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Taliban threatens to kill captured US soldier
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.
Pamphlets aid search for U.S. soldier missing in Afghanistan
(CNN) -- The U.S. military is distributing pamphlets in eastern Afghanistan in an effort to find a soldier who has been missing for more than two weeks, the military said Thursday.
Clinton extends hand to Taliban who quit battle
Wed Jul 15, 6:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday held out an olive branch to Taliban militants willing to lay down their arms, adding her support to an offer of talks from Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
Warning From General on End to Afghan Combat
By ERIC SCHMITT July 16, 2009 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The new American commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that United States Marines had faced less resistance than expected in their operation to clear Taliban safe havens in the south
“Opium eases my pain, keeps my children quiet”
SHORTAPA, 16 July 2009 (IRIN) - Tordi, 45, finally quit her opium habit after six stillborn births and delivered a healthy baby girl. “I was using opium to ease my body pains and to be able to work better,”
Air strike claims 4 civilian lives, wounds a dozen in S Afghanistan
KABUL, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Four members of a family were killed and a dozen others sustained injuries as a house was attacked from the air in Taliban former stronghold Kandahar early Thursday, owner of the house Hajji Nematullah Khan said.
Suicide bomber kills 3 police in Afghanistan
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 16, 7:32 am ET
KABUL – A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden station wagon into a police convoy in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing three police, the Interior Ministry said.
Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 16 Jul 2009
July 16 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1330 on Thursday:
* KANDAHAR - The U.S. military said it was investigating an incident in southern Afghanistan in which residents said up to six civilians were killed and 16 wounded in possible air strikes in Shah Wali Kot and Miawand districts overnight.
MPs challenge Brown over Afghanistan
by Alice Ritchie – Thu Jul 16, 8:36 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – MPs voiced concern on Thursday that a lack of helicopters was having "adverse consequences" on Britain's campaign in Afghanistan after Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied it was fueling casualties.
Losses in Afghanistan stir anxiety in Britain
A recent wave of combat deaths and a parliamentary report that the military is woefully short of helicopters raise the stakes in the political debate over British involvement.
By Henry Chu Los Angeles Times 9:30 AM PDT, July 16, 2009
Reporting from London -- Britain today buried its highest-ranking army officer to die in combat in nearly three decades amid a growing public and political outcry over the presence and preparedness of the country's troops in Afghanistan.
Opponents seek to deny Karzai first-round win
By JASON STRAZIUSO and ROBERT H. REID The Associated Press
KABUL — Critics decry his government as corrupt and ineffectual, the economy is in the tank and the country is racked by an insurgency led by the very people he helped oust from power eight years ago.
Prisoners in protest at US-run Afghan jail
KABUL (AFP) – Hundreds of detainees at the biggest US-run jail in Afghanistan are refusing family telephone calls and protesting against what they fear is "indefinite detention," officials said Thursday.
Routing Taliban 'may take time'
Thursday, 16 July 2009 BBC News
The top military commander in the US, Adm Michael Mullen, says he does not know how long it will take for security to improve in Afghanistan.
Pakistani, Afghan leaders meet on anti-terror, economic issues
People's Daily - Jul 16 1:29 AM
Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Afghan President Hamid Karzaimet to find ways to boost anti-terror and economic cooperation, a press release said Thursday.
Pentagon: Bigger Afghan Army Would Need International Commitment
VOA News By Al Pessin July 15, 2009
The Pentagon says any move to further increase the size of Afghan security forces will require an international commitment to provide trainers and funding. The spokesman says such a proposal may well be part of a report
Most Canadians oppose military role in Afghanistan
MONTREAL (AFP) – A majority of Canadians in a poll released Thursday opposed their country's military participation in Afghanistan, where Canada has had troops since 2002.
US commander in Afghanistan was 'embarrassed' by firing
Wed Jul 15, 7:04 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The former commander of US forces in Afghanistan said on Wednesday he was "dismayed" and "more than a little embarrassed" when he was sacked from his job last month.
Afghan election body begins receiving ballot paper printed in Britain
KABUL, July 16 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) has begun receiving ballot papers printed in Britain for the coming presidential and provincial councils' election, a senior official of the entity Dawood Ali Najafi said Thursday.
PAKISTAN: Scared, But Terrible Camp Life Forces IDPs Home
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jul 16 (IPS) - Civilians who fled the Malakand region in northwest Pakistan after the army launched operations against the Taliban, are starting to trickle home. On Wednesday, the government said 2,885 families have returned to Swat and Buner.
Afghanistan now is Obama's war
San Francisco Chronicle 16 July 2009
I had an historical flashback recently when I read a Washington Post news story about how the U.S. commander in Afghanistan thinks he may need many thousands more troops to win the war.
Imran criticizes Britain for its 'mad' Afghan policy
New Kerala - Jul 16 3:00 AM
London, July 16 : Cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan has lambasted Britain for its 'mad' Afghan strategies.
EXCLUSIVE: Taliban uses Afghan fear to fight surge
Sara A. Carter and James Palmer Thursday, July 16, 2009 The Washington Times
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | The Taliban is seeking to blunt the surge of an additional 20,000 U.S. troops through stepped-up attacks on Afghans working with the U.S.-backed government, U.S. and Afghan officials say.
Afghanistan: United Nations report highlights problem of violence against women
Source: EurasiaNet 15 Jul 2009 Aunohita Mojumdar
One of the first women to be elected to a public post in conservative Afghanistan, Zarghuna Kakar serves as a member of the provincial council in Kandahar. Public service has come at a high price for her.
What's the Safest Way to Travel Through Afghanistan?
July 16, 2009 9:38 AM ABC's Karen Russo reports from Afghanistan:
As the red desert fades into the hazy distance, the lush green Helmand River Valley appears below. A river bends through the center of a village of mud huts, trees hugging its curves.
Kabul theatre aims to take tragedy back from reality
Afghanistan has witnessed the return of children's theatre to Kabul after an enforced cessation of two decades. The play, Dragon Mountain, carries a meaning beyond the legend it recalls. This is an Afghan story from an ancient past, tinged with hope for an emerging future.
Independent - By Jamie Stewart in Afghanistan Thursday, 16 July 2009
In his 2007 book A Thousand Splendid Suns, Afghan author Khaled Hosseini told how the dogs of Kabul developed a taste for human flesh in the worst days of the fighting. Yet today, the dogs of Kabul run in packs
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Taliban threatens to kill captured US soldier
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.
Also Thursday, Canadian authorities announced that a Canadian soldier was killed southwest of Kandahar, bringing to 47 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this month. That makes July the deadliest month of the war for foreign troops — with nearly half the month to go.
The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the American soldier, whom the U.S. military earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.
Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday that the soldier was healthy.
He said the soldier would be killed unless the U.S. stops airstrikes in Ghazni province's Giro district and Paktika province's Khoshamand district. Jalali did not explain why the Taliban chose those areas, noting only that Giro has been heavily bombed.
Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias declined to comment on the demands but did say recent operations in Giro district this month did not involve bombings.
Neither district is in Helmand province, where Marines are conducting the largest U.S. military operation in Afghanistan since the Taliban were toppled from power in 2001.
Jalali said the final decision about the soldier's fate will be made by Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The U.S. military has said the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on June 30 and was "believed captured."
The Taliban claimed on its Web site on July 6 that it was holding the soldier.
"Five days ago, a drunken American soldier who had come out of his garrison named Malakh was captured by mujahedeen. ... He is still with mujahedeen," said the report. The short Web message did not elaborate on his whereabouts, nor did it provide any proof such as a photo.
The U.S. military has said it intercepted communications in which insurgents talked about holding an American.
The soldier's body armor and weapon were found on the base, and U.S. defense sources say he "just walked off" post with three Afghans after work. They say they have no explanation for why he left the base.
The military has not identified the soldier but say his family has been notified that he is missing. He is serving in an Army infantry unit assigned to a combat outpost, one of a number of smaller bases set up by foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The Canadian soldier was killed at dawn Thursday in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, according to a statement issued by Canadian defense authorities in Canada. The previous deadliest months for the international force were June and August of 2008, when 46 foreign troops died.
U.S. commanders had been expecting higher casualties since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year to curb a resurgent Taliban that threatens not only the U.S.-backed Kabul government but also Afghanistan's nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan.
About 57,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, and the number is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Also Thursday, the governor of Kandahar province announced six civilians were killed and 14 wounded in an airstrike on a village in Shawalikot district. His statement said an investigation is ongoing.
Wounded villagers at a hospital in the provincial capital told The Associated Press attack helicopters started bombarding their homes at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. One man said his 3-year-old granddaughter was killed.
Mathias, the U.S. military spokeswoman, said she did not have details because fighting was continuing in the area. She said casualties were reported but could not confirm anything.
U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took over last month as the commander of U.S. and NATO forces, has said he wants his troops' first priority to be protecting Afghan civilians, not using massive firepower.
Elsewhere, officials said three police were killed by a suicide car bomber in Nimroz province, and two Afghan army soldiers died in two other attacks in the south. NATO forces said they killed two insurgents in an attack in the east.
The Interior Ministry said an attack on an international military supply convoy sparked a gunbattle that killed at least eight insurgents, two police officers and a private security guard.
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Pamphlets aid search for U.S. soldier missing in Afghanistan
(CNN) -- The U.S. military is distributing pamphlets in eastern Afghanistan in an effort to find a soldier who has been missing for more than two weeks, the military said Thursday.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for kidnapping the soldier, who has not been identified, along with three Afghan soldiers. All went missing on June 30 in southeastern Afghanistan. The military believes the soldier may have been moved to various locations, including across the border into Pakistan, U.S. military officials said.
There are two versions of the pamphlets, which are in the Pashto language and were made available to CNN by U.S. Forces Afghanistan. One shows the image of an American soldier shaking hands in a group of kids with the message, "One of our American guests is missing. Return the guest to his home. Call us at ..." and lists a phone number.
The other shows a U.S. soldier kicking down a door, and then an outstretched hand with the superimposed image of a soldier, his head and arms drooping, and the words, "If you do not release the U.S. soldier then ... you will be hunted," Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman, said Thursday.
Soldiers have posted and handed out the pamphlets across Ghazni and Paktia provinces over the past 24 hours, Mathias said.
Days after the soldier went missing, a senior U.S. military official said, he and the three missing Afghan soldiers were captured by low-level militants and then quickly "sold" to the clan and network led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, who is believed to be deeply involved in the action.
The Haqqani clan operates on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border and is well known to the U.S. military.
The soldier apparently left his small outpost on his own on June 30 with no apparent means of defending himself, the official said.
Taliban commander Mulvi Sangeen said the U.S. soldier visited a military post in the Yousaf Khel district in Paktika province, got drunk, and was ambushed while returning to his car. Sangeen said the soldier was taken to a safe place. Paktika and Paktia provinces are adjacent.
CNN could not independently verify Sangeen's claims. A source with the U.S. military denied the claim that the soldier was drunk.
"The Taliban are known for lying, and what they are claiming [is] not true," the source said.
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Clinton extends hand to Taliban who quit battle
Wed Jul 15, 6:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday held out an olive branch to Taliban militants willing to lay down their arms, adding her support to an offer of talks from Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
"Today we and our Afghan allies stand ready to welcome anyone supporting the Taliban, who renounces Al-Qaeda, lays down their arms, and is willing to participate in the free and open society that is enshrined in the Afghan constitution," she said.
"We and our allies fight in Afghanistan because the Taliban protects Al-Qaeda and depends on it for support, sometimes coordinating activities," she said.
"In other words, to eliminate Al-Qaeda, we must also fight the Taliban."
But in a major foreign policy speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, she added: "We understand that not all those who fight with the Taliban support Al-Qaeda, or believe in the extremist policies the Taliban pursued when in power."
Clinton is not the first US official to extend a hand to Taliban militants who renounce violence.
In March in an interview with The New York Times, President Barack Obama suggested Washington could be interested in talks with some Taliban militants.
Highlighting the success of the US strategy of bringing some Sunni Iraqi insurgents to the negotiating table and away from Al-Qaeda, Obama said "there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region."
The strategy in Iraq had been developed by General David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the country.
"If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al-Qaeda in Iraq," Obama said.
Karzai said on Monday he would seek to open peace talks with the Taliban if he is re-elected in August elections.
"We'll be talking with the Taliban, the opponents, solving the problems through talks, if people voted again for me," Karzai told a crowd in the Taliban stronghold of southern Kandahar.
The Taliban have on several occasions rejected his call to renounce violence for reconciliation talks.
Karzai's popularity has suffered due to his failure to curb the violence from an insurgency and mounting corruption, but he is still seen as a front-runner, with most of his rivals lacking a recognizable profile.
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Warning From General on End to Afghan Combat
By ERIC SCHMITT July 16, 2009 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The new American commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that United States Marines had faced less resistance than expected in their operation to clear Taliban safe havens in the south, but that British troops just to the north were running into fiercer fighting than anticipated.
The commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, also said that he was surprised by the resilience of pockets of Pashtun militants in western and northern Afghanistan, areas that he expected to be relatively calm but that now needed more troops and stronger local governance.
General McChrystal’s assessment one month into his command does not only reflect the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the fight in Afghanistan. It also underscores the challenges facing American commanders and diplomats as they work with allied and Afghan officials to carry out the Obama administration’s new war strategy here.
In the pivotal southern province of Helmand, for instance, where 4,000 Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers faced only sporadic fighting in the first two weeks of their operation, General McChrystal said, Taliban fighters are starting to fight back, probing with small-scale attacks and improvised explosives.
“They’re coming back and nipping at the edges,” he said, after meeting with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
American commanders had predicted a sharp rise in casualties as United States troop levels rose toward the 68,000 planned by year-end. General McChrystal warned against expecting any quick end to the combat in the south, the Taliban heartland.
“They’re waiting to see what happens,” the general said in a interview with a small group of reporters traveling with Adm. Mullen.
“I think we’re talking months for this to play out, and it’ll play out at a little different speed everywhere,” he said. “Until we hit the point where the insurgent fighters decide they cannot force us out or cannot discourage us, I think they’re likely to stay significantly.”
General McChrystal said the operation’s next stage would be to expand to other important towns in the southern Helmand River valley, to clear out militants there, and hold the reclaimed ground until Afghan civilian authorities and officials could take charge.
But moving into these new areas will require more Afghan police officers and soldiers than are currently expected to be available, General McChrystal said. As part of a 60-day mission review, the general said he would recommend expanding the Afghan Army, now scheduled to increase to 134,000 troops. He said he would also seek to speed the process to do that before the scheduled completion date of 2011.
“The key to this is Afghan responsibility to the fight,” he said. “As a team, we are better.”
General McChrystal declined to say whether he would also recommend expanding American combat forces or increasing the number of military trainers, but he did not rule it out.
The new American command team is facing a number of other problems.
Pockets of Pashtun insurgents are stirring up trouble near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, where German troops patrol, and in Farah Province, in the western part of the country, where Italian soldiers are assigned.
One senior American military officer here, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Kandahar, the country’s second largest city, was “under stress” from Taliban fighters.
Aides said General McChrystal was seeking to bring to his new position the same high-speed tempo and precise synchronization that were hallmarks of his terrorist-hunting days as head of the military’s Joint Special Operations Command.
But problems still need ironing out. “We lack coordination as an organization,” the senior military official said. “We’ve been fighting five regional fights. We haven’t been fighting one war.”
Asked whether he was getting the cooperation he wanted from Pakistani forces in combating the main Taliban network based in Quetta, Pakistan, which controls much of the Taliban activity in southern Afghanistan, General McChrystal paused several seconds before answering. American officials have long expressed frustration at what they see as Pakistani inaction against a major threat to American forces in Afghanistan.
“It’s my intended desire to work with the Pakistani military and government to try to reduce that” inaction, he said.
General McChrystal said his ultimate task was to win over a majority of the Afghan public, many of whom are angry and distrustful of the Americans after nearly eight years of war and all too many errant airstrikes that have killed civilians.
The general said the Taliban’s use of roadside bombs would eventually “boomerang,” because 80 percent of the bombings harmed Afghans, and more than half of the attacks killed and wounded civilians.
“At the end of the day, you’re fighting for the population, not with the population or against the population,” General McChrystal said. “As you fight for them, you are trying to convince them. You are in an argument with the enemy over the population, and they are listening, and they are watching what you do and what you say. They are going to decide based on who makes the most convincing argument.”
“Are you protecting them? Can you stop them from being coerced at midnight by an armed man who shows up and threatens them?” the general continued. “It’s a retail war.”
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“Opium eases my pain, keeps my children quiet”
SHORTAPA, 16 July 2009 (IRIN) - Tordi, 45, finally quit her opium habit after six stillborn births and delivered a healthy baby girl. “I was using opium to ease my body pains and to be able to work better,” she told IRIN in her home in the Shortapa District of northern Balkh Province.
Addiction, long hours of hard labour and poor nutrition had weakened Tordi’s body so much that she almost died during her sixth delivery before her family rushed her to a district hospital.
“Doctors told me if I don’t stop using opium I will die in my next pregnancy,” she said.
Tordi’s predicament is common among women working in Afghanistan’s traditional carpet-weaving industry, who use opium as a painkiller or to stave off fatigue.
The country produces about 200 million sqm of carpets and rugs every year, with annual exports valued at US$170 million. From sheep breeders who produce the wool to merchants who export the final product, about six million out of a population of 30 million are involved in the business, according to the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency.
Opium addiction among rural women has been exacerbated by a lack of access to health services either due to cultural restrictions or dearth of health centres, say health workers.
“Women use opium not for fun or luxury but as the only available painkiller to them,” said Mahbooba Ebadi, an obstetrician in Balkh.
It is unclear how many Afghan women use opium, but a 2005 addiction survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) put the number of adult female drug users in the country at 120,000. At least 900,000 Afghans were estimated to be drug addicts out of a population of 25 million in 2005.
Child addicts
“When my children are restless and cry I cannot work properly,” said Feroza, a carpet weaver and a mother of six in northern Faryab Province. “When I give them a small piece of opium they become calm and fall asleep, allowing us to work.”
Pediatricians say giving opium to infants is extremely harmful. “Opium is like poison to an infant,” said Homayun Ansari, a physician in Balkh.
Afghanistan not only has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, but also one of the highest fertility rates in Asia, according to UN agencies.
Amid widespread food insecurity and a dearth of quality obstetric care, an Afghan woman on average gives birth to five or six children, despite serious health risks in pre- and post-natal periods.
About 39 percent of children younger than five in Afghanistan are underweight, 54 percent suffer from stunting or sub-optimal physical growth, 53 percent suffer from vitamin A deficiency and more than 60 percent suffer from iron deficiency and anaemia. As a result, about 600 children under the age of five die every day from pneumonia, diarrhoea and other preventable diseases, according to the UN Children’s Fund.
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Air strike claims 4 civilian lives, wounds a dozen in S Afghanistan
KABUL, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Four members of a family were killed and a dozen others sustained injuries as a house was attacked from the air in Taliban former stronghold Kandahar early Thursday, owner of the house Hajji Nematullah Khan said.
The upset Khan who took the injured members of his family to Mir Wais Hospital in Kandahar city the capital of Kandahar province said the bombardment occurred this morning in Shah Walikot district.
"It was early this morning that aircraft of foreign troops raided his house in Tawala village killing four people including a child and injured 12 others including four men and eight women and children," Nematullah Khan told newsmen at the hospital.
However, he did not say if the planes belonged to NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) or the U.S.-led Coalition forces.
Local officials have yet to make comment.
A deadly air raid against Taliban insurgents in the west Farah province last May left some 140 civilians dead.
The bloody incident triggered strong protest and the military leaders have vowed to avoid harming civilians or at least minimize it as much as possible.
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Suicide bomber kills 3 police in Afghanistan
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 16, 7:32 am ET
KABUL – A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden station wagon into a police convoy in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing three police, the Interior Ministry said.
Four other police officers were wounded in the morning attack in Nimroz province's Khashord district, the ministry said in a statement.
Militants regularly use roadside and suicide bombings to attack international and government troops in Afghanistan, making the makeshift explosive one of the biggest threats to forces trying to rout the resurgent Taliban.
The bombing follows an attack on an international forces supply convoy in southern Paktika province on Wednesday that left at least eight insurgents and two police officers dead, along with a private security guard, the ministry said.
A provincial official put the death toll from the Paktika clash much higher, saying 21 insurgents and three border police died. Hamidullah Zhwak, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said he had no reports of private security guards killed.
Military supply convoys in Afghanistan are operated by contractors and guarded by private security guards. Zhwak said there were about 80 guards protecting the convoy that was attacked.
Two Afghan army soldiers were killed in two other attacks in the south on Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said.
In the east, meanwhile, international and Afghan forces killed two insurgents who helped mount bomb attacks in the area, NATO forces said. Four other militants were captured in Wednesday's operation in Kunar province, the military alliance said in a statement. It did not give further details.
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Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 16 Jul 2009
July 16 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1330 on Thursday:
* KANDAHAR - The U.S. military said it was investigating an incident in southern Afghanistan in which residents said up to six civilians were killed and 16 wounded in possible air strikes in Shah Wali Kot and Miawand districts overnight.
* NIMROZ - A suicide car bomber killed three policemen and wounded four when he rammed his car into a police convoy in the Khash Rud district of southwestern Nimroz province, the Interior Ministry said.
KUNAR - Afghan and NATO-led forces killed what they said were two senior insurgents in the Pech district of northeastern Kunar province on Wednesday, the alliance said in a statement. Four insurgents were detained, including two who were suspected of organising roadside bomb attacks in the area, it said.
KANDAHAR - One Afghan soldier was killed and three wounded in a clash with insurgents in the Spin Boldak district of southern Kandahar province, the Defence Ministry said. An unspecified number of insurgents were killed, the ministry said.
HELMAND - A roadside bomb killed one Afghan soldier and wounded one in the Gereshk district of southern Helmand province on Wednesday, the Defence Ministry said.
KUNAR - Afghan soldiers killed one insurgent and wounded one during a clash in the Khas Kunar district of Kunar province on Wednesday, the Defence Ministry said. Four others were detained. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait)
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MPs challenge Brown over Afghanistan
by Alice Ritchie – Thu Jul 16, 8:36 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – MPs voiced concern on Thursday that a lack of helicopters was having "adverse consequences" on Britain's campaign in Afghanistan after Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied it was fueling casualties.
A report from the influential parliamentary defence committee said a larger fleet would allow troops to undertake operations by air rather than on foot, which would make them more effective and offer the soldiers more protection.
However, the prime minister repeated his insistence that forces had the resources and equipment they needed.
British troops suffered their blackest 24 hours yet in Afghanistan last week when eight soldiers died during a major assault against Taliban fighters in southern Helmand province, bringing the toll this month to 15.
Many of those killed have been hit by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that are hidden in the ground and are increasingly favoured by insurgents.
"We believe that the size of the fleet is an issue (in the Afghan conflict), and are convinced that the lack of helicopters is having adverse consequences for operations today," the defence committee report said.
Committee chairman James Arbuthnot added: "We are concerned that operational commanders find they have to use ground transport, when helicopter lift would be preferred, both for the outcome and for the protection of our forces."
The report called for an increase in the number of helicopters and training crews, arguing that upping the flying hours is no substitute for more aircraft.
It emerged Thursday that the head of the army, General Richard Dannatt, had travelled in a US Black Hawk helicopter during a recent visit to troops in the troubled southern Afghan province of Helmand.
"If I moved in an American helicopter it?s because I haven?t got a British helicopter," he said.
Brown told MPs on Wednesday while he lamented the recent loss of life in Afghanistan during the assault, called Operation Panther's Claw, "it's not to do with helicopters."
And speaking before a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, he insisted: "For Operation Panther's Claw and for what we're doing in Afhganistan we've provided the resources and equipment that are necessary."
In a sometimes testy exchange with MPs questioning him, Brown said there had been a 60 percent increase in helicopter capacity in the last two years and there were now more crews to ensure the aircraft were better used.
Many of the country's's 9,000 troops in Afghanistan are taking part in the operation against Taliban fighters in southern Helmand province ahead of presidential elections next month, and the US is engaged in a similar assault.
Dannatt called Wednesday for more "boots on the ground" for the conflict, saying it did not matter which country from the NATO-led coalition provided the troops but they were vital for Afghan society to thrive.
"Troop numbers is a relatively emotive issue. I have said before, we can have effect where we have boots on the ground," he told BBC radio from Sangin in Helmand during his last visit there before he retires.
The death toll for British troops in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001 now stands at 184, surpassing the 179 dead in the Iraq campaign.
The head of the US military, Admiral Michael Mullen, warned Thursday that Taliban militants in Afghanistan have grown more violent and better organised in recent years, and troops face "very difficult fighting" ahead.
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Losses in Afghanistan stir anxiety in Britain
A recent wave of combat deaths and a parliamentary report that the military is woefully short of helicopters raise the stakes in the political debate over British involvement.
By Henry Chu Los Angeles Times 9:30 AM PDT, July 16, 2009
Reporting from London -- Britain today buried its highest-ranking army officer to die in combat in nearly three decades amid a growing public and political outcry over the presence and preparedness of the country's troops in Afghanistan.
Lawmakers and ordinary people are angrily questioning whether a lack of helicopters and other equipment have been at least indirectly responsible for a recent wave of combat deaths in Afghanistan, where Britain's deployment of 9,000 soldiers to fight the Taliban has become increasingly unpopular here at home.
Last week, eight British troops were killed over a 24-hour period. And on Thursday, mourners crowded into a London military chapel for an emotional farewell to Lt. Col. Rupert Thorneloe, 39, who was killed by a roadside bomb.
Also on Thursday, a parliamentary committee added fuel to the fire by releasing a report that said British military operations and troop safety in Afghanistan were being compromised by a shortage of choppers. The report said that soldiers were often forced to rely on ground instead of air transport, which put them at greater risk of the roadside explosive devices that have proved to be the Taliban's deadliest weapon.
The conflict in Afghanistan has quickly turned into a toxic issue for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose ruling Labor Party is already at painfully low levels in the polls. Appearing before senior lawmakers just a few miles away from the concurrent memorial service for Thorneloe, Brown defended his government's handling of the war, insisting that British troops were of sufficient strength and had what they needed to get the job done.
"The troops that are necessary for the mission we are engaged in now are there," Brown said. "We have spent the right sums of money and are prepared to do more to make sure that our troops are properly equipped."
He declined to reveal, "on security grounds," exactly how many helicopters were deployed in Afghanistan, saying only that the number had increased by 60% from what it was a little over two years ago.
The issue of helicopters has become the focus of complaints over the prosecution of the Afghan war since it emerged that the head of the British army, Gen. Richard Dannatt, had to be flown around this week in an American chopper during a visit to Afghanistan because British helicopters were unavailable.
Brown himself is implicated personally in the debate over the army's fleet of helicopters because he was chancellor of the exchequer in then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's government when the chopper budget was slashed by $2.3 billion five years ago.
"Because Gordon Brown wasn't willing to pay for Tony Blair's wars, the army in particular but all our armed forces are suffering," Liam Fox, the defense spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, told the BBC.
Although it has been simmering as a political issue for some time, the war in Afghanistan was pushed to the forefront of public consciousness by the rash of deaths last week.
Britain's newspapers grieved over "our boys." Mourners laid floral tributes across the country in remembrance. Large crowds have turned out to greet returning soldiers and the bodies of those killed.
As of last Friday, 184 British military personnel have died in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban there in 2001. That is five more than have been killed in Iraq.
Most of Britain's 9,000 troops are deployed in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, where the Taliban is strongest and the conflict at its most violent. Although there is cross-party agreement in Parliament that Britain needs to stay the course in Afghanistan, ordinary Britons are divided over the issue.
The Guardian newspaper reported last month that senior military officials had requested an increase of 2,000 soldiers, but Brown's government agreed to a further deployment of only 700 to help secure national elections to be held in Afghanistan in August.
Among the attendees at Thorneloe's funeral was Prince Charles, who knew Thorneloe personally and described him as among the best officers of his generation.
Thorneloe, Britain's most senior officer to fall in combat since the 1982 Falklands War, was killed July 1 when a roadside bomb ripped through his armored vehicle in Helmand province. An 18-year-old soldier was also killed in the explosion.
Thorneloe was praised at the service as a commander who "led from the front."
henry.chu@latimes.com
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Opponents seek to deny Karzai first-round win
By JASON STRAZIUSO and ROBERT H. REID The Associated Press
KABUL — Critics decry his government as corrupt and ineffectual, the economy is in the tank and the country is racked by an insurgency led by the very people he helped oust from power eight years ago.
Nevertheless, President Hamid Karzai is the odds-on favorite to finish first in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election. The best scenario for his opponents is that the 40 others in the race — including two women — can win enough votes to deny him a majority. That would force a runoff — in which Karzai would be vulnerable if the other hopefuls can rally around a single alternate candidate.
Whatever the outcome, President Barack Obama hopes the election will allow the U.S. to "transition to a different phase" in the conflict, handing over more responsibility to Afghans and eventually withdrawing American troops. Obama has sent thousands of reinforcements to Afghanistan to help bolster security for the balloting.
In a chaotic country gripped by war, it is difficult to predict how the candidates will fare. Few reliable polls have been made public, although many Western diplomats believe the race is Karzai's to lose.
A survey conducted in May for the International Republican Institute found that only 31 percent of 3,200 Afghans questioned said they would vote for Karzai — well below the 55 percent he won the 2004 election. Still, he was far ahead of his second place rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah with 7 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Karzai's campaign staff dismiss that poll as outdated. Since the survey, Karzai has forged alliances with numerous tribal leaders and elders from the country's ethnic communities. Karzai can probably count on winning most of the votes cast by his fellow Pashtuns, who make up about 40 percent of the population and most of the Taliban.
Karzai, the urbane English-speaking son of a Pashtun tribal leader, came into power shortly after the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime and had the strong backing of the Bush administration. He was one of the few Pashtun leaders to oppose the Taliban inside Afghanistan during the U.S.-led invasion.
But his standing has fallen hard since then. Diplomats in Kabul say Karzai has shied away from making hard choices to end the endemic corruption and increasing violence sweeping his country.
If he wins a second term, Karzai has promised to open negotiations with the Taliban to end the war and focus on building roads, improving education, boosting the economy and shoring up agriculture. Many of those goals are shared by other candidates.
In the weeks before the balloting, Karzai's staff is working hard to try to avoid a runoff, which would be held Oct. 3 after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
"We don't see much of a challenge in terms of somebody else winning the election, but we definitely don't want the election to go to a second round. We are working on making sure it does not," campaign spokesman Waheed Omar told The Associated Press. "I'm pretty sure this is going to be an easy win for the president."
Abdullah, meanwhile, scoffs at such predictions from Karzai's camp. The bearded, English-speaking ophthalmologist, whose father was Pashtun and whose mother was a Tajik, has been campaigning hard in the north and west of the country, hoping a big turnout there will offset Karzai's perceived advantage in the Pashtun heartland of the south.
Security is better in the Tajik areas where Abdullah is strong, suggesting turnout could be high there. Abdullah served as a close adviser to the late Ahmed Shah Massood, a charismatic leader of the Northern Alliance that resisted the ruling Taliban until the hardline Islamic movement was ousted from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
"I don't think they see or hear what is going on in this country," Abdullah said of Karzai's staff. "This is what you get once you are in isolation from the people. ... I'm not surprised that President Karzai is thinking like that."
If Karzai does manage to pull off a first-round victory, many of his key opponents will likely claim fraud and refuse to accept the outcome, especially if results in parts of the north and west do not match Abdullah's expectations.
Both Karzai and Abdullah have attracted crowds of thousands of supporters at campaign events around the country.
Abdullah, who has called for constitutional changes to bolster the role of parliament, said he would also like to win in the first round. "Change and hope. That's what the people want," he said.
Some political analysts believe a combined ticket of Abdullah and former World Bank official Ashraf Ghani could defeat Karzai if it won the backing of other candidates.
Ghani is getting advice from Democratic Party strategist James Carville, who told the AP in a recent interview that "there is very little confidence in Afghanistan in Karzai as a leader."
Wadir Safi, a political scientist at Kabul University, is skeptical that Karzai can pull off a first-round victory.
Karzai has "divided his enemies, his opposition into different groups, and he has become the only strong candidate in that sense," Safi said. "But people see the last term, the practical works of the government. ... That's why it is very doubtful for me that he would be able to win it in the first round."
An American general who oversaw the NATO operation in Afghanistan predicted last week that Karzai would win re-election in the first round — and that Afghans would quickly lose faith in both him and the U.S. if he does not provide better leadership.
"I think the six months after the election will be critical for him, critical for that nation, in terms of what the people see him bringing to them," Gen. John Craddock said. "My fear, quite frankly, is that they will walk away from government at all levels. And we will be viewed as the problem."
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Prisoners in protest at US-run Afghan jail
KABUL (AFP) – Hundreds of detainees at the biggest US-run jail in Afghanistan are refusing family telephone calls and protesting against what they fear is "indefinite detention," officials said Thursday.
Since early July, inmates have refused to participate in video-telephone conversations with relatives under a programme set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross, an ICRC spokeswoman said.
"ICRC is aware there was tension at the Bagram detention facility," Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman for the humanitarian organisation, told AFP referring to the US-run detention facility at the main military base north of Kabul.
"During our last regular visit at the beginning of July the detainees told us they did not want to participate in the family video phone-call and family visit.
"The ICRC has suspended the programme and is ready to resume it as soon as the detainees want us to," Barry added, refusing to comment further.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that prisoners at Bagram have refused to leave their cells for at least two weeks to protest against their indefinite imprisonment, citing lawyers and families of detainees.
The US newspaper said prisoners were refusing to leave cells to shower or exercise, but were not engaging in hunger strikes or violence.
When asked about the report, a US military official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity said "yes, it's true," adding that "hundreds" of prisoners were protesting against what they consider indefinite detention.
More than 600 people detained during US-led operations against Taliban insurgents are being held at Bagram, the biggest US base in Afghanistan.
Despite calls from Afghan and international rights groups demanding the US government grant access to lawyers, the detainees are not allowed to challenge their cases through legal channels.
The US military has also refused to grant access to the jail to Afghan rights groups or the Western-backed government in Kabul. The ICRC is the only humanitarian organisation which has access to the facility.
The Swiss-based group has been helping detainees meet their families through a video-telephone and family-visit programme since early last year.
The White House has dismissed reports that it drafted an executive order allowing indefinite detention in the United States of top terror suspects, but there have been internal deliberations on how to deal with such inmates.
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Routing Taliban 'may take time'
Thursday, 16 July 2009 BBC News
The top military commander in the US, Adm Michael Mullen, says he does not know how long it will take for security to improve in Afghanistan.
He warned that the Taliban were "much more violent, much more organised, and so there's going to be fighting that is associated with this".
But he said that if the US gets its strategy right, the Afghan people themselves will turn the Taliban out.
The US will boost its 33,000 soldiers with another 30,000 this year.
They will join 32,000 other Nato troops already in the country battling a resurgent Taleban.
Earlier this month US Marines launched the first major Afghan operation of US President Barack Obama's presidency.
About 4,000 marines - many of them redeployed from operations in Iraq - moved into the Helmand River, supported by helicopters and Afghan troops.
Adm Mullen, speaking exclusively to the BBC's Arabic service at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, said he was confident he now had enough forces to hold territory captured from the Taliban.
Asked how soon the security situation in the country would improve, he said: "I don't know how long.
"I know that it's gotten progressively worse over the last three, three-and-a-half years, since 2006, and the Taliban has gotten much better."
But the fighting was "not the main effort".
"In the end, if we get it right for the Afghan people, the Afghan people will turn the Taliban out.
"And that's the answer in counter-insurgency," Adm Mullen said.
He said that over the next 12 to 18 months "we really need to turn the tide".
With violence increasing since 2006, security had worsened, and "the Afghan people are much more uncertain now about their future".
But establishing "robust security" would take longer, he added.
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Pakistani, Afghan leaders meet on anti-terror, economic issues
People's Daily - Jul 16 1:29 AM
Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Afghan President Hamid Karzaimet to find ways to boost anti-terror and economic cooperation, a press release said Thursday.
The two leaders, who were here to attend the 15th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), held the talks on the summit's sidelines Wednesday.
Gilani said, "Pakistan remains committed to close cooperation with Afghanistan with a view to building peace, stability, economic development and prosperity. Peace and stability in Pakistan is inextricably linked with peace and stability in Afghanistan."
Karzai expressed his agreement with Gilani's views, saying terrorism and extremism can not be eradicated by military forces alone.
He said the root causes including poverty, illiteracy and unemployment should also be dealt with.
The two leaders met last October in Istanbul at a trilateral meeting along with the Turkish leadership on the World Economic Forum's sidelines.
Pakistani-Afghan ties have soured over their disputes on the anti-terror issue. The Afghan government complains Pakistan has not done enough to prevent Taliban militants from entering Afghanistan across the porous border, while Pakistan denies the claim, saying it has deployed tens of thousands of troops on the border to fight Taliban insurgents.
Source: Xinhua
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Pentagon: Bigger Afghan Army Would Need International Commitment
VOA News By Al Pessin July 15, 2009
The Pentagon says any move to further increase the size of Afghan security forces will require an international commitment to provide trainers and funding. The spokesman says such a proposal may well be part of a report expected next month from the new U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell says the United States is already spending more than $7 billion a year to recruit, train and equip Afghan soldiers, and has accelerated the plan to raise their number to 134,000. He notes that 4,000 U.S. training troops will arrive in the country in the coming months. But he says increasing the size of the Afghan army more quickly, or to a higher number, would require more help.
"Trainers have been at a premium," said Morrell. "We've had to contribute more of them than we would like because it's been difficult getting them from our allies. If we all believe that it is necessary to grow the Afghan national security forces even beyond that, it's going to take an enormous commitment from not just us, but with the world."
Morrell says that commitment must include trainers and money.
He says a decision about whether to further increase the size of the Afghan Army will not be made until after the new U.S. and NATO commander in the country, General Stanley McChrystal, provides his 60-day assessment next month. But Morrell says the general has already told Defense Secretary Robert Gates a proposal on the size of the Afghan force will be part of his report.
"When he reports back on his overall evaluation of the situation on the ground I can tell you a component of that will be a recommendation on whether to go bigger, and if so how much faster do we need to do it," he said.
The Washington Post reported last week that General McChrystal has already told Secretary Gates the Afghan Army needs to be larger than planned, and so does the police force. But some experts say before adding to the police force, the current force must be re-trained to eliminate corruption and officers who sympathize with the insurgents must be weeded out.
Meanwhile, U.S. and coalition forces are continuing their offensive in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province, with help from very few Afghan troops. Four thousand U.S. marines are working with just 650 Afghan soldiers, who have been distributed among the American units. Geoff Morrell could not say why so few of the current 90,000 Afghan troops are part of the operation, but he says more will clearly be needed.
"We are right now [in] sort of the clear operation, and now by default the hold operation," he said. "But ultimately the 'hold and build' has to be conducted by the Afghan National Security Forces."
Morrell says just how fast those forces can grow will be clearer after the brigade of additional U.S. trainers gets to Afghanistan in the coming months, and has some time to work.
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Most Canadians oppose military role in Afghanistan
MONTREAL (AFP) – A majority of Canadians in a poll released Thursday opposed their country's military participation in Afghanistan, where Canada has had troops since 2002.
The poll taken by national public broadcaster CBC and the Ekos polling firm found that 54 percent of subjects polled disapprove of the mission, while 34 percent approve and 12 percent were undecided.
Opposition strongest in eastern Canada, particularly in Quebec, where 73 percent of subjects polled opposed having troops in Afghanistan.
"We have been polling on this question since the mission began," said EKOS president Frank Graves.
"The public outlook on Afghanistan has undergone a steady and radical transformation -- from overwhelming public support at the outset of the mission we have seen an inexorable reversal to overwhelming public opposition," he said.
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US commander in Afghanistan was 'embarrassed' by firing
Wed Jul 15, 7:04 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The former commander of US forces in Afghanistan said on Wednesday he was "dismayed" and "more than a little embarrassed" when he was sacked from his job last month.
General David McKiernan, who was fired just short of a year after taking over the command of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2008, reflected on his firing at a ceremony marking his retirement.
"If you had asked me 30 days ago if I would be here today at my retirement ceremony, I probably would have said no, maybe in a bit stronger terms," McKiernan said.
"Make no mistake, I was dismayed, disappointed, more than a little embarrassed," he said.
But he received advice from friends and his wife that he should attend the retirement ceremony to pay respect to the US Army, fellow soldiers and the family who had supported him throughout this career, McKiernan said.
The general said he did not want to be pitied.
"Save any condolences for those who truly need them. The families, friends and comrades of men and women who either will not return home or whose lives have been permanently scarred by war," he said.
And he also praised the man who sacked him, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, saying: "He's the finest secretary of defense in my life time."
Gates also praised McKiernan at the event, saying the general "ably led" coalition forces in the Afghan war.
"He has handled everything the army and his commander-in-chief have thrown at him with supreme professionalism, intelligence and dedication to our nation and the men and women in his command," he said.
When he made the surprise announcement on May 11 that he had ousted McKiernan, Gates said the mission required "new thinking."
General Stanley McChrystal, a former commander of special operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, took over from McKiernan in June.
In his speech on Wednesday, McKiernan said the fight in Afghanistan would be difficult and that the United States will would be tested.
"It won't be easy, it won't be quick," said the general, whose son is serving in Afghanistan.
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Afghan election body begins receiving ballot paper printed in Britain
KABUL, July 16 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) has begun receiving ballot papers printed in Britain for the coming presidential and provincial councils' election, a senior official of the entity Dawood Ali Najafi said Thursday.
"Out of 900 parcels of ballot papers, so far 350 have been received and the rest will be received by July 24," Najafi told newsmen at a press conference here in the IEC compound.
Over 36 million ballot papers for the presidential and provincial council election have been printed in Britain, he added.
Afghanistan's second presidential and Provincial Councils' election in the post-Taliban country is set for August 20 during which some 17 million eligible voters would use their franchise amid tight security.
To ensure security for the coming elections, the U.S. and some of allied nations have pledged to send additional troops to Afghanistan while Taliban insurgents have vowed to disrupt the electoral process.
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PAKISTAN: Scared, But Terrible Camp Life Forces IDPs Home
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jul 16 (IPS) - Civilians who fled the Malakand region in northwest Pakistan after the army launched operations against the Taliban, are starting to trickle home. On Wednesday, the government said 2,885 families have returned to Swat and Buner.
"Yes, we are going back to our home because life in the camp is miserable," says a schoolteacher Javid Khan from Mingora, the capital of Swat district, as he waits to get on a bus laid on by the government to ferry refugees home.
"We are all very worried that the Taliban leaders are alive, and they will be back once things quieten down," he adds. Khan, who has lived in the Sheikh Yasin camp in Mardan since May, may be speaking for all the internally displaced people (IDPs) from Malakand.
More than two million people from Swat, Buner and Upper Dir - part of the Malakand region - have been living in refugee camps or with their relatives and community for nearly three months – creating the biggest refugee protection crisis after Rwanda (in the nineties), according to the U.N.
Last week, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani announced a repatriation plan in three phases. The first phase launched on Monday involves the voluntary return of internally displaced people (IDPs) from the areas cleared of militants by the army. The government has announced that each repatriated family will get food for six months and the rupee equivalent of 300 dollars.
"During the last two days, about 400 families (2,800 persons) have left from Nowshera (Jalozai is one of the camps here), Mardan, Charsadda and Swabi. People are leaving with joy," Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a senior minister in the provincial government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) told reporters in Peshawar, the capital city. "This is a gigantic task but we are mindful of the challenges," he says.
Pakistan has been grappling with extremist violence since 2002 when the Taliban government in Afghanistan was toppled by a U.S.-led coalition in the wake of terrorist bombings in Washington and New York.
Remnants of the Taliban including its leader Omar Abdullah, crossed the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border to take refuge amongst their Pakhtoon ethnic cousins in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). In Afghanistan, the Pakhtoons are called Pashtuns.
Before long, the presence of the Afghan Taliban spawned armed Pakistani Taliban groups who, unchallenged by the Pakistan military, eventually built strongholds in the adjoining NWFP, and gained control of Swat Valley in 2007.
In February, the provincial government sought to stop the violence by buying peace with the Taliban through the imposition of Islamic law in return for the cessation of hostilities.
The cease-fire was shortlived, and after a series of blatant suicide bombings including an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, the government launched military operations to oust the Taliban from the NWFP on Apr. 27, triggering a massive humanitarian crisis.
The government opened 21 refugee camps to house the IDPs but the vast majority - according to U.N. estimates, at least 90 percent of the uprooted civilians - found shelter with their relatives and community members outside the conflict zone.
"Most of the people are returning back from camps because of the severe heat and upcoming monsoon season," says Mohammad Ali, an official at the Sheikh Yasin camp. The mountainous Malakand region is cooler than the rest of the province, which has been extremely difficult for the IDPs to adjust to.
Ali Ahmed who along with 10-member family fled Swat on Apr. 29, has been living in a tent in Sheikh Shehzad camp in Mardan. He told IPS that the past two months have been hellish. He complained of lack of electricity, water and food. "We are desperate to go home in spite of knowing that the Taliban will return to oppress us!"
The government has plans to repatriate some 100,000 refugees from the camps by Jul. 28. IDPs outside the camps have been told to make their own way back.
But are they going back?
"The number of returning families is far less than projected by the government," says Kazim Khan, president of the Swat IDPs Action Committee. "People are also sceptical about the health, education and water facilities back in their homes. Everything has been destroyed in the fighting."
Many questions are also being asked about whether the government can assure returning refugees that they will be safe.
"There is no worry," NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Khan insists in an interview with IPS. "The army will stay in the conflict zones even after the elimination of militants. The president has already ordered the setting up of a cantonment (army area) in Swat. The number of police stations has been doubled," he asserts.
"We are planning to leave but my children will stay here?" says Raj Wali, a mechanic, who has been living in the building of the Government Girls High School in Mardan. From Sultanwas in Buner, Wali said he was going back with his elder son to rebuild his house and shop, and (later) if the situation was fine, he would take back the rest of his family.
"How could I take my family when only three days back three policemen were killed and the house of a journalist was burnt down by militants?" he asks.
Meanwhile, the military operation continues in Swat, Buner and Dir Upper. An army spokesman told the media on Jul. 14 that five militants were killed in Swat.
Akram Jan who lives in Rustam village, Mardan, on the edge of violence-wracked Buner says: "I returned from Buner yesterday (Monday) and saw a large number of Taliban patrolling the streets. I have decided to rent a house and start working here." Akram Jan, a taxi-driver, spoke to IPS over the phone.
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Afghanistan now is Obama's war
San Francisco Chronicle 16 July 2009
I had an historical flashback recently when I read a Washington Post news story about how the U.S. commander in Afghanistan thinks he may need many thousands more troops to win the war.
Shades of Vietnam. Do we ever learn?
It brought back memories of the late Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Southeast Asia, who kept escalating the troop numbers after the 1967 Tet offensive in Vietnam. His strategy produced a debacle for us.
When the besieged Westmoreland asked for 240,000 more troops, President Lyndon B. Johnson was shocked. The command in Vietnam had been giving him rosy reports about U.S. military progress that he wanted to believe.
Johnson had been preparing to run for reelection in 1968. But after the devastating Westmoreland request, Johnson threw in the towel and made the electrifying announcement that he would not seek another term.
Fast forward to Afghanistan, 2009.
Seven years into the war there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is in the middle of a 60-day assessment of the war, due next month. But the Washington Post article says he has been giving Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates weekly updates about the need to bolster the size of the Afghan army and police force and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. trainers and advisers.
The present Pentagon plan calls for about 68,000 U.S. troops to be in Afghanistan by late this year.
Afghanistan, which once harbored Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda training camps, has been on Obama's agenda since his presidential campaign. Now it's his war -- big time -- even as it takes on the appearance of another quagmire for U.S. forces in their effort to quell the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.
Gates is expected to go along with whatever McChrystal concludes is necessary. So is Obama, a neophyte who has taken on the mission defined by the Bush administration, apparently without hesitation.
Maybe the president should have asked the Russians on his recent journey to Moscow how it was that a superpower like the Soviet Union could have been forced to retreat from Afghanistan in the 1980s, despite its modern military might.
Granted the U.S. was supporting the Afghans with arms and training but the war proved to be too much for the Soviet forces.
The late Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in the Kennedy and Johnson eras delivered public mea culpas in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. His guilt was that he stayed with the U.S. military strategy in Vietnam, even though he was convinced that the Vietnam War was unwinnable.
Speaking of the war in his 1995 memoir, McNamara said: "We were wrong, terribly wrong."
I don't expect the same kind of acknowledgement from the neoconservatives who got us into Iraq. That would be the day.
According to Bradley Graham, a biographer of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and an ex-Washington Post Pentagon reporter, Rumsfeld never wavered in his conviction that he did the right thing by invading Iraq. Graham said Rumsfeld had no regrets about his conduct of the war and dismissed his question about what was his biggest mistake.
Nor will former President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney or their hawkish team of architects show any remorse for their terrible mistake in attacking Iraq.
The buck now stops with Obama, who is making a big deal about how he doesn't want to look back at past mistakes. He could end up repeating those mistakes.
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Imran criticizes Britain for its 'mad' Afghan policy
New Kerala - Jul 16 3:00 AM
London, July 16 : Cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan has lambasted Britain for its 'mad' Afghan strategies.
Speaking in front of a joint audience of Foreign Press Association and Commonwealth Club members here, Khan said the British' Afghanistan policy was 'mad', 'given Albert Einstein's definition of madness as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.'
He said the current policy of carrying of carrying out military offensive against Al-Qaeda and other extremist outfits in Afghanistan has failed and proved counterproductive in tackling the terror threat.
Khan said the policy provoked more militancy in response.
He opined that the current conflict would never conclude as was the case with the Russians and Mughals earlier.
"The US and British governments were badly advised, with officials from both countries only meeting people on the ground who told them what they wanted to hear," Khan said.
The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief said Afghanistan's issue needed a political solution as it was not an ideological struggle between moderate and extreme form of Islam.
"It is a political struggle needing a political solution as in Northern Ireland," The Dawn quoted Khan, as saying.
He also urged the PPP-led government in Pakistan to pull out troops from the Afghan border.
--- ANI
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EXCLUSIVE: Taliban uses Afghan fear to fight surge
Sara A. Carter and James Palmer Thursday, July 16, 2009 The Washington Times
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | The Taliban is seeking to blunt the surge of an additional 20,000 U.S. troops through stepped-up attacks on Afghans working with the U.S.-backed government, U.S. and Afghan officials say.
For much of the past year, the militant group has worked to weaken the link between the government and citizens through targeted assassinations of people who work for or with Afghan institutions. This wave of intimidation is an enormous obstacle to Afghan officials and local tribal council members trying to reach out to Afghan citizens, often in areas where the government has lacked a firm grip.
"It's becoming more difficult to recruit new people who are outspoken and willing to speak against the militants and violence, and for the government," said Ahmed Wali Karzai, who heads Kandahar's provincial council and is a brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "There's just no proper security in place."
A police chief and three of his officers in Jalrez district, west of Kabul, the Afghan capital, were the latest victims. They died Monday in a roadside bombing. U.S. forces who were deployed into the area earlier this year had helped to organize the local police force.
Taliban leaders have made it clear that Afghans with ties to the government or foreign troops, or who display any other forms of resistance to the militants, are liable to be assassinated.
"We have already warned people not to work for the government, not to spy for the foreigners, not to denounce our men," said Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman. "If they are going in the wrong direction and do not take care about what we tell them, we do not let them live."
Afghan officials say that hundreds of people have been killed, although there is no official tally of civilian deaths.
A U.S. counterterrorism official with knowledge of Taliban tactics said that Afghan civilians working with the International Security Assistance Force have been targeted in response to "additional pressure" by the U.S.-led coalition in recent months. U.S. forces will reach 68,000 within the next few months.
"They've clearly acted out more in very bad ways," said the official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.
A U.S. defense official, who also spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the nature of his work, said the Taliban has been "invoking fear" by targeting innocent people who work for the U.S.-led coalition.
"It's how they warn others, so that people will think twice before taking a job on a U.S. or foreign base," the official said. "They see anyone who aids in the international effort as a traitor. It doesn't matter if they're only working as a street sweeper."
Thousands of Afghan civilians work as janitors, ditch diggers and cafeteria workers on U.S. bases. More educated Afghans take on jobs as interpreters or as specialists in law enforcement.
The attacks also target local officials.
A suicide bombing in April killed two officials and wounded two others at a gathering of the provincial council in downtown Kandahar.
Some Afghans are defying the threats.
"There's no other way for me to assist government but gather support of people," said Saeed Mohammed, 62, a cleric and member of an anti-Taliban scholars council. He said he is determined to keep working with that group even though two dozen of his colleagues have been killed since late last year.
"There is much support among the people for the government; they want it to work. The Taliban get many to join them by threats, but there is no time or room to run away," he said.
Evidence of government support is also apparent in remote parts of Kandahar province where Afghans have requested weapons to form local militias.
Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar and a former professor of agriculture at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said establishing security is just one concern. He'd also like to work for job creation and income growth among the population.
"People will go against the government here unless we reduce unemployment and enable people to support their families," said Mr. Wesa, who has suggested creating cement factories and vocational programs to boost the province's economy.
But time is running out, as even some moderate Afghans are losing faith in their government after seven years of little progress in the everyday lives of the majority of the population.
"The international community is supporting a corrupt and incompetent government," said Ehsanullah Ehjan, 38, who runs a private school in Kandahar. "Security and the economy are getting worse but what is the government doing?"
Sara A. Carter reported from Washington.
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Afghanistan: United Nations report highlights problem of violence against women
Source: EurasiaNet 15 Jul 2009 Aunohita Mojumdar
One of the first women to be elected to a public post in conservative Afghanistan, Zarghuna Kakar serves as a member of the provincial council in Kandahar. Public service has come at a high price for her. She and her husband were attacked and her husband killed in a Kandahar market, and she now fears for her own life and wonders why she ever entered politics.
In the western province of Herat, Maria Bashir receives threats in connection with her official duties as the chief prosecutor, the sole female prosecutor in Afghanistan. In her job she has to witness terrible things. "I have seen women who immolated themselves out of despair. I cannot forget those images," she said, adding that peril is a constant part of her life. "If we women do not accept risks and work, no changes will happen," Bashir adds.
Contrary to perception that threats to women in Afghanistan originate primarily from the Taliban's restrictive interpretation of Islam, a new UN report shows that the risks to women in Afghanistan are growing under President Hamid Karzai's administration. It also shows that the perpetrators of the violence come from all sectors of society, not just from among Islamic militants. Aptly named 'Silence is Violence,' the report also documents how the lack of condemnation or action to counter this violence on the part of society at large -- and government institutions and leaders in particular -- is helping perpetuate and intensify it.
At considerable risk to themselves, both Bashir and Kakar were in Kabul on July 8 for the report's release. Yet they were the lucky ones. Women in public places are being increasingly targeted. And many women in high-profile positions have already perished as they tried to build civil society in Afghanistan. Among the most prominent women to have been assassinated are; Malali Kakar, a senior police officer in Kandahar; Sitara Achakzai, a provincial council member in Kandahar; Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabal-e Saraj, an hour north of Kabul; and Shakia Sanga Amaj, a newsreader at a Kabul TV station. Countless others have been silenced by threats and fear, opting to censor themselves rather than put their lives and families at risk.
The UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in the joint report, acknowledge for the first time the real and growing threat to Afghan women. Norah Niland, the head of UNAMA's human rights unit told EurasiaNet that the report was "trying to shine a light on the problem." A past verbal commitment needs to be followed by "real investment [and] practical measures to improve the protection of women," she said.
The "Silence in Violence" report demonstrates that the problems faced by women in Afghanistan are not rooted in cultural nuances, but constitute basic breaches of the right to life, liberty and basic protection.
In an interview with EurasiaNet, Dr. Sima Samar, the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, offered explanations as to why the violence-against-women issue has not received sufficient international attention. A major reason, she explained, was that the perception of cultural differences made Western experts and officials skittish about commenting on Afghan practices. Another reason, according to Samar, was the argument that it was more important to "have security rather than human rights. This is an absolutely wrong concept since you need human rights for sustainable peace."
Apart from the UN, there has also been some change in the perspective of other international actors, most notably the United States. While the Bush Administration seemed focused solely on promoting success stories, the Obama administration's approach has been more nuanced. Following a recent visit to Afghanistan, the US Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues, Melanne Verveer said, "there is progress in some areas, but not in others. Security remains a paramount challenge. Violence against women and girls is endemic and much remains to be done, including access to institutions of justice, civil education and prosecution of the crimes."
The new UN report states that the pattern of violence against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home. The report states that sexual violence against Afghan women "is an everyday problem in all parts of the country" and a "human rights problem of profound proportions." Moreover, "women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes and in their communities, in detention facilities, and as a result of traditional harmful practices to resolve feuds within the family or community."
The report found that awareness of the criminal nature of the act of rape is very limited. In some areas, rapists are, or have links to, powerful individuals, and are thus protected from prosecution and arrest. Currently, Afghanistan's criminal justice system, based on the 1976 Afghan Penal Code does not have any specific provisions for the crime of rape. Rape is tried in the court under the provision of 'Zina,' defined as adultery or any sex outside marriage. It is up to the female victim to prove she did not consent. A new law is currently being drafted, but women's rights activists fear it may not reflect all their concerns, due to pressure from powerful conservative elements in society, the government, and the judiciary to limit the draft legislation's scope.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years. © Eurasianet
The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the position of the Open Society Institute and are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.
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What's the Safest Way to Travel Through Afghanistan?
July 16, 2009 9:38 AM ABC's Karen Russo reports from Afghanistan:
As the red desert fades into the hazy distance, the lush green Helmand River Valley appears below. A river bends through the center of a village of mud huts, trees hugging its curves. The area is one of the most dangerous places on earth, but from the sky, it looks like a place to picnic.
In Afghanistan, helicopters are the safest way to travel; roads are often dotted with ied's (improvised explosive devices) and the lack of highways makes travel by road nearly impossible. But "safe" is a relative term here.
The Mi-17s, with their cavernous innards and wide-open rear door, often skim the surface just a few hundred feet off the ground. Pockets of hot air cause them to dip and lift, a motion similar to a roller coaster. A lead helicopter often radios warnings of upcoming electrical wires hidden behind the frequent rock formations of the rugged brown earth towards the Pakistan border. Men walking across vast open valleys (where are they going?) look upwards. Sheep cluster together when the helicopter approaches.
Flying at about 1,000 feet are the UH-1s or "Hueys." Originally built for commercial flights, they are best known from images of the Vietnam War with soldiers dangling their feet off the side. The higher altitudes provides cooler and more comfortable travel, but less detail of the land below. The vibration of a black hawk is sleep-inducing, even with flares blasting off the sides.
Floods, wells and uneven terraced farmland make it difficult for military landings and insertions, often slowing movement towards and away from the helicopter . Even worse, is landing in a “dust out” where the pilots and dismounts can’t even see the ground. On a recent embed, I was told we'd land in a massive cloud of dust. They weren't exaggerating. I had dirt in my ears for the following two days. I covered my camera in a plastic bag before jumping off the back - hoping I didn't do a face-plant or run into the rear propeller ("don't worry, it'll only hurt for a few seconds," one guy joked).
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Kabul theatre aims to take tragedy back from reality
Afghanistan has witnessed the return of children's theatre to Kabul after an enforced cessation of two decades. The play, Dragon Mountain, carries a meaning beyond the legend it recalls. This is an Afghan story from an ancient past, tinged with hope for an emerging future.
Independent - By Jamie Stewart in Afghanistan Thursday, 16 July 2009
In his 2007 book A Thousand Splendid Suns, Afghan author Khaled Hosseini told how the dogs of Kabul developed a taste for human flesh in the worst days of the fighting. Yet today, the dogs of Kabul run in packs, no longer able to stumble alone upon a generous meal in the remains of a shattered building.
It is shortly after 5pm, 1 July 2009, and the dusty, pot-holed road that passes by the newly-opened Kabul Nendari Theatre building in Afghanistan's capital city is littered with kids.
The tapestry of the city's humanity is stitched together from across the country. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, driven to the city from the provinces by poverty, or the loss of a parent, have set up home in tent cities and slums on the outskirts of Kabul, broadening the boundaries of the capital towards the foothills of the mountains in all directions.
Though this afternoon, despite the familiar heat, the monotonous military aircraft overhead, and the regular high-pitched shouts of "sir - dollar?" the kids have seen and experienced a spectacle that has not graced Kabul for around two decades. The return to Afghanistan of puppet theatre.
Sat reverentially in his office beneath the main stage of the partly-reconstructed theatre building, the occasion is not lost on Abdul Qadir Farookh, National Theatre of Afghanistan (NTA) director and star of 2007's The Kite Runner.
"Twenty years ago we had the puppet theatre here in Afghanistan," Farookh says. "But it was lost during the war. It is good to see children's theatre return to our country."
With Afghanistan approaching its second presidential election next month, you would expect talk of puppets within Kabul to be in reference to select electoral hopefuls, depending on your political leaning. Due to the elections, security across the sun-baked city this summer is high. Road blocks adorn almost every street corner, cars passing through the inner city at night are stopped at gun point and occasionally searched by nervous-looking Afghan police, fingers on the triggers of loaded Kalashnikov rifles.
"It is a somewhat creepy feeling," Norwegian-born actor Petter Kristiansen tells us. "Elements of the Taliban and al-Qa'ida are regrouping in preparation for the elections. This is the calm before the storm." Kristiansen advises us that the kidnap risk across the city is "very high right now." If I hear any sudden cries of "he's behind you," I'll just have to trust that the best traditions of puppet theatre are alive and well in Kabul.
The performance on 1 July heralded a number of firsts in the city. Dragon Mountain was funded and devised by Den Nationale Scene - the national theatre in Bergen, Norway - and organised by the Norwegian team in collaboration with the NTA. It was the first official performance by the collaboration.
The performance also marked the opening of the partially reconstructed theatre building. Acting as a restaurant for the past five years, the building was refurbished by Norwegian money and Afghan toil. "The restaurant was a mess, a ruin," says project leader Rhine Skaanes. "We only started work three months ago and this place has become a theatre. It's quite astonishing."
An ancient tale
Four years ago, Dragon Mountain writer and director Vigdis Ludvigsen stumbled across the Dragon of Bamyan Valley. The Afghan legend tells the story of a dragon that terrorises a village by demanding the people sacrifice five camels and a virgin every week. The matter is resolved with the death of the dragon at the hands of sword-wielding hero Azad. The dragon is turned to stone, and to this day he stands frozen in the valley of Bamyan province, 140 miles north-west of Kabul.
Despite Den Nationale Scene's stated aim to steer clear of politics in Afghanistan, the parallels between Dragon Mountain and contemporary Afghan history are shockingly direct. The provinces of the nation are dotted with villages in which the way of life had barely changed for centuries. However, as the Mujahideen fought a civil war for control of the nation after the 1989 repelling of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the seizure of power by the Taliban that followed amid the chaos, life in the provinces changed.
The world has become familiar with the draconian interpretation of Sharia law implemented by the Taliban in Afghanistan from 1996-2001. The regime was overwhelmingly Pashtun - Afghan and Pashtun rulers were installed across the country regardless of misrepresentation in the non-pashtun provinces. To the villagers of Afghanistan, the Dragon of Bamyan had awoken from its sleep.
In a country ever-teetering on the brink of political violence, and with Karim Khorram, the controversial Afghan information and culture minister who many accuse of pursuing anti-free expression policies in the audience for Dragon Mountain, was Ludvigsen concerned about how the story would be interpreted?
"A little," she says, "but it's an ancient story." On the day, Dragon Mountain met with Khorram's approval. In Ludvigsen's eyes, the play is representative not of a political history, or of the violent legacy that Afghanistan struggles in the shadow of today, but of something more universal.
"We had been working on this back in Norway," she explains, "and it's just not possible for us to know the intricacies of another culture. What we do know, however, are human beings. We are the same, no matter where you go."
If a universal human condition were to be identified permeating through Dragon Mountain; the return of children's theatre to Afghanistan; and the re-opening of a section of the Kabul Nendari building; it is that of hope. The concept does exist, despite the danger of it becoming a hollow western cliché when lamenting on a distant, war-ravaged city such as Kabul. Now and again, however, this stubborn concept requires cultivation in order to flourish into something tangible.
The synergy created by Den Nationale Scene and the NTA is just that. A palpable manifestation of the progressiveness of Kabul's people and the Bergen Theatre. A return to tales of fiction, for so long outlawed and transposed by violent reality.
Exit stage left
Mid-way through the debut of Dragon Mountain, as children sit inside enthralled by the performance, a theatre staff member, a middle aged Afghan man, is treading the boards of the former Kabul Nendari building next door. He appears deep in thought, bathed by afternoon sunlight flooding in through the open building. The theatre, which upon completion in 1905 was the fourth-largest theatre building in the world, is utterly ruined.
It stands as a brutal testament to the oppression of art and culture under the extreme Islamic doctrine of the Mujahideen leaders and, later, the Taliban. Theatre director Farookh is one of the few members of Kabul theatre society - if not the only member - who remembers the thriving scene of the 1970s.
The following day, back in Farookh's musty office, the room is a haven of calm. The Dragon Mountain cast has just enjoyed a lively farewell lunch with their Norwegian counterparts in the room above, many of whom will be returning to Scandinavia for the time being to pursue other projects following yesterday's successful debut.
"Twenty years ago, before the onset of war, Kabul Theatre was perfect," Farookh explains through his son, Meelad, who is translating. "I was only seven years old when I started acting. My father was the lead-musician of the Kabul Theatre."
Farookh rose through the ranks during the 60s and 70s to become director of the National Theatre of Afghanistan. But war was to wreak havoc. The main theatre complex was devastated during the Mujahideen's nine-year conflict with the Russians and subsequent civil conflict between the warring factions of the Mujahideen, as each vied to fill the gaping vacuum of domestic power.
As guerrilla warfare swamped sections of the city, factions of the Mujahideen sought refuge in the old Kabul Nendari, ironically, the very symbol of a culture many of them were ideologically and violently opposed to. Within months, the theatre hosted a tragedy the likes of which it had never been intended for, as drama crossed the line, with savage abandon, from fiction to reality.
"The theatre was completely destroyed," Farookh explains. "Rockets, bombs and bullets tore our theatre apart. The Mujahideen used it for shelter, and even after the Russians left, the Mujahideen did not want the Kabul Theatre in Afghanistan. They destroyed it."
The seizure of power by the Taliban in 1996, an organisation that took a similar ideological approach to any manifetation of culture as the Mujahideen had done, only served to elongate the black hole that had enveloped Afghan theatre. Throughout those oppressive years, Farookh was forced to seek work in neighbouring Pakistan.
He returned home following the election of current Afghan president Hamid Karzai to power in 2004. "The government of Hamed Karzai and the Ministry of Information and Culture decided that Kabul Theatre was important for Afghanistan," Farookh says. "So I was asked to come back here and lead the theatre again."
Farookh believes that his return to directorship of the National Theatre was as much about weeding out corruption as it was an appointment on artistic merit. "At the time a woman was in charge of the theatre in Kabul," he says, without naming names, "but she did not have the interests of the theatre at heart. She just wanted to pocket the money."
In 2004 Den Nationale Scene had been working with the Afghans for 12 months, yet Farookh insisted on drawing up a new contract to govern business between the two parties. "I asked the Norwegians not to pay me a single dollar," he says. "I wanted their cash to end up with the theatre. Nowhere else."
Den Nationale Scene went on to provide technology, such as computer-controlled lighting along with the necessary training, so that both parties could get down to writing, rehearsing and performing. The final piece of the Dragon Mountain jigsaw was the refurbishment of the restaurant that was attached to the side of the derelict former theatre, into a theatre itself. "In just three months we built this beautiful place," Farookh says.
The bombed-out shell of the old Kabul Nendari looks out onto a sun-scorched patch of earth, across which lies the crumbling buildings of the Kabul Chamber of Commerce. As we gaze out from the crumbling second floor, a pack of stray dogs tear across the barren, baking ground between the two complexes, howling and fighting among themselves.
Kabul-born author Khaled Hosseini told in his 2007 book A Thousand Splendid Suns how the dogs of Kabul developed a taste for human flesh in the worst days of the fighting. Yet the dogs of Kabul now run in packs, no longer able to stumble alone upon a meal in the remains of a shattered building such as the Kabul Nendari. That such brutality has occurred intermittently over the past two decades in this city, however, is not forgotten. It remains reflected in the sand-bagged check points at night, and the armed guards outside every government building and Western-friendly establishment.
As we depart the theatre ruins, our guide passes slowly through the barbed wire-lined hole in the wall that, twenty years ago, was the main doorway of the proud Kabul Nendari. He pauses as he exits stage left, framed in the door way by the late afternoon sun. It's a fitting exit. Den Nationale Scene and the National Theatre of Afghanistan have come here to coax Afghan theatre from the two decades of darkness that have consumed it, back into the light.
In the building next door, Dragon Mountain nears its climax. The villagers are yet to call upon the hero Azad. "No one is doing anything to stop the dragon, so the terror will go on," Azad's partner Maryam explains to a gaggle of villagers. "So next week it will all happen again."
"But there is nothing to be done," the villagers exclaim to Maryam, barely stifling their laughter. "The dragon is larger and stronger than all of us together!"
"Then we should ask for help," Maryam persists.
"But who can help?!" the villagers say, laughing even harder. "Do you think we can just call out for a hero?"
Heroes and villains
The US-led invasion of Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001. Eight years on, Karzai's government has achieved a certain level of stability inside Kabul, but its influence in the provinces remains limited. The US Operation Enduring Freedom continues along the Pakistan border, while the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) oversees security in Kabul and the surrounding area.
Like Iraq, Afghanistan is a nation of different peoples. Of differing religious backgrounds and complex tribal origins. Karzai is Pastun-Afghan. He was elected over representatives of the Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek peoples. If one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, then in Afghanistan, one man's visionary leader is another man's puppet president.
With elections a month away, the streets are lined with posters. The grinning faces of the candidates adorn the walls of run-down shops and dusty street corners. In some, the face of the candidate has been viciously scratched out, revealing crumbling bricks and mortar where an inane, false smile should be. Babies are pictured, held aloft by a headless torso to be kissed by a circular patch of stretcher bond.
Karzai appears popular among locals. Bassmia, one of our many drivers throughout our stay, will vote for Karzai's re-election. If there is one thing the country craves, it is stability. The nation has been paralysed by power vacuums, sucking gun-toting militia men into the void, assuming positions of authority and imposing ideological doctrines based around extreme, oppressive interpretations of holy scripture.
It is little surprise that the Norwegian contingent behind Dragon Mountain chose to distance themselves from political comment. Indeed, in the words of Petter Kristiansen, "the story line is so highly politicised, and so highly charged, I am amazed that we were able to do this."
Puppet-maker Jack Markussen - and that's puppet-maker not in the George W. Bush metaphorical imposition-of-overseas-government sense, but the Pinoccio's-father-Geppetto literal sense - was the artistic source behind the puppets. This is not your average Punch and Judy show however. The puppets in Dragon Mountain are life size. In every facet of this performance, the cultural sensitivities of a patchwork nation had to be considered.
"I had ideas concerning Afghan clothes and costumes but it's difficult," Markussen explains, "because in this country it's so very different depending on which area you are from. I spoke to one person who said, 'no, don't use this hat on this puppet, use this one instead because it's the kind of hat worn by my people.' I found the only solution was to mix everything up."
"We ended up putting everything into a soup," writer Ludvigsen adds. "We just hope it is not perceived as disrespectful." In the land of the Pashtun, the Tajik, the Hazara, and the Uzbek, you can't please all of the people, all of the time.
The Norwegians are waiting for their ride back to Kabul International Airport. From there it is Dubai and "a hot shower," Ludvigsen says, then back to Bergen. Den Nationale Scene will continue to collaborate with the NTA for the next five years as per the contract drawn up by Farookh and the group. Workshops will be run by the Norwegians to train Afghan theatre staff in acting, writing and directing.
More performances of Dragon Mountain will be staged, though finding a suitable venue along with making the appropriate security arrangements is an ongoing concern for all parties. Though Kabul has not seen what the ISAF terms a "major incident" for some time, with elections around the corner, the city remains on tenterhooks.
According to the ISAF, in March, a school in the Khowst province of Afghanistan sustained major damage when it was attacked by insurgent forces. The following month, a further two separate schools in the same province were attacked, and as recently as June 21st, a school in the Bamyan province was hit by an improvised explosive device.
There remain elements within Afghanistan that are deeply opposed to what many would term progress. To some, education, independent thought, art and culture are forces to be feared, threats to the status quo, and to the authority of religion and dictatorial, ultra-conservative governance. There is little doubt that the same people who planted an improvised explosive device on the second floor of the Bamyan province school on 21 June would act to halt the return of establishments such as the NTA, given the chance.
Running in packs
Our last night in the Kabul Inn is an uneasy one. According to an NGO worker we met in the city earlier that evening, threats had been issued by the Taliban against Norwegian interests across the country, a result of fierce fighting in the north between the Norwegian military and insurgent forces. The entire Norwegian theatre party had been staying at the Inn with us. Indeed, a smattering of them remained.
Outside, across the city, the dogs of Kabul let out intermittent yelps. They howl in the night as they stalk the streets of their re-emerging city. If the predicted spike in violence during election month can be overcome, or better yet, fails to materialise altogether, and Karzai secures a further five-year term as expected, the complex story of Afghan politics can be allowed to continue on its present arc.
Over breakfast one morning, Petter Kristiansen, the same man who had comfortingly warned us on our arrival of the high risk of kidnapping during election month, spoke frankly of his career, and his shift into what he termed a more fulfilling veneer.
"I became bored of normal roles," he said. "It seemed the theatre was purely a platform for people who wanted recognition, when it should be about telling a story. Have something to say, share ideas and learn about yourself. To me," Kristiansen said, "the theatre is a temple."
Inevitably, the subject of the dragon arose. But there was no macro-political definition in Kristiansen's view. His understanding was shaped by a will for people to experience theatre from a personal perspective. "The dragon can be many things," he said. "In Afghanistan, it can be your father who won't allow you to go to school. Or it can be your mother who forces you to step into the street and beg."
It is said that if you stand atop the stone dragon in the Valley of Bamyan, and place your ear to a giant fissure that runs the length of the rock, the groans of the dragon can still be heard emanating from its parched throat. Though it appears to sleep, its threat remains.
There is hope for the Afghan capital as it emerges from two decades of war. The opening of the new Kabul Nendari building and Dragon Mountain represent tentative but bold steps towards reclaiming a once glorious past where drama and tragedy remained rooted on the fictional side of reality where they belonged. While the dragon sleeps, the show will go on. And the dogs of Kabul will not be allowed to walk alone pursuing the scent of flesh, but will continue to run, and hunt, in packs.
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