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Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS and ALISSA J. RUBIN The New York Times August 28, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government.
Analysis: Will battle for Kandahar win the war?
By Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Since the war began, this southern city and surrounding countryside have been marked as the heartland of the Taliban, the insurgents' springboard to retake all of Afghanistan. It has witnessed some of the bloodiest fighting.
7 US troops killed in latest Afghanistan fighting
By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Seven U.S. troops have died in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, while officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign aides working for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.
Bodies of 5 campaign workers found in western Afghanistan
By the CNN Wire Staff August 29, 2010
(CNN) -- The bodies of five kidnapped parliamentary campaign workers were found Sunday in a remote district of Herat province in western Afghanistan, said Naqibullah Arwin, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Karzai wants change in Afghan war strategy
(AFP)
KABUL — President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday Washington's war strategy for Afghanistan needed a rethink, as a Taliban-led insurgency gathers pace and foreign forces casualties surge.
ISAF: Taliban commander captured in Afghanistan
By the CNN Wire Staff August 29, 2010
(CNN) -- Afghan and international forces captured a senior Taliban commander in Logar provice, NATO's International Security Assistance Force announced Sunday.
Afghanistan's blasted Buddhas beckon tourists
Sun Aug 29, 3:11 AM
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two empty niches facing over a lush green valley towards the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains stand in silent testimony to Bamiyan's rich past -- and its uncertain future.
AFGHANISTAN: Education aid - an apparent success story in Faryab Province
29 Aug 2010 10:38:21 GMT
KABUL, 29 August 2010 (IRIN) - Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway.
Afghanistan eyes wheat price amid import needs
by Lynne O'donnell – Sun Aug 29, 3:03 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan authorities are keeping a close eye on world wheat prices as they seek to boost strategic stocks ahead of winter and ensure that demand is met as some traditional suppliers halt exports.
Afghanistan's dirty little secret
San Francisco Chronicle Joel Brinkley Saturday, August 28, 2010
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
President Karzai Modifying Election Law in His Favor
EurasiaNet By Aunohita Mojumdar 28/08/2010
A EurasiaNet Q & A with Grant Kippen, former Chairman of the Electoral Complaints Commission
President Hamid Karzai has taken action to substantially curtail the independence of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission before parliamentary elections scheduled for this September.
A Pashtun Writes
The New York Times By Sharifullah Shahak 28/08/2010
KABUL - When I heard about the pregnant woman who was executed by the Taliban, I felt deep sorrow for her — sorrow because she was just a widow who was without a man in her life for four years, and because the man had reportedly told her he would marry her. Where is the crime in that?
US to Fund 100,000 Extra Afghan Troops
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 28 August 2010
The top commander of the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan said the US president is increasing efforts to enlarge and empower Afghan forces
Petraeus: the US will Press Militant's Havens in Pakistan
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 28 August 2010
The US commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan told reporters in a press conference on Saturday that the Taliban hid-eouts should be pressed outside Afghan borders
Investigators say helicopters not responsible for Afghan police deaths
By the CNN Wire Staff August 28, 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan - NATO authorities said they haven't found evidence to conclude that coalition helicopters were responsible for the deaths of three Afghan police officers last week in northern Afghanistan.
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Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS and ALISSA J. RUBIN The New York Times August 28, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government.
Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, the former deputy attorney general, said investigations of more than two dozen senior Afghan officials — including cabinet ministers, ambassadors and provincial governors — were being held up or blocked outright by Mr. Karzai, Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko and others.
Mr. Faqiryar’s account of the troubles plaguing the anticorruption investigations, which Mr. Karzai’s office disputed, has been largely corroborated in interviews with five Western officials familiar with the cases. They say Mr. Karzai and others in his government have repeatedly thwarted prosecutions against senior Afghan government figures.
An American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Afghan prosecutors had prepared several cases against officials suspected of corruption, but that Mr. Karzai was “stalling and stalling and stalling.”
“We propose investigations, detentions and prosecutions of high government officials, but we cannot resist him,” Mr. Faqiryar said of Mr. Karzai. “He won’t sign anything. We have great, honest and professional prosecutors here, but we need support.”
This month, Mr. Karzai intervened to stop the prosecution of one of his closest aides, Mohammed Zia Salehi, who investigators say had been wiretapped demanding a bribe from another Afghan seeking his help in scuttling a corruption investigation.
Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff disputed Mr. Faqiryar’s characterization of the president’s involvement, saying that the president had instructed the prosecutors to move cases forward “appropriately.”
“I strongly deny that the president has been in any way obstructing the investigations of these cases,” said the chief of staff, Umer Daudzai. “On the contrary, he has done his bit in all these cases, and it is his job to make sure that the justice is not politicized. And, unfortunately we see in some of these cases that it is politicized.”
Mr. Aloko did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Mr. Salehi could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Faqiryar made his accusations amid a growing sense of alarm in the Obama administration and in Congress over Mr. Karzai’s failure to take action against officials suspected of corruption, but also as the administration debates whether pushing too hard on corruption will alienate a government whose cooperation it needs to wage war.
Awash in American and NATO money, Mr. Karzai’s government is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt in the world. American officials believe that the corruption drives Afghans into the arms of the Taliban.
In a two hour interview at his home, Mr. Faqiryar said he and the other prosecutors in his office were demoralized by the repeated refusal of Mr. Karzai and Mr. Aloko to allow them to move against corrupt Afghan leaders.
Mr. Faqiryar said his prosecutors had opened cases on at least 25 current or former Afghan officials, including 17 members of Mr. Karzai’s cabinet, 5 provincial governors and at least 3 ambassadors. None of the cases, he said, have gone forward, and some have been blocked on orders from Mr. Karzai. He did not elaborate on each case, and it was not clear whether Mr. Aloko or Mr. Karzai were involved in all of the cases.
Mr. Karzai said he had intervened in the case of Mr. Salehi, an official on the National Security Council, because the American-backed anticorruption agencies were violating the civil rights of those they detained. He blamed foreign contractors for the corruption, and threatened to take control of the agencies, summoning the head of the one that arrested Mr. Salehi to the presidential palace for questioning.
Under intense Western pressure, Mr. Karzai appeared to back off, saying he would allow the anticorruption units to do their jobs.
Mr. Faqiryar, a 72-year-old career prosecutor, said he was fired Wednesday by Mr. Karzai after sending a midlevel prosecutor to speak about public corruption on an Afghan television station. After Mr. Karzai watched the broadcast, he called for the papers to authorize the dismissal, Mr. Faqiryar said.
But Mr. Faqiryar said his abrupt departure was the culmination of a long-running tug-of-war between him and his prosecutors on one side, and Mr. Karzai and Mr. Aloko on the other.
The dispute began last year, Mr. Faqiryar said, when he went before the Afghan Parliament and read aloud the names of at least 25 Afghan officials who were under investigation for corruption. The list included some of the most senior officials in Mr. Karzai’s government, including Mohammed Siddiq Chakari, the former minister for hajj and Islamic affairs, and Rangin Spanta, who is now the national security adviser.
When Mr. Faqiryar returned from Parliament, he said he was summoned by Mr. Aloko, who told him that Mr. Karzai was furious.
“He told me the president was not happy about this,” Mr. Faqiryar said. “He said, ‘I told you not to divulge this.’ ”
Mr. Daudzai, the president’s chief of staff, insisted that Mr. Faqiryar was not dismissed. He said Mr. Faqiryar had been due to retire and that his papers “were signed weeks ago but just now came to the surface.”
Some of the corruption cases involved relatively minor transgressions. But Mr. Faqiryar said his prosecutors had unearthed serious allegations of corruption against several senior Afghan officials. In many of those cases, he said, the prosecutors had substantiated the claims with ample evidence.
Just three of the 25 Afghan officials have been charged, he said, and in no case has a verdict been rendered. The cases of the other 22 have either been blocked or are lying dormant for inexplicable reasons, he said.
One of the most serious cases involves Khoja Ghulam Ghaws, the governor of Kapisa Province, who was appointed by Mr. Karzai in 2007. According to Western officials, Afghan prosecutors compiled a dossier against Mr. Ghaws that included telephone intercepts and sworn statements from Americans and Afghans working in the province.
According to these officials, prosecutors have enough evidence to charge Mr. Ghaws with colluding with insurgents and demanding kickbacks from contractors working on American- and Afghan-financed development projects. Mr. Ghaws is also a suspect in the killing of five members of a provincial reconstruction team last year.
Prosecutors turned over the Ghaws case to Mr. Aloko, the attorney general, four months ago, said a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Aloko has refused to sign either the warrant to arrest Mr. Ghaws or the warrant to search his house, the official said. “He’s the president’s ally,” the official said of Mr. Ghaws. “Obviously, Karzai doesn’t want the case to go forward.”
Mr. Daudzai insisted that Mr. Karzai had made the first move against Mr. Ghaws “weeks ago” by signing a letter suspending him from his job and asking him to appear before the attorney general. He could not explain why Mr. Ghaws was still running the province and residing in the governor’s compound, where he was interviewed last week by The New York Times.
In the interview, Mr. Ghaws said he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
The case against Mr. Ghaws was raised two weeks ago by Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, who traveled to Kabul in part to urge Mr. Karzai to take action against corrupt officials.
In the interview, Mr. Faqiryar confirmed the Western official’s account, saying that Mr. Ghaws has been allowed to remain free at Mr. Karzai’s insistence.
“Mr. Karzai has not agreed,” Mr. Faqiryar said of the Ghaws case. “Aloko said to me, ‘You have to follow the president.’ ”
Mr. Aloko signed the arrest warrant of Mr. Salehi, the Karzai aide who was later released, but only after Western officials insisted that he do so, Mr. Faqiryar said.
Mr. Salehi was arrested as part of the investigation into New Ansari, a money transfer firm that American investigators say has shipped billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan politicians, insurgents and drug smugglers.
Mr. Aloko is also blocking the arrest of Hajji Rafi Azimi, the vice chairman of the Afghan United Bank and a key figure in the New Ansari case, Mr. Faqiryar said.
According to Western officials, Mr. Azimi is suspected of helping pass tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to Mr. Chakari, the former minister for hajj and Islamic affairs. Prosecutors say Mr. Chakari extorted the bribes from tour operators who arrange travel for Afghan pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia in exchange for steering business to the tour operators.
Mr. Azimi was out of Afghanistan and could not be reached for comment. Mr. Chakari fled the country last year as prosecutors prepared to arrest him and is believed to be in Britain. Afghan officials have filed an arrest warrant with Interpol.
American officials in Kabul say that Afghan prosecutors have tried to arrest Mr. Azimi but have been prevented from doing so by key figures in the Karzai government. In his interview, Mr. Faqiryar said Mr. Salehi had emerged from his office in the presidential palace and asked Attorney General Aloko to block Mr. Azimi’s arrest.
“The reason Mr. Aloko does not sign the arrest warrant for Mr. Azimi is because Salehi told him not to,” he said.
Mr. Faqiryar listed three cases of corruption among senior Afghan diplomats posted in Canada, Germany and Britain, and said there were other cases as well. In each of the three cases he said, they were suspected of stealing public money. None of them, including two former ambassadors and a consul general, have been prosecuted.
Reached Saturday, an official at the Afghan Foreign Ministry confirmed that the three diplomats had in fact taken public money. But, the official said, at least two of them, the former ambassadors to Britain and Germany had “paid the money back.”
After a career spanning 48 years, Mr. Faqiryar said he was looking forward to retirement.
“It’s good to be away from them and not held accountable for their wrongdoings,” he said.
Afghans Deny C.I.A. Payments
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s presidential office on Saturday condemned American news media reports that Afghan government officials had received payments from the C.I.A. in return for information.
A statement from the spokesman’s office called the reports part of an attempt to divert attention from the greater priorities of fighting terrorism, preventing civilian casualties, and disbanding private security companies.
“Afghanistan believes that making such allegations will not strengthen the alliance against terrorism and will not strengthen an Afghanistan based on the law and rules, but will have negative effects in those areas,” the statement said.
“We strongly condemn such irresponsible allegations which just create doubt and defame responsible people of this country,” it said.
The New York Times reported that the C.I.A. had been paying Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for Afghanistan’s National Security Council, who was arrested last month as part of an investigation into corruption. The Washington Post reported that the C.I.A. was making payments to a large number of officials in President Hamid Karzai’s administration.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 29, 2010
A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the Afghan officials involved in corruption cases in Canada, Germany and Britain. The suspects were two former ambassadors and a consul general, not three ambassadors.
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Analysis: Will battle for Kandahar win the war?
By Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Since the war began, this southern city and surrounding countryside have been marked as the heartland of the Taliban, the insurgents' springboard to retake all of Afghanistan. It has witnessed some of the bloodiest fighting.
Now, as U.S. and allied forces wrestle with urban warlords and take on die-hard insurgents in booby-trapped orchards and grape fields, the battle for Kandahar city is being described as the decisive campaign, a linchpin of American strategy to win the 9-year-old conflict.
"As goes Kandahar, so goes Afghanistan," has almost become the military's mantra.
Not all agree, arguing even if success in Kandahar is achieved, the war will be far from over. That success is far from guaranteed: the obstacles are overwhelming, the time to overcome them may prove too short, and victory may hinge not on what happens on the ground in Kandahar, but in the American political arena.
"This is Western military thinking which is totally irrelevant to Afghanistan," says Marc Sageman, a former CIA operative in the region now with the Washington-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. "You can pacify Kandahar and you'll still lose the war because Afghanistan remains a highly decentralized society, and in the countryside, the Kabul government has little legitimacy."
Southern Kandahar is unquestionably important. The city itself, the country's second largest with some 500,000 inhabitants, served as the capital of the Taliban during its years in power. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden used it as his base during the 9/11 attacks. Now, the insurgency draws its greatest strength from the province and the neighboring region, dominated by the Pashtun ethnic majority who form the Taliban core.
"If you win in Kandahar it will have a major effect throughout the south. If Kandahar flourishes, other things will flourish. This is an iconic place for the Pashtun psyche," the British commander of NATO forces in the south, Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, told reporters recently. In other words, the domino theory, Afghan-style.
Others argue the focus on Kandahar and the surrounding province of the same name is diverting troops and resources from other areas of the country where the insurgents are making significant gains, that the war, according to some on-the-ground U.S. officers, must be fought village by village, valley by valley.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has estimated the insurgency has spread to about one-third of the country's districts. Shadow Taliban governors, some reports say, exist in 33 of the country's 34 provinces. And there are other strategic hotspots besides Kandahar, including the Kabul region and stretches of the border with Pakistan, where al-Qaida — Washington's prime target when the war was launched in 2001_ is concentrated.
Commanders describe the operation for Kandahar — dubbed "Hamkari Baraye Kandahar," or "Cooperation for Kandahar" — as not a conventional offensive but rather a "slow, rising tide," where military muscle plays a secondary role. At its height, roughly 25,000 NATO and Afghan troops will be deployed in the city and surrounding countryside.
"This is not Stalingrad or Fallujah. This fight is about governance, the mobs, the mafia," Carter said. "Success will be judged how we connect a credible Afghan government to the population."
But some tough fighting is taking place, with U.S. and Afghan forces concentrated on the city's western approaches to stem the inflow of fighters, suicide bombers and funds. About 80 percent of one Taliban stronghold, the lush and heavily mined Arghandab Valley, has been secured, Carter says, and next month a major operation will be launched in adjacent Zhari, an insurgency-wracked district where the radical Islamist movement was founded in 1994.
Within the city, "sleepers" have been planted to gather information, and plans call for U.S. military police and the Afghan National Police to have blanketed Kandahar with 11 security stations by the end of September. Intelligence-led operations will target what Carter calls "a resilient insurgency."
Simultaneously, development projects are to be rolled out, including temporary measures to boost electric power, which is not expected to come on full stream until 2014.
But perhaps the toughest, and most essential, nut to crack will be the parallel, warlord government that has taken root in a vacuum left by the decimation of tribal leadership and the absence of effective Kabul governance. Among several families essentially running the city is that of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of President Hamid Karzai who has shown little inclination to remove his relative despite widespread allegations of his involvement in racketeering, drug-trafficking and assassinations of rivals. The younger Karzai denies those allegations.
"The problem in Kandahar is that the population views government institutions as predatory and illegitimate, representing the interests of key power-brokers rather than the populace," wrote the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War last month.
An earlier survey of the province, roughly the size of Israel, showed endemic corruption, along with a lack of security and basic services. The situation "sets conditions for a disenfranchised population to respond either by not supporting the government, or worse yet, supporting the Taliban," it says.
Eighty-five percent of respondents in the survey, funded by the U.S. Army, said they regarded the Taliban as "our Afghan brothers." Most were against the "Cooperation for Kandahar" mission.
NATO commanders concede that transforming mafia-style rule with a semblance of clean, representative government along with other tasks are a massive undertaking.
Will there be enough time to do it?
"Kandahar's significance is political rather than operational. If (NATO commander Gen. David) Petraeus fails to achieve success there by next summer, President Obama will have a very difficult time making the case that his Afghan strategy is working. In that event, time will run out," says Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of international relations and history at Boston University, and a Vietnam War veteran.
And politics do not seem to be on Obama's side. A nationwide poll this month conducted by The Associated Press and GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications showed 58 percent of Americans opposed the conflict, while only 38 percent supported Obama's expanded war effort.
"Eleven months are enough to make a dent. But (U.S.) counterinsurgency doctrine presupposes a long term commitment," says Arturo Munoz, an expert on Afghanistan at the RAND Corporation, referring to Obama's pledge to begin pulling U.S. troops out of the country in July next year. "The current doctrine constitutes a viable and effective strategy. The big question is whether the American body politic is willing to expend the resources, time and blood needed to implement it."
A study by the RAND think tank looking at 90 insurgencies since 1945 found it took an average of 14 years to defeat insurgents. The current U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine — COIN for short — was adopted just three years ago in Iraq. Focused on protecting and winning over the population, COIN is summarized as "shape, clear, hold, and build."
The doctrine has its critics.
"The U.S. is still conceptualizing a war it should be actively fighting as if the next year were somehow to be the first year of the war," writes insurgency expert Anthony H. Cordesman in a recent study for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric Olson, has said too much emphasis is being placed on protecting locals and not enough on fighting the enemy. "Counterinsurgency should involve countering the insurgents," he says.
Some of COIN's key assumptions were questioned at a March conference in England of government officials, military officers, aid agencies and academics.
Rather than winning hearts and minds, a conference summary said, aid may have the opposite effect when "many Afghans believe the main cause of insecurity to be their government, which is perceived to be massively corrupt, predatory and unjust."
With the clock ticking, COIN faces its first major test of the 9-year war in Kandahar.
___
Denis D. Gray is The Associated Press bureau chief in Bangkok, Thailand, and has reported on Asia for more than 30 years.
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7 US troops killed in latest Afghanistan fighting
By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Seven U.S. troops have died in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, while officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign aides working for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.
Two servicemen died in bombings Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday, and three in fighting in the east the same day, NATO said. Their identities and other details were being withheld until relatives could be notified.
The latest deaths bring to 42 the number of American forces who have died this month in Afghanistan after July's high of 66. A total of 62 international forces have died in the country this month, including seven British troops.
Fighting is intensifying with the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to bring the total number of international forces in Afghanistan to 140,000 — 100,000 of them American. Most of those new troops have been assigned to the southern insurgent strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces where major battles are fought almost daily as part of a gathering drive to push out the Taliban.
The five campaign workers were snatched Wednesday by armed men who stopped their two-vehicle convoy as it drove through remote countryside. Five others traveling in the vehicles had earlier been set free, according to a man who answered the phone at the home of candidate Fawzya Galani and declined to give his name.
Residents of Herat's Adraskan district reported finding the bodies early Sunday. They were later transported to the local morgue for identification by family members, district chief Nasar Ahmad Popul said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the killings, although Taliban insurgents have waged a bloody campaign of murder and intimidation against candidates and election workers in hopes of sabotaging the Sept. 18 parliamentary polls the 249 seats in the lower house.
In a similar attack in Herat, male parliamentary candidate Abdul Manan was shot and killed Saturday on his way to a mosque by an assassin traveling on the back of a motorcycle.
Meanwhile Sunday, two suicide bombers attempted to climb over the back wall of a compound housing the governor of the far western province of Farah, but were spotted by guards and shot, provincial police Chief Mohammad Faqir Askir said.
The men's vests exploded, although it wasn't clear if they detonated themselves or because they were hit by bullets, Askir said.
The explosions blasted a chunk out of the wall and blew out windows in the compound, but there were no other reports of deaths or injuries, he said.
NATO said eight insurgents were killed in joint Afghan-NATO operations Saturday night in the province of Paktiya, including a Taliban commander, Naman, accused of coordinating roadside bomb attacks and the movement of ammunition, supplies and fighters.
Automatic weapons, grenades, magazines and bomb-making material were found in buildings in Zormat district along the mountainous border with Pakistan. Afghan leaders frequently complain that Pakistan is doing too little to prevent cross-border incursions and shut down insurgent safe havens inside its territory.
Just to the south in Khost province, U.S. and Afghan troops raised the death toll among insurgents to more than 30 in simultaneous attacks Saturday by about 50 fighters on Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman, where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack in December.
Insurgents wore replica American uniforms and at least 13 had strapped themselves into suicide bomb vests, NATO said.
The early morning raids appeared to be part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around Kandahar.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said two Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in the fighting, although NATO said there had been no deaths among the defenders. Four U.S. troops were wounded, NATO officials said.
U.S. and Afghan officials blamed the attack on the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based faction of the Taliban with close ties to al-Qaida. In follow-up operations Sunday, a Haqqani commander involved in the attacks and two other insurgents were detained in Khost's Sabari district, NATO said.
NATO also said it launched an airstrike in the northern province of Kunduz on three insurgents, including a commander with the Taliban-allied Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan responsible for recruiting foreign fighters and leading attacks. At least one of the three was killed and another wounded, the alliance said.
NATO has stepped up efforts to provide security to allow an election whose outcome will be generally accepted as credible, hoping that will help stabilize the nation's fractious politics that are helping fuel the violence.
Yet frictions have continued to mar the relationship between the government of President Hamid Karzai and its international partners, largely over the knotty question of endemic official corruption.
On Saturday, the government criticized U.S. media reports that numerous Afghan officials had allegedly received payments from the CIA — including one who reportedly took a bribe to block a wide-ranging probe into graft.
A presidential office statement did not address or deny any specific allegations, but called the reports an insult to the government and an attempt to defame people within it.
The statement came the same day as a top graft-battling Afghan prosecutor said he had been forced into retirement.
Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar has complained that Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko and others are blocking corruption cases against high-ranking government officials. He said Aloko wrote a retirement letter for him earlier in the week and that Karzai accepted it.
Officials said Sunday that Faqiryar had been retired because he was 72, two years over the mandatory retirement age.
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Bodies of 5 campaign workers found in western Afghanistan
By the CNN Wire Staff August 29, 2010
(CNN) -- The bodies of five kidnapped parliamentary campaign workers were found Sunday in a remote district of Herat province in western Afghanistan, said Naqibullah Arwin, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Arwin said the workers were campaigning for Fawzia Gelani, a female candidate. The workers drove to the area three days ago when a group of insurgents kidnapped and later shot them dead, he said.
A fellow candidate, Abdul Manan, was assassinated Sunday in the same province. Manan was shot in the city of Shindand by a man who approached him on a motorcycle, the NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced.
He died en route to a hospital, ISAF said in a statement.
The election to select members of the Afghan parliament -- the Wolesi Jirga -- is set for September 18. The election had been slated for May, but was postponed due to security concerns and other issues.
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Karzai wants change in Afghan war strategy
(AFP)
KABUL — President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday Washington's war strategy for Afghanistan needed a rethink, as a Taliban-led insurgency gathers pace and foreign forces casualties surge.
Karzai made the comments to the visiting Norbert Lammert, president of the German parliament, the Afghan president's office said in a statement.
"Speaking about Afghanistan and regional security (Karzai) said that the strategy of the war on terrorism must be reassessed," the statement said.
"The experience over the past eight years showed that fighting (Taliban) in Afghan villages has been ineffective and is not achieving anything but killing civilians."
Rethinking counter-insurgency strategies in Afghanistan was the war-torn country's most pressing need, Karzai said.
"This has become a serious need in the current situation," he was quoted saying.
Earlier in the week, the Western-backed Karzai told American officials that Washington and its NATO allies must shift their military focus to insurgent hideouts on the Pakistani side of the border.
Speaking to US congressmen on Thursday Karzai said the US-led military campaign against Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan had not made progress, blaming the shortcomings on Washington's handling of post-Taliban Afghanistan.
"The lack of progress in the war on terror has two factors: one the terror sanctuaries have not been addressed and second because civilians were killed during this war," he said.
He also said that President Obama's plans to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan next year had boosted Taliban spirits.
A US-led invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001.
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ISAF: Taliban commander captured in Afghanistan
By the CNN Wire Staff August 29, 2010
(CNN) -- Afghan and international forces captured a senior Taliban commander in Logar provice, NATO's International Security Assistance Force announced Sunday.
Zia Ul-Haq is accused of helping foreign fighters and suicide bombers get into the capital, Kabul.
He was captured along with a sub-commander and another insurgent on Wednesday, ISAF said in a statement.
The military surrounded a series of compounds in Pul-e 'Alam district and ordered everyone to come out, they said. They identified the three Taliban fighters by questioning everyone at the scene, they said.
They did not fire a shot during the operation, they said.
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Afghanistan's blasted Buddhas beckon tourists
Sun Aug 29, 3:11 AM
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two empty niches facing over a lush green valley towards the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains stand in silent testimony to Bamiyan's rich past -- and its uncertain future.
Afghanistan's northeastern jewel is the war-ravaged country's best hope for reviving a tourism industry that was a hippy trail fixture during the Sixties, when Westerners came to hang out near the world's tallest Buddha statues.
They became symbolic of mindless Taliban brutality when in 2001, months before their regime was overthrown, the Islamists dynamited the statues -- which they branded idolatrous -- that had stood sentinel for 1,500 years.
While the mostly ethnic Hazara population -- Shia Muslims to the Taliban's Sunni -- have managed to ensure Bamiyan is the most peaceful part of the country, that reputation is being threatened by insurgent encroachment.
Two recent incidents have dented Bamiyan's calm: the death in a July Taliban attack of a soldier from New Zealand, which runs the reconstruction effort, and an insurgent ambush that left six Afghan civilians dead.
Nevertheless, Bamiyan -- marked by dramatic ochre cliffs towering over the ancient Silk Road that once linked Asian trade to the West -- is starting to lure hardcore adventure tourists back to its World Heritage wonders.
"I can't believe my eyes, they are so amazing," Mohammad Hashim, from Kabul, said during a recent visit to the endless network of Buddhist caves dug into the sharp sandstone overhang.
"It's a pity they're no longer there," he said, pointing to the massive niches carved into the rock that housed the two Buddha sculptures -- one 53 metres (173 feet) tall, the other 35 metres.
The niches, which dominate Bamiyan city, the eponymous capital of the province, are being restored as a UN World Heritage site, and there is talk that Japanese funding could rebuild the sculptures, too.
Proposals by both local and foreign organisations to reconstruct the statues from the shattered remains are being discussed.
Bamiyan was once the centrepiece of Afghanistan's tourism industry and even after three decades of invasion, civil war and insurgency has a friendly, peaceful charm that seems incongruous in the otherwise volatile country.
But the violence -- which began with the Soviet invasion in 1978 -- wiped out tourism.
Officials are well aware of the area's potential, however, and are determined to showcase Bamiyan's beauty and put it back on the international travel map.
A series of festivals has given visitors a taste of the local sporting and music scene, and there is talk of a ski resort being developed to energise the economy in one of the poorest regions in one of the most impoverished countries in the world.
The number of people visiting Bamiyan appears to have stayed static in recent years and they are mostly Western aid workers based in Afghanistan, said Amir Foladi, head of the Bamiyan Ecotourism Programme.
About 800 came in 2008, and 750 last year, he said.
The renewed presence of the Taliban, and the negative publicity generated by a war that is dragging towards its 10th year with the presence of almost 150,000 US-led troops, is threatening the revival.
But tourism officials say recent incidents are an aberration and insist the risks are low.
"We have full security," said Gul Husien, a tourist guide working at the newly-opened Bamiyan tourist information centre.
"What we don't have are tourists."
For a Dutch aid worker who gave her name only as Elizabeth, citing security reasons for not revealing her surname, a visit of a few days was not enough.
"It is so beautiful. I could easily spend two weeks here," said Elizabeth, who works in northern Afghanistan and with her husband Cor traded a vacation abroad for trip to Bamiyan.
The Bamiyan Ecotourism Programme was launched last year and is hosting a spring and summer festival that showcases the province's natural riches and is held on the banks of Band-e-Amir, 80 km (50 miles) outside the city.
The Band-e-Amir complex of five deep blue lakes -- their colour attributed to the rich mineral content of the water -- has an other-worldly beauty that from the air looks like a stylised painting of a fantasy world.
The area was heavily mined by militias and Taliban alike, and a lack of ecological protection has seen some damage caused by animal grazing -- which has led to topsoil erosion and landslides -- and fishing with dynamite.
In 2004 the area was submitted for recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site and in 2008 it became Afghanistan's first national park.
Foladi said that since the fall of the Taliban, up to 80,000 tourists have visited the lakes, despite a lack of facilities.
The Afghan government's awareness that tourism brings in much-needed cash, along with support from aid organisations such as the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN) means the environment is being protected and local traditions nurtured.
"Running these festivals has two main purposes," said Robert Thelen, who heads the Bamiyan programme for the AKDN, run by the Agha Khan, the billionaire leader of the Shia Ismaili sect, to which many Hazara belong.
"Firstly to bring an economic benefit to the communities. The second purpose is to help encourage local traditions as tourist attractions," Thelen said.
The programme commissioned research last year that found 10 of Bamiyan's valleys would be suitable for skiing, if winter adrenalin junkies could be persuaded to make their seasonal trip a touch more adventurous.
Business is at least improving for those catering to the latest batch of tourists.
"I'm very happy, business was very good today," said Sayed Hussein, owner of a restaurant on the shores of azure lakes, where thousands of people gathered in July for the second Bamiyan Silk Road Festival.
Surveying the crowd, Foladi nodded his approval.
"This is definitely a good sign for the local economy," he said.
But, he conceded, rebuilding Bamiyan's tourism industry to the heights it enjoyed 40 years ago, is still a distant dream.
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AFGHANISTAN: Education aid - an apparent success story in Faryab Province
29 Aug 2010 10:38:21 GMT
KABUL, 29 August 2010 (IRIN) - Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway.
Over 120 new schools have been built in the province over the past few years and 40-50 more will follow in the next two years, with Norwegian development assistance.
"Faryab's educational needs have been met by the new schools," said Gul Agha Ahmadi, a spokesman of the Ministry of Education.
For an estimated population of 800,000 there are 423 state schools, 20 religious seminaries, two teacher training institutes and one vocational training centre in the province, according to the Education Ministry.
Over 40 percent of the total 282,080 students in the province are female.
Faryab is a success story in a country where almost half of the 12,600 schools nationwide do not have a building (classes are held in the open or in tents), officials said.
"We want to concentrate our efforts in a few development sectors. What is important is that Norwegian taxpayers want to see some concrete results," Kåre R. Aas, the outgoing Norwegian ambassador to Afghanistan, told IRIN.
Norway's flag and other official symbols are not used on the schools which, according to some experts, have helped keep them immune from armed attacks. Schools, students and teachers have often been attacked and harassed by gunmen allegedly associated with Taliban insurgents.
At least 20 percent of Norway's US$125 million annual aid budget for Afghanistan goes to Faryab Province, where about 500 Norwegian soldiers are stationed as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
The rest of the aid is spent on projects elsewhere in the country, at the discretion of the Afghan government.
Aid and the military
NATO-member states have troops in different parts of the country, where they are also engaged in aid activities through the so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).
Aid agencies have criticized the involvement of PRTs in humanitarian and development projects, labelling the process "aid militarization".
"Our military has no involvement in our civilian development projects," said Aas, adding that his country's aid was strongly "scrutinized and monitored" in order to prevent mismanagement and corruption.
But he conceded that not all aid projects in which Norwegian money was involved, had been corruption-free: "We have closed down some projects after corruption charges against specific projects which we supported," Aas said.
Education Ministry officials said Norway's school building projects were planned in collaboration with the government and implemented by NGOs.
Helmand versus Faryab
Afghanistan's 2004 constitution insists on geographical equity in terms of development projects and the delivery of services, but the reality is different. In terms of education, the southern province of Helmand, severely affected by the insurgency, appears to lag far behind Faryab Province.
Though it has roughly the same population as Faryab, Helmand has only 282 schools of which over 150 have been closed due to insecurity and lack of teachers, provincial officials said.
But Pierre Fallavier, director of the Kabul-based independent think-tank Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, introduced a note of caution: "Building schools does not mean improving education - any more than building a hospital means improving health care," adding that the focus on education was good but not at the cost of other important issues.
The reasons children do not go to school include the lack of safe road access, the lack of clean school toilets, parents' financial situations as well as their attitudes towards education, said Fallavier.
Up to seven million students are currently enrolled at schools across Afghanistan, according to the Education Ministry, indicating significant progress since 2001 when only two million (boys only) were enrolled.
However, about five million school-age children, mostly girls in the insecure southern and eastern provinces, are still being deprived of an education due to war, poverty, lack of schools and social restrictions, the Education Ministry said.
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Afghanistan eyes wheat price amid import needs
by Lynne O'donnell – Sun Aug 29, 3:03 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan authorities are keeping a close eye on world wheat prices as they seek to boost strategic stocks ahead of winter and ensure that demand is met as some traditional suppliers halt exports.
Afghanistan is among the most vulnerable countries in the world for food supply, according to the Food Security Risk Index 2010, compiled with the UN's World Food Programme.
The country, one of the world's poorest, faces a shortfall of 700,000 tonnes of wheat, the mainstay of the Afghan diet, the agriculture ministry said.
Afghanistan usually imports most of its annual shortfall from Russia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.
Devastating natural disasters -- floods in Pakistan, drought in Russia -- meant Kabul would rely on Kazakhstan this year, said Majidullah Qarar, ministry spokesman.
"This year's output of wheat is predicted at 4.5 million tonnes while the need for wheat this year is 5.2 million tonnes, which means we need 700,000 tonnes of wheat to make up for the shortfall in production," he told AFP.
While the world has plenty of wheat this year, thanks to good harvests and high stockpiles in major producers such as the United States and Australia, prices spiked on the back of Russia's decision to ban exports.
Russia, the world's third-largest wheat exporter, has banned grain exports until December due to drought and fires that have destroyed millions of hectares (acres).
Russia also slashed its 2010 grain harvest forecast to 70-75 million tonnes, compared with a harvest of 97 million tonnes in 2009.
Last year Russia exported 21.4 million tonnes of grain and observers had already warned exports could be sharply lower this year.
The move stung world wheat markets, sending prices to two-year highs and sparking worries of a crisis in global food supplies.
Wheat soared to 8.68 dollars a bushel (about 25 kilograms) on August 6 but by Friday on the Chicago Board of Trade, wheat for delivery in December had fallen to 6.87 dollars a bushel, from 7.12 dollars the previous week.
Supplies from Pakistan have been hit by floods swamping large swathes of the country, turning need inwards but also destroying transportation routes to Afghanistan.
Pakistan would probably be an importer this year as "80 percent of the farmers in flood-hit areas have lost their wheat stock and seeds," said Pakistan's food and agriculture minister Nazar Mohammad Gondal.
For Afghan needs, that left Kazakhstan, the former Soviet republic to the north, Qarar said.
"Kazakhstan's output of wheat has dropped but it can still export six to seven million tonnes of wheat (so) we can easily purchase the required 700,000 tonnes from Kazakhstan," he said.
A spokesman for the Kazakh ministry of agriculture said he had not heard about any such request from Afghanistan but confirmed that Kazakhstan would be able to meet the 700,000-tonne wheat shortfall if asked.
"In principal Kazakhstan has the export potential, but it all depends on the requests of the government of Afghanistan," spokesman Talgat Makhanov said.
Afghanistan's strategic stockpile currently held about 85,000 tonnes, said Suzanne Poland, an agronomist in Kabul with USAID, Washington's aid arm.
"Everyone is keeping an eye on prices but supply as a factor at the moment isn't like 2008, when there was a shortage," she said, referring to the global tightening of cereal supply that led to record prices.
Afghanistan's 2009 wheat crop was "a record breaker" at 4.1 million tonnes, triple the output of a year earlier, she said, adding: "We've got lots of wheat, price is the factor."
As a landlocked and mountainous country, Afghanistan is vulnerable to price spikes because it must import most of its consumption needs.
In common with other under-developed countries, the cost of producing wheat is higher than in exporting countries, raising the potential for cheaper imports to undercut the local produce.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said wheat flour prices in Afghanistan "remain below the five-year average," at about 14 afghanis (33 US cents) per kilo.
Poland said authorities were considering cutting the 16 percent wheat import tariff, though the impact on domestic producers would be the deciding factor.
"So far the impact on food security in Afghanistan has been minor. It's something we need to watch but there is no cause for alarm," she said.
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Afghanistan's dirty little secret
San Francisco Chronicle Joel Brinkley Saturday, August 28, 2010
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.
President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.
As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."
He added, "I didn't see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time." He, too, declined to be identified.
In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."
So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia?
Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.
"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."
Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli's team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and asked, "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?"
That helps explain why women are hidden away - and stoned to death if they are perceived to have misbehaved. Islamic law also forbids homosexuality. But the pedophiles explain that away. It's not homosexuality, they aver, because they aren't in love with their boys.
Addressing the loathsome mistreatment of Afghan women remains a primary goal for coalition governments, as it should be.
But what about the boys, thousands upon thousands of little boys who are victims of serial rape over many years, destroying their lives - and Afghan society.
"There's no issue more horrifying and more deserving of our attention than this," Cardinalli said. "I'm continually haunted by what I saw."
As one boy, in tow of a man he called "my lord," told the Reuters reporter: "Once I grow up, I will be an owner, and I will have my own boys."
Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times. Contact The Chronicle via our online form: sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1.
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President Karzai Modifying Election Law in His Favor
EurasiaNet By Aunohita Mojumdar 28/08/2010
A EurasiaNet Q & A with Grant Kippen, former Chairman of the Electoral Complaints Commission
President Hamid Karzai has taken action to substantially curtail the independence of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission before parliamentary elections scheduled for this September.
The ECC gained prominence in 2009 after it uncovered widespread fraud during the presidential elections last August. Citing "clear and convincing evidence of fraud," the ECC forced the invalidation of over a million votes cast in favor of Karzai.
Though Karzai eventually secured reelection, the voting irregularities considerably damaged the president's image, as well as undermined the image of the government-appointed Independent Election Commission. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In February, calling for the removal of "foreign interference" from the Afghan electoral process, Karzai used a loophole in the constitution to force through legislation that allows him to appoint all five board members of the ECC. Prior to the introduction of the new rule, the United Nations had appointed three of the five board members. Thus, the ECC essentially came under presidential control, a development that stands to significantly diminish its ability to play a non-partisan role in Afghanistan's democratic development.
The Canadian chairman of the previous ECC, Grant Kippen, a veteran of Afghan electoral processes, remained unflappable during the August elections despite "considerable domestic political pressure and interference" from Karzai's government.
Now, in an email interview with EurasiaNet, Kippen, who is now in Canada, speaks out for the first time about his frustrations, describing government pressure and noting that the government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC) did not follow the law.
EurasiaNet. What do you think was the contribution of the Electoral Complaints Commission to the electoral process and the credibility of the August 2009 presidential elections? Kippen: For me personally, I think the greatest contribution to the process was that the ECC did its job properly as it is defined under the election law. We had over 3,000 complaints that were investigated and adjudicated during the elections process, which was no small feat. ? Contrary to how many people perceived the ECC, we were an Afghan electoral body where the vast majority of the staff were Afghans, which should be an enormous source of pride for the Afghan people.
EurasiaNet: The new electoral law introduced by President Karzai has a controversial clause that ends the right of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General (the top UN official in Afghanistan) to appoint three members to the ECC and gives the president the sole right to appoint members. What is your view of this change? Will it impact the credibility of future elections? Kippen: While it is important to recognize and respect the sovereignty of the government of Afghanistan to enact its own laws, it would be misleading to think that "Afghanizing" the ECC will automatically ensure a better quality complaints adjudication process. I think there are few people who would argue with the statement that there were serious problems with the electoral process last year. In order to address these problems, however, there should be an open, objective and public assessment completed about what went wrong. Only after that assessment can we properly identify the changes that should be made. Amending the electi
on law prior to such an assessment is like putting a cart before the horse.
EurasiaNet: President Karzai argued that he was removing foreign interference from the elections in changing the law, pointing to the ECC's role last August. How do you react to this charge that there was interference? Kippen: The ECC went to great lengths throughout the entire electoral cycle to ensure that all candidates and their campaign teams, both for presidential and provincial council [polls], were fully informed about the role and processes of the ECC. During the audit and recount, we met or had communications with both President Karzai and Dr. Abdullah's campaign teams on almost a daily basis, in addition to placing all our information in the public domain through our website and the media. While I can understand President Karzai's frustration with the ECC decision that resulted in a second round being required, the ECC was not subjected to any international pressure, but did have to deal with considerable domestic political pressure and interference. [One of two Afghan ECC commissioners] Maulawi [M
ustafa] Barakzai's resignation was a direct result of domestic political pressure. Fahim Hakim, the ECC's other Afghan commissioner, was also subjected to intense domestic pressure.
EurasiaNet: The IEC clearly did not implement all the decisions of the ECC as it was legally bound to do and yet the international community, especially the United States and the UN, signed off on the process, saying the IEC had upheld the constitution and the laws. Didn't this set the stage for further erosion of these institutions and laws? Kippen: It is unfortunate that the IEC did not respect the election law by fully implementing the ECC decisions. I would ask why the government of Afghanistan allowed this to happen.
EurasiaNet: There was a lot of talk on the need for electoral reforms following the presidential elections. What major areas did you think needed reform? Kippen: I wouldn't want to prejudge such an assessment, but one of the areas for major reform is within the IEC itself, as they repeatedly during the elections last year failed to discharge their responsibilities as defined under the law.
Another area requiring major reform is educating all major stakeholder groups about their roles and responsibilities during the election process. By stakeholder groups I mean candidates, their supporters, public officials (national, provincial and district level; police, border police, governors, army, etc., ministry officials particularly at the provincial and district level). One of the major reasons for electoral violations was that many of the people within these stakeholder groups didn't have even a basic level of knowledge about the process itself.
EurasiaNet: Much attention has centered on the process of conducting elections and the flaws therein. Would you say that the problems are a result of a larger neglect of the entire electoral process and the lack of support given to the institutions in the period between elections? Kippen: I completely agree. The four years between the 2005 [parliamentary] and 2009 [presidential] elections were squandered in terms of building up the knowledge and skill sets of people in the major stakeholder groups identified above. More attention and effort also needed to be spent on voter education, which was a recommendation contained in many of the observer group reports from 2005 (and [the first presidential elections in] 2004) but which was not funded or implemented.
EurasiaNet: Now there is talk of democracy perhaps not being the right form of governance for Afghanistan; talk of democracy being an "imposed" western notion. How do you view this? Kippen: The whole point behind this process is to build strong democratic institutions and processes so that Afghans can build the kind of democracy that works for them. But first we need to make sure that these institutions and processes are independent and robust enough to allow Afghans to elect their representatives, as is their right under the constitution, without fear of intimidation or reprisal.
EurasiaNet: How do you look back at your contribution? Do you feel you were used to whitewash a bad process? Or do you feel you contributed to a more credible election? In the light of the charges leveled against the ECC, do you feel disappointed? Hurt? Misused? Kippen: I am enormously proud of the work of the ECC, and in particular of the professionalism, dedication and contribution that all our staff (both Afghan and international) made last year. At the end of the day, the ECC did its job as defined under the election law (despite some fairly major challenges) and this should be a source of pride for all Afghans.
EurasiaNet: What are the long-term implications of this erosion of the credibility of the electoral process? On institutions? On governance? On the ongoing conflict? Kippen: It just highlights the fact that building out sustainable democratic institutions and processes is a long-term endeavor.
EurasiaNet: What might be the best way forward from here? Kippen: I think a new narrative is required to move forward. By this I mean that both the Afghan government and the international community need to develop a new approach and stop this blame game that has been going on since last fall. There needs to be a renewed focus and commitment to improving the process in advance of the next elections. The responsibility is a shared one.
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A Pashtun Writes
The New York Times By Sharifullah Shahak 28/08/2010
KABUL - When I heard about the pregnant woman who was executed by the Taliban, I felt deep sorrow for her — sorrow because she was just a widow who was without a man in her life for four years, and because the man had reportedly told her he would marry her. Where is the crime in that?
I felt anger that the authorities weren’t able to protect her. The Taliban have no right to judge her. The government should protect her, but cannot in such areas.
And I felt confused, as all Afghans do, at how many different laws our people have to live under – the laws of their tribe, or of the Taliban, or of the government. The laws should protect her, but we have so many different laws.
A lot of people probably read about that story and thought, No wonder, they’re just Afghans, or They’re just Pashtuns, what do you expect of such savages?
Well I’m an Afghan, and I am also a Pashtun, and I think what they did, whether it was in the name of religion or tribal custom or whatever, was wrong and horrible.
And I am neither the only Afghan who feels that way, nor the only Pashtun who finds the Taliban’s actions to be extreme. There are many savages in our country, it’s true, because war makes life safe for savages and unsafe for educated people.
When I was growing up my family, like so many Pashtun Afghans, lived as refugees in Pakistan. We looked forward to a day when we could come home to a peaceful Afghanistan, where we could all live in our own country in safety.
We came back with hope, but now we wonder, when we see how unsafe it is in many places, how cruel and unfair it is for people like that pregnant lady, or the couple in Kunduz who were stoned to death because they loved each other.
This is one of the big reasons many of our people lose their faith in this country and leave.
The Non-Law of the Road When the Western coalition came to Afghanistan with their civilians and military forces and set up a new democratic government for us, my family and many others came back to our country and started working here. We thought, “This will be the end of the black days in our lives.”
But when you see all these cruel acts it just makes our people lose hope.
The government is always saying, “We strongly condemn this cruel and inhuman act.” You think is this enough? No, there should be strong government forces to make sure that people are safe and living in a peaceful environment.
Sometimes Afghans there is no law at all to protect us.
Two years ago my father was accosted by a group of men wearing Afghan Army uniforms when he and his colleagues were driving on the road between Gardez and Logar. The men stopped him and were trying to pull people out of his car and take them away. When my father tried to call for help from the American military base in Gardez, the gunmen shot my father in the shoulder and fled.
Whose laws had he broken? Was it the government’s security law — they were wearing government clothes — or was it the non-law of the road?
I dream of living under a democratic rule of law, one that allows for a peaceful environment and provides equal rights. I have no desire for a law that stones people for loving someone, hangs someone for committing a crime, abuses human rights or enforces its rule by gun.
Improvements We are experiencing bad things every day in this country. In most parts of southern Afghanistan girls do not go to school, and when the Provincial Reconstruction Teams build a school for them, local militants blow it up because there is no belief in schools and education. I have seen such schools in many parts of Khost Province.
But Afghans have also seen much change and progress in other areas. Nangarhar Province has paved roads in every district centers. Many schools have been built there, and different types of factories have been constructed, or have opened up again.
I have hopes for this government and the democratic system, but the international community needs to do more to make this government strong, and to gain people’s trust by providing jobs for them.
All we need are an honest and clean government, and good leaders.
Sharifullah Shahak is an Afghan employee of The New York Times in Kabul. Originally from Nangarhar Province, he lived in exile in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar during Afghanistan’s civil war and during the Taliban regime in the 1980s and 1990s. He moved back to Afghanistan in 2004.
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US to Fund 100,000 Extra Afghan Troops
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 28 August 2010
The top commander of the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan said the US president is increasing efforts to enlarge and empower Afghan forces
The United States government has also tripled the number of its military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan in the past few years.
"President Obama in particular made an enormous commitment. We have tripled the number of US forces and the number of the US civilians on the ground and the United States has provided funds for the 100,000 additional Afghan troops," Gen. David Petraeus, the US top commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan told reporters.
Afghan military officials say they have accelerated the training process of the Afghan security forces, and the Afghan forces will take security responsibilities of the entire country by the next four years.
"These forces receive proper training from their Turkish and Afghan tutors, to get ready for the next wars independently and be able to maintain the security of their own country," said Noori Sari, a trainer of the Afghan National Army (ANA).
ANA forces have taken security responsibilities in some parts of Afghanistan.
The US president, Barack Obama, has also pledged to start the gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by July, 2011.
The international community has also emphasised on the Afghan forces to be better trained and well-equipped.
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Petraeus: the US will Press Militant's Havens in Pakistan
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 28 August 2010
The US commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan told reporters in a press conference on Saturday that the Taliban hid-eouts should be pressed outside Afghan borders
While acknowledging the presence of insurgent's sanctuaries in Pakistan, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus remarked that more should be done to bring pressure on these havens.
Insecurities in Afghanistan are sketched in Pakistan. And militants' leaders, Afghan and Pakistani Taliban never participate in the fight against Afghanistan and foreign forces, he said.
The sources of Afghan insurgency should be targeted, he said.
"As I mentioned earlier, there is a very clear recognition that the terrorists and extremists who are seeking to destabilise Afghanistan, and to promote their extremist vision for Afghanistan, those who have sanctuaries and safe havens outside Afghanistan and they have been in deep conversations with our Pakistani partners on this subject and president Karzai has told them as well, I can tell you," he said.
Gen. Petraeus emphasised on fighting against corruption and commented that still insecurity, bad governance, reconstruction and a slow economic growth challenge Afghanistan.
He emphasised on the efforts to decrease civilian deaths in operations conducted by foreign forces and underscored the need for a regional fight to remove insurgents' sanctuaries outside Afghan borders.
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Investigators say helicopters not responsible for Afghan police deaths
By the CNN Wire Staff August 28, 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan - NATO authorities said they haven't found evidence to conclude that coalition helicopters were responsible for the deaths of three Afghan police officers last week in northern Afghanistan.
Initially, it was thought that a NATO International Security Assistance Force air weapons team caused the deaths, but a joint incident assessment team determined that the evidence doesn't bear out that claim. The incident occurred in Jowzjan province on August 21.
The team, made up of Afghan government and ISAF officials, traveled to Mazar-e-Sharif, where they interviewed people involved in the incident and reviewed tapes from the helicopters.
The team said the fighting started "several hours before the helicopters arrived" and "lasted several hours after." That made it possible that casualties came from other small arms or indirect fire before or after the choppers were in the area.
"In their report, the team determined the one Hellfire missile and 80 rounds of 30mm fire impacted a positively-identified insurgent firing position. The review of gun-tape footage clearly indicates the fire provided by the air weapons team impacted a hilltop where enemy activity was present," ISAF said.
An Afghan military official concluded that no coalition fire struck the inside of a compound where Afghan forces were located.
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