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Afghan leaders fear execution in Taliban birthplace
By Jason Gutierrez | AFP News
After a spate of Taliban assassinations in the key Afghan city of Kandahar, top politicians and police are stepping up security in a desperate bid to ensure they are not next to die.
Taliban didn't kill Karzai's half-brother, says official
The Associated Press via ctv.ca Sunday Jul. 31, 2011 1:59 PM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — A Western official says the powerful half-brother of President Hamid Karzai was gunned down by an associate over a personal issue, and was not assassinated by the Taliban.
12 Police, Child Killed in Southern Afghanistan Suicide Blast
VOA News July 31, 2011
A suicide car bombing in southern Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province has killed 12 police officers and a child, the first such major attack in an area where Afghan forces recently took over full security responsibility from NATO-led troops.
Suspected Taliban spy arrested in Kabul, officials say
By David Ariosto, July 31, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suspected Taliban spy who worked at the Afghan Defense Ministry headquarters in Kabul has been arrested after allegedly leaking critical security information to insurgents, officials said Sunday.
Afghan official: Kabul Bank scam involved up to 40
Afghan prosecutor: Up to 40 people could be charged in Kabul Bank scandal
Deb Riechmann and Rahim Faiez, Associated Press, On Sunday July 31, 2011, 2:25 pm EDT
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- As many as 40 people were allegedly involved in scams to bilk hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kabul Bank, and nearly half the cases will be sent to the Afghan court system next week, a top Afghan prosecutor said Sunday.
Taliban leaders may take Ramadan break - U.S. military
By Phil Stewart
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military is waiting to see whether some Taliban leaders take a break during August for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, crossing over the border into Pakistan after several weeks of high profile attacks.
Warlords, government capacity threaten Afghan mining: watchdog
By Michelle Nichols
KABUL (Reuters) - A giant Afghan iron ore deposit may provide hope for the prosperity of the country, but the Afghan government is not able to ensure the mine is managed properly and profiteering warlords could spark further violence, a graft watchdog said on Sunday.
Mullen warns of Afghan transition corruption
AFP
The United States' top military officer warned Sunday that some Afghan institutions central to the transition of power from foreign to local forces are corrupt.
U.S. military chief cites progress against Haqqanis
By Phil Stewart Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:25pm EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer said Sunday Afghan militants of the anti-American Haqqani network were finding it harder to move into Afghanistan but warned that their safe havens in Pakistan still posed a risk to the decade-old war effort.
NATO casualties total 330 in Afghanistan since beginning 2011
By Farid Behbud
KABUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Since the beginning of this year, a total of 330 soldiers had been killed in the insurgency-hit Afghanistan as of Sunday July 31, according to iCasualites, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led forces in war on terror in Afghanistan.
President Karzai's Spokesman Resigns
Tolo news July 31, 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's Spokesman Waheed Omar on Sunday resigned from his post, saying he would cooperate with the government through other positions.
Lawmaker Claims Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Her Guest in Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 30 July 2011
A member of Afghan House of Representatives on Saturday claimed that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, is in Afghanistan and her guest.
As drawdown approaches, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan reluctant to leave
Washington Post By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Sunday, July 31,2011
Garmser, Afghanistan - This farming district along the Helmand River, once one of the most Taliban-saturated corners of southern Afghanistan, has turned so quiet over the past three months that some U.S. Marines here quietly wish for a gunfight. “Just to get off a few rounds,” said one, “so we can feel like Marines.”
In Afghanistan, Rage at Young Lovers
By JACK HEALY The New YOrk Times July 30, 2011
HERAT, Afghanistan — The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.
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Afghan leaders fear execution in Taliban birthplace
By Jason Gutierrez | AFP News
After a spate of Taliban assassinations in the key Afghan city of Kandahar, top politicians and police are stepping up security in a desperate bid to ensure they are not next to die.
President Hamid Karzai's powerful half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was shot dead by his chief bodyguard this month, while the city's mayor Ghulam Haidar Hameedi was killed Wednesday by a suicide bomber who concealed explosives in his turban.
Now, amid growing fears over the Taliban's ability to infiltrate the security forces, influential figures in the long-violent but strategically crucial birthplace of the insurgency say they are leaving nothing to chance.
"After the assassination of AWK (Ahmed Wali Karzai) and other officials, I fear for my life," said Noor Ul Aziz, an ex-Taliban official who defected to the government side in January and now heads Kandahar's religious affairs department.
"I can no longer trust the security forces. I am planning to send my family to Kabul and I have turned to my close relatives -- brothers, cousins -- to protect me."
Police in the city are also putting in place tighter measures, according to provincial police chief General Abdul Razaq.
He said new scanners had been set up at police headquarters and the governor's office, with more planned for other government sites.
"We have also assigned some female police to search burka-clad women as the Taliban have recently carried out several attacks using them," he added.
Another potential target, the governor of Arghandab district just northwest of Kandahar, said he was worried for himself and his family but would not give in to the Taliban by quitting.
"I try to push them (the insurgents) out of my mind. I deal with it and just move ahead. It is up to God whether he wants us to live or die," Haji Shah Mohammed told AFP.
US forces in volatile Arghandab provide heavy security for both Mohammad and the district's police chief -- whose brother, Kandahar's then police chief, was assassinated in April -- saying to lose them would be a heavy blow.
"There are only two people I worry about constantly -- the governor and the police chief," said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Simmering, commander of the US Army 1st Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment deployed locally.
"If we lose them at this point, it will be a huge setback. If they ask for additional security, we give them it. I will give them everything they want."
The Taliban have long targeted government officials and police in a bid to weaken the ability of President Karzai's administration as part of a 10-year insurgency against the government and supporting troops in Afghanistan.
Limited international combat troop withdrawals started this year and are due to end with a full drawdown by the end of 2014.
But while it is high-profile assassinations which often generate the most headlines, ordinary Afghans are also victims of targeted killings, particularly those who work with the foreign military.
The United Nations said last month that violence across Afghanistan was up 51 percent between March and June this year compared to the same period in 2010.
Kandahar and the surrounding area suffered a quarter of all attacks overall and half of all assassinations in Afghanistan, it added.
Erica Gaston, an Afghanistan expert at the US-based Open Society Foundations, founded and chaired by the global investor George Soros, said officials appear to be helpless to stop the Taliban’s campaign of terror.
"Civilians, particularly in Kandahar, have been subjected to unthinkable levels of violence in the past couple of years and there's nothing in the immediate situation -- from the assassination of AWK to the troop pullouts -- to suggest that stability is around the corner," she told AFP.
"This is particularly true in Kandahar, which has not only been rocked by suicide attacks and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) but a persistent, large-scale assassination and intimidation campaign -- a campaign that has not been limited to higher-level politicians like AWK."
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Taliban didn't kill Karzai's half-brother, says official
The Associated Press via ctv.ca Sunday Jul. 31, 2011 1:59 PM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — A Western official says the powerful half-brother of President Hamid Karzai was gunned down by an associate over a personal issue, and was not assassinated by the Taliban.
The Taliban had claimed responsibility for the death of Ahmed Wali Karzai on July 12. That set off a power struggle and worries about stability in southern Afghanistan as attacks and assassinations continue.
The official, who spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues, said close review of the killing led authorities to conclude the Taliban claim was false.
Taliban involvement in the killing could have undercut the president's peace talks with insurgents, as U.S. and coalition allies begin to withdraw forces.
The gunman was identified as Sardar Mohammad, who had provided security for Wali Karzai and his family.
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12 Police, Child Killed in Southern Afghanistan Suicide Blast
VOA News July 31, 2011
A suicide car bombing in southern Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province has killed 12 police officers and a child, the first such major attack in an area where Afghan forces recently took over full security responsibility from NATO-led troops.
A government spokesman in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, said Sunday's blast occurred outside the city's heavily guarded police headquarters. He said three civilians were among the dozen people wounded.
Resurgent Taliban militants, fighting to drive out foreign forces from Afghanistan and overthrow President Hamid Karzai's government, have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Security for Lashkar Gah was handed over to Afghan troops less than two weeks ago, part of the first stage of a plan to have all of Afghanistan under the oversight of Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.
Sunday's assault is the latest in a string of regional attacks that have included the assassination of numerous high-profile officials, such as Mr. Karzai's half-brother and the mayor of neighboring Kandahar province.
The blast comes as the top U.S. military officer meets with commanders and troops in southern Afghanistan on the second day of an unannounced visit.
Admiral Mike Mullen said Sunday the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Corps General John Allen, is working on plans for the initial withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from the country by the end of the year. He said General Allen has until mid-October to submit his plan.
Military officials say the pullout may hinge on whether the latest surge in attacks continues through the holy month of Ramadan, which starts Monday. Mullen says Taliban leaders are reportedly pushing for an increase in violence through Ramadan and may leave their fighters in the country while top commanders spend at least part of the holy month in neighboring Pakistan.
President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 23,000 U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer. Mullen noted that Afghan troops are due to increase in size over the timeline of the American withdrawals. There are currently nearly 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, NATO says one of its service members was killed Sunday in a bomb blast in the east.
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Suspected Taliban spy arrested in Kabul, officials say
By David Ariosto, July 31, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suspected Taliban spy who worked at the Afghan Defense Ministry headquarters in Kabul has been arrested after allegedly leaking critical security information to insurgents, officials said Sunday.
Gul Mohammad was arrested last week following a month-long investigation that allegedly uncovered his plans to organize suicide attacks on key Afghan and international installations, according to National Directorate of Security spokesman Litfullah Mashal.
Among the locations to be targeted were the International Security Assistance Force headquarters and an NDS building as well as an Afghan military outpost and police station in Kabul.
Authorities tapped Mohammad's phone and have recordings of the suspect accepting Taliban bribes, Mashal said.
CNN cannot independently verify that account.
Mohammad -- a senior official whose responsibilities at the Defense Ministry included security at a series of checkpoints throughout the city -- was detained Tuesday in Kabul.
Officials said he was in the process of bringing militants to the capital.
Mashal says the suspect had also warned Taliban commanders of impending raids, pointing to recent Afghan security operations in the country's eastern Nooristan province.
His arrest came as officials struggle to put an end to a series of high-profile July attacks.
On Sunday, a suicide bomber's car exploded outside a police headquarters in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 12 police officers, according to an Interior Ministry statement.
Another 14 people -- most of them officers -- were injured in the attack, the statement said.
"The suicide bomber was trying to target police chief headquarters in Helmand" province, but his car full of explosives detonated close to the entrance, said Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand governor.
The explosion occurred in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, widely considered the most dangerous of seven areas handed over to Afghan security forces in recent weeks.
Elsewhere in Helmand, a joint Afghan and NATO raid left two insurgents dead and led to the arrest of two others during a security sweep in the region's Kajaki district.
CNN's Fazel Reshad and Matiullah Mati contributed to this report
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Afghan official: Kabul Bank scam involved up to 40
Afghan prosecutor: Up to 40 people could be charged in Kabul Bank scandal
Deb Riechmann and Rahim Faiez, Associated Press, On Sunday July 31, 2011, 2:25 pm EDT
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- As many as 40 people were allegedly involved in scams to bilk hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kabul Bank, and nearly half the cases will be sent to the Afghan court system next week, a top Afghan prosecutor said Sunday.
The charges are the first to be referred to Afghan courts in connection with the bank's near collapse last year because of mismanagement and questionable lending. A USAID inspector general report estimated that $850 million in loans were diverted to bank insiders.
The troubled Kabul Bank, which is now partly controlled by the Afghan central bank and the Ministry of Finance, has became a symbol of the country's deep-rooted corruption. The case is being closely followed by Afghans and international donors because it is a barometer of officials' pledge to root out patronage, graft and show accountability to world financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund.
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said the charging papers would name Sherkhan Farnood, the former chairman of Kabul Bank and a world-class poker player; Khalilullah Ferozi, the former chief executive officer who has been cooperating with prosecutors; and more than two dozen other current and former employees of Kabul Bank and the Afghan Central Bank.
"It's a very big case and not a simple case," Nazari told The Associated Press in an interview in the Afghan Attorney General's compound, adding that the allegations include corruption, abuse of authority, preparing fake loan documents or receiving illegal loans. He said between 30 to 40 people were involved in the scams.
The names of about 15 individuals, including the two former bank executives who are being held in a Kabul detention center, will be the first submitted to the courts, Nazari said. In addition, a team of prosecutors continues to investigate allegations of impropriety against another 15 or so individuals who have fled the country since the bank crisis unfolded last year.
"All of these people are accused. We have strong evidence against them, and I think they will be sentenced to jail," Nazari said through a translator. "If a person is involved in the corruption of some $900 million and is not sentenced or given any punishment, what will happen to people who are involved in the corruption of just $1 million."
During his visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed concern about endemic corruption and cronyism, which he said was rife throughout the nation. He said the Afghan people needed to see prosections as tangible results of work to fight corruption.
"I have been focused on and an advocate for the need to address the corruption issue ... from the very beginning," Mullen told reporters at a news conference in Kabul.
"Issues like the Kabul Bank and the criminal patronage networks are issues that must be addressed."
Among the individuals whom prosecutors want to see returned to Afghanistan for questioning are Shairn Khan, the brother of the former Kabul Bank chairman, and Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the former governor of the Afghan central bank.
Fitrat, who fled to northern Virginia in late June,has said he left Afghanistan after receiving threats to his life. He complained that he was being scapegoated while the Afghan government had refused to charge politically connected individuals involved in making or receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable loans.
After Fitrat left, Nazari said the former central bank head faced allegations of failing to act on warnings about widespread corruption at Kabul Bank. Nazari said an arrest warrant for Fitrat had been sent to Interpol and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Fitrat, however, said he had permanent resident status in the United States and would not be returning to Afghanistan.
While the prosecutions move forward, Afghan officials are trying to get borrowers to repay loans worth $914 million, including interest, Nazari said. So far, $70 million has been repaid and "we know we are going to get back" another $49 million to $50 million plus interest, he said.
He said prosecutors had identified 413 loans made with fake documents, but did not know how much money those loans represented. Afghanistan's anti-corruption office reported in May that $468 million in loans were made without appropriate documentation.
Other money is being recouped through the sale of property and companies purchased or set up with loans from Kabul Bank.
Bakhter TV, an Afghan television network, which was owned by a former Kabul Bank executive, has been sold for about $1 million, Nazari said. Authorities also are trying to sell Pamir Airways, a multimillion-dollar Afghan airline established with loans from the bank, he said.
In addition, Afghan authorities are trying to sell property worth an estimated $300 million that the two bank executives own in Afghanistan and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Some of the questionable loans were used to buy luxurious mansions in Dubai and invest in risky prestige projects like the airline and shopping malls in Kabul.
Farnood and Ferozi each had owned 28 percent of the bank's shares. President Hamid Karzai's brother, Mahmood Karzai, was the bank's third largest shareholder with 7 percent. Haseen Fahim, a brother of one of the nation's two vice presidents, also owned shares of Kabul Bank.
Nazari said Mahmood Karzai and Fahim had repaid most of what they borrowed from the bank.
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Taliban leaders may take Ramadan break - U.S. military
By Phil Stewart
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military is waiting to see whether some Taliban leaders take a break during August for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, crossing over the border into Pakistan after several weeks of high profile attacks.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, appeared to reserve judgment however, acknowledging it was hard to say what would happen in August, which this year coincides almost exactly with the lunar month of Ramadan.
"There's an awful lot of discussion about the Taliban leadership leaving their fighters here, and particularly to go back across the border for Ramadan," he said, referring to talks he had with commanders in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
A Western official, speaking in the Afghan capital on condition of anonymity, said there was anecdotal evidence that some leaders had already left for Pakistan.
The official said that although the Taliban sought an increase in attacks during Ramadan, they appeared incapable of a nationwide surge in violence and predicted limited spikes in violence, including some high profile attacks.
Mullen said it was difficult to predict what would happen.
"I have no idea whether violence or attacks will go up or down," he told a news conference in the capital.
The military assessment about Taliban movements follows a string of high-profile attacks and assassinations that have shaken southern Afghanistan. The strikes have been particularly acute in Kandahar province, the Taliban's birthplace.
A suicide bomber killed the mayor of Kandahar on Wednesday, compounding fears of a dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan's south in the wake of the assassination of President Hamid Karzai's half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai.
Mullen acknowledged a degree of political instability because of the assassinations but added U.S. commanders had not reported a deterioration in day-to-day security in Kandahar.
"At least from the commander's standpoint, they haven't seen that," said Mullen, who flew into Kandahar on Friday.
DRAWDOWN PLAN BY OCTOBER
Mullen, on what may be his last trip to Afghanistan before stepping down at the end of September, has been upbeat about battlefield progress and the ability of the U.S. military to maintain its momentum even as it carries out a withdrawal ordered by President Barack Obama last month.
Obama's decision to withdraw 33,000 of the nearly 100,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan by the end of next summer was a faster timetable than Mullen had initially recommended. The goal is to handover lead security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
"I'm very confident we can meet the needs on the ground as well as the deadlines and the goals that have been laid out by the president," Mullen said.
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Corps General John Allen, is still drawings up plans for the drawdown of the first 10,000 forces by the end of the year, a small number of which pulled out earlier this month. Mullen said Allen had until mid-October to come up with that plan.
The U.S. military chief renewed his concerns about corruption and a lack of governance in parts of Afghanistan.
"We know that some agencies and institutions vital to transition are infiltrated and subverted by criminal patronage networks," he said. "I have been briefed, for example, on local officials who want kick-backs on certain development projects."
U.S. military commanders he had met with expressed a "very stark view" of corruption in the country, Mullen said, but added that the United States was working to stop its own practices that helped fuel the corruption.
"We recognise that our inattention, especially with respect to contracting and procurement, has contributed to these problems, and we have undertaken, in coordination with Afghan officials, a range of new reforms."
(Editing by Jon Hemming)
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Warlords, government capacity threaten Afghan mining: watchdog
By Michelle Nichols
KABUL (Reuters) - A giant Afghan iron ore deposit may provide hope for the prosperity of the country, but the Afghan government is not able to ensure the mine is managed properly and profiteering warlords could spark further violence, a graft watchdog said on Sunday.
The Hajigak project, which straddles the central provinces of Bamiyan, Parwan and Wardak, has deposits of 2 billion tones with an estimated worth of $350 billion and is described by the Afghan government as Asia's largest unmined iron deposit.
The deadline for bids on the deposit is September 4 and Mines Minister Wahidullah Shahrani has said he expects to award a contract sometime in November. He said 17 companies, mainly from India, were interested in the deposit.
Integrity Watch Afghanistan, a Kabul-based group that aims to spotlight corruption, said while Shahrani and Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal were committed to a transparent mining sector, the government lacked the capacity to stamp out "reported endemic corruption".
"The Afghan government will not be able to ensure that Hajigak is well managed and, ultimately, beneficial for the future of the country," Integrity Watch Afghanistan said in a report released on Sunday.
Since Shahrani became minister at the start of 2010, he has shed staff, drawn up the ministry's first business plan and signed Afghanistan up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) as a candidate country. He was optimistic that by April 2012 Afghanistan would get full EITI compliant status.
This month, the World Bank gave Afghanistan a $52 million grant, to be disbursed over three years, to help manage its natural resources effectively and transparently, including completion of the bidding process for the Hajigak project.
But public sector corruption in Afghanistan is seen as worse than in any other country except Myanmar and Somalia, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International. President Hamid Karzai has acknowledged graft exists in his government but has said foreigners are also to blame.
TEMPTATION FOR WARLORDS
Experts say Afghanistan's mineral resources bounty is years, even decades, away with potential investors also facing big infrastructure and security challenges in a country ravaged by three decades of conflict.
"The political will at the ministerial level (for a transparent sector) is apparent, but the capacity to implement is not," said the authors of the report, "Hajigak - The Jewel of Afghan Mines".
Afghanistan's first big resources contract for the Aynak copper mine south of Kabul, which is due to start production in 2014, was questioned when accusations were widely reported in 2009 that Shahrani's predecessor, Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, had accepted a $30 million bribe to award it to a Chinese firm.
Adel denied the allegations and said China's top copper producer, Jiangxi Copper Co, together with China Metallurgical Group Corp, had fairly won the contract in 2007.
Integrity Watch Afghanistan said there was serious concern that warlords -- military commanders who built up private armies and fortunes during years of civil war who still command the loyalties of their supporters -- could spark further violence in a bid to profit from the country's minerals.
"Warlords will certainly be tempted to become active in Hajigak and in the sector, and this will be a sure trigger for violent conflicts over resources," the report said.
"People familiar with the status of contracts in the natural resources sector have been airing the fear that warlords may seek to invest in the sector as a means to legalize their activities and enjoy their ill-gotten wealth," it said.
The mining sector has become too exposed to war profiteers and investors' mining capacity and experience had to be better scrutinized, Integrity Watch Afghanistan said.
The group's full report and series of recommendations can be found on its website www.iwaweb.org
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Mullen warns of Afghan transition corruption
AFP
The United States' top military officer warned Sunday that some Afghan institutions central to the transition of power from foreign to local forces are corrupt.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was speaking after a two-day trip to Afghanistan, much of which was spent visiting troops, shortly before he is due to step down in October.
During a press conference in Kabul, he highlighted a lack of good governance in many parts of Afghanistan.
He also spoke specifically about Afghan institutions involved in the transition of power from international to Afghan troops and officials, which will eventually see all foreign combat forces leave by the end of 2014.
Some countries including the US have already started troop withdrawals as part of the transition process.
"I think it's fair to say that in the main, Afghan government officials must work on becoming more responsive to the needs and the aspirations of their people," Mullen said.
"We know that some agencies and institutions vital to transition are infiltrated and subverted by criminal patronage networks."
He added: "We must end impunity for criminals who are subverting the state and victimising the Afghan people."
As well as the security handover to the Afghan police and army, the transition process also includes a wide range of local and national government bodies taking on new responsibilities from foreign officials.
Mullen acknowledged that US "inattention" had contributed to the problem.
The US government has spent $51.8 billion on aid to Afghanistan since 2002, much of which goes through contractors.
Experts say corruption is an endemic problem among many officials in Afghanistan and that the government and foreign powers must do more to combat it.
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U.S. military chief cites progress against Haqqanis
By Phil Stewart Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:25pm EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer said Sunday Afghan militants of the anti-American Haqqani network were finding it harder to move into Afghanistan but warned that their safe havens in Pakistan still posed a risk to the decade-old war effort.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, travelled earlier in the day to eastern Afghanistan where Haqqani militants are attacking U.S. forces.
"The overall goal has been to make it much more difficult for the Haqqani network to penetrate directly in what has previously been called sort of this 'jet stream' between Pakistan, right through Khost (province) into Kabul," Mullen told a news conference in the Afghan capital.
"And it is more difficult (now)."
Pakistan's intelligence agency has long been suspected of maintaining ties to the Haqqani network, cultivated during the 1980s when Jalaluddin Haqqani was a feared battlefield commander against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Based in Pakistan's wild North Waziristan area on the Afghan border, Haqqani refrains from attacking the Pakistani state, and critics say Islamabad sees the network as a lever to maintain influence in any future political settlement in Afghanistan.
Mullen has in the past has accused Pakistani intelligence of having a "longstanding relationship" with Haqqani faction, one of the deadliest groups fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
He told reporters in Kabul that Washington continued to press Islamabad to go after the safe havens enjoyed by the Haqqani group and other militants.
"The safe havens that exist in Pakistan are a central and great risk in terms of the achievement of the overall strategy," Mullen said.
"So we continue to engage on that, continue to bring pressure on that. But I would be hard pressed to tell you time and place, when it's going to happen."
Ties between the United States and Pakistan were deeply strained after U.S. special forces launched a secret raid in Pakistan in May to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, compounding fears the safe havens could go unaddressed.
A NATO military official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that there was only a minimal chance that the Haqqani threat could be eliminated.
"If something happens on the other side of the border and those sanctuaries get reduced...that's great" the official said.
"We're not counting on it. What we are trying to do is to build the Afghans' capacity so they can handle that."
(Editing by Alistair Lyon)
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NATO casualties total 330 in Afghanistan since beginning 2011
By Farid Behbud
KABUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Since the beginning of this year, a total of 330 soldiers had been killed in the insurgency-hit Afghanistan as of Sunday July 31, according to iCasualites, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led forces in war on terror in Afghanistan.
The fatalities of NATO-led troops, registered so far this year, fell in comparison with the same period in the previous year in Afghanistan as 411 NATO service members lost their lives from January 1 to July 31 in 2010.
Forty nine soldiers with the military alliance, according to iCasualties, have been killed in July this year against 88 during the same period in 2010.
In June this year, 65 NATO service members were killed in Taliban attacks and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts throughout the country against 103 casualties in June 2010, the deadliest month for foreign troops since the war against the Taliban began in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The latest wave of attacks against NATO-led troops was an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack earlier Sunday in eastern Afghanistan which left one soldier dead.
"An International Security Assistance Force service member died following an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in eastern Afghanistan today," said a statement issued by the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) here on Sunday morning.
However, the brief statement did not reveal the nationality of the casualty, only saying "It is the ISAF's policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."
Troops mostly from the United States have been stationed in eastern Afghanistan within the framework of ISAF to curb Taliban- linked insurgency there.
In a similar incident two more NATO service members were killed on Friday in an IED attack also in the eastern part of the country, without disclosing details, the ISAF confirmed in a statement on Friday.
However, spokesman for the Afghan 203 Corps based in eastern Afghanistan, Colonel Sahat Gul told Xinhua on Saturday that a joint team of Afghan army and NATO-led ISAF forces were busy in defusing an IED placed along a road in eastern Pakita province on Friday but the bomb exploded killing eight people.
"As a result of the IED blast that took place in Mamozai area of Zurmat district in Paktia province on Friday afternoon two foreign troopers, a local interpreter and five Afghan army soldiers were killed," Gul added.
Two more people including an ISAF service member and an army soldier were wounded in the incident, according to Gul.
On the other hand Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack.
The purported Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in talks with local media via cell phone from an undisclosed location, said the blast was carried out by the Taliban in Zurmat district killing 12 people including four NATO soldiers.
The simple but difficult to be detected Taliban weapon, the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), used in making suicide vests and roadside bombs, has proved a challenge for Afghan and NATO-led forces in the insurgency-hit country.
Out of 330 soldiers who lost their lives since the beginning of this year, 282 have been killed in IED attacks throughout the country, according to the website which recorded a total of 157 IED explosions so far this year.
Out of 330 NATO-led soldiers who have been killed in Afghan insurgency so far this year, 234 are Americans, 29 are Britons and the remaining 67 belong to other nations contributing troops to Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led ISAF force.
Forty eight countries have contributed over 140,000-strong forces in Afghanistan with some 100,000 of them American troops to help stabilize security in the militancy-plagued nation.
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President Karzai's Spokesman Resigns
Tolo news July 31, 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's Spokesman Waheed Omar on Sunday resigned from his post, saying he would cooperate with the government through other positions.
In a contact with TOLOnews Waheed Omar confirmed his resignation.
In the wake of this year on 3rd January Mr Omar had announced his resignation as President Karzai's Spokesman and said his resignation was not politically motivated.
President Karzai has yet to accept his resignation.
Wahid Omar started working as Karzai's spokesperson early on 2010 and he was one of the strong media weapons of Karzai during the presidential campaign for second term.
Officials in President's Office have yet to comment about his replacement.
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Lawmaker Claims Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Her Guest in Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 30 July 2011
A member of Afghan House of Representatives on Saturday claimed that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, is in Afghanistan and her guest.
Homa Sultani, an Afghan MP representing Ghazni province, criticised the government over being reckless about her remarks saying the Afghan government hasn't paid any attention to what she said of receiving the Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in her house.
Some lawmakers suggested that a delegation should be formed to visit the leader of the Taliban at Homa Sultani's home.
"At the moment Mullah Omar is in Afghanistan away from ISI and Pakistan. He is our guest and with us. His message is that he is ready for reconciliation and peace talks," Mrs Homa Sultani claimed.
Insisting on accuracy of her remarks, Mrs Sultani said if she is proved wrong she is ready to be punished.
"If my words are proved wrong, then I am ready to be punished for making a big lie on a big issue," she said.
Finally some of the legislators suggested formation of a delegation to verify Mrs Sultani's claim.
Shir Wali Wardak, an Afghan MP representing Wardak, said: "If the leader of the Taliban has come over to someone's house for a party, we should set up a delegation and as soon as possible we begin our negotiation with him."
The remarks came as Afghan security forces have consistently emphasised that the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is living in a safe haven somewhere outside Afghan borders.
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As drawdown approaches, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan reluctant to leave
Washington Post By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Sunday, July 31,2011
Garmser, Afghanistan - This farming district along the Helmand River, once one of the most Taliban-saturated corners of southern Afghanistan, has turned so quiet over the past three months that some U.S. Marines here quietly wish for a gunfight. “Just to get off a few rounds,” said one, “so we can feel like Marines.”
Since the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment arrived in Garmser in mid-April, they have struck fewer than 10 roadside bombs, none of which have proved fatal. Just one grenade and “no more bullets than you could fit in your front pocket” have been fired their way, said the battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Sean Riordan.
Two summers ago gunshots and bomb blasts echoed across the cornfields, and medical evacuation helicopters swooped from the sky almost every day to collect the Marines’ dead and wounded.
The relative tranquillity that has been achieved seems the necessary prerequisite for Americans to leave and hand over responsibility for security to a feisty local police chief who has surprised U.S. officers with his grit and resourcefulness.
But the Marines do not want to depart anytime soon.
To cement hard-fought gains and prevent Taliban holdouts from wresting back the district, Marine officers want to maintain their current force level of about 1,000 troops until the end of the year. At that point, they estimate, they should be able to get by with half as many, assuming the area receives additional Afghan security forces.
“Transition needs to proceed in a careful, well-planned way,” Riordan said. “We don’t want people to think we’ve abandoned them.”
Garmser illuminates the trade-off facing top U.S. commanders as they struggle to fulfill President Obama’s recent order to remove 10,000 troops by the end of the year, and an additional 23,000 by the end of next summer, while also diverting more of the remaining 68,000 forces to eastern Afghanistan to confront a growing insurgency there. In doing so, they do not want to jeopardize the security gains that have been achieved in the south.
Every battalion and brigade commander, it seems, has a reason for why his area should be exempted from major cuts. In Garmser, it is proximity to Pakistan. In other parts of Helmand province, it is the worry of resurgent poppy production. In Zhari district to the west of Kandahar city, it is symbolic importance to the Taliban. The group’s reclusive leader, Mohammad Omar, was born there, and it has long served as a command-and-control hub for insurgents seeking to regain control of Kandahar.
A 4,500-soldier brigade from the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division has pushed into once-impenetrable Taliban redoubts in Zhari this summer, encountering dozens of homemade mines as they have sought to clear villages of insurgents. The operations have increased security, but the Afghan government’s presence still is fledgling, and the Afghan army unit there remains incapable of substantial independent operations, leading American officers in the area to recommend only minimal reductions over at least the next 12 months.
Senior officers believe that keeping large numbers of troops in the south for another year or two could help maintain public confidence as the conflict shifts to a new phase that involves more targeted killings. The recent assassination of top Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai’s brother and the mayor of Kandahar, and dozens of lesser-known people across the south who have worked with the government, have deeply unnerved the population.
Military culture also leads commanders to want to hold onto as many troops as they can, lest they be seen to have left too soon.
Top generals are sticking with their resource-intensive nation-building strategy, despite the hope of some administration officials, including Vice President Biden, that the drawdown plan would start to force a narrower mission aimed at killing al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
The commanders are betting that they can achieve their original goals — pummeling the Taliban, building up the Afghan government and security forces, and persuading low-level fighters to switch sides — before they have to send away large numbers of troops.
But they also are embracing initiatives that would have been scoffed at a year ago in an attempt to improve security quickly. They are shifting resources from mentoring the Afghan army to the police. They are expanding a program to train villagers as armed guards beyond the rural areas for which it was originally envisioned. And they are replacing sand-filled barriers with concrete walls at hundreds of small patrol bases, hoping that permanent structures will mollify residents’ fears of abandonment.
The final decision on how forces are allocated rests with Marine Gen. John Allen, who recently took over from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus as the supreme allied commander in Afghanistan. Although Allen has indicated to subordinates that he does not foresee fundamental changes to the overall U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, he will have to address competing demands in the south and the east.
Allen, said one senior military official in the country, “faces a very difficult task ahead. He has to find a way to put out new fires, while trying to ensure the fires that his guys think they’re getting under control don’t flare back up.”
Battleground to backwater
The U.S. effort to evict the Taliban from Garmser began with the arrival of a battalion of Marines in the summer of 2008 to replace a much smaller contingent of British soldiers. Back then, the insurgents controlled almost all of the district. The front lines — the British had trenches that evoked World War I battles — began less than a mile south of their base in Garmser’s main town.
The first wave of Marines seized several square miles of territory from the Taliban, and four successive battalions continued the effort, suffering dozens of casualties as they pushed south along the Helmand River valley and struck improvised bombs buried in roads, farmland and mud walls. The effort culminated earlier this year with the clearance of the last insurgent pocket in the far southern reaches of the district.
There is now only one Taliban cell operating in the area, and it appears focused on intimidating and attacking Afghans who are cooperating with the government, according to Marine officers. The holdouts do not appear to have links to al-Qaeda or other international terrorist groups; almost all of the fighters and commanders who have been captured over the past few years have families in the area.
“This is an amateur backwater for the insurgency now,” said Riordan, who sports a shaved head and bulging muscles.
What has occurred in Garmser has taken significantly longer than the 18 to 24 months that top military officials promised Obama it would require. The counterinsurgency effort in this district of about 150,000 people has already stretched for three years and cost the United States about $3 billion.
“Anyone who said you can go from full-on combat to transition in two years wasn’t being realistic,” said a field-grade military officer in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his assessment contradicts those of his superiors. “The lesson is that these things are going to take a lot of time and a lot of treasure.”
Embracing the police
The most influential figure in shaping the pace of transition in Garmser is not Riordan, nor the district governor, nor even the top Afghan army officer in the area. It is police chief Omar Jan.
In recent weeks, his men have captured the Taliban shadow governors responsible for Garmser and neighboring Nawa district, and they have found a cache of bomb-making equipment that Riordan estimates would have sustained the insurgents all summer.
Although the Afghan police have long been written off as incompetent and corrupt — the U.S.-led effort to train security forces has devoted far more resources to the army — Garmser suggests what is possible when an energetic leader is willing to work with international forces and tribal leaders, and combine modern law enforcement tactics with traditional ways of doing business.
A few months ago, the Marines used their helicopters to transport police officers, and their motorcycles, to the vicinity of a Taliban hideout; the police then closed in on their bikes, surprising the suspected insurgents. In mid-July, some of the officers switched into civilian clothes and rode tractors up to a house where they captured seven suspects.
In many other districts, police chiefs are Soviet-era holdovers who believe their job is to run checkpoints, or they lack local knowledge. Omar Jan is a creature of Helmand, where he is known by his two names.
U.S. officers remain concerned that his proclivity for graft could ultimately turn people against him — excesses by the police are among the reasons the Taliban was welcomed back by the population in parts of southern Afghanistan — but for now, the Americans are thrilled to have an Afghan who wants to lead instead of simply following foreign forces. And his efforts seem to be welcomed by residents desperate for security.
Despite high hopes for the Afghan army, most soldiers assigned to units in the south are not from the area, and many are not ethnic Pashtun, making them relative strangers. Most army units in the south still do not conduct independent operations, preferring instead to patrol next to Americans.
As a consequence, senior U.S. officers across southern Afghanistan intend to shift more of their personnel assigned to work with local forces from the army to the police. “We’re now at the point where the police is more important than the army,” Riordan said.
But Omar Jan is sometimes too much of a maverick. One recent morning, Riordan ventured to the police station, a two-story building — the only one in Garmser — in which Omar Jan and his top aides live and work, to talk about the tractor raid. Riordan came with praise, and a plea.
“This is great news,” he said. But he urged Omar Jan to inform the Marines the next time the police conduct such an operation to avoid the possibility of a “friendly fire” incident. The Marines, he said, would also be able to provide medical and bomb-disposal assistance if the police required it. “All I ask is that you coordinate with us,” Riordan said.
Omar Jan, a solidly built man whose deputies rush over when he waves his hand, responded by explaining how his extensive network of informers provided the tip that led to the raid.
“You are blind in this area,” the chief said to Riordan. “The same with the ANA [Afghan National Army]. If the enemy shows up without their weapons, you guys won’t recognize them, but we will.”
Omar Jan wants the Marines to stick around because he fears Taliban infiltration from Pakistan, which is 30 miles from the southernmost part of Garmser. But he also wants the Americans to keep their distance.
He said he was worried that the Marines would deem his men abusive if they observed his operations. “If we search and we don’t find anything, people will sometimes accuse us of stealing,” he said. “When the Marines arrive, they will think we are misbehaving.”
That was the opening Riordan needed. He gently implored Omar Jan to focus not just on capturing insurgents but winning the trust of the local population.
“It’s not enough to catch the Taliban,” Riordan told the chief. “You need to have the people on your side.”
Expanding village defense
In Zhari district, 75 miles northeast of Garmser, the pressure of transition has led U.S. commanders to embrace a new Afghan security force.
After American soldiers and Afghan border police swept into Nalgham, a village that had long been used as a Taliban command and logistics center, the commanders turned to an initiative by U.S. Special Operations Forces to train villagers to defend their communities.
The effort was originally intended for remote districts that had few foreign forces, not in places such as Zhari, which is close to a large city and the focus of major coalition military operations. But the commanders now think it can help encourage residents in those areas to cooperate with the police and army.
A group of elders from Nalgham had a similar idea. Soon after the clearing operations, three of them, representing the three principal tribes in the village, held a community meeting called a shura. Abdul Wali, a leader of the Achekzai tribe who had recently returned from Kandahar, announced that it was “time to stop talking and start acting.” Others agreed.
They resolved to create a local defense force that would report to the three elders, who decided to call themselves the “weapons shura” to set themselves apart from other village shuras in Zhari, which, Abdul Wali said, “are only about talking.”
The creation of such forces, called the Afghan Local Police, is a key element of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. Special Operations Forces, working with the Afghan government, have set up local police teams in 43 districts.
In Garmser, where the Marines are employing their own variant of the program, the participants do not conduct patrols or man checkpoints. Instead, the principal value has been to funnel intelligence to Omar Jan.
Because of concerns among senior Afghan leaders, including President Karzai, that the forces could become militias, the U.S. military has required the Ministry of Interior to approve every district that wants local police. To assess support for the program in each area, the ministry convenes a large shura, which is what occurred a few weeks ago in Zhari.
Officials from Kabul, Kandahar and the district government urged residents to back Abdul Wali — who pledged that he would control his men — and other leaders who wanted similar teams in their villages.
“It is your responsibility to defend this area,” said Abdul Razziq, an enterprising but illiterate border police commander who has been serving as Kandahar province’s interim police chief since the previous leader was assassinated this spring. Although he has been accused of extensive corruption and extrajudicial killings, his men are the most effective Afghan security force in the south.
In June, they roared up to Nalgham in pickup trucks and quickly identified friend from foe. By the time they were done, seven insurgents lay dead and dozens of others had fled, allowing U.S. and Afghan soldiers to take control of the area.
“If you don’t help us, we will force you to help,” Razziq told the crowd at the shura.
A few of the Americans observing the meeting thought he was joking. But nobody laughed.
Building up confidence
When Riordan meets with people in Garmser, the same question gets asked again and again: When are you leaving?
“If you leave too soon, everything we have achieved will be lost,” Mohammed Zakir, a gray-bearded elder, told Riordan over a snack of watermelon in a reed-enclosed patio on a recent afternoon. His sentiments echoed those of several tribal leaders in the district.
“We’re not going to desert you,” Riordan responded. “We will be here until the Afghan forces are capable of handling security on their own.”
Since Riordan cannot be sure how many Marines will be here by January, he is trying to find ways to make less look like more. And that involves lots of concrete.
His battalion is now spread among 51 posts in Garmser, some so small that they lack portable toilets, hot food and showers. Instead of closing many of them to prepare for the drawdown, he is transforming them into more permanent-looking structures, with brick watchtowers, concrete walls and new buildings to replace sandbags, rows of razor wire and tents. Each will have a makeshift gym where Marines who wish for a gunfight can work off their aggression.
Bases that appear enduring, he reasons, will ease concerns about the U.S. departure, even if they are eventually filled with only Afghan forces.
“It says, ‘Security is here to stay,’ ” he said. “And it competes with the Taliban’s fear campaign.”
But community representatives such as Zakir still focus on the number of Marines in the district.
“We defeated the Russians with your support, but then you left and the Taliban showed up,” he warned Riordan. “We know what will happen if you stop supporting us again.”
The battalion commander nodded. “Our country understands that we need a longer-term commitment this time,” he said. “But you have to understand we cannot keep this many Marines here for much longer.”
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In Afghanistan, Rage at Young Lovers
By JACK HEALY The New YOrk Times July 30, 2011
HERAT, Afghanistan — The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.
It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.
This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.
When security forces swooped in and rescued the couple, the mob’s anger exploded. They overwhelmed the local police, set fire to cars and stormed a police station six miles from the center of Herat, raising questions about the strength of law in a corner of western Afghanistan and in one of the first cities that has made the formal transition to Afghan-led security.
The riot, which lasted for hours, ended with one man dead, a police station charred and the two teenagers, Halima Mohammedi and her boyfriend, Rafi Mohammed, confined to juvenile prison. Officially, their fates lie in the hands of an unsteady legal system. But they face harsher judgments of family and community.
Ms. Mohammedi’s uncle visited her in jail to say she had shamed the family, and promised that they would kill her once she was released. Her father, an illiterate laborer who works in Iran, sorrowfully concurred. He cried during two visits to the jail, saying almost nothing to his daughter. Blood, he said, was perhaps the only way out.
“What we would ask is that the government should kill both of them,” said the father, Kher Mohammed.
The teenagers, embarrassed to talk about love, said plainly that they were ready for death. But they were baffled by why they should have to be killed.
Mr. Mohammed, who is 17, said: “I feel so bad. I just pray that God gives this girl back to me. I’m ready to lose my life. I just want her safe release.”
Ms. Mohammedi, who believes she is 17, said: “We are all human. God created us from one dirt. Why can we not marry each other, or love each other?”
The case has resonated in Herat, in part because it stirred memories of a brutal stoning ordered by the Taliban last summer in northern Afghanistan.
A young couple in Kunduz was stoned to death by scores of people — including family members — after they eloped. The stoning marked a brutal application of Shariah law, captured on a video recording released online months later. Afghan officials promised to investigate after an international outcry, but no one has faced criminal charges.
The immediate response to the violence in Herat was heartening by comparison. Top clerics declined to condemn the couple. Police officers risked their lives to pull the two teenagers to safety and deposit them into the legal system, rather than the hands of angry relatives. And the police reported that five or six girls had fled the city with their boyfriends and fiancés in the weeks after the riot.
After discussing the case, the provincial council decided that Mr. Mohammed and Ms. Mohammedi deserved the government’s protection because neither was engaged, and because each said they wanted to get married.
“They are not criminals, even if they have committed sexual activities,” said Abdul Zahir, the council’s leader.
But so far, their words have not freed either of the teenagers or lent them any long-term security.
Ms. Mohammedi was initially taken to the only women’s shelter in this province of more than 1.5 million people, but the police transferred her quickly to the city’s juvenile detention center, a sun-washed building where about 40 girls and 40 boys sleep in separate dormitories. The police said they had referred the teenagers’ cases to prosecutors.
“From their point of view, she committed a crime,” said Suraya Pakzad, director of Voices of Women Organization, a rights group that provided Ms. Mohammedi with a bed for one night.
Ms. Pakzad said most of the women and girls in the shelters of western Afghanistan had fled forced or abusive marriages, or had been ostracized from their communities for dating young men without their families’ approval. Male relatives often punish such transgressions with beatings or death.
But in separate interviews at the juvenile jail, Ms. Mohammedi and Mr. Mohammed said they had not worried about such things.
He did not think about the rage that would erupt if a young Tajik man picked up a Hazara girl in a neighborhood dominated by conservative Hazaras, members of one of Afghanistan’s many ethnic minorities. “It’s the heart,” Mr. Mohammed said. “When you love somebody, you don’t ask who she is or what she is. You just go for it.”
They had much in common. His father was dead, as was her mother. They described each other as quiet and polite, both a little shy. They liked the same sappy songs that float over from Iran.
After six years of primary school, Ms. Mohammedi had wanted to study English and take computer classes, but she said her family told her it was a waste of time, and sent her to work at the ice cream factory, for $95 a month.
There, at least, they found each other. Mr. Mohammed spent a month stealing hellos before Ms. Mohammedi tossed her phone number at his feet.
The couple talked on the phone most nights, even though her stepmother disapproved. After a year, they decided they were fed up with hiding their relationship. They would meet, go to the courthouse and get married. Mr. Mohammed persuaded an older cousin to take him to the village of Jabrail, where she was waiting in the town square.
They had not driven 30 feet when a yellow Toyota Corolla blocked their path and angry men jumped out. Ms. Mohammedi was not hurt in the melee that followed, but the crowd beat up the cousin and pummeled Mr. Mohammed until he collapsed.
“We knew they would kill us,” she said.
They now spend the days at opposite ends of the same juvenile jail, out of each other’s sight. Mr. Mohammed nurses the wounds still visible in his swollen face and blood-laced eyes, and Ms. Mohammedi has been going to classes and learning to tailor clothes.
Both say they want to be together, but there are complications. Family members of the man killed in the riot sent word to Ms. Mohammedi that she bears the blame for his death. But they offered her an out: Marry one of their other sons, and her debt would be paid.
Sharifullah Sahak and Lynsey Addario contributed reporting.
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