 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Up to 11 feared dead after Afghan floods: govt
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Sept 3, 2009 (AFP) - Flash floods in Afghanistan washed away homes and farmland, leaving up to 11 people feared dead a day after a suicide attack in the same province, an official said Thursday.
Floods wreak havoc in eastern provinces of Laghman, Nangarhar
KABUL, 3 September 2009 (IRIN) - Flash floods killed at least 11 and damaged dozens of houses in Alingar District, Laghman Province, eastern Afghanistan on 2 September, according to provincial officials.
Afghanistan prepares funeral for deputy spymaster
By Waheedullah Massoud September 3, 2009
(AFP) - KABUL — The Afghan government organised funeral preparations Thursday for its deputy spy chief assassinated in a suicide attack that laid bare the threat from an increasingly brazen Taliban.
Devastating suicide strikes show Taliban expansion
by Lynne O'donnell – Thu Sep 3, 1:52 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Two devastating suicide attacks in Afghanistan in the fortnight since elections show the Taliban is penetrating ever deeper in its war against the Kabul government and its international backers.
U.S. Investigates Misconduct Allegations At Kabul Embassy
September 3, 2009 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL) -- Scantily-clad security guards dancing around a bonfire and urinating while others snap photographs. A video of other guards pouring alcohol down the bare backside of a new recruit and trying to drink it as it spills from the man's buttocks.
Afghanistan: "Differentiate rape from adultery" - rights groups
KABUL, 3 September 2009 (IRIN) - Human rights groups are calling on the Afghan government to adopt a new law which would more clearly differentiate rape, a criminal offence, from consensual adultery, considered a serious crime in the country.
U.S. embassy in Kabul bans alcohol from guard camp
Thu Sep 3, 7:17 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The United States embassy in Kabul said on Thursday it has banned all alcohol from a camp where its guards live following allegations they had engaged in drunken brawls and lewd behavior that put U.S. diplomats at risk.
How long before Americans demand change in Afghanistan?
By Ed Hornick
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While support for the war in Afghanistan has been falling, most experts think Americans will give President Obama the benefit of the doubt -- at least for another year.
Afghanistan Envoys Neutral on Election
By STEVEN ERLANGER September 3, 2009 The New York Times
PARIS — Richard C. Holbrooke and other foreign envoys responsible for Afghanistan said Wednesday that they had no preference among the candidates for president in the Aug. 20 election,
Getting local to defeat the Taliban
The US military is failing in north-west Pakistan. A new community-based strategy holds the key to counterinsurgency
Bilal Baloch guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 September 2009 10.30 BST
Putting the cart before the horse succinctly captures the nature of US strategy in the north-west of Pakistan: countless drone attacks and an expanding military presence – but a feeble strategic counterinsurgency
Setback in Afghanistan
The right response is not a retreat.
Thursday, September 3, 2009 The Washington Post
LAST MONTH we expected that Afghanistan's elections would mark a modest step forward for the country. Now it appears that they could be a major reverse. Though the election campaign was positive in many respects
British soldier killed in Afghanistan blast
Thu Sep 3, 2:18 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British soldier was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said Thursday, bringing the death toll of British troops serving there since 2001 to 211.
Roadside bombing kills 5 Afghan soldiers in East
KHOST, Afghanistan, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were killed on Thursday as their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Paktia province of eastern Afghanistan, an ANA spokesman in the province said.
Taliban militant captured in S Afghanistan: NATO
KABUL, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have detained a Taliban militant in Kandahar province south of Afghanistan, a press release of the alliance issued here Thursday said.
Afghan bike bomb kills child, damages ICRC vehicle: officials
MAZAAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan, Sept 2, 2009 (AFP) - A bicycle bomb exploded in Afghanistan on Wednesday as a convoy from the International Red Cross drove past, damaging one of its vehicles and killing a girl, officials said.
The Afghanistan Panic
The Wall Street Journal 09/03/2009
We can still win a counterinsurgency, but not on the cheap.
Opposition to the war is rising, even in the President's own party and even before his new military strategy has been fully implemented. Our ally's leaders look weak and corrupt, Americans are increasingly opposed
Brown doing "badly" over Afghanistan, poll says
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Sep 03 1:43 AM
A majority of British voters think Prime Minister Gordon Brown is doing a poor job in supporting his country's troops in Afghanistan and is heading for defeat at the ballot box, the Sun newspaper said on Thursday.
Afghanistan: Hollow power in Helmand
Editorial The Guardian, Thursday 3 September 2009
We are manning a series of Potemkin settlements in Afghanistan. The territory that US and British troops are holding shows no signs of being filled by a state which Afghans can trust. The forts that dominate south Helmand
Kandahar Province Presents Critical Test For Afghanistan's Future
September 2, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Songs praising the beauty of Kandahar once echoed in the streets of its capital. But today's violent reality is a far cry from that fabled past.
Afghanistan: Back from the brink?
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 BBC News
Afghanistan has made strides in many spheres over the past eight years despite its problems, writes the BBC's M Ilyas Khan after a recent journey through the country to cover elections.
US consensus on Afghanistan begins to crumble
By Christophe Schmidt September 3, 2009
(AFP) - WASHINGTON — Weeks from President Barack Obama's expected move to send more troops to Afghanistan, the consensus behind the US commitment there is crumbling as some raise the specter of a new Vietnam.
International Envoys Pledge Continued Support for Afghanistan
By Sonja Pace VOA News 02 September 2009
Senior international envoys vowed continued strong support for Afghanistan during strategy talks in Paris on Wednesday. This comes amid rising violence in Afghanistan and on the heels of the country's controversial elections.
Herat Theft Victims Drugged
Robbery-by-poison wave has residents worried and angry.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Farooq Faizi in Herat (ARR No. 335, 02-Sep-09)
One evening last month vegetable seller Abdul Khaleq, 56, noticed a man in white clothes sitting in front of his cart, eating a watermelon. He offered Khaleq a piece. The next thing Khaleq remembers is waking up in a hospital bed.
Children Languish Behind Bars
Stretched justice system keeps young people in jail for months without trial.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Najibullah Frotan, IWPR trainee from Balkh province (ARR No. 335, 02-Sep-09)
The boy looked sadly through the bars of his prison cell. “I am not a murderer,” he said.
Russia Seeks Afghan War Role as NATO Deaths Climb
Bloomberg By James G. Neuger Sept. 2, 2009
Russia is seeking a role in planning NATO’s war in Afghanistan two decades after Soviet forces were ejected from the country.
Fears of Taliban collusion with Afghan government
A suspect in the bombing of a US military vehicle that killed one solider and injured a CBS News correspondent was carrying a cell phone containing a number of an office in the Afghan defence ministry in its memory, according to reports.
Telegraph.co.uk By Alex Spillius in Washington 03 Sep 2009
The discovery aroused suspicion of official collusion between figures in the government and Taliban rebels after investigators said that an Afghan official tried to convince the American military it had arrested the wrong men for the attack.
Back to Top
Up to 11 feared dead after Afghan floods: govt
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Sept 3, 2009 (AFP) - Flash floods in Afghanistan washed away homes and farmland, leaving up to 11 people feared dead a day after a suicide attack in the same province, an official said Thursday.
Triggered by unseasonal downpours overnight, the floods destroyed three mud-brick houses and damaged many others in a valley in Alingar district of Laghman province, said Sayed Ahmad Safi, spokesman for the provincial governor.
"Eleven people, including nine from one family, are missing. We have found five bodies so far and are still searching for others," he told AFP.
The victims included women and children, he said.
The floods also killed dozens of animals and washed away around 60 hectares (around 150 acres) of farmland.
Following several years of drought, Afghanistan has had good rain and snow in the past two years, causing spring and summer floods.
An audacious Taliban suicide attack killed Afghanistan's deputy head of intelligence and 23 other people outside a mosque in Mihtarlam, the provincial capital of usually peaceful Laghman, on Wednesday.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Floods wreak havoc in eastern provinces of Laghman, Nangarhar
KABUL, 3 September 2009 (IRIN) - Flash floods killed at least 11 and damaged dozens of houses in Alingar District, Laghman Province, eastern Afghanistan on 2 September, according to provincial officials.
"So far five bodies have been found and search and rescue activities are ongoing in the affected areas," Sayed Ahmad Sapai, a spokesman for the Laghman governor's office, told IRIN, adding that most victims were children and women.
"Some people have lost their homes, agricultural land, fruit trees and livestock in the floods," he said without specifying the exact extent of the damage.
A rapid assessment was planned on 3 September to identify immediate needs. This will be followed by essential aid delivery, officials said.
Flash floods also affected several areas in the neighbouring province of Nangarhar on 31 August.
"An Afghan Red Crescent Society-led assessment [team] estimated a total of 4,000 people affected, mostly in Jalalabad city [provincial capital], with damage also recorded in the Sorkhorood, Kuzkunar, Rodat, Chaparhar, and Behsood districts [of Nangarhar]," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report on 2 September.
The assessment reported 11 casualties (four dead, seven injured), 289 houses destroyed and 234 damaged, and 30 livestock killed in Nangarhar Province.
A bridge connecting Jalalabad with Torkham on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was also destroyed by floods, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.
UN agencies, NGOs and local authorities started delivering relief items to those affected in Nangarhar on 1 September, but aid agencies were concerned the situation could worsen as more rainfall was expected in the region, according to UNAMA.
OCHA said adequate capacity and resources were available at the regional level, and praised the coordination among aid actors. "OCHA urges all agencies to release their stocks as soon as possible and to engage community leaders in the distribution to ensure that the affected families receive necessary assistance."
Aid workers are also worried about a possible malaria outbreak in the flood-affected areas as stagnant water could create a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes.
About 400,000 people in Afghanistan are seriously affected every year by disasters such as floods, earthquakes, avalanches and drought, according to OCHA.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan prepares funeral for deputy spymaster
By Waheedullah Massoud September 3, 2009
(AFP) - KABUL — The Afghan government organised funeral preparations Thursday for its deputy spy chief assassinated in a suicide attack that laid bare the threat from an increasingly brazen Taliban.
Abdullah Laghmani was killed with 23 other people when a suicide bomber walked into a crowd of government officials and civilians leaving a mosque in the capital of his home province Laghman, in the east, on Wednesday.
The attack in broad daylight, outside a place of worship during the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims are fasting showed the increasing brutality of the insurgent militia whose reach is expanding into previously peaceful areas.
Eight years after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the former Taliban regime, Afghanistan has become increasingly treacherous.
Already, 2009 has been a record-breaking year for the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan and elections last month have been heavily tainted by allegations of fraud and fears of catastrophically low turnout.
President Hamid Karzai, who is leading a laborious count with 47.3 percent of the vote from 60 percent of polling stations, paid tribute to Laghmani and ordered the intelligence agency to organise a funeral.
"The president instructed a commission headed by the director general of the National Directorate of Security... besides helping the wounded and condoling their families, to organise a deserving funeral ceremony," his office said.
"The funeral will be held tomorrow at 9:00 (0430 GMT) in Kabul," Sayed Ahmad Safi, spokesman for the provincial governor in Laghman.
Laghmani's body had been transferred to the morgue at the military hospital in the Afghan capital with the funeral delayed until Friday so that his son could return from abroad, said one government official.
The Taliban, which has regrouped since the US-led invasion with help from safe havens in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack and said Laghmani had been the target.
Britain announced the death Thursday of yet another soldier killed in a bomb attack in southern Helmand province, which is the epicentre of Afghanistan's poppy-growing industry to make opium and heroin and a Taliban stronghold.
More than 300 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year. Most deaths have been caused by improvised explosive devices -- small, concealed and remotely detonated bombs that have become the Taliban weapon of choice.
In southern province Kandahar, NATO and Afghan troops captured a Taliban militant allegedly involved in several IED attacks, the military said.
In the United States, which contributes around two-thirds of the 100,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, a growing number of experts doubt the war can be won as President Barack Obama contemplates a further troop increase.
Nearly six in 10 Americans are opposed to the war in Afghanistan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this week.
"The similarities to Vietnam are ominous," wrote Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander, in the New York Daily News.
"There, too, an insurgency was led and supported from outside the borders of the state in which our troops were fighting. There, too, sanctuaries across international borders stymied US military efforts," the retired general said.
At talks in Paris focused on a path ahead in Afghanistan after the elections, European, US and NATO leaders said Western troops, which now number more than 100,000 in the country, would stay until security is achieved.
The envoys called for a "fair process" to prevail after claims of massive fraud while UN envoy Kai Eide called on Afghanistan's next leader to show determination to implement reforms to take the country forward.
Karzai leads his main rival Abdullah Abdullah 47.3 percent to 32.6 percent based on results from just over 60 percent of polling stations.
But Abdullah, who has alleged state-engineered fraud, has said he will not accept the result if he considers it compromised by irregularities.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Devastating suicide strikes show Taliban expansion
by Lynne O'donnell – Thu Sep 3, 1:52 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Two devastating suicide attacks in Afghanistan in the fortnight since elections show the Taliban is penetrating ever deeper in its war against the Kabul government and its international backers.
Insurgents are taking advantage of the government's inability to provide security to spread their tentacles from areas where they have long held sway.
An attack on Wednesday that killed the country's deputy spy chief, three other officials and 20 civilians, showed "a serious crisis threatening the government," said analyst Ahmad Sayedi, a former politician and diplomat.
"This shows the failure of the Afghan security institutions -- especially the intelligence services," he said.
"When the Taliban attack and assassinate the head of the provincial council, the deputy intelligence chief, it shows they are extending their grip over a wider area with higher targets," he said.
The Taliban claimed the attack in Mihtarlam, capital of eastern Laghman province, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying deputy head of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani, was the target.
The city is just 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Kabul and equidistant from the Pakistan border.
The attack came eight days after a massive truck bomb in southern Kandahar killed more than 40 people, injured another 60 and devastated the city centre in the deadliest militant attack for more than a year.
The Taliban have waged a vicious campaign around elections held on August 20, which appears to have successfully kept turnout low.
Poll results are being released gradually, with incumbent Hamid Karzai leading challenger Abdullah Abdullah in a race tainted by fraud that threatens to undermine its credibility.
"The government is paralysed by bribery, drugs and incompetence," said Sayedi.
"People are distanced from the government and this gap gets bigger and bigger every day. People do not support Taliban but at the same time they are dismayed by the unbelievable extent of official corruption."
Corruption watchdog Transparency International rates Afghanistan the world's fifth most corrupt nation.
A foreign aid worker said graft and lack of security made Afghans "nostalgic for the rough justice of the Taliban" regime pushed out in a 2001 US-led invasion.
"They didn't like it, but at least they knew the rules," she said on condition of anonymity.
The insurgents have long held sway in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where troops under US and NATO command have escalated operations to establish government control.
Increased battle has led to record foreign troop deaths -- with 2009 already the deadliest year since the war began eight years ago.
The Taliban have been retreating from military engagement and escalating terrorist-type attacks, diplomats and military leaders have told AFP.
The rising death toll and vote fraud allegations have seen a dramatic fall in Western public support for a continued presence in Afghanistan.
But Western leaders promise a long-term presence, determined to train Afghans to take on military and civilian challenges and allow a troop drawdown.
In the meantime, said Haroun Mir, of the Centre for Research and Policy Studies, "the Taliban is filling the vacuum".
"There are not enough security forces to protect everyone so people get their protection from the Taliban in order not to be subject to Taliban retribution," he said.
European, US and NATO leaders at a meeting in Paris on Wednesday of international envoys to Afghanistan said Western troops will stay until security is achieved.
This is at the heart of a review by US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who wants to use counter-insurgency tactics to boost Afghans' confidence in the face of the Taliban encroachment.
But Mir said that Taliban use of improvised explosive devices, or hidden roadside bombs, against foreign troops has been devastating, facilitating insurgent expansion.
From a post-election tour of Afghanistan's north, he reported Taliban checkpoints on previously clear roads in Kunduz and Takhar provinces.
Reports have detailed recent attacks in previously peaceful areas, including western Badghis and Faryab provinces.
On Wednesday, a child was killed when a bicycle bomb exploded near Red Cross vehicles in Jawzjan, capital of normally quiet northern Jawzjan province.
"They are moving from their bases in Helmand to other parts of the country, north and west," said analyst Sayedi of the insurgents.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. Investigates Misconduct Allegations At Kabul Embassy
September 3, 2009 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL) -- Scantily-clad security guards dancing around a bonfire and urinating while others snap photographs. A video of other guards pouring alcohol down the bare backside of a new recruit and trying to drink it as it spills from the man's buttocks.
The images, which flashed around the world this week, appear to show security guards employed at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in some highly embarrassing moments.
But there's more to it than that.
The images are part of a report by the independent watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week.
The group, citing e-mails, photos, videos, and witness accounts, accuses private security contractor ArmorGroup North America, which provides security guards for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, of "grossly deficient" management that it says poses "a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel -- and thereby to the diplomatic mission in Afghanistan."
'Lord Of The Flies'
The Project on Government Oversight characterized the atmosphere among the private security guards in Kabul as a "Lord of The Flies environment," in reference to the allegorical novel by William Golding in which schoolboys stuck on a deserted island turn into sadists, against a backdrop of fear and chaos.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly devoted a large part of his September 2 press briefing to the allegations. He said the State Department was investigating.
"We take these allegations extremely seriously. In fact, we've documented a number of management concerns through our ongoing oversight of this particular contract," Kelly said.
"There are a number of investigations that are under way, both here and out in Kabul. And we expect to see prompt and effective action taken, as a result of these investigations, and we expect that there will be some changes."
Kelly, however, emphasized that "the embassy in Kabul has been well protected. We believe Americans, host nationals, and others working at Embassy Kabul have had the security that they need."
Contractors Under Fire
Private security contractors are under increasing scrutiny in Washington. An August report by the Congressional Research Service found that Pentagon contractors now outnumber U.S. uniformed soldiers in Afghanistan by the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in U.S. history.
About 1,000 U.S. diplomats, staff, and Afghan nationals work at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. About 150 guards are Americans or from other English-speaking countries. The remaining 300 are identified by the Project on Government Oversight as Gurkhas from northern India and Nepal -- some of whom speak little or no English.
The executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, Danielle Brian, told U.S. television that the incidents her organization recorded are "not just a bunch of guys who are blowing off steam. It's supervisors who are...predatory, who are engaging young recruits into this really weird, deviant behavior."
Brian added: "When these guys are on duty and they're guarding the embassy, there's a total lack of trust and respect for their leadership, a total breakdown in the command structure, so that if there were some sort of incident that they have to respond to, they no longer have that level of trust to protect each other with their lives, which is what we're asking them to do."
ArmorGroup is a subsidiary of the Florida-based Wackenhunt Services, which did not comment on the report. It is under a five-year, $189 million contract that was extended in June through July next year.
The State Department's Kelly said that his colleagues made the decision to renew that contract based on the information that they had at the time.
But he said they were disappointed by some of the "disgusting photos" of guards' alleged lewd behavior.
The Project on Government Oversight has recommended that Clinton ask for Pentagon supervision of the Kabul Embassy's security. During the past month, the embassy was targeted in a rocket attack and a suicide attack nearby killed seven people and injured 19 others.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: "Differentiate rape from adultery" - rights groups
KABUL, 3 September 2009 (IRIN) - Human rights groups are calling on the Afghan government to adopt a new law which would more clearly differentiate rape, a criminal offence, from consensual adultery, considered a serious crime in the country.
"Rape and adultery are two different issues and should be separate in law. Rape is an act of violence and coercion and the inflicting of suffering on a victim, and is not consensual, whereas adultery is consensual, freely chosen," Sonya Merkova, a researcher at London-based Amnesty International, told IRIN.
Parwin Rahimi, an official of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), and Ajmal Samadi from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) echoed this standpoint.
"Rape needs to be legally recognized as a heinous crime and must be dealt with separately from Islamic adultery penal codes," Samadi told IRIN.
Many Afghan judges confuse rape with adultery which, rights activists say, adds insult to injury for the victims.
Mawlawi Mohammad Qasim, a member of the Penal Bureau in the Supreme Court, for instance, describes rape as "an illicit sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are not married to each other".
Judicial officials and the police are unaware - or not convinced - that rape is a serious crime, according to a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
"The reality for most female victims is that state institutions fail them," says the report entitled Silence is Violence.
Legal ambiguity
Courts prosecute cases of adultery and rape according to Articles 422-433 of the 1976 Penal Code which, according to rights groups, do not explicitly criminalize rape.
The Code prescribes 7-15 years jail for adulterers and rapists depending on their marital status, age and other circumstances.
"Women in Afghanistan, victims of rape, are often at risk of being convicted of `zina' [fornication outside marriage] under Article 427 of the Afghan Penal Code, and are denied justice. Indeed, the crime of rape committed against them, through no fault of their own, is compounded by further victimization in being prosecuted by the state for `zina'," said Amnesty's Merkova.
"In instances of forced sexual intercourse, law enforcement and judicial authorities overwhelmingly resort to the concept of `zina', which does not adequately address the issue of consent, one of the core elements of the crime of rape," UNAMA said in its report.
The issue of the criminalization of rape is further complicated by the fact that judges rely extensively on their own interpretation of Islamic law and its jurisprudence when adjudicating `zina' cases, according to UNAMA.
Another problem with the existing Penal Code is its lack of support for the victims of rape. "There should be legal and psychological support as well as protection services for the victims of rape," Fawzia Amini, a top official in the Ministry of Women's Affairs, told IRIN.
Marital rape
Supreme Court judges Bahauddin Baha and Mohammad Qasim affirmed the husband's prerogative in sexual affairs with his wife/wives. An Afghan man is allowed to have up to four wives at a time but an Afghan woman cannot have more than one husband, according to the country's Islamic laws and strong patriarchal traditions.
Even if a husband forces his wife to have sex with him, this is not considered rape, according to many judges.
"The issue of marital rape is never considered or reported, since women have no choice in terms of consenting to sexual intercourse with their spouse," says UNAMA's report.
However, women's rights activists say marital rape is a reality and should be dealt with through appropriate legal mechanisms. "It is nothing but rape when a husband forcefully copulates with his wife despite her objections," Rahimi of AIHRC said.
"Amnesty International considers acts of marital rape violence against women and a criminal offence," said Merkova.
The issue of marital rape is relevant as both child and forced marriages are prevalent in Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas, say analysts. "A forced marriage is in fact a kind of rape, and so is child marriage," said Rahimi.
New law for Shias
On 27 July the government published in the Official Gazette a controversial law for the country's Shia minority which, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), deprives women of many basic rights.
"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who is injured when raped," said the US-based HRW in a statement on 13 August.
The government has repudiated such criticism, saying the Shia Personal Affairs Law was promulgated in accordance with Shia religious jurisprudence and is strongly supported by most Shia people.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. embassy in Kabul bans alcohol from guard camp
Thu Sep 3, 7:17 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The United States embassy in Kabul said on Thursday it has banned all alcohol from a camp where its guards live following allegations they had engaged in drunken brawls and lewd behavior that put U.S. diplomats at risk.
The U.S. ambassador and other senior embassy officials met on Thursday to discuss the issue, an embassy statement said, and was interviewing guards as part of an investigation. They are also assessing whether any staff should be suspended or fired.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight said private guards from the security company ArmorGroup held parties in their camp where they stripped near-naked, drank vodka and abused Afghans.
Along with serious understaffing and other shortcomings, it said the situation undermined security at the sprawling compound at a time of growing violence in Afghanistan.
Last month, insurgents fired rockets that landed near the embassy and a suicide car bomber struck close to its gates, killing at least seven people and wounding almost 100. The Taliban said the embassy had been the bomber's target.
"Since learning of the allegations ... the U.S. embassy has taken a number of immediate steps to ensure our security is sound and that our embassy community is well informed," the embassy statement said.
"Alcohol is now prohibited at Camp Sullivan. Embassy officials continue to interview guard force personnel ... to assess the need for possible suspensions and terminations."
ArmorGroup employs 450 guards to provide security at the embassy under a 5-year, $189 million contract that was extended in June.
The company is a subsidiary of Florida-based Wackenhut Services Inc. It has not commented on the report.
The findings were the latest in a string of allegations of misconduct by private security contractors hired by the U.S. government to perform duties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the letter sent to Clinton on Tuesday, the Project on Government Oversight said the contractors fostered a "Lord of the Flies environment" built on abuse and humiliating rituals.
It quoted witnesses as saying they had seen guards urinating on people and drinking "vodka shots out of (buttock) cracks".
In one case, a supervisor wearing underwear and brandishing bottles of alcohol abused an Afghan national by grabbing his face and using strong language to humiliate him, it said.
(Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait)
Back to Top
Back to Top
How long before Americans demand change in Afghanistan?
By Ed Hornick
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While support for the war in Afghanistan has been falling, most experts think Americans will give President Obama the benefit of the doubt -- at least for another year.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday showed that opposition to the war increased 11 percentage points since April to 57 percent.
Last month was the deadliest for U.S. troops since the war started as retaliation for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. And the military strategy is still a work in progress, with top commanders using words like "dire" to sum up the current status of the war.
But national security experts think it will still be a while before a clamor arises for a pullout.
Michael O'Hanlon, national security expert at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank, said he believes Americans will make a serious assessment at the end of 2010 as to whether a pullout is necessary.
"If we can't show progress by that point, then I think people's patience will start to run out," he said. "It's already running out, but I think people will swallow their doubts and give this strategy time if they are convincingly told why more time is needed and why it would make a difference."
Polls, another expert said, are not an accurate gauge for how long Americans -- including politicians -- will still support involvement in Afghanistan. Is the Afghan war winnable? »
"If politicians fight wars with poll numbers, then they're just going to lose," said James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation -- a conservative think tank. "The thing is, they really don't have to because even if Americans don't like the war, it doesn't mean they're not going to let the country fight the war."
Carafano -- a retired Army officer -- said that while wars become less popular over time, Americans will continue to tolerate the one in Afghanistan "as long as they see a prospect for success and progress."
And part of that prospect, O'Hanlon noted, must come from the Obama administration's efforts to explain its strategy going forward.
"And that's going to require a clear battlefield explanation [by Obama and top commanders]," said O'Hanlon. "I think there's a decent chance that Americans will support this war at least through next year."
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, said in order for Obama to maintain public support for what he has called a "war of necessity," he must focus on why the U.S. military needs to be there.
"Washington has to maintain American public support for this war," he said Tuesday. "I think the way to do that is to go back to the specific reason we're there: al Qaeda attacked the United States. We haven't taken out al Qaeda as a threat yet. We need to do that."
The more Obama articulates that message, Clark added, the more support he will receive from the public despite conditions in Afghanistan. He added a caveat, though, about increasing the size of the force there.
"When you put more troops in, you take more casualties," Clark said. "And when you take more American casualties, the clock ticks faster."
In mid-February, Obama approved a significant troop increase for Afghanistan -- 8,000 Marines and 4,000 additional Army troops. The United States now has about 62,000 troops in the country, and NATO allies have another 35,000. The Pentagon is planning to add 6,000 troops before the end of the year.
There have been indications that Obama soon could be asked to commit even more American troops. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, has signaled he would like to gauge the impact of the additional 6,000 troops before considering whether to send more.
The fighting in Afghanistan has been particularly strong in the southern part of the country, where U.S. Marines have targeted militants, and in the east near the Pakistani border.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan -- said in a statement Monday that the U.S. could succeed if it revises its strategy.
McChrystal submitted a long-awaited report on the state of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, writing that while the situation in the country is serious, "success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama will soon review the report.
Military sources told CNN that questions over further troop increases are still up in the air until a complete plan is set up by McChrystal.
The planning of deployments into Afghanistan, military officials said, also will depend on how many troops are requested and on the pace at which Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, moves forces out of Iraq.
But one high-profile conservative is calling for the U.S. to simply pull out of Afghanistan.
"Forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters," columnist George Will wrote in the Washington Post Tuesday.
Will's much-talked-about column has rankled some foreign-policy experts.
Christian Brose -- a senior editor of Foreign Policy Magazine and adviser to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- vehemently disputed Will's approach.
"[He] should also be willing to explain why their alternative policy is better, given what would likely transpire as a result," he said. "To me, that would be some kind of a return to ethnic fighting or civil war, a la the 1990s."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan Envoys Neutral on Election
By STEVEN ERLANGER September 3, 2009 The New York Times
PARIS — Richard C. Holbrooke and other foreign envoys responsible for Afghanistan said Wednesday that they had no preference among the candidates for president in the Aug. 20 election, but that they would like a new government to appoint more efficient, less corrupt ministers.
“We have no preference for any candidate nor for a first-round victory or a runoff,” said Mr. Holbrooke, the American envoy for the region, dismissing reports that he favors a second-round runoff to bolster the credibility of the current president and likely winner, Hamid Karzai.
Mr. Holbrooke also denied reports of an angry argument with Mr. Karzai in meetings on Aug. 21 and Aug. 23. There were four hours of “very clear, direct discussions” of the election process, but “nobody shouted; no one walked out,” Mr. Holbrooke said.
He spoke at a news conference led by the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, amid meetings of senior Western envoys to Afghanistan, including Kai Eide of the United Nations. Mr. Eide said that “our message to Karzai and any other candidate is that we’ve seen over the last eight to 10 months an improvement in the government,” with less corruption, especially in the Interior Ministry.
“We need a government of forward-looking politicians,” he said.
The envoys emphasized the training of more Afghan Army soldiers and police officers, saying that at least five police officers were killed every day and that recruitment was difficult. Mr. Holbrooke said that the Fourth Brigade of the 82nd Airborne would be training Afghan police and not contractors, and that in general, the United States would move away from using contractors and nongovernmental organizations and funnel its aid through the Afghan government.
A report by the Congressional Research Service, posted online this week by Secrecy News, a publication of the Federation of American Scientists, says that the Department of Defense had 68,197 contractors in Afghanistan as of March, outnumbering military service members at the time by nearly 16,000.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Getting local to defeat the Taliban
The US military is failing in north-west Pakistan. A new community-based strategy holds the key to counterinsurgency
Bilal Baloch guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 September 2009 10.30 BST
Putting the cart before the horse succinctly captures the nature of US strategy in the north-west of Pakistan: countless drone attacks and an expanding military presence – but a feeble strategic counterinsurgency effort. As a result, development in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata), has faltered and created a setting for the Taliban insurgency from Afghanistan, and in Pakistan, to strengthen.
The key to a more effective US strategy is to cultivate credibility through the community. In the past, US efforts to improve living conditions in the north-west have been undermined by a misplaced partnership with eroded political and social institutions. Also, too much faith has been placed in top-down political figures such as the tribal chieftains in Fata. Such individuals possess very little appreciation of the "lived experience" of locals, and often lack popular standing – which plants the seed for failed systematic relations with communities in the area.
It is these disaffected communities that provide havens for the militants. The Taliban will continue to navigate through Fata and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) if they can capitalise on the vulnerabilities of the local populace. This is not to say that the Pashtuns (local inhabitants of the region) yield willingly. On the contrary, they despise the Taliban more than those outside the area do. No Pashtun likes being told how long to grow his beard: in fact, no Pashtun likes being told how to do anything. These are proud people.
On the other side, Fata is still referred to as ilaka ghair (alien area) by the majority of Pakistani people and even many government officials. Since the inception of Pakistan the region as a whole, unfortunately, has not been given the security or government assistance it has needed. Peshawar (the main city of the NWFP) has moved further from Islamabad than just the mere miles that separate them.
Subsequently, the Pakistani government's failure to understand the ground realities in the north-west has left the US with little understanding of the region too. This has weakened the possibility for lasting solutions and allowed the Taliban to grow and control these areas.
So what can be done to wrestle the NWFP back from the clutches of the Taliban?
The US is beginning to understand that the answer increasingly lies in a non-military counterinsurgency effort: that is, to fracture the links between the Taliban insurgency and the community in which the insurgents move. This change of focus has brought strategic advances for the US in the last six months. Most notably this summer, senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar orchestrated a $7.5bn (£4.6bn) non-military aid package to Pakistan to defeat the insurgents.
But this is not just a matter of giving the Pakistani government aid money in return for mutual handshakes and nose-holding. In practice, defeating the insurgency is more challenging. Knowledge is required about particular communities, and how they should be dealt with at the ground level – international powers simply lack this understanding. Though there are numerous US experts on development and counterinsurgency, they do not possess the deep knowledge of the actual goings-on within the NWFP and Fata communities. The only legitimate authority that does have this knowledge (albeit partially) is the NWFP provincial government – which is unfortunately vastly under-resourced, and marginalised by the national government.
More positive signs have begun to emerge, however. Derek Harvey, a close adviser to General Patraeus in Iraq, will lead a new operation at the US defence department, called the Center for Afghanistan-Pakistan Excellence. Harvey told the Washington Times that military officers and analysts in the operation will immerse themselves in local cultural, language and socio-political knowledge.
Even so, for a community-based program to function, those with the resources and the expertise would have to conduct very detailed, systematic assessments of the nature of militant-societal relations. This information must then be provided to all relevant parties, which in the past has not happened. Expertise should be at the disposal of Pakistan's national and provincial governments to utilise in solving specific problems themselves, thereby creating strategic sustainability. If the international community can provide the knowledge and support to the Pakistani government and the NGO community, Pakistan need not rely on foreign aid in the long term.
The task for a community-based strategy is challenging. The needs, perceptions, and social institutions of one village can rarely be applied to another, and certainly cannot be abstracted for broad application across the NWFP. It is not enough to know only what the socio-political and cultural landscape of the NWFP as a whole is like. It is important to gather locality-specific data too, since Fata, the NWFP, and in fact Pakistan overall, is not one homogenous place: strategy shouldn't assume it, yet most present data does. The cart should have no place before the horse.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Setback in Afghanistan
The right response is not a retreat.
Thursday, September 3, 2009 The Washington Post
LAST MONTH we expected that Afghanistan's elections would mark a modest step forward for the country. Now it appears that they could be a major reverse. Though the election campaign was positive in many respects, Election Day itself is emerging as a disaster of relatively low turnout and massive irregularities -- including ballot-box-stuffing on behalf of both incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his leading opponent. Unless the fraud can be reversed or repaired through a U.N.-backed complaints commission or a runoff vote, Mr. Karzai may emerge as a crippled winner, his already weak and corruption-plagued administration facing further discredit or even violent protests.
This grim prospect is particularly worrisome because the United States and its allies were counting on the election to provide the Afghan government with a new lease on public support. They hoped the vote would be followed by a drive to reform both national and local administrations and extend their authority to areas where only the Taliban has been present. That construction of government capacity -- call it nation-building if you like -- is essential to the counterinsurgency strategy adopted by U.S. commanders during the last year and embraced by President Obama in March.
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the bad election news has arrived at the same time as a report by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, that portrays a "serious" military situation in which Taliban fighters are growing more capable and Afghan and international forces lack the military and civilian resources they need to regain the initiative. Gen. McChrystal is expected to ask Mr. Obama to dispatch more American troops next year -- perhaps tens of thousands of reinforcements to the 68,000 U.S. troops already deployed or on the way. The bad election and heavier U.S. casualties this summer, including more than 100 deaths, mean that Mr. Obama will probably come under considerable pressure to deny the additional troops and change course.
The Democratic left and some conservatives have begun to argue that the Afghan war is unwinnable and that U.S. interests can be secured by a much smaller military campaign directed at preventing al-Qaeda from regaining a foothold in the country. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) has proposed a timetable for withdrawal -- the same demand the left rallied around when the war in Iraq was going badly. Its most cogent argument is a negative one: that the weakness of the Afghan government and the general backwardness of the country mean that the counterinsurgency strategy, with its emphasis on political and economic development, can't work.
That might prove true. But the problem with the critics' argument is that, while the strategy they oppose has yet to be tried, the alternatives they suggest already have been -- and they led to failure in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For years, U.S. commanders in both countries focused on killing insurgents and minimizing the numbers and exposure of U.S. troops rather than pacifying the country. The result was that violence in both countries steadily grew, until a counterinsurgency strategy was applied to Iraq in 2007. As for limiting U.S. intervention in Afghanistan to attacks by drones and Special Forces units, that was the strategy of the 1990s, which, as chronicled by the Sept. 11 commission, paved the way for al-Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington. Given that the Taliban and al-Qaeda now also aim to overturn the government of nuclear-armed Pakistan, the risks of a U.S. withdrawal far exceed those of continuing to fight the war -- even were the result to be continued stalemate.
Yet if Mr. Obama provides adequate military and civilian resources, there's a reasonable chance the counterinsurgency approach will yield something better than stalemate, as it did in Iraq. The Taliban insurgency is not comparable to those that earlier fought the Soviets and the British in Afghanistan. Surveys show that support for its rule is tiny, even in its southern base. Not everything in Mr. Karzai's government is rotten: U.S. officials have reliable allies in some key ministries and provincial governorships, and the training of the Afghan army -- accelerated only recently -- is going relatively well. Stabilizing the country will require many years of patient effort and the pain of continued American casualties. Yet the consequences of any other option are likely to be far more dangerous for this country.
Back to Top
Back to Top
British soldier killed in Afghanistan blast
Thu Sep 3, 2:18 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British soldier was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said Thursday, bringing the death toll of British troops serving there since 2001 to 211.
The soldier, who served with the the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, was caught in an ambush in Babaji District, central Helmand Province, said a ministry statement.
Britain has suffered a spate of losses since early July, when it launched a joint operation with Afghan troops against Taliban forces in Helmand to try to regain control of the southern province ahead of the August 20 Afghan election.
There are some 9,000 British soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
In recent months, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has had to fend off increasing criticism over the adequacy of equipment the troops have to work with.
Brown paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Saturday, and said another 200 soldiers specialised in dealing with the improvised explosives devices (IEDs) that have claimed so many lives would be arriving this autumn.
But the mounting death toll has also revived questions about the purpose of the British mission.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Roadside bombing kills 5 Afghan soldiers in East
KHOST, Afghanistan, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were killed on Thursday as their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Paktia province of eastern Afghanistan, an ANA spokesman in the province said.
"The incident occurred at around 9 a.m. local time in Barmali district when ANA unit was on routine patrol by their vehicle," Sahatgul Hotak told Xinhua.
Hotak added that another soldier got wounded in the incident.
In another two incidents in neighboring Khost province, two Taliban fighters were killed and three more were injured.
The spokesman for Khost provincial administration, Kochai Nasiri, told Xinhua that two militants were killed and one of them got wounded by police as the militants attack a police checkpoint in Sabari district on Thursday.
Two more militants were injured as the mine planted by them exploded prematurely in the same district, Nasiri added.
Eastern Afghanistan has seen escalating violence and attacks against interest of government and international troops.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and international troops have vowed to intensify their assaults, mostly in the shapes of roadside and suicide bombings, this year in the militancy-hit country.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban militant captured in S Afghanistan: NATO
KABUL, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have detained a Taliban militant in Kandahar province south of Afghanistan, a press release of the alliance issued here Thursday said.
"A joint Afghan and international security force detained a Taliban militant implicated in several improvised explosive device attacks in Kandahar province on Sept. 2," the press release added.
"The rebel was captured on a roadway and detained without incident," it noted.
The joint force searched for the suspected militant west of Kandahar city, near the village of Chalghowi, where intelligence sources reported he was located.
However, it did not identify the name and rank of the militant.
Taliban fighters who have intensified their activities had not made comment.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan bike bomb kills child, damages ICRC vehicle: officials
MAZAAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan, Sept 2, 2009 (AFP) - A bicycle bomb exploded in Afghanistan on Wednesday as a convoy from the International Red Cross drove past, damaging one of its vehicles and killing a girl, officials said.
The incident happened near a high school in Jawzjan, the capital of the normally peaceful northern Jawzjan province.
A spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Afghanistan denied its convoy was the target.
"I can confirm that there was an incident. The ICRC was not the target. One of our vehicles was very lightly damaged. Everybody is OK," Jessica Barry, ICRC information coordinator, told AFP.
"A bomb fixed to an old bicycle detonated as ICRC vehicles were passing, close to Charm Gar Khana high school. There were no casualties among those in the vehicles," said provincial government spokesman Mahboobullah Zarei.
"In the incident, a girl was killed, and four school children and two other civilians were wounded," he said.
On August 25, an ICRC staff member was killed in a massive truck bombing in the southern city of Kandahar -- the deadliest attack in Afghanistan in more than a year.
Back to Top
Back to Top
The Afghanistan Panic
The Wall Street Journal 09/03/2009
We can still win a counterinsurgency, but not on the cheap.
Opposition to the war is rising, even in the President's own party and even before his new military strategy has been fully implemented. Our ally's leaders look weak and corrupt, Americans are increasingly opposed to the war, and prominent politicians and columnists are saying it is time to leave and redeploy our forces to focus on the real danger to the U.S., which is from al Qaeda.
Sound familiar? That was roughly the state of play regarding Iraq in September 2007, even as General David Petraeus's troop surge and counterinsurgency strategy were beginning to work in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle. Despite a few shaky moments, President Bush stuck with it, and a looming U.S. defeat became a victory.
We are now approaching a similar pass in Afghanistan, amid rising doubts about the wisdom of continuing that war nearly eight years after 9/11. Evidence that President Hamid Karzai's allies stuffed ballot boxes have tarnished the recent Afghan election, U.S. casualties are rising, and the Taliban enemy seems increasingly menacing. Though new theater commander Stanley McChrystal has only recently submitted his strategic plan, the calls are growing for the U.S. to leave. We are about to see if our current Commander in Chief has the nerve of his predecessor to withstand a Washington panic.
***
The great irony of this panic is that only months ago the consensus was that Afghanistan was a "war of necessity," as President Obama likes to put it. Even the left seemed to agree that Afghanistan couldn't again become a sanctuary for al Qaeda, that retreat from Afghanistan would be a strategic victory for jihadists, and that it would weaken our influence in Islamabad and perhaps threaten the stability of Pakistan itself as Islamists tried to turn the Pakistan military and population its way.
Now we're told we can accomplish these same strategic goals merely by maintaining a much smaller force than the 68,000 currently committed to Afghanistan. Drones and special forces based offshore can contain the jihadists, while the Kabul government will have to fend for itself. We thus don't need to "nation build" to achieve U.S. ends.
This sounds appealing as a way to ease our military burden, but isn't this also more or less what we've already been doing in Afghanistan? Until Mr. Obama's recent increase in troops, the U.S. and NATO have provided only the lightest of Afghan footprints, depending on air power and strike teams to hit the Taliban. It was precisely these stand-off attacks that raised concerns about civilian casualties and allowed the Taliban to return to dominate territory after our troops had cleared it and departed.
The Afghan army will eventually have to do most of the fighting, but for now it remains too small at 173,000 army and police to do so. If the U.S. were to depart, the Taliban would soon control at least the southern and eastern parts of the country. Kandahar would probably fall, too. Al Qaeda could re-establish itself in this territory, as opposed to being confined as it is now to the mountainous border regions. If Generals McChrystal and Petraeus believe they can successfully defeat al Qaeda in such a vast area from offshore, they should say so. But we haven't heard that so far.
A U.S. withdrawal would also complicate Pakistan's anti-jihadist task, undermining the progress of recent months. The Pakistan military has long believed the U.S. to be an unreliable ally, flooding them with cash and ultimatums in a crisis, only to leave or lose interest when the threat recedes or the going gets tough. Would Pakistan's military, in particular, stay on offense against the Taliban in Waziristan if its officers see the U.S. walking away next door? More likely, they will reach their own accommodation with the Taliban, as they did during the 1990s. This, too, would only help al Qaeda.
We haven't seen General McChrystal's new strategy, but by all accounts it is rooted in winning the support of the Afghan people by better protecting them. This is one of the lessons we learned from the Iraq surge, which also showed that protecting population centers requires more troops. Presumably this is what the generals will ask for, and it is what Mr. Obama should give them. Another lesson of Iraq is that local tribal leaders aren't likely to side with us until they are confident we intend to stay.
Afghanistan is bigger and more primitive than Iraq, but the U.S. and NATO are also much more popular than they were in 2007 in Iraq's Anbar province. Very few Afghans want the Taliban back in power. If foreign forces can provide enough security in the near term while we build Afghanistan's army and police forces, another counterinsurgency success should be possible. The worst choice Mr. Obama could make would be to repeat Mr. Bush's errors in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, when he talked about "clear, hold and build" without enough troops to do the job. Better to start with enough force, rather than having to ask for more every six months.
As for the recent elections, the allegations of fraud seem widespread and blatant enough to be credible. The Afghan electoral commission will have to decide if the cheating warrants a new election, but clearly it would be better for the victor's legitimacy if there were a runoff that was handled with better supervision. Mr. Karzai should understand that a tainted victory will only complicate his task of organizing a more effective government, which is also essential to winning a counterinsurgency.
In any case, the fight in Afghanistan is not about nation building or turning a tribal state into Westminster. The goal is to provide enough stability and Afghan support to prevent the country from once again becoming a sanctuary for terrorists who could attack the U.S. In short, this is a fight in our strategic interests. Leaving Afghanistan in its current state would be a defeat in the larger war on terror, which would encourage jihadists everywhere.
***
President Obama may not want to spend any political capital on Afghanistan, but he has no choice. The main job of his generals should be to win the war, not also to have to sell it, especially when the main opposition so far is emerging from the President's own left-flank. The opposition will also grow on the right if Americans conclude he isn't providing the forces or personal leadership needed to win. Now is the time for Mr. Obama to give his generals everything they need to defeat the Taliban, or leave and explain why he's concluded that Afghanistan is no longer worth the fight.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Brown doing "badly" over Afghanistan, poll says
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Sep 03 1:43 AM
A majority of British voters think Prime Minister Gordon Brown is doing a poor job in supporting his country's troops in Afghanistan and is heading for defeat at the ballot box, the Sun newspaper said on Thursday.
In a front page article headlined "Casualty of War," the paper found seven in 10 voters think the government is doing a "very bad" or "fairly bad" job supporting the 9,000 British soldiers in Afghanistan.
The YouGov opinion poll was published on the same day news of another British casualty was recorded -- the 211th member of the British armed forces to have been killed in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The poll found twice as many voters believe Britain's armed forces would be better off in the hands of Conservative party leader David Cameron.
Critics have said the war effort is being undermined by a lack of equipment and personnel. Brown visited his troops in Afghanistan last weekend in a show of solidarity.
The poll also found Cameron's party was 14 percent ahead of the Labour party.
If repeated at the general election, which has to be held before next June, the Conservatives would have 42 percent of the vote, with Labour trailing on 28 percent and the Liberal Democrats on 17 percent.
Labour's rating was up two points since the paper's last YouGov poll, but the top-selling tabloid, which is often seen as an electoral bellwether, said in its leader column: "Nine months from now, David Cameron looks certain to be prime minister."
The Conservatives would have a 96-seat landslide, comfortably bringing to an end Labour rule dating back to 1997.
Dominic Mohan took over as the editor of Rupert Murdoch's Sun this week and political pundits are looking to see how the paper lines up under his leadership.
The poll is in line with other recent opinion polls carried out in different newspapers.
Brown has been trying to revive his party's fortunes after its support slumped to the lowest level in a century in European elections in June.
Analysts have blamed everything from the economic crisis and unemployment rising to its highest level since 1996 to a scandal over MPs' expenses claims and Brown's personal style for Labour's poor showing in polls.
The prime minister has also been criticised for his response to the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last month.
He said it was a matter for the Scottish government, but Cameron accused him of double-dealing in favour of trade links with Libya.
The Sun opinion poll found six out of 10 voters thought Brown was doing fairly or very badly as prime minister, with only 16 percent thinking he was doing a good job.
The poll also found 38 percent of voters thought Cameron would make the best prime minister compared with just 19 percent for Brown.
(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Richard Williams)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: Hollow power in Helmand
Editorial The Guardian, Thursday 3 September 2009
We are manning a series of Potemkin settlements in Afghanistan. The territory that US and British troops are holding shows no signs of being filled by a state which Afghans can trust. The forts that dominate south Helmand are proving to be every bit as hollow – for the purpose of state-building – as the theatrical sets that Field Marshal Grigori Potyomkin had built along the route Catherine the Great took, to persuade her that Crimea was being civilised by Russian rule.
Like the Russian empress, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown could have an inkling that the glowing fires are fake and that there is nothing behind the sandbags and dugouts. They may have already realised that they are only buying time before an exit strategy can be realised, before domestic expectations can be reduced and before a deal is done with the Taliban – whether or not commanders retain links with al-Qaida. But they are not saying it. Take the two essential components of an Afghan state – troops and legitimacy. Mr Brown claimed on a visit to Camp Bastion at the weekend that 50,000 Afghans soldiers could be combat-ready by next year to take the strain off British troops. Those in Downing Street think that Afghan troop numbers can rise to 134,000 by next year, 12 months ahead of schedule, and to 240,000 by 2011. They are dreaming. How can British troops possibly deliver in a year what US troops failed to do in seven, at a cost of billions of dollars?
Or take legitimacy. Without it, no counter-insurgency campaign will work, as David Kilcullen, one of the top advisers to General Stanley McChrystal, who took over command of US and Nato forces in June, told Australia's ABC channel. "If you don't have a legitimate local Afghan government to support, then you don't have a counter-insurgency campaign," Dr Kilcullen said. But the election designed to establish this legitimacy could not be going worse. With more than 60% of the polling stations tallied, the main challenger has accused Hamid Karzai of stealing the vote, amid an avalanche of complaints of ballot box stuffing and electoral-register fraud. In a stormy meeting in Kabul this week Abdullah Abdullah adopted the stance of a leader trying to hold back the masses, and demands for demonstrations which could easily degenerate into ethnic violence. Whether this is for show or for real, it all adds to the pressure on the Electoral Complaints Commission, a body run mainly by foreigners, to cancel the results from polling stations where fraud has been detected. Mr Karzai's uncorrected tally stands at 47.3%, less than three points short of the 50% he needs to avoid a second-round runoff. But that is only according the Independent Election Commission, a body widely thought to be anything but. Both leading candidates claim to have won by a landslide.
There are two schools of thought about a second round. It could be seen as a corrective to the first, or it could merely be a repeat of it, as many of the frauds will still be in place. Either way, the prospects of a power vacuum which will drain elections of their meaning are real. The longer the furore continues, the more illegitimate the eventual victor becomes. In the meantime, the Taliban have everything to gain from fighting. They have victory in their sights, not talks. A suicide bomber killed the Afghan deputy head of intelligence yesterday, the latest in a series of attacks against high-profile targets. What this situation needs is not 14,000 more combat troops, which will suck Mr Obama deeper into a war he did not launch, but a fundamental rethink about how stability can be achieved. This will be messy and involve large and hitherto unacceptable amounts of compromise – tribal peacemaking solutions which weaken the enemy rather than destroy him. It is this prospect that Gordon Brown should address. He should be leading us away from the land of delusion, not further into it.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Kandahar Province Presents Critical Test For Afghanistan's Future
September 2, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Songs praising the beauty of Kandahar once echoed in the streets of its capital. But today's violent reality is a far cry from that fabled past.
Shah Mohammad is a 36-year old shopkeeper in Kandahar. Like many, he is shocked by the brutality and scale of last week's suicide car-bomb attack, which killed at least 41 people and injured more than 70.
The blast occurred minutes after Kandaharis broke their day-long Ramadan fast and was so powerful that it destroyed a whole block of offices, shops, and houses.
Mohammad's shop is a couple of hundred meters away from the blast site. The explosion smashed his front windows. But he was back in his shop two days after the August 25 bombing.
Like many in the city, he is in despair and sees no way out of the current situation.
"This [bombing] means that these people are fighting against life," he says. "But life is a gift of God and we need to celebrate it and spend it in happiness, brotherly harmony, and as good Muslims."
Vying For Power
This once peaceful region of pomegranate orchards and vineyards was the seat of Afghan royalty and the elite for centuries, until the 1979 Soviet invasion radically altered local power structures.
With the demise of the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001, former mujahedin commanders and regional strongmen once again began vying for power, drawing on complicated tribal strategies, which alienated many locals. This has helped the Taliban stage a comeback in their former Kandahar stronghold.
The competition and uncertainty in Kandahar Province has major implications for the neighboring provinces of Zabul, Helmand, Uruzgan, and Farah, and presents a key test both for the incoming Afghan administration and for U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the country.
The current situation has raised the specter of the mid-1990s civil war among anti-Soviet mujahedin factions, who pushed the region to complete anarchy as they fought for control of political power, the drug trade, and the region's important trade route from neighboring Pakistan.
Local analysts say insecurity is now at an all-time high in Kandahar, forcing people in outlying districts, back under Taliban control, to move to Kandahar city, as richer city residents in turn move to the relative safety of Kabul and the western Afghan city of Herat.
Plenty Of Blame
The Taliban have strengthened their control over many outlying districts and are now knocking on the doors of Kandahar city.
Felix Kuehn is a young German journalist and researcher who has lived in Kandahar for many years. He tells RFE/RL that the blame for Kandahar's descent into its current state is shouldered by many.
"Within the last seven to eight years of this conflict, close to everyone I know has lost somebody close to him through suicide bombings, through foreign bombardment," Kuehn says, adding that some security policies implemented by international troops have gone wrong.
"The Canadians have done a poor job in trying to maintain security. The local government is also partially to blame. There has been an influx of different governors coming and going," he says. "And the Taliban have done a very good job with taking out the middle management [among the government officials]."
The media often portray the conflict in Kandahar as being primarily driven by ideologically motivated Taliban extremists who want to once again overrun the region to impose their harsh rule. But Kuehn says the conflict on the ground is more complex. He cites the example of competing construction companies who frequently bomb each other's projects to take them over.
"The government and the foreigners have failed to include a vast part of the population, particularly the tribal leadership," Kuehn says, adding that these leaders doubt the Afghan government's survival and the staying power of its international backers.
"As long as they are not with the government and support the government structures, which are incredibly corrupt, specifically in Kandahar, as long as that is going on, there will not be a possibility for improvement," he says.
Intense Political Competition
Mohammad Yunos Fakur is a Kabul-based Afghan analyst who has a nuanced understanding of the complex tribal politics in Afghanistan's southern Pashtun heartland. He tells RFE/RL that the root of instability in Kandahar lies in the intense political competition among leading Pashtun tribal families and clans, which the Afghan governments before the Soviet invasion avoided by appointing outsiders to run Kandahar.
Fakur says that after the fall of the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai's younger half brother and Popalzai chieftain, Ahmad Wali Karzai, outmaneuvered his local political rivals from the families of former Governor Gul Agha Sherzai and the late mujahedin commander Mullah Naqib. Through extensive alliances and deals he established himself as the undisputed leader of the region.
This, Fakur says, has had far-reaching consequences.
"This resulted in the harmony and national unity in Kandahar and the country at-large being damaged," he says, adding that "the disunity and suffering of the people of Kandahar affects the whole of Afghanistan. That is why the situation is tense across Afghanistan."
Fakur claims that these three families currently control 65 out of a total of 68 senior administrative posts in the province. And this has alienated many -- particularly the Ghilzai tribes who are historical rivals of the Durranis. He claims that most senior Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan are disgruntled Ghilzai tribesmen.
For the past two-and-a-half centuries, most Afghan kings were Durranis, as is its current president, Hamid Karzai, but Ghilzais take credit for establishing the country after defeating the Persian Safavid Empire in early 18th century.
Fakur says that resolving Kandahar's tribal rivalries is the only way to bring stability into the region.
"If we have reasonable government here, and as the Obama administration has been saying, they talk to the tribal leaders to bring them into the governments fold," Fakur says, "this will restore the regional balances and pressure those [insurgents] who are now working with foreign intelligence services. And this will do a lot to bring peace to Afghanistan."
More Troops Won't Help
But those in power in Kandahar have a different perspective.
Ahmad Wali Karzai, the region's most powerful man and head of the Kandahar provincial council, rejects the assertions that the government's failures are contributing to increasing Taliban strength.
Wali Karzai, whom critics blame for what is going wrong in Kandahar, says that sending more Western troops won't help and only including more locals can effectively counter the Taliban tactics of targeted assassinations, suicide attacks, and ambushes.
"They need to make one change, which is that more Afghans, more people from this region, should participate in their battles," he says. "Whether you call them Arbakis [tribal volunteer militia] or local patriotic forces, they should be formed. And they can fight their enemies and, inshallah, will control this situation."
But such views increasingly have few buyers in the West.
Julian Lindley-French is a professor of military operational science at the Royal Military Academy of the Netherlands and closely follows developments in southern Afghanistan. He says the British, U.S., and Afghan military operations in neighboring Helmand Province have forced the Taliban to configure a new supply route through Kandahar to the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Taliban leadership is believed to be hiding. And this might explain the recent surge in violence around Kandahar.
Lindley-French says he expects the United States to put Afghan reconciliation front and center in its updated strategy and will encourage the addressing of genuine local grievances in the southern and eastern Pashtun heartland. But Washington will expect the Afghan government to meet it half way.
"The coalition has a right to expect better governance, better performance, and a willingness to be less factional in the way governance is applied across the country," Lindley-French says. "If that does not change, then we are at a critical point. I cannot see how the coalition could sustain its effort if there is no chance of reasonable progress."
If Karzai is reelected, Kandahar will be his critical first test. If he loses control there, many believe he will have lost the country.
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan Correspondent Salih Muhammad Salih contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: Back from the brink?
Wednesday, 2 September 2009 BBC News
Afghanistan has made strides in many spheres over the past eight years despite its problems, writes the BBC's M Ilyas Khan after a recent journey through the country to cover elections.
From the Communist takeover of 1978 to the destruction of Kabul in 1992 and its subsequent fall to the Taliban in 1996, Afghanistan has been back from the brink many times before.
There is no reason why it should be different this time.
I was in Kabul in March 2001 when the Taliban blew up the two 2nd Century Buddha statues carved into a mountainside in central Bamyan province.
I remember the gloom, and even despair, it caused among some of the Taliban's own mid-ranking officials.
I thought things had slid past the point of no return.
But then came hope, disguised as an ostensibly unpopular decision of the United States to attack the country and expel the Taliban.
Flicker of hope
The move promised democracy, economic uplift and an end to war, objectives which the Afghans largely supported.
I saw a flicker of that hope in June 2002 when delegates of the emergency Loya Jirga, or the grand tribal assembly, gathered in Kabul and endorsed Hamid Karzai as the interim leader of the post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Mr Karzai's subsequent success in the 2004 presidential elections showed that the Afghan people saw him as a unifying figure and not simply an "American stooge" as he was branded by some elements in neighbouring Pakistan.
I remember the tribes in eastern Afghanistan raising armed volunteers to prevent Taliban insurgents, based in sanctuaries in the Pakistani border areas, from disrupting the elections.
And they were successful, unlike the elections last month when the Taliban launched hundreds of attacks during before and during the elections, causing many voters across the south and east to stay indoors.
Obviously, Afghanistan is once again teetering on the edge, with doomsday messages emanating from both friends and foes.
Afghans cite two broad reasons for this state of affairs.
First, they believe the US's 2003 decision to extend their "war on terror" to Iraq put the pro-Taliban forces in Pakistan on a long leash and led to the creation of extended militant sanctuaries there.
This also diluted the initial fervour of the international community to help boost Afghanistan's reconstruction and economy.
Second, many Afghans feel that the policy of co-opting former warlords into the government has undermined not only its moral standing but also its ability to fight corruption.
The war against the militants has gone badly, causing civilian casualties and more attacks by the Taliban which have also killed and injured civilians.
And there are no adequate means of livelihood for many Afghans.
Understandably, the people find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place.
In spite of this, they have shown through last month's presidential elections that they consider the post-Taliban system a lesser evil.
That is why they turned out in considerable numbers to vote despite threats from the Taliban.
Unprecedented growth
There are obvious reasons for this too.
The eight years of Karzai rule have brought unprecedented growth in business, communications, industry and infrastructure.
At the turn of the millenium, many people in remote Badakhshan province still did not know whether they were citizens of Afghanistan or Tajikistan.
Today, multi-storey shopping malls are being built there, as well as roads linking this isolated region with Kabul.
In Herat, industrialisation has taken root and a vibrant entrepreneurial class is on the rise.
The south has lagged behind due to its proximity to Taliban sanctuaries across the border, but it still provides the national leadership and much of its physical infrastructure has been restored.
And even the warlords may have served a useful purpose, somehow.
In Badakhshan, they were instrumental in eradicating poppy crops.
In Kabul, the warlords dislodged from their fiefdoms in the north, west and south of the country have started television channels, airlines and other businesses that provide badly-needed employment for the country's youth.
The Karzai government's policy of giving these warlords government jobs in Kabul instead of gubernatorial offices in their regions seems to have paid off in political terms as well.
While they still have residual influence in their respective regions, the voting patterns show their grip on local loyalties is weakening.
Many believe that if the democratic process holds, the mantle of leadership will soon pass to a new generation of Afghans who are looking for more prosperity at home and greater acceptability abroad.
Back to Top
Back to Top
US consensus on Afghanistan begins to crumble
By Christophe Schmidt September 3, 2009
(AFP) - WASHINGTON — Weeks from President Barack Obama's expected move to send more troops to Afghanistan, the consensus behind the US commitment there is crumbling as some raise the specter of a new Vietnam.
A growing number of experts doubt that the war can be won, while even Obama, who has already dispatched an additional 21,000 reinforcements there, contemplates a further troop increase and completes a strategic review.
On the campaign trail last year, Obama portrayed the war in Afghanistan as the only useful conflict in the war against terrorism. As president, he has called it a "war of necessity."
In March, the Obama administration redefined the war's goals, focusing on fighting Al-Qaeda and its supporters while demonstrating willingness to boost its military effort against a growing insurgency.
On the ground, the situation continues to deteriorate, with August the deadliest month for US forces since the war began in October 2001.
"It's a new strategy. It's the first one -- and I recognize we've been there over eight years," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told NBC television in August.
"But I also want to say that this is the first time we've really resourced a strategy on both the civilian and military side. So in certain ways, we are starting anew."
Mullen, the top US military officer, has been calling for fighting the "culture of poverty" deemed to favor the Taliban.
"But that (fight against poverty) took decades in just a few square miles of the South Bronx," countered George Will, a conservative columnist writing in The Washington Post who has called for the United States to "get out" of Afghanistan.
Wesley Clark, the former commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, worried about the course of the conflict.
"The similarities to Vietnam are ominous," Clark wrote in the New York Daily News.
"There, too, an insurgency was led and supported from outside the borders of the state in which our troops were fighting. There, too, sanctuaries across international borders stymied US military efforts," the retired general said.
"There, too, broader political-strategic considerations weighed against military expansion of the conflict and forecast further struggles in the region."
Michael O'Hanlon, an expert who favors Obama's offensive strategy in Afghanistan, said critics need to better understand the strategy and developments on the ground.
"All they hear now is word of casualties, of our added troops making no difference so far, of (incumbent President Hamid) Karzai trying to steal the election, et cetera," O'Hanlon said.
"In Vietnam, we lost 5,000 or more Americans a year and the Vietnamese lost hundreds of thousands. In Afghanistan, we are losing 200 to 300 a year and the Afghans are losing a few thousand," the Brookings Institution analyst told AFP.
"However there is one disturbing parallel: the corruption in the respective indigenous governments and their general weakness."
In his commentary, Wesley Clark also drew a dire comparison.
As in Vietnam, "American public support slid away over time as our engagement ratcheted up and casualties mounted," Clark said.
Nearly six in 10 Americans are opposed to the Afghanistan war, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this week.
A new front awaits Obama over the next few weeks in Congress, where dissonant voices are heard among fellow majority Democrats.
Obama, for now, enjoys support from a wide array of lawmakers, military officers and commentators. But all agree that the US task in Afghanistan is not only immense, but also immensely uncertain.
Back to Top
Back to Top
International Envoys Pledge Continued Support for Afghanistan
By Sonja Pace VOA News 02 September 2009
Senior international envoys vowed continued strong support for Afghanistan during strategy talks in Paris on Wednesday. This comes amid rising violence in Afghanistan and on the heels of the country's controversial elections.
Senior envoys from France, the United States and about two dozen other countries and organizations met in Paris to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Speaking afterward, they pledged the international community's continued support. They said the meeting was a routine assessment of strategy and that it had not been called to deal with last month's controversial elections in the country.
U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke played down allegations of widespread election fraud.
"During that process, there are going to be many claims of irregularities; that happens in every democracy," said Holbrooke. "We recently had a senatorial election in Minnesota, which took seven months to determine the outcome. There were so many charges of irregularities. It certainly will not take that long in Afghanistan. But that happens in democracies, even when they are not in the middle of a war," he added.
The latest vote tallies show incumbent President Hamid Karzai in the lead, but still shy of the 50 percent of the votes needed to avoid a run-off election.
Holbrooke also down played reports of U.S. unhappiness with President Karzai, saying that Washington has no preferred candidate.
"Our advocacy is for a fair process overseen by the Independent Election Commission, taking into account the decisions of the Election Complaints Commission -- a process which then elects a government that is legitimate and reflects the will of the people who voted," he said.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner insisted the meeting was about the future of international aid efforts in Afghanistan, not judging the elections. But he noted that success depends on the ability to establish security and said Western troops could not leave Afghanistan until that has been established.
In Afghanistan, an explosion on Wednesday east of Kabul ripped through a crowd of government officials inaugurating a mosque. The country's deputy intelligence chief was among those killed.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Herat Theft Victims Drugged
Robbery-by-poison wave has residents worried and angry.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Farooq Faizi in Herat (ARR No. 335, 02-Sep-09)
One evening last month vegetable seller Abdul Khaleq, 56, noticed a man in white clothes sitting in front of his cart, eating a watermelon. He offered Khaleq a piece. The next thing Khaleq remembers is waking up in a hospital bed.
The watermelon he ate was poisonous, the doctors told him. Soon Khaleq found out why. The man in the white clothes had taken all the money he had with him – 50 US dollars - as well as his mobile phone.
At least 56 men and five women with similar stories have been admitted to the Herat regional hospital during the last two months, according to director Sayed Naim Alemi.
“Most of them came from villages around Herat city,” he said.
Robbers drugging their victims first is not a new phenomenon in Afghanistan but the scale of the current wave is unusual, and has Herat residents worried and angry. Many say that they cannot trust the police, and have little hope that they will catch the criminals.
Waisuddin Talash, deputy head of Herat’s criminal investigation division, told IWPR that his department had received no complaints related to the robbery-and-poisoning incidents.
But Khaleq, the vegetable seller, insists that he went to the police and filed a report. Dr Ahmad Khaled, head of internal medicine at the Herat regional hospital, also told IWPR that the police had been notified.
“The poisoning victims were complaining that their money or belongings were stolen, so the criminal investigation police came and questioned them.”
The lack of action on the part of the police has convinced local residents that they cannot look for help from that quarter.
“The police are totally incompetent and even cooperate with some of the criminals,” said Firuz Ahmad Qayem, a male nurse at the hospital, reflecting a widely held view among the local population.
The police defend their record and say that they are doing their best to keep up with Herat’s spiralling crime.
“Since Herat is one of the biggest cities in Afghanistan, there is also a lot of crime,” said Colonel Noorkhan Nekzad, the police spokesman in Herat. Over the past two months, he added, Herat police had arrested 96 people for various crimes.
“We are making a very good effort,” he told IWPR. “We will never, ever let anybody disturb the peace and security of the population.”
But this is unlikely to placate the citizens of Herat.
“If the police are doing such a good job, why is there so much insecurity, and so many kidnappings and other incidents?” asked Herat resident Fazal Ahmad, a fruit seller. “We don’t trust the police. Their behaviour is inappropriate and violent towards the population.”
Herat, in western Afghanistan, has experienced an explosion in crime in recent years. Businessmen are kidnapped for ransom, robbery is not uncommon, and there is growing problem with insurgency. In recent weeks the Taleban took responsibility for a bomb attack in Herat that killed 12 and injured more than 20.
But it is this latest wave, which has targeted poorer residents, that seems to have set tempers flaring.
“I was on my way to the bazaar, when some guy gave me a date,” said Mir Tahir, 70. “When I ate it, I passed out. When I came to my senses, I went to the police, but they did not help me. I will never trust the police again.”
Until police catch the criminals, Herat residents are going to remain angry and suspicious.
“I am very careful about eating food now,” said Herat resident Abdul Qadir. “I also advise my children to take great care when they go to the bazaar.”
The best that the medical establishment can do is to try to publicise the cases, and advise people to seek help.
“If somebody eats the poison he will be unconscious for 24 hours,” said Dr Ahmad Khaled. “It is very important to get medical attention because people can die if vomit blocks their airways.” Medical experts suggest the substance is made in advanced laboratories. “We are waiting to get a sample from the police to investigate it,” added Khaled.
Meanwhile the local government is doing its best to keep the citizens of Herat informed, says Nematullah Sarwari, the director for information and culture.
“We have asked religious leaders and mullahs to inform people in the mosques. We will also increase our efforts to get the message out through the media outlets,” he said.
Some people in Herat blame the media for the problem. They say private TV channels screen films and serials that show viewers how to rob and murder people. “Nowadays all the serials on the TV show scenes in which people poison each other to get what they want,” said Abdul Salam, a Herat resident.
What inspired his father’s robbers, 14-year-old Basir Ahmad doesn’t know. He just knows that his 70-year-old father is now in hospital, and that the poison has left him seriously ill. Ahmad is standing next to his father’s bed. “We were having lunch in my father’s shop. Two people came in and started eating with us. After a while I stood up to help a customer. The next thing I remember was waking up and seeing that my father was unconscious. I checked the till and saw it was empty. They took 30,000 Afghanis (600 dollars) from us.”
Farooq Faizi is an IWPR trainee in Herat.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Children Languish Behind Bars
Stretched justice system keeps young people in jail for months without trial.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Najibullah Frotan, IWPR trainee from Balkh province (ARR No. 335, 02-Sep-09)
The boy looked sadly through the bars of his prison cell. “I am not a murderer,” he said.
For 18 months now the boy has been in jail and no court has heard his case. Aged about 17, he looks frightened and refuses to say more. He will not even give his name.
According to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in the northern province of Balkh, as well as the inmates themselves, children’s rights are consistently violated in the juvenile correction and education centre of Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital. One of the most common complaints is that the children face long delays in bringing their cases to court.
A detainee of around 12 years old, who has been accused of robbery, told IWPR that his case has not yet gone to trial and he has no idea when it will.
“Nobody cares about us here,” he said.
The juvenile detention centre now holds 21 boys and two girls from 12 to 18 years old. They have been accused of crimes ranging from serious felonies such as murder to minor offences like petty theft or running away from home.
It is true that the court doesn’t decide about the children’s cases on time, says the director of the centre, Mohammad Wais Sufizada.
“But these problems are not confined to Balkh province,” he insisted. “It is a problem all over the country.”
However, Mohammad Sadeq Fayaz, the director of the Balkh juvenile appeal court, denies that the justice system has run into long delays.
“The maximum delay for a case in our court has been two months. It is an outright lie that we have kept cases for six to 18 months,” he said.
Fayaz emphasised that the court hands out relatively light sentences to the children.
“For example, children are never hanged, or sentenced to life in prison, because their act is seen as a mistake, not a crime,” he said. “They spend fewer years in prison than adults, and they also receive education there.”
In the juvenile detention centre the children receive some education and can follow a vocational course in tailoring.
Prison life in Afghanistan is extremely hard, according to the young inmates. Abysmal living conditions, combined with physical abuse from prison guards and little hope for a swift trial make for a very difficult time.
Ewaz Ali Saberi, deputy director of the human rights commission in Balkh, has investigated the situation in the juvenile detention centre in Mazar-e-Sharif. He confirmed the majority of the children’s allegations.
“Sometimes it happens that a child is sentenced to two years in prison by the primary court, but the case does not reach the appeals court for more than two years,” he said.
Saberi points to other problems as well. For example, the children are put together in cells regardless of the severity of their crimes. So a boy who ran away from home could be sharing his room with one who has committed murder.
“This is illegal, and it puts the future of the children in jeopardy,” said Saberi. “At least 80 per cent of the children who are released commit the same crimes again.”
According to Assadullah Zia, a lecturer in religious studies at Balkh University, it is dangerous to keep children accused of different kinds of crimes in one room.
“These children share their experiences with each other,” he said. “When they are released they stay in the group and commit much more serious crimes.”
Sufizada, who heads the detention centre, confirmed that young inmates are held together in one cell regardless of their crimes due to lack of space. But he rejects any notion that this could contribute to recidivism or, worse, to an innocent child being corrupted by his cellmates.
“It is not true that the majority of these children will break the law again,” he said. “In fact, our data shows that only two percent of the juvenile detainees commit crimes once they are released.”
A tired-looking woman in a black scarf sits in front of the gate at the juvenile detention centre. She says she is waiting for the guard to call her so she can see her son, who was arrested for robbery more than a year ago. She has been coming to see him ever since his arrest and every time, she said, the guards tell her that her son will soon be released.
“But he is still in jail,” she said.
Najibullah Frotan is an IWPR trainee in Balkh province.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Russia Seeks Afghan War Role as NATO Deaths Climb
Bloomberg By James G. Neuger Sept. 2, 2009
Russia is seeking a role in planning NATO’s war in Afghanistan two decades after Soviet forces were ejected from the country.
As East-West ties improve under President Barack Obama, Russia wants to be involved in setting the political, military and intelligence strategy for the war against the Taliban, said Dmitry Rogozin, Russian ambassador to the alliance.
“We want to be inside,” Rogozin said, in English, in an interview in Brussels today. He spoke for the rest of the hour- long session through a Russian translator.
Allied military planners are groping for a new strategy as casualties climb. The commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, this week called the situation there “serious.” In what Obama calls a “war of necessity,” some 153 allied troops were killed in July and August, according to www.icasualties.org.
Wrangling between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his challengers over the Aug. 20 election has magnified concerns about the country’s stability.
Russia now lets the North Atlantic Treaty Organization use its territory to ship supplies to Afghanistan, saying it faces a more direct threat from terrorism there than the U.S. and its allies. President Dmitry Medvedev has said Russia is prepared to cooperate with the U.S. to bring order to Afghanistan, though officials have made clear that Russia won’t commit troops.
NATO planning sessions are restricted to countries taking part in missions.
Soviet Invasion
The invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and its failed 10-year occupation helped lead to the break-up of the Soviet Union. The U.S. shipped weapons to Islamic resistance fighters who later sowed the seeds of the al-Qaeda movement.
“It is in the interests of NATO to make Russia a permanent participant in all the discussions, professional discussions, closed discussions that are being held on Afghanistan in Brussels and Mons,” Rogozin said.
The 28-nation alliance’s civilian headquarters is in Brussels. The military command is based in Mons, in southern Belgium.
Rogozin said he broached Russia’s proposals to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who became NATO secretary general on Aug. 1. Rasmussen responded with an “approving nod,” he said.
‘Further Steps’
Rasmussen gave his account of that Aug. 11 encounter at a briefing today in Brussels, calling it a “a very successful, very fruitful and very useful meeting.” NATO is “reflecting on which further steps could be taken,” Rasmussen said.
In an Aug. 31 interview, Rasmussen called for a “strategic partnership” with NATO’s former Cold War adversary, seeking to soothe the strains that peaked with Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, a would-be alliance member.
While committed to working more closely with Russia on Afghanistan, NATO today said the best forum would be the regular NATO-Russia meetings that resumed in January when the alliance ended a five-month diplomatic boycott after the Georgia war.
“It would certainly be appropriate to look at doing more on Afghanistan in the NATO-Russia Council framework,” alliance spokesman James Appathurai said by telephone in response to Rogozin’s proposals.
‘Strategic Partnership’
Some 62,000 U.S. and 35,000 allied troops are battling to defeat a comeback of the Taliban, the radical Islamic movement that ran Afghanistan and harbored al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden until it was ousted by the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Russia is saving the U.S. $1 billion annually by allowing its airspace to be used for 15 daily flights by American military cargo planes into Afghanistan, Rogozin said.
Russia wouldn’t close off its airspace if NATO bars it from the war-planning discussions, Rogozin said, refusing to envision “such dramatic scenarios.”
As part of a “new impetus” in NATO-Russia cooperation on Afghanistan, Rogozin also proposed a stepped up “dialogue of our intelligence agencies to break down terrorist and paramilitary networks, to localize their actions and ultimately neutralize them.”
The two sides will take their next steps when Rasmussen meets Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New York during the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. Rogozin said he hoped Rasmussen will visit Moscow by the end of the year.
Enlargement Opposed
Better ties won’t overcome Russia’s opposition to further NATO enlargement or to U.S. proposals for a missile-defense shield in eastern Europe, Rogozin said.
Rogozin frowned on a proposal by former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski for tighter security arrangements between NATO and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, a seven-nation group pieced together out of the remnants of the Soviet Union.
The idea would leave NATO free to expand further into Russia’s backyard, Rogozin said.
“NATO acknowledges the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Russia gets the hole of the donut,” Rogozin said. “It has to silence itself and stop objecting to further NATO enlargement to the east.”
To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net
Back to Top
Back to Top
Fears of Taliban collusion with Afghan government
A suspect in the bombing of a US military vehicle that killed one solider and injured a CBS News correspondent was carrying a cell phone containing a number of an office in the Afghan defence ministry in its memory, according to reports.
Telegraph.co.uk By Alex Spillius in Washington 03 Sep 2009
The discovery aroused suspicion of official collusion between figures in the government and Taliban rebels after investigators said that an Afghan official tried to convince the American military it had arrested the wrong men for the attack.
There have been allegations of widespread corruption in that ministry and other branches of Hamid Karzai's government. The president is currently facing multiple allegations of fraud in last month's election, with results yet to be declared.
Veteran CBS foreign correspondent Cami McCormick suffered several breaks and fractures after a vehicle she was travelling in during an "embed mission" with US forces on Friday was blown up by a roadside bomb.
The Pentagon identified the deceased soldier as Abraham Wheeler, 22, from Columbia, South Carolina. Two other troops received minor wounds.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).