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Afghan war spreads to residential areas: U.N. report
By Laura Macinnis – Fri Jul 31, 9:38 am ET
GENEVA (Reuters) – The Afghan battlefield is spreading into residential areas where more people are being killed by air strikes, car bombs and suicide attacks, according to a U.N. report published on Friday.
Fear, violence in Afghan countryside ahead of vote
by Marc Bastian – Fri Jul 31, 2:28 am ET
GADAKHEL, Afghanistan (AFP) – Walking to a polling station in rural Afghanistan can be risky -- even for 250 troops armed with a guided missile, whose recent visit was disrupted by rocket attacks and gunfire.
US forces fade into background for Afghan election
By Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – An Afghan going to the polls in the Aug. 20 presidential election will not see an American or NATO soldier — if all goes according to plan.
In Afghanistan, U.S. May Shift Strategy
Request for Big Boost in Afghan Troops Could Also Require More Americans
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 31, 2009
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is preparing a new strategy that calls for major changes in the way U.S. and other NATO troops there operate, a vast increase in the size of Afghan security forces
Analysis: Taliban code seen as bid to spruce image
By Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 31, 7:08 am ET
KABUL – A Taliban code of conduct that pledges to limit attacks on civilians and curb suicide bombings appears aimed at mustering support among the Afghan people and refurbishing the militants' international image
UN: Civilian Death Toll Rises in Afghanistan
By VOA News 31 July 2009
A United Nations report says civilian deaths in Afghanistan have jumped by nearly 25 percent compared to last year, with more than 1,000 killed in the first half of 2009.
Afghan police kill 11 Taliban insurgents
New Kerala
Kabul, July 31 : Eleven Taliban militants were killed in clashes with the Afghan Police in western Afghanistan, an official said Friday.
US orders an Afghan detainee at Guantanamo freed
Thu Jul 30, 12:05 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US judge on Thursday ordered the release before the end of August of Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is one of the youngest men held at the notorious prison camp.
US general may ask for more troops for Afghan war
By Pauline Jelinek And Anne Gearan, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – The U.S. general put in charge of turning around the war in Afghanistan is likely to recommend significant changes in the campaign and may include a request for more U.S. forces that the White House is expected to resist.
Russia aims to spur Afghan region economy, win aid
30 Jul 2009 17:30:37 GMT By Roman Kozhevnikov and Anastasia Onegina
DUSHANBE, July 30 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday brought together the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and their neighbour Tajikistan to try and spur regional economic recovery and attract huge aid flows.
Problems plague rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan
By Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 31, 3:50 am ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. agencies handling reconstruction work in Afghanistan lack direction and communication, problems that risk wasting U.S. tax dollars, says the special inspector general overseeing tens of billions of dollars worth of projects.
US set to ask Australia for more help in Afghan war
Peter Hartcher and Anne Davies in Washington Sydney Morning Herald - Jul 30 7:18 AM
AUSTRALIA could be asked to increase its commitment in Afghanistan again – by providing more trainers for the police and the Afghan army – after a review of US strategy due in a fortnight.
Ghani Blames Afghan Government For Corruption
NPR By Renee Montagne 07/30/2009
One candidate in next month's Afghan presidential election who poses a serious challenge to incumbent Hamid Karzai is his former finance minister.
Jump in Afghan civilian deaths
The number of Afghan civilians killed in fighting between Taliban-led insurgents and Hamid Karzai's western-backed regime jumped by 24 per cent in the first half of the year.
Tajikistan worried about Afghan spillover
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, July 31 (UPI) -- The insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan threatens to spill over to other parts of Central Asia as militants flee international forces, Tajik officials say.
AGRICULTURE: Disease Threatens Afghan Wheat Crop
By Danielle Kurtzleben
WASHINGTON, Jul 30 (IPS) - Agronomists and crop experts fear that an aggressive disease that attacks wheat crops could soon reach Afghanistan, potentially threatening food security and initiatives to curb the cultivation of illicit crops.
Afghanistan faces growing addiction problem
With poppy production still high, and opium and heroin cheap and easy to get, more Afghans, including increasing numbers of women, are becoming addicted. Help is very limited.
Troubled Bid to Aid Balkh Beggars
A government plan to try to get them assistance from relief agencies does not seem to be working.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Khaleq Azizi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 328, 30-July-09)
Shopkeeper Mohammed Ibrahim gives every beggar a piece of candy. He gets several a day but lately their numbers have been growing.
Herat Youth Turn Backs on Afghan Music
Traditional artists bemoan youngsters’ preference for the likes of Shakira.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Sediq Behnam in Herat (ARR No. 328, 30-July-09)
Three young men sit in a park in central Herat, passing around a mobile phone. On the small screen is a music video of Shakira, the alluring Colombian pop star.
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Afghan war spreads to residential areas: U.N. report
By Laura Macinnis – Fri Jul 31, 9:38 am ET
GENEVA (Reuters) – The Afghan battlefield is spreading into residential areas where more people are being killed by air strikes, car bombs and suicide attacks, according to a U.N. report published on Friday.
The U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan said that 1,013 civilians were killed on the sidelines of the armed conflict from January to the end of June, compared to 818 in the first half of 2008 and 684 in the same period in 2007.
Commenting on the report, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said it was critical that steps be taken to shield Afghan communities from fighting.
"All parties involved in this conflict should take all measures to protect civilians, and to ensure the independent investigation of all civilian casualties, as well as justice and remedies for the victims," the South African said.
Taliban fighters and their allies were named responsible for 59 percent of bystander deaths, caused mainly by roadside blasts. The Afghan government and international forces were also faulted for errant air strikes that claimed hundreds of lives.
"Both anti-government elements and pro-government forces are responsible for the increase in civilian casualties," the human rights report said, arguing that tactical changes in the war had put more innocent people in the cross-fire.
A recent directive instructs U.S. forces to look for alternatives to continued fighting if they engage with the enemy in areas where civilians may be present, Lieutenant-Commander Christine Sidenstricker, spokeswoman for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
"We are doing everything we can to eliminate civilian casualties wherever possible," she said.
Insurgents, who previously targeted the Afghan military and NATO troops with frontal attacks and ambushes, are now employing "guerrilla-like measures" in residential zones "to deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians," the U.N. report said.
This shift, it said, is "what appears to be an active policy aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood that civilians will be killed or injured."
FURTHER CASUALTIES LIKELY
Afghan and international forces have launched more operations in areas where ordinary Afghans live, killing people and damaging homes, assets and infrastructure, the report said.
The United Nations warned that resistance to a U.S. troop surge and efforts to disrupt August elections [ID:nISL383254] could lead to more loss of life in Afghanistan, where war has been waged since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for having sheltered al Qaeda militants.
"Given the pattern of the conflict so far, further significant civilian casualties in the coming months are likely," the human rights report concluded.
The U.N. tolls are based on witness testimonies, military and local leader interviews, hospital visits, and photographic and film evidence as well as media and secondary-source reports.
The latest report said 200 civilians have been killed since the start of the year in 40 air strikes by pro-government forces. May was especially bloody, with 63 civilian deaths in one aerial bombardment and a total of 81 deaths over the month.
"While the number of deadly air strike incidents remains low overall, when they do occur they can claim a significant number of lives," the report said.
It said pro-government forces -- who until last year were responsible for the bulk of Afghan civilian deaths -- seemed to have clamped down on "force protection incidents" where civilians are killed after failing to follow instructions when nearing military convoys, sites or checkpoints.
(Additional reporting by Golnar Motevalli in Kabul)
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Fear, violence in Afghan countryside ahead of vote
by Marc Bastian – Fri Jul 31, 2:28 am ET
GADAKHEL, Afghanistan (AFP) – Walking to a polling station in rural Afghanistan can be risky -- even for 250 troops armed with a guided missile, whose recent visit was disrupted by rocket attacks and gunfire.
At around 7:00 am, several hours after dawn, 30 armoured vehicles deposited NATO troops, joined quickly by Afghan counterparts and their US "advisors" at the entrance to Gadakhel village, 70 kilometres (44 miles) east of Kabul.
It is the first NATO patrol in months in a part of Kapisa province where the alliance has security responsibility. The object? To visit a would-be polling station about two kilometres into the green-carpeted valley of Bedrau.
There are no police, no military bases, no electricity. Only Hezb-e-Islami rebels led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Taliban fighters and tribesmen living for centuries by their own code of conduct in mud-brick hamlets.
In rural Afghanistan, this is a battlefield like countless others dotted across the vast country where Islamist insurgents fight a guerrilla war against the Western-backed government and allied Western troops.
Suddenly the radio crackles into action. "Contact!" A few hundred metres ahead, machine gun fire rips through the morning quiet. Rockets explode. The advance reconnaissance party was ambushed. No losses.
Calm returns. The terrain is perfect ambush territory. Walls of up to three metres (yards) separate fields. Narrow footpaths snake out of sight. Houses are scattered across lush vegetation that offers plenty of places to hide.
At 8:15 am, a much louder explosion reverberates through the valley. French troops under NATO command fired a Milan anti-tank guided missile towards about 15 rebels holed up nearby. They fire back with Kalashnikovs.
The radio crackles back into action. "We think some Taliban are wounded and that people will come and find them. Permission to fire a second Milan?"
"Negative" replies Colonel Francis Chanson, French commander in Kapisa.
"We're not here to kill. Otherwise we'll just increase local animosity," says the commander, parroting classic counter-insurgency doctrine.
The soldiers walk on in the heat, the smell of sewage wafting under the open skies. At 9:20 am, more explosions and machine-gun fire to the west.
Radio traffic quickens. Their Afghan colleagues have encountered resistance.
"We got intelligence from the local population and shopkeepers saying that all's well. But the interpreter said they're lying, which is obviously true."
At 10:00 am, the French arrive at a mosque, chosen as a polling station for the presidential and provincial council elections on August 20.
The soldiers pause to meet tribal elders in the shade of the square outside the mosque, accompanied by the sound of bullets popping overhead and several rockets exploding nearby -- one seriously wounding an Afghan soldier.
"Killing one, two, 10 people is not the answer. We've got other problems.... We need development projects and jobs," local mayor Abdul Fatah tells the NATO soldiers, speaking through a translator.
Chanson is not satisfied. "Insurgents live in the valley and we know it." He rebuffs the tribesmen's denials.
The colonel lays his cards on the table. If security improves, they have a deal. Development projects can begin.
As talk turns to the elections, the tribesmen seem distinctly unenthusiastic. Some said they had no idea where ballot boxes would be set up -- roughly 20 metres away in the mosque.
"The elections are supposed to take place in the mosque. Have people here been threatened by insurgents not to vote?"
One tribal elder pipes up. "There was a letter from the insurgents posted on the wall of the mosque, threatening all those who want to vote."
Three hours earlier, a member of the local shura, or council, was wounded fighting with insurgents. Another was shot dead at dawn by rebels, Afghan and French soldiers tell AFP.
At the meeting, it becomes clear that authorities have registered no one on the electoral roll and no one has a voting card -- three weeks before polls whose credibility has been thrown into doubt by spiralling unrest.
"There are two problems. We are civilians. We have no weapons. It's dangerous for us and concerning the elections, we have no voting cards, because the government doesn't come here," said one of the elders.
"At the previous elections five years ago, 10 percent had a voting card, but today, nobody," said Abdul Fatah.
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US forces fade into background for Afghan election
By Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – An Afghan going to the polls in the Aug. 20 presidential election will not see an American or NATO soldier — if all goes according to plan.
Although the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has swelled to 62,000 — more than double this time last year — international forces plan to keep a low profile on election day to avoid any suspicion that foreigners are trying to influence the outcome.
Instead, Afghans themselves will protect the voters, with foreign troops standing by. The Taliban have urged voters to boycott the election, raising fears they may attack polling centers to disrupt the ballot.
Nevertheless, NATO and U.S. commanders are keen to avoid any impression that they are orchestrating the process and are willing to step aside and let the Afghans run the show.
"We don't want to put an American face on elections at all," said Lt. Col. William Clark, whose troops will help maintain security in southern Kandahar province.
As part of the lay-low campaign, U.S. commanders here in the Taliban-infested south say they're holding off on any massive new offensives in the area until the voting is over.
The Afghan government delayed the elections by about four months in part to allow time for more U.S. troops to arrive following President Barack Obama's decision to boost American military strength in Afghanistan and push into areas such as Helmand province, which had been in the grip of the Taliban for years.
The August ballot will be the third time Afghans have gone to the polls since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 and the second time they have chosen a president.
As the U.S. presence here has grown, so has the belief among many Afghans that the Americans determine who wins.
President Hamid Karzai, who was seen as close to former President George W. Bush, is considered the front-runner among the 38 candidates, but American and NATO officials insist they are staying neutral.
To minimize any appearance of international meddling, foreign forces will stay at least 200 yards (meters) from voting centers and come closer only if Afghan police and soldiers ask for help, according to Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission.
Foreign troops will also not transport or guard ballots after the vote, unless called on by the Afghan government, Noor added. In a country with towering mountains, deserts and almost nonexistent roads, the Afghan government will have to move the ballots mostly by car — with the help of three helicopters and more than 3,000 donkeys used to reach remote areas inaccessible even by air, officials said.
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In Afghanistan, U.S. May Shift Strategy
Request for Big Boost in Afghan Troops Could Also Require More Americans
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 31, 2009
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is preparing a new strategy that calls for major changes in the way U.S. and other NATO troops there operate, a vast increase in the size of Afghan security forces and an intensified military effort to root out corruption among local government officials, according to several people familiar with the contents of an assessment report that outlines his approach to the war.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took charge of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month, appears inclined to request an increase in American troops to implement the new strategy, which aims to use more unconventional methods to combat the growing Taliban insurgency, according to members of an advisory group he convened to work on the assessment. Such a request could receive a chilly reception at the White House, where some members of President Obama's national security team have expressed reluctance about authorizing any more deployments.
Senior military officials said McChrystal is waiting for a recommendation from a team of military planners in Kabul before reaching a final decision on a troop request. Several members of the advisory group, who spoke about the issue of force levels on the condition of anonymity, said that they think more U.S. troops are needed but that it was not clear how large an increase McChrystal would seek.
"There was a very broad consensus on the part of the assessment team that the effort is under-resourced and will require additional resources to get the job done," a senior military official in Kabul said.
A request for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan could pose a political challenge for Obama. Some leading congressional Democrats have voiced skepticism about sustaining current force levels, set to reach 68,000 by the fall. After approving an extra 21,000 troops in the spring, Obama himself questioned whether "piling on more and more troops" would lead to success, and his national security adviser, James L. Jones, told U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan last month that the administration wants to hold troop levels flat for now.
One senior administration official said some members of Obama's national security team want to see how McChrystal uses the 21,000 additional troops before any more deployments are authorized. "It'll be a tough sell," the official said.
Even so, McChrystal has been instructed by his superiors -- including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen -- to conduct a thorough assessment of the war effort and articulate his recommendations. While McChrystal has indicated to some of his advisers that he is leaning toward asking for more forces, he has also emphasized that his strategy will involve fundamental changes in the way those troops are used.
One of the key changes outlined in the latest drafts of the assessment report, which will be provided to Gates by mid-August, is a shift in the "operational culture" of U.S. and NATO forces. Commanders will be encouraged to increase contact with Afghans, even if it means living in less-secure outposts inside towns and spending more time on foot patrols instead of in vehicles.
"McChrystal understands that you don't stop IEDs [improvised explosive devices] by putting your soldiers in MRAPs," heavily armored trucks designed to withstand blasts, said Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington who served on the assessment team. "You stop them by convincing the population not to plant them in the first place, and that requires getting out of trucks and interacting with people."
The report calls for intelligence resources to be realigned to focus more on tribal and social dynamics so commanders can identify local power brokers and work with them. Until recently, the vast majority of U.S. and NATO intelligence assets had been oriented toward tracking insurgents.
The changes are aimed at fulfilling McChrystal's view that the primary mission of the international forces is not to conduct raids against Taliban strongholds but to protect civilians and help the Afghan government assume responsibility for maintaining security. "The focus has to be on the people," he said in a recent interview.
To accomplish that, McChrystal has indicated that he is considering moving troops out of remote mountain valleys where Taliban fighters have traditionally sought sanctuary and concentrating more forces around key population centers.
The assessment report also urges the United States and NATO to almost double the size of the Afghan security forces. It calls for expanding the Afghan army from 134,000 soldiers to about 240,000, and the police force from 92,000 personnel to about 160,000. Such an increase would require additional U.S. forces to conduct training and mentoring.
McChrystal and his top lieutenants have expressed concern about a lack of Afghan soldiers to patrol alongside foreign troops and to take responsibility for protecting pacified areas from Taliban infiltration. In Helmand province, where U.S. Marines are engaged in a major operation, fewer than 500 Afghan soldiers are available to work with almost 11,000 American service members.
Some U.S. and European officials involved in Afghanistan policy warn that the Afghan government does not have the means to pay for such a large army and police force, but McChrystal and his assessment team believe additional Afghan troops are essential to the country's stability. U.S. officials have said that they would like European nations to help cover the cost of training and sustaining additional Afghan forces.
The strategy advocates changes in what happens after Afghan soldiers graduate from boot camp. Instead of just placing small groups of U.S. trainers with Afghan units, the assessment calls for a top-to-bottom partnership between Afghan and NATO security forces that involves everyone from generals to privates working in tandem. "We've got to live together, we've got to train together, we've got to conduct operations together," one senior U.S. military official in Kabul said. "Everything we do has to be done together."
The assessment also calls for U.S. and NATO forces to be far more involved in fighting corruption and promoting effective governance, describing the risk to the overall mission from ineffective and venal government officials as being on par with the threat from top Taliban commanders. "These are co-equal ways we could lose the war," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served on the assessment team.
The team, which spent more than a dozen hours meeting with McChrystal over the past month, was made up of several prominent national security specialists from a variety of think thanks in Washington, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Analysis: Taliban code seen as bid to spruce image
By Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 31, 7:08 am ET
KABUL – A Taliban code of conduct that pledges to limit attacks on civilians and curb suicide bombings appears aimed at mustering support among the Afghan people and refurbishing the militants' international image ahead of peace talks widely expected after next month's presidential elections.
The code, which NATO officials say was published in May and distributed to Taliban fighters, requires that members of the hard-line Islamist movement undertake the "utmost effort" to avoid killing civilians, limits the use of suicide bombers and mandates that prisoners cannot be harmed or ransomed without the approval of a Taliban regional commander.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that 20,000 copies of the 60-page booklet were being distributed and that the rules must be followed to the letter.
Afghan and NATO officials dismiss the code as propaganda and insist it does not reflect how the Taliban really fight.
NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said the code is an attempt to show there is central control over the disorganized Taliban ranks. Despite what may be written in the code, "on the ground, they're showing every day that they don't respect any code," he said, citing at least 90 suicide bombings this year.
Analysts familiar with the Taliban believe the code is more of a political statement than a military textbook. They note that the code surfaced as the U.S. military made public new battlefield guidelines to reduce Afghan civilian casualties, suggesting the Taliban are eager to compete with NATO in a campaign to win Afghan public support.
"They're a highly intelligent insurgency. You've got to credit them with that," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and a security analyst. "They want to mirror any attempt by Barack Obama to capture the hearts and minds."
The United Nations and human rights organizations have expressed alarm over the rise in civilian casualties as the level of fighting increases in Afghanistan.
A U.N. report released Friday said the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan has jumped 24 percent so far this year, with bombings by insurgents and airstrikes by international forces the biggest single killers. The report also said the Taliban were waging a "systematic campaign of intimidation and violence" aimed at Afghans who support the U.S.-backed government.
Western military officers believe the code shows that the Taliban realize they have lost support among many Afghans who are tired of war. As evidence, NATO officials say Afghans are more willing to provide information on Taliban activity.
For example, Lt. Col. Bertrand Fayet, a spokesman for NATO's Kabul military region, said local residents in Kapisa province reported the location of 10 of the 16 roadside bombs found in that area north of the capital over the last two months. Those 10 bombs were defused.
Taliban leaders are likely aware that the tide began to turn against Sunni insurgents in Iraq when ordinary Iraqis started to report on insurgent activities. Opposition to mass attacks on Shiite civilians prompted some key Iraqi nationalist insurgent groups to oppose al-Qaida.
"They've become unpopular among the educated Islamist opinion, and they're certainly trying to repair the damage," said Mahmood Shah, a former security chief in Pakistan's tribal regions, which insurgents use as a base for attacks across the border in Afghanistan.
Masood said the Taliban also need to refurbish their image among supporters outside the country, including those in Persian Gulf countries that are a major source of funds. This week, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, said the Taliban receive more funding from their sympathizers abroad than from Afghanistan's illegal drug trade.
Image will be important if, as is widely expected, the Afghan government offers peace talks with the Taliban after the Aug. 20 presidential election. Some low-level, informal contacts have already taken place.
President Hamid Karzai, the front-runner in the August balloting, has offered talks with Taliban groups willing to renounce violence. Such talks would be easier with a group that claims to follow international rules of warfare rather than with terrorists.
Mustafa Alani, director of terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, said the Taliban hope the code will show that they are a legitimate resistance movement.
"So they really want to show they can be an acceptable partner in negotiations," Alani said.
___
Alfred de Montesquiou has reported on Islamist groups in North Africa and Sudan.
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UN: Civilian Death Toll Rises in Afghanistan
By VOA News 31 July 2009
A United Nations report says civilian deaths in Afghanistan have jumped by nearly 25 percent compared to last year, with more than 1,000 killed in the first half of 2009.
The U.N. assistance mission in Afghanistan says Taliban militants were to blame for nearly 60 percent of civilian deaths, caused mainly by roadside bombs and suicide attacks. Afghan government and international forces also were faulted for errant air strikes that claimed hundreds of lives.
The report released Friday says militants were increasingly basing themselves in civilian areas to deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians. It says the shift appears to be "an active policy" aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood of civilian casualties.
The U.N. says the death toll likely will rise further in the next few months, as insurgents respond to the recent U.S. troop surge and upcoming elections in August.
Civilian casualties have been a major source of tension between the Afghan government and the United States.
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has made the protection of civilians a top priority in the revamped U.S. military strategy. He has pledged to sharply restrict the use of air strikes and issue new rules to U.S. and NATO forces about fighting with militants hiding out in Afghan homes.
Thousands of U.S., British and Afghan troops are taking part in a major offensive aimed at eliminating Taliban strongholds in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
July has been the deadliest month for international forces in Afghanistan since 2001, with at least 40 U.S and 22 British soldiers killed. An American soldier died Friday after being wounded the day before in a direct fire incident in southern Afghanistan.
Separately on Friday, police said at least nine militants and a police officer were killed in a gunbattle that was sparked by a Taliban attack on a NATO supply convoy a day earlier in western Herat province.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Afghan police kill 11 Taliban insurgents
New Kerala
Kabul, July 31 : Eleven Taliban militants were killed in clashes with the Afghan Police in western Afghanistan, an official said Friday.
The fighting took place in Herat Province in western Afghanistan. Five Taliban militants were also wounded in the fighting, provincial police chief Asmatullah Alizai said.
'The clash took place after militants attacked a US private security company in Rabat-e-Sangi district Thursday evening. The police rushed to the spot and in the ensuing gun battle 11 militants were killed,” Alizai said.
He added that one police officer was killed and two others wounded in the fighting.
The firm provides security to US supply convoys in Afghanistan.
--- IANS
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US orders an Afghan detainee at Guantanamo freed
Thu Jul 30, 12:05 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US judge on Thursday ordered the release before the end of August of Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is one of the youngest men held at the notorious prison camp.
Judge Ellen Huvelle granted a "writ of habeas corpus" concerning Jawad, whose attorneys say he was just 12 at the time of his arrest in 2002.
The Pentagon says he was 16 or 17 when Jawad was originally arrested in Afghanistan on charges that he threw a grenade at a US convoy in the country.
A military judge tossed out most of the evidence against Jawad last fall and a federal prosecutor quit the case, saying the young Afghan's statements had been obtained through torture.
Afghanistan has demanded that the United States return Jawad, now aged around 19, to his native country, saying his arrest was "totally illegal" and even proposing to dispatch an airplane to bring him home.
US President Barack Obama is facing mounting challenges over how and where to try or release detainees as he seeks to honor a pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay facility by January.
The prison, located on a US naval base in southeastern Cuba, still holds 229 men captured as suspected terrorists or "enemy combattants" under former president George W. Bush.
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US general may ask for more troops for Afghan war
By Pauline Jelinek And Anne Gearan, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – The U.S. general put in charge of turning around the war in Afghanistan is likely to recommend significant changes in the campaign and may include a request for more U.S. forces that the White House is expected to resist.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal's long-awaited reassessment of the war against Taliban insurgents aims for a transformation of the shaky relationship between U.S. forces and Afghan civilians as troops press a counterinsurgency strategy of clearing and holding populated areas, said officials apprised of the report's contents.
The biggest change urged in McChrystal's report is a "cultural shift" in how U.S. and foreign troops operate — ranging from how they live and travel among the Afghan population to where and how they fight, a senior military official in Kabul said Friday.
The latest draft of the assessment also urges speeding up the training of Afghan soldiers and police and nearly doubling their numbers to roughly 400,000, said a senior defense official in Washington, one of several uniformed and civilian officials who spoke on condition anonymity because the report has not been made public.
As McChrystal readies the assessment of the war, due in two weeks, numerous U.S. officials and outsiders aware of his thinking suggest that he will request in a companion report that more American troops, probably including marines, be added next year.
Several people familiar with the work being done cautioned that McChrystal could opt not to ask for an increase at all — a recognition that President Barack Obama and other White House advisers would not look favorably on adding new numbers to U.S. forces after already agreeing to boost their ranks by 21,000 troops earlier this year.
The main recommendations for change stem from the military's new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, which is now designed to focus less on going after Taliban strongholds and more on protecting the local population.
The strategy is also aimed at helping develop an Afghan government that civilians will embrace rather than siding with the insurgents, two senior military officials said.
To achieve that, one official said, the latest draft of McChrystal's assessment on the war includes the following recommendations:
_Using intelligence less to hunt insurgents and more to understand local, tribal and social power structures in the areas where they operate. McChrystal is considering concentrating troops around populated areas rather than going after sparsely populated mountain areas where Taliban hide.
_Getting troops more active in fighting corruption. U.S. forces will need to take care in their dealings with local Afghan leaders to ensure that they are not perceived by the Afghan population to be empowering corrupt officials.
In preparing his assessment of the Afghan command, McChrystal found an American military culture that showed a great concern for troops' protection — sometimes at the expense of their relations with Afghan civilians.
To change those relations, McChrystal wants American forces to think twice about basic conduct — for instance no longer pointing their guns at people when they pass in convoy or blocking narrow roads with their convoys, while relegating Afghans to the ditches.
To deal with the most contentious aspect of those shaky relations, McChrystal has already committed to try to reduce civilian casualties by issuing new orders that restrict when troops should call in bombing strikes.
The assessment was commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who hand-picked McChrystal to take the helm of a campaign against insurgents that top defense officials have conceded is stalemated.
Two of McChrystal's civilian advisers, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, said this week they expect some expansion of troops. Neither adviser would quantify those numbers.
Biddle said Thursday he thinks the total number of troops in Afghanistan should number 300,000 to 600,000, including U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.
Current forces include 62,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 allied troops, plus about 175,000 Afghan Army and police. Some of the allies plan to pull their troops home in the next couple of years.
Afghan forces are already set to grow, but McChrystal urges an end target of some 400,000 police and army, a goal that would require more foreign forces for the training, a senior defense official said Friday.
Any request for additional U.S. forces would require touchy discussions with the White House and lawmakers. President Barack Obama approved a surprise addition of 4,000 U.S. trainers earlier in the spring, after his larger announcement of 17,000 combat troops, and administration and military officials had been signaling that further additions were unlikely for now.
The additions Obama has already approved will bring the U.S. presence to about 68,000 by the end of the year. That is roughly double the size of the U.S. force when Obama took office, and although Afghanistan is now considered the nation's top military priority, the White House is deeply reluctant to keep adding, or to fight a skeptical Congress over the increase.
McChrystal's predecessor left behind an unfilled request for an addition of approximately 10,000 U.S. forces, and Obama had been expected to review that request near the end of the year.
To prepare the report, McChrystal gathered about a dozen military and outside civilian analysts six weeks ago and sent them on an intensive reporting trip through Afghanistan. The group finished work last week.
One of the report's authors said the group identified some basic organizational problems with the way the fight is divided among U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.
Andrew Exum, a counterinsurgency specialist and blogger at the Center for a New American Security, said the "operational culture" of the war has to change, meaning a shift away from traditional military operation and procedures.
"Our efforts in this war will succeed or fail based upon relationships we're able to build with our Afghan partners at every level," Exum said.
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Associated Press writer Lara Jakes in Washington contributed to this story.
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Russia aims to spur Afghan region economy, win aid
30 Jul 2009 17:30:37 GMT By Roman Kozhevnikov and Anastasia Onegina
DUSHANBE, July 30 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday brought together the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and their neighbour Tajikistan to try and spur regional economic recovery and attract huge aid flows.
Medvedev said he, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari discussed trade and cross-border projects at their second meeting in less then two months now joined by the Tajik leader.
Russia is reluctant to get involved in military efforts in Afghanistan after its own 10-year experience of a failed 1980s invasion but still seeks a role in settling the conflict.
Russia views ex-Soviet Central Asia as a traditional sphere of interests and has always been sensitive to instability the Afghan conflict may cause in the region. Drug traffic and Islamic radicalism stemming from Afghanistan also pose security threats for it.
Drawing together regional powers affected by the Afghan conflict is seen by the Kremlin as a priority.
"We have a common space, which should be filled with all sorts of projects," Medvedev said in the Tajik capital after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
"We were talking about energy projects, railway projects," he told a news conference after talks also attended by Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon.
Medvedev did detail the projects discussed, but said Russia, a member of G8 and G20 clubs of leading economies, would lobby for their international financing.
"I believe that huge sums allocated by the international community -- altogether making trillions of dollars -- should go for such aims," he said.
Cooperation on Afghanistan has become a key scene for attempts by Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama to repair thorny relations between the world's two biggest nuclear powers.
Russia and its Central Asian allies have approved the massive transit of military supplies to U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan through their territory.
Medvedev hosted the first meeting of Karzai and Zardari in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in June. Adding Afghan neighbour Tajikistan to the talks was aimed to give Afghan-Pakistani contacts a broader regional context.
"This meeting...is the first important step in the direction of better understanding," Karzai told the news conference. "Afghanistan...welcomes this and will participate in that wholly."
"The people of Afghanistan, the people of Pakistan and the people of this region are looking up to the leadership of the region to help them with problems," Zardari added.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Pakistan and Central Asian states worry that the escalating war in Afghanistan spreads Islamic radicalism to the neighbouring regions threatening their fragile peace.
Central Asian officials say recent attacks in Central Asia were orchestrated by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a Taliban-linked group headed by Takhir Yuldashev, Central Asia's most wanted man.
But human rights groups suggest that governments in Central Asia, which is divided between five authoritarian nations, have exaggerated the problem and use it as an excuse to crush political dissent.
Security cooperation was a key issue of separate talks Rakhmon had with Zardari and Karzai earlier on Thursday.
"The three states have expressed enthusiasm to cooperate in fighting against all threats and challenges like terrorism and all its manifestations: separatism, extremism and organised crime," a joint statement from the Afghan, Tajik and Pakistan presidents said.
(Editing by Ron Askew) (Writing by Oleg Shchedrov and Maria Golovnina)
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Problems plague rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan
By Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 31, 3:50 am ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. agencies handling reconstruction work in Afghanistan lack direction and communication, problems that risk wasting U.S. tax dollars, says the special inspector general overseeing tens of billions of dollars worth of projects.
Inspector General Arnold Fields says that coordination between the Americans and the Afghans is poor, leading to a disjointed effort and slowing progress on critically needed improvements to the country's transportation, agriculture and energy production.
"The more we move around and the more we conduct our audit work, the evidence is compounding that there is a lack of oversight and follow through," says Fields, who returned July 19 from his fifth trip to Afghanistan since he was appointed last year.
He also said that "there isn't always a direct connection between what the Afghans feel that they need and what the reconstruction effort is delivering." Since 2002, the U.S. has committed $32 billion to Afghanistan's reconstruction. With President Barack Obama ordering more civilian and military personnel there to quell a growing insurgency, that figure is expected to rise to nearly $50 billion by 2010, according to a quarterly report released Wednesday by Fields' office.
The projects vary significantly in size and cost. On his most recent trip, Fields says he visited Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan to see a $118 million road construction project. He and his staff also stopped in Ghor, a remote province in central Afghanistan where a $240,000 high school dormitory was recently completed.
Fields plans to keep an eye on the road work and may perform an inspection to make sure it is done properly and that the Afghans are trained and equipped to maintain the highway once it's completed.
At the dormitory, investigators saw exposed wiring, broken locks on doors, lack of storage space and overcrowded rooms. Fields says it looked as though the dorm had been built 25 years ago.
A new inspection report from Fields' office details problems with an electric power station in Khost, a town on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.
At a cost of nearly $1.6 million, the power generation plant in Khost was transformed from a dilapidated building into a modern facility with three newly installed generators. In September 2008, the plant was turned over to Khost's ministry of energy and water.
But inspectors found the plant has deteriorated because the Afghans have been unable to sustain it. They also found serious safety hazards, including exposed high voltage cables and open electrical boxes.
As more money flows into Afghanistan, Fields' quarterly report says there is no single computer system that provides complete, up-to-date information on reconstruction projects.
Military commands, the Army Corps of Engineers, the State Department and other agencies each have established information systems for tracking financial data and accounting.
But auditors found these systems "varied significantly" and didn't allow information to be exchanged easily. That "increases the risk that U.S. resources may be wasted either through duplication of effort or because projects are in conflict with each other," the report said.
Civilian officials and military authorities most often exchange information through periodic meetings and impromptu reports and presentations, the report said.
Fields says it doesn't appear the difficult lessons from the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq have been applied to Afghanistan. That's in part because his office wasn't created until 2008, nearly seven years after the U.S.-led coalition invaded to oust the Taliban and attack al-Qaida camps.
"You need to start oversight early rather than later," he said. "Many of the issues that we're now pointing out would likely have been pointed out before, and we would have been able to turn the corner."
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US set to ask Australia for more help in Afghan war
Peter Hartcher and Anne Davies in Washington Sydney Morning Herald - Jul 30 7:18 AM
AUSTRALIA could be asked to increase its commitment in Afghanistan again – by providing more trainers for the police and the Afghan army – after a review of US strategy due in a fortnight.
Wallace "Chip" Gregson, the Pentagon’s top Asia official, warned the situation in Afghanistan was "serious".
He said success would require "detailed civil and military integration’’ so development efforts were working with military operations – and that this is what the Pentagon was expecting to hear from General Stanley McCrystal, the new commander in the field.
"You have to start bettering the life of the people there and that’s a lot of where the civil-military integration comes in. We expect he [McCrystal] is going to be asking for additional resources if he thinks he needs it. We expect to see requests for organisational changes,’’ Lieutenant-General Gregson, the Assistant Secretary of Defence, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, said.
"He may be asking for more allied boots on the ground but he is more likely to be requesting more help to get more Afghan boots on the ground: the Afghan national army, the Afghan police, the local security forces,’’ he said.
General McCrystal’s report is due on August 12 and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has said that if the general thinks he needs more resources, the Pentagon will pursue the request vigorously with the White House.
General McCrystal, a counterinsurgency expert who has a reputation for creating multidisplinary teams, has already wrought significant changes to the US strategy. He has deployed the 30,000 additional US troops sent at the beginning of the northern summer into Afghanistan’s southern provinces, where there has been fierce fighting with the Taliban.
He has also identified the slow development of Afghan security forces as a serious impediment to a future exit strategy from the increasingly unpopular conflict.
In an interview with the Herald this week, Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state under the former president George Bush, said: "McCrystal will make the point that we cannot win this.
"There is a special problem of a corrupt and inefficient government in Kabul," he said.
Asked whether Australia would be asked for more troops, General Gregson said: "In every adventure we have been in, Australia has always proved very adept at these sort of non-traditional missions, these training missions," but added he would not pre-empt General McCrystal’s report.
He remarked on the effectiveness of Australian military trainers in East Timor, and the federal police in the Pacific.
"We are always very grateful for any contribution and that’s not just rhetoric," he said.
Australia increased its troop commitment in Afghanistan by 450 in April to 1550.
General Gregson said the Afghan elections, to be held on August 20, appeared to be well organised and that he expected to see more than 80 per cent of the population vote, despite the security situation.
"Elements in Afghanistan will be attempting to disrupt the election," he warned.
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Ghani Blames Afghan Government For Corruption
NPR By Renee Montagne 07/30/2009
One candidate in next month's Afghan presidential election who poses a serious challenge to incumbent Hamid Karzai is his former finance minister.
Ashraf Ghani was a senior analyst at the World Bank and had been living outside Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion when Karzai invited him to join his new government in 2001 — at a moment when peace finally seemed at hand for the country.
"He asked me — I still remember very vividly — he said, 'There are no benefits. But your country needs you. Will you join me?' "
With that, Ghani became Afghanistan's new finance minister — presiding over a country and currency in ruins.
These days, Ghani, who comes from the powerful Ahmadzai tribe that served Afghanistan's rulers for centuries as ministers and generals, is trying to unseat Karzai. He has, in the most scathing terms, blamed the current government for the country's widespread corruption and poor economy.
"We need to have the elections because this government has run out of the fundamental asset that any government in the 21st century needs: legitimacy," he recently told reporters and a group of enthusiastic supporters.
'A Man Of The People'
A few days later, under a tent made of reeds, Ghani spoke of an election he believes could bring Afghanistan into the 21st century. He began by highlighting the importance of last week's presidential debate.
"I think this country went through a remarkable experience," he said. "For the first time in its history, probably 6 [million] to 8 million people simultaneously experienced an event — a serious, in-depth conversation about the future of the country."
One of the things Ghani is running on is his past success as finance minister in creating a banking system and introducing a new currency — hardly the dramatic profile of the other major presidential challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, who is associated with Afghanistan's freedom fighters.
But Ghani says he's "a man of the people."
"I have talked to over a hundred thousand Afghans in the past year. I reflect their fears, but I also reflect their hopes," he says.
And Ghani says he has visited areas made dangerous by conflict.
"I've been to Logar. I held a rally of about 1,500 people in Logar. Logar is considered extremely insecure, and there were at least 400 members of armed opposition in the rally," he says, referring to the Taliban.
Ghani says he doesn't know if they will vote, but he says they were in the audience because "they're testing."
"They want to see whether to disrupt, whether to kill or whether to join — they're Afghans," he says.
Ghani says he has to be willing to risk assassination — "I cannot hide from my people."
A Modern Campaign
But Ghani is not depending entirely on rallies and retail politics to reach out to those who might vote for him.
He was the first candidate in Afghanistan to put up a sophisticated Web site, aimed at getting support and lots of small donations. In this, he has taken a page from Barack Obama's groundbreaking online politicking.
And that has drawn to his campaign young, well-educated supporters like Hamdullah Mohib, who created the Web site.
"Everyone has a phone now," he says. "They can store videos, so they download videos from YouTube, and then they pass it along."
Supporters are hoping to bring in a million dollars to Ghani's campaign, which Ghani says would go a long way in Afghanistan.
Ghani says he's also taking advice from U.S. Democratic Party strategist James Carville about "staying on message."
"Part of the discipline of campaigning is to stay focused, to be able to deliver one's core messages in a consistent manner," he says.
And, he adds, laughing, "New Orleans is not very different from Afghanistan" — referring to Carville's roots and Louisiana's reputation for political corruption.
Concerns About Fraud
When it comes to corruption in Afghanistan, Ghani has already charged that the incumbent has used the power of the presidential office to offer out plum government positions in exchange for support — something Karzai has denied.
As far as the election goes, Ghani cites figures that show, in some conservative provinces, as many as 70 percent of the registered voters are women — "meaning that they will stuff the boxes with nonexisting women's votes, because that's what they have done in parliamentary elections in the past," he says. "Women, because you cannot ask them for authentication."
Ghani says the fraud is made possible "in the name of cultural accommodation."
"But nobody will come to a court of law to testify this because they are frightened out of their wits. These are the open secrets of this country," he says. "So the checks and balance that's supposed to exist, according to our Constitution, is destroyed."
He says his country has reached an important moment, when it must make a choice "between consolidation of corruption, or a reform system where the people will finally become the owners of this country."
Abdullah: Afghans Want Change
The leading challenger hoping to win the Afghan presidency away from Hamid Karzai is a man defined by his associations. One is with the incumbent: Abdullah Abdullah gained great visibility as an eye doctor-turned-foreign minister — the first appointed by Karzai. But it is another, earlier association that he's using to great effect in this presidential campaign.
Abdullah was for many years the closest friend and adviser to an Afghan national hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud — a famous freedom fighter who waged war against the Soviets and the Taliban and who was assassinated by al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11, 2001.
"He was a great human being. The most peaceful person being caught in a war and given no choice but to fight," Abdullah says.
It is the legendary Massoud who gazes down on candidate Abdullah in many of his posters — and, on a recent day, from the walls and storefronts of the bustling village of Charikar in a province neighboring Kabul.
This is Massoud country — a place where thousands of frantic supporters pour into a small stadium and, in the blistering midday sun, cheer on the candidate who once touched their greatest hero. Women in burqas press together, clutching children. Men in turbans, shoulder to shoulder, hang off walls.
A Changing Race
A couple of hours after the rally, in a quiet, graceful garden, Abdullah explains what has changed in a race many once considered an easy win for Karzai.
"The reason for that sort of a judgment was that President Karzai was very vigorous in making alliances with different political leaders. But what he had not calculated — that was the feeling of the people, the sense of the people, which was for change," Abdullah says. "So the leaders did join President Karzai and did support President Karzai, but the people didn't."
One of the issues important to Afghan voters is the country's rampant corruption. Abdullah says he plans to root out the problem among the highest levels of government using a zero-tolerance policy.
"When it is in the highest levels, you don't expect that you will get result elsewhere," he says. "It has to be stopped from that level."
To combat the Taliban, Abdullah says, the first step is for the elected government not to lose the support of the people as a whole.
"By losing support, the insurgency is strengthened. The people don't see a prospect under the current circumstances. That's why when there is a window of opportunity during the upcoming elections, they see a hope for change," he says. "If we are losing the people, we are losing the war, yes? And then, of course, when [it] comes to the leadership of the Taliban, I think it might take much longer than we had anticipated, but with the majority of the ranks and files, I think it will be quite possible."
'Exceptional' Excitement
Abdullah says the level of excitement surrounding the presidential campaign is "exceptional." His popular rallies give a sense of what's beginning to catch on all over the country.
Young students at an Abdullah rally are decked out in shirts and ribbons colored robin-egg blue — the shade the campaign has adopted as its own. On stage, they sing to rally the supporters — a good portion of whom are women — wearing blue veils in honor of the candidate.
In the midst of Abdullah's campaign speech, a gray-bearded village elder steps up to sing a song of praise — a touch of old Afghanistan.
The rally goes on for a couple of hours. Afterward, among the excited supporters streaming out is a teacher who brought along her 6-year-old son.
"I was one of the most active campaigners for President Karzai five years ago," she says. "But he never kept the promises he gave to the people. That's why I want to work this time around for Dr. Abdullah. My son's name is Abdullah, and I want him to become a presidential candidate one day like Dr. Abdullah."
While three Afghan presidential candidates are getting most of the attention — incumbent Hamid Karzai and his top two challengers, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani — there will be dozens of other names on next month's ballot. The stories of three of those candidates reflect the tale of the past 30 years of struggle in Afghanistan.
Shahnawaz Tanai
Candidate Shahnawaz Tanai is a man Afghans would know as a tough and powerful general in the communist government that ruled the country in the 1980s. Tanai is uncompromising in his views — so much so that he would eventually lead a failed coup because, he says, his government had lost touch with its ideals.
"When Tanai's name is raised, people know that I was a strong and brave commander who fought and worked for his country very honestly," he says. "I was a person who did not misuse government properties. The only income I had was my own salary."
Tanai's history with the Communists could both help him and hurt him. Afghanistan's communist government was brutal, killing thousands of Afghans who weren't ready to give up their religion, their land or their traditional ways.
But it was also a time when women had rights, poor people were educated and the government was viewed as incorruptible.
"People's memories of a government that was honest and decisive makes them support me for these elections," he says. "It's very different that a poor man like me is able to compete with rich men. When I go to the provinces, I usually go and sit with people under trees. ... People tell me that I don't have to give them food for lunch. They say they will bring their own bread, even collect 10 afghanis from each of them so that I'm able to continue the campaign."
Abdul Salam Rocketi
On the other side of Kabul is a candidate who was on the other side of the fight from the general. He was a commander with the Mujahedeen fighters, who distinguished himself with his uncanny talent for hitting the mark with rocket-propelled grenades.
That's why, though his given name is Abdul Salam, he's widely known as "Rocketi."
"You know, people get names based on their profession or the area they have expertise in, like doctors, engineers, teachers. I've got good expertise in rocket launching," Rocketi says. "It was jihad time when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and I joined up to fight against them. It was my commander at the front who actually gave me this title — the title of Rocketi."
On this afternoon, Rocketi had just heard that one of his provincial campaign managers and another campaign worker had been killed.
"We're claiming we have democracy and freedom here. What kind of democracy is this? I've got the right to campaign," he says.
Rocketi himself knows how to play rough with the competition. Once, years ago, he was in an area bordering Pakistan, where the mujahedeen had set up a base. Some soldiers in the Pakistan army came across the border, and, as he tells it, stole his Stinger missiles.
He retaliated. "I attacked Pakistan, and I brought back many hostages with me," he says. "Among them were some police commissioners, some soldiers, some Chinese engineers and some local people. I brought them back to Afghanistan with me and kept them for some time."
Over the next 20 years, Rocketi rode along with the currents of Afghan history. The Soviets were driven out, and he joined the Taliban, becoming the governor of a province. Then, the Taliban were driven out, he was disarmed — and he made a successful run for Afghanistan's new parliament.
He sees all of this as his calling card with voters. "As an average Afghan who has served his country for 31 years, I consider myself a servant of the people," he says. "If I don't win, I'll not regret working to improve the situation in Afghanistan."
Rocketi says he sees a better future for his children than the life he has led. "They're going to have a civilian life; I had a military life. Hopefully, their life won't be as difficult as mine."
Frozan Fana
Though Afghanistan is still at war, a democracy is trying to be born. This new order has brought a new type of candidate: a woman who is taken seriously in politics.
Frozan Fana is one of two women running for president. Her late husband was a Cabinet minister who was killed in 2002 — by political rivals, she believes.
But it's the new Afghanistan that shines through one of her campaign posters. It features four identical images of her, each in a square of a different color like a Warhol silkscreen. It's reminiscent of a poster Americans might have seen in the last U.S. presidential election.
"One of my friends is responsible for the press campaign. He said, 'We'll print posters exactly the same as Barack Obama's posters in America,'" she says.
Fana says there are obstacles to her candidacy, but people are cooperating. "In fact, I met hundreds of tribal leaders and elders, and I held talks with them. They all treated me with respect."
Fana says even representatives of the Taliban have pledged support if she wins. She wants to negotiate with Afghans who are fighting with the insurgency, and she's proposing ways to tackle one of the country's most pressing problems.
"The number of Taliban fighters is increasing day by day, because President Karzai promised that he would provide work opportunities for them, but he never did. People in Helmand province, in Kandahar province, they need schools, they need jobs to feed their families. If I win this election, then the situation will change."
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Jump in Afghan civilian deaths
The number of Afghan civilians killed in fighting between Taliban-led insurgents and Hamid Karzai's western-backed regime jumped by 24 per cent in the first half of the year.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul 3:03PM BST 31 Jul 2009 Daily Telegraph
The United Nations mission to Afghanistan has estimated 1,013 civilians died compared with 818 last year as fighting spread and insurgent tactics changed.
Taliban fighters were relying more on indiscriminate suicide and vehicle bombings, while fighting had intensified with the arrival of Barack Obama's 21,000-strong surge of US reinforcements, a report said.
Civilians died as fighting moved into more heavily populated areas and insurgents sought to provoke civilian casualties for propaganda purposes by hiding among the population.
Anger among Afghans over the number of civilians killed by coalition forces has forced Nato commanders to change their rules of engagement and reduce reliance on air strikes.
The UN's Afghanistan Human Rights Unit reported 59 per cent of the dead were killed by insurgents and 31 per cent by government or international troops.
Two months ago, the Taliban issued a code of conduct ordering commanders to minimize innocent casualties. However the report said militants hid in civilian areas as part of "an active policy aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood that civilians will be killed or injured".
The report was released as the US official overseeing billions of dollars of reconstruction projects said aid efforts lacked direction and were plagued by poor communication.
Major General Arnold Fields, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said poor coordination with Afghans had created a disjointed effort and slowed progress.
Lessons learned in reconstruction projects in Iraq had not been learned, he said.
He said: "The more we move around and the more we conduct our audit work, the evidence is compounding that there is a lack of oversight and follow through." Several building projects had suffered from shoddy workmanship. Once buildings were completed, Afghans had been unable to maintain them, he said.
The building of Afghan infrastructure, agriculture and energy supplies is a cornerstone of US efforts to stabilise the country. America has committed £20 billion to reconstruction since 2002.
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Tajikistan worried about Afghan spillover
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, July 31 (UPI) -- The insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan threatens to spill over to other parts of Central Asia as militants flee international forces, Tajik officials say.
Tajikistan witnessed a rise in clashes with militants in recent weeks, with government officials expressing concern regional insurgents are expanding beyond the immediate theater of combat, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
"The situation at the Afghan border may deteriorate ahead of elections," said Interior Minister Abdurakhim Qahorov. "Different criminal groups may try to seek temporary refuge in neighboring countries, including ours."
U.S. and international forces ramped up their military activity in Afghanistan as part of a renewed war effort to help stabilize the country ahead of the Aug. 20 elections, with insurgents fleeing to surrounding areas.
The Tajik government has said the Taliban were behind twin explosions that struck Dushanbe last week. Militants linked to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, meanwhile, were arrested by Tajik authorities for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Tajikistan.
Following an Uzbek government crackdown in the 1990s, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan members and sympathizers scattered across the region, including parts of Afghanistan, forging ties with Taliban and al-Qaida militants.
Meanwhile, Taliban Political Director Abdul Vase Mutasim Agha issued a threat to U.S. supply lines through Tajikistan to Afghanistan, creating further regional tensions.
"This step of yours would lead to instability," said the Taliban leader.
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AGRICULTURE: Disease Threatens Afghan Wheat Crop
By Danielle Kurtzleben
WASHINGTON, Jul 30 (IPS) - Agronomists and crop experts fear that an aggressive disease that attacks wheat crops could soon reach Afghanistan, potentially threatening food security and initiatives to curb the cultivation of illicit crops.
The Ug99 fungus, so named for its identification in Uganda in 1999, is a strain of black stem rust, a fungus that kills plants by leeching water and nutrients from them.
Ug99 has devastated crops in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan, and has more recently traveled to the Middle East, where its presence has been confirmed in Yemen and Iran. Experts believe it is only a matter of time before the fungus threatens crops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, where wheat production is a major source of food and income for many.
Though stem rusts have endangered wheat crops for centuries, the Ug99 rust is an especially aggressive strain of stem rust. Ug99 can cause full crop loss, whereas other stem rusts have been known to merely decrease crop yields.
Dr. Mahmoud Solh is director general of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), a Syria-based research center branch of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a Washington-headquartered worldwide network of agricultural research centres.
Solh told IPS that Ug99 is especially threatening not only because of its aggressiveness but also because of how easily it travels. "The spores are so light, they are carried by the wind, so they travel miles and miles and miles," he said.
This quickness surprised agronomists, said Solh: "For example, after Sudan in 2006 and Yemen, it moved to Iran in 2007 when we were expecting it in 2009. It moved much quicker than we expected."
Dr. Solh said that the 2007 discovery of Ug99 in Iran has intensified the urgency of combating Ug99, as Iran is located between two major wheat-producing regions.
As Solh told IPS, "If you move east [from Iran], you reach countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, where you have 25 million hectares of wheat. And if you move west, you go to Egypt and then North Africa, and then to Europe."
According to ICARDA, over 90 percent of the world's wheat varieties are susceptible to Ug99. Farmers in some countries have been keeping Ug99 at bay with the use of fungicides, but doing so is a costly and short-term fix. Eventually, nearly all of the world's wheat crops will have to be replaced by rust-resistant varieties.
ICARDA is part of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an organisation founded in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, UNFAO, ICARDA, Cornell University, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), another CGIAR research centre. The initiative works globally to combat all types of rusts that affect wheat production.
With the help of USAID, ICARDA has been focusing on four main steps toward Ug99 eradication in Afghanistan - disease surveillance, identifying genetic sources of resistance, incorporating those sources into the wheat population, and seed multiplication of Ug99-resistant wheat varieties.
Performing agricultural development in Afghanistan is especially difficult, as war has badly hurt the nation's agricultural capacity and infrastructure. For this reason, ICARDA researchers have been working with Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock to help farmers and researchers to test, evaluate, and multiply stem-rust-resistant wheat varieties.
Combating Ug99 is of particular importance in Afghanistan because of the Afghan economy's heavy reliance on the agricultural sector, which accounts for nearly one-third of the country's GDP. Furthermore, 80 percent of Afghanistan's working-age males are farmers, nearly all of whom grow wheat for food or sale.
In addition, USAID estimates that over six million Afghanis – nearly one-fifth of the population – do not have enough food. In short, if Afghanistan's wheat crops were faced with Ug99, it could endanger food security and the bedrock of the country's economy.
The proliferation of Ug99 also has implications for Afghanistan's drug industry. USAID and U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan have been promoting wheat cultivation as part of a larger strategy to combat narcotics in Afghanistan. One of their newest efforts has involved paying farmers not to grow poppies and encouraging them to grow other crops, including wheat.
USAID credits agricultural development efforts with helping to decrease Afghan drug production. According to the 2009 U.N. World Drug Report, opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan decreased by 19 percent in 2008. If Ug99 reaches Afghanistan before its wheat crops are fully rust-resistant, some fear that it may turn farmers back from wheat to poppy cultivation.
Such a scenario would have implications for international security, as drug proceeds in Afghanistan in part fund the Taliban and insurgency in that country's current civil conflict.
Dr. Solh considers U.S. wheat promotion in Afghanistan commendable and necessary from a food security standpoint: "It is very important for the U.S. military and the USAID support wheat production since it is a major staple crop that the Afghani consider a strategic crop for food security."
However, Solh also cautioned against placing hopes for curbing illicit crop growth in wheat alone, saying that wheat monoculture is neither sustainable "economically nor from the soil productivity viewpoint".
Therefore, aside from the proliferation of Ug99-resistant wheat, said Solh, another strategy to both combat illicit crops and promote Afghan economic growth is to encourage the cultivation of indigenous, higher-value crops, like saffron and mint, as sources of income for farmers.
As Ug99 spreads and grows more virulent, organisations continue to work to mitigate its effects. ICARDA, USAID, and UNFAO have planned a September meeting at which they will discuss new steps to ensure Afghanistan food security in the face of Ug99. Among their chief goals is to replace 10 percent of Afghanistan's wheat with Ug99-resistant varieties.
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Afghanistan faces growing addiction problem
With poppy production still high, and opium and heroin cheap and easy to get, more Afghans, including increasing numbers of women, are becoming addicted. Help is very limited.
Los Angeles Times By David Zucchino July 31, 2009 Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan
The heroin fumes rose, gray and twisting, into the nostrils of Mohammed Jawad Rezaie.
He inhaled and relaxed. For a few moments, Rezaie stopped scratching at his lice-infested groin. He lost interest in the blackened, rotting toes of his left foot, which had mesmerized him minutes earlier.
In another room in the shell-pocked ruins of the former Russian Cultural Center in downtown Kabul, 27-year-old Anwar injected a mixture of heroin and water into a bulging vein in the thin wrist of a man called Hussein.
Anwar, who injects addicts in exchange for heroin, withdrew the needle as Hussein's head slumped forward. Hussein began to tremble, and Anwar wrapped him in a hug, holding him until he relaxed and dropped into a peaceful stupor.
A junkie named Jaffer who had just been injected in the neck squatted next to them, his head cocked back, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
Afghanistan is notorious as the world's leading producer of opium and heroin, most of it shipped to Europe. Less well-documented is the country's own addiction epidemic. As many as a million Afghans, mostly men but increasing numbers of women, are addicted to heroin or opium, according to Afghan counter-narcotics police.
"It's bad, and it's getting worse," said Syedagul Stanekzai, the harried project manager of a men's drug rehabilitation center in Kabul, the capital.
The center has 100 beds in a city where thousands of addicts roam the streets. He cited varied reasons for the increase in addiction rates: lack of security, a high unemployment rate, general hopelessness and the wide availability of cheap drugs.
A hit of opium sells for as little as 10 afghanis, or 20 cents. A dose of heroin sells for 60 cents. In certain neighborhoods, drugs can be bought as easily as a cup of tea.
Drug use has been practically decriminalized.
"We prefer persuasion," Lt. Mohammed Edriss of the Kabul counter-narcotics police said in the cultural center's maze of crumbling buildings. He watched an addict named Nazir light a narrow ribbon of heroin and inhale the smoke
"See this?" the lieutenant said, snatching a packet of heroin from Nazir's hand. "You can get it anywhere. So why arrest these people? They'll just go back and get more."
The lieutenant returned the packet to Nazir. "Better they should get treatment, not jail."
He gave Nazir a gentle shove, ordering him to stop smoking and go to a rehab center.
Almost every day, Edriss and his officers try to herd the bedraggled addicts from the gloom and stench of the cultural building to a nearby rehab center, if not for treatment, then at least for showers and food.
The Afghan government has long considered drug addiction a uniquely Western vice. Officials never tire of telling Westerners that if it wasn't for the market for narcotics in their countries, Afghan farmers would have no incentive to grow poppies.
But the flow of drugs into Afghanistan's own cities has changed attitudes, said Gen. Shaista Turabi, director of the counter-narcotics police.
"My suggestion would still be for the U.S. and Europe to decrease demand," Turabi said in his spacious Kabul office, with new radio-equipped police SUVs parked outside, provided by Western aid. "But I can also say that addiction is a big problem in Afghanistan, too, and a big drain on the whole country."
Since 2002, Western nations have tried to eradicate Afghan opium poppy fields -- a multibillion-dollar effort that Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has called "a waste of money."
In June, Holbrooke said that the U.S. would phase out poppy-eradication efforts and focus on encouraging alternative crops and arresting major traffickers.
Even though Afghan poppy yields last year declined 19% from a record harvest in 2007, according to the United Nations, it was still the second-highest since 1994.
The easy availability of opium has prompted a steady increase in the number of female addicts, drug treatment professionals say. Many women who weave carpets by hand take opium to ease the pain of the hard physical labor; some give the drug to their children to sedate them while they weave.
Last month, an 8-year-old boy and his 3-year-old sister were being treated for opium addiction while their mother underwent detox, said Huma Mansoori, one of two doctors at the Sanga Amaj drug treatment center for women.
The center, which opened in 2007, was Afghanistan's first rehab facility for women. It still is the only one in Kabul; there are three centers elsewhere.
Tajwara, 35, a mother of nine, said her husband gave her opium when she was ill. She was addicted for several years until she sought treatment last month at the Sanga Amaj center.
"I didn't know smoking opium was bad for me," Tajwara said. "People said it was medicine. If I had known it would ruin my life, I never would have tried it."
Shekiba, a slender girl of 15, covered her face in shame as she described how her father got her addicted to opium when she was 12.
"I knew opium was wrong, but I couldn't control it on my own," Shekiba said. She had just completed a drug detoxification program, along with several other women stricken with vomiting and diarrhea from withdrawal.
Although male addicts smoke and shoot up fairly openly, women almost always use drugs at home. And though men can seek treatment on their own, women must get permission from husbands or fathers to enter rehab programs.
"Afghan culture puts great shame on women who use drugs," said Dr. Torpikay Zazai, director of the women's center. "Men are ashamed of their women if they're addicted. They want to hide it in the home, and not let their women out for treatment."
Women tend to smoke opium or drink it in tea, but they rarely use heroin, Zazai said. Men favor heroin, though many also smoke opium.
At the former cultural center, men smoke and shoot up day and night. The floors are littered with syringes, garbage and human waste. What appear to be corpses line the dank hallways, but the forms are actually addicts sleeping off highs. Many of the men wear filthy shalwar kameez, the traditional Afghan tunics and pants. A few are dressed in clean shirts and slacks -- "day trippers" who stop by to smoke, then return to work.
Abdullah Gaafar, 21, sat smoking amid the stench of urine. He said he smokes heroin at least twice a day, more often if he can raise money from odd jobs.
Neither his family nor his fiancee knows he's an addict, Gaafar said.
"I'm ashamed of what I've become. I need to go to the treatment center," he said, his voice trailing off as the heroin took effect.
Rezaie, 27, the addict with the lice and infected foot, said he started doing drugs at 14, working in Iran. He pays for the heroin by begging.
"The people insult me a lot," he said. When he tries to buy bread, he said, bakers tell him: "I'm a drug addict and I shouldn't get bread -- I should die."`
Four addicts died in the complex last winter, said Rezaie, who appeared close to death himself.
He shrugged and put a flame to the foil beneath his heroin. "I feel tired if I don't smoke," he said. "I feel like destroying myself."
A week later at the Wadan men's drug treatment center a few blocks away, addicts fresh off the street squatted on the floor of a bare detox room. With their shaved heads and pale uniforms, they looked like prison inmates.
The addicts spend 10 days in detox and 20 more receiving medical treatment, drug counseling and religious education. An imam is on staff, and there are regular prayer sessions.
The newest arrival that day was Jaffer, the addict who had been injected in the neck at the abandoned cultural center a week earlier. His head freshly shaven, he vowed to get clean, stay clean and reunite with his family.
"I have made a mistake," he said, "and I must make up for it."
Stanekzai, Wadan's project manager, has heard such promises before. Surrounded by a roomful of addicts, each solemnly swearing off drugs, he was asked whether some of those earnest young men might go right back to the wrecked cultural center after completing the program.
"Of course," he replied.
david.zucchino@latimes.com
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Troubled Bid to Aid Balkh Beggars
A government plan to try to get them assistance from relief agencies does not seem to be working.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Khaleq Azizi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 328, 30-July-09)
Shopkeeper Mohammed Ibrahim gives every beggar a piece of candy. He gets several a day but lately their numbers have been growing.
“It used to be that a bag of candy would last for three days,” he said. “Now I go through a whole bag every day.”
Last November, the government passed a resolution that was supposed to remove beggars from the streets and direct them to aid organisations.
But in Mazar-e-Sharif, the major city of northern Afghanistan, and the capital of Balkh province, there has been no noticeable improvement.
Many of them hang around Mazar-e-Sharif’s prominent Blue Mosque.
Dozens of beggars gather every day in the shadow of the imposing turquoise dome, where Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, is said to be buried. If a passerby is reckless enough to give one of them a coin, the rest demand their share.
Samira, 41, is breast feeding her baby under her dirty burqa. She turned to begging on the street when her husband fell ill a year ago. “It is the only way to feed my children,” she said.
News about the new government programme has yet to penetrate Mazar-e-Sharif’s community of street people, according to Samira.
“No one has been told to go anywhere,” she said.
Several ministries are tasked with implementing the government plan. Officials are supposed to be directing poor people to the Afghan Red Crescent, the aid organisation funded by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
According to the government, the measures were necessary to “maintain human dignity and social order”.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, local officials sent their plan for getting the beggars off the street to Kabul, said Fawzia Hamidi, the head of Balkh’s social and labour affairs directorate.
“But we haven’t heard anything back,” she said.
Hamidi said that she does not know exactly how many men and women are begging on the streets of Balkh province. She does have some statistics on children: according to her department, 465 children in the region earn money by begging.
No other government institution in Balkh has exact figures for the beggars, either, making planning difficult.
Instead, officials try to push responsibility for the beggars onto other agencies.
“It is the job of the police to pick up the beggars from the street,” said police chief Abdul Rawuf Taj.
“But we can’t feed them or accommodate them. Other government institutions are responsible for this.”
The government directive said the Red Crescent should provide food and shelter but the organisation’s director in Balkh, Asef Khair Khwah, says he has no money for it.
Nevertheless, the local director of women’s affairs told IWPR that her department was sending women to the Red Crescent for assistance.
Hamidi said that her department plans to seek funds from donors to help the beggars, but so far there has been a limited response.
Aiding the indigent is a daunting prospect in Afghanistan, where, according to a 2008 survey by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the unemployment rate hovers around 30 per cent.
Every city has its small army of women in burqas who tap on car windows while motorists are stalled in traffic jams, or else sit despondently in the middle of the road while cars flow around them. Disabled men also appeal to passersby. Young boys and girls who beg sometimes become aggressive with people who refuse.
Given the general weakness and ineffectiveness of the government, there is little confidence among Afghans that the problem will be addressed, let alone corrected.
“The government plan exists only on paper,” said Asadullah Zia, who teaches psychology at Balkh University. “The money will go straight into the pockets of the people who are supposed to implement the plan.”
The number of beggars is a disgrace and an offence, said Ahmad Shoaib Muslimyar, an expert on religious affairs.
“In our country illiterate and uneducated people have obtained high positions in the government,” he said. “They are only interested in personal gain.”
Begging is not allowed under Sharia law, he insisted; the government was obliged to take care of the poor.
But for the beggars of Mazar-e-Sharif, there is little relief in sight.
Widow Halima begs to feed her eight-member family. Her husband was killed 10 years ago.
When asked about the government plan to help her and the other beggars, Halima’s answer is short and to the point.
“Nonsense,” she said.
Khaleq Azizi is an IWPR trainee in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Herat Youth Turn Backs on Afghan Music
Traditional artists bemoan youngsters’ preference for the likes of Shakira.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Sediq Behnam in Herat (ARR No. 328, 30-July-09)
Three young men sit in a park in central Herat, passing around a mobile phone. On the small screen is a music video of Shakira, the alluring Colombian pop star.
“Shakira has a beautiful body,” said Nasir, 24. “She wears great clothes – you can see some of her skin. She is intoxicating. Although I do not understand her language and do not much care for the music, I love the clip.”
It is hardly surprising that young Afghan men would be titillated by Shakira. They seldom see a girl with a bare head, let alone large swaths of exposed flesh. And in a society where female dancing is strictly prohibited, Shakira’s provocative hip-shaking is an exotic delight.
But Nasir and his friends represent what many see as a rejection of traditional Afghan culture and values.
“I believe the time for listening to old music is over,” Nasir said. “Young people are looking for something new and interesting.”
Music has had a long and chequered history in Afghanistan. During the Soviet invasion, traditional music was quite popular, with venerable singers such as Nashnaz and Farhod Darya appearing regularly in concerts and on television.
But the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 caused many of the musicians to flee. Those who remained were silenced in 1996, when the Taleban took over most of the country and put a decisive stop to such entertainment.
Since the fundamentalists were routed in 2001, Afghanistan has been flirting with different musical forms. Many singers and musicians came back after years in the West, bringing new traditions with them.
The country has even spawned a rap singer, DJ Besho. And Tolo TV has pioneered an “American Idol” type song contest that, while tame by western standards, is enough of a departure from Afghan culture to cause serious heartburn in the more conservative quarters of society.
In all of the excitement of the new era, many fear that old traditions are being lost.
Afghan music often consists of haunting poetry set to the music of the rebab, a stringed instrument that predated the violin and guitar by several centuries. The beat is kept by the tabla, a set of drums.
Ustad Khoshnawaz was a widely acclaimed singer in Afghanistan 20 years ago. He gave concerts and taught hundreds of students; his songs were played on radio and television.
Today the 55-year-old maestro teaches music in his Herat home.
Entering the house, the first thing that strikes the visitor are the musical instruments everywhere. The walls are hung with handmade carpets, against which hang rebabs, dotars (a lute) and sitars.
Khoshnawaz and his students are sitting on carpet-covered toshaks – the cushions that most Afghans use in lieu of sofas or chairs. The teacher is patiently instructing his pupils on the different characteristics of Herati music.
But his disappointment and bitterness show when he begins to talk about his own life in music.
“It has been years since people were interested to come and hear me play,” he said. “They prefer young singers who play new music on modern instruments. Our country has been attacked not only militarily, but also culturally.”
Twenty years ago he might have 100 students at a time; now he is lucky to have four or five, he says. This has hit his income and he now runs a supermarket.
“I am not against those who like modern art,” he insisted. “But people should maintain their own cultural traditions. This is what keeps a country alive.”
While Khoshnawaz now lives in obscurity, Jamshid Tapesh has no such difficulties.
“I make two music videos a year, in Tajikistan,” he said. “I perform with Tajik girls. After people see my videos on TV a few times, they stand in line to book me and my group.”
Tapesh’s audience is Herat’s young, hip set and he says he is booked weeks in advance for concerts and parties.
“Young people request songs they have seen in movies or on TV,” he said. “They like sexy music - Iranian, Indian, Turkish, Arabic or western.”
Jalil Ahmad Dil Ahang, who performs traditional Afghan music, calls the fascination with foreign singers “cultural suicide”.
“These new songs are against Afghan and Islamic culture,” he said, adding that radio and television stations that play the new music are just pandering to the tastes of the masses. “Most of these songs are very poor in terms of quality. Many of the singers know nothing about music.”
Ahang wants the government to step in, “Officials should take measures to protect Afghan music and culture.”
Herat’s information and culture department is trying to help, but says the problems it faces are overwhelming.
“We have asked the central government to give us a budget to establish an association of local singers,” said director Nematollah Sarwari. “But nobody is listening to us. We have organised a number of seminars and other programmes to attract people to traditional music.”
Sarwari is ready to take a more bureaucratic approach if necessary.
“We will force the media to broadcast more local music,” he said. “Music is one of the indicators of cultural identity, and we ask people not to let it vanish.”
But Afghan media are likely to resist.
“We almost never receive requests for local Herati songs,” said Ajmal Yazdani, a director of Radio Watandar in Herat. “We try to broadcast the songs our audience wants.”
Nematollah Hashemi, director of the singers union in Herat, bemoans the ignorance of the young.
“The new generation is unaware of the importance of their culture,” he said. “The government should provide us with technical assistance and the media should promote this culture.”
There are, of course, patriotic supporters of Herati music.
Mohammad Shah, a taxi driver, said he listens mostly to local, traditional music. The new songs, he said, are against Afghan culture.
“I do not like foreign music,” he said. “The songs they play now on radio and TV are copied from other countries. They are played on western instruments. Most of the singers are just kids, who cover up their musical weakness behind flashy clothes and beautiful girls. If we take the girls out of the music videos, I am sure hardly anyone will want to watch them.”
Mohammad Seddiq Behnam is an IWPR-trained journalist in Herat.
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