Karzai condemns Afghan mosque attack – Reuters 06/05/2005
President Hamid Karzai has condemned the first suicide attack on an Afghan mosque as "an act of non-Muslim and defeated terrorists". The bomber has killed 20 people, including a police chief, in a mosque in southern Afghanistan as mourners gathered to pay respects to an assassinated anti-Taliban cleric.
Mr Karzai's office says he has "called on the people to be vigilant to not allow foreigners to conspire against their national security". Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali says the bomber is believed to be a foreigner.
The governor of troubled Kandahar province has blamed Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The police chief of the capital Kabul, Akram Khakreezwal, was among mourners at the Abdul Rab Akhundzada mosque in the southern city of Kandahar when the bomber struck.
"I saw bodies scattered, blood all over the place. Dead policemen were also lying there," shop owner Kalimullah said, who reached the mosque moments after the blast.
It is the most serious in a recent spate of attacks. Survivors say the bomber wore a police uniform.
Police say he walked into the crowded mosque by mingling with Mr Khakreezwal's security men as they entered with their boss, a native of Kandahar.
The mourners had gathered for the funeral of Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz, a prominent critic of the Taliban who was killed on Sunday by gunmen on a motorcycle.
There was no claim of responsibility for the blast but Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai say authorities have got word of several Arab suicide bombers in the area. "Definitely, it was Al Qaeda. I can say he was an Arab," Mr Sherzai said, referring to the bomber. Asked what proof he had, he said the man's complexion.
Afghan foreign minister briefs Canadian officials on security situation May 31, - AFP
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah briefed Canadian officials on the security situation in his country ahead of a planned expansion of Canada's military mission in August.
Abdullah said there will be a time when Afghanistan will be able to take control of its own security, but he declined to put a time line on such a goal. "Through (Canada's) support, a lot has changed in the capital. It has changed for the better," Abdullah said.
"There will be a time, of course, in the coming years that Afghanistan will be able to deal with security matters on its own, but to give you a sort of time frame, that might not be possible," he added.
Canada will deploy its 250-member provincial reconstruction team in the southern city of Kandahar in August in its first mission outside the capital Kabul.
The team, which includes diplomats, development officers, civilian police and military forces, will aim to extend the authority of the Afghan government in and around Kandahar within 18 months.
U.S. forces release 53 Afghan prisoners - By Yousuf Azimy / June 1, 2005
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Afghanistan released 53 prisoners no longer considered a threat on Wednesday, saying their freedom was a sign of peace and progress, but at least one of those set free said he had been abused.
The release came days after President Hamid Karzai called for custody of all Afghan prisoners in U.S. detention following an outcry over a report of prisoner abuse.
"This is a gesture of friendship with the government of Afghanistan and a sign of peace that symbolises continued progress toward a united Afghanistan," U.S. military spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts told a news conference.
The "low-level combatants" had been detained for attacks on civilians, U.S.-led or Afghan government forces, he said. The men, all Afghans, were being set free from U.S. bases at Bagram, near Kabul.
The United States is holding more than 500 prisoners from its war on terrorism at the Guantanamo Bay naval base on Cuba. Many of them were detained in Afghanistan after the Taliban overthrow in late 2001. U.S. forces are also believed to be holding several hundred Afghans in Afghanistan.
Karzai's call for the return of detainees came after The New York Times last month reported details of abuse of Afghan detainees in 2002, including the deaths of two inmates at Bagram.
The details were contained in a 2,000-page file of U.S. army investigators, the newspaper said. But in response to Karzai's call, the United States said Afghanistan must have proper detention facilities before prisoners are turned over.
The 53 men were later brought to a government building in Kabul and presented with clothes and some cash before being released. Reporters were able to speak to some of them briefly and one said he had faced abuse. Two said they had been treated well.
"They used to torture us, they beat us," said former detainee Haji Abdul Basir, 41. "For 23 months we didn't see the sun" he said. "I was in prison for six months," said Nawab, who said he was only 15. "They behaved well with me.
The United States commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting militant leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
Pakistan says cross-border militant movement being curbed
KABUL, June 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Outgoing Pakistan Ambassador Rustam Shah Momand said Wednesday his country had deployed 70,000 military personnel along the border to block the infiltration of Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives into Afghanistan.
"A large number of al-Qaeda mercenaries, who sneaked into Pakistan's tribal areas to flee US-led coalition forces' operations in Afghanistan, have either been killed or captured in recent military sweeps," he added.
Lying cheek by jowl with the Afghan border, the North and South Waziristan Agencies were once the nearest hiding-place for militants, who easily mustered the support of tribal allies.
In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, the ambassador expressed satisfaction with the existing bonds of friendship between the two neighbours. He said Pakistan wished to extend all possible cooperation to its neighbour - currently in the thick of the reconstruction effort.
He thanked the Afghan government, leaders and people for their robust role in resolving a whole host of problems he faced when he arrived here to assume charge as Pakistan's top envoy.
On Pakistani prisoners in this country, Rustam Shah reckoned about 2,000 of his countrymen in various Afghan jails had already freed by the government as a goodwill gesture.
Regarding the gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan, he said the long-delayed project was set for a launch as much of the paper work had been completed. The pipeline would benefit all the three countries, he hoped.
Answering a question about issuance of visas to Afghans, the diplomat observed Pakistan's embassy was one of the busiest foreign missions in Kabul. Many Afghans were being granted visas by his embassy on a daily basis without any fuss, he said.
"Pakistan is the only country which has exempted Afghans from visa restrictions," he argued, calling their free cross-border movement was a proof of cordial relations between the two countries.
Pakistan has donated modern equipment to a number of Afghan hospitals in addition to help in construction of schools and highways. He referred to the transit-trade facility, allowing shipments of foreign goods from the Karachi port to Afghanistan. "We have also provided $10 million in aid to Afghanistan," he informed.
Among a string of projects completed with Pakistan's assistance are the Rehman Baba High School in Kabul, blocks in Kabul and Jalalabad universities, a full-fledged hospital in Logar, an information centre in Mazar-i-Sharif and provision of electricity to the southern Khost province.
Islamabad will complete a 400-bed hospital in Kabul in two years and mull increasing the number of seats reserved for Afghan students in different Pakistani educational institutions. Pakistani universities will enroll around 400 Afghan students every year from now on.
Reminded of the delay in construction of the 75 kilometers Torkham-Jalalabad Highway, Momand remarked it should have been completed in the prescribed 18 months period. The highway is crucial to the growth of bilateral trade, according to Momand, who assured the construction work would be over in six months.
He believed a sea-change had come about in the region and the world at large, with a thumping majority convinced that popular Afghan support has catapulted the Karzai administration to power.
A competent CSP officer, the suave diplomat insisted Pakistan was trying its best to secure its tense border with Afghanistan and thereby help the neighbouring country navigate its way to lasting peace and stability.
In the not-so-distant past, a series of military operations were conducted in the inhospitable, semi-autonomous border regions of South and Waziristan Agencies to flush out militants hiding there. The anti-terror crackdowns, leaving hundreds dead, were essentially aimed at lending strength and support to the present Afghan government.
"We have either eliminated or detained a large number of elements opposed to the government in Kabul," he maintained, contending such measures would eventually add up to a lasting peace in Afghanistan.
Of his links with Afghan jihadi leaders and groups, the soft-spoken Pakhtun said he held them in high esteem because of unforgettable sacrifices they had rendered for the greater glory of their motherland.
Asked about his replacement, Mohmand replied though he was bound to accept any decision taken by the Pakistan government, yet he was leaving this country with a heavy heart.
"Given the sheer number of friends here, I will continue to interact with Afghans even after my departure from Kabul. Such interactions have got nothing to do with my diplomatic assignments," he concluded.
Two dead, 33 wounded in protests in northeast Afghanistan AFP - 05/30/2005
MAZAR-I-SHARIF - Two Afghans were killed and 33 others wounded in violent protests against a local official in the war-shattered country's northeast, local authorities said.
NATO-led peacekeeping forces said they sent out two F-16 fighter jets to the scene of the demonstrations in Rustaq district of remote Takhar province.
"There were demonstrations today against the district chief of education, accused by some people to have stolen money to students," provincial governor Qazi Mohammed Kabir Marzban told AFP. "Two people were killed and 33 injured in fights between people. We sent a delegation there, and hope that there will not be more demonstrations tomorrow."
There was no indications that the riots were linked to the worst anti-US protests since the fall of the Taliban which left 15 people dead across Afghanistan earlier this month. Those demonstrations were against a Newsweek report, which the magazine later retracted, that the US military in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba had desecrated copies of the Koran.
Karen Tissot van Patot, a spokesman for the 8,300-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which operates in Afghanistan, confirmed it had briefly dispatched warplanes to the area.
"We sent two F-16 this afternoon after receiving a request from Afghan authorities to provide air support in Rustaq district of in Takhar province, where there were riots. The F-16s overflew in the zone," she said. The force has soldiers from 37 countries deployed in Kabul and nine northern provinces including Takhar, where the international troops have been in place since 2002.
Taliban militants claimed responsibility Monday for a bicycle bomb aimed at a NATO-led vehicle in Kabul which wounded at least seven Afghans and a rocket which slammed into the peacekeeping force's base in the capital. No ISAF members were hurt.
Australia's PM defends special forces over reported slaying of Afghan civilians Associated Press / June 1, 2005
The prime minister on Wednesday defended Australia's elite special forces after a news report alleged that a soldier stole a turban and gun from a dead civilian killed during a botched military operation in Afghanistan.
Time Magazine reported in its June 6 edition that five members of Australia's Special Air Service, or SAS, were part of a U.S.-led mission in eastern Afghanistan in 2002 that left 11 civilians dead and another 16 wounded.
The report _ based largely on an interview with the patrol's leader, who was not named _ claimed the Australian soldiers mistook two villagers for enemy fighters and killed them, and later took part in a fierce battle in which another nine civilians died.
One of the SAS soldiers allegedly took a turban and gun from one of the dead civilians as a souvenir and was later disciplined by military officials and forced to write a letter explaining why he should be allowed to remain in the military, the report said.
The patrol leader's second-in-command and two other officers were also made to write letters explaining the incident, the report said. But the patrol's leader was disillusioned with the military's disciplinary response and resigned in protest. "It was a cover up," he told the magazine. Australia's defense department defended the SAS, saying the incident was thoroughly investigated at the time.
"These tactical actions were reviewed after the incident and were determined by army to be in accordance with the rules of engagement," the department said in a statement released late Tuesday. "Each Australian element that opened fire, or called in fire, did so in response to direct threats to their safety."
However, Defense Minister Robert Hill told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Wednesday that the military would investigate whether "appropriate disciplinary action was taken in the circumstances."
Gen. Peter Cosgrove, the chief of Australia's defense forces, also said the matter would be investigated. Prime Minister John Howard said he retained "great confidence" in Australia's special forces.
"Inevitably when you get into a dangerous situation people have to take action to defend themselves," Howard told reporters in Canberra. "Nothing that I have heard about this alters the fundamental fact that they (the SAS) took proper action consistent with the laws of war to defend themselves."
He said defense officials were reviewing whether the disciplinary action relating to the alleged looting was sufficient.
Forces seize 2 1/2 tons of opium in raid Afghanistan's largest 'drug bazaar' Associated Press / May 31, 2005
Afghan security forces seized 2 1/2 tons of opium in a raid on the country's biggest drugs market on the border with Pakistan, but hundreds of smugglers who were there escaped across the frontier, officials said Tuesday.
About 250 kilograms (55 pounds) of heroin and 3.5 tons of chemicals used to process opium into heroin were also seized in the raid Saturday on the "drugs bazaar" in Bahram Shah village in southern Helmand province, said Gen. Mohammed Daoud, deputy interior minister for counternarcotics.
The market is used by up to 1,000 traffickers of opium and heroin every day and is on smuggling routes to Pakistan and Iran, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement. It said the bazaar had not been targeted before because it was considered too remote and too well protected.
The market is only 80 meters (yards) from the border with Pakistan and all the smugglers fled as security forces raided it. No one was arrested, Daoud said at a press conference in the capital, Kabul.
When asked if the government had asked for cooperation from Pakistani security forces to arrest the smugglers, he said a framework for such requests was still being hammered out between Kabul and Islamabad.
Daoud said the raid highlighted the government's resolve in cracking down on the drugs trade, after President Hamid Karzai's administration came under fire for its record in fighting the burgeoning narcotics industry.
He showed a video of the raid by members of the new and secretive Afghan Special Narcotics Force. Dozens of officers, with guns at the ready and scarfs wrapped around their faces to hide their identities, drove into the desert town on the back of Toyota pickup trucks.
But there was no fighting because all the smugglers had fled and the video then cut to a shot of a small fire, which was the seized drugs being destroyed, the deputy minister said.
Afghanistan last year produced nearly 90 percent of the world's opium, sparking warnings it is fast becoming a dangerous "narco-state" less than four years after the U.S.-led invasion ended its role as a haven for al-Qaida.
"The government of Afghanistan is determined to remove the shame of drugs and to take action against those involved in the processing and trafficking of drugs," counternarcotics minister Habibullah Qaderi said in a statement.
The government says figures over the past three years _ since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban _ show police are now confiscating larger amounts of opium, from 3 tons in 2002 to more than 135 tons in 2004, and 50 tons so far this year.
The United States, Britain and other countries are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into an anti-drug campaign. The cash is being used to train police units to destroy laboratories, arrest smugglers and destroy opium crops, as well as to fund projects to help farmers grow legal crops.
NATO forces take over west Afghan duty from U.S. - By Seed Haqiqi - May 31, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO troops took command of security and reconstruction efforts in western Afghanistan from U.S. forces on Tuesday under a plan that will likely soon put NATO forces into insurgent hot spots.
NATO took charge of civilian-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Herat and Farah provinces which have seen factional and other violence, but not Taliban attacks that have plagued the southern and eastern parts of the country.
"It is ... ISAF's first critical step into the western region of Afghanistan, which will allow ISAF to more effectively support the upcoming ... elections," said Lieutenant General Ethem Erdagi, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
Parliamentary elections in September are Afghanistan's next big step on a rocky road to stability.
ISAF is a peace-keeping force that numbers about 8,000 troops from 47 NATO and non-NATO countries. NATO took command of ISAF in 2003, its first mission outside its Europe-Atlantic area of operation.
The United States leads a separate international force of 18,300, most of them Americans, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting for Osama bin Laden and other militants in the south and east.
The Provincial Reconstruction Teams are at the heart of the international community's efforts in Afghanistan. Small groups of civilians and military personnel working in the provinces, the teams are meant to provide security for aid and reconstruction.
Several hundred Italian troops are taking over the PRT in Herat while in Farah, to the south, U.S. troops will play a lead role but under ISAF command, the force said. Both provinces are on the Iranian border.
ISAF troops will set up teams in two other western provinces - troops from Lithuania in Ghor province and Spaniards in Badghis. NATO will then command nine PRT teams, all in the relatively secure north and west. But it is also due to take over teams from U.S. troops in the much more volatile south and east.
Britain takes command of ISAF next year and there have been reports of plans for British troops to take over two U.S. PRTs in the south but no announcement has been made. A British embassy official declined to comment.
Taliban attacks have been common in Kandahar, and other southern and eastern provinces, since U.S.-led forces ousted the hardline Islamic militia in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
International community hopes that a winter lull meant the guerrillas were being choked of resources and recruits have been dashed by a series of bloody clashes and bomb attacks in recent weeks, mostly in the south and east.
Scores of insurgents have been killed, the U.S. military says. Dozens of government men and nine members of the U.S-led force, eight of them American, have also died in combat since late March.
NATO troops are meant to take over southern PRTs in the third phase of a four-phase plan, an ISAF spokesman said. Details were still being worked out between NATO leaders and member countries and no date had been set. Eventually, NATO is envisaged taking responsibility for the whole country, he said.
But the expansion of NATO was not expected to signal the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. "They've just signed their strategic partnership," a diplomat in Kabul said, referring to a pact that lets U.S. forces use their Afghan bases indefinitely while ensuring its long-term security. "I don't think there's any suggestion of the Americans withdrawing," the diplomat said.
6 to 9 insurgents believed dead after attack along border - May 31, 2005 Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs)
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Initial reports indicate up to nine insurgents were killed May 30 during three near-simultaneous attacks against Afghan and Coalition positions along the Afghan-Pakistan border. No Afghan or Coalition forces were injured or killed as a result of the attacks.
Afghan and Coalition forces reported three adjacent positions near the border coming under attack by small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Coalition aircraft responded to the scene and, in conjunction with ground forces, pursued the attackers, killing a suspected six to nine insurgents.
“Insurgent forces continue to try and disrupt the Afghan and Coalition efforts to ensure a safe and secure future for Afghanistan,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. James G. Champion, Combined Joint Task Force-76’s deputy commanding general for operations. “We sent a clear message that we will repel their efforts. The insurgents do not want peace and prosperity to come to Afghanistan; they only wish to return to the tyrannical, oppressive days of the Taliban. The people of Afghanistan, on the other hand, have made it very clear that they want a better and brighter future for themselves and for their children.”
Afghan Foreign Ministry Tries To Reassure Iran On U.S. Bases Daily Afghan Report - May 31, 2005 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nawid Ahmad Maiz told Pajhwak News Agency on 28 May that Iran's concerns that U.S. military bases in Afghanistan will threaten security in the region are unfounded. Commenting on Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi's statement of 25 May that the "strategic partnership" signed between Karzai and U.S. President George W. Bush, which foresees long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, will cause instability in the region, Maiz said "permanent U.S. bases here are part" of the agreement that is aimed at bolstering Afghanistan's internal security (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 26 May 2005). Maiz reiterated Karzai's statement that no country should view the U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership as a threat. U.S. and coalition forces are needed in Afghanistan until Afghan forces become "self-reliant," and can protect the country from foreign meddling in its internal affairs, Maiz added. AT
Afghans implement water treaties: Iran's Bitaraf
LONDON, May 29 (IranMania) - Iran's Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf said that good precipitation has helped Afghanistan implement the bilateral accord on sharing the waters of the Hirmand River. The minister told ISNA that Iran would eventually manage to receive its share of the river’s water in the year to March 2006.
A senior water industry official said earlier that Afghanistan cannot disrupt the flow of water to Friendship Dam, which is constructed mostly by Iranian engineers on a river shared with Turkmenistan, by constructing a dam on Hirmand River.
Reza Ardakanian, deputy energy minister for water affairs, told reporters that Kabul has signed several treaties with Tehran on cooperation on common water reserves, stressing that Iran is willing to participate in water projects in the war-torn country.
Iran needs water from Friendship Dam to supply an annual 150 million cubic meters of drinking water for the northeastern city of Mashhad, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims converge each year to visit the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS), the Eighth Imam of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)’s infallible household.
In 2000 and 2001, the Afghans disrupted the flow of Hirmand River into Iran, which led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding between President Mohammad Khatami and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the need to observe the 1972 Treaty.
Commander hands over ammunition in Baghlan
BAGHLAN, June 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A former deputy commander of Jamiat-e-Islami at the northern Baghlan province handed over all remaining arms and ammunitions to security officials on Wednesday.
A security official on condition of anonymity told Pajhwok Afghan News three truckloads of arms which contained mortars, rockets, machineguns and different types of land mines have so far been physically moved from Commander Amir Gul Baghlani's house located in Baghlana city about 40 kilometers to provincial capital.
The official added the arms have been moved to a store of national security department and remaining weapons would be transferred in the coming days. Deputy of Amir Gul, Abdul Ghaffar handed over the arms to security officials when Dutch PRT representative was present.
Ghafar told Pajhwok, "These ammunitions were buried underground during jihad period and now that peace and security depends on collection of weapons, we don't need to retain them.", adding the weapons handed over were not part of weapons listed by DDR program. But they have handed over voluntarily.
Commander Amir Gul Baghlani, who is now under treatment in Germany, was appointed as the commander of 733 brigade of Baghlan province after the Taliban regime collapsed but the military unit was dissolved two months back. Other Jamiat-e-Islami commanders in the province before this have also handed over weapons to DDR process.
Almost 100 Afghan NGOs launch 'code of conduct'- May 31
KABUL (AFP) - Nearly 100 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Afghanistan said they have launched a "code of conduct" in a bid to boost transparency in financial matters.
The 88 Afghan and international NGOs pledged to do a better job of "explaining the way in which they work, to inform the population on the way of which they use their funds, and to show the benefit that their actions bring to the Afghan people".
The NGO code of conduct is aimed at silencing criticism levelled at them in recent months from Afghanistan's government and President Hamid Karzai, who denounced "the corruption" of NGOs.
"We developed this code of conduct to help the population, the media and the Afghan government to check our work, because we must work more to build confidence and to improve information to build Afghanistan's future together", an joint statement by the NGOs said.
The signatories to the declaration said they hoped the "the code of conduct for Afghanistan will make it possible to reduce confusion and misunderstandings between the Afghan people and the NGO community".
The code stipulates in particular that NGOs must inform and answer the questions of the population about their mission, their manner of working and their establishment
They must also explain the way in which they use their financial resources, the projects they are carrying out and report on the way they treat their Afghan employees and the communities for which they work.
"We commit ourselves doing all that is in our capacity to make it possible the Afghan population to communicate with NGOs easily and in a transparent and effective way", the statement said.
In a statement on Tuesday, the UN secretary-general's special representative in Afghanistan, France's Jean Arnault, said he was pleased with the adoption of the code which "sets up very demanding criteria for NGOs and the whole of the actors of the international assistance". "There is no doubt that the reconstruction effort needs more transparency and accountability, from everyone," Arnault said.
The Afghan government plans to adopt a bill aimed at better controlling the activity of the nearly 2,300 NGOs and 337 international organizations registered in the country.
French intelligence locates Italian hostage in Kabul: La Republica –KUNA 06/01/2005
ROME - French intelligence located whereabouts of kidnapped Italian relief worker in Afghanistan, Clementina Cantoni, said Wednesday Italian diplomatic sources without revealing if action has been taken in response.
Italian newspaper La Republica's website cited Italian Foreign Ministry sources as saying that French intelligence personnel working in the Afghan capital, Kabul, located the hiding place where Temur Shah Gang has been detaining Cantoni as a hostage.
Italian authorities confirmed the reports saying that Cantoni has been detained at a house located in a suburb south of Kabul that has been guarded by five of the gang members, added the website without revealing the identity of the Italian diplomatic source.
Another reports said that gang of Temur, known to be a dangerous criminal ring, mistakenly kidnapped Cantoni, who works for CARE International Humanitarian Organization, when they were supposed to abduct her American Colleague.
Heads of women affairs depts reshuffled
KABUL, June 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Heads of women affairs departments have been reshuffled in 16 provinces in line with recommendations of a high-powered reform commission, the government said on Wednesday.
Shaima Khenjani, secretary to the women affairs ministry, told Pajhwok Afghan News all appointees had qualified an examination lasting a month. The exam was conducted by the reform commission.
From now on, new appointees will head these departments in Kabul, Logar, Kapisa, Nangarhar, Parwan, Maidan Wardak, Balkh, Jawzjan, Nuristan, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Zabul, Takhar and Ghazni provinces.
Mystery surrounds death of female Afghan TV star - May 31
KABUL (AFP) - In February, Shaima Rezayee was a rising star on Afghanistan's equivalent of MTV and adored by young hip Afghans. Three months later she was dead from a gunshot wound to the head at her Kabul home after receiving anonymous death threats.
Afghan police are "still investigating whether she was murdered or she committed suicide," Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP on Tuesday.
The circumstances behind her May 18 death remain murky, but either way it is likely it was linked to her fame as the host of the popular HOP music program on privately-run Tolo Television.
Two of the 24-year-old's brothers are in police detention, where they are being questioned in connection with her death.
Before being fired from Tolo in March, Rezayee had become a controversial figure, drawing flak from conservative mullahs who thought her airing of Bollywood, Turkish and Iranian tracks alongside Madonna was "un-Islamic".
But Rezayee had also attracted a loyal following among young Afghans who considered her an icon for her flirtatious manner, her western clothes and her banter with male television hosts.
Off-duty, she was equally unconventional wearing jeans and tight clothes, drinking alcohol and enjoying the company of male friends in a country where conversation between unrelated men and women is still frowned upon. Many women in Afghanistan do not leave their houses without wearing an all-covering burqa.
Tolo director Saad Mohseni said Rezayee was dismissed because she was always late for work and not because of her on-screen image. She was sacked "for not observing the rules and regulations of the company. She did not come to work on time," he said.
Following her disappearance from TV screens, rumors spread around the Afghan capital that she had been kidnapped or assassinated by hardliners or even killed by her family to save their honour.
Days after she was fired, Rezayee told AFP by telephone: "I am alive and okay. I have not been kidnapped but I have received threatening phonecalls and am worried for my security."
This fact was confirmed by Nader Nadery, a member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and one of Afghanistan's leading human rights activists. "Rezayee came to our office to complain that she received lots of calls from unknown people and some of them were threatening," he said.
"She complained that she was sacked for no good reason from the TV and that after she was sacked the station hung announcements on the office noticeboard that she had been sacked for drinking alcohol and being unpunctual."
Nadery added: "When one of our colleagues went to Rezayee's home she withnessed signs of being beaten on her skin, on the side of her eye. Rezayee told our colleague that she was beaten by her brother." There are conflicting reports on whether the former TV star could have taken her own life.
Jawed Jawed, who is one of her two younger brothers in police custody and suspected of possible involvement in her death, said his sister killed herself because she had become isolated and depressed after losing her job.
"After she was sacked for no good reason she thought she had suddenly crashed. She was a famous TV star and she thought she had become nothing," Jawed told AFP when he was released for her funeral on May 20.
Noshin Kochi, 28, who worked alongside Rezayee at Tolo said she had tried to commit suicide three times after she was sacked. "She drove her car into a tree, she had tried to hang herself and the third time she tried to take an overdose of medicine," said Kochi, who was sacked from the TV station soon after Rezayee.
Friends and colleagues point out that not only did she go from stardom to nothing after her sacking, applying for a couple of jobs but getting nowhere, but also the rumours about her alleged smoking, drinking and her relations with men left her virtually ostracised from society.
But Shakeb Issar, another HOP music presenter, who says he receives daily phone threats from Islamic militants, disagrees that his good friend and colleague killed herself. "Rezayee was killed and she did not commit suicide," he told AFP without elaborating.
Isaar, 22, said he had been living in fear since Rezayee's death and had been attacked and beaten up on several occassions since he had been working on the TV. The post-mortem report indicated that Rezayee was killed by a gunshot to the right temple but was inconclusive as to whether she herself pulled the trigger.
Khalilzad's departure seen as detrimental to Afghanistan Pajhwok Afghan News 05/30/2005 By Najib Khilwatgar
KABUL - Analysts here believe replacing Zalmay Khalilzad as US ambassador and special envoy to Afghanistan will not do any good to the country. He has been working as the US special envoy to Kabul since 2003.
Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, leader of the Democratic Party Abdul Kabir Ranjbar said on Sunday being an Afghan Khalilzad enjoyed a great deal of clout with politicians and resolved political problems by using his personal links.
He argued one of the merits his predecessor would certainly lack was his grasp of local languages, customs and traditions in addition to influence. Abdul Hamid Mubarez, former deputy minister for information and culture, appreciated Khalilzad's flair patching up disputes among politicians.
He referred to the removal of differences between Ismail Khan, former governor of Herat, and Commander Amanullah in Shindad district. "But the change will not affect US ties with Afghanistan as the former's policies don't turn on personalities," Mubarez concluded.
Ahmad Shah, a resident of Kabul city, evinced a little interest in the coming and going of ambassadors. "All of them have their own axe to grind. No one cares for the common man."
According to some media reports, the US has nominated Algerian Ronald Newmann as its new envoy to Afghanistan replacing Dr Zalmay Khalilzad. Newmann has also served as US consul general in Iraq.
Candidate pulls out of electoral race in protest Pajhwok Afghan News
05/30/2005 By Saeed Zabuli
KABUL - An Afghan intellectual and political analyst Monday announced withdrawal from the electoral race as a mark of protest against what he called strong-arm tactics employed by some groups.
Mohammad Hasan Ulusmal, editor of a local magazine who registered as a contender for a National Assembly seat from the southern Kandahar province, linked his decision to the politics of alliances pursued by jihadi groups.
In a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday, he charged: "Even today, there is no democratic system in Kandahar, where checkbook politics is at its peak."
He complained genuine people stood little chance of success in a political milieu where gunmen and influential individuals continued to call the shots. "In these circumstances, I deem it wise to pull out of the (electoral) race."
Ulusmal, who chose not to register his complaint, slammed the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) as an ineffective forum. "You know, the joint election commission is in name only," he observed.
Another hopeful from the eastern Nangarhar province blasted government functionaries for throwing around their weight in the build-up to the elections. "Top government officers in my province don't want power transferred (even after the polls)."
Mohammad Hassan Kamalzai was apprehensive about his election campaign, arguing 'people in high places' were mounting pressure on him to quit the contest. He claimed approaching the authorities concerned, "but the JEMB told me my grievances would be addressed later on."
But Mian Malang Qadri, a JEMB official for eastern provinces, denied receiving any complaint with regard to anomalies from any aspirant. "We won't hesitate to take remedial measures if such complaints are formally brought to our notice," he assured.
Last week, several candidates from the eastern Laghman province also voiced grave concern at gunmen's efforts to influence the forthcoming vote. They feared the armed men, if not restrained, would create hurdles to fair and transparent elections.
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on warlordism in northeast - [This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations
FAIZABAD, 1 Jun 2005 (IRIN) - Sitting in his tiny, dark office in an old building in the town of Faizabad, provincial capital of Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan, Shah Jehan Noori, the provincial police chief, pleaded with government officials in the capital, Kabul, to send him more troops and equipment to deal with unruly warlords who still hold sway in many parts of the province.
"We need commandos, we need police, we need helicopters. Commanders [warlords] are strong. They must be brought under control," he shouted down the phone while preparing for another operation to quell clashes between militia groups that had plagued the isolated province since early May.
Northeastern Afghanistan, including the province of Badakhshan, is ironically seen as one of the safest regions in a country rife with insecurity, especially in the south and the east. But it remains a major source of concern to people like Noori who wish to tame the power of local warlords without plunging the region into new conflict.
Although all the militia forces in the northeast were supposedly decommissioned by the UN-backed Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme, local commanders appear to have no shortage of heavy or light weaponry at their disposal to enforce their will.
In Badakhshan, despite the support of a 200 strong NATO-led group of international peacekeepers stationed in Faizabad, local police are often unable to defuse local feuds and disputes between armed groups.
Only last April there was a clash between two commanders in the Shahr-e-Buzurg border district, four hours south of Faizabad and strategically located on one of Afghanistan's prime drug trafficking routes running north into Central Asia.
The two local warlords reportedly came to blows over control of the lucrative run and sought to resolve the issue with heavy artillery, mortars and vehicle-mounted rocket launchers. Several people were reportedly killed and injured in the resulting battle. Some unarmed local people were caught in the crossfire.
In Darahim district, two hours south of Faizabad, the new district administrator, Alimyar, has been wary of his safety since taking up his post. He has been threatened by Neyazi, an ex-district administrator, who claims he protected the area during years of violence and deserves to be in a position of power in the area.
While in Spingul valley, three hours north of Faizabad, a woman suspected of adultery, was stoned to death in mid April, with a local commander purportedly being influential in passing the death sentence.
"The warlords are stronger and better equipped than our police. The police are not supposed to conduct military operations but we have no choice as the only security body here," Noori told IRIN.
"NATO forces here say it is not their mandate to intervene in cases like Shahr-e-Buzurg and the capital has not responded to our demand for ANA [Afghan National Army] deployment," said Noori, shrugging as he watched the unloading of artillery to be deployed in the troubled area.
"This is our utmost power but the opposition commander is even stronger," he warned. In Faizabad influential commander Nazeer Mohammad, locally known as Nazeermad, continues to wield significant power over civil and military affairs in the province.
Any local resident in the city, if asked, would name the top decision maker in the area as Nazeermad, not the governor. Nothing happens without the knowledge of the powerful warlord who has ruled the city for more than ten years.
Nazeermad has four wives and according to locals, has been married eleven times in the last 15 years. "He divorces one and marries a new one after every three years - many of them forced marriages," a provincial court prosecutor, who wished to be kept anonymous, told IRIN.
While authorities in the area prepare themselves for parliamentary elections in September, the fact that most of the candidates are either warlords or extremist clergy loyal to these commanders remains a source of serious concern. One civil servant, who has been living in Faizabad for 20 years, maintained that former militias already occupy most key government posts.
"In fact, the governor cannot do anything when the whole circle is supporting people like Nazeermad," he explained. "They are very professional warlords and they proceed in a very well planned, coordinated and organised [manner]".
Badakhshan is the home province of former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who is leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami [Islamic community]. Most of the provincial government's leading officials still remain loyal to Rabbani.
This isolated province, rife with social and economic problems, was one of the few provinces the hard-line Taliban was never able to conquer. In addition to having one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan, the province is a leading poppy cultivating area.
"When Badakhshan is mentioned, donors and the government consider the issue of maternal mortality and poppy cultivation as the main problems here. No one outside this mountainous province knows that warlordism has undermined development in this corner of the country," Anis Akhgar, the head of Faizabad's women's affairs department, told IRIN. Akhgar is running as an independent candidate in the parliamentary elections but has little hope of competing against her rival candidates, many of them influential commanders.
"They [the warlords] are the candidates, the observers and even they look after the security of candidates. How is it possible that an independent candidate like me can win?" she asked.
Meanwhile, despite the presence of two hundred NATO-led peacekeepers in the tiny Faizabad city, local residents remain mindful of the threat posed by local commanders.
"Even ISAF [NATO-led international security assistance force] is recruiting the former militias of Badakhshan, re-arming them and using them," Mohammad Zafar, a civil servant at the Faizabad public hospital, told IRIN, claiming that NATO forces were regularly meeting and consulting with Nazeermad in his home on the edge of Kokcha River in the heart of Faizabad.
"All of our villagers who were loyal to Nazeermad and were disarmed last year, currently are carrying military guns and badges of ISAF," Zafar claimed.
Badakhshan is the third largest poppy-growing province in the country. Drug trafficking and the issue of insecurity caused by the lack of infrastructure make it very difficult for the law to be imposed by the civilian-military units of the international Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), especially in other parts of the province which are the primary areas of concern.
The weapons and ammunition caches still found in the area are an additional source of concern. "There are some warlords left, because in each district you will find former commanders of the old wars which still own a lot of weapons and their power-base is drug trading and ownership of rifles and other weapons," Lt-Colonel Manhenke Olaf of the NATO-led PRT and commander of Faizabad, told IRIN. He added that although the DDR process had officially ended, there is still a lot of weaponry around.
The commander of the two-hundred strong multi-national unit said many of the problems and encounters in Badakhshan were 'an inner Afghan conflict' and the PRTs were not mandated to become involved in these particular issues. "We are tasked to support the police by giving them advice but we are not allowed to use our own guns in direct military operations," he said.
"In Shahr-e-Buzurg's particular incident, as the police are using heavy weapons [to control the tense situation], it is a semi-military operation [in] which we cannot be involved," he explained.
Olaf rejected claims that the PRTs were re-arming former militias, noting, however, they had recruited some former militia members, including thirty men loyal to Nazeermad, using them to protect the PRT premises.
"What we are doing is we have civil guards which are supporting the military guards securing the camp and some of them are members of former militia groups, because they don't need further military training and are familiar with the area," he explained.
But Badakhshan is just one example of the whole problem of warlordism threatening public order in northeastern Afghanistan, according to local rights activists.
In the northeastern city of Kunduz, where hundreds of ISAF personnel are deployed and a large contingent of the ANA is stationed, local commanders continue to harass people, with incidents of land grabbing, drug trafficking and forced ‘taxation’ of farmers and shopkeepers being reported.
When IRIN visited Imam Sahib, a border district 70 kilometers north of Kunduz, armed men loyal to a local commander who is a top local government official, forcibly collected money and food items from shopkeepers to organise a reception for a senior visiting government delegation from Kabul.
"The big commanders here are drug traffickers. They are too rich and they don't bother with small matters. Now the poor people are annoyed by small armed groups. They rob highways, grab lands and tax farmers for their harvest," an aid worker, who declined to be named, told IRIN in Kunduz. He said these armed groups often clashed with the newly trained ANA and national police.
"In just one week we had two major incidents. Men loyal to Commander Meer Alam resisted when the police wanted to check their vehicle at the Kunduz entrance gate, while Zabet Nurullah, a local militia commander was prohibited from passing on a restricted road during a military parade by the ANA," the aid worker said.
The United Nations said the DDR is reaching an end with more than 55,000 of the estimated 60,000 ex-combatants disarmed. But the Afghan Ministry of Defence (MOD) estimates that more than a 100,000 armed men in illegal militias still remain unchallenged.
According to the MOD, a new programme entitled disarmament of illegal armed groups (DIAG) is underway to address the problem of such armed groups and individuals throughout the country.
Local people believe the task is huge and the parliamentary elections, slated for September, will be marked by incidents of intimidation and harassment by local warlords around the country.
Restoring a Symbol of National Unity
The historic Darulaman Palace is being rebuilt at last, but some local architects object to the way it is being done. Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 174, 28-May-05)
Darulaman Palace, a symbol of national unity and independence since 1929, is being rebuilt after being left a shell of a building by years of civil war.
Designed by German and French architects and constructed mostly by hand between 1919 and 1929, Darulaman was commissioned by the then king, Amanullah Khan, who is still revered for ending British influence on the country.
Darulaman was used by the Afghan defence ministry from the Soviet occupation of 1979 onwards. It was severely damaged in 1991 and 1992 during the factional fighting that brought an end to communist rule. Darulaman palace represents the link between the old and new Afghanistan,” said Nasrullah Stanekzai, deputy minister of information, culture and tourism.
When completed, the new palace will be used by Afghanistan's legislature for offices and meetings, although the body does not plan to convene there for its regular sessions.
The three-phase, 70 million US dollar reconstruction project is being undertaken by the Darulaman Reconstruction Foundation with financial assistance from German donors as well as expatriate Afghans living in Germany.
Rebuilding is expected to take three years. The project will employ an estimated 1,500 workers, said Abdul Hamid Farooqi, a foundation member. The project has stirred some controversy between traditionalists and modernists.
The exterior of the building will be restored to its original architectural style while the interior will be more modern.
But some Afghan archaeologists object to the three-year timetable, the new interior and the use of modern construction equipment. Reconstruction should be done by hand to preserve the original look of the building, said archaeologist Zafar Paiman.
If they want to reconstruct the palace as it was before, they will need a big enough budget, enough workers and engineers, and ten years,” he said. Stanekzai said, “If we see anything harmful to the historical value of the palace during the reconstruction work, our ministry will have the authority to halt it.”
The Darulaman foundation, established last year and based in Rudesheim, Germany, consists of six German and six Afghan engineers. Honorary members include Afghan president Hamed Karzai, former West German president Walter Scheel and Mohammad Amin Farhang, Afghanistan's economy minister.
The foundation is soliciting donations from foreign and domestic firms.
Those Afghans who donate more than 5,000 dollars will have their names engraved on a memorial stone in the hall of Darulaman palace forever,” said Farooqi. While supporting the reconstruction project, Farhang explained that the Afghan government itself lacks the financial resources to undertake the work.
There are a lot of needs in Afghanistan besides the palace reconstruction, such as poverty, security problems, counter-narcotics and the development of agriculture,” he said. “These are among the first priorities."
[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]
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