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Afghans launch first professional football league
By Mushtaq Mojaddidi | AFP
Afghanistan is launching its first professional football championship with the ambitious goal of bringing peace to the war-torn country -- and with teams chosen on a groundbreaking reality television show.
Afghan forces take over security duties in Kunduz province
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Afghan forces took over the full security responsibilities from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in the northern province of Kunduz on Wednesday.
An Interview: The Taliban’s Long View
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN At War July 11, 2012
The Taliban are prepared to accept less than full control over Afghanistan after American troops leave, but are still fighting to play a major role in the country’s future, according to an interview with a senior Taliban commander in which he lays out the movement’s long-term political views.
Afghan reconciliation still seen uphill task
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Amid the ongoing national and international efforts to bring Taliban militants to negotiating table, Afghan observers show pessimism on the outlook of the government-initiated national reconciliation.
Afghan Women Protest Against Public Execution
July 11, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Dozens of women have rallied in Kabul to condemn violence against women.
The protest on July 11 follows the public execution of a young married Afghan woman in Parwan Province who was accused of adultery.
Over 1 million Afghans suffers from drug addiction: official
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 1 million Afghans have been suffering from drug addiction, an official said Wednesday.
Is corruption the cost of saving Afghanistan?
The Globe and Mail By Roland Paris Wednesday, Jul. 11 2012
It was fitting that last weekend’s international donors’ conference on Afghanistan took place in Tokyo: The event resembled the city’s famous kabuki theatre, with its ritualized drama of grand gestures and hidden meanings.
Afghanistan's political crisis: A short-term solution
Foreign Policy By Javid Ahmad Tuesday July 10, 2012
The Afghan political system is broken, just as the country finds itself juggling multiple political and security challenges. Among the most pressing is ensuring the transition of power from President Hamid Karzai to a capable successor by 2014. Getting this right will go a long way toward salvaging U.S.-led efforts over the past decade. Unfortunately, with Kabul torn apart by infighting and factionalism, the prospects of succeeding are bleak.
Kabul Clash Between Residents and Police Kills 3
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Clashes between police and residents of Kabul city's Reshkhor area on Tuesday morning killed three civilians, security officials said.
Taliban Rejects Karzai's Claims of Dialogue
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012
The Taliban on Tuesday strongly rejected Afghan President Hamid Karzai's statement in Tokyo that the Taliban had agreed to start talks with his government.
Afghanistan's Electoral Commission Chief Resigns
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Afghanistan Independent Election Commission's (IEC) Chief Electoral Officer Abdullah Ahmadzai resigned from his post for personal reasons, a spokesman for the commission said Tuesday.
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Afghans launch first professional football league
By Mushtaq Mojaddidi | AFP
Afghanistan is launching its first professional football championship with the ambitious goal of bringing peace to the war-torn country -- and with teams chosen on a groundbreaking reality television show.
Thousands of young Afghans have already applied to take part, with the members of each of the eight teams to be selected on the "Maidan e Sabz" (Green field) programme.
It will be the first Afghan football championship to be broadcast on television. Previous amateur competitions have involved little-known players and failed to capture the public's imagination.
Football-crazy Afghans are more passionate about European competitions, especially Spain's La Liga. Cushions with the emblems of Barcelona and Real Madrid are often seen in the back shelves of cars in Kabul.
"To establish peace and stabilise a country, one must not only focus on training soldiers," said Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) president Keramuddin Karim as he announced the championship.
"Sport is also a strong base for peace, as it (embodies) values such as unity, integration, pride and prevents racism, drugs and other elements that bring insecurity to the country," said Karim, who is also governor of Panjshir province.
AFF member Sayed Ali Reza Aghazada said players would be paid but did not offer any further details.
"We are now in a test. This is the first test on that matter. We will draw conclusions at the end of the championship," he said.
For the reality TV section, 30 players will be selected out of hundreds for each show and put through a series of physical, mental and football tests.
Their performance will be judged by former Afghan national team players and coaches and 21 chosen, with each team's final squad of 18 being decided by the studio audience.
"We are doing it on TV so that people can know the players. They will be famous thanks to the reality show. This will help us to promote football," said Aghazada.
The tournament, to be played in September and October, will involve pool and knockout stages with matches broadcast on Afghanistan's two main TV channels.
Phone company Roshan, which is sponsoring the event, said it would be a "unifying institution" for Afghanistan, a country made up of different and often conflicting ethnic groups.
Football was one of the rare activities that escaped a ban by the Taliban during their hardline Islamist rule from 1996 to 2001.
They took advantage of the sport's popularity and the large numbers of spectators it drew to carry out punishments, using the half-time interval to chop off the hands of thieves on the pitch.
As NATO's 130,000 troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014, Afghanistan is looking to use sport as a means of promoting peace and avoiding further bloodshed.
The country's young cricket team, another symbol of hope, has made great strides internationally and has qualified for this year's World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.
And all Afghan eyes will be on Rohullah Nikpai during the London Olympics to see if the taekwondo star, who became the country's first Olympic medallist in 2008, can repeat the feat.
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Afghan forces take over security duties in Kunduz province
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Afghan forces took over the full security responsibilities from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in the northern province of Kunduz on Wednesday.
"Today we saw another historic moment here in Kanduz as Afghan army and police officially took full control of security in Kunduz province from international forces," Afghan Interior Minister Bismullah Mohammadi told a ceremony in provincial capital Kunduz city.
"Afghan government's goal to assume leading security duties across Afghanistan by the end of 2014 has been proceeding smoothly and is on track," Mohammadi added.
When the transition process of the third phase is completed within the next couple of months, Afghan national security forces will assume leading security responsibilities for areas where 75 percent of the people live, he added.
The ceremony was also attended by Afghan army chief of staff General Shir Mohammad Karimi, Minister of Commerce and Industries Anwar-ul-Haq Hadi, provincial governor Mohammad Anwar Jegdalik and several German military officials with the ISAF.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced the third phase of the security handover on May 13 and so far the NATO-led ISAF forces have handed over the control of eastern Kapisa province to Afghan police and army on July 4.
More than 4,700 German troops have been serving in Kunduz within the framework of ISAF.
Transition of security responsibilities from NATO forces to Afghan army and police began in July, 2011 and would run through 2014 when Afghanistan is due to take over the full leadership of its own security duties from U.S. and NATO forces.
According to U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10, 000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
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An Interview: The Taliban’s Long View
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN At War July 11, 2012
The Taliban are prepared to accept less than full control over Afghanistan after American troops leave, but are still fighting to play a major role in the country’s future, according to an interview with a senior Taliban commander in which he lays out the movement’s long-term political views.
The wide-ranging interview will appear in full in the July 12 edition of the British political magazine New Statesman. The edition was guest-edited by the British Labour Party politician David Miliband, a former foreign minister who has been a proponent of a political process in Afghanistan that would give the Taliban, along with other groups, a place at the table in determining the country’s path.
The interview was conducted by Michael Semple, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Kennedy School at Harvard and one of the leading authorities on Pashtun politics, the Taliban and reconciliation. Mr. Semple was asked to leave Afghanistan by the Afghan government in 2007 when serving as a diplomat there for the European Union after he and another diplomat met with some Taliban leaders to explore peace talks.
Mr. Semple’s article quotes a man he describes as a “veteran Taliban commander” and “confidant” of the Taliban leadership and covers considerable ground, including the type of government the Taliban envision in the future here.
The commander is not identified by name because the Taliban keep a tight leash on any public statements, but Mr. Semple says that he has verified the man’s identity and background and believes the man gives a “faithful account of how he and his Taliban colleagues view the current situation.”
The Taliban are an increasingly factionalized movement, and it is hard to judge how widely this particular commander’s views are held. But the interviewee’s tone and comments are consistent with public statements by the Taliban, although those tend to be less candid, more oblique and more filled with rhetoric. Perhaps most interesting, the commander, whom Mr. Semple calls Maulvi, an Islamic honorific, describes without bombast or grandstanding the Taliban’s complete lack of regard for the current Afghan government.
The quotes that follow are from the full interview, provided to The New York Times and The Guardian.
On Al Qaeda, which the American and the Afghan governments have long demanded that the Taliban renounce, the commander says most Taliban no longer have any brief for the group. The only reason they have not broken with them publicly, he says, is that the Taliban view breaking off relations as something they will need to explain to some of their supporters. While the commander does not mention fund-raising as a reason, reports from the American military suggest that a portion of Taliban financing comes from donors in Arab countries who support Al Qaeda.
“At least 70 percent of the Taliban are angry at Al Qaeda,” Maulvi said. “Originally, the Taliban were naïve and ignorant of politics and welcomed Al Qaeda into their homes.
“Part of the problem with Al Qaeda was that the Afghans around Jalalabad are in the habit of welcoming everyone who comes. They do an attan [Pashtun dance] for them. To tell the truth, I was relieved at the death of Osama. Through his policies, he destroyed Afghanistan. If he really believed in jihad he should have gone to Saudi Arabia and done jihad there, rather than wrecking our country.”
On reconciliation, it appears that the Taliban are still a long way from the bargaining table. The commander says that while the Taliban do not have a realistic hope of retaking Kabul, they have no intention of giving up the fight and believe that they will gradually become one of the strongest factions in the country.
“The Taliban believe that they are obliged to fight for a certain period to gain acceptance as a power that people have to deal with,” he said. “They also believe that over time they will become stronger than the Karzai regime.”
In particular, he said the Taliban had no interest in negotiating with the government of President Hamid Karzai, which they view as a tool of the Americans and lacking any indigenous legitimacy.
“The Taliban have observed that NATO does everything to prop up the Karzai regime,” Maulvi said. “The regime’s political power is entirely dependent on the military backing provided by NATO.”
“The Kabul regime has no authority in the issues that matter in a war — power and control of the armed forces,” he said. “There is little point in talking to Kabul. Real authority rests with the Americans.”
And when it comes to joining the political system, he said, the Taliban believe it is the Americans who control the outcome, giving them little incentive to strive to become part of it.
“Under the current system, we believe it is basically the Americans who get to pick the president,” Maulvi said.
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Afghan reconciliation still seen uphill task
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Amid the ongoing national and international efforts to bring Taliban militants to negotiating table, Afghan observers show pessimism on the outlook of the government-initiated national reconciliation.
"No talks with Taliban will yield the desired outcome, it makes no difference whether the talks are held in Qatar, Paris, Japan or anywhere in the world," Afghan political analyst Faizullah Jalal told Xinhua on Wednesday.
He made this comment in the wake of reported negotiations between Afghan warring sides in Japan.
President Hamid Karzai during his stay in Tokyo revealed at a press conference that recently representatives of Taliban namely Qari Din Mohammad, of another militant group Hizb-e-Islami or the Islamic Party and of the government-backed High Council for Peace held meeting at Doshisha University in Kyoto city of Japan.
On Sunday, Karzai attended an international conference on Afghanistan in Tokyo where the world community pledged 16 billion U.S. dollars for the next four years to the militancy-plagued central Asian state.
The Afghan president at the press conference also said that Taliban representative Qari Din Mohammad expressed readiness to initiate peace talks with his government.
However, the Taliban in a sharp reaction rejected any talks with the government of Afghanistan as baseless.
In a statement posted Monday on the outfit's website, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid utterly rebuffed any talks in Japan with the government, saying "there was a research conference at Doshisha University on June 27 where the delegation of Islamic Emirate (name of ousted Taliban regime) presented its viewpoints."
The Taliban statement also stated that the "delegation of the Islamic Emirate did not hold any talks with the delegation of Karzai administration and any report in this regard is baseless."
Jalal, also a professor at Kabul University, was of the view that the Taliban like in the past would not negotiate with the government.
Taliban fighters who had staged a violent comeback in 2006, years after their 2001 collapse under U.S.-led military campaign, have repeatedly rejected any peace talks offered by the government.
The hardliner outfit has conditioned such talks with the withdrawal of NATO-led troops from Afghanistan, saying there will be no dialogue with the government in the presence of foreign troops, a condition unacceptable to both Afghan administration and the military alliance.
"Taliban's adamant stance has proved in the past they do not believe in peace talks and so no peace efforts would deliver in future," Professor Jalal said.
Taliban militants fighting the government and 130,000-strong- NATO-led forces with some 90,000 Americans have often vowed to continue Jihad or holy war till the pullout of the foreign troops from Afghanistan.
"Achieving peace through dialogue in Afghanistan is a challenging practice. The peace efforts have been practising by successive regimes since 1980s but all in vain," observed Karimullah, a 65-year-old Afghan citizen.
"According to my experiences from the past three decades of conflicts, peace efforts in Afghanistan resembles snail pace to climb the Hindu Kush summit," said the old man, referring to the regional mountain Hindu Kush with Tirich Mir as its peak some 7, 700 meters above sea level.
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Afghan Women Protest Against Public Execution
July 11, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Dozens of women have rallied in Kabul to condemn violence against women.
The protest on July 11 follows the public execution of a young married Afghan woman in Parwan Province who was accused of adultery.
Afghanistan's Women's Affairs Ministry described the rally as a "silent protest."
Several Afghan lawmakers joined the women as they marched on UN headquarters in Kabul.
The execution of the 22-year-old woman has caused global outrage.
Video footage shows the woman being shot dead as a crowd of men cheer.
Afghan authorities have blamed the execution on Taliban militants. The Taliban says it was not involved and that the woman's trial was not in accordance with Shari'a law.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the killing as un-Islamic and unforgivable.
Based on reporting by AFP and Radio Free Afghanistan
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Over 1 million Afghans suffers from drug addiction: official
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 1 million Afghans have been suffering from drug addiction, an official said Wednesday.
"Around one million Afghans, aged 15 to 64, suffer from drug addiction throughout the country," Dr. Mohammad Tahir Sultani, head of a 200-bed drug addicts' hospital, told reporters during a campaign to collect drug users here.
Sultani also said that the causes of drug addiction in the country are poverty, illiteracy, conflicts, migrations, illusions about drugs as well as unemployment.
During the campaign launched by Afghan ministries of public health, counter-narcotics and interior affairs, several dozens of addicts were held and were shifted to the mentioned hospital.
"I have been using drugs for around 10 years and poverty and joblessness were the main reasons to cause me to use drugs," a drug user Naqibullah, 50, told Xinhua.
Sultani also urged the government and the international donors to invest more in the treatment of drug addicts and the eradication of poverty.
The government must speed up efforts to help the poor to improve their quality of life and education, he said.
The insurgency-hit Afghanistan remains the main producer of opium as about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material used in manufacturing heroin, according to officials, is produced here in this country.
According to officials, more than 5,800 tons of opium poppy was produced in Afghanistan last year.
Due to war on drug, 20 out of the country's 34 provinces have been announced poppy-free. However, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that narcotic trade generated a staggering 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, about 10 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).
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Is corruption the cost of saving Afghanistan?
The Globe and Mail By Roland Paris Wednesday, Jul. 11 2012
It was fitting that last weekend’s international donors’ conference on Afghanistan took place in Tokyo: The event resembled the city’s famous kabuki theatre, with its ritualized drama of grand gestures and hidden meanings.
The centrepiece of the meeting was a pledge by donors, including Canada, for $16-billion in development aid to Afghanistan over the next four years in exchange for the Kabul government’s commitment to fight corruption, among other things.
In fact, there is virtually no chance that the Afghan government will tackle corruption – and everyone knows it. President Hamid Karzai has made similar commitments for years, yet not a single high-level official has been convicted for graft, in a country whose public sector ranks as the third-most corrupt in the world, according to Transparency International.
The unspoken reality is that the United States, which drives international policy on Afghanistan, appears to have resigned itself to this kleptocracy. Back in 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama tried to pressure the Afghan leader into tackling corruption, but his efforts served only to worsen relations between the two countries, and he soon backed off.
Then, Washington was “surging” troops into Afghanistan in a counterinsurgency campaign that sought to arrest the Taliban’s momentum and jump-start Afghan governance reform. Today, the much-reduced U.S. objective is to train and equip as many Afghan security forces as possible before the expected departure of foreign combat troops in 2014.
The United States will almost certainly keep several thousand troops in the country after that date, primarily to continue training Afghan forces and to conduct counterterrorism operations. The hope seems to be that this residual U.S. force, plus ongoing international financial support for the Afghan government and its security apparatus, will be sufficient to avert two disconcerting scenarios: a sweeping military victory by the Taliban, or the fragmentation of the Afghan government and its security forces into the same regional and ethnic factions that fought a devastating civil war in the 1990s.
Indeed, the history of the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 now appears to be required reading in U.S. policy circles. Few expected Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed president, Mohammad Najibullah, to survive after Russian troops departed. Yet, he successfully recast himself as a nationalist leader and fought off some enemies while buying off others, thanks largely to the roughly $300-million a month he continued to receive from the Soviets. His regime fell only after the Soviet Union collapsed, ending the flow from Moscow. Without money to dole out, Najibullah’s army and patronage networks quickly dissolved and older factions reorganized. This was the prelude to civil war.
This history looms large today. Dexter Filkins, formerly a Kabul-based correspondent for The New York Times, recently returned to Afghanistan and confirmed what many others have been saying: The country’s major parties are quietly rearming in anticipation of a collapse of Mr. Karzai’s government, or a return to civil war, after 2014.
Against this backdrop, Washington seems to have decided that a kleptocratic Afghan government is better than no Afghan government. In two recent meetings – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Chicago in May, and the Tokyo donors’ conference – the United States and others, including Canada, have signalled that they will continue to provide billions of dollars in development and military aid after 2014, while “training, advising and assisting” Afghan security forces.
The message to Afghanistan’s parties and factions seems clear: “We will continue to support and subsidize the Afghan government for many years. There is no need to prepare for a possible collapse. Remain calm.” It’s not clear whether Afghans find this message adequately convincing.
For taxpayers in donor countries, it is an even tougher sell, particularly at a time of fiscal retrenchment. Why should we continue to provide billions of dollars to a regime and country where corruption is not just a problem but an integral part of the governing system?
Our governments have difficulty answering this question truthfully. For them, losing enormous sums of money to graft may be an acceptable price to avoid an even costlier repetition of history.
And so, we get the kabuki theatre of a donors’ conference extolling anti-corruption measures that have no realistic chance of being implemented.
Roland Paris is director of the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa.
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Afghanistan's political crisis: A short-term solution
Foreign Policy By Javid Ahmad Tuesday July 10, 2012
The Afghan political system is broken, just as the country finds itself juggling multiple political and security challenges. Among the most pressing is ensuring the transition of power from President Hamid Karzai to a capable successor by 2014. Getting this right will go a long way toward salvaging U.S.-led efforts over the past decade. Unfortunately, with Kabul torn apart by infighting and factionalism, the prospects of succeeding are bleak.
The 2014 election has started to engender a new view of politics in Afghanistan under an incredibly curious public, the skeleton of democratic rule, and a vibrant, if not particularly well-trained media. Karzai has repeatedly stated that he will not seek another term in office and that he is looking to find a successor to stand for elections in two years' time - one that would be acceptable to the Afghan people and tough with allies. Many names have been floated as possible candidates, ranging from Karzai's own brother to some of his close aides and confidantes. While questions remain about what Karzai will actually do, it is clear that a failure to hold free and fair elections could easily contribute to further unrest across the country. If President Karzai handpicks a successor, it will most likely compromise the legitimacy of that succession. A disputed leadership could lead to Afghanistan's security forces splintering along ethnic lines, a situation that other regional actors might exploit for their own interests.
This dismal scenario is avoidable. But it would require Afghan leaders - irrespective of their political and ethnic affiliation - including President Karzai, to put aside their perceived differences, compromise, and settle on two or three vetted candidates acceptable to all sides ahead of the election. As it is said, "politics makes strange bedfellows," so the incentive for Afghan leaders to come together and compromise, however perverse it may appear, should be quite clear: If doing it for the "good of the country" is not enough of an incentive, then not doing it directly puts at risk the power, money, and personal security these players have not deserved but largely enjoyed over the years. Over the long-term, Afghanistan needs issues-based political parties with viable candidates, but this goal would be impossible to pull off before the next elections. A compromise on a shortlist of presidential nominees would mark a real turning point that could also reduce the prospect of electoral fraud. However, the level of uncertainty that presently dominate opinions of Kabul's politically influential proves that taking the necessary risks required for vetting and uniting over a handful of candidates very unlikely. The feasibility of this prospect is contingent as much upon the loyal opposition - including members of the erstwhile Northern Alliance - as upon Karzai himself.
In the absence of alternative mechanisms, one way of commanding greater political legitimacy would be the convening of a Loya Jirga. The Jirga - an old social institution representative of all Afghans often convened to resolve disputes or reach consensus on major events - could serve as a mechanism to vet and approve presidential nominees and also establish the ground rules for reconciliation with the Taliban. The delegates to the Jirga must be chosen through district-level elections - similar to the Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ) that ratified the new Afghan Constitution in 2003 - and must include members of Afghanistan's both lower and upper houses. President Karzai was an unknown figure until the Loya Jirga settled on him as an interim leader in 2002. The unanimous support Karzai received from the Jirga for finalizing the recently signed U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership agreement is equally noteworthy.
The United States and its European partners have also earned a responsibility to ensure that the 2014 elections are credible and legitimate. However, the election clause embedded in the U.S.-Afghan strategic pact and reiterated in the recent Tokyo conference Declaration now directly impedes "interference" - by foreign governments in Afghan elections - specifically foreign embassies supporting one political candidate or party over another. One way to respect the agreement and still ensure free and fair elections would be to employ a robust independent international election monitoring and observers' mission under the United Nation's auspices and direct supervision. This will not only avoid violating the agreement but will also dismiss concerns of the United States' so-called "kingmaker" or "Big Brother" role controlling internal matters in Afghanistan.
The lack of issues-based parties and candidates in Afghanistan, as noted above, is a major deterrent to the country's long-term political development. At present, while Afghanistan's electoral system clearly mandates voting for independent candidates and not political parties, there are still over 90 registered parties in the country. Nearly all of the parties carry a history of factional splits, ethnic politics and oft-changing alliances. Factions that do form alliances are often in search of a military advantage and not a "soft" political consensus. Most of the parties are small, lack sufficient resources and funding, and often pursue and promote factional and ethnic politics. Most importantly, the bulk of the parties in Afghanistan lack a systematic political role, a clear national vision and mandate, and thus most are largely useless. Those candidates who do win seats in Afghan Parliament and the Provincial Councils are, for the most part, people with strong support from the grassroots, not political parties.
Nevertheless, political parties have shown progress in recent years. Many parties are fielding candidates and many candidates are now showing their affiliation to political parties. The United States and the European allies must capitalize on this opportunity by making them credible political players. This can be done, among other things, by building their capacities through election training and education, providing them with necessary resources and skill sets: effective leadership, campaigning and fundraising skills through foreign exposures, study-tours and visits. Most importantly, the international community should educate them to work together by building healthy coalitions with an inclusive political dialogue and a pan-Afghan vision. Doing so will lay the foundation for Afghanistan's long-term political development. In turn, the Afghan government must stipulate strict guidelines and set parameters for party registration to curtail the current unhealthy growth of parties.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to Afghan leaders and those politically engaged and influential taking responsibility for their own destiny. The support pledged by a number of foreign countries post-2014 will unquestionably help, but even that would require Afghanistan to have a viable and functioning government. While graft in Afghan bureaucracy has largely undermined the government's legitimacy and its relations with international donors, and does need to be tackled, finding a short-term and realistic political consensus is more pressing and must be prioritized. The country's current trajectory, however, provides little encouragement. A failure to compromise could easily plunge the country into a brutal chaos in a frenzy to mark personal territories reminiscent of the 1990s where the very unhealthy interests of these conflicting parties will be directly challenged. Before it is too late, Afghan elites must realize that it is time to come together and act.
Javid Ahmad is Program Coordinator with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC. The views expressed here are his own.
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Kabul Clash Between Residents and Police Kills 3
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Clashes between police and residents of Kabul city's Reshkhor area on Tuesday morning killed three civilians, security officials said.
Reports from the incident indicate that when officials from Kabul Municipality tried to destroy alleged illegally-built houses in the Padola area, the residents protested.
Police responded with force, including using gunfire.
At least eight others, including two policemen, were wounded in the incident, officials said.
The houses are said to be illegal and not in accordance with Municipality's city plan.
There were reports in the past that Kabul Municipality had distributed the land to a parliamentary member from the area which had raised the residents' concern at that time.
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Taliban Rejects Karzai's Claims of Dialogue
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012
The Taliban on Tuesday strongly rejected Afghan President Hamid Karzai's statement in Tokyo that the Taliban had agreed to start talks with his government.
Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahed denied the claim, saying that a delegation of the Taliban had attended a research conference on Afghanistan at Doshisha University of Japan's Kyoto city, but never negotiated with the Afghan government nor agreed to do so.
"The Islamic Emirate of Taliban was officially invited to a research conference at Japan's Doshisha University in Kyoto city on June 27. The Emirate's delegation attended the conference but there were no negotiations or agreement between us and a delegation from the government. We strongly reject the false and irresponsible statements of Karzai," the statement said.
This comes after Karzai said Sunday in a press conference in Tokyo that Taliban senior representative Qari Din Mohammad had agreed to have peace talks with the government while at the conference in Doshisha University.
However, Afghan High Peace council member and foreign relations advisor Mohammad Ismail Qasemyar said that the delegation had agreed to start negotiations with the United States first.
"The conference was on the peace process in Afghanistan and all the parties were invited to the conference. As you know, the Taliban had a tough position in the past but this time they were more soft," Qasemyar told TOLOnews Tuesday.
One Afghan expert believes that the Taliban are denying this because otherwise their fighters will lose moral.
"There have been some negotiations, but if the Taliban are denying this, it is because their fighters would lose moral," military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhail said.
Japan's Doshisha University hosted a conference on "How to bring peace in Afghanistan" at Kyoto city and invited all the conflicting parties.
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Afghanistan's Electoral Commission Chief Resigns
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Afghanistan Independent Election Commission's (IEC) Chief Electoral Officer Abdullah Ahmadzai resigned from his post for personal reasons, a spokesman for the commission said Tuesday.
Ahmadzai, appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on May 2010, had "served the country honestly and faithfully", a statement issued by the secretariat of the IEC said today.
His resignation comes almost a year before his term was due to finish - all members of the commission are appointed for three years.
Rumors that Ahmadzai had resigned because of political pressures were denied by the commission's spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor.
"The Commission's Electoral Chief has decided to quit his job and presented his resignation to the director of the IEC. President Karzai will approve his resignation," Noor told TOLOnews, adding that the mechanism of appointment and dismissal of IEC commissioners lies with a decree from president.
"Mr Ahmadzai will have all privileges of his position until the process of his resignation is complete," he said.
Currently, Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission has seven members which have been appointed by decree from Karzai.
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