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In Kandahar, a Taliban on the Rise
U.S., NATO Struggle to Check Insurgents in Key Afghan Area
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, September 14, 2009
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The letter, neatly folded and placed under the front door, was addressed to Nisar Ahmad's father, a gray-bearded schoolteacher who could not have been prouder
Bin Laden says US cannot halt Afghanistan war
Mon Sep 14, 4:46 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned President Barack Obama that he is "powerless" to halt the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and must rethink his policy on Israel, in his first message for three months.
New Bin Laden Tape Calls Obama Powerless to Stop Afghanistan War
By Steve Herman VOA News New Delhi 14 September 2009
A new audio message, directed at the American people - purported to be from al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden - claims the President Barack Obama will find himself powerless to halt the American-led war in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan looking for way forward after election
By Kay Johnson, Associated Press Writer – Mon Sep 14, 3:08 am ET
KABUL – Afghanistan's electoral officials searched for a way Monday to salvage an election marred by reports of ballot stuffing and phantom voters, mulling how much of the vote to throw out because of fraud.
British ambassador expresses concern over fraud in election
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Kabul-based newspaper reported Monday that British ambassador to Afghanistan Mark Sedwill has expressed concern over alleged fraud in the presidential election held last month.
Lengthy electoral process, rigging charges undermine Afghan ballot
By Hadi Mayar
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Though partial election result has placed sitting President Karzai in a more comfortable position to win a second term in office, yet the magnitude of rigging charges and the complex
Why Afghanistan Needs A New Transitional Authority
By Ajmal Samadi Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 14, 2009
The international community generously provided $224 million to help Afghanistan hold a democratic presidential election this summer. But it now appears those funds were wasted on a fraudulent project whose
Dark months ahead as Afghan vote fracas drags on
By Marc Bastian
(AFP) – KABUL — Afghans face dark months ahead as vote rigging claims overshadow eagerly-anticipated elections, with the prospect of a lengthy and bitter bout of political unrest coming as the Taliban are at their fiercest.
Time to Deal in Afghanistan
By Fareed Zakaria The Washington Post Monday, September 14, 2009
It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union and others have invested massively in stabilizing that country over the past eight years,
Congressional Democrats Consider Parting With Obama on Afghanistan
By Jay Newton-small/ Washington Time.com via Yahoo! News
On May 6, after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari at the White House, President Obama rolled out his favorite phrase, the one that usually precedes a line
2 Tahir Yaldash militants detained in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Afghan authorities have arrested two insurgents of Tahir Yaldash-led group in north Afghanistan, a statement of National Security Directorate (NSD) said Monday.
Polio makes a return to remote, destitute Afghanistan
By Lynne O'Donnell September 14, 2009
(AFP) - CHAGHCHARAN — Gulbadan Halifazada lives in a house in a mud-brick compound without electricity or running water in the poorest region of one of the world's most destitute countries.
Afghanistan: Taliban gives nod to polio immunization in south
KABUL, 14 September 2009 (IRIN) - In an unprecedented move Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have endorsed a three-day polio immunization drive in areas under their influence in Afghanistan, according to aid agencies.
Health Ministry reports cholera deaths
KABUL, 14 September 2009 (IRIN) - Twenty-eight deaths from cholera and/or acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) have been reported in Afghanistan in the past two months, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has said.
Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 14 Sep 2009
14 Sep 2009
KABUL, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Following are security developments reported in Afghanistan as of 1130 GMT on Monday:
Official: Dozens of Taliban killed after U.S. deaths
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 13, 8:17 pm ET
KABUL – About 50 Taliban militants died in a battle in western Afghanistan after an insurgent ambush killed three U.S. troops, an Afghan official said Sunday.
British, NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News - Sep 14 3:09 AM
KABUL – A British soldier was killed in an attack on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan, while a second NATO service member died in a bomb blast, NATO and British officials said Monday.
Canadian soldier killed, four injured in Afghanistan IED blast
Bruce Ward, Canwest News Service Monday, September 14, 2009
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- The price Canada pays for waging war in Afghanistan has risen once more with the death of Pte. Patrick Lormand, 21, who was killed in action Sunday when a Canadian armoured vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.
A Somber Warning on Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISON SMALE September 13, 2009
GENEVA - Western powers now in Afghanistan run the risk of suffering the fate of the Soviet Union there if they cannot halt the growing insurgency and an Afghan perception that they are foreign invaders
Afghan Detainees to Get Six - Month Reviews - Pentagon
September 14, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prisoners held at a U.S. base in Afghanistan will have their detention reviewed roughly every six months, officials said, part of efforts by the Pentagon to improve the image of its forces in the country.
Afghanistan's most desolate region mired in obscurity
By Maria Golovnina – Mon Sep 14, 7:58 am ET
CHEKHCHERAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Severed from the world by the austere mountains of central Afghanistan, Abdullah, his two wives, 15 children and a herd of goats lead a life that has changed little for centuries.
New U.S. Plan Reportedly To Let Afghan Prisoners Challenge Incarceration
By Ron Synovitz Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 14, 2009
New rules being prepared by the Obama administration would reportedly allow more than 600 suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners at a U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan to challenge their incarceration.
Over 1,500 kg narcotics burned down in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- As part of battle against drug, Afghan Special Counter-Narcotic Police and Drug Enforcement Agency(DEA) team with U.S. embassy launched an operation and set fire on some 1,500 kg
Singapore sends weapon-locating radar teams to Afghanistan
SINGAPORE, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Singapore Armed Forces will deploy two weapon locating radar teams to Afghanistan, local media reported on Monday.
Guard photos could harm US effort in Afghanistan
(AP) – WASHINGTON — A member of a commission investigating wartime spending says photos of private security guards in various stages of nudity at parties flowing with alcohol may be as damaging to U.S. interests in Afghanistan as images of detainee mistreatment at Abu Ghraib were in Iraq.
Q+A: What is behind U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan?
Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:07am EDT
(Reuters) - A U.S. drone fired a missile at a Taliban vehicle in Pakistan's North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border on Monday, killing at least four militants, Pakistani intelligence officials and residents said.
Pakistan forces swoop for Taliban leader in Swat
By Kamran Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces intensified a hunt on Monday for the Pakistani Taliban leader in the Swat valley, military officials said, and a U.S. drone killed four militants in a missile strike near the Afghan border.
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In Kandahar, a Taliban on the Rise
U.S., NATO Struggle to Check Insurgents in Key Afghan Area
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, September 14, 2009
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The letter, neatly folded and placed under the front door, was addressed to Nisar Ahmad's father, a gray-bearded schoolteacher who could not have been prouder that his son had graduated from Kandahar University and had secured a well-paying job as a field assistant here for the U.N. Development Program.
This is the last warning. Keep your son away from this work. . . .
We know your son is working for infidels. If something happens to him, do not complain.
Two hours later, after he and his father discussed their options and concluded that they had no faith in the local police to protect them, Ahmad called the United Nations and resigned.
That private moment of fear handed yet another small victory to the Taliban in its campaign to reclaim Kandahar, the religious extremist movement's spiritual home and a key battleground for control of Afghanistan nearly eight years after the U.S.-led military campaign began.
The slow and quiet fall of Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, poses a complex new challenge for the NATO effort to stabilize Afghanistan. It is factoring prominently into discussions between Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the overall U.S. and NATO commander, and his advisers about how many more troops to seek from Washington.
"Kandahar is at the top of the list," one senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan said. "We simply do not have enough resources to address the challenges there."
Kandahar in many ways is a microcosm of the challenges the United States faces in stabilizing Afghanistan. The city is filled with ineffective government officials and police officers whom the governor calls looters and kidnappers. Unemployment is rampant. Municipal services are nonexistent. Reconstruction projects have not changed many lives. A lack of NATO forces allowed militants free rein.
But it is also unique. It is bigger and more complicated than any other place in southern Afghanistan -- and there is a growing belief among military commanders that it is more important to the overall counterinsurgency campaign than any other part of the country.
"Kandahar means Afghanistan," said the governor, Tooryalai Wesa. "The history of Afghanistan, the politics of Afghanistan, was always determined from Kandahar, and once again, it will be determined from Kandahar."
Increasing the Troop Level
For years, NATO's strategy had been to entrust corrupt and incompetent local police with principal responsibility for securing the dusty collection of neighborhoods here that are home to an estimated 800,000 people. But several senior officers and strategists now think that this approach no longer makes sense and that more troops are necessary to prevent the Taliban from further reclaiming the pivotal city.
McChrystal will probably present the Pentagon with a range of options in the next week or two that will outline the hoped-for gains if additional troops are deployed, according to people familiar with the discussions. The ultimate decision rests with President Obama, who must determine whether McChrystal's plan to mount a comprehensive counterinsurgency effort across the country, one that aims to arrest the loss of places such as Kandahar to the Taliban, merits sending more U.S. forces.
Just how many forces are needed in this city, and what they would do, has become a matter of debate at the highest levels of the NATO military command in Kabul. There is near unanimity that more Afghan soldiers are needed in Kandahar. But there are no spare units to be deployed, and with violence increasing in the country's previously stable north and west, commanders are reluctant to pull troops from those areas.
As a consequence, some officers maintain that NATO forces need to move into parts of the city. Other military officials in Afghanistan, including top leaders of the regional headquarters that encompasses Kandahar, contend that sending more foreign troops into the city would only pull in more Taliban fighters from rural areas, drawing NATO forces into perilous urban combat. But even they acknowledge there is a need for more Special Forces soldiers and military police who can mentor the local police force, as well as possibly more NATO troops on the city's outskirts.
Residents say the level of Taliban activity in Kandahar can be deceiving to outsiders because the fighters' tactics are different here. Roadside bombs and suicide attacks are not the most commonly used weapons, largely because of the relative lack of foreign troops. Instead, it is paper and ink -- and the assassin's bullet when the recipient of a warning letter does not comply.
Taliban fighters have opted not to drive around in their trademark white pickup trucks, clad in black turbans. For now, they operate under the cover of darkness, prosecuting their intimidation campaign with correspondence and traffic checkpoints aimed at making it clear to residents that they are everywhere. Some NATO officials think the insurgents are trying to so weaken the government, security forces and relief agencies that they can one day assert full control over a city they are already dominating.
"Nobody in this city feels safe," said Ahmad, who now spends his days at home. "The Taliban do not show their faces during the day, but everyone knows they are in charge."
The Taliban Reemerges
To the U.S. government, and to many people here, the last Taliban holdouts in Kandahar appeared defeated by December 2001. Some fled across the desert to Pakistan. Others melted into the local population.
After a few months of intensive Special Forces operations to apprehend al-Qaeda members, the U.S. military largely ignored Kandahar. Afghan President Hamid Karzai soon installed an iron-fisted tribal ally as governor. Convinced that he would maintain order, the United States scaled back troop levels.
By 2005, as Taliban attacks were increasing in eastern Afghanistan, the United States ceded responsibility for security in Kandahar province to Canada, which sent about 2,500 troops to the area. Although Canada has allowed its forces to operate without some rules that have limited the activities of other NATO members, Canadian commanders acknowledge that they did not have enough soldiers on the ground while Taliban activity increased over the past three years.
When Canadian troops conducted repeated missions to clear militants from areas around the city, there never were enough forces to stay to keep insurgents from returning. Canada did not have the resources to maintain a large presence in the city: That was left to the local police.
Mistrusting the Police
It is the corruption of the police -- and that alleged of senior government officials -- that many Kandaharis say has been the principal reason for the Taliban's resurgence. Just as they did in the 1990s, residents say the Taliban is appealing not to a popular desire for religious fanaticism but to a demand for good governance. Part of the problem is that the police are ill-trained and ill-paid, driving them to graft. Another contributor: local leaders who have created a culture of impunity.
Chief among them, several Afghans contend, is the chairman of the Kandahar province council, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's younger brother. He is alleged to have links to the opium trade -- a charge he has denied -- and is accused of other misdeeds, including engaging in ballot-box fraud in support of his brother in the Aug. 20 presidential election.
Several U.S. lawmakers, including Vice President Biden when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have urged the president to dismiss his brother from the council. But U.S. and Canadian diplomats have not pressed the matter, in part because Ahmed Wali Karzai has given valuable intelligence to the U.S. military, and he also routinely provides assistance to Canadian forces, according to several officials familiar with the issue.
At 10 p.m. on a recent evening, two dozen Canadian soldiers rumbled out of their base on the city's eastern fringe in a convoy of armored vehicles. Their mission was the same as it is most days: Head to the police headquarters, link up with a squad of municipal policemen and go on patrol. The goal is to get the police out of their stations and into the community, to convince Kandaharis that somebody is protecting them.
Only five bothered to report for duty. In one green pickup truck.
When the Canadians stopped to talk to a man guarding a row of closed market stalls in one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, the policemen stayed in their truck.
"It's better when you are with the police," the guard, Agha Mohammed, told the Canadians. "If you are not here, the only time we see them is when they want bribes."
Earlier that day, Agha said, the police were at the market. They helped themselves to enough watermelons to fill the back of their pickup, he said.
Are there Taliban around here? one Canadian asked.
"They're here all the time," Agha said. "Sometimes they set up checkpoints at night."
But, he said, "they never ask us for money."
Fixing Kandahar
Shortly after he took over as the overall U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal asked his subordinates why more than half of the 21,000 troops deployed this spring were sent to neighboring Helmand province instead of Kandahar. The implication was clear, according to a person familiar with the discussion: Kandahar requires more forces.
By then, however, it was too late to move the Marines from Helmand. For now, NATO will have to try to fix Kandahar -- not just the city but the entire province, which is the country's second-largest in land area -- with the Canadians and five U.S. Army battalions, four of which are part of the new forces sent by Obama. The overall troop deployment is far less than what NATO has in Helmand, which has fewer residents.
That has forced commanders to address the Kandahar problem indirectly. Instead of sending troops into the city, the military's initial approach is to deploy most battalions in districts around Kandahar. The goal is to target insurgent redoubts in those areas and cut off infiltration routes into the city.
Those operations are just beginning. In Arghandab, a Taliban stronghold to the north, two U.S. Army infantry battalions equipped with Stryker armored vehicles have spent the past three weeks trying to flush out insurgents from villages surrounded by lush pomegranate orchards and grapevines. It is perilous work: The soldiers have encountered scores of booby traps and roadside bombs, and they have suffered more casualties in the those weeks than any other U.S. units in Afghanistan.
NATO officials regard only one of the districts around the city as reasonably stable, and that is because Canadian commanders concentrated the bulk of their forces in the area over the past six months. They also poured money into development projects, with the aim of getting residents to band against the Taliban.
The effort in Dand district has shown promising signs, in part because of what some Canadian development specialists regard as a mistake: The district chief hired his brother to administer a Canadian-funded public works project aimed at generating employment, and the brother gave most of the jobs to fellow members of his Barakzai tribe. That nepotism, however, wound up encouraging Barakzai elders in Dand to write a letter to the local Taliban commander telling him to "stay away," according to Canadian officials. Young tribesmen also have mounted informal security patrols in the area.
But what occurred in Dand may be hard to pull off elsewhere, Canadians note, because that district has fewer tribal rivalries and is relatively small, resulting in a much higher concentration of NATO troops to residents than will be possible in other places. And thus far, NATO officials have been reluctant to embrace tribal solutions to combating the insurgency out of fear that will create a new class of warlords.
Even if counterinsurgency operations in the surrounding districts are successful, some military officials at NATO headquarters in Kabul remain skeptical that the strategy will improve security inside Kandahar. They warn that the new push on the fringe will simply push militants inside the city.
"We could wind up with the exact opposite effect than we're seeking to achieve," one official said.
But, the official noted: "Unless we get more troops, we don't really have a choice. We can't go into the city with the forces we have now."
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Bin Laden says US cannot halt Afghanistan war
Mon Sep 14, 4:46 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned President Barack Obama that he is "powerless" to halt the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and must rethink his policy on Israel, in his first message for three months.
The message, which accused "neo-conservatives" of maintaining a grip on the White House, was released Sunday, two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of Al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Titled "Message to the American People," the video -- released by the As-Sahab media branch of Al-Qaeda -- features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said the IntelCenter US monitoring group.
Bin Laden said that among "some other injustices," US support to Israel motivated Al-Qaeda to launch the September 11 attacks, IntelCenter reported.
He also stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and corporate interests, and not by Islamic militants.
"If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups," he said.
"Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq -- as Bush claimed -- it (the White House) should have been liberated."
Bin Laden harangued Obama for keeping appointees of Republican President George W. Bush such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General Robert Petraeus as head of US Central Command running the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Reasonable people knew that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised, but rather, will continue it to the highest point possible," said the Al-Qaeda chief.
"The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you."
Bin Laden urged Americans to pressure the White House to end the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to what he called "the ideological terrorism" exercised by neo-conservatives.
If the wars are not ended "all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past," bin Laden said.
If Americans want to end their confrontation with Al-Qaeda they must reconsider their attitude towards Israel, bin Laden said. "Put the file of your alliance with Israelis on the discussion table," he stated.
"Ask yourselves to determine your position: is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?
"If you choose your security and cessation of war, and this is what the polls have shown, this requires you to work to punish those on your side who play with our security," Bin Laden said.
"We are ready to respond to this choice on aforementioned sound and just bases."
Bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October.
The last audiotape by the Al-Qaeda leader was released on June 3. In that missive he scorned Obama's overture to the Islamic world and warned of decades of conflict ahead.
That audiotape aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel less than an hour after Obama landed in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's home country, at the start of a Middle East tour.
Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years.
Intelligence officials, military analysts and other experts have long believed he is hiding along the remote mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In March, an audio attributed to bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being "complicit" with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories.
The same month, he urged the overthrow of the Somali president.
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New Bin Laden Tape Calls Obama Powerless to Stop Afghanistan War
By Steve Herman VOA News New Delhi 14 September 2009
A new audio message, directed at the American people - purported to be from al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden - claims the President Barack Obama will find himself powerless to halt the American-led war in Afghanistan.
The latest audio recording, attributed to Bin Laden, again attempts to justify al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001, terror attack on the United States as being part of the group's quest for the liberation of Palestine.
The tape was provided by an American-based firm - IntelCenter, which monitors terrorist propaganda. It says the 11-minute video shows a still picture of bin Laden while audio of the address plays.
In the recording, the man identified as Bin Laden reiterates long-standing grievances including American support for Israel and "some other injustices."
He puts forward a reading list of recent books, including one by a former CIA agent, which the tape says will clarify the "message" of the terrorist attack eight years ago.
The recording notes that the Obama administration includes key figures from the previous Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The voice, believed to be that of Bin Laden, thus concludes President Obama is a weakened man and powerless to change course in Afghanistan because of "pressure groups." And, if he tries, the tape says "his fate will be feared" to be like that of the assassinated President John Kennedy and his brother, Robert.
It is the first message believed to be from the reclusive terrorist leader since one in June, in which bin Laden accused President Obama of sowing new seeds of hatred against America among Muslims.
The United States now has about 60,000 troops in Afghanistan - the largest contingent in the 42-nation international force.
Following the September 2001 attack, the United States invaded to oust the Taliban from power in Kabul.
The Taliban had given safe haven to al-Qaeda, which had carried out the hijacking of four airliners to attack New York and Washington, in which more than 3,000 people died.
Bin Laden is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan, along the remote mountainous terrain border with Afghanistan. Pakistani leaders have recently said they believe the terrorist leader is dead. But top American officials say there is no credible evidence to confirm that.
The audio recording, posted on the on an Islamic website, includes a undated photograph of the al-Qaeda leader. There is also a scene of a banner with an American flag in the background and the New York City skyline with the destroyed World Trade Center twin towers.
No fresh images of Bin Laden appear. He was last seen in video that coincided with the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attack.
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Afghanistan looking for way forward after election
By Kay Johnson, Associated Press Writer – Mon Sep 14, 3:08 am ET
KABUL – Afghanistan's electoral officials searched for a way Monday to salvage an election marred by reports of ballot stuffing and phantom voters, mulling how much of the vote to throw out because of fraud.
Repeated delays in announcing full results from the Aug. 20 presidential vote, along with mounting evidence of fraud, have raised fears of new political instability in Afghanistan at a time of rising Taliban violence and an increased U.S. military presence.
An election complaints commission supported by the U.N. has said it found "clear and convincing" evidence of fraud in several areas and ordered about 2 percent of the ballots quarantined. The big question now is if the cheating was large-scale enough to overturn President Hamid Karzai's lead in the count so far.
The Afghan-run Independent Election Commission was meeting Monday morning and would to make an announcement later, spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said. The commission had been expected to say when it would announce long-delayed full preliminary results, but later it issued a brief statement saying only that there would be no further reporting of vote counts Monday.
The U.S. and its allies were counting on the election to bolster support for the Afghan government, but instead reports of election fraud have raised the prospect of a protracted battle over results.
The latest partial results from more than two dozen candidates have Karzai with 54 percent and leading challenger Abdullah Abdullah with 28 percent. The numbers show the president on the path to outright victory — unless the votes eliminated over fraud complaints pull him back down below the 50 percent threshold requiring a two-man runoff.
The current results reflect 93 percent of polling stations, with 5 percent of the votes still to be counted and the remaining 2 percent quarantined for suspected fraud.
On Sunday, the election commission met with officials from the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission to try to work out a timeline for releasing the full count, Noor said. He would give no further details.
The complaints board has the power to throw out suspicious ballots, and it has already invalidated the results in scores of voting stations in southeastern Afghanistan, Karzai's political base.
It has called for recounts and audits in hundreds of other polling stations in the same region.
While Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has said he will accept the election outcome if all the tainted results are thrown out, there is a risk that throwing out blocks of votes from an entire region will leave those in the southeast feeling cheated.
Karzai's lead is almost certain to shrink as the U.N.-backed commission completes investigations of hundreds of allegations of fraud.
The key is whether it tosses out enough votes to require a runoff, which would be difficult to organize. Already, turnout was as low 30 percent to 40 percent in the Aug. 20 vote amid Taliban threats and attacks. Participation in a runoff might be even lower, undermining the legitimacy of the eventual winner.
And it's unclear that there would be any better protection against fraud in a second round vote. Many of the provinces showing the highest incidences of fraud are also areas that are too violent for independent observers to visit. And the same Independent Election Commission that Abdullah accuses of engineering the cheating in the August ballot would be in charge of organizing the runoff.
Plus, there is a narrow window to hold a nationwide vote before the onset of winter makes many remote areas inaccessible.
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British ambassador expresses concern over fraud in election
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Kabul-based newspaper reported Monday that British ambassador to Afghanistan Mark Sedwill has expressed concern over alleged fraud in the presidential election held last month.
"British ambassador expressed concern over fraud in the election in a meeting with Balkh governor Atta Mohammad Noor," Daily Mandegar writes in its Monday edition.
The ambassador, according to the newspaper, stressed that Britain respects the will of the people of Afghanistan.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had described the recently held Afghan election as unfair earlier in the month.
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Lengthy electoral process, rigging charges undermine Afghan ballot
By Hadi Mayar
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Though partial election result has placed sitting President Karzai in a more comfortable position to win a second term in office, yet the magnitude of rigging charges and the complex vote counting process have lowered his stature as the head of a state in the eye of the storm.
Last week, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) released results of 95 percent of votes, according to which Karzai secured 54.3 percent votes.
While the election body gave a leading position to the incumbent president, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) cast doubts on the election process by confirming fraud charges in the election and invalidating thousands of votes.
The ECC, consisting of an American, a Canadian, a Dutch, and two Afghan nationals, discarded votes in 83 polling stations in areas where President Karzai had strong backing. The polls monitoring body threw out ballots at 51 polling stations in Kandahar, 27 in Ghazni and five in Paktika.
The commission has received more than 2,300 complaints about ballot-box stuffing and other election frauds, of which over 726 have been deemed serious enough to affect polling station results.
Karzai has though exceeded the 50 percent threshold, a secured position to avoid runoff poll, but if the ECC nullifies a large number of votes, he could drop below 50 percent, thus forced into a run-off.
Final result is likely to be declared some time this week or early next week, however, these results will not be deemed official until all fraud complaints are investigated.
Officials have already said that the final result will not be published until the ECC completes the probe of all rigging charges.
Last week, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah accused Karzai of manipulating the electoral commission, claiming that election officials are colluding in fraud on his behalf.
Alleging "state-engineered fraud" in the election process, Dr. Abdullah said there has been malpractice in the IEC.
"It is not independent and it is doing what President Karzai wants it to do. It is on President Karzai side."
Earlier, a tribal chieftain in southern Afghanistan told BBC that although people in his locality did not cast votes, the ballot boxes were stuffed with votes in favor of Karzai.
Soon after the Aug. 20 election, the Afghan and international media reported bickering between President Karzai and Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, over credentials of the poll.
Last week, Holbrooke had to convince critics in Washington that despite fraud charges, the confidence of the Afghan people had to be strengthened in the election process.
The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, has also expressed serious reservations about the fraud charges.
A Washington-based think tank, National Democratic Institute said that a large numbers of polling stations had more than 100 percent turnout. It observed that its analysis of results found large numbers of stations with more than 600 votes, the 100 percent mark, in Nuristan, Paktia, Helmand and Badghis provinces, along with others.
The group, which had over 100 international and Afghan observers in 19 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, said it would determine the will of the Afghan people unless fraud complaints are thoroughly investigated.
Besides ballot fraud, the lengthy and complicated electoral process has also caused national and international concern, giving considerable space to rival candidates and critics to question credibility of the ballot.
In major democracies of the world, unofficial election results are normally declared by the end of the same day while the official results come within a week.
In Afghanistan, the election was held on Aug. 20 while the official result is to be declared by Sept. 17, which is possible to be delayed as more and more complaints of voting fraud have emerged.
Before that the IEC is announcing the result in bits and pieces as it counts the votes.
Although the rough geographic terrain and security concerns may justify some delay in the process but stretching the exercise to almost a month is defying logic.
It was on this account that Richard Holbrooke told a U.S. television channel last week that if the ballot result had to take such a long time, it might end up in bringing about an unstable government.
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Why Afghanistan Needs A New Transitional Authority
By Ajmal Samadi Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 14, 2009
The international community generously provided $224 million to help Afghanistan hold a democratic presidential election this summer. But it now appears those funds were wasted on a fraudulent project whose results have been contested by many Afghans and international observers.
The only person who seems satisfied with the way the process is playing out so far is incumbent President Hamid Karzai.
Unfortunately, the election fiasco is part of a larger trend. Over the past few years under Karzai, Afghanistan has fallen from the middle of the pack in terms of corruption to one of the most corrupt states on Transparency International’s global corruption index.
Opium production and trafficking have increased, and senior government officials have been accused of involvement. Security has decreased and organized crime is on the rise. A plan for the implementation of transitional justice was unceremoniously dumped. Warlords and criminals have returned to the highest echelons of power.
But these and other examples of backsliding in Afghanistan were ignored by the country’s unwavering international supporters. As a result, Afghanistan is in danger of following the pattern observed so often in many African and Asian countries, where billions of dollars in assistance disappear because of corruption and bad governance while poverty, illiteracy, disease, and underdevelopment remain unchecked.
Many liberal-minded observers tend to oppose donors when they place conditions on assistance, arguing that doing so undermines sovereignty and promotes “colonial interventionism.” But is this academic term really relevant in Afghanistan, where the entire army and police force are on the U.S. payroll? Would Karzai remain president for long if international troops withdrew from the country?
On the other hand, if donors had attached stringent democratic-development and transparency conditions to their election funding, the process could have been sufficiently safeguarded to produce a presentable result. Given the massive international military, financial, political, and technical support for Afghanistan, the people had every right to expect at least a minimally acceptable electoral process.
Unfulfilled Promises
Now, as more and more evidence of vote-rigging during the election emerges, it seems evident that the huge UN industry in Afghanistan has failed to deliver on its promise – stated in a UNDP document entitled “Enhancing Legal And Electoral Capacity For Tomorrow” (ELECT) – to organize the vote “with minimal disruption and controversy.”
In the eight years since the fall of the Taliban, UN agencies have spent billions on “capacity building” in Afghanistan. Now, the combined budgets of the 15 UN agencies working in Afghanistan are double the $2 billion budget of the Afghan government. And half of UN spending goes to the salaries of over 2,000 foreign staff and maintaining a fleet of armored vehicles and luxury aircraft. Little local Afghan expertise -- perhaps none at all -- is driving the UN enterprise in Afghanistan.
The U.S. State Department has conceded that determining the final results of the tainted Afghan election could take several months because the Election Complaints Commission must rule on more than 2,700 electoral complaints, over 700 of which are considered “serious.”
This delay comes at a critical juncture, with the country mired in a political and security crisis. Parliament and opposition groups already challenged a unilateral Supreme Court decision to extend Karzai’s mandate from March until August. Given the widespread and credible allegations of the use of state resources to commit election fraud, it will be very difficult for Karzai to cobble together another extension that would allow him to remain in power until final election results are certified.
But even if he does so, it will do nothing to increase public confidence in the election results. The best way for Karzai to respond to the flood of accusations that he abused his office and misused state resources to secure his own reelection would be for him to recuse himself from the decision-making process.
A New Transitional Power
In order to lift Afghanistan from its current political crisis and most effectively address the growing accusations of election fraud, the international community should pressure Karzai to transfer power to a transitional administration that would run the government until the election controversy is resolved and a new president is sworn in.
Critics may respond that installing a transitional administration would look like a return to December 2001. Doing so could have the appearance of a retreat that could cause people to question whether all the economic, political, military, and human costs incurred in stabilizing Afghanistan over the last eight years were for naught.
But ironically, in addition to helping legitimize a tainted election, a well-designed transitional authority could help overcome the structural deficiencies in the Bonn arrangements that have endangered Afghanistan’s development.
For instance, the National Assembly – which has been effectively marginalized in recent years – can play a pivotal role in authorizing and organizing an emergency transitional administration in line with Afghan law. That transitional authority should be broad-based and comprehensive, including all players in the country’s political process.
Instituting a transitional authority would also go a long way toward convincing the Afghan people that the international community supports democracy in Afghanistan rather than any particular individual leaders.
Finally, doing so would send a powerful signal to Karzai that could change his behavior if he is confirmed as the winner of the election. Over the past few months, Karzai has shocked and disappointed many observers inside and outside Afghanistan with decisions such as cutting deals with warlords and criminals or his release of jailed drug traffickers. It is time that President Karzai understood that the support of the international community is not unconditional.
Ajmal Samadi is director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Rights Monitor, an independent rights watchdog. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.
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Dark months ahead as Afghan vote fracas drags on
By Marc Bastian
(AFP) – KABUL — Afghans face dark months ahead as vote rigging claims overshadow eagerly-anticipated elections, with the prospect of a lengthy and bitter bout of political unrest coming as the Taliban are at their fiercest.
Although preliminary results show President Hamid Karzai on the path to victory in the August polls, the sweep of fraud allegations and pitifully low turnout means credibility could slip away from his Western-backed government.
No one expects the official announcement of Afghanistan's new president to go ahead as scheduled on Thursday, already a blow to a process seen as a key test of Western-backed efforts to bring stability here after an eight-year war.
The Independent Election Commission has earmarked hundreds of thousands of ballots for audit and fraud investigators are only just beginning their task.
Haroun Mir, of the Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, predicted that war-scarred and fragile Afghanistan was "probably heading for another couple of months of this political crisis."
"People are losing faith in the Afghan government and NATO because of this political crisis," said Mir.
Afghanistan's electoral law says a candidate must receive 50 percent plus at least one vote to be declared the winner. If no candidate achieves this result, a run-off between the two top-scoring candidates takes place.
Karzai currently has 54.3 percent of the preliminary count.
In the worst case scenario, Mir told AFP, the electoral fraud complaints could take up to two months to iron out before final results are declared.
If a run-off was needed, it would have to be postponed until next spring or summer as winter snows would hamper election logistics.
London-based think-tank the International Council on Security and Development has already warned that this would create a political vacuum when Afghanistan needs a functioning government to begin tackling its vast problems.
What worries Afghanistan's Western allies is that all the mud-slinging, delays and upheaval could play into the hands of Islamist militants, who have regrouped since the 2001 US-led ouster of the Taliban.
"The beneficiary of that would be the Taliban and Al-Qaeda," Richard Holbrooke, top US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the BBC last week when asked about delays in the election process.
The Taliban insurgency to topple Karzai's government and force out the approximately 100,000 US and NATO-led troops here has worsened each year, with 2009 seeing record numbers of foreign military casualties.
The foreign deaths have sent public support for the war in coalition member states plummeting, with Western leaders facing calls to withdraw.
Nations involved in the international operation have called in vain for negotiations with the Taliban, but insurgents denounce "a fixed election."
Neither Karzai nor his main rival Abdullah Abdullah will be accepted as go-betweens, because "we want both of them eliminated", Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP, assessing the current situation as "very good" for his movement.
Another key fear in the coming months is that supporters of Abdullah -- who trails with about 28 percent of vote so far -- could be so enraged with the fraud allegations that they take to the streets.
Afghanistan is deeply divided along tribal lines, and wounds have not yet healed from an ethnically-charged civil war of the 1990s.
If Abdullah or other candidates feel cheated out of the vote, the consequences could be disastrous, said one Western diplomat.
The eventual victor of the polls will also face endemic corruption and a pitiful pace of development blighting the fifth poorest country in the world.
Karzai was installed as president soon after the 2001 toppling of the Taliban and was then elected in 2004, but his government has been widely criticised for failing to rein in corruption or tackle worsening security.
Analysts say forming a competent government will be tricky if Karzai is declared the winner given all the backroom deals with unsavoury warlords who will want plum government positions -- but just getting to that point was the immediate concern.
"It is completely illusory to think Afghanistan will have a stable government within 12 to 18 months," said researcher Mariam Abou Zahab, of the French Centre for International Studies and Research.
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Time to Deal in Afghanistan
By Fareed Zakaria The Washington Post Monday, September 14, 2009
It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union and others have invested massively in stabilizing that country over the past eight years, and they should not abandon it because the Taliban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated. But there is still a large gap between the goals the Obama administration is outlining and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands of more troops but, rather, by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.
The most important reality of the post-Sept. 11 world has been the lack of any major follow-up attack. That's largely because al-Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The campaign against terrorist groups in both countries rests on ground forces and intelligence. A senior U.S. military official involved in planning these campaigns told me that America's presence in Afghanistan has been the critical element in the successful strikes against al-Qaeda leaders and camps. Were America to leave the scene, all the region's players would start jockeying for influence over Afghanistan. That would almost certainly mean the revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taliban.
It is worth reminding ourselves that Afghanistan is not in free fall. The number of civilian deaths, while grim, is less than a tenth the number in Iraq in 2006. In the recent Afghan election, all four presidential candidates publicly endorsed the U.S. presence there. Compare this with Iraq, where politicians engaged in ritual denunciations of the United States constantly to satisfy the public's anti-Americanism.
The Obama administration's answer to the worsening situation in Afghanistan appears to be: more. More troops, civilians, tasks and missions. There is nothing wrong with helping Afghans develop their country. But if the goal is to give Afghanistan a strong, functioning central government and a viable economy, the task will require decades, not years. Afghanistan is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. It has had a weak central government for centuries. Illiteracy rates are somewhere around 70 percent. Building a 400,000-strong security force, as some in Congress have proposed, will be arduous in this context, not to mention that its annual cost would be equivalent to 300 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.
The focus must shift from nation building to dealmaking. The central problem in Afghanistan is that the Pashtuns, who make up 45 percent of the population and almost 100 percent of the Taliban, do not feel empowered. We need to start talking to them, whether they are nominally Taliban or not. Buying, renting or bribing Pashtun tribes should become the centerpiece of America's stabilization strategy, as it was Britain's when it ruled Afghanistan.
Efforts to reach out to the Taliban so far have been limited and halfhearted. Some blame President Hamid Karzai, who, bizarrely, wants to start this process himself by negotiating with Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, who has shown no sign of wanting to deal. But the U.S. government remains deeply reluctant as well, or at least wants to wait until Taliban forces are on the defensive. But, as one American official said to me, "Waiting to negotiate till you are in a position of strength is a bit like waiting to sell your stocks till the market peaks. It sounds good, but you will never know when the time is right."
The dealmaking should extend to the top. U.S. officials should stop trashing Karzai. We have no alternative. Afghanistan needs a Pashtun leader; Karzai is a reasonably supportive one. Let's assume the charges of corruption and vote rigging against him are true. Does anyone really think his successor would be any more honest and efficient? The best strategy would be to see if we can get Karzai to work with his leading opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, in some kind of coalition. The muddied elections actually create an opportunity to build a national unity government.
There are three ways to change security conditions in Afghanistan. First, increase American troops. Second, increase Afghan troops. Third, shrink the number of enemy forces by making them switch sides or lay down their arms. That third strategy is what worked so well in Iraq and what urgently needs to be adopted in Afghanistan. In a few years, Afghanistan will still be poor, corrupt and dysfunctional. But if we make the right deals, it will be ruled by leaders who keep the country inhospitable to al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups. That's my definition of success.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and the author of "The Post-American World." His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
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Congressional Democrats Consider Parting With Obama on Afghanistan
By Jay Newton-small/ Washington Time.com via Yahoo! News
On May 6, after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari at the White House, President Obama rolled out his favorite phrase, the one that usually precedes a line in the sand: "Let me be clear," Obama announced. "The United States has made a lasting commitment to defeat al-Qaeda, but also to support the democratically elected sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. That commitment will not waver. And that support will be sustained."
If the clarity of Obama's rhetoric on Afghanistan strikes you as familiarly Bushian, it's possible you're a congressional Democrat. Obama has already committed 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan - a decision he called the toughest he's made in the Oval Office - only to see violence there increase. Fifty-one troops died in August, the bloodiest month since the U.S. invasion eight years ago. Public support for the war has plummeted and the Afghan presidential elections could not have gone worse: it will take months for the U.N. to unstuff the ballot boxes and figure out if Karzai won outright or must defend himself in a runoff. (See pictures of election day in Afghanistan.)
The last of the 21,000 new troops aren't scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan until November, but already patience among congressional Democrats is wearing thin. Senator Russ Feingold has called for a withdrawal timeline. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry has expressed concern and is holding hearings this fall on the necessity of more troops, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding her tongue (sort of) while she awaits the Obama Administration's definition of success in Afghanistan. In an effort to build political support, the White House is developing a series of 50 benchmarks with Congress that will be announced on Sept. 24. Pelosi isn't exactly hopeful. "Sept. 24 is fraught with meaning for us," she told reporters last Thursday, before adding, "I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress."
In July, understanding that the war in Afghanistan had been neglected by Bush's preoccupation with Iraq and that these troops were needed under Obama's plan to stabilize Afghanistan, 52 Senate Democrats voted to temporarily expand the army by 30,000 troops through 2012. That means Obama is already authorized to send 9,000 more troops without asking Congress' permission. But most analysts estimate an additional 25,000 to 45,000 are needed, and most Democrats in Congress know some kind of ask from the President is imminent.
General Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has held off making another troop request because he's waiting for Obama to decide what, exactly, he wants done in Afghanistan – or, as McChrystal puts it, what kind of car Obama wants to be seen in. "My position here is a little bit like a mechanic. We've got a situation with a vehicle and I've been asked to look at it and tell the owner what the situation is and what it will cost to make the vehicle run correctly," McChrystal told reporters Friday. "Now I understand that the vehicle owner has to make a decision on what the car is worth, how much longer he intends to drive it ... and whether he wants it to look good or just run."
Given Obama's focus on health-care reform, global warming and overhauling the banking system - not to mention the state of the economy - it's hard to imagine the President can pimp out his ride. The strain on resources is part of what makes many Democrats leery. "I'm very nervous," said Representative Jack Murtha, the 17-term Congressman from Pennsylvania who controls the Pentagon's purse strings in the House. Murtha said he'd only support troop increases in Afghanistan if some of the 130,000 troops in Iraq start coming home ahead of schedule.
Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Carl Levin said he'd rather see a "surge of Afghan security forces" step up, supported by more trainers and equipment. "Our support of their surge will show our commitment to the success of a mission that is clearly in our national security interest without creating a bigger U.S. military footprint that provides propaganda fodder for the Taliban," Levin said in a speech on the Senate floor. Still, when pressed by the New York Times, Levin said he wouldn't rule out eventually sending additional troops.
In his anxiety - and admission of possible acquiescence - Levin may represent most of his Democratic peers. With many Republicans supporting him, including John McCain and Sarah Palin, Obama might still have the votes necessary to send more troops. "I cannot imagine a Congress of Obama's own party denying him resources for a war he has called his top priority," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "But so far he apparently hasn't decided if he wants those added resources and he clearly hasn't yet made the case."
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2 Tahir Yaldash militants detained in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Afghan authorities have arrested two insurgents of Tahir Yaldash-led group in north Afghanistan, a statement of National Security Directorate (NSD) said Monday.
"The two militants include Khalid Ahmadov Alias Salimullah, a national of Uzbekistan from Farghana province and Nisar Ahmad nicknamed Aliyas, an Afghan national, were arrested in Kunduz province days ago," the statement added.
Both the rebels admitted they had received training in Pakistan's lawless tribal area of Wazirustan and came to Afghanistan in Tahir Yaldash's order to carry out activities.
Tahir Yaldash, led by Uzbekistan militants, kept in close contact with al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and has penetrated into northern Afghan province of Kunduz bordering Tajikistan.
Kunduz, Baghlan and Balkh provinces in north Afghanistan have been the scene of increasing militancy over the past couple of months.
Latest air strikes on two oil tankers hijacked by Taliban militants in Kunduz province on Sept. 4 left over 100 dead, including scores of civilians.
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Polio makes a return to remote, destitute Afghanistan
By Lynne O'Donnell September 14, 2009
(AFP) - CHAGHCHARAN — Gulbadan Halifazada lives in a house in a mud-brick compound without electricity or running water in the poorest region of one of the world's most destitute countries.
In the compound she, her husband and their half-dozen children share with two other families, four goats and a calf are tied up in a corner, turkeys scratch around them and sunflowers planted in the parched earth wilt in the searing late-summer heat.
Not much has changed in Chaghcharan, capital of central Afghanistan's Ghor province, in recent years, 42-year-old Halifazada told AFP, but perhaps things are about to get better for the next generation.
All her five daughters go to school, she said, while she didn't get the chance. And the arrival on her doorstep of a team of UN volunteers administering polio vaccinations to the under-fives could only be a good thing.
"We have no land or cattle, only two people are working among us and they can only do day-labouring that brings in 200 afghanis (four US dollars) a day," she said, standing among a crowd of about a dozen children aged under 10.
"But the girls are getting an education and I am expecting them to do better than I did," she said, looking older than her years and the small blue tattoo between her eyes fading into the deep lines of her bronzed forehead.
Health care, or the lack of it, is one of many problems facing Afghanistan, eight years after a war to topple the extremist Taliban regime and the arrival of billions of dollars in international aid.
"All the people of Ghor province are sick," said provincial Governor Sayed Mohammad Iqbal.
"By that I am not referring to specific diseases but to the poor economic development, joblessness, poverty, the lack of attention from the government in Kabul and from the United Nations and the international community," he said.
The population of the province is 900,000 -- of a national total believed to be around 23 million -- 45 percent of whom are aged under 20, and the average annual income is 3,000 afghanis.
Health tops the priorities for Iqbal's two-month-old governorship, along with roads, education and energy, he said, adding that Ghor "has hardly changed in 300 years".
One consequence of that lack of development is the re-emergence of polio, with Afghanistan one of four countries, along with Nigeria, Pakistan and India, where the crippling disease is endemic.
On Sunday UNICEF launched an immunisation campaign in Chaghcharan, part of a three-day nationwide blitz targeting 1.2 million children.
"Polio is an issue of common interest," said Peter Graaff, World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Afghanistan, adding that the programme aims to immunise every child under five.
But the ongoing Taliban insurgency, virulent in the south -- Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces in particular -- has meant many children are not being reached.
In those three provinces, where the Taliban have been on the offensive as foreign troops have boosted numbers and anti-insurgent activities, 660,000 children live in what UNICEF described as "13 high risk, difficult to reach districts".
Polio had been steadily falling, UNICEF's Afghanistan representative Catherine Mbengue said, to 31 cases in 2008 from 63 in 1999.
Since August, four rounds of house-to-house vaccination campaigns have targeted almost 7.5 million children, though deteriorating security and rising fear in the high risk areas has seen at least 100,000 left out.
The insecurity and fear bred by the Taliban insurgency was the reason that "this year 20 cases have been reported to date", she said.
Lack of community awareness, too few women volunteers essential for entering homes when men are not in, inadequate healthcare and movement of people between areas with and without polio have exacerbated problems caused by the insurgency, said Graaff.
Unlike in remote areas of Pakistan, where Islamists have railed against anti-polio campaigns claiming the tiny drops given to babies and children were in fact sterilising them, Graaff said there was no such resistance in Afghanistan.
All they needed to do, he said, was get access to the children.
In Chaghcharan, Parizod sat in a cushion-lined room nursing her 40-day-old son Sayed Munib, tightly swaddled in an embroidered wrap as UNICEF volunteer Sema squeezed a drop of anti-viral medicine into his mouth.
As Sayed screwed up his meaty face at the horrid taste, and after much thought began to scream, his mother said: "This is good. Now I know he won't get sick with this disease and that gives him a good start in life."
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Afghanistan: Taliban gives nod to polio immunization in south
KABUL, 14 September 2009 (IRIN) - In an unprecedented move Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have endorsed a three-day polio immunization drive in areas under their influence in Afghanistan, according to aid agencies.
The insurgents issued a "letter of support" through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) before the immunization campaign started on 13 September, officials at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) office in Kabul told IRIN.
As part of its humanitarian mandate, the ICRC acts as a neutral intermediary and maintains contacts with all warring parties.
According to UNICEF, in order to minimize the impact of insecurity, increase access and improve the safety of vaccination staff in conflict-affected districts, some negotiations with "anti-government elements" have taken place, and before the planned immunization campaign the Taliban released a "letter of support" through ICRC.
Cornelia Walther, UNICEF communications officer, said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force had agreed to a ceasefire during the immunization period - 13-15 September.
The insurgents have rarely negotiated with independent aid agencies and are widely accused of deliberate attacks on health facilities, aid workers and other civilian actors. The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has said on previous occasions that it could not reach and vaccinate tens of thousands of children mostly in the southern provinces because of insecurity and threats by the insurgents.
Over one million under-five children in southern, southeastern, western and eastern parts of the country are being targeted in the current immunization drive, which will involve over 15,000 vaccinators and health workers, according to UNICEF.
About 660,000 children are being targeted in 13 high-risk and difficult-to-reach-districts in the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan.
No security incidents so far
MoPH spokesman Ahmad Farid Raaid told IRIN no security incidents involving polio vaccinators had been reported on the first day of the campaign.
Health officials in the volatile provinces of Kandahar and Helmand told IRIN the vaccinators were doing their job in the targeted districts without any major security problems.
However, Enyatullah Ghafari, director of Helmand's health department, said health workers were still concerned about their safety. "Some local Taliban fighters may be unaware about the `letter of support' issued by their leadership and may cause problems."
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the three-day polio eradication drive had been initiated to mark 21 September, International Peace Day.
UNAMA has called on the warring sides to allow essential humanitarian work to take place around the country around this date.
So far this year 20 polio cases have been confirmed (31 were reported in 2008), and the virus is considered to be endemic in Afghanistan - as well as Pakistan, India and Nigeria, according to the UN World Health Organization.
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Health Ministry reports cholera deaths
KABUL, 14 September 2009 (IRIN) - Twenty-eight deaths from cholera and/or acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) have been reported in Afghanistan in the past two months, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has said.
At least 673 cases of AWD and/or cholera had been reported in 11 of the country's 34 provinces, it said.
According to the World Health Organization, cholera, which is rarely reported in Afghanistan, is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of the bacterium vibrio cholerae. The disease is characterized in its most severe form by a sudden onset of AWD that can lead to death by severe dehydration and kidney failure.
There are strong diagnostic similarities between AWD and cholera - hence the difficulty health workers have in distinguishing between the two.
Health Minister Mohammad Amin Fatimie, in a Kabul press conference on 12 September, said MoPH was relying on NGOs and partner agencies for help, but sounded an optimistic note: "There is no outbreak of cholera but only a few single cases. The Health Ministry is capable of diagnosing and controlling cholera."
However, health officials in the northern province of Samangan have called for emergency assistance to thwart a possible cholera outbreak in Dara-e-Sof District.
"Over the past three days cholera has killed five people in Dara-e-Sof. Unless preventive measures are implemented urgently it could spread to other areas," said Abdul Hameed, director of Samangan's health department.
MoPH said medical supplies, including antibiotics and sachets of oral rehydration salts, had been dispatched to cholera-affected provinces and more support would be provided if necessary.
The disease has also been reported in the eastern province of Nangarhar where flash floods affected about 4,000 people on 31 August, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on 2 September. OCHA had warned about an outbreak of malaria from stagnant flood waters. Water sources usually get contaminated during floods.
Lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation as well as poor awareness about personal hygiene appear to be major causes of cholera and AWD.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that only 23 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 27 million people have access to clean drinking water and 12 percent to safe sanitation, and that annually up to 50,000 children die from diarrhoeal diseases.
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Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 14 Sep 2009
14 Sep 2009
KABUL, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Following are security developments reported in Afghanistan as of 1130 GMT on Monday:
SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN - A soldier working for the NATO-led force was killed in a roadside bomb explosion on Sunday, the alliance said in a statement, without providing further details of the incident or the soldier's nationality.
HELMAND - A British soldier working for the NATO-led force was killed on Sunday as a result of a gunshot wound during a foot patrol in Babaji district in southern Helmand province, the British ministry of defence said.
A ministry spokeswoman could not say whether the fatal shot came from enemy or friendly fire.
NANGARHAR - Afghan police seized a ton of opium, 300 kg of morphine and 30 kg of heroin in eastern Nangarhar province in a joint operation with the United States, the interior ministry said.
(Reporting by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Ron Popeski)
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Official: Dozens of Taliban killed after U.S. deaths
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 13, 8:17 pm ET
KABUL – About 50 Taliban militants died in a battle in western Afghanistan after an insurgent ambush killed three U.S. troops, an Afghan official said Sunday.
The fighting took place in a region controlled by militants that has been the site of huge battles in the past, some that have caused high numbers of civilian casualties. In Saturday's clash, a militant-fired rocket struck a home and killed a woman and a teenage girl, Afghan police said.
The battle followed an insurgent ambush that killed three Americans and seven Afghan troops, said Afghan army spokesman Maj. Abdul Basir Ghori. The ambush involved two roadside bombs, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. military said Sunday.
Fighting — which included NATO airstrikes — continued for six to eight hours after the ambush, U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said. She couldn't provide casualty figures and no other Afghan officials immediately confirmed the death toll.
"The combined ISAF and Afghan force was receiving significant small-arms, RPG and indirect fire throughout that time frame," she said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
Saturday's violence came the same day Afghan officials said 50 other civilians, security forces and militants were killed in a spate of attacks around Afghanistan, including 20 noncombatants killed in two roadside bomb explosions.
Violence has risen steadily across Afghanistan in the last three years, and militants now control wide swaths of the countryside.
The U.S. and NATO have a record number of troops in the country, and the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is likely to soon request thousands more. A record number of U.S. and NATO troops have died in Afghanistan already this year.
Also Sunday, an ISAF official provided more information about the rescue of a New York Times reporter from Taliban captors in Kunduz province earlier this month. Afghan journalists were angered that the British-Irish reporter was rescued but his Afghan translator died during the operation and his body was left behind.
The official said the operation was launched because there were signs that the Taliban kidnappers planned to move the two men and hand them over to higher-level insurgents.
British troops came under heavy fire as soon as their helicopters landed, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the operation that had not been made public.
The rescuing troops brought body armor for Times reporter Stephen Farrell and for Afghan interpreter Sultan Munadi, the official said. When the British forces found Farrell, they immediately asked him where Munadi was, but Farrell said he had been killed. Because the militant gunfire was so heavy, the troops had to leave Munadi's body behind, the official said.
The British troops killed about a dozen militants during the operation, the official said.
"People need to understand that it's not like we walked in and tried to save this one guy and leave the other behind," the official said. "It was really heavy fire, and the risk wouldn't have been justified to recover a person they knew was already dead."
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British, NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News - Sep 14 3:09 AM
KABUL – A British soldier was killed in an attack on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan, while a second NATO service member died in a bomb blast, NATO and British officials said Monday.
The British soldier, who has not been named, was shot Sunday while patrolling in the Babaji district of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, Britain's defense ministry said.
The soldier's death brings to 214 the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since operations there began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
A second service member from NATO's International Security Assistance Force was killed Sunday in a bomb blast in the south, NATO said Monday. No other details, including the service member's nationality, were released. Taliban militants this year have increased their use of roadside bombs, which now account for the majority of U.S. and NATO casualties.
Violence has risen across Afghanistan in the last three years as the resurgent Taliban regained control of large swaths of countryside. Fighting has been particularly harsh this summer in the south, where thousands of U.S. troops have deployed to bolster the Canadian and British-led operations in the Taliban heartland.
The U.S. and NATO have a record number of troops in Afghanistan — nearly 100,000 in total — and the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is likely to soon request thousands more.
This year has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO troops since the 2001 invasion.
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Canadian soldier killed, four injured in Afghanistan IED blast
Bruce Ward, Canwest News Service Monday, September 14, 2009
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- The price Canada pays for waging war in Afghanistan has risen once more with the death of Pte. Patrick Lormand, 21, who was killed in action Sunday when a Canadian armoured vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.
Pte. Patrick Lormand is the 130th soldier to die in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2002. Four other Canadian soldiers received minor injuries in the blast, and were treated and released from hospital.
Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance described Pte. Patrick Lormand as a proud and heroic infantryman who "came here to do right by Afghanistan, to serve Canada's objective to help bring peace, a chance for lasting security and a better environment to live and raise a family."
In praising Pte. Patrick Lormand, however, Gen. Vance also seemed to take aim at the growing voices of opposition to the war back home.
"He did not come here as a potential victim. He came here to help, and help he did. He does not need to be told his efforts are futile, for he could see positive results in the communities he was protecting." said Gen. Vance. "Neither he nor his family benefit from uninformed opinions about what his goals were and the techniques he used to achieve them. You need only look into those young clear eyes to know that he was a good soul, who tried every day to do the right thing and saw in the results of his efforts a chance to succeed on a wider scale on behalf of Canadians and Afghans alike."
Canada's role in Afghanistan was sharply criticized by Sen. Colin Kenny in an op-ed article published on the weekend.
"What we hoped to accomplish in Afghanistan is proving to be impossible," wrote Kenny, chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. "We are hurtling toward a Vietnam ending."
Pte. Patrick Lormand -- known as "Lorm" to his buddies -- was a member of the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22e Regiment Battle Group based in Valcartier, Que. He is survived by his parents Jacques and Sylvie.
The explosion occurred about 13 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City in the Panjwaii district where Canadian troops were on patrol.
"He took a fatal strike where an Afghan family might have," said Gen. Vance. "He lived in the community, so he knew the families he was protecting, and they saw him as just that, a protector. Under that mantle of protection, stability emerges. He saw that happening as a result of his efforts and that of his mates. At the moment he died, Pte. Lormand was working to expand that protected area so that more stability covering more of the population could be realized, to protect and stabilize a population in peril. That's what was behind those young eyes, now closed forever."
On Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement regarding the most recent loss of Canadian life in Afghanistan.
"It is with great regret that I extend my condolences, and those of all Canadians, to the family and friends of Private Patrick Lormand," the statement read.
"The thoughts and prayers of all Canadians are with you during this difficult period."
Mr. Harper also offered support to the families of the four injured soldiers.
"This tragic loss will be remembered," he said in the statement. "The men and women of our Canadian Forces are dedicated to make a positive impact in this world. Their actions protect Canadians, our interests and our values."
Pte. Patrick Lormand's death comes one week after two Canadian soldiers were killed when a powerful roadside blast hit armoured vehicle that was part of a Canadian convoy southwest of Kandahar.
Gen. Vance also said that Pte. Patrick Lormand's lively sense of humour raised the morale of the troops in his platoon.
"For him, everything was funny. He knew how to turn everything into a joke."
Pte. Patrick Lormand died "protecting people and establishing a more stable environment so that Afghans, NGOs and indeed our own civilians might offer the sustained support needed to re-establish the social, political and economic fabric of their communities."
Added Gen. Vance: "His was a world where success is something won under the hardest of circumstances, where ideas are turned into action, and where the Canadian Forces seek to protect and stabilize."
Ottawa Citizen
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A Somber Warning on Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISON SMALE September 13, 2009
GENEVA - Western powers now in Afghanistan run the risk of suffering the fate of the Soviet Union there if they cannot halt the growing insurgency and an Afghan perception that they are foreign invaders, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
In a speech opening a weekend gathering of military and foreign policy experts, Mr. Brzezinski, who was national security adviser when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979, endorsed a British and German call, backed by France, for a new international conference on the country. He also set the tone for a weekend of somber assessments of the situation.
He noted that it took about 300 U.S. Special Forces — fighting with Northern Alliance troops — to overthrow Taliban rule after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Now, however, with about 100,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, those forces are increasingly perceived as foreign invaders, much as the Soviet troops were from the start, Mr. Brzezinski said.
For President Barack Obama, Afghanistan is the foreign policy issue that has “perhaps the greatest need for strategic review,” said Mr. Brzezinski, who met with Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign last year, and endorsed his candidacy but was not a formal adviser.
“We are running the risk of replicating — obviously unintentionally — the fate of the Soviets,” Mr. Brzezinski said in his speech Friday night.
The presence of so many foreign troops underpins an Afghan perception that the Americans and their allies are hostile invaders and “suggests transformation of the conflict is taking place,” he added.
A new international conference would help devise a more refined strategy, Mr. Brzezinski said in a brief interview Sunday. Using the military to support a development strategy would help prolong the European presence, he suggested — “our European friends are less likely to leave us in the lurch.”
If the United States is left alone in Afghanistan, Mr. Brzezinski said Friday night, “that would probably spell the end of the Alliance.”
A discussion on Afghanistan on Saturday featured, among others, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British foreign secretary's special representative for Afghanistan and a former British ambassador to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
“All is not doom and gloom in Afghanistan,” Sir Sherard told the conference, the Global Strategic Review of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, a nongovernment organization. But “walking away would destroy everything that has been achieved.”
“The pullout option is not one that any government could responsibly follow,” he added, emphasizing, that America's role was crucial. “While Obama remains committed, we remain committed.”
In calling last weekend for a conference on Afghanistan, Britain and Germany seemed anxious both to dispel the tension that has arisen surrounding the election there last month, in which foreign observers say there were clear incidents of fraud, and to shift emphasis away from the rising numbers of foreign troops.
Sir Sherard suggested the solution lay in devolving political power back to tribal elders who have traditionally held sway in Afghanistan, and funneling money for development through them.
With 68,000 troops from the United States expected by the end of the year and some 40,000 from other countries, numbers — and the rising number of deaths and casualties — are going to influence not only hostile Afghans but Western public support for the Afghan mission.
Speakers at the conference said that Americans are unlikely for long to support maintaining many times the number of troops from Britain, Germany and France, the three European allies who have sent the most soldiers to Afghanistan.
What is needed now is “the intelligent application of military force” alongside long-promised development strategies, Sir Sherard said, evoking what he called a dream that, by 2011, a truckload of pomegranates would be able to pass unhindered from Afghanistan through Pakistan and into India, that Western students could study Afghan archaeological ruins, and that posters in the Pashto language inviting Pashtuns to “come on over” from the Taliban would be tattered remnants — unneeded rather than unheeded — on the roadsides of southern Afghanistan.
“That,” he stressed, “is the dream.”
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Afghan Detainees to Get Six - Month Reviews - Pentagon
September 14, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prisoners held at a U.S. base in Afghanistan will have their detention reviewed roughly every six months, officials said, part of efforts by the Pentagon to improve the image of its forces in the country.
The new policy will apply to some 600 Afghans held at a prison at the Bagram air base north of Kabul.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said detainees would be assigned personal representatives drawn from U.S. military ranks on the base to "guide them through the review process" and help gather witness statements that could be used to challenge their imprisonment.
The prison has housed suspected Taliban members since U.S. and Afghan forces overthrew the militants' government in 2001 after the September 11 attacks.
Two prisoners died at the prison in 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers, and human rights advocates say prisoners have been staging protests there for the past few months over the conditions of their detention.
Critics say the U.S. detention of prisoners at Bagram without access to courts, defence lawyers or family members was against Afghan and international laws.
Whitman said military-appointed detention review boards would give prisoners at the base "the opportunity to contest their detentions" as well as allow the U.S. military to assess "whether or not they warrant being held."
"The concept is to have somebody ... have their case reviewed within 60 days of being detained and to have it re-reviewed roughly every six months or so," Whitman said.
The personal representatives assigned to the detainees would not be lawyers.
"This is not an adjudication of criminal charges," Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said. "These are fighters picked up on the battlefield and detained."
"But we found it is helpful to have some sort of review process so they have a better understanding about why they're being held and an opportunity to provide witnesses or evidence" to make the case for their release, he added.
The new policy was first reported in the U.S. media over the weekend, but the Pentagon gave further details on Monday.
Whitman said the new review process was "consistent" with the counter-insurgency strategy put in place by the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, aimed at garnering public support from the Afghan public and undercutting gains by the Taliban.
"You don't want to be holding people any longer than you need to be holding them and, occasionally, there are people who get caught up in the fight and want to contest their detention," Whitman said.
The Pentagon did not say how soon the new policy would be carried out in full. "We're just in the process of implementing this," Whitman said.
He said the procedures were similar to those in Iraq, which he said had helped reduce the prison population and "ensure that we were only holding the most dangerous individuals."
The shift has been welcomed by the Afghan Commission for Human Rights, which has been pushing for years for the detainees to have access to lawyers.
The U.S. government is building a new facility at Bagram to replace the existing makeshift prison. The new prison should be opened in the next few months.
(Reporting by Adam Entous; Editing by David Storey)
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Afghanistan's most desolate region mired in obscurity
By Maria Golovnina – Mon Sep 14, 7:58 am ET
CHEKHCHERAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Severed from the world by the austere mountains of central Afghanistan, Abdullah, his two wives, 15 children and a herd of goats lead a life that has changed little for centuries.
"There is nothing here. We have no roads, no electricity, no water, no power," said a black-turbaned Abdullah, rows of parched sunflowers drooping sadly in his dust-colored compound.
"That's the hardest thing about life here right now."
Hemmed-in by mountains peaking sharply into the sky, central Ghor province is home to about a million people.
Once at the heart of the mediaeval Ghorid empire stretching between present-day Iran and South Asia, Ghor is now poor and desolate even by Afghanistan's standard, with no proper roads, hospitals and schools.
Because of its isolation, it is peaceful, untouched by a rise in violence that has rocked other parts of Afghanistan and serving as a mountainous buffer zone against the Taliban.
Like other calm provinces, Ghor rarely features in the news and people here feel that because of that the government and foreign agencies ignore their plight.
"People live here like 300 years ago," said governor of Ghor, Sayed Iqbal Munib. "We need more attention. People are good and patient but they suffer from all sorts of problems."
The tiny Lithuanian-run local provincial reconstruction team -- one in a network of NATO units through which Western nations deliver assistance -- stands in a sharp contrast to the sprawling British-sponsored operation in neighboring Helmand in the south.
Millions of dollars of aid are pumped into provinces such as Helmand every year as part of efforts to turn Afghans against the Taliban. But provinces like Ghor were left behind.
Only about a quarter of adults here can read and write, child mortality is among the highest in the country, and life expectancy is below the countrywide average of 44.
Chekhcheran, a band of mud houses battered by dust storms that serve as the provincial center, is a sleepy place.
Sitting in the dust and trying to breast-feed their screaming babies outside Ghor's only big hospital, women clad in layers of scarves said there were not enough doctors to treat their children.
Gulbadan Halifazada, 42, says only two members of her household work, earning 200 Afghanis ($4) a day. She says life has not improved -- or indeed changed at all -- for years.
"We don't have enough good land for farming and grazing cattle," said Halifazada, her wrinkled forehead covered by an elaborate tattoo. "The government doesn't help. Nothing has improved in the last five years."
OLD HABITS
Malnutrition and disease such as tuberculosis and dysentery remain widespread because of poor medical facilities, lack of trained doctors and basic sanitation, officials say.
"It is one of the least developed provinces," said Haji Mohammad Gul Seddique, head of the Ghor UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. "The government pays little attention to it."
Like in other parts of Afghanistan, 70 percent of people here have no access to safe drinking water and only 8 percent of households have proper latrines, according to the United Nations.
A direct result of such conditions is the re-emergence of polio, a dreaded paralysing disease stamped out in the West but still present in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and India.
The UN children's fund, UNICEF, says 20 cases have been registered already in Afghanistan this year, up from 17 in 2007.
There is a glimmer of hope.
This week UNICEF launched a three-day immunization drive in Ghor, part of a countrywide campaign to vaccinate 1.2 million children -- though thousands more cannot be reached due to heavy fighting in other areas.
Wearing a baseball cap over a black scarf covering her from head to toe, 17-year-old Kandigul is one of the UN volunteers in Ghor going from house to house vaccinating babies -- a brave act in a country where women that work are frowned on.
"I volunteered because I want to save these children," she said, ruffling the hair of a girl who has just been vaccinated.
Munib, who took over as governor two months ago, said he was particularly determined to build schools and improve education in a region where the female literacy rate is below 14 percent.
"We don't always have people's support," he said, adding that many resisted allowing women like Kandigul to work or study.
Old habits die hard.
Gazing at his sunflowers, Abdullah said he initially allowed his four daughters to go to school but later took them out because of widespread harassment.
"The school is far and they were harassed and beaten on their way by boys," he said. "I will not send them back. But if there were a new school nearby then I would allow them to go back."
(Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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New U.S. Plan Reportedly To Let Afghan Prisoners Challenge Incarceration
By Ron Synovitz Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 14, 2009
New rules being prepared by the Obama administration would reportedly allow more than 600 suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners at a U.S.-run prison in Afghanistan to challenge their incarceration.
The guidelines for the U.S. military facility at Bagram Air Field, to the north of Kabul, have emerged as the administration reviews Bush-era detention policies and studies what changes should be made.
"The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" newspapers are reporting details of proposed rule changes that were given to Congress in mid-July for a 60-day review. They are expected to be officially made public later this week.
Sam Zia Zarifi, the Asia-Pacific director for Amnesty International, argues that there is no legal basis for the existence of U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan. Zarifi says that the system created by the Bush administration has hampered the efforts of the international community to establish the rule of law in Afghanistan.
Zarifi says that when the administration asked Major General Douglas Stone "to review the problems of the Bagram detention facility," Stone "came back and appropriately pointed out that the lack of a legal structure for Bagram means that it is undermining the rule of law in Afghanistan and it has caused a lot of resentment among Afghans."
"This is, as a process, completely counterproductive to what the Afghan government and its allies -- especially the United States -- want to accomplish in Afghanistan," Zarifi continues.
"If you want to establish the rule of law, if you want to signal that you respect human rights, you can't do it while you are running an illegal detention facility."
Closer To Legal Representation
According to reports on the new plan, a U.S. military official would be assigned as a representative for each Bagram prisoner. All detainees at Bagram also would be given a chance to go before newly created "detainee review boards" to have their cases considered.
Human rights activists say they welcome any move that gives Bagram detainees some legal representation and protections. They say the plan would mark the first time Bagram prisoners have been allowed to challenge their detention by calling witnesses and submitting evidence in their defense.
Still, Zarifi says Amnesty International is treating reports about the plan with caution and skepticism. Ultimately, he says, detainees should be represented by lawyers rather than U.S. military officers.
"We've seen the Bush administration try something like this in Guantanamo with the Administrative Review Board process. The U.S. courts found that process quite deficient. And in practice, it didn't really work very well," Zarifi explains.
"So the best way forward, in fact, would be to just have lawyers represent the detainees."
An order creating the review boards at Bagram was signed in July by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn.
AP reported that some military officers serving in Afghanistan already have been assigned to the boards and that some personal representatives for detainees have been identified.
AP also quoted an unnamed Pentagon official as saying that the review-board system at Bagram would be more like a system used in Iraq than at Guantanamo. In Iraq, authorities used review boards to help determine which detainees posed the greatest threat and which could be rehabilitated and released.
Afghan Prisoners' Rights
In Kabul, Afghan human rights activists also welcomed reports that the Obama administration is planning to let Bagram prisoners challenge their detention.
Lal Gul, chairman of the Afghan Commission for Human Rights, has been pushing for years for Bagram detainees to have access to legal representation.
Gul says that the jailing of suspects without giving them access to courts, defense lawyers, or family members is a violation of both Afghan and international law. Gul also says he agrees with demands from the Justice Ministry that all Bagram detainees from Afghanistan should be dealt with according to Afghan law.
"While an independent judiciary exists in a country, the U.S. government or another foreigner has no right to arrest its citizens and detain them indefinitely," Gul says.
"We have criticized such American actions in the past. And we have termed them as against human rights norms and that those arrests and detentions are illegal."
Prisoners themselves -- some of them held at Bagram for more than six years without trial -- have also been protesting their treatment. Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross have indicated that Bagram detainees have been refusing privileges since July as a protest against their lack of legal rights.
Meanwhile, Zarifi notes that the United States is also running detention facilities in Afghanistan outside of Bagram and, in some cases, is turning suspects over to the Afghan government for detention elsewhere.
He says Amnesty International and other human rights groups are closely monitoring what other steps will be taken by the Obama administration to create a legal framework for the handling of all detainees in Afghanistan.
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Hamid Mohmand contributed to this report from Kabul
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Over 1,500 kg narcotics burned down in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- As part of battle against drug, Afghan Special Counter-Narcotic Police and Drug Enforcement Agency(DEA) team with U.S. embassy launched an operation and set fire on some 1,500 kg narcotics in eastern Nangarhar province Monday, said a statement of Interior Ministry.
"Some 1,000 kg of opium, 300 kg of morphine, 30 kg heroine as well as 200kg of chemical substances were found in the operation in Achin district," the statement said.
The statement quoted Mohammad Dawod Dawod deputy minister of counter-narcotics as saying that "a suspected man who believed to be a high ranking drug smuggler with two AK-47 assault rifles was arrested by police."
Police set fire on those drugs at the spot after taking some samples, it added.
According to United Nations office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), Afghanistan produced over 90 percent of world poppy cultivation in2008.
Under the new strategy, U.S. would shift the focus from poppy eradication to targeting drug trafficking and interception of chemicals.
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Singapore sends weapon-locating radar teams to Afghanistan
SINGAPORE, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Singapore Armed Forces will deploy two weapon locating radar teams to Afghanistan, local media reported on Monday.
The two teams will be sent to Tarin Kowt in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan. Each team will have 17 persons, according to local radio 938live.
The deployment is for nine months, and is part of Singapore's contribution to multinational stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
The teams will provide early warning of rocket attacks and enhance force protection measures for International Security Assistance Force personnel at the base.
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Guard photos could harm US effort in Afghanistan
(AP) – WASHINGTON — A member of a commission investigating wartime spending says photos of private security guards in various stages of nudity at parties flowing with alcohol may be as damaging to U.S. interests in Afghanistan as images of detainee mistreatment at Abu Ghraib were in Iraq.
Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon comptroller, made the comment at a hearing Monday held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting on allegations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct by employees of ArmorGroup North America, the company hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Zakheim said the photos are circulating heavily on the Internet, giving Muslims in Afghanistan a negative image of the United States.
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Q+A: What is behind U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan?
Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:07am EDT
(Reuters) - A U.S. drone fired a missile at a Taliban vehicle in Pakistan's North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border on Monday, killing at least four militants, Pakistani intelligence officials and residents said.
Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a similar attack in the neighboring South Waziristan region, on August 5.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operates the missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones. Here are some key facts and responses to questions raised by the strikes:
WHY DOES THE UNITED STATES ATTACK?
Many al Qaeda and Taliban members fled to northwestern Pakistan's ungoverned ethnic Pashtun belt after U.S.-led soldiers ousted Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001. From their sanctuaries there, the militants have orchestrated insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States and Afghanistan have pressed Pakistan to eliminate the sanctuaries. Apparently frustrated by Pakistan's inability to do so, the United States is hitting the militants itself.
HOW MANY ATTACKS?
The United States has carried out about 56 drone air strikes since the start of 2008, killing about 500, including many foreign militants, according to reports from Pakistani intelligence agents, district government officials and residents.
U.S. attacks on Pakistani Taliban leader Mehsud and his men in South Waziristan picked up after the Pakistani government ordered a military offensive against him in June.
WHERE ARE THE DRONES LAUNCHED FROM?
A senior U.S. lawmaker, Senator Dianne Feinstein, told a U.S. Senate hearing in February that the drones were being flown from an air base inside Pakistan. Pakistan denied that, saying it had never granted permission for the strikes.
WHAT IS PAKISTAN'S POSITION?
Pakistan officially objects to the U.S. drone strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty. It also worries the strikes could undermine efforts to deal with militancy because the civilian casualties inflame public anger and bolster support for the fighters. Pakistan has pressed the United States to provide it with drones to allow it to conduct its own anti-militant operations.
WHAT IS THE U.S. POSITION?
The United States says the missile strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to decry the attacks in public. U.S. officials said in May that Washington had given Pakistan data on militants gathered by surveillance drones in Pakistani airspace under an agreement with Islamabad.
WHO WERE THE MOST PROMINENT MILITANTS PEOPLE REPORTED
KILLED?
January 28, 2008 - A senior al Qaeda member, Abu Laith al-Libi.
July 28 - An al Qaeda chemical and biological weapons expert, Abu Khabab al-Masri.
November 22 - Rashid Rauf, a Briton with al Qaeda links and the suspected ringleader of a 2006 plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. An Egyptian named as Abu Zubair al-Masri was also reported killed.
January 1, 2009 - Pakistani agents said a drone killed three foreign fighters. A week later, a U.S. counter-terrorism official said al Qaeda's operational chief, Usama al-Kini, and an aide had been killed. The U.S. official declined to give any details.
August 5 - U.S. drones fired missiles into Baitullah Mehsud's father-in-law's house. Pakistani and U.S. officials said Mehsud was killed in the strike, while Taliban said he had been seriously wounded and died days later.
(Compiled by Islamabad Newsroom; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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Pakistan forces swoop for Taliban leader in Swat
By Kamran Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces intensified a hunt on Monday for the Pakistani Taliban leader in the Swat valley, military officials said, and a U.S. drone killed four militants in a missile strike near the Afghan border.
Pakistani forces have made gains against the militants recently, months after Taliban advances and bomb attacks raised fears for nuclear-armed Pakistan's future and contributed to a slide in investor confidence.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Sunday that the top Taliban leader in the Swat valley, about 120 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, was surrounded. The back of the Taliban insurgency, he said, had been broken.
The military's chief spokesman was more cautious, saying efforts were being made to capture the Swat Taliban chief, a self-styled cleric called Fazlullah, but media reports of his imminent capture were speculation.
Military officials in the former tourist valley said troops were searching in different places and clashes had erupted.
"Our teams are carrying out search operations, particularly for him in two or three areas. For sure, he can't flee from Swat," said a senior military official who declined to be identified, referring to Fazlullah.
"We'd like to capture him today," the official said, giving no indication when he might be caught. "We don't want to waste time with such operations, but you can't give a timeframe."
Security forces killed 16 militants, at least two of them senior Taliban members, in clashes during searches while one soldier was killed, the military said.
At the same time, 172 militants surrendered at two locations in the valley, a military spokesman said.
"The realization that the army is here and getting control is growing and now they're contacting us," said the spokesman, Major Mushtaq Khan. "They have no choice - either they get killed or surrender."
DRONE STRIKE
The army says it has killed more than 2,000 fighters in an offensive launched in the Swat valley in April. There has been no independent verification of that estimate.
The Pakistani Taliban under the overall command of Baitullah Mehsud was held responsible for a wave of attacks across the country from 2007, including the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December that year.
Mehsud died in a missile attack last month by a U.S. drone aircraft in his South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border.
U.S. and Pakistani officials said Mehsud's death left the militants in disarray and riven by rivalry, but analysts say it is too early to say if their setbacks are a permanent blow or if they might regroup and strike back. [ID:nSP61388] Early on Monday, a U.S. drone fired a missile at a Taliban vehicle near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, on the Afghan border. A Pakistani intelligence agent said the dead were apparently foreign, but no leaders were believed among them.
Facing surging violence in Afghanistan, the United States stepped up its missile strikes in Pakistan last year, killing hundreds of militants.
Pakistan officially objects to the U.S. strikes as a violation of its sovereignty that causes civilian casualties.
But U.S. officials say the strikes are carried out under an agreement with Pakistan that allows its leaders to decry them in public.
The Pakistani militants are allied with the Taliban in Afghanistan, where violence is at its most intense since the overthrow of their government in 2001.
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Ron Popeski)
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