaches English at the Hazrat Omar Farooq High School in Balkh. He worries constantly about being able to afford a wife.
“Walwar in our area has reached 12,000 dollars, which makes the total cost of a wedding more than 20,000 dollars. My salary is only 100 dollars per month, which is not enough even for my living expenses, so how am I supposed to get married?” he said.
Girls, meanwhile, are suffering from lack of potential grooms.
Fatima is 34, and still living in her father’s house in Charbolak district.
“My father is a tyrant,” she complained. “He will let me get married. I have received many proposals, but when my father tells them that he wants between 10,000 – 15,000 dollars in walwar, they leave and do not come back.”
The financial burden means that wealthy older men can often marry very young girls. This leads to conflict and unhappiness, say human rights activists, but there is little they can do.
“We are conducting educational workshops,” said Fawzia Nawabi, regional head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. “We are using the mullahs, the police and the army to begin public outreach.”
According to Nawabi, many young men appeal to the commission for help in resolving the walwar issue, but it is difficult to mediate.
“Over the past six years, we have had 27 cases where people have come to us, and we have managed to resolve only three of them,” she said.
Halima Sadat, deputy director of the Women’s Affairs NGO in Balkh, also says that her organisation is all but powerless in such cases.
“We have not been able to do much about walwar,” she acknowledged. One possible solution was group weddings, she added, a practice that is catching on among the area’s Shia communities, but unpopular with Sunni, who see it is a cultural import from Iran. (see: Sunni Take Dim View of Shiia Mass Weddings, ARR 317, 26 March 2009)
“We have public outreach programmes that try to attract couples to the idea of group weddings,” she said. “We are going to work with the mullahs to help educate people about this.”
But for now, young men who want to marry will try almost anything to get the necessary funds together. Often they leave the country in search of better paying jobs, and sometimes they do not return.
“My 18-year-old son, Saleem, went to Iran after he got engaged to make some money for his wedding, but that was seven years ago,” said Rahman Gul, a resident of Nangahar Province. “There has been no sign of him since. I finally decided to marry his fiancée off to his younger brother.”
The problem has become so acute that in one village in Ghazni, a southern province, elders have set legal limits on walwar.
“So many boys and girls could not marry at the right age,” said Hajji Mohammad Rassoul, an elder of Rowza village in Ghazni.
Rowza is about five kilometres east of the provincial capital, and has roughly 3500 households. Most of the residents are engaged in business or agriculture.
The village elders have set the ceiling for walwar at 150,000 afghani (3,000 dollars). The decision has proved so popular that many people are asking that it be adopted throughout the province.
“It is not only the elders who have supported the decision, it has also been welcomed by Ulema (Council of Religious Scholars),” said Hajji Rassoul.
Abdul Latif, a mullah in Rowza, told IWPR that many young couples had married following the decision to limit walwar.
“People are very happy about this,” he said. “It is going to be announced in all the mosques of the village. If any violates the decision, he or she will be fined 20,000 afghani.”
The elders were also trying to cut down on lavish wedding parties by limiting the amount that young men could spend, said Mullah Latif.
“After this decision was adopted I participated in more than 70 weddings, and all the young couples were very happy,” he said.
Mohammad Ishaq, 30, is recently married, thanks to the edlers’decision.
“I am a driver,” he said. “There was no way I could afford a high bride price. But when they limited walwar to 150,000, I was able to marry the girl I wanted. I am quite pleased with my life now.”
Mohammad Zamir Sapai and Wahidullah Omaryar are IWPR trainees in Balkh and Ghazni respectively.
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Rural Afghan women hungry for school
By Emma Graham-Harrison Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:17pm BST
ERAQ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Shi'ite farm women in a remote Afghan valley shrugged off a new law that has created an international uproar about their rights, saying it largely reflects the reality of lives governed by their husbands.
But although they have no interest in legal battles or political liberation, their celebration of freedoms recently won through a women's literacy course show there is appetite for change and empowerment even in remote corners of the country.
"Before, we couldn't even go shopping alone because we could not tell the Afghani (currency) notes apart," said Guljan, the 22-year-old mother of one child, who lives in the Eraq valley.
"After we came to the literacy circles, we became brave enough to speak out," she added, explaining the women's willingness, rare among poor Afghans, to sit and talk with strangers including men, without even covering their faces.
The Eraq valley is in Bamiyan province, heartland of the ethnic Hazaras who make up most of Afghanistan's Shi'ites. Only around 15 percent of Afghanistan's population are Shi'ites, but a new law for them is seen as a countrywide test of women's rights.
The law, which President Hamid Karzai has said will be amended after an international outcry, requires a wife to ask her husband's permission to leave home unless for work, education or medical reasons and obliges her to satisfy his sexual needs.
U.S. President Barack Obama called it "abhorrent." Women in Kabul braved stone-throwing crowds to march against it.
But news of the legislation had not reached Eraq, and when told about it, the women said they had no objections to the clause allowing men to limit their wives' freedom of movement.
"Whenever I go anywhere, before I go out, I always ask my husband anyway," said Soraya, a mother of two who grew up in the valley and rarely leaves it.
The women burst out laughing at another article that allows a man to order his wife to put on makeup, an irrelevance in an area where most families are too poor for cosmetics.
EDUCATION AS FREEDOM
For many educated women however, there is nothing amusing about the law, which critics warn is reminiscent of harsh Taliban-era controls. They fear lack of education will make village women especially vulnerable when it is implemented.
"If the current version of this law is allowed to continue, Shi'ite women are going one step back," said Batool Mohammadi at the International Legal Foundation in Bamiyan town.
"Men can abuse this law against women, and in the villages most have no knowledge to defend themselves."
Only 18 percent of Afghan women can read and write, according to the United Nations. But Lutfullah, who runs the British-funded women's empowerment programme that Soraya and Guljan attended, says the low figures are not due to lack of interest.
More than 3,000 women in nearly 200 villages attended the circles over the last 18 months and demand outstripped supply.
"We have had women who walk for two hours each way to come to our literacy circles," Lutfullah, who like many Afghans uses just one name, told Reuters.
And although schoolgirls in Bamiyan told Reuters they would put marriage ahead of work and study, mothers in Eraq nurture hopes for their daughters which depend on education, saying they see them as doctors or engineers.
"People round here joke that you shouldn't invest in daughters because they will just get married and take that investment with them," said Faiz Begum, a 35 year-old mother of five girls and two boys.
"But I support my daughters to go to school. When I was illiterate, it was like being blind, and I want to save my daughters from this."
SHI'ITES SEEN AS LESS HARSH
That the literacy group is possible at all is due in part to the relatively liberal treatment of women by the Hazaras, many of whom were surprised to make headlines for oppression in a country where Sunni women generally face tighter controls than Shi'ites.
Women on the programme say their husbands supported them.
New primary schools for boys and girls across Bamiyan, pushed by Afghanistan's only female governor, have helped reduce opposition to women's learning, and a sewing class taught at the same time offered practical skills.
"We can save some money and don't have to spend it on clothes, so my husband is very happy," said Jamalara, 36.
Even in remote areas like Eraq men generally marry only once unless their first wife is infertile, and girls are at least 16 at the time of the wedding, said Faiz Begum.
She and other women dismissed with disgust the idea of child brides, although a draft of the law allowed for marriage at 9.
And although conservative clerics, a driving force behind the personal status law, sometimes opposed the women's education courses at first, Lutfullah said all eventually relented after talking to the organisers and teachers.
"I feel lucky to have been born Shi'ite," said Sughra Atayee, the provincial election officer for the area.
(Additional reporting by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Afghan girls school feared hit by airborne poison
By Golnar Motevalli Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:53pm IST
KABUL (Reuters) - Five Afghan teachers and 40 of their pupils, most of them girls, have been admitted to hospital with severe headaches after a suspected airborne poison attack, the Public Health Ministry said on Monday.
They fell ill on Sunday afternoon during a ceremony at a school in the Sadiqi district of Parwan province, some 70 km (40 miles) north of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
"Among them there are 5 adults and 40 children, most of them girls, who have been affected," Dr Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry said.
"For the time being, it seems to be airborne poisoning. But it's not confirmed yet what the actual reason is," Fahim said.
Attacks on girls schools have increased in the past year, particularly in east and south Afghanistan. Last year a group of schoolgirls in Kandahar had acid thrown in their faces by men who objected to them attending school.
Until 2001, when the Taliban were overthrown by U.S.- and Afghan-led forces, women were prohibited from going to school or work, but Parwan is a relatively safe area of Afghanistan, not known for Taliban activity.
Fahim said he could not rule out terrorist involvement in the incident, and that he expected blood test results to provide more information on what had affected the 45 victims.
"At this stage we cannot deny any suspected terrorist activity. I hope maybe this evening or tomorrow we will have some more information from the blood tests," Fahim said.
The governor of Parwan, Abdul Jabar Taqwa, told Reuters he had visited the hospital and most of the patients had recovered and appeared to be in good health.
"The Ministry of Public Health, the toxicology department and police are involved in the investigation. As with most casualties we are full of concern especially as it's airborne," Fahim said.
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Girl school burned down in NW Afghanistan
KABUL, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men set fire on a girl school in Ghor province, in northwestern Afghanistan, a local newspaper reported Sunday.
"Unidentified men dynamited a girl school in Tiwara district Friday night and destroyed it," a security official was quoted by the daily Arman-e-Millie.
The report put the attack on Taliban militants, but the outfit has yet to claim responsibility.
Dozens of schools have been attacked and destroyed by insurgents over the past couple of years in Afghanistan where Taliban militants during their six-year regime had banned girl schools and confined women to their houses.
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Electric Buses Returns on Kabul Streets
www.quqnoos.com Written by Zabihullah Jhanmal Sunday, 26 April 2009
Afghan government funds a project returning electric-bus-lines in the Afghan capital
Electric buses are returning on the streets of the capital city after 17 years.
Afghan Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation said the bus network will be activated within the next six months.
Reactivation of electric transportation facility will cost around 30m Afghan currency and fifty electric buses would provide the service at the initial stage.
But Minister Farooqi said the growing Kabul population requires more than 2,000 buses to provide transportation service.
According to the Transport and Civil Aviation Minister, a Czech State-Company has agreed to install fifty buses in Kabul.
“We've started the primary stage of the project and it the first phase would be completed in six months," said Minister Farooqi.
Kabul residents welcome the initiative of Afghan government saying the electric buses are helpful for environmental protection.
"Buses with battery will not makes smokes and it will not increase pollution in the city," said Mohammad Rahim, 56, a Kabul resident.
Transportation has been a main challenge of Kabul residents where number of population is incredibly boosting.
"There are less buses in the city, most of the time I am failed to take a bus to school," Ahmad Rashid, 11, 4th grade schoolchildren.
The Afghan ministry plans to convert fueling system of the buses into gas which less disturb the environment.
Minister Farooqi said more than 1,000 aided buses to Afghanistan are depreciated. India and Iran have donated most of buses to Afghan government.
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In the heart of Taliban country, reluctant Afghans are restrained by loyalty and fear
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Sunday, April 26, 2009
MIR HOTAK, Afghanistan — In late March, U.S. soldiers with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment were on patrol near the village of Shahi Kariz when they were ambushed by a small group of Taliban fighters.
No Americans were hit in the attack, which lasted just minutes. The Taliban fled, carrying a comrade who was killed.
But the Americans didn’t pursue. Shahi Kariz was on the edge of their operations area. The Taliban had fled to a district nominally controlled by Canadian forces.
Still, the Americans tracked the fighters with an aerial drone as they made their way to Mir Hotak, a small village about a kilometer to the southeast. Once they got there, a strange thing happened, said Capt. Chris Brawley, the Company A commander.
"When they got to the village, the whole village comes out and starts passing bags of something from one of the buildings in the village into the mosque," said Brawley, 28, of Ellington, Mo.
Imagery shot from the drone clearly shows more than two dozen bearded men loading small bags from a compound into a white Toyota van. A man drives the van a short distance to the village mosque, where the men unload the cargo.
It’s unclear what was in the bags. It could have been explosives or opium paste. But clearly it was something important enough to move in a hurry. Brawley regrets he didn’t send his men in pursuit.
The week before last, soldiers from Company A went to Mir Hotak to try to unravel the mystery.
Afghan troops searched the mosque and several compounds while American officers questioned village elders, including the owner of the compound where the suspicious material had been stored.
The Afghans were cordial and willing to chat. But they claimed to know nothing of the ambush on the Americans, and they denied that the Taliban had come to the village afterward. They denied loading the bags into the van and moving them into the mosque. Several of them claimed they’d never seen an American soldier before.
"No (bomb) materials were put inside that compound; no fighter was ever brought to the mosque," said 1st Lt. Ashton Ballesteros, 24, of Grayson, Ga. "There was nothing at the house. They lie to you. But unless you have a smoking gun, you can’t charge them with anything."
Where the Taliban began
The patrol was typical for the soldiers of Company A, and they’ve come to expect little else. After all, for nearly a year, they’ve been operating in the heart of Taliban country, where many villagers are likely to see little difference between the fighters’ harsh ideology and the Pashtun tribal codes that have governed the region for hundreds of years.
"This whole area, this is where the Taliban was born," Brawley said, sweeping his hand over a map of the region.
"If it’s not outright support of the Taliban that the people have, then it’s support for them through (the) fear tactics (the Taliban use)."
The small camp where Company A operates lies on the eastern edge of Maiwand district, about 25 kilometers west of Kandahar city and not far from the junction with Zhari and Panjwayi districts where Canadian forces have battled Taliban fighters for the last four years.
Just a few kilometers to the east is the village of Sangasar, where Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban, lived and preached before he and his followers began their march to power in 1994, ousting the corrupt warlords who ruled southern Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal.
Despite the importance of the area — at least symbolically — U.S. and other NATO soldiers here are still spread thin.
The main U.S. base in Maiwand is more than 10 kilometers to the west. The nearest forces are Canadian advisory teams posted with Afghan troops in two locations to the east.
But the teams are too small to project much of a presence in the area, according to the Americans.
With such a large territory to oversee, Brawley said there are villages in his operations area he can’t patrol.
"We’re doing our best," he said. "We’re hitting them where we can. But the amount of area we have to cover is huge."
The deployment of 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment to Maiwand was the first large-scale posting of NATO troops to the district. The Americans have spent months just learning the terrain and the dynamics of the area.
"It’s taken us six months just to figure out where the enemy is around here," said Ballesteros.
Since setting up the camp last fall, Brawley said his company has established a safe zone of about four kilometers outside the wire. Villages within this sphere are essentially free of enemy activity. Beyond that, Taliban fighters can be found in nearly every village.
Need to walk
The soldiers use their vehicles sparingly. A number of the dirt roads in the area are believed to be mined.
"If you’re in the vehicle all the time, you’re like an alien passing through the landscape here," he said. "But if you’re out walking, it’s more likely that you’re going to get people to talk to you."
It’s not uncommon for Company A’s soldiers to go out on foot patrols for 10 to 20 kilometers at a stretch. As the weather has cleared in recent weeks, enemy contact has become more common.
The terrain is perfect for guerrilla warfare. Vast fields of wheat, opium poppy and other crops give the Taliban plenty of cover. Mazes of irrigation ditches, underground water systems known as "karizes" and deeply trenched grape fields provide ideal ambush positions.
"You could hide the entire 3rd Infantry Division out there," Brawley said, gesturing at his map.
When the Americans do take fire, the Taliban rarely stick around to fight.
"They know that within a very short time, a helicopter or fighter plane is going to appear, and it’s going to be all over for them," Brawley said.
Despite the frequent contact, only a handful of Company A’s soldiers have been wounded. None has been killed. But there have been some close calls.
Spc. Brandon Reed, 22, of Gary, Ill., was walking point during a patrol when a bomb exploded about 15 meters away. He remembers falling down, and seeing his team dive for cover. When he rejoined them later, they couldn’t believe he had survived.
"Everybody was like, ‘Holy shit, you’re still here?’" he recalled.
The blast occurred within a few meters of a mud-brick compound. When the soldiers questioned the villagers inside, they claimed not to have even heard the blast.
"That’s how afraid people are of the Taliban around here," Brawley said. He attributes some of Company A’s "super good luck" to the fact that the Taliban the Americans are facing are not their best or most experienced fighters.
"Many of them are just kids," he said. "These aren’t the guys who fought the Russians."
It’s been difficult developing reliable sources of information on the enemy, and the Americans have made few inroads. Some people who’ve had family members killed by the Taliban have stepped forward to help. Others have provided information in exchange for money.
Villagers will occasionally display a sudden gesture of hospitality that is difficult to square with the fact that fighters nearby may have been shooting at them just the day before.
On the afternoon the soldiers were returning from Mir Hotak, a man stood in a doorway with his children. He called out to the soldiers in Pashto, offering tea as they passed.
"It’s just part of the culture here," Brawley said later. "You invite your enemy into your home."
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Taliban Kidnap 9 Cops in Stable Afghan North
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 27 April 2009
Taliban militants have killed 1 police and wounded another in a raid on a district centre in Baghlan Province, last night
Provincial deputy governor, Azizullah Hashimi confirmed the assault on Borka district, some 40km north-east of Pul-e Khumri city, the provincial capital.
The officials deny whether the Taliban carried out the attack but locals known it a Taliban-style insurgency.
Niaz Mohammad, a district resident said, the gunfire broke the silence of the midnight close to his residential place.
“It was around 1:30 am, when the clash begun with light fires but followed by heavy arms,” said Niaz Mohammad.
According to him, the district governor office is badly damaged, seems as went on ablaze.
Dr Mahiuddin Paykan, Baghlan Provincial Council Chief said the cops were battling the armed men for two hours before they were surrendered and arrested by the assailants.
Baghlan Police department have deployed some 30-40 supporting police force to the scene and they arrived on the ground on Monday morning to regain the control of the area.
Provincial officials said the attackers have evacuated the district centre early on Monday morning and no idea where they have fled with the kidnapped police officers.
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Taliban Slain Afghan Official in Kandahar
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 26 April 2009
Two motorcyclists have gunned-down head of Transportation Department in Kandahar city, Sunday Morning
Abdul Zahir, head of the provincial Mili-Bus Department was shot dead on his way to office when the unknown armed men open fire on him, Afghan Interior Ministry said.
The assassination of the provincial official took place in the heart of the city centre, Shekarpor Market.
Murder of the official comes a day after the cruel bombings on the office of the provincial governor which left more than a dozen of cops and civilians dead and wounded.
A number of government officials have been killed by the Taliban in Kandahar.
Head of Education Dept., Deputy-head of Health department and a female politician have been shot dead over the recent month.
Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement has witnessed a significant increase in insurgency over the past few months.
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