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Afghan attorney general investigates alleged voting fraud
Washington Post By Joshua Partlow Wednesday, November 3, 2010
KABUL - The Afghan attorney general's office has launched a number of criminal investigations into allegations that the country's election commission participated in fraud during parliamentary elections in September, officials said Wednesday. This Story Afghan attorney general investigates alleged voting fraud Afghan elections marred by violence; U.N. cites 'irregularities'
Afghan election body in fraud probe
Candidates call for September election to be scrapped amid claims Independent Election Commission was involved in fraud.
Aljazeera.Net, Qatar 03 Nov 2010
Afghanistan's deputy attorney general has said that an investigation has been started into allegations by candidates that the country's election commission was involved in fraud during September's parliamentary poll.
Increased number of returnees from Pakistan
KABUL, 4 November 2010 (IRIN) - More Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan in 2010 than in the previous year, despite increased insecurity in Afghanistan, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says.
229 Afghan civilians killed in October: official
KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Conflicts and militancy had claimed the lives of 229 civilians in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan in October, spokesman for Interior Ministry Zamari Bashari said on Thursday.
5 Haqqani leaders killed as NATO steps up raids against militants in E. Afghanistan
By Farid Behbud November 4, 2010
KABUL, (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led forces stationed in Afghanistan has increased mounting pressure on a militant group affiliated with Taliban -- the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan's eastern provinces and killed at least five leaders in the latest attacks.
Over 100 Taliban militants surrender to gov't in N. Afghan provinces: official
KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Over 100 Taliban insurgents including key commanders have given up insurgency and surrendered to the government in northern Afghan provinces over the past weeks, regional police chief said Thursday.
20 Taliban militants lay down arms in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Twenty Taliban militants gave up insurgency and handed over their weapons to authorities in the western Herat province on Thursday, provincial governor Daud Saba said.
NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Taliban-linked attack claimed the life of a soldier with NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Thursday, a statement of the alliance released here said.
Pakistan looks ahead to end of Afghan war
Toronto Star - Canada By Olivia Ward Foreign Affairs Reporter Wed Nov 03 2010
As NATO forces prepare to pull out of Afghanistan, worries about the country falling back to Taliban control are paramount. But in neighbouring Pakistan, where suicide bombings and brazen attacks on security forces have become regular occurrences, the stakes are also high.
1.5 ton illicit drug set on fire in western Afghan province
HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Police in the western Herat province, about 1,057 km west of capital city Kabul, set on fire 1.5 tone illicit drug and have taken more than 70 drug smugglers into custody over the past three months, police spokesman in the province Noor Khan Nikzad said Thursday.
Former Taliban Leaders In Afghanistan See Peace As A Long Way Off
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty By Abubakar Siddique November 03, 2010
KABUL - The three hail from different backgrounds, but each served the Taliban government until its demise in late 2001.
Taliban ratchet up attacks on Afghan security forces
Russia promises more cooperation on NATO effort
Associated Press By Katharine Houreld November 4, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants carried out three attacks against Afghan security forces yesterday, targeting a police station, a border patrol, and an army checkpoint in strikes that left 12 people dead, officials said.
Former Taliban Leaders In Afghanistan See Peace As A Long Way Off
November 3, 2010 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- The three hail from different backgrounds, but each served the Taliban government until its demise in late 2001.
30,000 New Jobs in Telecommunication Sector This Year
Tolo news November 3, 2010
The Afghan Ministry of Communication and Information Technology claims that more than 30,000 jobs were provided in the first 7 months of this year
In-Brief: USA brings fungus-resistant wheat seed to Afghanistan
KABUL, 4 November 2010 (IRIN) - The US Agriculture Department has shipped 150 tons of UG99fungus-resistant wheat seed from Egypt to Afghanistan "to protect future crops, improve the livelihoods of thousands of Afghan farmers, and improve food security", the US embassy said.
We are Accountable to Iran on its Cash Aid: Daudzai
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 03 November 2010
President Karzai's Chief of Staff said Wednesday that Afghanistan will only be accountable to Iran for its cash aid to Presidential Palace
British Museum to exhibit Afghan gold
The British Museum will exhibit a hoard of ancient Afghan gold jewellery after Kabul today signs an agreement loaning the treasure to Britain.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer in Kabul 03 Nov 2010
The discovery of the Bactrian Hoard in a burial mound in northern Afghanistan is considered one of the greatest archaeological events of last century.
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Afghan attorney general investigates alleged voting fraud
Washington Post By Joshua Partlow Wednesday, November 3, 2010
KABUL - The Afghan attorney general's office has launched a number of criminal investigations into allegations that the country's election commission participated in fraud during parliamentary elections in September, officials said Wednesday. This Story Afghan attorney general investigates alleged voting fraud Afghan elections marred by violence; U.N. cites 'irregularities'
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said his staff has begun investigating nine cases in which election officials, all but one of them at the Kabul headquarters of the Independent Election Commission, are accused of rigging votes. Nazari did not say whether the probes are targeting the election commissioners themselves or members of their staff.
Allegations by candidates about fraudulent activity in the elections have been pouring into the attorney general's office, Nazari said, but he added that his office is focusing only on allegations involving criminal behavior, such as bribery.
A member of the Independent Election Commission, Abdullah Ahmadzai, said the attorney general's office does not have the authority to investigate electoral matters, unless they are referred directly by either of Afghanistan's two electoral organizations.
According to Ahmadzai, the election commission received a letter from the attorney general Tuesday seeking to investigate the cases of two candidates - one from Herat province and another from Kapisa province - who had been disqualified by the Electoral Complaints Commission, the watchdog organization that investigates possible voting fraud.
The attorney general's letter should have gone to the Electoral Complaints Commission, not to his organization, Ahmadzai said, adding that he was unaware of allegations of criminality involving election officials. The Independent Election Commission is planning to respond to the attorney general Thursday, he said.
"The attorney general's office can never investigate election matters, and that is very clear," Ahmadzai said. "I don't see any justification of a direct involvement of the attorney general's office."
When it announced the preliminary results of the elections two weeks ago, the Independent Election Commission said it had invalidated 1.3 million votes - about a quarter of the total cast - because of voting irregularities. That was roughly the same share of votes as was invalidated in last year's fraud-marred presidential election.
Since that announcement, however, candidates and others have voiced growing concern about how the election commission decided to invalidate particular votes. Angry candidates and their supporters protested in Kabul this week calling for new elections and accused the commission of manipulating the results.
If more than 90 percent of the votes in one ballot box went to one candidate or a box contained more than the maximum 600 votes, that triggered a review by election officials for possible fraud. But the precise process of how the final decision was made to disqualify votes has been murky, according to officials involved in the elections.
"Nobody knows how they actually get to these decisions," said one Western official in Kabul who works on election issues, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to speak publicly. "What are they actually doing to make sure the ballot boxes or polling stations they're invalidating actually show clear evidence of fraud?"
The Electoral Complaints Commission does not plan to review the Independent Election Commission's decisions to invalidate votes from the parliamentary elections, officials said.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
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Afghan election body in fraud probe
Candidates call for September election to be scrapped amid claims Independent Election Commission was involved in fraud.
Aljazeera.Net, Qatar 03 Nov 2010
Afghanistan's deputy attorney general has said that an investigation has been started into allegations by candidates that the country's election commission was involved in fraud during September's parliamentary poll.
"We have assigned three prosecutors to investigate staff of the election commission over allegations of fraud, based on complaints from candidates," Rahmatullah Nazari told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.
Disgruntled politicians, candidates and their supporters took to the streets of the Afghan capital of Kabul for a second day on Wednesday, calling for the election to be scrapped amid allegations that Independent Election Commission [IEC] officials had been involved in fraud.
Thousands of formal and informal complaints have been pouring in about the election since polling day on September 18.
Preliminary results were announced on October 20, following delays while the election body recounted votes from hundreds of polling sites.
'Considerable fraud'
Final results, which were due at the end of last month, have been pushed back while a separate UN-backed election watchdog sifts through the thousands of complaints and decides whether to invalidate more votes.
However, the UN-supported Electoral Complaints Commission [ECC] is not allowed to investigate or adjudicate on ballots already thrown out by the IEC, including ballots over which complaints have been lodged.
On Tuesday, the ECC said it had received more than 6,000 complaints, about 2,000 of which could affect the outcome.
Last month, Staffan de Mistura, the top UN envoy in Afghanistan, applauded the IEC for its handling of the counting process, but said "considerable fraud" had been carried out on polling day and called for those responsible to be held accountable.
The IEC, which was also accused of fraud in last year's presidential poll, was given more powers this year, including the ability to disqualify votes on its own.
It has already disqualified close to a quarter of all votes.
The credibility of the vote will weigh heavily when Barack Obama, the US president, reviews his Afghanistan war strategy in December amid rising violence and sagging public support.
It will also likely be discussed at a Nato summit in Portugal this month.
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Increased number of returnees from Pakistan
KABUL, 4 November 2010 (IRIN) - More Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan in 2010 than in the previous year, despite increased insecurity in Afghanistan, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says.
Over 104,000 Afghan refugees returned voluntarily in March-October 2010 - a significant increase on the same period last year when 54,000 returned.
“In 2010, most returnees cited economic factors, the difficult situation in Pakistan and improvements in security in some provinces of Afghanistan as the most important reasons for their decision to return,” said Nader Farhad, a UNHCR spokesman.
Pakistan has been hit in 2010 by an ongoing militant insurgency in northwestern areas, a spate of bombings in major urban centres and the worst floods in living memory.
About 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees still live in Pakistan but UNHCR’s voluntary return programme (started in 2002) has been suspended until spring 2011 as part of a routine winter break.
Repatriation from Iran, which is hosting about one million documented Afghan refugees (as well as economic migrants estimated to number about a million), will not stop during winter; some 7,600 documented refugees returned to Afghanistan in 2010, UNHCR said.
Over 4.5 million Afghan refugees have returned home, mostly from Pakistan and Iran, since 2002 in what has been described as the largest assisted repatriation programme in UNHCR’s history.
Push factors
Some returnees were persuaded to return home because of the flooding in Pakistan.
“Our houses were destroyed by floods [in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa (KP)] and there was no one to help us so we thought by returning to Afghanistan at least some of our problems would be solved,” said one returnee to the eastern province of Nangarhar, Baz Mohammad.
For decades Pakistan has been a haven for many war-weary Afghans but things are changing: “Pakistan has fallen into the same problems that Afghanistan has been facing - war and the Taliban,” said Gul Rahman, who recently returned to Nangarhar Province from Pakistan’s KP.
However, others regretted making the move: “I think we made a mistake to come to Afghanistan because in Pakistan at least there were more work opportunities and cheaper food prices than here,” said Zaman Shah, another returnee. Landlocked Afghanistan imports most of its food from Pakistan and Iran.
No way back
According to UNHCR, 29 percent of returnees from Pakistan in 2010 (over 30,000 people) opted not to return to their original home areas.
Of the many refugees who returned after camps were closed in Pakistan over the past few years, about 45,000 sought refuge in informal settlements in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Laghman and Kunar, UNHCR said. But many had no homes of their own there and had become internally displaced persons (IDPs), often living in informal settlements.
Vulnerable and homeless returnees cannot go back to Pakistan because it no longer accepts new refugees, and UNHCR also no longer offers protection to new refugees in Pakistan.
The NGO International Medical Corps (IMC) said it was delivering health services to 150,000 returnees from Pakistan and IDPs at 10 settlements/camps in the three above-mentioned eastern provinces because they had not been included in the government’s basic health services’ package.
“We have 10 health clinics and four mobile health teams for them,” IMC country director Robert Lankenau told IRIN, adding that health indicators in the settlements were better than in other areas.
Government officials say displaced people must return to their home areas. However, people who live in informal settlements in and around cities or towns, say they want the government to distribute land to them so they can build their own houses.
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229 Afghan civilians killed in October: official
KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Conflicts and militancy had claimed the lives of 229 civilians in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan in October, spokesman for Interior Ministry Zamari Bashari said on Thursday.
"Two hundred twenty nine civilians had been killed in different security incidents with majority of them in Improvised Explosive Device (IED), roadside bombings and suicide attacks alone in October across the country, but unfortunately it shows 15 percent increase in compare with the previous month," Bashari told a press briefing here.
He also said 313 other civilians including women and children had been injured during the same period in 527 terrorist and violent attacks elsewhere in the country.
According to Bashari, 587 Taliban militants had been killed and 58 others wounded in October; while Afghan police arrested 445 militants over the same period of time.
He also stated that 114 police officers and soldiers had also been killed while 218 other police personnel were injured alone in October.
Taliban-led militancy and conflict have claimed the lives of over 1,300 civilians, according to reports in Afghanistan in the first six months of the year.
Bashari also added that 33 local private security firms had been banned and five international companies have been disarmed over the past one month.
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5 Haqqani leaders killed as NATO steps up raids against militants in E. Afghanistan
By Farid Behbud November 4, 2010
KABUL, (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led forces stationed in Afghanistan has increased mounting pressure on a militant group affiliated with Taliban -- the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan's eastern provinces and killed at least five leaders in the latest attacks.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in a statement released Thursday confirmed the death of the fifth militant who have been killed in an overnight operation in Paktiya province Saturday.
"The International Security Assistance Force confirmed another Haqqani Network senior leader, Hibati, was killed during an overnight operation in Paktiya province Saturday," ISAF said in the statement.
The majority of the search and cleanup operations against the insurgents have been registered in Paktiya and the neighboring Khost province.
Former ISAF statements confirmed Zubair and Qari Amil, both Haqqani Network facilitators responsible for the movement of weapons and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) materials, along with Shabudin and Ibrahim, both Haqqani Network senior leaders in the area who were also killed during the operation on the same day Saturday.
"Hibati was Zubair's deputy, who was the targeted individual in the operation," the statement said.
The Haqqani group is the military wing of Taliban fighters headed by Sarhajuddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who fought against former Soviet Union forces in the 1980s.
According to media reports, Jalaluddin, in his 80s, was suffering an illness, has been a close aide to Taliban's fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The dreadful group is also responsible for organizing dozens of suicide bombings in Afghan capital Kabul in the couple of past years.
Furthermore, the latest wave of raids against the network included an airstrike that took place in Khost province on Wednesday.
"Coalition forces conducted a precision air strike in Khost province Wednesday targeting a Haqqani Network senior leader who coordinates and conducts attacks against Afghan and coalition forces," the peacekeeping ISAF said.
Coalition forces observed the senior leader with a group of insurgents in a remote area of Khost district as they were emplacing an IED along the road, it said.
"After careful planning to avoid civilian causalities, coalition forces conducted the precision air strike, killing several insurgents," the press release added.
"ISAF is still trying to verify if the targeted individual was among those killed in the strike," it said.
The Afghan and coalition force's deliberate campaign to disrupt Haqqani operations in Khost province has resulted in 16 Haqqani senior leaders being captured or killed during operations in the province in the last month, the military alliance said in the statement.
Meanwhile, another setback for the militia was the capturing of another network facilitator of weapons and IED materials, during an overnight operation in Khost province on Tuesday.
After initial questioning at the scene, the security force detained the facilitator along with one of his associates.
The security force did not fire their weapons and they protected the women and children for the duration of the search.
"We will continue to target Haqqani leadership and fighters as we work with our Afghan partners to bring security to the region," U.S. Army Col. Rafael Torres, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command Combined Joint Operations Center director, was quoted in the statement as saying.
Paktika, Khost and Paktia provinces along the border with Pakistan's lawless tribal areas have been regarded as the Taliban hotbed in eastern Afghanistan.
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Over 100 Taliban militants surrender to gov't in N. Afghan provinces: official
KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Over 100 Taliban insurgents including key commanders have given up insurgency and surrendered to the government in northern Afghan provinces over the past weeks, regional police chief said Thursday.
"More than 100 armed anti-government militants including several key commanders among them have laid down their weapons and joined the peace process in Kunduz, Takhar, Baghlan and Faryab provinces over the past couple of weeks," Mohammad Daud Daud, commander of police force in the north of Afghanistan, told a press conference here.
With joining the armed men to the government and supporting peace process the security would be significantly improved in northern provinces, he added.
According to Daud, the Afghan National Police (ANP) with collaboration of Afghan National Army (ANA) and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have conducted a series of clean up and search operations across the northern region to capture militants' stronghold in Takhar and neighboring Kunduz provinces.
Three districts in Takhar province bordering Tajikistan, he said, have been cleared of militants during the operations, forcing insurgents to flee to the remote and mountainous areas. "There are several local armed militants and dozens of Al-Qaida fighters in the northern region who have come from their traditional hotbed southern provinces due to mounting military pressure on them," he said. "A fighter from Tajikistan has been killed during the operations," he added.
He also said the Taliban bastion Chardara district in Kunduz province has been cleared of insurgents and police forces have deployed in 12 villages to keep on security there.
The top police commander in north Afghanistan Daud also added that the number of security incidents have decreased by 30 percent in the northern region.
However, Taliban militants who have been attempting to infiltrate from their traditional hotbed southern Afghanistan to relatively peaceful northern provinces, have yet to make comments.
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20 Taliban militants lay down arms in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Twenty Taliban militants gave up insurgency and handed over their weapons to authorities in the western Herat province on Thursday, provincial governor Daud Saba said.
"A Taliban group composed of 20 armed men under commander Mullah Bashir Ahmad surrendered to government in Herat city, the capital of Herat province today," Saba told newsmen here.
These people were active in anti-government activities in Shindand district and their joining to government would strengthen government control there, the provincial governor further said.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
It is the second Taliban group laid down arms over the past two weeks in Herat. Previously 15 armed Taliban fighters handed over their arms and resumed normal life.
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NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Taliban-linked attack claimed the life of a soldier with NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Thursday, a statement of the alliance released here said.
"An ISAF service member died following an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan Thursday," the statement said.
However, it did not identify the nationality of the victim, saying it is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.
More than 600 NATO soldiers, most of them Americans, have been killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.
Over 140,000-strong ISAF troops were being deployed in Afghanistan to stabilize security in the post-Taliban country.
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Pakistan looks ahead to end of Afghan war
Toronto Star - Canada By Olivia Ward Foreign Affairs Reporter Wed Nov 03 2010
As NATO forces prepare to pull out of Afghanistan, worries about the country falling back to Taliban control are paramount. But in neighbouring Pakistan, where suicide bombings and brazen attacks on security forces have become regular occurrences, the stakes are also high.
“What happens in Afghanistan affects us and vice-versa,” says Akbar Zeb, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Canada. “We have four million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan, and it’s in our interest to have a stable country where we can send them back. A Taliban takeover won’t be just detrimental to Afghanistan. It would harm Pakistan and the whole region.”
Zeb said that under the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, relations have improved with Afghanistan, and contrary to reports of friction, there are “frequent contacts” between the two countries that would be helpful in creating stability.
But he added that Canada, and other Western countries, should not repeat the mistakes of the post-Soviet era, when the West lost interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan as soon as the Soviet troops withdrew.
During the rule of Pakistan’s military leader, President Pervez Musharraf, groups of Taliban-linked militants got a foothold in Pakistan, but were not seen as a danger to the country until internal attacks began to spread. Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, and suicide bombings took the lives of hundreds of civilians. Under pressure from the U.S., the Pakistani military began a massive campaign against the Taliban along the Afghan border.
“We have managed to clear a lot of areas from the Taliban,” said Zeb. “Military campaigns are the only language they understand. But they alone won’t help to win the war. We have border regions with a lot of poverty, and backward elements that have been ignored for a long time.”
Canada has announced support for road and rail projects linking Afghanistan and Pakistan to speed trade between the two countries.
“It’s a very good initiative, but scope is limited,” said Zeb.”We wish the projects were larger and not just (confined to) those that involve both Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Talks with Islamabad are also ongoing on the use of ports in Karachi for shipping out Canadian troops and military supplies from Afghanistan.
But as the war continues, Pakistan has also been urged to be tougher on the Taliban. In the past two years it has carried out attacks against the militants in its border regions with some success, while American-launched drone strikes have killed high-ranking Taliban. The catastrophic floods that wiped out some of the most important agricultural areas of Pakistan brought a temporary truce, but militant attacks have resumed since the waters receded.
Last week, talk of a peace deal between the notorious Taliban-linked Haqqani network, and an opposing tribe in the remote northwest raised fears that it could open the way for Taliban access to strategic border areas. But the U.S. has also urged a Pakistani offensive against the network in North Waziristan, a volatile region where 400,000 civilians are vulnerable to displacement.
According to Pakistani officials, the country has lost some 7,000 security forces in a decade of fighting the militants — more than three times the coalition deaths in Afghanistan. Meanwhile 30,000 Pakistani civilians have died. The border region, a tangle of mutually hostile tribes, remains a haven for militants.
“It’s a difficult balance for Pakistan,” said Zeb. “Foreign troops may leave, and for them Afghanistan is a distant land. We’re Afghanistan’s neighbours. We helped with the fighting in the decade-long war against the Soviets. And we have to live with the outcome of this war.”
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1.5 ton illicit drug set on fire in western Afghan province
HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Police in the western Herat province, about 1,057 km west of capital city Kabul, set on fire 1.5 tone illicit drug and have taken more than 70 drug smugglers into custody over the past three months, police spokesman in the province Noor Khan Nikzad said Thursday. "The contraband which included heroin, morphine and illegal materials used in manufacturing heroin had been confiscated over the past three months and all were burned to ash at a ceremony on Wednesday," Nikzad told Xinhua.
Authorities have also arrested 72 drug smugglers, all Afghans over the period in the province, he added.
Although 20 out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces have been identified as poppy-free, still the militancy-ridden country is supplying over 90 percent of the raw material used in manufacturing heroin, to the world.
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Former Taliban Leaders In Afghanistan See Peace As A Long Way Off
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty By Abubakar Siddique November 03, 2010
KABUL - The three hail from different backgrounds, but each served the Taliban government until its demise in late 2001.
Two, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and Abdul Salam Zaif, were imprisoned for their roles as Taliban officials, and could be found with Abdul Hakim Mujahid on the United Nation's blacklist of individuals and entities associated with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda until this year.
The lives of the three men have changed dramatically, but they all agree on one thing -- Kabul and NATO are on the road to a settlement that will end their nine-year war in Afghanistan, but peace is a long way off in the eyes of the Taliban.
Muttawakil, a former foreign minister in the Taliban regime, once negotiated pipeline deals with global energy giants and even participated in talks about the fate of fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden. After the fall of the Taliban government, he found himself incarcerated in his native Kandahar for four years.
A recent visit to his modest home in western Kabul revealed a man who dedicates much of his time to studying Islamic literature, occasionally receiving visitors keen on meeting one of the Taliban regime's former leaders.
Step By Step
The 40-year-old cleric is not part of the current Taliban military machine, and takes pains to stress to those who call that he does not represent the Taliban viewpoint. But his experiences as a onetime Taliban insider provide him with keen insight into their thinking, and with Kabul and its international backers increasingly indicating their willingness to negotiate an end to their nine-year war with the hard-line movement, Muttawakil's opinion carries significant weight.
Muttawakil says that achieving peace is possible in Afghanistan, but warns that it will be a tedious and intricate process. He describes the government's recent formation of a High Peace Council to oversee negotiations toward permanent peace as a first step.
"In reality, a permanent peace settlement consists of three steps," Muttawakil says. "Firstly, there has to be reconciliation among Afghans. [Secondly,] peace between the Afghans and the Americans or NATO at large. And [lastly] a regional settlement among regional states. All this depends on what kind of strategy is formed to achieve peace, what steps are taken to build trust [among the warring sides] and how much the foreigners [international community] back such steps."
He suggests that, similar to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas's political office in Syria, the Taliban should be encouraged to establish contact offices in a neutral Islamic country. Once the Taliban can be publically reached, neutral mediators can begin negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Muttawakil also wants Hizb-e Islami, a smaller but older hard-line Afghan pan-Islamist group active in eastern Afghanistan, to be part of the final settlement among Afghans.
Don't Discount Taliban Unity
Zaif is a former Taliban minister and diplomat who spent nearly four years at the United States' Guantanamo detention facility after the regime fell in 2001.
Like Muttawakil, Zaif paints a picture of the Taliban movement that is vastly different from that portrayed in Western news bulletins and newspapers that describe the Afghan insurgency as loose-knit structure of often-competing networks with no central leadership.
Both men say that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose importance to negotiations has been discounted by some observers, remains in charge. They say that even the powerful Haqqani network -- accused by NATO and Kabul of being close to the Pakistani security services and blamed for deadly attacks in the Afghan capital and much of the volatile southeastern provinces -- follows the directions outlined by Mullah Omar and the council of his trusted lieutenants.
Muttawakil and Zaif reject the notion that peace with the Taliban can be made piecemeal by focusing on reintegrating foot soldiers by offering jobs and monetary incentives. They say that there can be no negotiations without the voice of key insurgent leaders, most of whom still figure on UN blacklists or have outstanding bounties for their death or capture.
Zaif sees an opportunity for the United Nations to play a robust role -- not in imposing sanctions, but in ending the "foreign occupation" of Afghanistan. The presence of foreign military forces, he says, is the principal problem for the Taliban, and the resolution of that issue could pave the way for an internal Afghan settlement.
"The most important problem is the occupation of the country and only foreigners can solve that. The problems among Afghans can be resolved after that and that's not the complicated part," Zaif says. "Without resolving the fundamental problem of occupation, I don't think we can resolve the lesser problems. I am, however, optimistic that the first steps toward peace are a good omen and they should continue."
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban envoy to the United Nations, agrees. He says that it's almost miraculous that the Taliban has, for the most part, remained united, unlike other Afghan factions that morphed into splinter groups upon being subjected to military pressure.
Mujahid, now a member of the newly formed High Peace Council, says that the Taliban is being run by a central "shura," or leadership council, under the guidance of Mullah Omar. This body, he says, controls shadow governors and military commanders for provinces and districts across Afghanistan. These figures are periodically shuffled to assert central control.
That's why, Mujahid says, the Peace Council would first listen to all sides of conflict before embarking on solving the complicated issues. He counts NATO, the Afghan government, the Taliban, and neighboring countries among the key parties to the conflict.
"We can't have peace in Afghanistan as long as we don't gain the trust of all sides to the conflict. We won't put forward concrete proposals to them but instead will delve into their perspectives," Mujahid says. "Together with viewpoints of the regional players and international community we would analyze their stance within the framework of Afghanistan's national interest to carve out a permanent solution to Afghanistan's problem."
Mujahid views the process as long and complicated, but he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. What gives him hope are a few lines from President Barak Obama's Cairo address to the Muslim world in June 2009.
"Make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women," Obama said. Mujahid believes that this shows that Washington really is interested in exploring ways to end the Afghan conflict.
Building Trust
Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, says that the Taliban and the Afghan government and the international community have to build trust by trying to understand each other. He says that while Kabul still thinks of the Taliban as an extension of the Pakistani intelligence services, the Taliban views the Karzai's administration as powerless, with its foreign backers holding all the cards.
The "road map" to peace he outlines includes trust building between the Taliban and the international community. He says that while the international community worries about a future Taliban government giving Al-Qaeda a sanctuary, the Taliban views the international military presence as a foreign occupation and insists on ending it as a precondition for talks.
To begin the long journey to peace, Muttawakil suggests that Kabul and the international community should allow the Taliban to have visible political representation. To build trust, he suggests, Taliban prisoners should be freed and leaders removed from UN sanctions lists.
"If there is trust we can have peace between the Afghans and between the Afghans and the foreigners. There should be no preconditions for talks from both sides. The Taliban should not insist on a departure schedule for foreigners while the Afghan government should not push the Taliban to accept its constitution," Muttawakil says.
"If the Taliban had accepted the constitution, there would have been no war. And if the foreigners were prepared to leave Afghanistan [without guarantees], then there would be no need for negotiations."
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Taliban ratchet up attacks on Afghan security forces
Russia promises more cooperation on NATO effort
Associated Press By Katharine Houreld November 4, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants carried out three attacks against Afghan security forces yesterday, targeting a police station, a border patrol, and an army checkpoint in strikes that left 12 people dead, officials said.
Meanwhile, NATO said, insurgents killed two coalition service members in separate attacks in the country’s north and south.
In the deadliest attack against Afghan forces, Taliban militants assaulted a police station in Nad Ali district of Helmand Province early yesterday. The fighting killed four insurgents and two civilians, said Helmand Province spokesman Daud Ahmadi.
Also in Helmand Province, a roadside bomb struck a border police car, killing three officers and wounding five others, said Ali Jan, the border police’s provincial head.
The attacks occurred two days after Taliban forces briefly overran a district seat in Ghazni Province, torching several government buildings. The 16 police officers stationed in the town disappeared during or after the attack; it is unclear whether they deserted or were captured.
The Afghan police are primarily a paramilitary force. Poor living conditions, high risk, and bad leadership have contributed to a high rate of attrition among the members, with nearly one in four leaving within a year. That, in turn, leaves the international coalition scrambling to plug the gaps.
In eastern Khost Province yesterday, insurgents using small arms attacked an army checkpoint, then a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into it, the provincial commander said. Besides the suicide bomber, two soldiers were killed and six were wounded, General Raz Mohamed Oryakhail said.
In separate attacks, NATO said, insurgents killed one service member yesterday in northern Afghanistan, and a roadside bomb killed another in the south.
The statement did not provide details of the attacks or the nationalities of the slain service members.
Northern Afghanistan has traditionally been more stable than the south, but attacks and bombings in the region have increased in recent months, as NATO and Afghan troops have been conducting operations in the south.
It is unclear whether the southern operation is pushing Taliban insurgents into other parts of the country or whether the traditionally Pashtun insurgency has managed to build alliances with ethnic groups in the north.
The deaths yesterday bring the total number of NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 609.
Meanwhile, Russia promised yesterday to do more to help NATO in Afghanistan but stopped short of making any specific commitments.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Moscow that Russia and NATO share interests in Afghanistan.
“We will expand our cooperation in Afghanistan,’’ Lavrov said. “It’s in our common vital interests.’’
Moscow has offered only lukewarm support for the US-led war in Afghanistan and has limited itself to letting NATO take military supplies across its territory. It said in response to NATO’s request to provide helicopters and training for Afghan pilots that it was ready to do so but only if the alliance members pay the bill.
Also yesterday, the US government said it will spend $511 million to expand its embassy in Kabul. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry described the work as a demonstration of America’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan.
“We make this commitment by commemorating the recent award of a $511 million contract to expand the US Embassy here in Kabul,’’ Eikenberry said during a ceremony at the construction site that marked the formal announcement of the contract. “We’re going to get a day when that embassy’s up and there’s not going to be these barriers out there, there’s no barbed wire, there’s not going to be all kinds of obstacles out there.’’
The road to the embassy, located in downtown Kabul, is currently blocked by large concrete barriers, and the building is surrounded by armed security guards.
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Former Taliban Leaders In Afghanistan See Peace As A Long Way Off
November 3, 2010 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- The three hail from different backgrounds, but each served the Taliban government until its demise in late 2001.
Two, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and Abdul Salam Zaif, were imprisoned for their roles as Taliban officials, and could be found with Abdul Hakim Mujahid on the United Nation's blacklist of individuals and entities associated with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda until this year.
The lives of the three men have changed dramatically, but they all agree on one thing -- Kabul and NATO are on the road to a settlement that will end their nine-year war in Afghanistan, but peace is a long way off in the eyes of the Taliban.
Muttawakil, a former foreign minister in the Taliban regime, once negotiated pipeline deals with global energy giants and even participated in talks about the fate of fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden. After the fall of the Taliban government, he found himself incarcerated in his native Kandahar for four years.
A recent visit to his modest home in western Kabul revealed a man who dedicates much of his time to studying Islamic literature, occasionally receiving visitors keen on meeting one of the Taliban regime's former leaders.
Step By Step
The 40-year-old cleric is not part of the current Taliban military machine, and takes pains to stress to those who call that he does not represent the Taliban viewpoint. But his experiences as a onetime Taliban insider provide him with keen insight into their thinking, and with Kabul and its international backers increasingly indicating their willingness to negotiate an end to their nine-year war with the hard-line movement, Muttawakil's opinion carries significant weight.
Muttawakil says that achieving peace is possible in Afghanistan, but warns that it will be a tedious and intricate process. He describes the government's recent formation of a High Peace Council to oversee negotiations toward permanent peace as a first step.
"In reality, a permanent peace settlement consists of three steps," Muttawakil says. "Firstly, there has to be reconciliation among Afghans. [Secondly,] peace between the Afghans and the Americans or NATO at large. And [lastly] a regional settlement among regional states. All this depends on what kind of strategy is formed to achieve peace, what steps are taken to build trust [among the warring sides] and how much the foreigners [international community] back such steps."
He suggests that, similar to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas's political office in Syria, the Taliban should be encouraged to establish contact offices in a neutral Islamic country. Once the Taliban can be publically reached, neutral mediators can begin negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Muttawakil also wants Hizb-e Islami, a smaller but older hard-line Afghan pan-Islamist group active in eastern Afghanistan, to be part of the final settlement among Afghans.
Don't Discount Taliban Unity
Zaif is a former Taliban minister and diplomat who spent nearly four years at the United States' Guantanamo detention facility after the regime fell in 2001.
Like Muttawakil, Zaif paints a picture of the Taliban movement that is vastly different from that portrayed in Western news bulletins and newspapers that describe the Afghan insurgency as loose-knit structure of often-competing networks with no central leadership.
Both men say that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose importance to negotiations has been discounted by some observers, remains in charge. They say that even the powerful Haqqani network -- accused by NATO and Kabul of being close to the Pakistani security services and blamed for deadly attacks in the Afghan capital and much of the volatile southeastern provinces -- follows the directions outlined by Mullah Omar and the council of his trusted lieutenants.
Muttawakil and Zaif reject the notion that peace with the Taliban can be made piecemeal by focusing on reintegrating foot soldiers by offering jobs and monetary incentives. They say that there can be no negotiations without the voice of key insurgent leaders, most of whom still figure on UN blacklists or have outstanding bounties for their death or capture.
Zaif sees an opportunity for the United Nations to play a robust role -- not in imposing sanctions, but in ending the "foreign occupation" of Afghanistan. The presence of foreign military forces, he says, is the principal problem for the Taliban, and the resolution of that issue could pave the way for an internal Afghan settlement.
"The most important problem is the occupation of the country and only foreigners can solve that. The problems among Afghans can be resolved after that and that's not the complicated part," Zaif says. "Without resolving the fundamental problem of occupation, I don't think we can resolve the lesser problems. I am, however, optimistic that the first steps toward peace are a good omen and they should continue."
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban envoy to the United Nations, agrees. He says that it's almost miraculous that the Taliban has, for the most part, remained united, unlike other Afghan factions that morphed into splinter groups upon being subjected to military pressure.
Mujahid, now a member of the newly formed High Peace Council, says that the Taliban is being run by a central "shura," or leadership council, under the guidance of Mullah Omar. This body, he says, controls shadow governors and military commanders for provinces and districts across Afghanistan. These figures are periodically shuffled to assert central control.
That's why, Mujahid says, the Peace Council would first listen to all sides of conflict before embarking on solving the complicated issues. He counts NATO, the Afghan government, the Taliban, and neighboring countries among the key parties to the conflict.
"We can't have peace in Afghanistan as long as we don't gain the trust of all sides to the conflict. We won't put forward concrete proposals to them but instead will delve into their perspectives," Mujahid says. "Together with viewpoints of the regional players and international community we would analyze their stance within the framework of Afghanistan's national interest to carve out a permanent solution to Afghanistan's problem."
Mujahid views the process as long and complicated, but he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. What gives him hope are a few lines from President Barak Obama's Cairo address to the Muslim world in June 2009.
"Make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women," Obama said. Mujahid believes that this shows that Washington really is interested in exploring ways to end the Afghan conflict.
Building Trust
Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, says that the Taliban and the Afghan government and the international community have to build trust by trying to understand each other. He says that while Kabul still thinks of the Taliban as an extension of the Pakistani intelligence services, the Taliban views the Karzai's administration as powerless, with its foreign backers holding all the cards.
The "road map" to peace he outlines includes trust building between the Taliban and the international community. He says that while the international community worries about a future Taliban government giving Al-Qaeda a sanctuary, the Taliban views the international military presence as a foreign occupation and insists on ending it as a precondition for talks.
To begin the long journey to peace, Muttawakil suggests that Kabul and the international community should allow the Taliban to have visible political representation. To build trust, he suggests, Taliban prisoners should be freed and leaders removed from UN sanctions lists.
"If there is trust we can have peace between the Afghans and between the Afghans and the foreigners. There should be no preconditions for talks from both sides. The Taliban should not insist on a departure schedule for foreigners while the Afghan government should not push the Taliban to accept its constitution," Muttawakil says.
"If the Taliban had accepted the constitution, there would have been no war. And if the foreigners were prepared to leave Afghanistan [without guarantees], then there would be no need for negotiations."
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30,000 New Jobs in Telecommunication Sector This Year
Tolo news November 3, 2010
The Afghan Ministry of Communication and Information Technology claims that more than 30,000 jobs were provided in the first 7 months of this year
Officials in the Afghan Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, who were summoned to the Afghan parliament on Tuesday, said the telecommunication sector is one of the main income sources of the Afghan government and added that mobile services are expanding steadily throughout the country.
The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology says the fiber optic internet projects in the country and the establishment of national information centre are among its main achievements and it is also planning to start the distribution of electronic ID Cards after the ministry of Justice approves it.
But some Afghan parliamentarians are not satisfied with the work of the ministry and say that it relies more on the private sector and is not paying attention to the remote areas of Afghanistan.
"Many of the remote areas such as Shahristan and Miramor districts are deprived of mobile phone services and we urge your attention," Nasrullah Sadeqi, an Afghan MP said.
"The ministry of communication provided conditions for the private sector and implemented a positive and clear policy that the private sector could operate effectively in the country," Deputy Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Baryalai Hossam said.
Lack of sufficient budget and a ban by the Kabul municipality to construct buildings for communication offices are among the main obstacles cited by the Ministry of Communication to expand telecommunication services in the country.
"The Ministry of communication has also paid serious attention to capacity building by sending Afghan cadres abroad to study in this field, Mr Hossam added.
The installation of communication antennas in remote areas, organising communication and internet networks, encouraging the private sector to invest in communications, promoting mobile services and the expansion of the fibre optic internet services are among the future plans of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.
According to the ministry, the fibre optic project is 80% completed now and is connected to Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Tajikistan's internet services. The cost of internet and telephone services is said to be decreased to a great level after the project is accomplished successfully.
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In-Brief: USA brings fungus-resistant wheat seed to Afghanistan
KABUL, 4 November 2010 (IRIN) - The US Agriculture Department has shipped 150 tons of UG99fungus-resistant wheat seed from Egypt to Afghanistan "to protect future crops, improve the livelihoods of thousands of Afghan farmers, and improve food security", the US embassy said.
"This seed will be multiplied this year, and by next year [when it is distributed to farmers] it should be adequate to cover approximately 5 percent or more of wheat production area in Afghanistan," Mireille L. Zieseniss, assistant press attaché at the US embassy in Kabul, told IRIN.
The expected multiplication, however, will be highly dependent upon favourable weather conditions. The country is prone to drought and floods among other natural disasters.
Millions of Afghans are chronically food insecure and the country struggles to produce enough cereals to meet domestic demand even in a good year, experts say.
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We are Accountable to Iran on its Cash Aid: Daudzai
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 03 November 2010
President Karzai's Chief of Staff said Wednesday that Afghanistan will only be accountable to Iran for its cash aid to Presidential Palace
But some Afghan political analysts said accountability of Presidential Palace to Iran on the sources the donated cash was spent will be a disrespect to Afghan people and government.
"Any sort of accountability of Afghan Officials to the country that provides cash not only brings national sovereignty under question, but it is also a disrespect to the Afghan government and people," said an Afghan MP, Noorul Haq Olomi.
Nowadays Iran's cash aid to the Afghan government which is claimed to be transparent, has after years turned into a hot topic in Afghan media.
President Karzai had recently said Iran's cash is an official aid, but his Chief of Staff said details of expenditures are provided to Iran.
"We have a system based on which, a financial report is provided to the sources that have donated money to us," said President Karzai's Chief of Staff, Umar Daudzai.
An Afghan MP, Faizullah Mujadidi, said: "Reporting information regarding domestic issues is an obvious violation of law and this can put the country's independence under question."
Mr Daudzai speaks of a different story behind the article published by the New York Times.
He said: "A day before the article was published, somebody --whose identity will be disclosed after probes are completed-- came to a section of my office, and indirectly asked me to change the position of President Karzai about the private security firms, otherwise the article would be published in the New York Times.
Mr Daudzai says there are also some other countries that help the Afghan government in the same way that Iran does.
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British Museum to exhibit Afghan gold
The British Museum will exhibit a hoard of ancient Afghan gold jewellery after Kabul today signs an agreement loaning the treasure to Britain.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer in Kabul 03 Nov 2010
The discovery of the Bactrian Hoard in a burial mound in northern Afghanistan is considered one of the greatest archaeological events of last century.
The collection of 21,000 pieces of finery buried by Afghanistan’s nomadic ancestors was feared looted from Kabul or melted down during the 1990s as the country endured civil war and Taliban rule.
Its rediscovery, hidden in 10 tin trunks in a bank vault inside the presidential palace’s grounds after the Taliban had left, was a source of national pride.
Examples will now go on show in Britain for the first time in an exhibition called: “Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World,” from next spring.
Sir William Patey, British ambassador to Kabul who will witness the agreement, said: “There’s an incredible story attached to these beautiful artefacts – saved from destruction during the civil war and the Taliban regime and hidden in secret vaults in Kabul.
“It’s fantastic news that they’re going to the British Museum in the spring.”
Soviet archaeologists discovered the gold in 1978 in a low barrow-like hill close to the town of Sheberghan.
The hill’s six burial chambers yielded a dazzling haul of gold and bejewelled crowns, pendants, scabbards, statues, bridles and coins which had lain untouched since around the time of Christ. Some of the gold dates to the sixth century BC.
The kingdom of Bactria had straddled the ancient trade routes of Asia and been conquered by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC.
Scholars value the hoard for its mixture of influences from nomadic Siberian horsemen, India, Iran and classical Greece.
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