Parliamentary candidate killed in S. Afghanistan - Xinhua 10/29/2005
KABUL - Suspected Taliban militias have gunned down three persons including a parliamentary candidate in south Afghanistan, officials confirmed Saturday.
"A group of Taliban militants killed engineer Ghani, a candidate for the provincial council on Gresk-Nawzad road in Helmand province Friday night and two others on the spot," Deputy governor Hajji Mohidin told Xinhua.
Two more victims are the deceased's son and brother. He also added that the slain Ghani failed to bag enough votes to secure a seat in the provincial council.
In the meantime, Taliban through their spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi from undisclosed locations claimed responsibility and said fighters of the hard-line ousted regime punished them for their support to government.
Taliban have claimed responsibility for the killing of over a dozen parliamentary candidates and election workers over the past six months. Remnants of the former fundamentalist regime who failed to derail the landmark Sept. 18 legislative polls have intensified their activities since the polls.
About 1,500 rebels, Afghans and US troops as well as pro-government figures and even aid workers have been killed in Taliban-linked militancy since the beginning of this year.
Afghan poll results delayed due to fraud complaints - Oct 30, 2005 By Yousuf Azimy
KABUL (Reuters) - Final results from Afghanistan's parliamentary polls in September are being delayed because of complaints of fraud, the country's election commission said on Sunday.
The results were originally set to be announced on October 19. It was then delayed to the start of November due to the slow pace of vote counting and the U.N.-backed commission expects that the slippage this time will be for another few days.
Close to 500 of 2,300 complaints filed with the commission relate to fraud by candidates on voting day, intimidation of voters, stuffing of ballot boxes and fraud in some voting centres as well as during the counting, an official said. Election officer Grant Kippen said all complaints were being investigated by the body.
The September 18 polls for parliament and 34 provincial councils were the first for decades in Afghanistan, which is struggling to emerge from 25 years of foreign intervention and civil war.
Hundreds of candidates and their supporters have staged protests in key cities including Kabul over fraud complaints and accusations of irregularities. The election commission has in the past said that fraud was widespread but that it would not affect the results.
The commission announced provisional results in early October, which showed that dozens of factional strongmen, dubbed warlords by their critics, appear to have won seats in parliament. But indications are that women -- guaranteed at least 68 seats in the 249-seat house -- could hold the balance of power.
Pakistani arrested for deadly attack on British soldier
Mazar-i-Sharif (AFP) - One of four men arrested for an attack that killed a British soldier in northern Aghanistan is a Pakistani who had arrived in the country just days earlier.
Gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying British soldiers serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the main northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Saturday, killing one and wounding five. An Afghan interpreter was also wounded in the attack on an unmarked ISAF vehicle near the city's famous Blue Mosque.
Three of the men detained after the attack were Afghans but a fourth said he was a Pakistani national who had only entered Afghanistan a few days before the ambush, Mazar-i-Sharif police spokesman Shirgan Dorani told AFP.
The man had said he had trained at a religious school, or madrassa, in Pakistan, Dorani said Sunday. The attackers opened fire on the ISAF car from a motorbike and a car, witnesses said. Some of them fled on foot and were captured by onlookers.
The injured soldiers had been evacuated to the capital Kabul for treatment, an ISAF spokesman said. Officials did not say who was suspected of carrying out the attack. The city has seen relatively little of the regular violence in southern and eastern Afghanistan that is blamed on fighters allied to the Taliban and other militant groups.
Taliban loyalists vowed to overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai after their fundamentalist regime was ousted in a US-led campaign in late 2001.
ISAF also reported Sunday that its soldiers in the southwestern city of Farah had killed a man on Friday who had thrown a grenade towards the entrance of a compound of a reconstruction team in the city.
ISAF soldiers, based mainly in the capital and northern and western Afghanistan, mainly act as peacekeepers who assist various civilian and military Provincial Reconstruction Teams dotted around the war-torn and destitute country.
Britain has about 1,000 personnel serving in Afghanistan. The last British soldier to die in the country was killed in an apparent suicide bomb attack in January last year.
Afghanistan attacks kill 23, including US, British troops
Kabul (AFP) - A US and a British soldier were gunned down in Afghanistan in a deadly series of attacks that claimed 23 lives, including those of 14 suspected Taliban insurgents, officials said.
The US soldier was killed on patrol on the border with Pakistan in the east of the insurgency-hit country, while the British trooper was shot dead in an ambush in the main northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, military officials said.
The militants were killed by US-led coalition and Afghan troops, supported by attack helicopters and aircraft, in battles on Thursday and Friday in which an Afghan soldier also died, the coalition said.
Thirteen were shot dead in insurgency-hit central Uruzgan province, where the Afghan soldier was killed, it said in a statement. A US soldier and an Afghan trooper were wounded but were in stable conditions.
US troops killed another militant in eastern Paktika province Friday when he and others were spotted allegedly trying to plant a bomb, the coalition said. Two others were captured and handed to Afghan police, it said.
The US soldier attacked on the volatile border with Pakistan became the 87th US troop to be killed this year in the US-led operation to root out militants linked to the ousted Taliban government, according to an AFP tally. More than 50 died in hostile fire.
More than 200 US troops have been killed in Afghanistan since the United States invaded in 2001 to remove the Taliban from power after they failed to hand over their ally Osama bin Laden for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Besides the coalition force of about 20,000 troops mainly based in southern and eastern Afghanistan, a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) of about 10,000 soldiers patrols the capital and northern and western regions.
British soldiers with ISAF came under fire in the centre of Mazar-i-Sharif city Saturday, killing one and wounding five others, an ISAF spokesman said in the capital Kabul.
They were in an unmarked vehicle when gunmen on a motorbike and in a car opened fire on them near the city's famous Blue Mosque, witnesses said. Four of the attackers were captured, they said.
Meanwhile, near the border with Pakistan in Paktia province, a dozen men dragged two worshippers from evening prayers on Friday and shot them dead, district chief Mirza Mohammed told AFP Saturday.
They "killed them outside the holy place and they disappeared," he said. A tribal elder was shot dead inside another mosque in neighbouring Khost province on Wednesday, police said.
These attacks were the latest on the devout country's mosques during the holy month of Ramadan, with three pro-government religious leaders killed in various provinces mid-October and a district chief shot while praying.
The killings have been blamed on the Taliban insurgents who target people allied to President Hamid Karzai's administration.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility Saturday for the killing of a man who contested landmark provincial elections last month, and his son and brother.
Ghani Khan was killed as he was driving in volatile southern Helmand province where he had failed to win a provincial council seat in the September 18 election.
The poll, the first parliamentary and provincial council elections since 1969, was hailed as a key step in Afghanistan's transition to democracy after the removal of the Taliban and years of civil war, but the process has been overshadowed by unrelenting insurgency-linked bloodshed.
The final election results are due this week, with warlords and former Taliban officials already securing seats in the new national assembly.
NZ soldier injured in Afghanistan - Radio New Zealand 29 Oct 2005
A New Zealand soldier has been injured in Afghanistan after an explosive device went off during handling. Defence Press Officer, Commander Sandie McKie, says the device detonated while a group of soldiers was clearing old ammunitions.
Commander McKie says the injured soldier sustained lower body injuries and lacerations to his feet, and has been evacuated to a coalition medical facility.
She says the injuries are not considered life threatening, and his family has been contacted. The soldier is part of a New Zealand Special Air Service deployment on operations in Afghanistan.
Extradition of Hakimi, Yasar to Afghanistan against INT`L laws: Taliban PakTribune (Pakistan) October 29, 2005
KABUL: A Taliban spokesman Abdul Hayee Mutmaen has termed extradition of former Taliban spokesmen to Afghanistan as against the international laws. Taliban spokesman while talking to Radio Tehran flayed extradition of the former Taliban spokesmen Latifullah Hakimi and Ustad Yasar.
He stated that the two persons had no military designation in the Taliban regime. Mr. Mutmaen further said that Latifullah Hakimi only disseminate news to the media and his arrest and extradition is attempt on freedom of press and act against the international laws.
4 Afghan Ministers Give up Dual Nationalities – Xinhua 10/29/2005
As the date of convening the first Afghan parliament is drawing closer, four ministers of President Hamid Karzai's cabinet have given up their dual nationality, a state-run newspaper reported Saturday.
"These include Minister for Economy Mohammad Amin Farhang, Minister for Communication Amirzai Sangin, Minister for Public Work Sahrab Ali Safari and Minister for Refugees Repatriation Mohammad Azam Dadfar," daily Anis writes in its front page.
Under the Afghanistan constitution, no Afghan citizen can become minister unless he or she gives his or her foreign citizenship. Anis also added that the article of the 72 of the constitution has authorized parliament to either approve or reject a minister with dual nationality.
Several of Afghanistan's cabinet ministers holding dual nationality with majority of whom US citizens are still running their ministries. Prominent among them are Minister for Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, Minister for Mines and Industries, Mohammad Sidiq and Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Abidullah Ramin. Afghanistan's parliament, for which over 6.8 million Afghans voted on Sept. 18, will be convened by the end of November.
Girls School Burnt Down In Afghanistan - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
30 October 2005 -- A girls' school has been torched in Afghanistan destroying equipment but not causing any injuries. Provincial criminal investigation director Qudratullah Arabzai said today that the primary school, 65 kilometers from the capital Kabul in Logar province, was under renovation.
He said the school, tents, chairs, generator, and a vehicle were destroyed in the fire late yesterday. At least 23 people have been killed in a surge of violence in Afghanistan over the past several days.
In Kabul today, the Afghan election commission said final results from September's parliamentary polls are being delayed because of complaints of fraud. Final results are now expected sometime next month. The former Taliban regime banned education for women.
U.S. should double Afghan aid in elections' wake, envoy says - The Dallas Morning News 10/29/2005
WASHINGTON - Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann said Congress should double the current $622 million in aid to build roads and other links between Kabul and the provinces in the wake of the country's first parliamentary elections.
"People are going to hate to hear that," he said. "Given the impact of the hurricane (Katrina), there are huge demands on the budget. ... We are doing a very good job, but it's not finished. If we take our hand off too early, it can still come apart on us. "We have succeeded in setting up a government in Kabul. Now we need to set up a government in Afghanistan," he said in an interview.
The election results bring together in one legislative body figures from across Afghanistan's political and religious spectrum and should be a unifying force in a country ruled for many years by ethnic chieftains and warlords.
President Hamid Karzai has support among women, professionals and fellow Pashtuns in the new parliament. But most of the seats in the 249-member Wolesi Jirga, or lower house, went to Islamic conservatives and mujahedeen fighters - including four former Taliban leaders - in the September elections.
Osama bin Laden and some other al-Qaida leaders are thought to still be hiding in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani border, but are apparently focused on the war in Iraq. Remnants of the Taliban are largely behind a continuing insurgency that has claimed the lives of more than 200 U.S. soldiers and Marines in the past four years, Neumann said.
About 17,900 U.S. troops are stationed in Afghanistan. "It's very clear the insurgency is not going away. We will be at this for some time," Neumann said. "But the far greater challenge now is governance."
Neumann said Karzai, with U.S. help, is concentrating on strengthening new regional governments in the provinces and will rely on their help in combating the opium cultivation and labs that make Afghanistan the world's leading supplier of heroin.
He said last year's campaign against opium was "a failure." Even though the amount of land devoted to opium poppies was reduced 20 percent, rainfall still delivered a bumper crop.
"We now have a heavily redesigned program, and a sounder line of policy" for combating drug trafficking, he said. "In six months (when new crops are sown), we'll see how the new strategy works."
Afghanistan sets up trust fund to fight drugs trade – Reuters 10/29/2005
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL - Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer of illicit opium and heroin, has set up a trust fund to manage the money it expects to receive in foreign aid for its war against illegal drugs, an official said on Saturday.
Donors, foreign as well as Afghans, say they have spent $400 million so far this year on anti-drugs projects and in persuading local farmers to swap lucrative poppies for other crops.
Afghanistan is looking for more money to help persuade farmers give up opium growing and to rebuild irrigation systems and roads destroyed by decades of war in the country.
"In order to centralise the money and strengthen the process of the campaign, the government has set up a counter-narcotics trust fund," said Sayed Mohammad Azam, a spokesman for the ministry of counter narcotics.
The announcement of the trust coincides with the start of poppy sowing in many parts of the country. The government fund would be managed by the United Nations Development Programme, he said, adding that the European Union had pledged 15 million euros ($18 million) to the fund.
Some 90 percent of heroin in the EU comes from Afghanistan, which produces about 87 percent of the global supply. Opium production in Afghanistan has risen to record levels since the 2001 U.S.-led ousting of the then Taliban government. Last year, a U.N. report said if nothing was done, Afghanistan could turn into a lawless "narco-state" run by drug cartels.
President Hamid Karzai has voiced his opposition to U.S.-led proposals for aerial spraying as it could feed instability in southern and eastern regions -- the main poppy growing areas and the focus of a Taliban insurgency.
He has declared a war against narcotics but wants foreign aid for the farmers in return for destruction of their poppies. The government has in the past said that some provincial officials were involved in the drugs industry, but has not taken any steps against them.
U.S. indicts Afghan for drug smuggling - NEW YORK, Oct. 28 (UPI) –
An Afghan accused of being a drug lord with links to the Taliban has become the first Afghan citizen extradited to the United States.
AKI news agency reported that prosecutors in New York are charging Baz Mohammad with conspiracy to import more than $25 million of heroin into the United States over the last 15 years.
Mohammad has proclaimed that he is innocent. If convicted he faces a life sentence. President George W. Bush has labeled Mohammad one of the world's most wanted drug kingpins.
Mohammad is charged with two counts of conspiring to violate U.S. narcotics laws. An indictment unsealed in Manhattan's federal court charges that Mohammad controlled opium fields in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province and used Afghan and Pakistani laboratories to refine the opium into heroin before smuggling it to the United States.
The indictment charges that Mohammad's cartel provided financial support to the Taliban-related "Islamist-extremist organizations in Afghanistan," in exchange for Taliban protecting the opium crops. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, said that during meetings with his Pakistani colleagues, Mohammad said that, "selling heroin in the U.S. was a jihad because they took the Americans' money and at the same time the heroin they sold was killing them."
Afghanistan's elections - The New York Times, editorial, OCTOBER 28, 2005
Afghanistan is demonstrating that even one of the world's poorest and least secure countries can conduct credible elections. Last fall, Hamid Karzai became the country's first democratically elected president. Now he has been joined by an elected parliament, in many ways an even more difficult feat because district campaigns had to be waged in even the least secure areas.
The nearly complete results, announced last weekend, from that voting show a mixed picture. A large number of seats were captured by some of the country's most fearsome warlords or their followers, including four former Taliban commanders, several notorious Islamist mujahedeen leaders and a number of drug lords. Another sizable chunk went to religious fundamentalists. Taken together, these groups will constitute almost half of the new parliament, although most candidates ran as individuals, not as part of national party slates, and there is no reason to think that these diverse elements will promote a common policy agenda.
But many voters also looked to a different, more hopeful kind of future. Women did remarkably well as candidates, winning 68 of the parliament's 249 seats. And the men who were elected include significant numbers of political independents and educated professionals.
Of course, holding elections is only one component of successful nation-building. At least as important is the challenge of reviving the war-shattered economy and generating enough development to reduce desperate poverty, resettle returning refugees and provide the alternative jobs that will lure people away from private militias or opium farms. Afghanistan cannot afford to do these things itself. But relatively modest amounts of additional American assistance could go a long way.
The less than $1 billion that the Bush administration is seeking for Afghan civil development next year is too little to accomplish even the most urgently needed tasks. That amount should be more than doubled, and increased still further as more of the country becomes secure and open to agriculture and rural development. Most of the additional aid needs to go into constructing an adequate rural road network, providing electric power to the 94 percent of Afghans still without it and giving farmers the seasonal credit, technical assistance and market outlets needed to break the economic grip of the opium traffickers and promote alternative crops and livelihoods. Some should also be directed into strengthening local government.
Americans can be proud of their role in helping to drive the tyrannical and hateful Taliban from power and giving Afghans the chance to make a new democratic start. But those gains are fragile. An additional $1 billion to $2 billion a year, invested wisely, could substantially reinforce the initial progress.
Afghan Parliament Could Emerge As Center Of Opposition To President Hamid Karzai - Eurasianet 10/27/2005 By Camelia Entekhabi-Fard
An announcement on the final results of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections is imminent, but preliminary totals already indicate that the country's new legislature stands to be dominated by warrior-politicians who are generally hostile to President Hamid Karzai's administration.
On October 23, Afghanistan's Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) announced that a provisional tally of the votes cast in the September 18 election had been completed. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The JEMB said that final, certified results would be released by the end of October. Political observers in Kabul believed the most likely day for the announcement to be Saturday, October 29. No date has yet been set for the parliament's first session, but a source within the president's office indicated that legislators would probably convene in mid December.
Election officials found evidence of fraud during the ballot-counting process. At one point in early October, a JEMB official said roughly 4 percent of ballot boxes had been set aside because of suspected tampering. At the same time, the JEMB official maintained that attempts to fix the vote had occurred mainly on the local level and did not significantly influence the overall results. Ultimately, over 650 ballot boxes were excluded by the JEMB after it determined that they were tainted by fraud. On October 21, Karzai urged Afghans to accept the election results despite the vote-rigging.
The preliminary totals indicate that leaders of the Mujaheddin – guerrilla commanders who led the Afghan resistance to the 1979-89 Soviet occupation, and who later fought against each other during the ensuing civil war – will dominate the lower house of the Afghan parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, controlling a majority of the 249 seats. Many Mujaheddin leaders retain strong ties to armed groups that control much of Afghanistan outside of the capital Kabul. Over the past year or so, Karzai has tried to push Mujaheddin commanders out of positions of power. Among the high-profile Mujaheddin that Karzai succeeded in sidelining was Mohammad Fahim, who had served as a vice president and defense minister. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Given the existing tension between Karzai and the Mujaheddin, the parliament could easily develop into a center of opposition to the president. Indeed, one of the leading vote getters in the election appears to be Mohammad Mohaqiq, the leader of the Hizb-i-Wahdat faction, who is an implacable political enemy of Karzai. Mohaqiq's Hizb-i-Wahdat faction, which is widely supported by ethnic Hazaras, was among the groups that fought the Soviets, and subsequently resisted Taliban efforts to conquer all of Afghanistan. Mohaqiq joined the transitional government as planning minister, but was dismissed after announcing that he would challenge Karzai in the October 2004 presidential election. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Mohaqiq has accused Karzai's government of favoring the president's own Pashtun community over Afghanistan's other ethnic groups, including Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks.
Several prominent Tajik political leaders – including Yunus Qanooni, the former education minister in the transitional government, and Burhanuddin Rabbani, who served as Afghan president from 1992-96 – also appear to have secured parliamentary seats. Tajik militias were prominent in the resistance to Soviet occupation and provided the primary domestic opposition to the Taliban. Tajik commanders have become embittered with Karzai's rule, however, as the president has persistently acted to curb Tajik influence in the central government. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. As a result, some political experts in Kabul expect Tajik leaders to try to use parliament to reclaim what they believe to be their rightful share of power.
Whether the Mujaheddin leaders will be able to coalesce into a solid parliamentary force that can exert pressure on the president remains questionable. First, the question of parliamentary leadership will have to be settled, and there are indications that the personal ambitions of several Mujaheddin leaders could disrupt the legislature's ability to operate smoothly. Mohaqiq, Qanooni and Rabbani already have started politicking to be elected parliament speaker.
The political maneuvering could prove especially divisive for the ethnic Tajik parliament faction, said Fahim, who like Qanooni and Rabbani is a Tajik. "Qanooni should be the parliament speaker because he is young and popular not only in Kabul, but even in northern and southern regions, and he has proven his potential ... as a leader," Fahim said in an interview. "But I am sure that from the day that official results are announced to the opening session [of parliament], we [Tajik political leaders] will have a large task of working things out between Qanooni and Rabbani."
EDITORIAL: The memory of past crimes should not be forgotten
(Arman-e-Milli, October 25, 2005) October 25 is martyrs' day, commemorating [at least] 12,000 innocent Afghans who were killed during the [1978-79] regimes of Nur Mohammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin. The communist regime which came to power in 1978 headed by Nur Mohammad Taraki, started oppressing the Muslim people of Afghanistan and from that time the people's disgust and anger against the regime started riseing. The communist regime, facing an anti-government backlash, began torturing and killing people as it was unable to deal with them properly. Leaving thousands of people dead, captive or homeless, the regime caused uprisings. And in doing so, it paved the way for foreign interference. After Hafizullah Amin had his former teacher Taraki smothered with a pillow, he came to power and released a list of 12,000 names of people who had died under torture in his predecessor's prisons. This day is always marked on October 25, to remember those innocent Afghans who were killed by that regime. (Arman-e-Milli is an independent daily run by a group of journalists.)
World leaders condemn 'terrorist' attacks in New Delhi
New Delhi (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan led international condemnation against "terrorist" bombings which claimed at least 61 lives in the Indian capital New Delhi.
"The secretary general is appalled by and condemns the series of terrorist bombings which have resulted in many deaths in the Indian capital," a statement released by Annan's press office said on Sunday. "The secretary general is particularly shocked that this latest terrorist outrage has occurred on the eve of the major Hindu festival of Diwali."
An unknown group calling itself Inquilab (revolution) on Sunday claimed responsibility for the apparently coordinated bombings Saturday, saying attacks would continue until India pulls all its troops from Kashmir, the Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan
Ahead of the group's claim, suspicion had immediately fallen on insurgent groups opposed to a peace process begun by India and Pakistan last year.
Islamabad was among the first to condemn the bombings and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
"The attack in a crowded marketplace is a criminal act of terrorism," the Pakistani foreign ministry said. "The people and government of Pakistan are shocked at this barbaric act and express deep sympathy with the families of the victims."
Messages of condemnation and condolences poured in from around the world. Washington called the bomb blasts "another sad reminder that terror knows no borders".
"These acts are made more heinous in that they deliberately targeted innocent civilians preparing for holiday celebrations," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
India's former colonial ruler Britain condemned the "appalling attacks" which Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called "yet another example of terrorists' cynical and callous disregard for human life."
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, noting that the target was not political but a market, called it a dreadful attack.
"When people start throwing bombs in markets, as they regularly do in Iraq and other parts of the world and it's now in New Delhi, it shows how brutal and indiscriminate and unforgivable it really is," Howard told Channel Nine television.
In Bangladesh, Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan called the bombings a "heinous act" and officials bolstered security in and around the capital Dhaka, where a meeting of South Asian leaders is just two weeks away.
Japan, the Philippines and Afghanistan also condemned the attacks. "It is an extremely cowardly and unforgivable act," Yoshinori Katori, a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.
Elsewhere, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called the violence "beyond deplorable", while South African President Thabo Mbeki offered condolences for the "dastardly act of terror".
"The South African government joins the international community in condemning these heinous acts of terrorism, particularly in a country that espouses the principles of democracy and freedom of its people," Mbeki said.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana also voiced their condemnation. "Once again terrorism has struck savagely," Villepin said in a message to his Indian counterpart Singh.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said Beijing "condemns all forms of terrorism" and expressed a willingness to work together with India and other countries to safeguard world peace, the state Xinhua news agency quoted Hu as saying in a message of condolence to his Indian counterpart Abdul Kalam.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "terrorists" and said the explosions at crowded marketplaces were timed to cause maximum damage with people shopping ahead of religious festivals next week.
"I condemn the cynical and premeditated attacks on innocent people. These are dastardly acts of terrorism aimed at the people of India," Singh told a press conference.
"These terrorists wish to spread a sense of fear and suspicion among peace loving people. The blasts have been timed to create disaffection during the festive season," he said.
Man Held in Pakistan Says He's American
Quetta (AP) - Pakistani border guards have arrested a man who claimed to be an American citizen for entering Pakistan illegally from neighboring Iran, an official said Saturday.
The man, identified as Essa Jesus, 56, was arrested late Friday in Taftan, a southwestern Pakistani town near the border with Iran, said Akbar Lashari, a senior official with Levies, a police force responsible for security along the border and in tribal parts of southwestern Baluchistan province.
"He had no visa. When he was interrogated, he said that he is a tourist from America and a resident of Alabama," Lashari said. Lashari said the man could speak Urdu, Pashtu and Persian — languages spoken mainly in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said it had no information about the arrest in Taftan, about 435 miles southwest of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the man said he lost his American passport and other documents in Iran five years ago. "I came to Pakistan to go to the American Embassy and get my passport," he said.
He said he was a former restaurant waiter in Alabama and left the United States 40 years ago, going first to London, then India, and then traveling in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
Conflict resolution, India’s way – Indian Express D.C. Pathak
The enormous loss of life caused by the October 8 earthquake in PoK together with the damage it inflicted also on the Indian side of the LoC, has evoked an equally large human response across the territorial divide. This brings in new hopes even in this moment of great tragedy.
It is clear that political and geographical barriers cannot override the human bonds that drove the civilians as well as our men in uniform to try to do whatever they could to reach out to the people oscillating between life and death on the other side. The disaster brought home a message; life is too precious a thing to be destroyed by acts of hate or revenge.
But it is equally clear that this acknowledgement of a shared community is embattled in today’s world, as never before. Terrorist attacks in Ayodhya and London, the country-wide bomb blasts in Bangladesh, and the suicide bombings in Bali throw light on the current status of global terror.
The London strikes, now owned by al Qaeda, are a reminder of the new terror unfolding in the wake of developments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bangladesh blasts are attributed to the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, a militant offshoot of the Hizbul Mujahideen, now collaborating with the Taliban-al Qaeda stream, while the bombings at Bali are suspected to be the handiwork of the pro-al Qaeda elements of the Jemaah Islamiyah. The failed attempt of the terrorists at Ayodhya, however, was an extension of the Pak-sponsored proxy-war against India.
The second Bush administration is conducting the war on terror on two planks. One is the apparent reliance of the US on a distinction between ‘‘moderate Islamists’’ representing ‘‘political Islam’’ and the ‘‘radical Islam’’ accounting for the so-called ‘‘jehadi terrorism’’. Interestingly, this distinction coincides with a benign view taken by the West, of those who, under the umbrella of Maulana Maudoodi’s Jamaat-e-Islami and its forerunner, the Muslim Brotherhood, initially led the anti-Soviet armed campaign in Afghanistan on the war cry of jehad.
The West in general and the US in particular, faced an entirely new situation when the Taliban, product of the Deobandi madrasas spread across NWFP-Afghan belt, established their hold on Afghanistan in 1996 and got the support of the Arab radical stream of Wahabis symbolised by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. The Taliban-al Qaeda axis is intrinsically hostile to the West. It carries the legacy of the ulema-led jehadi movements that were launched in diverse regions like Algeria, Arabia and India in the middle of the 19th century against western domination. The International Islamic Jehad established by bin Laden presently represents a confluence of Islamic radicals of Arab, Afghan, South and South East Asian origin.
Pakistan, while trying to convince the US that it was engaged in serious combat against al Qaeda, kept up its proxy war against India mainly using the outfits under the ISI’s influence — principally the Hizbul Mujahideen of the Jamaat stream and the Lashkar-e-Toiba, product of the Muridke-based Markaz Dawah-ul-Irshad run by the Pak-Saudi combine. The American preoccupation with the al Qaeda sponsored global terror had created an Indo-US differential on what was happening by way of the cross border terrorism directed against India.
There is perhaps now a better understanding in the US of India’s concerns. India has appealed to the world community to speak in one language against terrorism. It is hoped that in the new situation created by the Indo-Pak talks, Musharraf would be able to keep his share of the responsibility.
The second feature of the war on terror is the declared policy of the US that it would strive to have the democracy deficit removed from those Muslim countries which have become vulnerable to the radical fundamentalists.
India would welcome the return of democracy to all those societies which had not had the benefit of enjoying it so far. However, there is some validity in the argument that modernisation is not necessarily synonymous with westernisation. Also, the advance of democracy in any society is dependent on the degree of popular acceptance of the idea that every citizen, regardless of creed or sex, will have the same rights and obligations. Right now there seems to be an internal conflict developing between the ruling elites cooperating with the West and large sections of masses who are under the influence of Islamic radicals. There is a strong presence of such forces in the western and eastern neighbourhood of India.
India has the advantage that not only is its democracy deeply entrenched, the Indian communities do not have any inclination to get involved in the wider religion-based conflict in the world around us. Firm on the platform of secular sovereignty that promotes inclusive cultural pluralism, India can combine effective counter-terrorism measures at home, conducted in a professional way to keep them in line with human rights, with the possibility of playing a global role in the arena of conflict resolution. (The writer is a former director of the Intelligence )
[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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