Source: The United Nations
Date: 4 April, 2005
Press Briefing by Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Spokesman for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Afghanistan



TALKING POINTS


Berlin Conference Hailed as New Milestone in Afghan Peace Process
The Berlin Conference concluded on Thursday, 1 April, with the adoption of the Berlin Declaration. It is remarkable that more that two years after the Bonn Agreement was signed, Afghanistan is able to bring together more than 60 nations, the majority of them represented by Ministers of Foreign Affairs. It is also remarkable that two years after the peace agreement was signed, Afghanistan is able to have donors pledge double what had been originally pledged in the Tokyo Conference and that they have done it in response to a multiyear development programme designed by the Afghan Government. We also find that the support of the international community is not only based on the successes of Afghanistan but with the acknowledgment that there are issues to be tackled, among them the question of factionalism and the drug problem. The window of opportunity is not closing but there is a lot of work that has to be undertaken by all of us, certainly by the Afghans.
The Berlin Declaration was adopted with three annexes, including: The Way Ahead: The Workplan of the Afghan Government (I do recommend that you take a look at this as it has very important aspects of activities to be undertaken by the Government); A Progress Report on the Implementation of the Bonn Agreement; and the Berlin Declaration on Counter-Narcotics within the Framework of the Kabul Good Neighborly Relations Declaration (signed by Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).

The Declaration highlights the priorities for Afghanistan over the next few years, including intensifying Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration ahead of the elections, reducing and eventually eliminating poppy cultivation, and establishing the rule of law and a functioning judicial system, among others. It welcomes the commitments made by donors at the Conference for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan totaling $8.2 billion over three years, and also welcomes the commitment by NATO to expand ISAF's mission with the establishment of additional Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) by the summer.

In his closing statement at the Conference, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Jean Arnault, called the outcome a "genuine new milestone in the Afghan peace process." He said that the UN was encouraged by the proceedings, and in particular by the participant's unanimous endorsement of the holding of elections in September.

The Special Representative said that the paramount need to create "a free, fair and safe environment" would "require, in a very short time, a genuine transformation in the military and political landscape of Afghanistan." He concluded by saying: "In the countdown to the holding of these genuine and democratic elections, the clock starts ticking today. We trust that it will instill a sense of urgency to our joint efforts. The Afghan leadership now knows that it has the full backing of the international community for the difficult choices that will have to be made."

Copies of the Berlin Declaration and the annexes, as well as the full statement by the Special Representative are available on the side table.

There is also a press release issued by the World Bank which gives you some details of the meetings that were held on 2 April following the Berlin Conference on the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund and the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan which are managed respectively by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.


Karzai Endorses UN Millennium Declaration
While attending the Berlin Conference, President Karzai endorsed the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which commits the Government to reaching a series of development goals by 2015. There are eight Millennium Development Goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, among others.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Afghanistan's Human Development Index is currently the worst in the world after Sierra Leone. Life expectancy is 20 years lower than neighboring countries, such as Tajikistan.

The Government of Afghanistan and UNDP have just released a report called "Afghanistan's Millennium Development Goals," which sets out specific recommendations for reducing extreme poverty in the country. These include improving public services and infrastructure, controlling the population growth rate, currently at 4.2 percent, creating economic opportunities for the vast number of returning refugees, expanding the availability of micro-credit, and controlling poppy production.

For more details there is a press release from UNDP on the side table. Unfortunately we do not have a full copy of the report but it can be accessed online at undp.org and also, I believe, on the Afghan Government's website.


Electoral Update
As we announced last week, a donor briefing on the electoral process was held on the evening of 30 March prior to the start of the Berlin Conference. At that meeting, some $68 million was pledged towards the $135 million budget for elections in September. This amount is to cover the presidential and parliamentary elections, but it also includes the estimated cost for voter registration and polling in both Pakistan and Iran.
The pledges cover just over half the estimated budget and we are very happy and grateful that countries understood the urgency because while the actual election plan still needs some refinement, there are certain things that are known and therefore require the procurement of materials, from voting booths to screens to ballot boxes. These things take time to order and you can only order them if you have the money. We are very grateful that the donors responded so promptly and so generously. The budget for the voter registration exercise remains at $98 million. As of 28 March, $94 million had been committed by donors, leaving a shortfall of $4.4 million.

As of yesterday, 1,688,234 Afghans had registered to vote. This includes 1,203,149 men and 485,085 women or 71 percent men to 29 percent women. This represents a gradual and steady increase of women registering to vote. When registration started in the beginning of December, women represented about 14 percentage of the total and are now at 29 percent. What is important is that the number of women continues to increase.

For instance, in Kandahar this week for the first time, the number of women registering reached 50 percent of the number of men registering on certain days. For example, yesterday 1,281 men and 613 women registered. The overall total for women registrants in Kandahar has increased from 13 percent to 18 percent in recent weeks. This is partly due to mobile teams in hospitals and clinics but also due to the encouragement of elders and local officials for women to take part in the process.

For your calendars, the National Football Team will be registering today at 2 p.m. at Zarghona Girls' School in Kabul. And on Monday, 5 April, at 3 p.m., the Father of the Nation, former King Zahir Shah, will register at the King's Palace in Kabul. Media are invited to attend both events.


World Health Day - 7 April
This Wednesday, 7 April, is World Health Day. The theme for this year is: Road safety is no accident. In a message by the Secretary-General commemorating the day, he says that despite enormous improvements in road safety in some countries, nearly 1.2 million people are killed every year in traffic accidents. About 90 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries.
In Afghanistan, the World Health Organization (WHO) will be observing the day with a series of events designed to promote road safety. There will be a cycling contest, in which contestants will be tested on their road safety awareness, and there will also be contests for best drivers and best pedestrians. Awards will be distributed at an official ceremony to be held by WHO on 7 April.

For more information on these activities, there is a press release from WHO on the side table. There are also copies of the full statement by the Secretary-General for World Health Day.

A tragic end came to a fine young lady who devoted her time to helping others. I post this article in memory of her.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1463619,00.html

Wednesday April 20, 2005

Bubbles of Kabul

Blonde and giggly, Marla Ruzicka was at first easy to dismiss. Yet, single-handedly, the idealistic aid worker secured millions of dollars' worth of compensation from America for the victims of its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After her death in a bomb attack in Baghdad last weekend, Rory Carroll mourns his friend

She had come, she said, to document civilian casualties of the recently concluded US-led campaign to oust the Taliban. She not only wanted to find them - difficult enough amid lawless chaos - she wanted Washington to compensate them, to take responsibility for mistakes in its post-September 11 offensive.

Last Saturday, almost three and a half years later, a journey which started in the Afghan winter ended on a balmy spring afternoon in Baghdad. A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of SUVs on the airport road. Marla Ruzicka and her colleague Faiz Al Salaam, 43, were separate from the convoy but their ordinary car took the force of the blast, killing them both.

Source: The Daily Times (Pakistan)
Date: 21 April, 2005
Northern Afghan warlords hope for ballots not bullets ahead of elections
By Emmanuel Duparcq

‘To build popular support both generals need to strive for a veneer of respectability and the international community has made it clear it would take a tougher line with recalcitrant warlords’

Two of Afghanistan’s most powerful northern warlords have laid down their arms to enter politics as the country prepares for its first parliamentary elections.

The militias of ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostam and his Tajik rival Mohammed Atta have clashed repeatedly in and around Mazar-i-Sharif since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

But calm has descended on this northern city as both men look to build political power bases.

“There are always underlying tensions, but no major problems lately. Dostum and Atta wanted to be legitimate,” said Captain Tim Rawlinson of the city’s British-run Provincial Reconstruction Team, part of NATO’s peacekeeping mission in the north.

To stand in the September 18 parliamentary elections, candidates must prove they are not linked to an armed group and although commanders such as Atta and Dostam still have ties to their militias, they have disarmed most of their men as part of a UN-backed disarmament drive.

“They realised that they can’t reach their goals by fighting but by being in the political field,” Qasi Mohammed Same, director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Same added that Mazar residents were war-weary and tired of the constant clashes between the rival militias.

To build popular support both generals need to strive for a veneer of respectability and the international community has made it clear it would take a tougher line with recalcitrant warlords, he said.

A month ahead of the presidential election last October won by President Hamid Karzai, military strongman Ismail Khan was ousted as governor of the western province of Herat amid riots which were quelled by the US military and the fledgling Afghan army.

Since then Karzai has chosen to bring militia commanders such as Atta and Dostam — both of whom have a history of alleged human rights abuses - into the political fold, while Khan was appointed to head the Ministry of Energy..

Atta was appointed governor of Balkh province, which includes Mazar-i-Sharif, ahead of last year’s election, while Dostam was appointed chief of staff of the high command of Afghanistan’s armed forces last month.

Dostam’s appointment dismayed human rights groups but political insiders in Kabul said Dostam, who won 10 percent of the vote in the presidential election, was a political force to be reckoned with.

“It’s a case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Dostam needed to have a role in government because they can’t arrest him or get rid of him,” a Western diplomat in Kabul said.

Said Noorullah, Dostam’s aide in charge of his Uzbek Jumbesh party, told AFP, “We can’t say that we have no weapons. But we think we don’t need them anymore, because it’s no benefit to fight each other.”

He added that Dostam was “not a warlord, he’s a political guy. And president Karzai knows that he can do a great job.”

Dostam has changed sides many times in the past two decades, fighting with the Soviets in the 1980s and later fighting with the mujahedin against Soviet-backed President Najibullah.

Dostam’s nomination in the government, to a post that many see as symbolic, could also have been a shrewd political move.

The appointment “calmed the situation here by alleviating the concerns of militia forces who were badly aggrieved that they were excluded from Karzai’s first cabinet,” the head of a humanitarian aid agency in Mazar told AFP.

In January Dostam narrowly escaped assassination by a suicide bomber outside a mosque in his northern stronghold of Sheberghan, where he had been saying open-air prayers at a Muslim festival.

The bomb gave Dostam’s long-term rival Atta an opportunity to bridge the divide between the two men, and he has twice visited Dostam in Sheberghan, first to express his sympathy after the assassination attempt and then in February after the death of Dostam’s father.

Despite the peace overtures, however, tensions remain.

There were popular demonstrations in Mazar over land disputes, with local residents accusing Atta of handing out land to his relatives and militia loyalists.

Atta, however, pinned the blame squarely on Dostam saying it was “the general” who had given out land before the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

When the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance took control of Afghanistan in late 2001, backed by a US air campaign, Dostam was appointed as Karzai’s envoy to the north soon after the hardline Islamic regime was toppled. afp

Hummmmmmmmm, makes one wonder where all the 'misplaced' bio germs ends up from Bush Country.


http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=48637

Mystery disease kills thousands of Afghan animals

Reuters (Faizabad, Afghanistan)
April 17/05

A mystery disease has killed more than 6,000 animals in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan in the past two weeks, an official said on Sunday.

Authorities are waiting for test results, carried out by foreign aid workers, to find the cause of the epidemic, said Engineer Mohammad Hassan, chief of the agriculture and husbandry department of Badakhshan.

"It is a very strange type of disease, which locals call animal plague," Hassan told Reuters in Faizabad, the provincial capital of Badakhshan.

"So far more than 6,000 animals, largely goats, sheep and cows, have perished as a result of the outbreak," he said.

Rugged Badakhshan lies near the border with China and Tajikistan and a majority of its residents rely on agriculture.

Oh my, we agree on something. Afghanistan is nasty.

This book tags the truth about Afghanistan and our dirty govt officials. Google Ghost Wars to find more info about it.




Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 - Steve Coll

Ghost Wars is Steve Coll's superlative account of the tangled morass of the last twenty-five years of byzantine manuvering, chaos and war on the Afghan frontier. The war against the Russians was conducted mainly through proxies - the Muhjaddeen and the warlords, the Pakistani government, and the quioxtic brillance of Massoud. Coll outlines the early rise of US policy towards the region, tracing carefully the gradual emergence and steady growth of US involvement as the Muhjaddeen war against the Russians gradually became a key element for US policy.

Coll judiciously examines the post-war American neglect of the region (literally dropping off of the policy radar screen overnight) and the sudden and abrupt roll-up of the CIA's covert support operations (exacerbating the political vacuum), its impact on both the rise of the Taliban and the development of Al Quada and Osama Bin Laden.

Reading Ghost Wars amply demonstrates that none of the subsequent events of 9-11 was surprising in retrospect and that, bluntly, no one involved is a new or unknown player. Bin Laden in particular was amply demonstrating his direction, policy and goals but was initially overlooked and ignored, and later indifferently dealt with, despite mounting evidence of danger. Neither the Clinton nor the Bush (Jr. & Sr.) administrations escapes censure for their failure to recognize the approaching storm and the glimpse Coll offers into the inner workings of covert policy in the region both fascinates and frustrates.

Coll's book is a must-read for anyone genuinely interested in understanding the complex interplay of history, politics, culture and religion in Afghanistan and is, on top of being exhaustive and comprehensive, an excellent, gripping, high-quality and well-written read. Highly Recommended!

Source: Reuters
Date: 23 April, 2005

Another Senior Taliban Official Gives Up
Sat Apr 23, 9:45 AM ET World - Reuters

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A senior member of the ousted Taliban movement surrendered on Saturday, the latest in a series of defections to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government by Taliban commanders.

Mofti Habibur Rahman, chief of the criminal department at Taliban's interior ministry, also said other high-level and low-ranking Taliban officials inside and outside Afghanistan would take advantage of a government amnesty offer.

"The reason is that we now have an elected and legitimate government," Rahman told reporters after surrendering to local authorities in Khost, the southeastern province near the border with Pakistan which is a hotbed of Taliban activity.

When asked if Jalaluddin Haqani, the top Taliban commander for the southeastern region would also give himself up, Rahman said: "I cannot say this because of security reasons."

He said other Taliban officials who were prepared to join the government were living in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

His defection comes days after local officials in the southern province of Helmand said two senior Taliban members had surrendered under Karzai's amnesty offer.

Another Taliban commander in Helmand also surrendered this month.

The Taliban have been waging an insurgency since being overthrown by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for refusing to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.

The government is seeking to coax rank-and-file Taliban to give up their fight but the amnesty offer does not include 150 of the movement's senior leaders, accused of militant violence or of having links with al Qaeda.

Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and his die-hard supporters have shunned the talks and vowed to keep on fighting Karzai's government and foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Guerrilla activity has picked up after a winter lull but activity is down on the past years, fueling speculation the Taliban may be struggling to find recruits and resources.


Maybe Chaos isn't growing as some would like?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15085051-38201,00.html


Further Taliban attacks feared
By Rachel Morarjee in Kabul
April 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse


THE Taliban is likely to step up attacks in Afghanistan as a foiled car bombing crowned a week of violence that left a Romanian soldier and 43 militants dead, security experts warned today.
Afghan police found and neutralised almost half a tonne of rockets, mortar rounds, land mines and dynamite wired together and packed into a Toyota car in the western city of Herat late Sunday, officials said today.

The incident came at around the same time as another small car bomb exploded in a residential neighbourhood of the capital Kabul on Sunday, without causing any casualties.

Hours earlier, the Romanian soldier was killed and another was injured when their vehicle struck a mine in southern Kandahar province, the spiritual homeland and birthplace of the hardline Islamist rebels.

The ousted Islamic Taliban regime claimed responsibility for the car bomb in Kabul and the attack on the Romanians.

"I think there will be a more concerted effort towards district centers, urban centers and towards the capital itself," Nick Downie, security co-ordinator for the Afghanistan Nongovernmental Organisation Security Network, which advises aid agencies.

"Militants will also target government at all levels and the reconstruction process especially.

Operation Taliban Eradication
AP WASHINGTON - The Army announced their final operation in Afghanistan, Operation Taliban Eradication. Drawing on National Guard units from the deep-south the Army has assembled a team of Redneck Special Forces.

These forces have been given following briefing:

The bag limit is ten.
The season ends this weekend.
They taste just like chicken.
They don't like beer, pickup trucks, or country music.
Some are queer.
The Army expects this final operation to last about two weeks and to be more successful than Operation Anaconda.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...5-4-2005_pg7_47

April 26, 2005

Taliban threaten to destroy TAP gas pipeline

KABUL: Taliban have threatened to destroy the proposed gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan if US companies are involved in the project.

The threat was issued by Taliban representative, Mufti Latifullah Hakimi, Radio Moscow reported on Sunday. Afghanistan has taken responsibility for the safety of the gas pipeline. The work on the project is expected to start by the end of this year.

Pesky B-52, TAKE THAT!

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&...d=28&m=4&y=2005

US Soldier, 6 Afghan Cops Killed in Clashes
Agencies

KABUL, 28April 2005 — A US soldier and six Afghan policemen were killed in two separate ambushes by militants in southern Afghanistan, the latest casualties in a surge of violence, US and Afghan officials said yesterday.

The US soldier, whose name was not released, was killed on Tuesday while on patrol in the troubled Deh Rawood district of the south-central province of Uruzgan, the military said in a statement. “The soldier was medically evacuated to the forward surgical team in Tarin Kowt where he was pronounced dead by medical personnel.”

“His remains were transported to Kandahar airfield for movement back to the United States,” it added, referring to the main US-led military base in southeastern Afghanistan. No other coalition or Afghan troops were injured in the ambush.

The statement did not provide any details of the attack. However, militants from the ousted Taleban regime have increased their attacks on US and Afghan troops over recent weeks.

Six Afghan policemen were also killed Tuesday when Taleban militants ambushed a local police chief in the restive southern province of Helmand. The police chief of Dishu district, which has been the scene of heavy fighting this month, was ambushed en route to his headquarters, provincial intelligence chief Dad Mohammed Khan told AFP. “Taleban attacked the Dishu police chief — they killed six of his bodyguards,” Khan said, adding that the police chief escaped and the Taleban fled the scene.

Meanwhile in eastern Afghanistan, three civilians were wounded when American soldiers fired on their minibus after a US troop patrol narrowly escaped a blast from an improvised bomb. Afghan officials said the US troops had fired on innocent civilians but a US military spokeswoman said the troops had been aiming at militants who took cover behind the minibus.

The latest violence comes less than a week after a Romanian soldier, also attached to the18 ,000-strong US-led coalition force, was killed and another wounded when a suspected bomb hit their vehicle in Kandahar province. The insurgency-hit Deh Rawood is located in the mountainous central Afghanistan region where militants from the ousted Taleban regime regularly attack US and Afghan forces.

The district, about 448 kilometers southwest of the capital Kabul, was the scene of heavy clashes between US and insurgents last weekend in which two US and two Afghan soldiers were injured.

The latest American casualty brought to 23 the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, including 15 troops who died in a helicopter crash on April 6 in southern Ghazni province.

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pag...ticleID=1916123

world news

Monday, May 02, 2005

26 die in explosion of hidden weapons at Afghan warlord's home

BASHGAH, Afghanistan (AP) - A warlord's stockpile of explosives detonated in a remote Afghan village Monday, flattening a half dozen houses and a mosque and killing at least 26 people in what appeared to be the deadliest accident of its kind since the ouster of the Taliban regime.

The blast shook this farming hamlet in the mountains of Baghlan province, 120 kilometres north of Kabul, at dawn and also injured at least 30 villagers.

I heard or read the other day that Afghanistan women are being targeted (raped, beaten, killed) if they work for foreign aid groups.

http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=48820

US Military: Iraq, Afghanistan Limit Ability to Fight Other Wars
03 May 2005

Al Pessin
The senior U.S. military officer has told Congress the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan limit his forces' ability to deal with any additional armed conflicts. But the officer, General Richard Myers, says the United States will prevail in any conflict anyway.

In a classified report to Congress made available to news organizations, General Myers said any additional U.S. military commitment would likely result in a longer conflict with more casualties than if U.S. forces were not already fighting in large numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. But General Myers, who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said the U.S. military would win any conflict it is assigned to fight. He repeated that view Tuesday speaking to reporters.

"The timelines may have to be extended. We may have to use additional resources, but it doesn't matter because we're going to be successful in the end," he said.

According to accounts of the general's classified report, he cites particular problems with the supplies of sophisticated weapons and the already extensive use of U.S. reserve forces in Iraq as major factors that would make it more difficult for the United States to take on a further conflict.

The reports say General Myers believes the U.S. military might not meet expectations for speed or precision in any additional war, but would win. The general says efforts are being made to ease the strain on the U.S. military capability, but officials acknowledge those are mostly long-term efforts involving reorganization, retraining and resupply.

General Myers' comments seemed to contradict a statement made by President Bush at a news conference last Thursday, when the president quoted the general.

"The person I ask that to, at least, is to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my top military advisor. I say, ‘do you feel that we've limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq?’ And the answer is, no, he doesn't feel we're limited. He feels like we've got plenty of capacity," said Mr. Bush.

On Tuesday, Pentagon officials sought to downplay any discrepancy between the statements by President Bush and General Myers. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman says it should be obvious that there is some stress on the U.S. military, but equally obvious in his view that it remains highly capable.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s1360128.htm


US military reports major clash in Afghanistan

Last Updated 05/05/2005

The American military in Afghanistan says around 20 insurgents and one Afghan police officer have been killed in fighting in the southeast of the country.

Six U.S. soldiers and five Afghan police are also said to have been wounded in
the attack launched by about 25 insurgents in Zabul Province.

The military says Afghan army troops and U.S. soldiers quickly moved to the area and surrounded the insurgent forces.

They were backed by U.S. fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

Correspondents say the clash was one of the biggest since militants loyal to the former Islamic regime began a renewed offensive coinciding with the end of winter in Afghanistan.

40 rebels killed in battle; 9 Afghan troops die in ambush
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200505051755.htm

http://icasualties.org/oef/


Kabul, May. 5 (AP): The death toll from a fierce battle against militants by US and Afghan forces in southeastern Afghanistan doubled to 40 today after troops found more bodies at the scene of clash, one of the deadliest since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Meanwhile, the Government said nine of its soldiers died in an ambush, the worst loss yet for the country's new US-trained army.

Three more troops were injured in the attack yesterday near Spin Ghar in Kandahar province, Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi, told The Associated Press. He had no further details.

The militants killed in the clash with US forces were a "mix of Taliban and anti-coalition militants," American spokesman Col. James Yonts, told AP. "These were well-trained, well-armed people ... not just a rogue group," Yonts said. "They didn't flee, they stood and fought."

"Important documents" found on the dead militants showed two were Chechens and one was Pakistani, said Ali Khali, spokesman for Zabul Province's Governor. He wouldn't give more details about the documents.

US officials were still checking the dead fighters' identities.

The military had previously said about 20 militants died in the battle on Tuesday in Zabul province's remote Dehchopan district, about 330 kilometers southwest of the capital, Kabul, when warplanes pounded militants fighting US troops and Afghan police.

The toll rose to 40 - the highest from a single battle in nine months - after troops found more bodies, Yonts said.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anti-tank mine blast injures six de-miners in Afghanistan


HEART, May 06 (SANA): Six Afghan de-miners were injured, and at least four seriously when an anti-tank mine exploded during de-mining surveillance in the western province of Herat, officials said Friday.

Doctors treating the casualties in the capital of Herat city said the two wounded were in a stable condition.

The six men were working with the Organization for Mine Clearance and the Afghan Rehabilitation Organization (OMAR), a leading Afghan NGO working on mine clearance and mine awareness since the 1990’s.

Mohammad Yousuf Yousuf an employee of OMAR told Pajhwok Afghan News: "The anti-tank mine went off in an area 20 kilometers northwest of Herat city when they were clearing the area of mines, left over from past decades of war."

Dr Mehrabuddin, a doctor at Herat General hospital said the wounded were admitted to the local hospital and they were doing their best to stabilize the condition of the four more seriously injured.



Back

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle...bcontinent&col=

Afghans appeal to Taleban as 13 killed in clash
(Reuters)

9 May 2005


KABUL - Afghanistan appealed to Taleban rebels and their leaders on Monday to give up their fight under an amnesty which has so far failed to stem violence, with 13 people, including two US Marines, killed in the latest clash.

Rebels have launched a string of attacks in recent weeks after a winter lull raised hope they might be struggling to find recruits and resources and their fight might be fading.

Among the latest casualties were two US Marines, killed in a clash in the east of the country on Sunday. US-led forces responded with ground and air attacks, killing 11 insurgents, according to police and a US spokeswoman said.

A Taleban official, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, claimed responsibility for the death of the Marines.

“We have asked our Taleban to step up attacks on coalition forces. The first targets are the US and British,” the rebel official said.

In Kabul, a bomb, which authorities suspect was detonated by a suicide attacker, killed three people in an Internet cafe at the weekend, including a U.N. worker from Myanmar.

About 60 insurgents and 10 soldiers and police were killed in two clashes last week in the south of the country, the US military said. Taleban spokesmen denied such high casualties, saying most of the dead were villagers.

They have rejected the amnesty offer as propaganda and said their war against foreign troops and the US-backed government would go on.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t...storyID=8452505

Four dead, 52 hurt in Afghan protest : official
Wed May 11, 2005 04:14 AM ET

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Four Afghan protesters were killed on Wednesday and about 50 wounded, a health official said, as anger erupted over a report that U.S. interrogators in Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran.

Government offices in the eastern city of Jalalabad were set on fire, shops looted, and U.N. buildings and diplomatic missions attacked as thousands of people took to the streets, witnesses and officials said. Police opened fire to disperse crowds.

Fazel Mohammad Ibrahimi, head of the provincial health department, citing information from three city hospitals, said four people had been killed and 52 wounded.

Anti-Americanism is spreading. Look what Bush hath wrought at Guantanimo and Abu Garib.

May 13, 12:26 PM EDT

Protests Spread in Afghanistan; 8 Killed
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFG...MPLATE=home.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Security forces opened fire and protesters stoned government and relief agency buildings as clashes in four Afghan cities left at least eight people dead Friday amid growing anti-American sentiment over the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book at Guantanamo Bay.

The deaths included a policeman and brought to 15 the number of people killed this week in the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 - a deepening worry for the government of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - both U.S. allies - registered dismay over the allegations of Quran desecration, as did the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

The unrest spread to the Palestinian territories Friday as hundreds of activists from the Islamic militant group Hamas staged a rare anti-U.S. protest in the Gaza Strip, with hundreds shouting "protect our holy book."

A call for mass street protests from a coalition of hard-line religious parties in Pakistan fell flat, but firebrand Muslim clerics lashed out at the United States.

"By insulting the Quran, they have challenged our belief. We are hurt ... If we don't rise against Americans, if we don't give them a strong message today, they will do it again," cleric Hafiz Hussain Ahmad told worshippers at a mosque in the Pakistani capital.

The protests broke out Tuesday after Newsweek magazine reported in its May 9 edition that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case "flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war against terror in Afghanistan. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, insults to the Quran and Islam's prophet, Muhammad, are regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death.

Afghan officials said some of the protesters who took to the streets chanting anti-American slogans and stoning the offices of international relief organizations ignored the urgings of mullahs during Friday prayers to remain calm.

"This is organized by particular groups who are the enemies of Afghanistan," Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal told The Associated Press. "They are trying to show that the situation, that security is not good."

Shooting broke out in the southeastern city of Ghazni after protesters swarmed toward a police station and the governor's residence after Friday prayers chanting "Death to America" and pelting the buildings with rocks, witnesses said.

Shafiqullah Shafaq, a doctor at the city hospital, told AP that two civilians and a police officer were fatally shot and 21 people wounded, including the provincial police chief.

In northeastern Badakhshan, three men were killed when police fired to control hundreds of protesters in Baharak district, Gov. Abdul Majid told AP. Another 22 people were reported hurt, including three police officers.

The mob also set fire to the office of Focus, a reconstruction agency funded by the Aga Khan Foundation of the spiritual leader of the world's 20 million Ismaili Muslims, and a British aid group, Majib said.

Another man was killed in the northwest when police opened fire during a demonstration after prayers in Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province, provincial police chief Amir Shah Naibzada told AP.

Four demonstrators suffered bullet wounds in a clash with police and government troops in Gardez, near the Pakistani border, and one died later in hospital, provincial police chief Hay Gul Suleyman Khel said.

A protest in Kabul ended peacefully.

The crackdown on the first major protest in Jalalabad on Tuesday that left four people dead has enflamed passions further, and demonstrations - many of them violent - have taken place in at least 10 towns and cities.

U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have promised to investigate the allegations, saying disrespect for the Quran would never be tolerated.

"Respect for religious freedom for all individuals is one of the founding principles of the United States," Rice said Thursday in Washington.

At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. commanders in Afghanistan believe that local political factions - and not the alleged desecration - are driving the violence.

In neighboring Pakistan, the powerful opposition Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal appealed for Muslims to protest after Friday prayers.

But in the main cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Karachi no more than a few hundred turned out, despite fiery rhetoric from some preachers. No violence was reported, although in Quetta, protesters burned an effigy of President Bush.

Sadique Bajrani, a cleric in Karachi, urged people to remain peaceful. "Americans did a bad thing, but you should not hurt anyone while protesting against America," he said.

Straw at odds with US over brutality of terror war ally Telegraph.co.uk

Gunfire continues in Uzbekistan USA Today

"People lost their lives. People are dead," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."

This is Rumsfeld's criticism of Newsweek. What irony! Where is this administration's pentenance?


Quote from:
Newsweek Retracts Story on Quran Abuse

Updated 5:36 PM ET May 16, 2005
By SETH SUTEL

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4h5280&src=ap

NEW YORK (AP) - Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. .....

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Whitaker said.

Newsweek had reported in its issue dated May 9 that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.

Whitaker wrote in his note to readers that "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Whitaker said in his editor's note that while other news organizations had aired charges of Quran abuse based on the testimony of detainees, the magazine decided to publish a short item after hearing from an unnamed U.S. official that a government probe had found evidence corroborating the charges.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them 'not credible.'"

Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document.

"Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Whitaker wrote.......

Muslim Reaction to Newsweek Apology: Too Little, Too Late

Updated 6:13 PM ET May 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050516&src=abc

Newsweek magazine may have apologized, but to many in the Muslim world, it's too late and much too little.

Muslims brushed off an apology to readers that appeared in this week's edition of the newsweekly that acknowledged errors in a story alleging U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran, Islam's holy book. Interestingly enough, Newsweek has an Arabic issue but there was no mention of the apology in this week's issue. Critics called it a strategic move in the face of the overwhelming and violent reaction. The report sparked protests in Afghanistan, where at least 15 were killed and more than 100 injured.

Newsweek later retracted the story entirely.

Many Muslims believe Newsweek succumbed to pressure from the U.S. government to backtrack. Many believe that that whatever the truth may be, the harm has been done.

Saudi Arabia was the first country to officially react by asking for an investigation. It was followed by blanket condemnation and demands for investigation from all over the region by officially appointed mainstream clerics or governments.

In Egypt, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the highest Sunni authority in the world, usually a subdued man, demanded immediate action. "The Koran's desecration is a great crime and should be dealt with at once," he said.

Reaction to the Newsweek article, which appeared in the May 9 issue, has been particularly virulent for a number of reasons.

In the Muslim world, Guantanamo has become the symbol of the confrontation between Islam and the United States. The fact that this allegedly happened in Guantanamo makes things much worse. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood said perhaps if it had happened somewhere else, it would not have resonated so much.

Secondly, the Koran is part of the Muslim identity. By desecrating the Koran, one is desecrating the identity of all Muslims. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, desecration of the Koran is punishable by death, which explains the more violent reaction to the Newsweek story.

Many analysts believe this episode will just increase the level of distrust. The Arab world, especially the Middle East, is more likely to believe such reports after the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Moreover, many believe that a soldier or interrogator would not act without his or her superior's approval and say this episode is yet another reminder that the United States is at war against Islam.

One moderate cleric said, "The U.S. keeps on handing out reasons for extremists to become more ferocious. These stories are amazing recruiting tools, and more young people will now join the fight."

The story has offended many non-Arab Muslims, too. In Malaysia and in Nigeria, protesters chanted anti-American slogans and in Tajikistan, a Central Asian country abutting Afghanistan, a group of 300 clerics wrote a statement saying that, "if an investigation does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America."

The so-called Jihadi Web sites are also full of calls for more killings of Americans.

Female CARE Worker Abducted in Afghanistan

Updated 3:04 PM ET May 16, 2005
By DANIEL COONEY

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4ethg0&src=ap


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Armed men kidnapped an Italian woman working for the international relief agency CARE by pulling her from a car in the center of the Afghan capital Monday night.

Four men forced the woman into a white Toyota sedan in Kabul's Shahr-e-Naw district at about 9 p.m., Gen. Mahboubullah Amiri, a senior official in the Afghan Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press.

The woman worked for CARE International, said Paul Barker, the agency's director in Afghanistan. Italian state TV identified her as Clementina Cantoni of Milan; the Italian news agency ANSA said she was working to help widows in Kabul.

"Four men carrying Kalashnikovs bashed in the window of her car and took her away. They told the driver not to move or he would be shot," Barker said. He said the car had just dropped off another female employee when the abduction happened.

Carlo Batori, an Italian diplomat in Kabul, confirmed the woman was an Italian citizen, but gave no details.

Relations between the United States and Italy have been strained over the March 4 shooting death of Italian agent Nicola Calipari _ who had just helped free an Italian hostage _ by U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

Another CARE worker, Margaret Hassan, 59, was abducted in Baghdad on Oct. 19, 2004, and was reported slain about a month later. Hassan, a citizen of Britain, Ireland and Iraq, was among more than 30 foreign hostages killed in Iraq since April 2003.

The kidnapping in Kabul follows a series of violent anti-American protests in Afghanistan sparked by a report in Newsweek magazine alleging that interrogators at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had placed copies of the Quran in washrooms and had flushed one copy down the toilet to get detainees to talk.

Pakistan Repeats Demand for Quran Probe

Updated 5:26 PM ET May 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4gvvg0&src=ap

By SADAQAT JAN

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan on Monday reiterated its demand for an investigation into the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, hours before Newsweek retracted the report claiming a Quran was flushed down a toilet to rattle detainees.

The story sparked demonstrations across the Islamic world last week, with about 15 people killed during an anti-American protest in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, requested Monday that U.S. officials complete a full investigation into the allegations.....

[continued]

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric said the alleged desecration is part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah urged Muslims and international human rights organizations "to raise their voices loudly against the American behavior, which is hostile to Islam and Muslims."

In a statement faxed to The Associated Press before Newsweek's apology, Fadlallah called the alleged desecration a "brutal" form of torture.

"This act is not an individual act carried out by an American soldier, but rather it is part of the American behavior of intellectual and psychological education in disrespecting Islam and smearing its image in the souls of Americans," Fadlallah said.

On Sunday, U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley said in an interview on CNN that the allegations were being investigated "vigorously."

"If it turns out to be true, obviously we will take action against those responsible," he said.

[I doubt that Hadley will investigate now that Newsweek has retracted the story.]

The neocon big corp beat goes on and on and on and on......


http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action...pe=news&id=2350

Afghanistan: NGOs baking aid cake, eating it 8. April 2005, 20:51

The National Business Review (New Zealand) - So-called NGOs -- non-governmental organisations that range from charities to "not-for-profit" infrastructure providers -- are ballooning in Afghanistan, raising fears that they are consuming far more of aid budgets than they should, while delivering far less than they promise.

In recent days, several of the country's top leaders -- and its legislature -- have all started talking tough about the issue.

According to government figures released last week, only 23 per cent of several billion dollars sent for international assistance is directly administered by the Afghan government, with the balance in the hands of humanitarian aid agencies or private contractors.

That cash tap has seen the number of NGOs in the country balloon from a few hundred three years ago to about 2,400, according to the World Bank.

And yet there has been precious little bang for all those bucks, leading to widespread belief that the NGOs are spending too much for too little -- and engaging in corrupt practices along the way.

The problem is so pervasive that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his senior officials are asking international aid donors to switch targets and hand the money directly over to the government.

The World Bank reported this week that last week the Afghan cabinet had approved a law that barring NGOs from bidding for government contracts. The NGOs that would have been dispossessed by the new law raised hell and President Karzai agreed to review it but said the law was the product of "serious concern…that some NGOs were responsible for widespread corruption and misuse of public funds".

NGO representatives said the problem was down to nomenclature and that the government has confused entrepreneurial organisations registering themselves disingenuously as non-profit, with legitimate NGOs.

But it is not clear that the new government could absorb and channel all the relief money bound for Afghanistan any more effectively than the NGOs.

The riots in Afghanistan should be a reminder to Americans that we are still fighting a war in that country.

Intelligence Brief: Afghanistan
Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
http://www.pinr.com

As the spotlight on global politics has shifted temporarily to possible nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, and to Washington's crusade for worldwide market democracy, events in Afghanistan have thrown Washington back to unresolved problems stemming from the "war on terrorism."

Protests Spell Popular Resistance

Over the past month, as spring has set in, military resistance against the government of Hamid Karzai has spiked in Afghanistan, with armed clashes between U.S. occupation forces and a resurgent Taliban and the militia of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, prompting the Karzai administration to issue an amnesty offer to all insurgents, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar, against Washington's wishes.

That discontent with Karzai and his Western backers runs deeper in Afghan society than the "remnants" of the Taliban was made clear by unruly protests throughout the Pashtun-speaking east of the country, led by students angered by reports that operatives at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp had flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet as part of their interrogation procedure.

In Jalalabad on May 11, rioters shouting "Death to America" stoned a U.S. convoy, attacked the buildings of United Nations agencies and stormed the Pakistani consulate. By May 12, the protests had spread to ten provinces, including the north of the country, where support for the Taliban is weak, and into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Civil disorder continued into May 13, with deaths and injuries mounting from the efforts of security forces to quell the riots and demonstrations.

The intensity and scope of the protests caught Washington by surprise, yet they should have been anticipated. The Newsweek report of Quran desecration, from which the magazine has backed off, was simply a trigger that released pent-up frustration with the Karzai government -- especially the slow pace of post-war reconstruction -- and hostility toward the U.S. military presence among wide segments of the Afghan population.

The Afghan government blamed "outsiders" for the disorder, but analysts disagreed. As the catch-all formula for resistance to unpopular governments and Western intervention throughout the Muslim world, Islamism is especially deeply rooted in Afghanistan, where the Taliban grew out of a student movement. The protests were too dispersed and improvised to have been centrally coordinated. Instead, they represented a new element of popular resistance, added to the persisting guerrilla insurgencies.

Always a decentralized state -- whatever its formal constitution -- Afghanistan contains many political forces that welcome weakness and instability in the Karzai government. In addition to the Taliban and Hekmatyar's supporters are the regional governors, warlords and opium traffickers that are bound together into local networks that link up loosely to pursue common aims. Islamism is the ideological glue that holds them together, providing an emotional basis for popular mobilization that rationalizes and provides a cover for more concrete interests -- religion, political power and economic gain work in tandem. [See: "Afghanistan's Transition: Decentralization or Civil War"]

The emergence of popular resistance to the Karzai government and the U.S. occupation portends serious difficulties ahead for Washington's plans to have the regime in Kabul achieve effective control over Afghanistan, including bringing regional authorities into cooperation with the central government, disarming the warlords and curbing the narcotics trade.

Entrenched opposition interests have created chronic instability in Afghanistan that has hobbled reconstruction. It is now likely that a vicious circle is setting in: popular discontent with the economy provides increased support for the opposition, which, in turn, encourages popular resistance under the banner of Islam, ratcheting up instability and further retarding reconstruction.

As Afghanistan enters a new phase of political turmoil, Washington might soon be faced with the difficult choice of pouring more military and economic resources into the country in order to prop up Karzai and avert a slide into fragmentation, or looking on as the slide gathers momentum, carrying with it the possibility of a rebirth of Islamist influence and, perhaps, dominance.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded to the disturbances with a statement that Washington does not countenance religious intimidation and a promise that there would be a thorough investigation of the reports and that appropriate disciplinary action would be taken if misconduct at Guantanamo was proven.

Rice's assurances are unlikely to sway any of the forces opposed to Karzai and Washington; the opposition will be emboldened to play the Islamist card, thwarting Washington's goal of a moderate centralized regime in Kabul.

Response in the Muslim World

The protests in Afghanistan have not only revealed the failures of nation building in that country; they were also a major setback for Washington's efforts at public diplomacy in the Muslim world.

By May 13, protests over the alleged Quran desecration had spread to Palestine and Indonesia, and the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference had publicly expressed their concern. On May 14, Yemen and the Arab League joined the denunciations, and demonstrations continued to proliferate, indicating the strength of popular anti-U.S. sentiment and the need of governments ruling large Muslim populations and the organizations linking those regimes to respond to that hostility.

The Bottom Line

Although Washington has been claiming that the uptick in military resistance in Afghanistan is a last-ditch effort by cornered die-hards, the protests in that country against alleged Quran desecration at Guantanamo reveal that deeper and persisting problems with reconstruction are growing more severe, threatening not only Washington's plans for Afghanistan, but also its already tarnished image in the Muslim world.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

------------------------------



The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.

The Pittsburgh Press has a political cartoon today about the hypocrisy of this administration criticizing Newsweek. Scott McClellan, Rumsfeld, Rice, Myers and a Pentagon PR official said that Newsweek caused the recent deaths of the Afghan protestors. The cartoon,which you can see online tomorrow, has Bush standing on hundreds of skulls of dead people that his lies caused-- while he criticizes Newsweek for killing 15 people. Another newspaper has a similar cartoon with Scott McClellan.

The riots started 2 weeks ago before the Newsweek article came out. The US government caused the abuses at Abu Gharib and Guantanimo; Arabs don't beleive that a handful of soldiers did it without top leaders knowing.

C-Span did open phone session today about this issue. http://www.c-span.org see Washington Journal 5-17-05. Most republicans believed the WH and Fox news propaganda that this story was the liberal media against the military and can't get a story straight. On the weekend, Fox said that the Muslims spread the rumor about the Quran (so don't blame the government).

The Newsweek editor was on ABC Nightline last night. He said they retracted the 10 line story (a side story) because the government source changed his story after the fact (after pressure probably from the Pentagon) that the Quran incident may not have been reported in that specific internal government report--- but he had seen it somewhere in government documents.

Also, Qitmo and Abu Gharib detainees released last year said that the soldiers dessicrated the Quran. Some have a lawsuit that says this also.

A republican C-span caller said "What is the big deal about a book?" [paraphrased] "If these people get crazy over a book and then kill people then they don't deserve the democracy we want to give them." This man doesn't know that there are about 1 billion Muslims in the world who follow the Quran like he propably follows his Bible. He also doesn't know that the protestors didn't kill - they were killed by the Afghan police or military.

Regarding the reconstruction in Afghanistan --- we spend $1 billion per month there for 4 years - and the country still looks like a third world country. No wonder the people are restless and mad at the US.

Newsweek Retracts Story on Quran Abuse

Updated 9:00 AM ET May 17, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...16_2038&src=abc

Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.

Earlier Monday, Bush administration officials had brushed off an apology that Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker had made in an editor's note and criticized the magazine's handling of the story.

Protests broke out across much of the Muslim world last week after Newsweek reported that U.S. investigators found evidence that interrogators had flushed a copy of Muslim's holy book down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. The violence left about 15 dead and scores injured in Afghanistan.

"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she traveled home from Iraq.

"People lost their lives. People are dead," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Capitol Hill. "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."


Following the criticism, Whitaker released a statement through a spokesman later Monday saying the magazine was retracting the article.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Whitaker said.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan called Newsweek's retraction "a good first step" but said it could not repair all the damage that had been done.

[They have no shame -- no one from this adminsitration got canned for their "mistakes" and misinformation.]


"The report had real consequences," McClellan said. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation."

[The US image was damaged long before by this WH]

McClellan said the Pentagon had looked into the allegations initially and found nothing to substantiate them. "They continue to look into it," he said.

Newsweek had reported in its issue dated May 9 that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.

Whitaker had written in a note to readers that "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Whitaker said in his note that while other news organizations had aired charges of Quran abuse based on the testimony of detainees, the magazine decided to publish a short item after hearing from an unnamed U.S. official that a government probe had found evidence corroborating the charges.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration."

[This isn't a denial of the charge - just that the investigation wasn't meant to find such issues]

The spokesman also said the Pentagon had looked into other charges by detainees that the Quran had been desecrated and found them to be "not credible."

[The government only believes its own people. Blame the messenger! The world sees it differently.]

Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document. Whitaker said the magazine was still looking into the charges.

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Islamic scholars and tribal elders called for the punishment of anyone found to have abused the Quran, said Maulawi Abdul Wali Arshad, head of the religious affairs department in Badakhshan province.

Arshad and the provincial police chief said the scholars met in Faizabad, 310 miles northeast of the capital, Kabul, and demanded a "reaction" from U.S. authorities within three days.

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric on Sunday said the reported desecration of the Quran is part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.

In a statement faxed to The Associated Press, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah called the alleged desecration a "brutal" form of torture and urged Muslims and international human rights organizations "to raise their voices loudly against the American behavior."

On Saturday, Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, both allies of Washington, demanded an investigation and punishment for those behind the reported desecration of the Quran.

The story also sparked protests in Pakistan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. The 22-nation Arab League issued a statement saying if the allegations panned out, Washington should apologize to Muslims.

Newsweek is owned by The Washington Post Co.

Hypocrites! When will the WH correct its blunders?

Newsweek Urged to Do More to Repair Damage

Updated 8:09 AM ET May 17, 2005
By TERENCE HUNT

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8a4tts00&src=ap

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says Newsweek took a "good first step" by retracting its story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran, but it wants the magazine to do more to repair damage caused by the article. ....

McClellan said a retraction was only "a good first step" and said Newsweek should try to set the record straight by "clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong, particularly to the Muslim world, and pointing out the policies and practices of our military."

[He should take his own advice -- on 9-11 whitewash, intelligence whitewash, Abu Gharib whitewash...etc....]....

Asked if anyone involved in preparing the article would lose his job, Klaidman said, "We think that people acted responsibly and professionally and ... there was no malice, no institutional bias, just a mistake that was made in good faith." The , an investigative reporter, and John Barry, a national security correspondent for the magazine......


U.S. officials did not deny the report when it first appeared.

[Newsweek sent the entire article to the Pentagon to comment on BEFORE they published. The Pentagon had it for at least 9 days and said nothing until AFTER THE STORY WAS PRINTED.]

On Capitol Hill, military leaders were questioned about the Newsweek account after testifying about base closings.

"We've not found any wrongdoing on the part of U.S. service members," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of Joint Chiefs. He said the Pentagon has investigated the claims, but he did not indicate whether the investigation was complete.....

The Newsweek report was not the first public airing of allegations about U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay desecrating a Quran. In August and October 2004 there were news reports based on a lawsuit and a written report by British citizens who had been released from the prison in Cuba. They claimed abuse by U.S. guards, including throwing their Qurans into the toilet.

In January, Kristine Huskey, a lawyer representing Kuwaitis detained at Guantanamo, said they claimed to have been abused and in one case a detainee watched a guard throw a Quran into a toilet.

I listened to a few of the phone calls to CSPAN this morning. One caller pointed out the hypocrisy of the Bush administration demanding an apology from Newsweek for not getting their facts straight before publishing the Koran article, when the Bush administration has never apologized to the American people for not getting its facts straight before invading Iraq. The caller suggested that Bush and Isikoff stand in front of the American people and apologize together.

It seems so obvious that the Scott McClellan's comments yesterday, blaming Newsweek for ruining the US reputation and inciting the Afghan riots, was this administrations attempt to blame the magazine for Bushco's fiascos over the last 4 years which led up to the Afghan riots. I thought McClellan must have been embarrased to make those rediculous remarks, but after listening to the callers on CSPAN today--it looks like Republicans are probably buying the WH propaganda.

U.S. Scrambling After Newsweek Report

Updated 9:29 AM ET May 17, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050516&src=abc

Government officials are scrambling to repair the damage following Newsweek's admission that it used faulty information in reporting a story that has sparked chaos in the Muslim world.

Newsweek's story, which appeared last week, said that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet in an effort to rattle suspects. Riots in the Muslim world following that report have claimed at least 16 lives.

"In the eyes of Muslims, defacing the Koran is like consciously torturing all Muslims. It's very serious," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College and ABC News' Middle East consultant. ......

Pentagon spokesman Larry Dirita was outraged by the information provided by the unidentified source, telling Newsweek, "People are dead because of what this [S.O.B] said." ....

[WHAT HYPOCRISY!]

Government Doing Damage Control
Muslim leaders in Afghanistan have given Washington three days to respond to the Newsweek story, according to The Associated Press.

The White House and Pentagon have already been scrambling to defuse this story since Newsweek's announcement on Sunday.

Officials "were sending out cables all day yesterday to their embassies in the Arab world to get out the message that this story isn't true," Stephanopoulos said. "They have a media unit set up in London that is going to put officials on al-Jazeera and on other Arab media."

But reports of soldiers using detainees' religion against them and images of detainees being humiliated from inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have inspired deep distrust of the United States in the Muslim world.

And Stephanopoulos said that, according to a senior White House official, there is fear inside the government that the Muslim world will not be quick to accept Newsweek's retraction or an explanation from the White House.

"They are worried that the Islamic world will not believe the White House and the retractions and that they [Muslims] will think that the White House ordered Newsweek to pull this back," Stephanopoulos said.

Taliban Militants Kill Five Afghans

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...5014364,00.html

Wednesday May 18, 2005 2:31 PM


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Suspected Taliban militants Wednesday killed five Afghans working on a U.S.-funded reconstruction project after ambushing their vehicle in the south of the country, an official said.

The attack occurred in Helmand province, about 110 miles northwest of the southern city of Kandahar, senior provincial official Ghulam Muhiddin said.

Two victims were engineers working for Chemonics, a U.S.-based company; one was a government engineer; the others were the driver and a policeman employed as a security guard, he said.

Carol Yee, a senior Chemonics worker in the area, confirmed the killings.

Political cartoon on Newsweek story

False Report
Tuesday, May 17, 2005

http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=0

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=42227


Female television presenter shot dead in Kabul
Published: 5/18/2005


KABUL - Unknown gunmen Wednesday shot dead a female television presenter in Kabul who once worked for a music program similar to MTV which had upset radical Islamic clerics, police said.

"Yes I can confirm that she was killed," city police chief Mohammad Akram Khakrizwal told AFP. But he added there was no known motive for the murder of 24-year-old Shaima Rezayee.

Six Afghans killed in ambush in troubled south19 May 2005 12:16:41 GMT

Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL219956.htm

KABUL, May 19 (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed a vehicle in Afghanistan on Thursday, killing six people, including some transporting the body of a man killed in an attack the previous day in which at least two employees of a U.S. firm died.

The attack happened at around 4 a.m. (2330 GMT on Wednesday) on a main road to the capital, Kabul, said Gulab Shah Alikhel, spokesman for the governor of Zabul province. Six Afghans were killed, he said.

"They were transporting the body of their colleague killed in Helmand yesterday," Alikhel said.

Five Afghans were killed in the attack in Helmand province, also in the south, on Wednesday, including at least two employees of Chemonics, a U.S.-based firm involved in U.S-funded opium crop substitution projects.

It was not immediately clear if any of the six killed on Thursday worked for Chemonics, or if the dead man they were transporting was one of the firm's employees killed on Wednesday.

Alikhel initially said the six had been travelling in a vehicle with U.N. markings and were believed to be affiliated with the United Nations, but a U.N. spokesman said this was not true.

Officials of Chemonics, which is involved in finding alternative livelihoods for farmers forced to give up growing opium, were not immediately available for comment.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul said it had no information. Officials at the U.S Agency for International Development, which is believed to have hired Chemonics for some projects, declined to comment.

"We do not know who killed these people, they could be criminals or terrorists," Alikhel said, referring to the Thursday attack. "The Taliban have been active here recently but I cannot say if they were Taliban," he said.

A Taliban spokesman, who claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack, was not immediately available for comment.

Government efforts to stop opium production have stirred violent opposition in some parts of the country.

Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of opium, and its refined form, heroin, and drug gangs are a serious problem for the U.S.-backed government as it tries to impose its authority.

U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001 after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Taliban and allied militants have been waging an insurgency against U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed government since then. The rebels have also attacked aid and election workers, killing and wounding dozens.

Ouch! More bad news to excite the international community with.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/05/20/story203461.html

Report: 'US troops abused Afghan detainees'
20/05/2005 - 15:38:38

Detainees in United States military custody in Afghanistan were the victims of widespread abuse by "young and poorly trained soldiers", according to a report published today.

A 2,000-page confidential file obtained by The New York Times reveals brutal treatment of prisoners, apparently often born out of little more than boredom.

The report focuses on the deaths of two Afghan men in Bagram in December 2002.

The first, a 22-year-old taxi driver, known as Dilawar, was said to have been so badly beaten his legs could no longer bend. He was chained by the wrists to the ceiling of his cell where he eventually died.

Months later, Army investigators learned that most of his interrogators believed he was an innocent man who drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time, according to the report.

Another detainee, Habibullah, died there six days earlier, also shackled to the ceiling.

"It looked like he had been dead for a while, and it looked like nobody cared," said one of the medics called to the scene, Staff Sgt Rodney Glass.

In statements to investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator stepping on the neck of one detainee and kicking another in the genitals.

“Foreign Elements” Blamed for Riots

Afghan leadership says foreigners exploited Islamic sentiment to destabilise the country in advance of elections.

By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 173, 20-May-05)

Foreign and domestic enemies of democracy in Afghanistan used a United States magazine report as a ruse to touch off the worst violence since the suppression of the Taleban, according to police, political leaders and some of the demonstrators themselves.

Five days of riots beginning on May 10 left 15 people dead in at least 12 of the country’s provinces. The worst violence, officials said, took place in areas near or bordering Pakistan.

The trouble began immediately after publication of a Newsweek magazine report on May 9 that a copy of the Koran had been flushed down a toilet at a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Afghan and other suspects are being held.

The article has since been retracted by Newsweek.

The magazine is not readily available in Afghanistan, even weeks after publication. Yet some demonstrators said local mullahs called on them to protest against the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book almost at the same time as Newsweek hit newsstands in the United States.

President Hamed Karzai, who is supported by US-led Coalition forces, was visiting Europe when the violence broke out.

Afghanistan is preparing to hold legislative elections on September 19.

"Foreign hands are trying to disturb our parliamentary elections and are against the strengthening of the peace process," Karzai told reporters on May 14, after his return. "They want to give us a bad name in the international community."

He declined to name the foreign countries involved, but others were not so reticent.

Qayoum Babak, the chief editor of the Jahan-e-Now monthly and a political analyst in Mazar-e-Sharif, blamed Pakistan and its ISI intelligence service, which has a history of backing one Afghan faction against the other.

“We see that the violent demos took place in the provinces bordering on Pakistan, and ISI penetrated those demos,"said Babak. "In the provinces away from the border, the demonstrations were mostly peaceful."

He predicted that the violence was "just the beginning of a series of crises that are bound to happen before the legislative elections".

The trouble began in Jalalabad, 80 kilometres from the border on the main road to Pakistan and the main city in Nangarhar province.

The protest, mostly by students outraged at the alleged desecration of the Koran, remained peaceful during the first day. The demonstrations spread quickly to other eastern provinces, however, and turned violent when more people joined the students, said witnesses.

“We just staged the demonstrations to make our voices heard," said Najibullah Zakhilwal, a medical student at Nangarhar University. "What happened wasn't something we wanted."

Zakhilwal and others said outsiders bent on violence hijacked what hadf been a peaceful demonstration.

“When the other citizens of Nangarhar province joined us in the demo, it went out of our control,” said Munir Ahmad, a student at Nangarhar High School.

Over the following days, the Jalalabad demonstration spread beyond the university campus. Government buildings and the United Nations Assistance Mission were set on fire, as was the Pakistani consulate. Four demonstrators in Jalalabad were killed by gunfire.

Nangarhar police chief Hazrat Ali denied that his forces fired the fatal shots, and said investigators were still looking for those responsible for the incitement. More than 20 people were arrested and the investigation is continuing, he told IWPR.

Students at Kabul University demonstrated on May 12, but the rallies in the capital and in the northern provinces ended peacefully.

Ghazni, a past stronghold of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hizb-e-Islami faction is aligned with the Taleban, saw the worst violence after Jalalabad. Three people were killed, and shops were burned down.

Many protesters were armed, the Ghazni authorities said, and the provincial police chief was wounded.

Hekmatyar still has influence in the area, although he is believed to be hiding in the mountainous border area, on either the Afghan or Pakistani side. During war against Soviet occupation and the ensuing civil war of 1992-96, Hekmatyar was a prominent recipient of military assistance from Pakistan.

Hamidullah, 58, of Wardak province, said he doubted that the protests had anything to do with defending the Koran.

“The protest was a conflict between the government and its opponents," he said. "And the result was that a lot of naïve students were killed.”

President Karzai said the demonstrations were in reality aimed at undermining Afghanistan’s relations with the international community, and not against desecration of the Koran.

“All this was done by Afghanistan’s enemies in order to defame Afghanistan to the world,” he said. Karzai said he intended to take up the question of outside interference with the UN.

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul. Amanullah Nasrat in Wardak, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif and Sadeq Nengrahari in Jalalabad also contributed to this report.

Marching to a Different Tune

In an unprecedented move, young people across Afghanistan have set aside ethnic differences to campaign for national unity.

By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 172, 13-May-05)

Hundreds of young men, fed up with the ethnic animosities that have long divided Afghanistan, are travelling the country preaching peace and brotherhood.

“Just yesterday our youngsters were trying to kill one another, but today they're thinking about national unity and they want to live as brothers," said Haji Sarajuddin, a teacher from Kandahar province.

Sarajuddin recently accompanied about 200 senior high school students from the traditional Pashtun stronghold in the south to Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, in an area where ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks are in the majority.

The two regions came to symbolise the deep divisions that marked the years of strife of the Nineties.

But in April, nearly 300 students in Mazar-e-Sharif warmly embraced their fellow countrymen from Kandahar when they met at a local hotel.

The students, all in their teens or early twenties, were too young to have participated in the years of civil war.

“We know that due to the conflicts, a lot of distance has come between the peoples of Afghanistan," Mohammad Nazar, 23, told IWPR. "You can't bring about national unity by just talking, so about 30 of us at schools in Kandahar got together and decided to do something practical."

From the core group of 30, the unity movement boomed, said Nazar.

The young men say they have no political agenda other than reconciliation. They have taken their message not only to Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, but also to other northern regions such as Parwan, Baghlan, Takhar and Kunduz, to Paktia and Zabul in the south, and to the capital Kabul and the nearby Wardak province.

Nazar said the group and its message have been welcomed everywhere. The students even met President Hamed Karzai, who endorsed their efforts.

“We had decided to pay the expenses of the tour by ourselves, but when the governor of Kandahar province heard about what we were doing, he paid all our costs," said Nazar.

"There was a lot of propaganda against the Mazar people in Kandahar province, and we thought we might not be welcome," said Shir Mohammad, another Kandahar student. "But then we came here and got to know the kids from Balkh.

"Now I feel like every part of Afghanistan is Kandahar, or home, for me."

The meeting in Mazar-e-Sharif ended with rounds of hugs, and students from both provinces chanted the group’s motto, “We are neither Pashtun nor Tajik, neither Uzbek nor Hazara - we are merely Afghans and want to live as brothers in our country. We don’t let anyone give us weapons or misuse us as in the past. Every province of Afghanistan is our home, and we want to build that home.”

According to Farhad, who helped with arrangements for the visitors, more than 1,000 students from Balkh province have decided they too want to take that message on the road.

They were willing to pay their own expenses until the governor intervened.

“I'm ready to pay all the students' travel expenses personally if they want,” said Balkh governor Atta Mohammad.

The grassroots movement has taken the authorities in Kabul by surprise. Abdul Khalil Qadis, secretary of the national youth ministry, said he was not aware of it until he was told by a reporter.

"Meetings like these are the only way to solve the problems left over from the war," said Ghulam Farooq Khepalwak, a political analyst and a teacher at Balkh University. “What these young people are doing is more effective than anything else, because they were not involved in the civil wars."

“I think they will succeed because they have more hope than we do about their future," said Sahib Jan, a 57-year-old shopkeeper in Mazar-e-Sharif. "The future belongs to the youngsters."

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Diabetic center opens in Kabul
By Zarghona Salehi
KABUL, May 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A diabetic center opened at the city's Maiwand Hospital as part of a bid to treat for free patients suffering from the disease, a senior doctor said on Sunday.

Prof. Mahmood Gul Kohdamani told Pajhwok Afghan News the project costing $38,000 was funded by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Currently, the center has 10 beds.

World Health Organization (WHO) reports suggest 176 million people are suffering from the disease across the globe. Signs and symptoms of the disease, afflicting 10 percent of the Afghan population, include frequent urination, excessive thirst, extreme hunger, an unusual weight loss, increased fatigue, irritability, blurred vision, etc.

And a failure to control the disease - with a mix of precautions and treatment – may cause death. A diabetic center in Kabul was destroyed - thanks to the marathon civil strife.

According to Abdul Rashid Ghafoorzai, head of Ibn-e-Sina Hospital, another three diabetic centers in different hospitals were made operational early this year. A representative of IDF, Kane Ballinger, said the centers would expand to the provinces as well.

Poll panel satisfied with registration process
By Makia Munir
KABUL, May 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Afghan poll panel has expressed satisfaction with candidate registration for the upcoming parliamentary elections slated for mid-September.

Bismillah Bismil, the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) head, told a news conference here on Sunday: "As the registration deadline nears expiry, more men and women are registering for the parliamentary polls."

As of May 21, he reckoned, around 5,000 people had registered for the elections to the lower house of parliament and provincial councils. According to the latest survey, some 2,660 people are in the run for parliamentary seats - 2,360 men and 300 women.

By the same token, Bismil revealed, 2,590 candidates, including 2,418 men and 172 women, were officially listed for provincial elections. "We hope many aspirants, especially women, will register for the vote on the last day (today)."

Bismil explained the JEMB had five members - three of them chosen by United Nations' special envoy and one each by the Afghan Supreme Court and Human Rights Commission." Miss Johnson, Grant Kippen, Khadija Mihar, Sayed Mohammed Omar Munir and Mohammed Farid Hamidi are on the panel.

Meanwhile, similar commissions have also been constituted at the provincial level to help the JEMB make preparations for the much-delayed polls and entertain complaints of anomalies, if any. The registration process ends today (Monday) at 4.00pm.

UN slams abuse of Afghan detainees at US detention centers Xinhua

HUH... now imagine that? Gee ....wonder if the same same is going on in Iraq and the placement of BushCo paid 'govt officials' who just might also be serving their own agendas as well? DUH




http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.js...storyid=3165072

Afghan leader 'soft on drugs'

May 23, 2005

NEW YORK: US officials have told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a poppy eradication program aimed at Afghanistan's heroin trade was failing partly due to Hamid Karzai's presidency.

The May 13 memo from the US Embassy in Kabul said provincial officials and village elders impeded destruction of opium poppy acreage, and top officials, including Mr Karzai, had done little to counter that.

The Afghan President is due to meet US President George W. Bush at the White House today.

Drive to Get More Girls Back to School

As the school year starts, the continued campaign to encourage families to send daughters to school will have a special focus on rural areas.

By Amanullah Nasrat in Chak (ARR No. 167, 04-Apr-05)

As a new school year begins, a record number of children are enrolled in the country’s schools. But national and international officials know that more needs to be done, especially when it comes to providing educational opportunities for girls.

The education ministry, with help from the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF, has begun a campaign to enroll an extra 500,000 girls in schools across the country, particularly in rural districts.

Because many remote areas lack school buildings, the programme will pay for mosques and homes to be fitted out as classrooms. About 75,000 girls are already studying in such temporary schools.

The main obstacle is not a lack of facilities, however. Authorities are hoping to overcome years of prejudice by showing parents and village leaders the benefits of educating girls as well as boys.

UNICEF and the government started laying the groundwork for the education drive last October, when interviewers fanned out into remote communities to ask families why their daughters were not in school.

"What they found were actually two key things which families thought were important," UNICEF spokesman Edward Carwardine told IWPR. "One was that it was a matter of pride for an Afghan family to have an educated girl, and that most families said they would feel proud of their girls if they were educated.

"The second thing was that because this is an Islamic country, it was very clear that people believed that to be a good Muslim, you have to be able to read and write - whether you're a boy or whether you're a girl."

In practice, however, many families continue to prevent their daughters from getting an education.

“I wish my father would let me go to school," said Farida, 14, who lives in Chak in Wardak province, about 90 kilometres southwest of Kabul. "When I ask my father about school, he tells me education is not for women. Women are only for housework, and improving your life is your husband’s job, not yours."

Farida’s mother, Habiba, sides with her daughter. She hopes the government's campaign will help change her husband’s mind.

Carwardine said it would take time, particularly because the education drive is aimed at people in isolated areas. In addition to television and radio, the government is using posters and even banners strung across roads to get the message across.

"We have material for religious leaders; we have material for community leaders, we have material for speakers," said Carwardine, "so that they can then explain in their communities the importance of education.”

Rustam Faqir Zada, a senior education ministry official, said the campaign was more likely to succeed in rural areas than in heavier populated places like Kabul, which has seen an influx of thousands of refugees in recent years, many of them seeking jobs that don't exist.

“Instead of going to school, they work with their fathers and mothers in animal husbandry and carpet weaving in order to earn a living, so this campaign will have no effect on them,” he said.

Most Afghan schools open in March, and the education ministry has sent out exercise books, pens, pencils and paper for more than two million children, plus over 90,000 sets of teaching aids. Enough material for 4.3 million children is expected to be available by mid-April, according to UNICEF officials.

Nationwide, about 1.2 million girls have enrolled in primary schools since 2002, but that still leaves more than one more than million who missing school, according to UNICEF figures.

Amanullah Nasrat is an IWPR staff writer in Kabul.

Getting Girls Back to School in Afghanistan




The Sha Shaheed School teaches 360 girls who come in six days a week. (©2002 CARE/Jason Sangster)


KABUL, Afghanistan - Meet Farzana. She’s the principal of Sha Shaheed School, a school for girls who missed years of their education during the five years of the Taliban’s rule. The school is one of nine supported by CARE’s Out of School Girls Project that provides fast-track education for girls by teaching two years in one.

During the Taliban years, Farzana and her family fled to Pakistan, and she was able to work. However, after September 11th, her family moved back to Kabul and Farzana was able to keep working. She’s 28 years old and single, which is unusual for a woman her age in Afghanistan, and lives with her father. While her brothers and sisters are all married, she tells us that her father is open minded and encourages her to pursue her career.

The Sha Shaheed School teaches 360 girls who come in six days a week, either for the morning or afternoon, for their classes. Most of the girls are between 10-14 years old and were in school before Taliban, but had to stop going to school for five years when the Taliban didn’t allow girls to be educated.

These girls are now much older that the kids in their grade and CARE aims to provide a fast-track education so they can rejoin the school system at the appropriate age.

Mina is one of these students. She’s 15 years old, but she only finishing year three because under the Taliban she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Now, Mina and her peers are making up the lost years of school.

Mina has never been to school before. Under the Taliban, she had to stay home and care for her mother, who is sick, and do all the household chores. "I was so bored," Mina says, "and I didn’t have very much time to learn, even though sometimes my sisters would teach me a little bit." Mina’s three sisters and her younger brother have also gone back to school.

Mina’s family is Pashtun, the ethnic majority in southern Afghanistan, and Pashtun families are often more conservative. Under the Taliban, Mina wasn’t even allowed to go outside the house and she didn’t have any friends – just her sisters. "I love coming to school to be with the other girls and to learn. My favourite subjects are math and English," Mina says enthusiastically.

Some parents are nervous about sending their girls to school as it goes against the norm of the past several years, but Farzana reminds them that in the Koran it says men and women should be educated equally. She also encourages them to talk to other parents who have their children in the school and to see how happy the girls are here. After this little bit of encouragement, most of the parents are very supportive of the school.

Mina’s parents are happy she’s in school and really encourage her. They know her life will be easier if she is educated. Mina is still a bit worried that she’ll be much older than the other girls in public school when she finishes year six at this school and is reintegrated into the public system. But, she really wants to continue her education and hopes one day to become a doctor.

As an Afghan woman, Farzana says she’s proud to be helping girls gain an education and she works for all Afghan women. "This school wouldn’t be running without CARE and these girls wouldn’t be in school," says Farzana. "Most of their parents probably wouldn’t let them go to school at all because they were too old to be with the young kids in year one or two. But now, their parents are really happy their daughters have such an opportunity."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/28/1346246

Thursday, April 28th, 2005
UN Human Rights Investigator in Afghanistan Ousted Under U.S. Pressure

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We speak with Cherif Bassiouni, a top human rights investigator in Afghanistan who was recently forced out of the United Nations under pressure from the U.S. just days after he released a report criticizing the US for committing human rights abuses. He says, "The U.S. has done an enormous disservice to the cause of human rights in Afghanistan simply because they wanted somebody who was going to look the other way on what their practices were." [includes rush transcript] Today is the first anniversary of the publication of photos that exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. 60 Minutes first broadcast the pictures that shocked the world: Images of Iraqis with bags over their heads, beaten, set upon by dogs and forced into sexually humiliating acts. US soldiers looking on and smiling. And the enduring photograph of a prisoner cloaked in black, standing on a box with wires attached to his outstretched arms.

Since then, it has become clear that the U.S. torture of prisoners in Iraq was part of a larger pattern of abuse that stretched from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay and beyond. The use of so-called "extraordinary rendition" sent detainees to foreign countries where the use of torture was widespread.

Now, one year after the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib became public, the scandal continues.

This past week, news emerged that the U.S. forced out a top human rights investigator at the United Nations just days after he released a report criticizing the US for committing human rights abuses in Afghanistan.

In his new report, Bassiouni accused US troops of breaking into homes, arbitrarily arresting residents and torturing detainees. He estimated that around 1,000 Afghans had been detained. Bassiouni also indicated that the US-led forces had committed "sexual abuse, beatings, torture and use of force resulting in death." He wrote, "When these forces directly engage in practices that violate... international human rights and international humanitarian law, they undermine the national project of establishing a legal basis for the use of force."