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Taliban brutality turns Afghans away
USA TODAY By Tom A. Peter, Special for USA TODAY 27/08/2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban's beheading of 17 people at a celebration of music and dancing is the latest in a litany of crimes that may turn Afghans away from the Islamic group, some locals say.
Karzai, U.S. Condemn Mass Beheadings
August 28, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has condemned the mass beheadings of 17 Afghan civilians in southern Helmand Province.
Truck Bomb Targeting Afghan Police Chief Kills Four
August 28, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Reports from southern Afghan city of Kandahar say a “massive” truck bomb has killed four civilians and slightly wounded the provincial police chief.
NDS to ‘Monitor' Local Uprisings, But Denies Hezb-i-Isalmi Involvement
TOLOnews.com Monday, 27 August 2012
The Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) will "monitor" the village uprisings against Taliban control to prevent any enemy infiltration of the public's aims.
Rumours Surface of Karzai's Plan to Reintroduce Disqualified Interior Minister
TOLOnews.com Monday, 27 August 2012
Afghan lawmakers debated on Monday rumours of a plan to reintroduce disqualified Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi in a top security-related role, but none could confirm the news.
14 Taliban militants give up fighting in northern Afghan town
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than a dozen Taliban fighters gave up fighting and resumed normal life in Balkh province 305 km north of capital city Kabul on Tuesday.
Nato Helicopter Makes Forced Landing in Eastern Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 28 August 2012
A Nato helicopter made a forced landing in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, Isaf said in a statement on Tuesday.
Afghan Women Fear Backsliding On Key Gains
NPR By Sean Carberry August 27, 2012
The gains by Afghan women are seen as one of the country's most important achievements over the past decade. But as the international community draws down its military and aid presence, those hard-won gains are at risk of being lost, according to activists.
Investigation Finds Dereliction of Duty in Quran Burnings
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM August 27, 2012
WASHINGTON - Senior U.S. Army officers at one of Afghanistan's largest military bases were "derelict in their duties" when they oversaw the removal and attempted incineration of 474 copies of the Quran in a February incident that sparked days of deadly riots, according to a special investigation.
U.S. troops tried to burn 500 copies of Koran, investigation says
Washington Post By Craig Whitlock Tuesday, August 28, 2012
U.S. troops tried to burn about 500 copies of the Koran as part of a badly bungled security sweep at an Afghan prison in February, despite repeated warnings from Afghan soldiers that they were making a colossal mistake, according to a U.S. military investigative report released Monday.
Urgent request sent from Afghanistan for Palantir system
The Washington Times By Rowan Scarborough Monday, August 27, 2012
A U.S. military command has sent an urgent request to the Pentagon to fund counterterrorism intelligence computer software for special operations troops globally, including the Palantir analytical system.
Ring Road Construction Restarts After Five Years
TOLOnews.com Monday, 27 August 2012
The construction of a ring road through western Badghis province has restarted after a five-year delay, government officials said Monday.
Morris brothers embroiled in dispute over Central Asia business dealings
Aug 28, 2012 Daily Record
A Mendham Township businessman who made international headlines when his former wife, the daughter of the president of Uzbekistan, hid their children from him, is now embroiled in a court dispute with his brother over control of multiple family-held corporate entities.
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Taliban brutality turns Afghans away
USA TODAY By Tom A. Peter, Special for USA TODAY 27/08/2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban's beheading of 17 people at a celebration of music and dancing is the latest in a litany of crimes that may turn Afghans away from the Islamic group, some locals say.
The killers attacked a large party Sunday in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, said government official Neyamatullah Khan. Khan said the victims were beheaded for flouting the Taliban's view of proper Muslim behavior.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings as an "unforgivable crime," and recent interviews with Afghans in the south show that many have grown increasingly intolerant of the Taliban.
"The bad behavior of the Taliban with the local people — when they use their fields, houses, mosques and streets as their battlefield, when they put landmines in roads and in their fields — has shifted the sympathy of the people toward the government," says Haji Fazel Mohammad, district governor of Panjwayi. "People are very unhappy with the Taliban about these issues."
The anger has not necessarily pushed people to support Karzai's government. The Afghan government is often viewed as a distant, corrupt power, experts say.
"As long as there is no legitimate and transparent government and institutions, there will be a gap between the people and the government," says Ahmad Shah Spar, an independent political analyst in Kandahar.
The Taliban has shown in recent months that it has not abandoned the harsh treatment that was routine when it controlled Afghanistan before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. In those years, Afghans who cut their beards, drank alcohol or committed adultery were punished in public and in the case of adultery executed.
In Ghazni province this year, militants ordered a shutdown of schools, in part for educating girls, according to the Karzai government. The villagers in the area rose up against them, the government said.
It could not be confirmed whether the uprising was led by concerned citizens or one militant group struggling against another. Either way, it has not been repeated in other areas, locals say.
"Even in the other districts, people are talking about it, and they're willing to join, but there's no support from the international community," says Amanullah Kamrani, provincial council member in Ghazni.
"The government needs to pay attention to this province because it was left alone, and this caused insecurity," he says.
In the decapitations case, government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said those killed were caught in a fight between two Taliban commanders over two women.
U.S. Marines have battled the Taliban for years in Musa Qala, but the group still has a presence. Helmand province, where Musa Qala is located, has seen the largest reduction in U.S. troops as part of a withdrawal ordered by President Obama.
The U.S. military hopes a shift in attitude among Afghans against the Taliban will help prevent the group's return to power when U.S. troops leave.
"Half the battle is the population. Once they all start turning on the Taliban, then the Taliban has no leg to stand on, and I do think we'll get there," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Praxitelis "Nick" Vamvakias, commander of the 2-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Ghazni province.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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Karzai, U.S. Condemn Mass Beheadings
August 28, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has condemned the mass beheadings of 17 Afghan civilians in southern Helmand Province.
In a written statement, Karzai called the killings an "unforgivable" crime in complete defiance of Islamic teachings.
The statement said resorting to such acts "clearly demonstrates that the enemy is desperate and in disarray."
U.S. officials have also condemned the beheadings, with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul calling them a "shameful act," and U.S. General John Allen, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, describing the killers as "cowards."
Taliban militants are suspected of carrying out the massacre, whose victims included two women.
Some reports said the victims had staged a music and dance party before the slayings.
Other reports said they were suspected of working against the Taliban.
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Truck Bomb Targeting Afghan Police Chief Kills Four
August 28, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Reports from southern Afghan city of Kandahar say a “massive” truck bomb has killed four civilians and slightly wounded the provincial police chief.
Kandahar provincial spokesman Jawed Faisal said the truck bomb was detonated by a suicide attacker as General Abdul Raziq's vehicle passed through a neighborhood in Kandahar City late on August 27.
Faisal said Raziq survived the bombing with minor injuries.
He said 20 other people, mostly civilians, were wounded in the blast.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but Taliban insurgents regularly target Afghan government officials.
In another development, NATO says one of its helicopters crash-landed in southeastern Afghanistan but that no one was injured.
ISAF said the helicopter made a "hard landing" in eastern Logar Province on August 27. It said there were no initial reports of insurgent activity nearby.
Taliban militants claimed in a statement that its fighters had shot down the helicopter and killed all those aboard.
Based on reporting by AFP and AP
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NDS to ‘Monitor' Local Uprisings, But Denies Hezb-i-Isalmi Involvement
TOLOnews.com Monday, 27 August 2012
The Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) will "monitor" the village uprisings against Taliban control to prevent any enemy infiltration of the public's aims.
Speaking to TOLOnews, NDS deputy spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiri rejected any suggestion that militants of Hezb-i-Islami were behind the revolts, saying that people were probably fighting against them as well.
However, the NDS will keep an eye on the uprisings to ensure the power struggle does not result in another non-government group taking control of an area.
"We believe that people are tired of these militant groups. The people are clever enough and will not allow the terrorist groups to infiltrate among them and take illegal advantages. Undoubtedly, Hezb-i-Islami is one of the main targets of these uprisings because they have also bothered people along with Taliban," Tahiri said.
"We will try hard to monitor it closely and not allow our enemies to misguide the uprisings. We will not allow, in any case, for the enemies to turn this uprising to their benefit."
Yesterday, Afghan senators voiced their concerns that the Hezb-i-Islami militants were turning the uprisings in some districts to their own advantage.
The senators called for more to be done to prevent such a situation from happening.
An uprising of students against the Taliban control was first reported in Ghazni province in late June, but similar protests have since spread to districts of Nangarhar, Faryab, Laghman, and Badghis provinces.
Meanwhile, former NDS chief Amrullah Saleh, welcomed the uprising but called for the inclusion of the public "forces" aims with the official Afghan forces to prevent chaos in the future.
"As the government is busy with its own issues and never cares for the good of the people over the expansion of its governance, the local uprising could be a positive step and should be welcomed," Saleh told TOLOnews.
"However, we cannot accept a fourth militant group. Anyone fighting the Taliban should be supported by the Afghan security forces but leaving them as an armed fighting group would create chaos in the future. They should be incorporated with the official Afghan security forces," he added.
Afghan lawmakers added to Sunday's debate on the matter, saying on Monday that it is impossible for the local residents to continue a protest against Taliban without being supported and supplied with the necessary facilities.
"As I saw on TV, their bases are located near Afghan National Army bases. Where and how did they find these facilities?" Herat MP, Munawar Shah Bahaduri said, adding that there were supplies of motorcycles, weapons and walkie-talkies.
Government, civil society and the human rights' commission have so far welcomed the news of local residents' fighting the Taliban.
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Rumours Surface of Karzai's Plan to Reintroduce Disqualified Interior Minister
TOLOnews.com Monday, 27 August 2012
Afghan lawmakers debated on Monday rumours of a plan to reintroduce disqualified Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi in a top security-related role, but none could confirm the news.
Afghan lawmaker Humaira Ayoubi said that the government is trying to reintroduce one of the disqualified ministers to a security position, adding that such a move would be ridiculous.
The sentiment was echoed by other parliamentarians, alongside calls for a new Minister of Interior to be appointed quickly.
Kabul MP Shukria Barekzai said the Afghan government needed to hasten the process of introducing new candidates for both the Interior and Defense Ministers.
"With the current security challenges, the new ministers should take their positions as soon as possible," she said.
Mohammadi is currently serving as acting Minister of Interior.
"There should an end to the role of acting Minister. They should respect the Parliament's decision and introduce new candidates to the parliament," deputy speaker of Parliament Zaher Qadir said Monday.
Former Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, and Mohammadi were dismissed from their positions early August by the Afghan MPs after failing to satisfy the lawmakers about the government's action on the matter of cross-border shelling from Pakistan into Afghanistan and the escalation of insecurity around the country.
The Ministers were asked by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to continue in their positions until new ministers were introduced, but Wardak resigned from his position, only to be appointed as President Karzai's military advisor.
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14 Taliban militants give up fighting in northern Afghan town
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than a dozen Taliban fighters gave up fighting and resumed normal life in Balkh province 305 km north of capital city Kabul on Tuesday.
"Fourteen of our dissident brothers gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to police in Charbolak district today," provincial police chief Mohammad Salim Ahsas said, while welcoming the former fighters in a ceremony held there.
These former fighters were active in Charbolak district and adjoining areas for the past couple of years and with their joining the peace process, the security will be further improved in the area, he added.
Taliban militants fighting the government are yet to comment.
More than 3,500 Taliban militants, according to officials, have joined the government-backed peace process in Afghanistan since early this year, a claim rebuffed by Taliban as baseless.
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Nato Helicopter Makes Forced Landing in Eastern Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 28 August 2012
A Nato helicopter made a forced landing in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, Isaf said in a statement on Tuesday.
"There were no reported fatalities and the site of the incident is secure. Initial reporting indicates that there was no enemy activity in the area at the time," Isaf said.
"Isaf is still in the process of assessing the circumstances to determine more facts," it added.
It came on the same day that two US soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan army soldier in eastern Laghman province, bringing to 12 the number of foreign soldiers killed by Afghan allies this month.
A spokesman for the 201 Selab military corps Mohammad Noman Hatifi told TOLOnews that the incident happened while the soldiers were defusing mines in the province's Alingar district.
Isaf released a statement Monday saying a member of the Afghan National Army turned his weapon on Isaf forces in eastern Afghanistan, killing two service members.
It said that Isaf troops returned fire and killed the attacker, but no further details were provided.
More than 40 Isaf troops have been killed in such attacks this year.
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Afghan Women Fear Backsliding On Key Gains
NPR By Sean Carberry August 27, 2012
The gains by Afghan women are seen as one of the country's most important achievements over the past decade. But as the international community draws down its military and aid presence, those hard-won gains are at risk of being lost, according to activists.
Women are still being beaten, raped and forced into early marriage at alarming rates. And women's advocacy groups say they are already seeing signs of backsliding by the government when it comes to protecting women, and fear this could accelerate in the coming years.
A 16-Year-Old's Struggle
Women for Afghan Women, which runs shelters and advocacy programs, has helped thousands of victims of violence and abuse over the past decade. One of its current cases involves a 16-year-old girl they call Peri.
Peri looks short for her age. She has a pretty face with sad, brown eyes.
Speaking in a detached manner, Peri says when she was 3, her father was accused of killing a member of another family in her village. In a traditional compensation, Peri was given to the family of the victim. It's a process called baad. It's illegal but very common.
Her story gets worse. She says that when she was 10, she was raped by a man in that family, and afterward she was forced to marry a boy in the same family who was also around 10. One day when she was 14, she says, she was drugged and when she came to, she was told she had been divorced. She never saw her husband again.
A year later, Peri was forced to become the second wife of another man who regularly abused her. The other wife threatened Peri and ultimately forced her to leave the house. Peri then tried to kill herself in the street. A man stopped her and brought her to the police, who took her to a shelter.
Fighting Abuse With Lawyers
With the help of Women for Afghan Women, a case has been filed against Peri's husband and brother-in-law. They are being charged with rape, forced marriage and abuse.
But the prospects for justice in this case are not good, says Huma Safi, the program manager for Women for Afghan Women, which is based in New York.
"The most corrupt system in our country is the system of justice," Safi says. "We have good laws. They are very good ... written in the documents, but they are not good in the implementation."
In another case, a woman was raped by an Afghan policeman, Safi says. A court sentenced him to seven years in jail. But the appeals court changed the charge from rape to adultery, freed the officer and sent the woman to jail for three years.
"It's very difficult for a woman who is uneducated, staying in a very remote area of the country, to have proof," Safi says. She says cases are often dismissed or lost because women can't provide evidence of the crimes against them.
Many of these cases are handled through tribal or informal justice systems that are often heavily slanted against women. But through persistence, Safi says, some measure of justice is achieved. Usually, it comes down to the individual judge making the decision.
Advocates Living Under Threat
She says there are a few sympathetic judges, lawyers and advocates. However, they can face constant threats, like Soraya Paksat, who works for a women's rights organization in the western city of Herat.
The Voice of Afghan Women was founded secretly during the years that the Taliban ruled, from 1996 to 2001. Recently, the women's group intervened in a case where an Afghan local policeman and two others kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old girl. The group pushed for prosecution, and as a result, the men received long prison sentences. Now, the judges and advocates like Paksat are receiving death threats.
"What I received from that threat was three bullets in one envelope [sent] to my home — just a message," says Maria Bashir.
Bashir, the prosecutor general in Herat, is the only female prosecutor general in the country. In one instance, her house was set on fire. Another time, her house was bombed. She continues to receive frequent threats.
"My children can't go outside the house, and I always have to be escorted by security personnel," Bashir says.
Bashir tries to focus on positives. She says that more and more women are becoming aware of their rights and seeking justice. However, she's also seeing men become more angry and abusive toward women who try to assert their rights.
Keeping Women's Rights On The Table
Bashir is concerned that when foreign forces leave, women will lose protection. Plus, she and others fear that the government is already starting to chip away at women's rights.
"If there is a political solution between Taliban and government and Hizb-i-Islami, there is no doubt that they will not accept the article on women's rights in the constitution," Bashir says.
But Salahuddin Rabbani, who heads the High Peace Council, a group seeking reconciliation in Afghanistan, says there will be no deals to rework the constitution or sacrifice women's rights in exchange for peace with the Taliban.
"This is something that is nonnegotiable," he says.
However, women's advocates say the current government is still backsliding and not enforcing the laws as it was a couple of years ago.
Paksat says women's rights have been treated as a cause, rather than as a pillar of Afghan government and society. That makes women more vulnerable as the international community pulls back.
'Abuses' From Within
In a recent speech, Afghanistan's justice minister called women's shelters dens of prostitution, and declared that girls are ready for marriage by age 12. Safi, in Kabul, says she was shocked to hear such comments from a government minister.
"For me, there is no difference between that Talib who is fighting and a minister who is saying such a thing," she says.
This raises another issue. While there is a constant threat of violence against women from the Taliban or other insurgents, women like Safi say that it's those who are supposed to uphold the law who are often breaking it.
"Day by day, we see the local commanders are very powerful, and most of the abuses come from those people who are working with the government — they're not Taliban," Safi says.
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Investigation Finds Dereliction of Duty in Quran Burnings
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM August 27, 2012
WASHINGTON - Senior U.S. Army officers at one of Afghanistan's largest military bases were "derelict in their duties" when they oversaw the removal and attempted incineration of 474 copies of the Quran in a February incident that sparked days of deadly riots, according to a special investigation.
The report, released Monday, said commanders in a National Guard unit responsible for security at Bagram Airfield—along with rank-and-file troops—repeatedly failed to consider the implications of a botched attempt to purge the prison library of books used by detainees to trade messages and notes.
The official examination offered the U.S. military's most extensive explanation of the Quran burnings, which led to disciplinary action on Monday against six members of the Army, including senior leadership of a National Guard battalion that oversaw the attempted destruction of the religious books.
"It all came down to a lapse in leadership," said Army spokesman Col. Jonathan Withington. "As leaders, these individuals have a requirement to ensure proper actions through supervision and enforcing standards."
The incident ignited nationwide riots that left more than three dozen people, including two U.S. soldiers, dead. President Barack Obama apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who demanded that the Americans face public trial in his country.
Also on Monday, the U.S. military said it had disciplined three Marines over a video made in 2011 and posted this year on YouTube that showed four service members urinating on dead Taliban fighters.
The military declined to say what discipline the nine service members received. Possible penalties ranged from a demotion and a letter of reprimand to a loss of pay or extra duty. The nine weren't identified.
Over the weekend, military officials in Afghanistan informed Mr. Karzai and other Afghan leaders about the findings in an effort to contain any possible protests over what may be viewed by some as lenient punishment, U.S. officials said.
While the initial incident was the catalyst for widespread protests, American officials in Kabul were optimistic that Monday's actions wouldn't trigger serious violence in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military completed the investigation report about the Quran burnings in March, but released only a redacted version of the 53 pages of findings on Monday, more than six months after the incident.
While the report found there was no malicious intent, it concluded that the "tragic incident" was the result of distrust between Afghans and Americans at the base, a lack of leadership, and cultural ignorance on the part of American soldiers.
The investigation recommended disciplinary action against the commander of the National Guard unit involved in the incident, along with its senior intelligence and operations officers. It also recommended disciplinary action against a fourth Army officer and a noncommissioned officer.
But the investigation also laid blame on a civilian Afghan interpreter working with the soldiers to help identify covert notes and extremist writings hidden in thousands of books at the Bagram prison library.
The investigation concluded that the soldiers relied too heavily on the linguist, who concluded that as many as three- quarters of the library books contained dubious material that should be removed.
The trouble began in mid-February when soldiers at Bagram came to suspect that detainees were using library books to trade messages.
During the examination of the books, the linguist, who wasn't named in the report, described some interpretations of the Quran in the library as akin to a "Nazi rewrite of the Bible" that should be removed, the report said. Afghan investigators who later examined the books rejected the linguist's assessment and said they wouldn't be viewed as extremist translations of the Quran.
The linguist's conclusions led the team to remove nearly 2,000 books—including 474 copies of the Quran. The battalion commander directed the team to "get rid of it," the report said.
The team decided to burn the books, which led to a series of missteps and confrontations with Afghans who tried to stop the soldiers from burning copies of Islam's holiest book.
When another Afghan linguist raised concerns about the decision, a counterintelligence officer told one of the battalion's noncommissioned officers that incinerating the books was a "bad idea," the report said.
Later, several Afghan soldiers tried to stop the Americans from loading the books on a truck, the report said. One even tried to physically block the Americans from taking the Qurans away.
Fearing a confrontation, the soldiers in the truck rushed away to the base burn pit while the Afghans raised concerns with other Americans at the base, who dispatched a rapid response team to investigate.
But the team, unfamiliar with the base, went to the wrong burn pit and returned without finding the truck.
At the burn pit, the Americans tried to bypass the Afghans working at the incinerator and threw the boxes directly into the fire. When one Afghan at the pit saw that the boxes contained copies of the Quran, he immediately tried to rescue the books.
As the unarmed Americans rushed away, the Afghans used a bucket loader with its scoop filled with water from a nearby puddle to douse the fire and rescue dozens of copies of the Quran from the flames.
"My central finding is that we have not yet achieved a level of cultural awareness within our ranks that puts respectful treatment of the Quran and other religious material to the forefront in our conduct," the investigation concluded.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
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U.S. troops tried to burn 500 copies of Koran, investigation says
Washington Post By Craig Whitlock Tuesday, August 28, 2012
U.S. troops tried to burn about 500 copies of the Koran as part of a badly bungled security sweep at an Afghan prison in February, despite repeated warnings from Afghan soldiers that they were making a colossal mistake, according to a U.S. military investigative report released Monday.
The number of copies of the Muslim holy book that were taken to the incinerator at Bagram air base was far greater than U.S. military officials earlier acknowledged in their accounts of an act of desecration that triggered riots across Afghanistan. The incident is also thought to have played at least a partial role in an ensuing increase in attacks against NATO troops by Afghan soldiers and police.
Despite demands from Afghan officials that the American troops be placed on trial over the Koran burnings, U.S. military officials decided against filing criminal charges. Instead, the Army announced that it had taken less-serious disciplinary action against six soldiers for what they described as unintentional — if costly — mistakes.
The investigation, however, cited evidence of a jarring lack of religious awareness and cultural training among the U.S. troops. The report said that before their deployment to Afghanistan, the troops were exposed only to about an hour-long PowerPoint presentation about Islam. Although they were generally aware that the Koran was a holy text, the report said, they were ignorant of the extreme cultural offense their mishandling of it could cause.
The Army did not release the names of the six soldiers because they received only unspecified administrative punishments and did not face criminal charges. A Navy sailor also was investigated, but officials said disciplinary measures were dropped in that case.
Meanwhile, in another case of offensive behavior in the war zone, the Marine Corps said Monday that it disciplined — but stopped short of filing criminal charges against — three noncommissioned officers for their involvement in an incident last year in which Marines videotaped themselves urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters.
The video became international news after it was posted anonymously to a Web site in January, becoming the latest strain on relations between Afghan civilians and the NATO-led military coalition that has occupied the country for the past decade. The short clip depicts four Marines in combat gear laughing as they relieved themselves over three prostrate bodies.
After a lengthy investigation, the Marine Corps said it determined that the video was recorded in July 2011 by members of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment while they were deployed to the village of Sandala in Helmand province.
Three Marines pleaded guilty Monday to violations of military regulations but were spared more-serious charges that could have resulted in a court-martial. Because the cases did not go to trial, the Marines Corps declined to identify the three or to disclose the nature of their punishments.
Disciplinary measures are pending against other Marines involved in the case, said Col. Sean D. Gibson, a spokesman for the Quantico-based Marine Corps Combat Development Command. He declined to say how many other Marines might be implicated.
The Army’s investigation of the burning of the Korans documented a series of blunders by U.S. troops and military police officers who — unable to speak local languages — mistakenly assumed that they were disposing of radical literature found in the library of the Parwan detention center, located at the edge of Bagram air base.
Acting on suspicions that prisoners were passing illicit notes in the margins of library books, U.S. troops asked an Afghan translator to take a look. The translator concluded, erroneously, that the majority of the library’s holdings were extremist in nature, according to the investigative report.
Prison guards boxed up almost 2,000 of the suspicious books. Of those, 474 were Korans and 1,100 were unobjectionable religious tracts. The remainder were secular volumes, the investigation found.
When Afghan soldiers and guards at the prison learned of the plan to burn the books, they objected loudly. But U.S. troops, responding to miscommunicated orders as well as suspicions about their Afghan allies, transported the materials to a burn pit at Bagram air base.
Most of the texts were rescued at the last minute by Afghan workers at the base, who quickly shut off the incinerator and doused the flames after realizing that the daily trash pile contained Muslim holy books. The military said, however, that “up to 100” Korans and other religious texts were burned.
Afterward, the Afghans so distrusted Americans to properly handle the saved Korans that they hid them under rugs, in closets and even in kitchen microwaves.
The investigating officer, Army Brig. Gen. Bryan G. Watson, said in the report that he found no evidence of “malicious intent to disrespect the Koran or defame the faith of Islam” on the part of the U.S. troops.
“Ultimately, this tragic incident resulted from a lack of cross-talk between leaders and commands, a lack of senior leader involvement [and] distrust among our US Service Members and our partners,” he concluded.
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Urgent request sent from Afghanistan for Palantir system
The Washington Times By Rowan Scarborough Monday, August 27, 2012
A U.S. military command has sent an urgent request to the Pentagon to fund counterterrorism intelligence computer software for special operations troops globally, including the Palantir analytical system.
Palantir is at the center of two investigations in Washington. Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, has accused the Army of making it difficult for conventional soldiers in Afghanistan to buy Palantir off the shelf because the Pentagon is protecting its own system.
The Aug. 17 request memo comes from U.S. Special Operations Command, the tip of the spear in the war on terrorism as it oversees Navy SEALs, and Army Delta Force and Green Berets.
The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, talks of plans to purchase an application named Lighthouse. Lighthouse can collect data sent via mobile devices such as cellphones, the Internet and radios, and send it to Palantir, which processes and stores data and then analyzes links among terrorists.
Commanders in Afghanistan have raved about Palantir’s ability to point them at enemy combatants who build and bury homemade bombs, the biggest killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
“Palantir supports distributed data ingestion, manipulation and storage, useful for the analysis of Lighthouse data,” says the memo, signed by Konrad J. Trautman, director of intelligence for Special Operations Command. “Lighthouse and Palantir users are equipped to exploit structured data using link analysis [and] data mining.”
The memo adds that deployed special operations troops have an “intelligence priority for rapidly deploying a data collection, fusion and analysis system.”
Special Operations Command sent the memo to two agencies involved in funding counterterrorism equipment: the Pentagon's Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.
Special operations troops were among the first to use Palantir in Afghanistan using special funds acquired through the technical support office. The memo shows the command has much bigger plans for the Lighthouse-Palantir marriage.
By next year, it wants the two systems operational in areas where terrorist groups linked to al Qaeda seek to operate. The areas include the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, and Central and South America.
Lighthouse was created at a laboratory at the Naval Postgraduate School by Marine Corps Capt. Carrick Longley.
The school’s website reported in April that the lab had “expanded Lighthouse to develop a resource for gathering and mapping data on improvised explosive devices and the networks that create them.”
The memo says Lighthouse-Palantir data can be fed into the Army’s huge intelligence data network, the Distributed Common Ground System, or DCGS.
Mr. Hunter, a loud voice in Congress on the need to defeat roadside bombs, accuses the Army of trying to protect DCGS, which the service developed in conjunction with contractors.
Army spokesmen say tests are being conducted to determine whether Palantir’s quick link-analysis functions can be incorporated into the DCGS. The Army says its system performs many more tasks than Palantir does.
At Mr. Hunter’s urging, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating the Army’s handling of Palantir, including a decision to destroy a favorable field evaluation report in April. Army officials say the report contained errors. A three-star general has been appointed to investigate the destruction of the report.
The Times has obtained a number of memos from commanders praising Palantir’s ability to help them find roadside bombs.
“Palantir has absolutely proven its utility and effectiveness for special operations forces in combat and most importantly has demonstrated its value by earning the trust of our operators in the field,” a two-star general wrote to Special Operations Command in August 2011 in an attempt to get the system inserted into the Pentagon’s annual budget.
In April 2011, the Pentagon’s technical support office received an email from a Marine Corps special operator that said: “Marines today are alive because of the capability of this system. Palantir is truly an advanced analytical all-source tool that supports both [special operations force] operators and analysts in their prosecution of the battlefield.”
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Ring Road Construction Restarts After Five Years
TOLOnews.com Monday, 27 August 2012
The construction of a ring road through western Badghis province has restarted after a five-year delay, government officials said Monday.
Ministry of Public Works officials said that the project worth $400 million is back on track despite the ongoing security concerns which stopped the construction in the first place.
Deputy Public Works Minister Noor Gul Mangal said that the local residents - as many as 2000 - will be hired as a local security forces to provide security for the project.
Most parts of the ring road were already complete but almost 213 kilometres between the Qaisar district of northern Faryab province and Badghis were still incomplete.
"Of the total budget, about $50 million will be used for security of the project," Mangal said.
Previously, Badghis' Deputy Governor Abdul Ghani Sabiri had said that neighboring intelligence agencies involving Afghan and Pakistani Taliban insurgents were preventing the construction of this project.
"Afghanistan's enemies are working to stop the project but I assure you that our security forces are capable of thwarting the insurgents' plans," he said in a telephone interview with TOLOnews.
Afghanistan's ring road is part of the 3360km main highway project connecting 16 provinces and major cities like Kabul, Mazar, Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni and Jalalabad.
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Morris brothers embroiled in dispute over Central Asia business dealings
Aug 28, 2012 Daily Record
A Mendham Township businessman who made international headlines when his former wife, the daughter of the president of Uzbekistan, hid their children from him, is now embroiled in a court dispute with his brother over control of multiple family-held corporate entities.
Mansur Maqsudi has filed in state Superior Court, Morristown, a lawsuit against his brother, Farid Maqsudi of Montville, and Superior Court Judge Deanne Wilson is set to hear arguments this Friday on whether temporary restraints should be imposed against Farid Maqsudi.
Ten years ago Wilson in 2002 decided a complex international child custody dispute in Mansur Maqsudi’s favor after his now-ex-wife, Gulnara Karimova — the daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimova — took their two children from Morris County to her native country and filed for divorce. Over the passage of time, Karimova, who is working on release of a pop album in Uzbekistan, was granted custody of the children, who now are 19 and 14.
Mansur Maqsudi filed the current action on behalf of himself and corporate entities ARM Investment Group Inc. and ARM Group LTD. Emigrating with their parents from Afghanistan in the 1970s, Mansur Maqsudi and his brother for 20 years have run the group of companies, founded by their father and engaged globally in distribution of beverages, cosmetics and other investments, according to the lawsuit. During his marriage to Karimova, Maqsudi was involved in running a Coca-Cola franchise in Uzbekistan.
The brothers allegedly had a falling-out between 2011 and 2012 and in April, agreed that Farid Maqsudi would relinquish his interest and cede all management authority in the companies to Mansur in exchange for a buyout of his shares, the lawsuit said. But, Farid Maqsudi has now allegedly reneged on his agreement to back out of the companies, and has called a shareholder meeting for Sept. 5 to discuss corporate positions and leadership, the lawsuit said.
Farid Maqsudi declined to comment on the litigation.
“Farid’s scheme has all of the hallmarks of minority shareholder oppression, including but not limited to an ill-fated attempted corporate coup...” the lawsuit said.
The complaint alleges that Farid Maqsudi signed a memorandum of agreement to quit the companies but has refused to sign a more formal separation agreement while keeping payout money he in part used to purchase a multi-million dollar home in New York. The family rift, the lawsuit stated, is resulting in some financial institutions and business contacts being reluctant to do business with the corporations.
Until the dispute is more fully fleshed out, Mansur Maqsudi wants the judge to restrain the Sept. 5 meeting, restrain Farid Maqsudi from taking any actions as a shareholder or corporate officer, and to recognize Mansur Maqsudi as president of ARM Investment Group for purposes of maintaining operations while the lawsuit is pending.
Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com
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