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5 NATO troops die in Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Five NATO service members have been killed in roadside bombings in Afghanistan during the past two days, while Afghan officials reported Sunday that four civilians died when hundreds of shells and rockets were fired from neighboring Pakistan.
5 Afghan civilians killed by militants in eastern province
KABUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Up to five civilians working in a NATO military camp were killed by Taliban militants in the eastern province of Wardak, a provincial government spokesman said Sunday.
Two NATO soldiers killed in blast in southern Afghanistan
KABUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Two more soldiers with the NATO-led coalition were killed in a blast in Afghanistan on Sunday, the military alliance confirmed in a statement.
Key Taliban leader removed from U.N. sanctions list
The Hindu By Praveen Swami July 21, 2012
NEW DELHI - Agha Jan Motasim’s delisting could kick-start dialogue process with Afghan insurgents, diplomatic sources say
Afghan helicopter makes hard landing, causing injuries
KABUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan Air Force helicopter made a hard landing in the eastern province of Kunar on Sunday, leaving some Afghan and NATO personnel injured, the coalition said.
Afghan Man Allegedly Shoots Teenaged Daughters In 'Honor' Killing
July 22, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan police say a man in southern Afghanistan has shot dead his two teenaged daughters when they were returned home after having run away for four days.
When charity bites the hand that feeds it
The Canberra Times By Paul McGeough Senior foreign correspondent Opinion July 22, 2012
In Afghanistan it's mop-up time. As foreign armies eye the exits, a meeting in San Francisco last week was a different kind of mopping-up for a non-combat force that is likely to remain on the ground in central Asia.
Afghan Refugees Should Not be Repatriated for 3 Years, Ministry Says
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Saturday, 21 July 2012
Afghanistan's Ministry for Refugees and Repatriates asked that the Afghan refugees in Pakistan be allowed to stay another three years, considering the situation in Afghanistan.
Afghan Refugees Should Not be Repatriated for 3 Years, Ministry Says
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Saturday, 21 July 2012
Afghanistan's Ministry for Refugees and Repatriates asked that the Afghan refugees in Pakistan be allowed to stay another three years, considering the situation in Afghanistan.
Lack of Air Defense Will Keep Afghanistan Dependent on US Military: Analysts
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 21 July 2012
Lack of modern and equipped air defense, radars, and other military equipment will keep Afghanistan dependent on the US air force for some time, Afghan military expert General Noorulhq Olomi told TOLOnews Saturday.
No Charges Laid in 5-Month Search for Shakeela's Killer
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Saturday, 21 July 2012
Nearly six months after the rape and murder of 18-year-old Shakeela in central Bamiyan province, nocharges have been laid and the case appears to be going nowhere, human rights activist Latifa Sultani said Saturday.
Taliban Abduct, Kill Five Security Guards in Wardak
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 22 July 2012
Insurgents killed five Afghan security guards working for a Nato base in central Maidan Wardak province early Sunday, local officials said.
Pakistani Nationals Among 6 Insurgents Captured in Kandahar
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 22 July 2012
Six insurgents, including three Pakistani nationals, were captured by Afghan security forces in southern Kandahar province on Saturday, the provincial arm of the National Department of Security (NDS) said.
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5 NATO troops die in Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Five NATO service members have been killed in roadside bombings in Afghanistan during the past two days, while Afghan officials reported Sunday that four civilians died when hundreds of shells and rockets were fired from neighboring Pakistan.
The artillery shells hit homes along frontier areas from which insurgents have in the past staged cross-border attacks.
The Afghan government has not yet openly blamed the Pakistani military for the artillery barrage, which reportedly hit districts in the eastern provinces of Nuristan and Kunar. Both are considered insurgent hotbeds, and militants allied with both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban regularly cross the mountainous border in both directions.
Pakistan has railed against Afghan and NATO forces for not doing enough to stop the rising number of cross-border attacks, which it says have killed dozens of members of its security forces. However, there has been little sympathy from the U.S. and Afghan governments, which have long complained Pakistan gives sanctuary to militants fighting in Afghanistan crossing the border in the opposite direction.
In the latest reported cross-border violation, nearly 400 rockets and shells were fired into Afghanistan on Saturday and killed at least four people in Dangam district along the border, according to Kunar provincial police chief Gen. Ewaz Mohammad Naziri.
He said those attacks and others in nearby Nuristan had led hundreds of families to flee the area.
There is little or no Afghan or NATO military presence in the area and large swaths of the region are controlled by insurgent groups. The information could not be independently verified because the area is largely off-limits to reporters.
Kabul's Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said: "The rocket attacks in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan are not acceptable to us and we are strongly condemning these attacks. We believe that the continuation of such rocket attacks will have a negative impact on the friendly relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan."
President Hamid Karzai discussed artillery fire coming from Pakistan at a weekly meeting of his national security council, a statement said. It added that Karzai ordered an in-depth investigation into the attacks.
The cross-border attacks were discussed in Kabul last week during an official visit by Pakistan's new Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Cameron, Ashraf and Karzai jointly called for a common stand against insurgents operating in the lawless border areas. Ashraf openly complained at a news conference about attacks against Pakistan originating in Kunar.
Last week, Pakistan said dozens of militants from Afghanistan's Kunar province attacked a village near Pakistan's northwest Bajur tribal area and appeared to be targeting members of a militia fighting Pakistani Taliban. Local Pakistani officials said 15 militants and two anti-Taliban militiamen were killed.
In other violence, a spokesman for the governor of eastern Wardak province said insurgents had kidnapped five Afghan men working a base joint operated by Afghan and NATO forces and killed them. Spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said their bodies were discovered early Sunday.
All five of the NATO service members were killed in roadside bomb attacks — one Saturday in the east, two in the east and two in the south on Sunday. NATO provided no further details on the incidents or the nationalities of the troops.
The deaths bring the number of foreign forces killed in July to 32, for a total of 247 so far this year.
NATO also said that it killed a number of insurgents with an airstrike in the Mohammad Agha district of eastern Logar province. It did not provide further details.
Fighting in eastern Afghanistan has been raging since spring as NATO tries to clear the area of insurgents.
___
Patrick Quinn contributed to this report from Kabul.
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5 Afghan civilians killed by militants in eastern province
KABUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Up to five civilians working in a NATO military camp were killed by Taliban militants in the eastern province of Wardak, a provincial government spokesman said Sunday.
"A total of five civilians, who were working as daily wagers in a NATO-led coalition's military camp in Jalrez District, were kidnapped by militants Saturday afternoon and their bullet-riddle bodies were found Sunday morning in the Mullah Khil area of the district," spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told Xinhua.
Meantime, Taliban insurgents claimed of responsibility for the attack.
The insurgent group, which have been waging insurgency for more than a decade, launched an annual spring offensive starting from May 3 to target Afghan forces as well as U.S. and NATO troops across the country.
The Taliban has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
A total of 3,021 Afghan civilians were killed in 2011, an 8 percent rise from the previous year, according to the United Nations annual report released in Kabul in February.
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Two NATO soldiers killed in blast in southern Afghanistan
KABUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Two more soldiers with the NATO-led coalition were killed in a blast in Afghanistan on Sunday, the military alliance confirmed in a statement.
"Two International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service members died following an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in southern Afghanistan today," the NATO-led ISAF said in the statement.
However, it did not reveal the nationalities of the victims under the ISAF policy.
Troops mainly from the United States, Britain and Australia have been stationed in the restive southern region within the framework of ISAF to curb Taliban-linked insurgency there.
Earlier Sunday, two ISAF soldiers were killed in an IED blast in eastern part of the militancy-hit country.
Currently over 130,000 NATO-led ISAF troops with majority of them Americans have been serving in Afghanistan.
Violence has been on the rise since Taliban launched an annual spring offensive on May 3.
A total of 247 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far in 2012.
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Key Taliban leader removed from U.N. sanctions list
The Hindu By Praveen Swami July 21, 2012
NEW DELHI - Agha Jan Motasim’s delisting could kick-start dialogue process with Afghan insurgents, diplomatic sources say
Key Taliban leader Agha Jan Motasim has been removed from a United Nations list targeting the insurgent organisation in a move, a western diplomatic source has told The Hindu, aimed at kick-starting its stalled dialogue process with the United States and the Afghan governments.
Formerly Finance Minister and chief administrator in the Islamist regime deposed after 9/11, and a son-in-law of Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar, Agha Jan Motasim has been undergoing treatment in Ankara, ever since an August 2010 assassination attempt in Karachi. Turkish authorities had earlier said they would ask Mr. Motasim to leave the country when his treatment was completed, and it remains unclear if he will continue to function from that country.
Mr. Motasim was among three Taliban envoys, who attended a 2011 meeting with the United States in Bonn and Doha. The Taliban had later announced they would open a political office in Doha, but called off talks after the United States rejected its demands for the release of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay.
Limited waiver
The United Nations had earlier provided a limited waiver to Mr. Motasim, allowing him to travel to Turkey. His removal from the United Nations’ 1988 list, which draws its name from the Security Council resolution that created it in 2011, will allow him to travel freely and engage in political activities.
“It isn’t clear how much influence Mr. Motasim has with Taliban on the ground,” the diplomat said, “but we hope this will open up at least some space for a serious conversation on what is possible”.
Mr. Motasim is believed to been among the seminary students who founded the Taliban in 1994, and is reported to have been injured thrice in battle. He disappeared into Pakistan, along with Mullah Omar in 2001. In 2003, though, he gave an online interview, saying he had been given charge of the Taliban’s new political affairs commission.
Ex-head of Quetta shura
In 2009, Mr. Motasim took charge of the Taliban’s key decision-making body, the Quetta shura. He laid down several preconditions for talks in an interview to al-Jazeera, calling for complete western troop withdrawal, the release of all Taliban prisoners and the end of United Nations sanctions. Reports of negotiations between the Taliban and the West, Mr. Motasim said, were “a pure fabrication and a lie and baseless.”
Later that year, though, Mr. Motasim was reported to have been tried and found guilty by a Taliban council on allegations of maintaining unauthorised contact with European diplomats. The allegations, Kabul-based intelligence sources have told The Hindu, came about because of Mr. Motasim’s secret talks that began in 2007. His key rival, Abdul Ghani Baradar, then took control of the shura. It remains unclear whether the contacts were sanctioned by elements the Taliban hierarchy.
Both Mr. Motasim and Mr. Baradar were arrested by Pakistan in 2010, as part of a series of raids alleged to have been conducted to stop the Taliban from striking an independent deal with the United States. The men were released last year, following intense pressure from the United States
In an interview given to The Daily Beast earlier this year, Mr. Motasim suggested that the subsequent attempt on his life was carried out by “some of my colleagues and friends [who] did not agree with my concept that the Taliban should be a political movement.”
Two types of Taliban
In a separate interview to The Associated Press, Mr. Motasim said there were now “two kinds of Taliban.” “The one type of Taliban who believes that the foreigners want to solve the problem but there is another group and they don’t believe, and they are thinking that the foreigners only want to fight.” “I can tell you, though, that the majority of the Taliban and the Taliban leadership want a broad-based government for all Afghan people and an Islamic system”.
Later this month, the United Nations’ sanctions committee is expected to release the findings of a full internal review of the sanctions list. The review could open the way for delisting more Taliban figures such as Mr. Baradar, who are thought to be engaged in peace talks but remain on the sanctions list.
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Afghan helicopter makes hard landing, causing injuries
KABUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan Air Force helicopter made a hard landing in the eastern province of Kunar on Sunday, leaving some Afghan and NATO personnel injured, the coalition said.
"An Afghan Air Force helicopter delivering humanitarian aid made a hard landing today in Kamdesh district, Nuristan province," the coalition said in a statement.
The Afghan and NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel on board suffered minor injuries and received treatment, the statement said, without giving the exact number of the injured.
"The cause of the hard landing, which resulted during a brownout, is under investigation," the statement added, saying that there was no enemy activity reported in the area.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group launched an annual spring offensive dubbed "Al-Farooq" from May 3 against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in the country.
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Afghan Man Allegedly Shoots Teenaged Daughters In 'Honor' Killing
July 22, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan police say a man in southern Afghanistan has shot dead his two teenaged daughters when they were returned home after having run away for four days.
The man, whose name has not been released, allegedly shot the two girls, aged 15 and 16 late on July 21 in the Nad Ali district of Helmand Province.
A police spokesman said the girls had run away from home four days earlier with a man who worked as a translator for international forces in Helmand.
Police located the girls and returned them to their home.
The father has been arrested and police are searching for the interpreter.
So-called honor killings of women are common in Afghanistan, and under Afghan law a woman can be jailed for running away from their father or husband.
Based on reporting by dpa and AFP
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When charity bites the hand that feeds it
The Canberra Times By Paul McGeough Senior foreign correspondent Opinion July 22, 2012
In Afghanistan it's mop-up time. As foreign armies eye the exits, a meeting in San Francisco last week was a different kind of mopping-up for a non-combat force that is likely to remain on the ground in central Asia.
Around the table were seven new directors of the Central Asia Institute, appointed by order of state authorities in Montana, hoping to instil badly needed management and accounting rigour in a multimillion-dollar charity better known globally through the titles of books written by its co-founder Greg Mortenson - Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.
The mountaineer Mortenson's style and timing were exquisite. He might have remained an obscure and well-meaning aid-worker, were it not for the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, which turned the world focus on central Asia. But this shy, former trauma nurse's Indiana Jones appeal made him a darling of philanthropists and the military and, very soon, his struggling charity was awash in millions.
Amid rising disillusionment over the war in Afghanistan, Mortenson's stories of schools for girls and his daring-do adventures in making them happen were heart-warming, inspirational - and utterly believable. Such was Mortenson's appeal, he was nominated for the Nobel peace prize. And when he was edged out of the running by Barack Obama, the US President thought it politic to donate $100,000 of his winnings to Mortenson's charity.
A cloud still hangs over the veracity of Mortenson's story telling.
By some accounts, his first published account of his first school project in Pakistan has none of the drama of more breathless subsequent accounts, which tell of him getting lost in the Himalayas while attempting to honour the death of his younger sister by placing her amber necklace atop the forbidding K2 peak - and his promise to reward his local rescuers by building a school in their village.
His tale of holding the hand of the dead Mother Teresa is problematic - apparently he times it three years after her actual death.
Likewise, a Pakistani academic is furious over Mortenson's depiction of his family as a bunch of Taliban fighters who kidnapped him and seemingly would have killed him. The academic says he was Mortenson's guide, his family are village notables and the American was their honoured guest in wild country on the Afghanistan border.
Mortenson's Stones into Schools includes a photograph of the 13 Kalashnikov-wielding Waziri tribesmen who ''abducted him''; the academic produces another picture for The Sunday Times in London - Mortenson hamming it up for the cameras as he brandishes his own Kalashnikov.
The cloud remains, because numerous claims of Mortenson presenting fiction as fact and of bending fact to make it sexy have not been tested beyond being outlined in media reports. But the Montana investigation of CAI's financial operations is damning.
Published in April, the investigation paints Mortenson as a plunderer of the donations for schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan - spending millions of dollars on charter jets, family holidays and personal items. Overseen by a board of himself and loyal associates, staff who challenged Mortenson's spending were resisted or simply ignored, the report finds.
At a glance, it might be argued that the man, the charity, the books and the schools were all the same project and that a blurring of the finances was inevitable. But the year-long investigation overseen by the Montana Attorney-General, Steve Bullock, suggests a more calculated bilking of the donors.
It reveals a deal worth $3.96 million for CAI to buy Mortenson's books from online dealers, which saw Mortenson benefit by earning his royalty, rather than CAI benefiting through a publisher's discount. And though an agreement was drawn up for Mortenson to donate the equivalent of the royalties he earned on the CAI-purchased books back to the charity, he did not.
Likewise, CAI paid $2 million for charter jets to haul him to some of his hundreds of speaking engagements. But the investigation found that Mortenson was ''double-dipping'' - while CAI paid for the travel, he pocketed travel fees and honorariums paid by the event organisers. Mortenson was paid as much as $30,000 for speaking fees, only $7500 of which went to the charity.
The investigation also identified more than $75,000 charged as personal items by Mortenson and his family to CAI credit cards, "including LL Bean clothing, iTunes, luggage, luxury accommodation and even vacations". In examining 10 years of CAI credit card activity, the investigation found receipts and support documents for just 38 per cent of the total amounts charged.
As early as 2002 - which, effectively was the first year of the Afghanistan war - the CAI board attempted to strip Mortenson of some of his duties as executive director but, the report says, tension grew and three board members ''were effectively ousted''.
Similarly, when audits turned up problems, the response was to stop auditing rather than to fix problems.
Bullock effectively sacked the board - and called for the new, expanded membership that gathered for the first time last week. Mortenson was allowed to continue as a paid employee of CAI, but he is banned from voting as a member of the board and he has been ordered to pay back more than $1 million to the charity.
Given that Mortenson is to remain CAI's public face, a letter he has published on the charity's website is disappointing. It points to the Attorney-General's report elsewhere on the CAI website, but at the same time it glosses over its findings, almost as though the author thinks he got away with it.
Mortenson blithely states CAI's one-by-one schools survey is continuing, without acknowledging why it is being undertaken - a charge by the American 60 Minutes program that some of the school projects did not exist.
Of 30 visited by the program, six did not exist. The others either were empty or in use as fodder stores; and had not been funded by CAI for years or had not been built by the charity.
The report reads as a morality tale for Washington. Just as few would doubt Mortenson's altruism, the liberties he took with funds, which donors believed were destined for educational projects, reflect the recklessness of a shabbily managed American venture in Afghanistan.
It's not good enough to expect Afghans to be grateful, simply because there is a foreign presence on the ground. Being there required Mortenson as much as Washington to put up all the resources available for the job at hand. ''Good enough'' would never be good enough.
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Afghan Refugees Should Not be Repatriated for 3 Years, Ministry Says
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Saturday, 21 July 2012
Afghanistan's Ministry for Refugees and Repatriates asked that the Afghan refugees in Pakistan be allowed to stay another three years, considering the situation in Afghanistan.
Ministry spokesman Islamuddin Jurhat also said Saturday that any decision made on refugees should be trilateral - involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Currently the only thing the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriates and in general the Afghan government demands is that any decision Pakistan is taking about temporary refugees in Pakistan should be trilateral," Jurhat said.
"In the meantime, considering the current situation in Afghanistan, we want the refugees to be permitted to stay for another three years in those two countries [Iran and Pakistan]," he added.
His comments come as Pakistan stands by its decision to expel Afghan refugees from its country by the end of this year as Pakistan says they are a threat to its laws, principles, security, demography, and economy.
Pakistan announced recently that it will expel nearly three million refugees living in Pakistan, while another 1.5 million are estimated to be living in Iran.
The UK newspaper The Guardian reported Saturday that a high-ranking Pakistani official had rejected the demands of the international community to revise its decision about Afghan refugees saying that those countries should open the doors to refugees themselves.
"The international community wants us to revise our decision; our position is very clear in this regard. The refugees are threat to our laws, security, demography, local economy and culture, their presence is enough," Habibullah, a Pakistani official in Afghan Refugees Affairs told the newspaper.
"If the world is concerned about their exit, they should open their own doors for them. Afghans will get very happy to go the US, Canada or Australia," he added.
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Afghan Refugees Should Not be Repatriated for 3 Years, Ministry Says
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Saturday, 21 July 2012
Afghanistan's Ministry for Refugees and Repatriates asked that the Afghan refugees in Pakistan be allowed to stay another three years, considering the situation in Afghanistan.
Ministry spokesman Islamuddin Jurhat also said Saturday that any decision made on refugees should be trilateral - involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Currently the only thing the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriates and in general the Afghan government demands is that any decision Pakistan is taking about temporary refugees in Pakistan should be trilateral," Jurhat said.
"In the meantime, considering the current situation in Afghanistan, we want the refugees to be permitted to stay for another three years in those two countries [Iran and Pakistan]," he added.
His comments come as Pakistan stands by its decision to expel Afghan refugees from its country by the end of this year as Pakistan says they are a threat to its laws, principles, security, demography, and economy.
Pakistan announced recently that it will expel nearly three million refugees living in Pakistan, while another 1.5 million are estimated to be living in Iran.
The UK newspaper The Guardian reported Saturday that a high-ranking Pakistani official had rejected the demands of the international community to revise its decision about Afghan refugees saying that those countries should open the doors to refugees themselves.
"The international community wants us to revise our decision; our position is very clear in this regard. The refugees are threat to our laws, security, demography, local economy and culture, their presence is enough," Habibullah, a Pakistani official in Afghan Refugees Affairs told the newspaper.
"If the world is concerned about their exit, they should open their own doors for them. Afghans will get very happy to go the US, Canada or Australia," he added.
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Lack of Air Defense Will Keep Afghanistan Dependent on US Military: Analysts
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 21 July 2012
Lack of modern and equipped air defense, radars, and other military equipment will keep Afghanistan dependent on the US air force for some time, Afghan military expert General Noorulhq Olomi told TOLOnews Saturday.
He said that Afghanistan needs a Nato-standard military air force in order to protect the country after 2014, otherwise the presence of the foreign troops would be necessary.
"Afghanistan will be remain dependent on the US air force as long as its own air defenses are not equipped with modern warplanes, radars and other military equipments," Olomi said that after the report of a new contract between the US and Russian government for helicopters for Afghanistan.
The US government will purchase ten Mi-17 Russian helicopters worth $171.4 million for the Afghan air force which can be used in both for military offensives as a gunship or for the logistic purposes.
However, another Afghan military expert Gen. Atiqullah Amarkhel believes that US helicopters would be better suited to Afghanistan than the Russian ones.
"The US-made helicopters are better for Afghan air defense rather than Russian ones - it's much easier for maintenance because the US advisors and technicians are available in Afghanistan," Amarkhel told TOLOnews.
This comes as Afghan Ministry of Defense raised its concern over the purchase of Russian helicopters saying their spare parts are not available and their use could be difficult for the officers trained in the US.
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No Charges Laid in 5-Month Search for Shakeela's Killer
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Saturday, 21 July 2012
Nearly six months after the rape and murder of 18-year-old Shakeela in central Bamiyan province, nocharges have been laid and the case appears to be going nowhere, human rights activist Latifa Sultani said Saturday.
Sultani, the Women Rights Coordinator at the Afghan Human Rights Commission, blamed the local officials and justice organs for not following the murder which happened in February. She accused the relevant authorities of not providing accurate information and evidence on the matter.
Shakeela, 18, died at the house of Bamiyan provincial council member Hadi Wahidi Behshti. Sultani said that the forensic examination showed she died from a bullet wound and that she was raped before she was shot.
"The case has been under investigation for nearly six months and they still haven't taken any necessary action," Sultani told TOLOnews. "We are not satisfied with their work. We are raising our concerns over the lack of cooperation with the commission because they are not providing us with necessary information."
Bamiyan Governor Habib Surabi echoed Sultani's concerns and said that the provincial Attorney General's office had not managed to identify the murderer or murderers, and pursue the case in a proper manner.
"The person, who is known as ‘Qurban', who is the bodyguard of the provincial council member who has been accused of the murder was present at the house while she was murdered. The provincial council member also confirms this," Surabi said, adding that the provincial Attorney General had not officially identified a killer.
Meanwhile, the head of the Afghan Parliament committee overseeing complaints said that he has sent a letter to the Attorney General office regarding the pursuit of the case but he had not received any response.
"The reason the murderers have not yet been prosecuted is because they might be powerful, and the brothers of Shakeela might be poor. If it were not so, they would not have come to us. They have been disappointed by the government organs," Head of the Parliamentary Petitions and Complaints Hearing Committee Obaidullah Barekzai said.
Meanwhile, council member Behsheti has dismissed the allegations of Shakeela's murder, saying that she committed suicide.
Head of Bamiyan's Appeal Court Sayed Yahya Ahmadyar said that the local officials say her case is under investigation and a verdict would be announced as soon as the process is complete.
Separately, documents received by TOLOnews from the provincial Criminal Division say that at the time of Shakeela's death, only Beheshti, his wife, and his cousin Abdul Wahab were at the house.
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Taliban Abduct, Kill Five Security Guards in Wardak
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 22 July 2012
Insurgents killed five Afghan security guards working for a Nato base in central Maidan Wardak province early Sunday, local officials said.
Six security guards were abducted by the insurgents, reportedly Taliban, on Saturday afternoon in Mullah Khil area of Jalriz district, but one escaped, provincial spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said.
"Last night, one of the security guards escaped the area and the dead bodies of at least five Afghan private security guards were recovered in the province," he said.
He added that the insurgents had placed improvised explosive devices around the bodies and "we have asked mine clearers to come in the area."
Meanwhile, witnesses in the area said the bodies showed signs of torture and gunshot wounds.
The Taliban has not yet commented on the incident yet.
Wardak province shares its eastern border with Kabul province.
An IED attack in the province last fortnight killed six US soldiers travelling in a mine-resistant vehicle - the single loss of life for the US in an incident this year since the January 19 helicopter crash in Helmand province killed six US marines.
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Pakistani Nationals Among 6 Insurgents Captured in Kandahar
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 22 July 2012
Six insurgents, including three Pakistani nationals, were captured by Afghan security forces in southern Kandahar province on Saturday, the provincial arm of the National Department of Security (NDS) said.
"The men have confessed that they were behind the assassination of several tribal elders in the province," the NDS said in a statement Sunday. However, it did not provide more details about the insurgents.
Insurgents are active in Kandahar province, targeting government sites and local police checkpoints.
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