 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
U.S. Soldier, Afghan Child Killed By Taliban Attacks
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 9, 2010
NATO says a U.S. soldier was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan today while, in a separate incident during the weekend, an Afghan child was shot dead by militants during a gun battle with NATO forces.
Troops kill 10 insurgents in Taliban birthplace
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and NATO-led troops during a joint operation in Taliban birthplace Kandahar, south Afghanistan, eliminated 10 Taliban insurgents and recued two persons from their custody on Monday, police said.
Karzai Slams 'Foreign Advisers'
Afghan Leader Seeks Ban on Private Security Firms, Escalating Tensions With U.S.
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV And MARIA ABI-HABIB AUGUST 9, 2010
KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at foreign interference and called for a ban on the private security companies that protect many Western installations here, in a speech that ratchets up recent tensions with the U.S. over two American-backed anticorruption agencies.
NATO's unmanned plane crashes in northern Afghan province
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- An unmanned plane of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) crashed in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan on Monday, a press release of the alliance said.
Karzai Holds Talks with Petraeus and Gen. Kayani
August 9, 2010 TOLO news
President Hamid Karzai met with Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Gen. David Petraeus on Monday in Kabul
Aid group to continue work in Afghanistan despite losing 10 workers
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- The director of International Assistance Mission (IAM) on Monday said that his organization will continue to work in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan despite that 10 of its workers were killed brutally on Friday in the country's northeastern Badakhshan province.
Investigators Probe Afghan Aid-Worker Killings
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 9, 2010
Afghan and U.S. investigators are probing the killings of 10 medical aid workers -- eight of them believed to be Westerners -- who were gunned down in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan in a slaughter claimed by the Taliban.
Taliban execute pregnant woman in Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Aug 9, 2010 (AFP) - The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by emptying three shots into her head for alleged adultery, police said on Monday.
Over 1,400 newly graduated Afghan soldiers commissioned to army
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- More than 1400 soldiers and officers graduated on Monday and commissioned to Afghan National Army (ANA), an army officer Mohammad Shapoor said.
Afghan problem: for a regional approach
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan & Karl F. Inderfurth The Hindu (Opinion)
If conditions can be created that would permit Afghanistan to revert to its traditional neutrality, it ought to help in significantly reducing tensions in the region.
The Malik's Answer to Corruption
John Sullivan.Executive Director, Center for International Private Enterprise Huffington Post August 9, 2010 06:02 PM
Contrary to accepted opinion, corruption is not just a grand international scheme. For entrepreneurs, corruption is both local and personal, composed of any number of transactions, skimmings, gifts, bribes, or extortion. To help entrepreneurs fight corruption, so too must the approach and solution be local and personal and consistently applied.
'Tajik Terrorist Suspects' Detained In Northern Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 9, 2010
DUSHANBE -- The Tajik Foreign Ministry says it is investigating whether three men detained three days ago in Afghanistan on suspicion of terrorism are Tajik citizens, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
Why Pakistan is crucial in fight against Taliban
CNN By Sajjan Gohel, Special to CNN August 9, 2010
Editor's note: Sajjan Gohel is International Security Director for the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation and author of the forthcoming "The Evolution of Egyptian Radical Ideological Thought from Hasan al-Banna to Ayman al-Zawahiri." He provides analysis on terrorism, security, defense and geo-political issues to the media, governmental bodies and military departments
Chlorination drive to avert water-borne diseases
KABUL, 9 August 2010 (IRIN) - Health workers in flood-affected parts of Afghanistan are trying to prevent water-borne disease outbreaks by chlorinating drinking water and promptly delivering health services.
Pistachio Crops Increase in Northern Afghanistan
August 9, 2010 TOLO news
The Afghan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said pistachio crops have enhanced by 98 percent in the northern Samangan province this year
Devastated Christian aid group pledges to continue work in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By Joshua Partlow Monday, August 9, 2010
KABUL - During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Christian aid group International Assistance Mission was forced to stop working anywhere outside the capital.
Afghan Former Militants Rejoin Insurgency
IWPR By Zia Ahmadi 08/08/2010
Fighters in Herat defect after government fails to fulfill promises of work and development.
Militants in Herat province of eastern Afghanistan who laid down their weapons in response to government offers of aid and amnesty are rejoining the insurgency after officials failed to deliver on their promises.
U.S. ramps up PR war against Taliban
McClatchy Newspapers By Jonathan S. Landay and Dion Nissenbaum 08/08/2010
In one of his first major initiatives since he took command of the international force in Afghanistan a month ago, Army Gen. David Petraeus has launched a public-relations offensive to focus attention on the Taliban-led insurgency's killings and abuse of Afghan civilians.
Back to Top
U.S. Soldier, Afghan Child Killed By Taliban Attacks
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 9, 2010
NATO says a U.S. soldier was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan today while, in a separate incident during the weekend, an Afghan child was shot dead by militants during a gun battle with NATO forces.
U.S. Major Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the Afghan child was killed on August 8 in the eastern province of Konar when militants attacked a small U.S. outpost in the Watahpur district.
Johnson said the militants fired on the outpost and soldiers saw bullets hit two children nearby, killing one and wounding the other.
The Afghan Human Rights Commission on August 8 reported that 1,325 civilians have been killed in the Afghan conflict since the start of 2010 -- mostly by Taliban militants.
compiled from agency reports
Back to Top
Back to Top
Troops kill 10 insurgents in Taliban birthplace
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and NATO-led troops during a joint operation in Taliban birthplace Kandahar, south Afghanistan, eliminated 10 Taliban insurgents and recued two persons from their custody on Monday, police said.
"The operation involving Afghan police, army and international troops and launched at 04:00 a.m. this morning in second precinct of Kandahar city the provincial capital covering several villages has left 10 Taliban rebels dead," deputy to provincial police chief Fazal Ahmad Shirzad told Xinhua.
Two more innocent people were set free from Taliban captivity during the operation, he further said, adding the two were kidnapped by insurgents. However, he did not give more details.
There were no casualties on the troops, he added.
Meantime, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi in talks with media via telephone from unknown location rejected the claim, saying the militants killed several Afghan and foreign soldiers.
Kandahar, the former stronghold of Taliban, has been the scece of increasing militancy over the past couple of years. Rockets fired by insurgents also injured six civilians in Kandahar city on Sunday night.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Karzai Slams 'Foreign Advisers'
Afghan Leader Seeks Ban on Private Security Firms, Escalating Tensions With U.S.
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV And MARIA ABI-HABIB AUGUST 9, 2010
KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at foreign interference and called for a ban on the private security companies that protect many Western installations here, in a speech that ratchets up recent tensions with the U.S. over two American-backed anticorruption agencies.
"We have the ability to rule and govern our country and we have our sovereignty. We hope that NATO countries and the U.S. pay attention," Mr. Karzai told a gathering of Afghan civil servants in a speech on Saturday. "No Afghan administration will be successful unless it lays off its foreign advisers and replaces them with Afghans."
The call to ban private security companies came a week after a convoy of DynCorp International, which provides security in Afghanistan under a U.S. State Department contract, was involved in a car accident that killed an Afghan civilian in Kabul. The accident sparked rioting and anti-American protests.
The 10 aid workers killed last week as they returned to Kabul from a remote part of the country didn't have a security detail.
The Afghan leader's defiant weekend speech came days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Mr. Karzai to press him to live up to his anticorruption commitments, according to U.S. officials, warning that his recent attempt to weaken two U.S.-mentored antigraft agencies could endanger the chances of congressional approval for billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan.
Mr. Karzai, Afghan officials say, told her that the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigative Unit—which investigate high-level corruption in the Afghan government and operate with heavy involvement from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency—have violated the Afghan constitution.
"We don't want our Afghan administration to be run by two different sets of people and to be accountable to two different sources. It's destroying the national sovereignty of Afghanistan and we will not allow it," Mr. Karzai said in his Saturday speech.
The State Department said Sunday that the Afghan government last week "reiterated its commitment to fighting corruption" and that it was expected soon to "further define regulations" relating to the MCTF and the SIU. The department said the U.S. looks forward to working with the Afghan government to help implement Mr. Karzai's pledges "to increase transparency, accountability and tackle corruption."
The latest confrontation with Washington flared after the MCTF and the SIU last month, without Mr. Karzai's approval, raided the home of a senior Afghan presidential aide who had been taped while allegedly soliciting a bribe.
The scandal is threatening to become the most serious crisis in the U.S.'s relations with Mr. Karzai since the controversy over accusations of widespread fraud in the presidential elections a year ago. Mrs. Clinton phoned Mr. Karzai last week after he created a commission to oversee the MCTF and the SIU.
The rift over the agencies appears to have wiped out any residual goodwill from Mr. Karzai's May trip to Washington, where he was praised for his pledges to clean up the Afghan government.
Mr. Karzai has also had a stormy beginning with the new U.S.-led coalition commander, Gen. David Petraeus. U.S. commanders were upset last month when Mr. Karzai issued a statement condemning coalition forces for allegedly causing 52 civilian casualties in a rocket attack in Helmand. The coalition military says it had no record of carrying out such an attack—and that local hospitals had no record of such casualties from that area.
"The people who are working in private security companies are against Afghan national interest, and their salaries are illegal money. They are thieves during the day and terrorists during the night," Mr. Karzai said in Saturday's speech. "If they want to serve Afghanistan they have to join the Afghan police."
A coalition spokesman, U.S. Air Force Maj. Joel Harper, said the international forces are "working with the Afghan government to build its police capabilities and capacity so that private security companies are no longer required."
Many of the 52 registered security companies operating in Afghanistan are foreign, but some of the bigger ones are Afghan-owned, and have close links with prominent government officials and members of Mr. Karzai's family. They employ an estimated 30,000 people.
Private companies provide security for Western diplomatic missions and aid agencies, coalition installations, hotels and major infrastructure such as airports. They also guard supply convoys that bring vital goods to landlocked Afghanistan from neighboring countries.
Many Western government agencies and contractors operating in Afghanistan are wary of relying on the Afghan police force, which is often infiltrated by the Taliban.
"There aren't enough state or international security forces to provide all the services that private security companies do," said John Dempsey, an analyst at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
There is no firm deadline for shutting down the security firms, but Mr. Karzai wants them closed "as soon as possible," said the president's chief spokesman, Waheed Omar, on Saturday. "The process needs to start," he said.
In mid-July, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, had held up the MCTF in Senate testimony as proof of Mr. Karzai's seriousness in curbing graft. That followed a move in June by a congressional panel to freeze some $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan, after The Wall Street Journal reported that billions of dollars in cash—some of it in aid money—was being taken out each year through Kabul's international airport.
The Kabul offices of the financial company most prominent in this outflow, the New Ansari Exchange, were raided by the SIU in January. The company has connections with senior members of the Afghan government and some of Mr. Karzai's relatives.
New Ansari has denied any wrongdoing.
The presidential aide detained by the MCTF and SIU last month, Mohammed Zia Saleh, head of administration for Afghanistan's National Security Council, was taped while allegedly discussing a bribe in the form of a car for quashing an the New Ansari investigation.
Mr. Saleh, who has been freed on Afghan government orders, couldn't be located to comment.
According to Western and Afghan officials, the MCTF and SIU are working normally so far, and their sensitive investigation files—including those targeting senior government figures—haven't been taken by Mr. Karzai's commission, which is headed by Attorney General Ishaq Aloko.
Asked whether the files could be seized, an aide to Mr. Karzai said: "The president issued an order asking the commission to review all the cases, so it could happen." —Habib Totakhil and Habib Zahori contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Back to Top
Back to Top
NATO's unmanned plane crashes in northern Afghan province
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- An unmanned plane of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) crashed in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan on Monday, a press release of the alliance said.
"An International Security Assistance Force unmanned aerial vehicle went down in Kunduz province today," the press release added.
It also added that the vehicle, a German Army Kleinflugger Zielortung, or KZO, was remotely piloted from a ground station and contains no weapons or intelligence that could be exploited by enemy forces.
Meantime, authorities in Kunduz province told Xinhua that the pilotless plane went down in Ludin area, a suburban of provincial capital Kunduz city at 01:30 a.m. local time but caused no loss of life or damage.
This is the second unmanned plane of NATO-led troops crashed in the northern Kunduz province over the past month.
In the previous incident similar pilotless plane went down in Qalai Zal district couple of weeks ago.
Four NATO soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan's troubled southern region over the past two days, bringing the number of NATO-led forces fatalities to over 420 since beginning this year in the militancy-hit country.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Karzai Holds Talks with Petraeus and Gen. Kayani
August 9, 2010 TOLO news
President Hamid Karzai met with Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Gen. David Petraeus on Monday in Kabul
Gen. Kayani and Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan provided the Afghan President with the information about the previous joint Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO summit which was held in Kabul.
The purpose of this high profile Pakistani military official's visit is to participate in the upcoming joint summit.
The visit of Pakistan's Army Chief comes as, WikiLeaks disclosed more than 90,000 US military logs on the Afghan war in which Pakistan's tie with the Taliban was clearly noted and the documents also revealed Pakistan's support to the Taliban insurgency.
In an interview published on Saturday by an Iranian website, the former head of Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) General Hamid Gull who is currently head of Afghanistan desk in the oraganisation had said Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban is supported by the US.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks acknowledged it will soon publish some more secret US military logs on the Afghan war.
The spokesperson for the WikiLeaks, Daniel Schmitt remarked that the leak of files can help increase the understanding of people to what is going on in the regions.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Aid group to continue work in Afghanistan despite losing 10 workers
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- The director of International Assistance Mission (IAM) on Monday said that his organization will continue to work in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan despite that 10 of its workers were killed brutally on Friday in the country's northeastern Badakhshan province.
"As things stand right now, the IAM is not thinking of withdrawal from Afghanistan," Drik R. Frans told a press conference here.
"Our NGO (Non Governmental Organization) has worked here for well over four decades, and we remember that there were times when security was much worse than it is now," he said in his speech to newsmen.
Police in Badakhshan's remote Kuran-o-Munjan district found 10 bullet-ridden bodies of IAM workers last Friday.
A day later, on Saturday the Taliban hard-liner, in talks with media, claimed responsibility for the killings, accusing them of preaching Christianity and spying for NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan, a claim rejected by the IAM as groundless, saying they medicated and served the poor Afghans.
Frans also stressed that the victims including six Americans, a German and a Briton, all were volunteers and served the Afghan people.
He also confirmed that two Afghans were also among the victims.
The aid agency, IAM, according to the official, has been working in Afghanistan since 1966 and has 550 employees including 50 expatriates.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Investigators Probe Afghan Aid-Worker Killings
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 9, 2010
Afghan and U.S. investigators are probing the killings of 10 medical aid workers -- eight of them believed to be Westerners -- who were gunned down in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan in a slaughter claimed by the Taliban.
Initial indications have suggested the slain volunteers include five U.S. men and three women, from the United States, Britain, and Germany, and two Afghans.
At least one Afghan, a driver, is reported to have survived the attack.
The unarmed group had been treating villagers in northern Afghanistan for eye diseases and other ailments before it was attacked last week.
U.S. Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement on August 8 calling the killings a "despicable act of wanton violence."
Clinton rejected a Taliban claim that the foreigners had tried to convert Afghans to Christianity, calling this claim a "transparent attempt to justify the unjustifiable by making false accusations about their activities."
Addressing Afghans in a video message, Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said it was not yet confirmed that the Taliban had carried out the killings. But he said the killings show the "disregard" that extremists have for ordinary Afghans.
"The Taliban has called this group of medical aid workers spies and proselytizers," Eikenberry said. "They were no such thing. These were selfless volunteers who devoted themselves to providing free and much-needed health care to Afghans in the most remote and difficult parts of your country."
The U.S. ambassador added: "Their murder demonstrates the absolute disregard that terrorist-inspired Taliban and other insurgents have for your health, have for your security and have for your opportunities. They don't care about your future. They only care about themselves and their own ideology."
The foreign medical aid team had been organized by the International Assistance Mission, which describes itself as a Christian nongovernmental health and economic development aid organization.
The International Assistance Mission says its volunteers are not involved in preaching Christianity in Afghanistan.
compiled from agency reports
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban execute pregnant woman in Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Aug 9, 2010 (AFP) - The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by emptying three shots into her head for alleged adultery, police said on Monday.
Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province Badghis.
The Taliban accused Sanubar of having an "illicit affair" that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi told AFP.
"She was shot in the head in public while she was still pregnant," Sayeedi said.
The execution is a grim reminder of the Taliban's harsh six-year rule from 1996 to 2001 in Afghanistan. The radical Islamists staged public stonings or lashings of those found to have committed adultery or sex outside marriage.
The then-Taliban government would also chop off the hands and feet of those accused of theft and robbery.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Over 1,400 newly graduated Afghan soldiers commissioned to army
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- More than 1400 soldiers and officers graduated on Monday and commissioned to Afghan National Army (ANA), an army officer Mohammad Shapoor said.
"After completion of 20-week training course, today 1180 soldiers and 251 sergeants graduated from Kabul Military training centers and commissioned to National Army to serve the nation," Shapoor told newsmen after graduation ceremony.
The newly graduated soldiers and officers are ready to be deployed to any part of the country to serve the nation, he further said.
Currently the strength of Afghan National Army is around 137, 000 and Afghanistan, according to officials wants to have 250,000- strong new brand army within the next two years.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan problem: for a regional approach
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan & Karl F. Inderfurth The Hindu (Opinion)
If conditions can be created that would permit Afghanistan to revert to its traditional neutrality, it ought to help in significantly reducing tensions in the region.
Ambassador Robert Blackwill is well known among the ‘strategic' community in India as a person who contributed to the development of India- United States relations during his stay in New Delhi as the American ambassador to India, which also made him knowledgeable about what is now referred to, unfortunately, as the AfPak region. He is known for his bold, often unconventional and ‘out of the box,' thinking on issues of peace and security. Hence, his views on how the U.S. should tackle the Afghan quagmire must be taken serious note of.
In an article in the Financial Times of July 21, Mr. Blackwill has argued that the current strategy of counter-insurgency will fail and the U.S. will not succeed in persuading enough and weighty Taliban leaders to join in a reconciliation exercise. Since the U.S. can neither win the war nor withdraw precipitously, the only alternative is to arrange for what he calls a de facto partition of Afghanistan. The southern and eastern parts of the country would be surrendered to the Pashtuns which, in effect, would mean the Taliban. The U.S. and a coalition of “like-minded countries” would establish a separate regime in the non-Pashtun north and west of the country. The U.S. and others would maintain a more or less permanent presence of about 50,000 troops and air power to continue to harass the al-Qaeda elements in the other half and across the Durand Line as well as prevent the Pashtun and the Taliban from conquering the north and the west.
Such a solution, he admits, will leave many non-Pashtuns at the mercy of the Pashtuns in the southern part but he writes that off as an “unfortunate but unavoidable” consequence, as he does the complete denial of human rights to women in Pashtunland. He even treats the fragmentation of Pakistan, a possible result of his solution, with equanimity. Why should the U.S., he asks, be more concerned with Pakistan's territorial integrity than General Kayani and his colleagues? And so on.
Mr. Blackwill's diagnosis of the ailments afflicting Afghanistan contains many ground truths, but his proposed cure — a de facto partition of the country between the Pashtun south and the non-Pashtun north and west — is infinitely worse than the disease. Firstly, it smacks of a colonial attitude. Instead of the classic “divide and rule,” he is recommending “divide and depart;” the British practised them both in the sub-continent with disastrous consequences. Ahmed Rashid writing in an article in Financial Times on August 4 says: “Partition will lead to worse horrors than witnessed at India's division in 1947.”
Secondly, while we do not speak for our respective governments, it is unthinkable that either the U.S. or India, or indeed any other “like-minded” country will look favourably at this plan and join in such blatant interference in Afghanistan's internal situation and become parties to a civil conflict. Thirdly, women in the Taliban territory will be doomed forever to a life of denial of all human rights. Fourthly, it completely ignores the fact that Afghans of all ethnicities have a strong sense of nationhood, despite ethnic divergences; if the Afghans wanted to partition their country, they would have done so long ago and on their own terms. Ahmed Rashid cites, in the same article, several previous attempts by the Soviet Union, Iran as well as by Pakistan to divide Afghanistan on ethnic lines, all turned down by Afghans of all ethnicities.
According to Rashid, in 1996, when the Taliban initially failed to take the north, Pakistan's ISI suggested that the Pashtun group create its own state in the south. But the Taliban refused, despite its dependence on the ISI. And lastly, a partition will hasten the very result that it is meant to delay and avoid, namely, a civil war-type situation. Afghanistan's immediate and near-neighbours would feel compelled to be dragged into the vortex. To quote Rashid again: “It would endanger Pakistan, encouraging some 40 million Pashtuns in Pakistan to link up with some 15 million Pashtun brothers in Afghanistan and forge an extremist state that gives refuge to terrorists.”
And the consequences for India will be simply intolerable.
Mr. Blackwill is conscious that his prescription is not ideal; he only offers it because he sees no better or less bad alternative. But there is another, practicable though not an easy alternative approach that we have advocated in the past. We are convinced that what is needed is a regional approach to Afghanistan's problems, to address the multiple crises emanating from the region — terrorism, crime, drugs, refugees. The solution lies in less or zero interference, not more, and certainly not military intervention, in Afghanistan's affairs.
It is a historical fact that Afghanistan enjoyed relative stability and even prosperity when it practised, and was allowed by its neighbours and external powers to practise, a kind of neutrality in its foreign policy. If somehow conditions can be created that would permit Afghanistan to once again revert to its traditional neutrality, it ought to help in significantly reducing tensions in the region. This might appear to be a difficult or impossible goal to achieve in the prevailing climate of hatred and suspicions, but that is no reason for not considering it and working for it.
We believe that someone, preferably the Secretary-General of the United Nations, should engage in a diplomatic exercise to hold talks with all the parties and states concerned to establish a consensus, however defined, on arriving at a compact of mutual non-intervention and non-interference among all of Afghanistan's neighbours. The 1962 Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos provides one possible model and there could be others. The Bonn Agreement of December 2001, which brought into being the provisional government headed by Hamid Karzai, specifically tasks the United Nations to ‘guarantee' non-interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs; thus the Secretary-General already has the necessary mandate to undertake the necessary consultations. The process, which would be quite protracted, should eventually consummate in an international conference where all the neighbours of Afghanistan would solemnly commit themselves not to interfere or intervene in its internal affairs, as well as not to support in any way — politically, materially or militarily — any group or faction within Afghanistan. Afghanistan, for its part, would solemnly undertake to abjure forever from inviting any foreign elements to intervene in its internal problems.
The final document would be witnessed by the five permanent members of the Security Council as well as by the relevant foreign powers and would be registered with the United Nations. In addition, the participants at the proposed conference would need to take one further step — to establish an international commission to supervise the implementation of the document. A monitoring group and/or a complaints procedure would need to be established. It would be essential to create some mechanism that could inspire confidence among the signatories about compliance by all of them with their commitments.
As mentioned above, the proposal which we are putting forward is not an easy one. It will call for a sustained effort over many months. The then special envoy of the then Secretary General took several years to persuade all the parties to agree to the terms of the Geneva Agreement of 1988 which brought an end to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The challenges underlying our proposal must not deter the required effort and political will. We are convinced that it is definitely preferable either to the imposed and bloody partition, de facto or otherwise, of Afghanistan or to the alternative of precipitate withdrawal or open-ended military engagement of foreign forces in the country.
(Chinmaya R. Gharekhan served as India's special envoy for West Asia and is a former U.N. under secretary general. Karl F. Inderfurth served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1997-2001 and is a professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.)
Back to Top
Back to Top
The Malik's Answer to Corruption
John Sullivan.Executive Director, Center for International Private Enterprise Huffington Post August 9, 2010 06:02 PM
Contrary to accepted opinion, corruption is not just a grand international scheme. For entrepreneurs, corruption is both local and personal, composed of any number of transactions, skimmings, gifts, bribes, or extortion. To help entrepreneurs fight corruption, so too must the approach and solution be local and personal and consistently applied.
Over the course of recent months the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the Afghan National Center for Policy Research (NCPR) have been hosting a series of roundtable meetings on the issues and practical implications of fighting corruption in Afghanistan convening key local stakeholders for rigorous discussion. But, as Afghan Supreme Court Justice Mohammad Omar Barbrakzdi told us in February, "This is a good start... We must all continue our efforts to effectively combat corruption."
To broaden these efforts CIPE and Charney Research next conducted a survey, released in May of this year, of Afghan business attitudes towards a variety of subjects, including corruption. What we found was a society hardly resigned to corruption being an impossible problem to solve -- quite the opposite, in fact. The survey found that 90 percent of the over 700 business leaders felt that "corruption is a significant problem and more needs to be done to combat it." Afghans are prepared to support a comprehensive effort to fight corruption, but they need leaders and they need concrete measures that stand a chance of success.
It is also worth noting that a majority of Afghan businesses -- 56% -- claim they need to pay bribes, provide unofficial "fees," or make gifts in order to operate, usually at the local level. Thus, fighting this solely at the national level does not appear to be addressing a major share of the problem felt by the Afghan people as a whole.
The culmination of these efforts was a gathering last week in Kabul. CIPE and NCPR recently gathered around 100 community and business leaders for a conference in Kabul to begin building a national Afghan-led consensus to combat corruption, including an outline of key policy recommendations from the Afghan perspective. Tribal leaders/Maliks from 21 provinces, parliamentarians, academics, government officials, political activists, religious leaders, policymakers, leading members of the private sector and business associations, delegates from civil society, journalists and representatives from the United Nations and international donor community participated in the event.
The first recommendation on the communiqué is establishing a clear, comprehensive anti-corruption law covering areas such as conflict of interest and asset disclosure. Without such a law, Afghanistan's High Office of Oversight for the Implementation of Anti-Corruption Strategy is one island all by itself, unable to enforce laws that do not exist; nor can it oversee government activity that no one is required to disclose.
Besides the anti-corruption law itself, other recommendations included establishing an open and competitive procurement process, improving judicial independence, and simplifying or reducing tariffs and regulations that create opportunities to bribe officials who look the other way. With such a wide variety of institutions involved in these anti-corruption reforms, the need for a broad-based anti-corruption consensus is clear.
Perhaps most importantly, participants departed with a sense of personal ownership in helping to solve the problem of corruption. Participant Malik Haji Ghulam Sideeq said, "The people of the districts and villages are suffering from corrupt local government officials, and we now plan to combat corruption in our villages by saying NO to corrupt practices."
Governing without the broad-based participation of Afghans is a large reason why corruption persists in the first place. With wider involvement, particularly from Afghan's local business community that would benefit most from lower corruption, Afghanistan's institutions will reflect the true values of its citizens, as outlined by the conference participants: Honesty. Cleanliness. Integrity. Transparency. Service.
Back to Top
Back to Top
'Tajik Terrorist Suspects' Detained In Northern Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 9, 2010
DUSHANBE -- The Tajik Foreign Ministry says it is investigating whether three men detained three days ago in Afghanistan on suspicion of terrorism are Tajik citizens, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
Abdurahmon Haqtosh, the top security official in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz Province, which borders Tajikistan, said at a press conference on August 7 that four people were detained in Kunduz the previous day.
Three of the detainees claim to be Tajik citizens, while the fourth, their driver, is an Afghan.
Tajik Foreign Ministry spokesman Davlat Nazriev told RFE/RL today the Tajik consulate in Kunduz is trying to clarify the identity of the three men.
Haqtosh said that the detainees are members of the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which is led by Tohir Yuldash. He added that a laptop computer and false passports for various countries were confiscated from the men. He said the computer contained files detailing IMU activities in northern Afghanistan.
Haqtosh also told journalists that even though Yuldash's former driver said last summer that Yuldash had been killed in a missile strike, the detainees said he is living in the northern Pakistani region of Waziristan.
One detainee, who called himself Muhammadtohir, the son of a man in Dushanbe named Muhammadzohir, said at the press conference that the four had seen Yuldash in Pakistan speak about "the jihad against foreigners."
He said: "Seven or eight years ago I was in Pakistan. In Pakistan I studied at a madrasah. There they trained us and told us what we were meant to do -- wage jihad. [They told us]: 'You came here for the sake of jihad. Jihad against foreigners.'"
Haqtosh said two of the three detainees who claim to be citizens of Tajikistan had Afghan documents. The third reputed Tajik citizen, who called himself Muhammadnaim, said he is a cameraman sent by Yuldash to northern Afghanistan to teach others how to photograph.
Haqtosh said the small group was responsible for an attack on a security post in the Sanduqsoy district of Kunduz in which two security officials were killed.
The IMU was founded in the early 1990s in the Andijon and Namangon regions of Uzbekistan, but soon extended its activities to other countries. Its members fought against what would become the current Tajik government on the side of the mostly Islamist opposition in the Tajik civil war.
The IMU members sought refuge in Afghanistan following the1997 Tajik peace agreement. Many of them were killed or captured during the anti-Taliban surge in late 2001, while others fled to northern Pakistan.
Intelligence officials said the detainees were trained in the Haqqani madrasah in Peshawar. They said that a person called Haqqani from the Afghan province of Baghlan was their leader. They suggested that Yuldash's supporters in Baghlan could include as many as 30 to 40 Tajik citizens.
Haqtosh said a detailed interrogation of the three detained Tajiks could yield a clearer understanding of the numbers and activities of extremists from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan who are fighting against the Kabul government in northern Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Why Pakistan is crucial in fight against Taliban
CNN By Sajjan Gohel, Special to CNN August 9, 2010
Editor's note: Sajjan Gohel is International Security Director for the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation and author of the forthcoming "The Evolution of Egyptian Radical Ideological Thought from Hasan al-Banna to Ayman al-Zawahiri." He provides analysis on terrorism, security, defense and geo-political issues to the media, governmental bodies and military departments
Of all the issues on the agenda when British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari last week, none were more important than talks on cooperation between the two countries in countering terrorism and extremism.
The meeting attracted extra significance following Cameron's candid remarks during a trip to India a week earlier in which he warned: "We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that (Pakistan) is allowed to look both ways and is able in any way to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world."
Prompting fury in Pakistan and criticism for his candor back in the UK, Cameron became the first western leader to formally identify the "elephant in the room;" namely that elements in Pakistan have, since 2001, been covertly supporting the Quetta Shura and Haqqani Network factions within the Taliban in their fight against ISAF and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.
Cameron's comments do not form an original starting point but, in fact, are part of a gradual evolution of thought in the west that the problems in Afghanistan, India, as well as the potential global impact, are intrinsically tied to the security challenge in Pakistan.
Cameron's predecessor, Gordon Brown once described Pakistan as the 'Crucible of Terrorism', and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also expressed concern about the presence of al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Most criticized has been Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Since 9/11, western intelligence agencies have become increasingly dependent on the ISI and the Pakistani military for information in the fight to dismantle terrorist and militant strongholds in the region.
Paradoxically, the Pakistani military stands accused of supporting and assisting these same extremist forces. This was highlighted in a 2009 report by the London School of Economics which claimed that Pakistan "appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude" in Afghanistan. The WikiLeaks documents, released last month, also illustrated a continued relationship between the ISI and the Taliban.
The thread that connects both the LSE report and the WikiLeaks documents is that Afghan Taliban factions are using safe havens within Pakistan to launch cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.
Cameron's concerns about Pakistan can therefore be seen in the context of the deaths of more than 320 British military personnel in Afghanistan since 2001; a higher death toll than that endured by the UK during the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina. Many more have suffered terrible life-changing injuries.
Western governments have known for some time that the Pakistani military did not break its ties with all the different Taliban factions, as former Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf promised to do. Since Musharraf stepped down in 2008, the military has continued to exercise an overbearing influence over Pakistan's defense and foreign policy agendas.
Pakistani officials point out that more than 2,700 soldiers have been killed in fighting the Pakistani Taliban since 2001, exceeding the total casualties suffered by the ISAF in Afghanistan.
But those figures do not tell the whole story; while Pakistani forces have been battling indigenous Taliban factions, they have not attempted to disrupt Afghan Taliban forces operating from inside Pakistani territory.
Worryingly for the U.S. and its NATO and Afghan allies, one of Pakistan's most senior soldiers, chief of army staff General Ashfaq Kayani, remains rooted to the old military concept of utilizing Afghan territory for the purposes of "strategic depth" in the event of a conflict with India. From this perspective, the Pakistani military views the Afghan Taliban as a potential asset rather than as a liability.
Writing in Toronto's Globe & Mail newspaper, Chris Alexander, Canada's former ambassador in Afghanistan, states that Kayani "once again successfully deflected U.S. pressure to launch military operations in Baluchistan and North Waziristan, where the Islamic Emirate [Afghan Taliban] is based."
In addition to the issue of the Taliban, the continued and expanding presence inside Pakistan of al Qaeda and its affiliates, such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 170 died, remains a sore point between London and Islamabad.
Between 2004 to 2006, al-Qaeda planned a series of coordinated attacks on British soil. Some were disrupted by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, but the 2005 bombings on the London transport network killed 52 people.
Common to all of these plots was al Qaeda's recruitment of British citizens mostly of Pakistani origin. Some had traveled to Pakistan for operational training and ideological guidance. With some 400,000 yearly visits to the country by Britons of Pakistani origin, it is becoming increasingly difficult for British authorities to identify potential radicals from the majority who are traveling legitimately to visit family.
What remains clear is that Pakistan serves as a gateway and finishing school for many British terrorists. Intelligence cooperation between the UK and Pakistan is, therefore, essential, however problematic that may be.
Speaking together after their talks, Cameron and Zardari stated their desire to work towards boosting ties between the UK and Pakistan. According to Cameron: "Whether it is keeping troops safe in Afghanistan, or keeping people safe on the streets of Britain, we are going to work together in this enhanced strategic partnership."
Time will tell if the "strategic partnership" will bear any positive results. In the meantime, the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan will continue to act as a recruiting ground for young Britons and other westerners attracted by extremism.
At the same time, Afghan and Pakistan Taliban factions will maintain their ability to plan large-scale attacks throughout the AfPak region. Therefore, the remedy for the security dilemma can only lie within Pakistan itself.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Sajjan Gohel.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Chlorination drive to avert water-borne diseases
KABUL, 9 August 2010 (IRIN) - Health workers in flood-affected parts of Afghanistan are trying to prevent water-borne disease outbreaks by chlorinating drinking water and promptly delivering health services.
Dozens of small health teams have been sent to areas mainly in northern and eastern Afghanistan hit by flash floods over the past two weeks, Health Ministry officials said.
About 70 people have lost their lives, over 6,000 houses have been destroyed, and there has been extensive damage to agriculture and livestock, according to the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority.
“While we are very worried about an outbreak of water-borne diseases, thus far the situation is under control,” said Health Ministry spokesman Kargar Nooroghli.
He said all health centres in the flood-hit provinces of Laghman, Logar, Wardak, Kapisa, Panjshir, Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar and Parwan were on high alert and healthcare providers were striving to control diseases.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said it has dispatched medical relief supplies to the affected provinces to cover the basic health needs of 9,000 people and treat 5,000 diarrhoea cases.
“WHO is well prepared to support the health sector response should the situation worsen,” it said in a press release on 5 August.
Only 22 percent of Afghans have access to improved drinking water and water-borne diseases kill up to 50,000 children in Afghanistan every year, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Health workers are concerned that water sources contaminated by floods may exacerbate access to safe drinking water and increase water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, leptospirosis and typhoid fever.
Poor awareness
“The biggest challenge is poor awareness among rural families about the risks of unsafe drinking water and how to decontaminate drinking water,” said Abdul Latif Qayumi, director of the health department in Laghman Province where floods killed 10 people and damaged dozens of houses on 27-29 July.
Health Ministry officials said chlorination of wells was under way in the flood-affected areas and liquid chlorine would be distributed to families to disinfect drinking water. Chlorine inactivates 99.99 percent of enteric bacteria and viruses, according to WHO.
Qayumi, however, said there was a lack of chlorine in Laghman Province. “We have requested it from UNICEF and the Health Ministry.”
Standing water also increases the risk of malaria and leishmaniasis as mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, health experts say.
Afghanistan is considered to have the fourth largest malaria burden worldwide and over 390,000 malaria cases were reported in 2009, according to the Health Ministry.
Health officials said insecticide-treated bednets would be distributed to reduce an outbreak of malaria and leishmaniasis.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Pistachio Crops Increase in Northern Afghanistan
August 9, 2010 TOLO news
The Afghan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said pistachio crops have enhanced by 98 percent in the northern Samangan province this year
The ministry cited the cooperation of locals and security forces as the reason for the enhancement of pistachio products with the ministry in the country's northern provinces.
"If we could be able to bring pistachio production under our control and pack and export it properly, it will be a good income source for the government," head of Afghanistan's Forest Management Committee, Sayed Aminullah Fakhri, told TOLOnews.
Samangan residents say the province's pistachios are sold at very low price in the province, but after it is exported to India and is processed in Indian companies, it reaches the international markets, especially to Europe and America with a very high price with Indian brand.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock confirmed the local residents' claims and said it is making efforts to attract foreign investment in establishing pistachio processing factories.
"We are trying to attract the attention of the private sector and gain good income through rehabilitating our agricultural economy with the help of this sector," Aminullah Fakhri said.
The Afghan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said more than 900 million meter squares of land are covered with pistachio trees in the country's 11 provinces, that produce hundreds of tonnes of pistachios every year.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Devastated Christian aid group pledges to continue work in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By Joshua Partlow Monday, August 9, 2010
KABUL - During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Christian aid group International Assistance Mission was forced to stop working anywhere outside the capital.
Under the mujaheddin government that followed, the group's medical teams had to negotiate with separate warring factions for safe passage across rocket-strafed Kabul just to travel from their homes to the eye clinic. The Taliban, when it came to power, prohibited the organization's female staff members from working in the same office as men.
Last week, with the massacre of 10 members of an eye care team in the rugged mountains of northern Afghanistan, the group suffered its greatest tragedy. But its 44-year history in Afghanistan, as an openly Christian charity in a deeply conservative Muslim country, is one of enduring near-impossible circumstances.
"It's devastating for everybody," executive director Dirk Frans said of the killings. "Still, I don't think it's actually going to stop our work. We've been here all those years, and, God willing, we'll continue."
On Sunday, the bodies of the 10 slain aid workers -- six Americans, one German, one Briton and two Afghans -- were recovered and flown by Afghan helicopter from Badakhshan province to a military compound in Kabul. Along with them came the lone survivor of the attack, an Afghan driver for the team named Saifullah, who was taken to the Interior Ministry for questioning.
Among the dead were the team's leader, Tom Little, an optometrist from New York who had worked for decades in Afghanistan, and Karen Woo, a British surgeon who left her practice last year to volunteer in the war zone.
The Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack, accusing the medical volunteers of being foreign spies and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, accusations the group denies. Police in Badakhshan province have not ruled out that thieves unaffiliated with the Taliban could be responsible, as the victims' belongings were ransacked after they were killed.
"We are heartbroken by the loss of these heroic, generous people," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this senseless act. We also condemn the Taliban's transparent attempt to justify the unjustifiable by making false accusations about their activities in Afghanistan."
To reach the remote Parun Valley of Nurestan province, the 12-member medical team had driven from Kabul in three Land Rovers and then left the vehicles to hike for days with pack mules through a towering mountain pass. Snow and rain on the return trip proved grueling -- one member had to be carried on horseback, Frans said -- but they had made it to the border with Badakhshan when they lost phone contact with their Kabul office Thursday.
'Not here to proselytize'
Frans said it was inconceivable that the medical team was handing out Bibles written in Dari, as the Taliban claimed. Nor was the trip reckless, he said, as the group plotted the safest route -- to an area it had visited six previous times since 1996 -- and had written permission from Nurestan's health directorate.
The team knew the trip was dangerous, but Little and another member had decades of experience in the country. "It's only because of them that we let a team go to a place like that," Frans said.
"We're not here to proselytize, hand out Bibles or whatever. That's not the way we witness," he said. "Our witness is in doing this work under extreme conditions, for people who otherwise have no chance for getting anything."
The group's 50 foreign volunteers and 500 Afghan staff members operate in seven Afghan provinces, with a program budget of $3.6 million in 2009, according to the annual report. The group runs a mental health education program in Herat, adult-education classes in Kandahar, an English school in Mazar-e Sharif and small hydroelectric projects in rural areas without electricity.
But eye care has long been central to its work. The group runs the National Organization for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation eye care project, which treated about 180,000 patients in 2009. Abdullah Abdullah, the runner-up in Afghanistan's presidential election last year, trained under the program as an ophthalmologist in Kabul. He met Little in 1983.
"They were Christian -- but were part of their activities to convert people into Christianity? No, nothing as such," Abdullah said. "It's reaching out to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people that could be blind in the future and prevent that blindness. With one cataract in Afghanistan, you're considered in the villages as being blind."
This focus on health care has allowed the International Assistance Mission to operate even under a Taliban government that was hostile to any Christian group, said Hans Ronnlund, an adviser to Frans who has worked with the group for 20 years in Afghanistan.
Before last week's massacre, four foreign workers for the aid group had been killed: a couple shot in a robbery, a woman shot while sitting by a Kabul lake and a victim of a mysterious car crash, aid group officials said. The killings in Badakhshan were the first time any of the group's Afghan staff members had been killed.
"Sometimes what happens with foreign agencies is they let the Afghans do the dirty work and the expatriates stay safely at home. Well, IAM cannot be accused of that," Frans said.
Survivor's story
Investigators and aid group officials hope the lone survivor of the attack, Saifullah, can shed light on what happened and who might be responsible. (The 12th member of the team, an Afghan, had earlier left the group to make his own way home).
According to an Afghan reporter who interviewed the driver by satellite phone Saturday and provided his notes to The Washington Post, Saifullah said the group was attacked by about 10 gunmen. Their bearded faces were covered, they carried Kalashnikov rifles and they said very little, communicating with hand gestures, he told the reporter. They lined up the frightened team and began to execute members of the group, who screamed and cried for mercy, he said.
When it was his turn, Saifullah said that he fell to his knees, shouted "God is great" and recited a verse from the Koran -- "There is no God but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God" -- and pleaded to be spared.
"I am a Muslim, I have small kids, I'm very poor, please do not kill me," Saifullah said he told the gunmen.
Saifullah said the gunmen then led him through a forest for about an hour to a place he described as a "jungle." He said he was beaten and forced to stay with the men overnight. He could not place all the men as Afghans -- some seemed to speak in code and others in Urdu or a language he did not understand. Other foreigners, including Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and Pakistanis, sometimes fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
By sunrise the next morning, he said, he was free to go.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan Former Militants Rejoin Insurgency
IWPR By Zia Ahmadi 08/08/2010
Fighters in Herat defect after government fails to fulfill promises of work and development.
Militants in Herat province of eastern Afghanistan who laid down their weapons in response to government offers of aid and amnesty are rejoining the insurgency after officials failed to deliver on their promises.
A senior security official told IWPR that about half the 1,000 militants who had surrendered in the last year were now back fighting against the government.
Both the Afghan government and the international community have made it a priority to persuade members of the Taleban and allied armed groups to defect, and this was the focus of a “peace jirga”or assembly hosted by President Hamid Karzai in the capital Kabul in June.
Efforts have focused on winning over small groups in return for protection from legal investigations, the provision of jobs and reconstruction projects for their home areas.
However, in a telephone interview with IWPR, Nur Gul, a Taleban commander who surrendered with his 20 armed men last October, said none of the promises he received beforehand had been translated into action.
Nur Gul, 38, was originally part of the Jamiat-e Islami faction, which fought against the Taleban in northern Afghanistan in the Nineties. But then he switched allegiances and joined his former Taleban enemies, before being persuaded to come over to the government side.
“The day we surrendered, the Italian PRT [Provincial Reconstruction Team] gave each of us one sack of rice, a can of cooking oil and a winter jacket,” he said. “They showed this on TV, which we found very humiliating, as most people might think we’d been fighting only for some rice or cooking oil.”
Nur Gul said his men were being harassed by Afghan security officers, had not been given jobs and had seen no reconstruction work.
“We thought we had an independent government, but [now] we realise it’s the foreigners who have the bigger say in this country, not the Afghan government,” he said.
Now he is back with the Taleban.
“This time I will fight against the government and the foreign occupying forces to the last drop of blood,” he said.
Arbab Zaman Gul, 40, from the Keshk Kuhna district, was a commander in Hezb-e Islami, an insurgent group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allied with the Taleban, surrendered to Herat provincial police together with his 30 fighters this May.
But he too has returned to violence, accusing the government of reneging on its promises.
“After we surrendered and received a letter of protection from the government, four of my men were killed within the next ten days,” he said. He accuses “government elements” of the killings.
“The reason we surrendered was not in order to be harassed or tortured by government security forces, but to help restore peace and security,” Zaman Gul said. “We wanted our area to be rebuilt and we wanted job opportunities to be created so that we would have a chance to get work. But the government has reneged on all its commitments.
“So we have had to go out, pick up our weapons and fight them again. If the government continues with its lies, not only will no one want to surrender, but the number of people opposing it will increase.
Mullah Mustafa, a former Taleban commander who surrendered and joined the peace process along with his 50 fighters, told IWPR that he had not yet returned to the armed struggle. But he warned that if the government failed to deliver on promises, his men would take up arms again.
Officials acknowledge that there have been problems with the reconciliation process, pointing to a lack of resources and the conflicting priorities of different government agencies.
The effort to persuade militants to turn away from violence has been led by the National Independent Peace and Reconciliation Commission, NPRC, founded in 2005. Sharif Mojaddidi, who heads the NPRC’s division for western Afghanistan, says between 5,000 to 7,000 insurgents across the country have joined the peace process in the last five years.
He said the government provides militants who surrender with letters of protection, and promises them it will create jobs and launch reconstruction efforts in the areas they come from.
Mojaddidi acknowledged that some insurgents had gone back to the other side due to budgetary constraints which prevented some pledges being delivered on, and also to what he described as “inattentiveness” on the part of some senior government officials.
Herat provincial police chief Mohammad Salim Ehsas said the militants who join the peace process had unrealistic expectations – they wanted reconstruction, job creation and the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan, all in the very near future.
Siawash, a political analyst in Herat province, said he believed that most of those who join the peace process were simply armed criminals, rather than part of the opposition. Once they realised they were no longer able to make a living out of crime, he said, they came to the government and claimed to be militants willing to surrender. Then they would turn back to crime again.
According to Siawash, the real opposition has an ideological agenda which makes it harder to persuade members to surrender just to get money or jobs.
A high-ranking official for the western security zone, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated that out of the more than 1,000 armed men who had handed in their weapons over the last year, “500 are back fighting the government and the international forces”.
He said those who had resumed militant activity mainly came from the Bala Murghab and Qades districts of Badghis province, and the Keshk Kuhna, Guzra, Adreskan and Shindand districts of Herat province.
The official was among those who have accused officers of the National Directorate of Security, NDS, of harassing former militants and alienating them from the reconciliation process.
Even though men who surrendered were generally issued with a letter of protection, the NDS frequently interrogated them.
General Ekramuddin Yawar, chief of police for the western security zone, agreed that intelligence service had put pressure on former militants in an attempt to extract information from them. On some occasions, he said, this had driven the gunmen to defect again.
“Some of those who had joined the peace process have gone back and resumed their activities against Afghan and international security forces,” he said.
An NDS official in Herat province, who declined to be named, said that the agency had to interrogate those who surrendered in order to identify their associates. He insisted those interrogated were not tortured or imprisoned.
Sharif Ahmad, a former militant, said in a telephone interview that NDS questioning had prompted him to go back to the insurgents.
“Although I surrendered all the arms I had to the government, I was still put under pressure by NDS officers, who wanted me to hand in more weapons,” he said.
He said that when he found out that the NDS was going to detain him again, he rejoined the insurgents.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. ramps up PR war against Taliban
McClatchy Newspapers By Jonathan S. Landay and Dion Nissenbaum 08/08/2010
In one of his first major initiatives since he took command of the international force in Afghanistan a month ago, Army Gen. David Petraeus has launched a public-relations offensive to focus attention on the Taliban-led insurgency's killings and abuse of Afghan civilians.
KABUL, Afghanistan — In one of his first major initiatives since he took command of the international force in Afghanistan a month ago, Army Gen. David Petraeus has launched a public-relations offensive to focus attention on the Taliban-led insurgency's killings and abuse of Afghan civilians.
Besides issuing news releases, Petraeus has urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to speak out more forcefully against the insurgency's targeting of civilians, three U.S. officials said.
Karzai has been quick to lambaste the U.S.-led international force for accidentally killing noncombatants, but far more restrained in condemning deliberate acts by insurgents, they said.
"Clearly the government and government officials and other leadership need to take much more responsibility" in spotlighting insurgent attacks and abuses against civilians, said a senior U.S. defense official, who like the others who discussed this issue requested anonymity in order to speak more candidly.
The initiative is a new facet of the U.S.-led campaign to reverse the insurgency's growth and win popular support for the Karzai government. The campaign also aims to improve governance, build critical infrastructure and crack down on corruption.
The Taliban have been able to win support and recruits by exploiting the accidental killing of civilians by U.S.-led troops — despite the findings by the United Nations and human-rights organizations that insurgents are to blame for the vast majority of civilian casualties.
A McClatchy Newspapers review of the more than 300 news releases issued by NATO's U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) during Petraeus' first month found that about a quarter have focused on Taliban attacks and other acts that harmed or endangered civilians.
The releases included reports of the insurgents' use of mosques to hide arms; the bombing of a mosque; the indiscriminate killing of civilians by improvised explosive devices, or IEDs; the killing of children by suicide bombers; and an alleged order by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar to his fighters to kill women who work for Western organizations.
On Tuesday, ISAF issued a release intended to discredit a "revised code of conduct" it said Omar issued last month, instructing his fighters to avoid harming civilians. At least 43 civilians have been killed and 65 wounded in Taliban attacks since the code was issued, said the release.
U.S. officials have long conceded they were losing the information war to the Taliban.
"The insurgents regularly use misinformation and disinformation to try and discredit our operations," said a senior NATO official. "They'll tell them that we've desecrated the Quran or burned women and children. It's something we battle every day."
Petraeus' new initiative comes amid waning popular support for the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan and in NATO countries. Besides the news releases in English, Dari and Pashtu, there've been news briefings and bulletins aired over local low-power radio stations set up with ISAF's assistance.
"If people do not believe that the insurgency is as corrupt and corrosive as it is against civilians, there may be less of an understanding of why we are here in the first place," said Adm. Gregory Smith, the director of ISAF's public-affairs operations.
"This isn't about positive or negative messaging. This is really about reality. And so we're taking a really pragmatic approach to it and simply saying, let's just put out what's going on, and if we make a mistake (by accidentally killing civilians), we're going to be putting that out just as rapidly."
The new campaign, however, may already be sparking a counteroffensive from the Taliban propaganda machine.
ISAF officials recently have had to respond to allegations from across Afghanistan of foreign troops bayoneting a Quran, the Muslim holy book; gunning down Afghan civilians waving a white flag; and killing innocents in various locations.
The new campaign was a subject of intense debate within ISAF and the U.S. government over whether focusing greater attention on civilian casualties caused by the insurgency could help or hurt Karzai and his foreign allies, U.S. officials said.
Some U.S. officers and officials had argued successfully against calling too much attention to insurgent attacks and mistreatment of civilians. Doing so, they contended, would only remind people in Afghanistan and in ISAF-contributing nations that Karzai and his foreign backers have had difficulty providing security.
"You've got to strike a balance between the harm that the insurgents are causing and the extent to which you're highlighting what you're doing to prevent that," said a senior U.S. military official involved in the debate who requested anonymity in order to discuss the issue. "The greater lengths you go to in highlighting the bad things the insurgents are doing can have an impact. But at the same time, you are highlighting the inability of the pro-government forces to protect the people."
U.S. commanders had been reluctant to press the issue with Karzai and his top aides, U.S. officials said, but Smith said Petraeus has long felt the insurgents should be "held accountable" for their actions.
"He wanted to make certain that if the Taliban or the insurgency in general was acting in a way that was untoward toward the population, that we ought to let people know about it," Smith said.
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).