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NATO Transfers Control of Northern Province to Afghans
VOA News July 24, 2011
NATO troops have handed control to Afghan forces in the northeastern province of Panjshir, the latest in a series of security transitions in the country.
Taliban Blamed in Death of Afghan Officer’s 8-Year-Old Son
By TAIMOOR SHAH and JACK HEALY The New York Times July 24, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —Kidnappers believed to be Taliban abducted the 8-year-old son of a police officer in southern Afghanistan, strangled him with a man’s shawl and dumped his body into a stream during the weekend, in apparent retaliation for the father’s refusal to give them his police truck.
Speaking with the enemy: how US commanders fight the Taliban during the day and dine with them at night
US Marine commanders spend their days hunting Taliban fighters but lay down their weapons to dine with insurgent leaders at night as they try to negotiate an end to fighting in Afghanistan.
Telegraph.co.uk By Colin Freeman 23 Jul 2011
Sangin - Sitting in the spartan parlour of the governor of Sangin's office, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Savage waits for his opposite number in the Taliban to turn up for tea.
Cross-border attacks from
Afghanistan claim 22 lives in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 22 people were killed and 64 others injured during the past week in the cross-border terrorist attacks on security checkposts and villages in the northwestern tribal belt of Pakistan that shares common boarder with Afghanistan, local media reported on Sunday.
Toll Climbs to 80 in NATO Raid on Insurgent Camp in Southeastern Afghanistan
New York Times By SHARIFULLAH SAHAK and ALISSA J. RUBIN July 23, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - The number of insurgents reported killed in a NATO attack on a large encampment in a remote area of Paktika Province rose to 80 on Saturday, said Afghan officials, adding that they were concerned that there could be more undetected militant camps within the country’s borders.
Afghan Lawmakers Urge Travel Ban for Attorney General
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 23 July 2011
Some parliamentarians on Saturday suggested that the Attorney General should be placed on a travel ban over allegations of possible involvement in corruption.
Afghan interpreters fear retribution, seek life in Canada
The Canadian Press Saturday Jul. 23, 2011
Sweaty and dishevelled, two Afghan interpreters asked to have their picture taken outside their bunker-like sleeping container at a parched combat outpost in Panjwaii district, near Kandahar city.
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NATO Transfers Control of Northern Province to Afghans
VOA News July 24, 2011
NATO troops have handed control to Afghan forces in the northeastern province of Panjshir, the latest in a series of security transitions in the country.
Sunday’s handover ceremony makes Panjshir the sixth area to be put under Afghan security responsibility over the past week.
Panjshir province, which lies about 130 kilometers from Kabul, has been a fiercely anti-Taliban stronghold where NATO forces have had little presence.
Over the past week, NATO has transferred security control to Afghan forces in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand province, Bamiyan province and the cities of Herat and Mehterlam .
Most districts in Kabul province will also soon be handed over to local forces. Kabul city has been under Afghan security responsibility since 2008.
The transfers are the first phase of a plan that will place the country’s security under Afghan control in the next three years. International combat troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
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Taliban Blamed in Death of Afghan Officer’s 8-Year-Old Son
By TAIMOOR SHAH and JACK HEALY The New York Times July 24, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —Kidnappers believed to be Taliban abducted the 8-year-old son of a police officer in southern Afghanistan, strangled him with a man’s shawl and dumped his body into a stream during the weekend, in apparent retaliation for the father’s refusal to give them his police truck.
The boy’s killing was confirmed by local police and government officials, as well as the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who called it part of a pattern of Taliban killings of children who have glancing or even suspected connections to Afghan security forces or the contingents of NATO troops in the country. The Taliban denied responsibility.
“There are many other examples of these gruesome acts of violence,” said Nader Nadery, a human-rights advocate. “It looks to be widespread and systematic.”
The boy’s father, Mohammed Daoud, 36, is a driver for the local police commander in the Gereshk District in Helmand Province. The job gave him access to the force’s green pickup truck, and made him a target for militants, who have stolen police vehicles and used security uniforms to deceive checkpoint guards and carry out attacks.
Mr. Daoud said he had received an anonymous phone call on Thursday afternoon demanding that he hand over his police truck. Tired and irritable, Mr. Daoud said he dismissed the call as a prank, even when the callers warned they had taken his son, Mohammed Ibrahim, and threatened to kill the boy.
“I became angry,” Mr. Daoud said. “I used bad words and told him, ‘cut off his head.’ ”
When Mr. Daoud returned home, he said, he found his wife and daughters in tears. Someone had taken Mohammed Ibrahim, they told him.
Now frantic, Mr. Daoud said he tried to reach the kidnappers, but their phone had been switched off. The family waited until Sunday morning, when the police called. They had found the boy. He had been choked with a traditional Afghan shawl called a patoo, which men use as a scarf, lap blanket or prayer rug.
“I didn’t think that they would kill my son,” Mr. Daoud said. “They claim that they are religious people and wage jihad against evildoers.”
NATO troops have waged a fierce offensive to deny the Taliban refuge in many corners of Helmand, and security responsibility in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, was turned over to Afghans last week. But violence still flares outside the capital, and the Taliban stalk rural areas like the one where the boy was taken.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in response to the killing that the government had slandered the Taliban with a false accusation.
The United Nations recently reported that the Taliban and other antigovernment groups are responsible for about 80 percent of civilian deaths in Afghanistan.
Mr. Daoud was defiant, saying he would not quit the police force and that “from now on, I will stand against them.”
But he has been getting more phone calls since burying his son. The Taliban called him on Sunday with new demands for the police truck. But they offered an incentive, he said: If Mr. Daoud delivered the vehicle, the callers promised they would bring his son’s killers to justice.
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Jack Healy from Kabul.
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Speaking with the enemy: how US commanders fight the Taliban during the day and dine with them at night
US Marine commanders spend their days hunting Taliban fighters but lay down their weapons to dine with insurgent leaders at night as they try to negotiate an end to fighting in Afghanistan.
Telegraph.co.uk By Colin Freeman 23 Jul 2011
Sangin - Sitting in the spartan parlour of the governor of Sangin's office, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Savage waits for his opposite number in the Taliban to turn up for tea.
Fittingly, perhaps, for a man whose day job is killing Lt Col Savage's fellow US Marines, the insurgent leader will only ever meet at night, and even then, it is a cloak-and-dagger affair.
Shortly after 9pm, there is a crunch of gravel in the fortified compound outside, and in walks a figure swathed in black save for a slit for his eyes.
He peels off his veil with theatrical flair, greets the Colonel, and over a dinner of stew and rice, the two discuss the one thing that both badly want, but neither can deliver alone - peace.
"I have talked to three different local Taliban commanders, and this particular one is a pretty respected guy," said Lt Col Savage, who says they may well have killed his own men, and almost certainly some of the British whom the Marines inherited part of southern Afghanistan from last year.
"But he's tired of fighting, and if he lays down his weapons he could have a significant effect around here. I have to put aside what he may have done in the past, and think about what he can do in the future."
Shrouded in secrecy and fraught with mutual mistrust, it is meetings like these that the West hopes may finally achieve what nearly a decade of military intervention, billions in aid and thousands of troops' lives has not yet done - a lasting accommodation with the Taliban that will one day enable Col Savage and every other foreign soldier in Afghanistan to leave for good.
Speaking last month in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, the outgoing US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said he hoped that talks might begin with the movement's Pakistan-based leadership as soon as the end of this year. But with hardline elements in the high command apparently reluctant to talk, parallel efforts to peel away battle-weary footsoldiers may prove just as important.
Hence the need for Col Savage, a lean figure who might have stepped out of a Marines recruitment poster, to play both warrior and diplomat. Brought in via the local governor, a respected schoolmaster named Mohammed Sharif, the Taliban leaders he talks to represent a spectrum of motivations. One, says Col Savage, is the 25-year-old grandson of a local elder, "very cocky, but under pressure from the Taliban leadership to continue fighting".
Another seems partly mercenary, open to side with whoever offers him money. And the third, for whom he has highest hopes, is a taciturn, bearded man in his mid-40s, who has fought almost non-stop since the anti-Soviet jihad, and wants to spent some of his adulthood in peace.
The commander of 15 to 20 fighters, he is a former pupil of the governor, who guarantees him safe passage to his compound during his visits after dark, and ensures that the Afghan police outside allow the visitor's vehicle to pass unhindered - although he is still frisked for weapons on his way in. How far his clandestine visits are known to other senior Taliban figures, of whom some may have given approval but others may oppose, is unclear.
"This particular guy is fairly educated by local standards - he signs papers with his initials rather than a thumb print," said Col Savage, who heads the 1st Battalion 5th Regiment US Marines. "He doesn't say much, but we get on fairly cordially."
Such civility is all the more surprising given the intensity of the combat outside. While successive Marine battalions have inflicted heavy casualties on the Taliban, 37 of their own men have died in the process, an attrition level comparable to the British, who lost 100 here in four years. Yet to Col Savage, concerns over their respective casualties offer a chance for common ground.
"We talk as one commander to another, about how it feels to lose men, and what it is like making difficult decisions," he said. "This is an unusual war, and often the best way to engage the enemy is by talking to him." Col Savage has had several confidential meetings with the middle-aged Taliban leader, whose fondness for dramatic entrances is perhaps worthy of the Cadbury's Milk Tray Man.
Yet unlike the chocolate advert's hero, the leader in question is far from guaranteed to deliver. The deal on the table for commanders seeking amnesty can include development projects for their villages, and employment for their men in local security forces. In exchange, they must agree to be photographed and biometrically assessed, so that coalition forces can keep tabs on them.
But it is not so much the beady eye of Uncle Sam that worries them, as the threats they will face from so-called "irreconcilable" Taliban, who will see them as traitors. So far, none of commanders in Sangin district have taken the plunge.
"The middle-aged commander blows hot and cold, offering to bring in 10 or 20 followers, but then not showing," said Col Savage. "They ask us for extra weapons to protect themselves from other Taliban factions, but that isn't something I can help with. I'd let them keep their AK47s, maybe even a few RPGs, but I can't go beyond that."
For Col Savage, such wooing evokes memories of the "Sunni Awakening" in Iraq's Anbar province, in which US Marines helped persuade tribes to ditch al Qaeda and join local security forces.
But comparisons, he stresses, are limited. While Iraq's Sunnis were driven by both hatred of al-Qaeda and fear of Shia domination, the Taliban have no such urgent motivations.
For all that their ranks have taken a hammering, courtesy of the US troop "surge" and drone attacks on their senior leaders, many believe that coalition plans to remove combat troops by 2014 mean it is now just a case of biding their time.
"It is true we are kicking the crap out of them, but the Taliban aren't in their death throes yet," said Colonel Eric Smith, a senior Marines commander.
"Many fighters on the ground are fed up with 'leadership by cellphone', where people who aren't actually fighting themselves are issuing orders, and I'd certainly rather talk to those guys than kill them. But it seems there are guys up in Quetta who aren't interested in giving up any time soon."
Quetta is the Pakistani city on the other side of Afghanistan's mountainous border, where the Taliban's one-eyed spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, is thought to have lived since the 9-11 attacks.
Last month, Marc Grossman, the US envoy to Kabul nicknamed "Mr Reconciliation", reportedly appealed for him to get in touch. While the fugitive leader is said to have ruled out any dialogue, Col Savage suspects lower-level Taliban commanders in Sangin may have been given "tacit permission" for exploratory talks.
Ground-level talks are already underway elsewhere in Afghanistan, courtesy of an £88 million formal "integration" programme which began a year ago, jointly funded by the US, Japan, Germany and Britain.
Overseen by a British commander, Major General Phil Jones, it requires defecting Taliban fighters to spend three months in a safe house while they undergo a "parole" screening to assess the sincerity of their decision to quit.
So far, however, only around 2,000 of the estimated 25,000 active Taliban fighters have signed up, with few from the most volatile southern regions, and the programme has not been without blips.
One prominent commander who was paraded on national television when he signed up has threatened to rejoin the insurgency, claiming he got none of the money that he was promised.
Others have been killed by Taliban loyalists, while some should arguably never have been allowed into the programme at all - such as Moulavi Isfandar, who had ordered the flogging and execution of a widow accused of adultery.
Three registered ex-fighters were also part of a mob that stormed a UN compound in April and killed eight foreign aid workers. "It just demonstrates the sort of complexity of the issue we're dealing with here and the need to take this extremely seriously," Gen Jones conceded at a recent Pentagon briefing.
The limited take-up of the programme also poses questions as to how many Taliban actually want to quit fighting. Contrary to popular belief, not all are just poor peasants in it for the money. For some, the Taliban's brand of hardline Islamic piety is still seen as preferable to the corrupt, Western-backed government in Kabul.
The other problem is what happens should the de-fanged Taliban seek a role in government, which has always understood to be part of the wider peace deal. While power-sharing could probably only go ahead if they agreed to soften their stance on social issues like women's rights, it is hard to see how such a hardline movement could adapt to democratic compromise.
That certainly, is the impression given from meeting ex-Taliban officials like Mohammed Qalamuddin, who banned make-up, music and television while serving as deputy head of the notorious vice and virtue ministry. Last week, as part of continuing confidence-building measures, the United Nations removed his name and 14 other Taliban figures from a sanctions blacklist.
But while time has mellowed the bushy-bearded cleric a little - he now has a television in his own living room, and even allowed The Sunday Telegraph to take a photo of him, which would have counted as an "idolatrous image" in the old days - he has no regrets about the extreme strictures he passed while in office.
"We have 25 million people here, and if you go outside of Kabul, you will find 24 million of them still accept Islamic rule," he said. "Music and TV is not important to them."
Given the ubiquity of satellite dishes and CD music shops not just in free-and-easy Kabul but across the country, it would seem many Afghans would disagree.
Yet a partial return of the Taliban could also split the country along ethnic as well as moral lines.
Afghan's ethnic Uzbeks, Hazaras and Tajiks, who dominate the north, are increasingly anxious that the West's haste for a peace deal will hand the Pashtun-led Taliban more influence than they deserve.
Still, as long as foreign soldiers are being killed, men like Col Savage are likely to continue hunting their adversaries one day and dining with them the next. And for Sangin's "irreconcilable" Taliban, Col Savage also has the option of what is arguably an altogether more Afghan solution. One local elder has offered his services as a bounty hunter, killing "irreconcilables" for bounty cash.
"It seemed idle talk at first, but then the guy offered me a detailed price list," Col Savage said. "I told him 'You kill these guys, and we will figure things out afterwards'."
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Cross-border attacks from
Afghanistan claim 22 lives in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 22 people were killed and 64 others injured during the past week in the cross-border terrorist attacks on security checkposts and villages in the northwestern tribal belt of Pakistan that shares common boarder with Afghanistan, local media reported on Sunday.
Express TV quoted a weekly report compiled by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies as saying that the number of attacks on security forces across the northwestern Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas registered a drastic increase during the first week of July.
The report showed that militant attacks spiked during the latest week after a relative lull in the preceding two weeks.
Attacks on security forces across the province's settled and tribal areas started in mid June in which 41 deaths occurred. As many as 120 people were injured in these incidents.
However, the attacks intensified again after a gap of two weeks, resulting in 48 deaths and 150 injuries.
The report also showed that the overall rate of deaths during the reporting week remained high, mainly because of security forces ' retaliatory attacks against militants and drone strikes and clashes between extremists and pro-government tribal militias.
A larger number of security personnel got injured in these terrorist attacks, mainly in cross-border attacks and ambushes on checkposts and patrol convoys.
The number of civilian casualties was also higher because of firefights between militants and security personnel, but the militants suffered most casualties.
As many as 11 security personnel, including two policemen, five Frontier Constabulary (FC) men and four army soldiers, were killed and 50 others were wounded in the attacks.
Although this week no attack was reported on Afghanistan-bound NATO supply trucks and oil tankers at the Pak-Afghan boarder area, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa saw as many as eight attacks on NATO oil tankers leaving seven people dead, including five civilians and two policemen.
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Toll Climbs to 80 in NATO Raid on Insurgent Camp in Southeastern Afghanistan
New York Times By SHARIFULLAH SAHAK and ALISSA J. RUBIN July 23, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - The number of insurgents reported killed in a NATO attack on a large encampment in a remote area of Paktika Province rose to 80 on Saturday, said Afghan officials, adding that they were concerned that there could be more undetected militant camps within the country’s borders.
The camp, which was raided Thursday by NATO troops backed up by Afghan forces, accommodated considerably more people than most compounds where Taliban and other insurgents take shelter along the border with Pakistan. The discovery raised questions about how entrenched the insurgency had become in southeastern Afghanistan. NATO has conducted many raids along the border, but rarely if ever come across compounds big enough for dozens of insurgents, officials said.
Most of the dead were from the tribal areas of Pakistan, NATO and local officials said. The tribal areas on the Pakistan side of the border are populated by Pashtuns of similar background to those on the Afghan side and are home to many Afghans who fled their country during the Russian occupation here.
A NATO spokesman declined to give any information on how many of the insurgents were Pashtuns from Pakistan and how many were foreign jihadi fighters. Foreign fighters, mostly from the Arab world or central Asia, are frequently associated with Al Qaeda and similar groups dedicated to global jihad.
The insurgents killed in the NATO attack were affiliated with the Haqqani group, a particularly effective and brutal militant faction based around a family originally from neighboring Paktia Province, according to a NATO statement on the attack. For several years the Haqqanis have been headquartered in Miran Shah in north Waziristan, one of Pakistan’s tribal areas, which explains why many of the fighters appear to have been drawn from there rather than from the Afghan side of the border.
“These fighters were moved into the country by Haqqani insurgents who planned to use them for attacks throughout Afghanistan,” the NATO statement said. The Haqqani group has been associated with an attack last month on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul as well as one on the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad in February in which gunmen mowed down civilians who were collecting their salaries.
American and Afghan forces were still clearing the area of the NATO attack on Saturday morning and received occasional fire from insurgents throughout the day, said Muhibullah Samim, the governor of Paktika Province.
In photos released by the military, the insurgents appeared to have fashioned rough shelters built into rocks and under tree roots that they had fortified and then covered with white pieces of cloth to provide some protection from the elements. According to local officials, the camp was relatively newly built. It had been there for about 20 days, said Hajji Abdul Qadir, a member of Parliament from Paktika Province.
The camp’s surroundings are mountainous and thinly populated. “There is no border police, and no government or foreign military base to control or stop insurgents from coming into Afghanistan in that place,” he said.
Local residents have long been disillusioned with the government and frustrated because there is little in the way of employment, schools or health care, said Sayid Ishaq Gilani, a member of Parliament from Paktika.
“Local residents in Sar Rawza district have been deprived of the central government because they do not have any school to go, they don’t have jobs, and no paved roads in their district,” Mr. Gilani said. “So they are keeping their distance from the government more and more, day by day, and becoming hopeless. And that’s why most of them help the insurgents to come in their areas and let them do whatever they want, and they help them.”
Mr. Gilani said he feared there were many other camps in the province. “The information we have is that Chechen and Uzbek fighters are there,” he said.
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Afghan Lawmakers Urge Travel Ban for Attorney General
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 23 July 2011
Some parliamentarians on Saturday suggested that the Attorney General should be placed on a travel ban over allegations of possible involvement in corruption.
Based on evidence the attorney general has ordered the release of two culprits who embezzled $14 million in a bank, lawmakers said.
But Deputy Attorney General said the two were sentenced to one year in prison for possessing illegal weapons, and they were released.
"They were sentenced to one year in prison over illegal possession of arms," Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said.
Legislators also said Attorney General has been disqualified and he should stop getting into illegal activities.
Fawzia Kofi, MP representing northern Badakhshan province, said: "A concrete decision should be taken about Attorney General now that there are evidence and papers."
Meanwhile, an investigation into Kabul Bank by Attorney General's Office indicates that $572 millions of some $910 million illegal loans of Kabul Bank were given to people with fake identities.
Findings of the investigation also show that along with shareholders of Kabul Bank and some foreign companies, former governor of Afghanistan's Central Bank was also involved in the crisis.
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Afghan interpreters fear retribution, seek life in Canada
The Canadian Press Saturday Jul. 23, 2011
Sweaty and dishevelled, two Afghan interpreters asked to have their picture taken outside their bunker-like sleeping container at a parched combat outpost in Panjwaii district, near Kandahar city.
"Please, sir, we want our pictures taken and please put in Canadian newspapers, so they know that we are here," one of them said to a journalist who was walking past to board a convoy.
The Canadian military forbids photographing interpreters who work with front-line troops, or the more senior cultural advisers who aid headquarters staff, out of fear for their lives and the lives of their families.
It is a well-grounded fear based on the Taliban's ruthless campaign of retribution against those they consider traitors. The Canadian Press has decided against publishing the two interpreters' photo.
Many of the "terps" -- as they known -- are happy to stay out of the limelight and often wrap their faces in sweat clothes and goggle-like sunglasses when photos and video of events are unavoidable.
That these two interpreters were willing to put their faces out there on the thinnest of hopes that their pleas for sanctuary would be heard spoke volumes.
"Please, sir, we don't want to be left behind," said Falstan, who insisted on using his real name. "Please take me to Canada because it's really important to me."
The lights are set to go out on Ottawa's fast-track immigration program for Afghan interpreters who have worked on the Canadian mission.
Falstan worked for the Canadian army for three months and technically does not qualify for entry to Canada. A terp needs one year of service to qualify, he said.
"The danger is the same whether you work for five years -- or two days. No different," he said. "That is the big trouble for everyone. The Taliban, they know about me. They will kill me. They'll never let me live in Afghanistan."
The Taliban know the 27-year-old former teacher worked with coalition troops because his father, an illiterate farmer, boasted to neighbours about what a good living his son was making. It was an innocent gesture from a proud father who might have unwittingly marked his son for death.
International Management Services, or IMS, is the Afghan company that was put in charge of recruiting interpreters from local villages around Afghanistan.
Falstan said the lure of a steady paycheque and the prospect of immigration convinced many to sign up for service. It's only afterward that they find out about some of the restrictions, such as length of service requirement.
Falstan's contract is at an end and he will go into a pool of interpreters who may or may not be hired by incoming U.S. forces who have taken over the Canadian battlefield.
After arriving back at Kandahar Airfield with the soldiers he's served, Falstan said he's been offered some vacation time and will learn later whether he still has a job.
His home is in the volatile eastern province of Nangarhar, along the Pakistan border, but he's not going there. "If I go to home, that is not good for me," he said.
He won't see his family. "Like I said, there is a big problem: they will kill us," he said.
The threat is real.
In December 2009, an interpreter working for the Canadian Forces was gunned down in Kandahar city. Local police blamed the Taliban.
At least six interpreters have died alongside Canadian soldiers and an unknown number have been wounded by roadside bombs.
Others have seen their family members kidnapped or assassinated because of their ties to coalition troops.
With the risk comes reward. Interpreters generally make between $600 and $900 a month -- a princely sum in a country where the average person makes a few hundred dollars a year.
Often that salary is split among family or friends, who are rarely told where the money is coming from.
A few years ago, the Conservative government announced a "fast-track" program to help Afghans who work with Canadians in Kandahar.
Applicants must have 12 months' service to the Canadian mission and a recommendation letter from a senior soldier or diplomat. They also need to meet standard immigration criteria such as criminal, medical and security screening before being allowed to come to Canada.
But the application process has been cumbersome. Only 56 interpreters are so far settled in Canada. Another 33 are booked to travel this month and another 130 will arrive in Canada this summer and early fall.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he expects to admit about 550 people who qualify for the program -- up from an original estimate of 450.
"We appreciate the bravery and the courage of Afghans who have co-operated with Canadian forces," he recently told The Canadian Press while in Calgary.
"We anticipate anyone who qualifies under the program will be coming to Canada within a few months."
The government has said it will accept applications until Sept. 12.
But life in Canada is anything but easy for transplanted interpreters.
A former Afghan interpreter says it has been a struggle to find work since he came to Canada late last year.
The man -- who asked that his name not be used to protect his family in Afghanistan -- had spent several years working for the Canadians in and around Kandahar.
Now he lives in a cramped apartment with fellow interpreters. There was no job waiting for him when he stepped off the airplane, no training offered and few prospects -- just a monthly cheque for $750 for a year.
It was only this month that he finally found work as a labourer. But he's on the job only a few days a week and does not earn enough extra money to send to his family back home.
He wants to return to Afghanistan one day when it's safer. Until then, he says he'll take whatever work comes.
The man says many former interpreters feel abandoned by the Canadians for whom they had risked life and limb. "They only drop us," he said. "Most interpreters are pretty disappointed."
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