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Report of Quran burning sparks protests at Afghan base
CNN By Masoud Popalzai and Sarah Jones February 21, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Baghram Airfield in Afghanistan on Tuesday, spurred by reports that soldiers had burned a copy of the Quran at the base.
NATO officials acknowledged that Islamic religious materials, including copies of the Quran, had been improperly disposed at the base, but could not definitely say whether any was burned.
"We think very little was disposed (of)," said Col. Gary Kolb. "We don't think any was burned because we were able to recover most of the materials."
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan quickly apologized and said he had launched an investigation.
"I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused, to the President of Afghanistan, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan," Gen. John R. Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said.
"I assure you ... I promise you ... this was NOT intentional in any way," he said in a statement.
Local citizens who work at the base discovered the material that been put into a burn pit at the base by NATO personnel and alerted officials.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them," Allen said. "The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities."
Soon after, up to 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the base. The protests were peaceful, authorities said.
Muslims regard the Quran as the absolute word of God. It is so highly revered that many Muslims will not pick up the holy book without ablution, a ritual washing of the hands.
Desecrating the book, such as burning it, is therefore seen as an unforgivable affront -- as an act of intolerance and bigotry.
Last year, when controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran and burned a copy, Afghans took to the streets by the thousands.
In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, demonstrators stormed a United Nations office and killed 12 people.
In Kandahar, three people were killed in one demonstration and nine in another when police and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed.
American officials vociferously condemned the pastor's act.
"It was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible," said Gen. David Petraeus, who headed the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan at the time.
In 2010, Afghans protested outside the Forward Operating Base Mirwais in response to an alleged Quran burning inside the base. But ISAF said the suspected burning was a routine burn-pit session in which military documents are destroyed.
The protest turned violent when the Afghans began throwing rocks at the base guards. An ISAF service member shot a protester who aimed his AK-47 toward a guard tower, military officials said.
CNN's Masoud Popalzai contributed to this report from Kabul and Sarah Jones from Atlanta.
U.S. Commander Apologizes Over Koran Mistreatment
February 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The commander of international troops in Afghanistan has confirmed that foreign troops have "improperly" disposed of Islamic religious materials, including Korans.
U.S. General John Allen on February 21 offered "sincere apologies" to Afghanistan's government and people, saying the mistreatment of the Islamic materials at the Bagram base north of Kabul was "not intentional" and was halted as soon as officials discovered it.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them," Allen said. "The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities."
A crowd estimated at some 2,000 people gathered outside the security walls of the sprawling Bagram compound early on February 21 to protest the destruction of Korans.
Some in the crowd threw gasoline bombs and fired slingshots and hunting guns, while others shouted "Death to Americans" and "Death to infidels."
NATO guards responded by firing rubber bullets from a watchtower. An AFP photographer who was struck in the neck by a rubber bullet said he saw at least seven Afghans who were injured by rubber bullets.
No deaths were reported at the Bagram protests.
Several hundred people also gathered at protests in Kabul.
Found In The Trash
Ahmad Zaki Zahed, an Afghan provincial council chief, said U.S. military officials gave him about 30 copies of the Koran that had been recovered at Bagram before they were destroyed.
He said some of the books, which were used by Bagram detainees, were partially burned, while others had escaped damage.
Zahed said five Afghan workers at Bagram told him that the materials were in trash transported by two NATO soldiers in a truck late on February 20 to a pit where garbage is burned. He said the disposal process was stopped when the workers noticed the religious books in the trash.
Attempt To Prevent Violence
Allen's candid apology -- broadcast repeatedly on Afghan television -- appeared to be aimed at limiting damage and anger after similar incidents involving the Islamic holy book led to violence and deadly attacks on foreigners.
"I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused -- my apologies to the president of Afghanistan, my apologies to the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and most importantly, my apologies to the noble people of Afghanistan," Allen said in his televised apology.
"I would like to thank the local Afghan people who helped us identify the error and who worked with us to immediately take corrective action."
In April 2011, 10 people were killed and dozens injured in Afghanistan during days of unrest that were unleashed by the burning of a Koran by a radical U.S. Christian minister, Terry Jones, in Florida.
Afghanistan to Spy on Its Soldiers
Effort Seeks to Curtail Attacks by Local Uniformed Troops on Coalition Forces, Say Afghan and U.S. Military Leaders
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM FEBRUARY 21, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan is rolling out an ambitious plan to spy on its own soldiers, the most serious attempt so far to halt a string of attacks by Afghan troops on their Western comrades-in-arms, according to Afghan and American military leaders.
As part of the effort, agents of the National Directorate of Security, the country's spy agency, will be deployed to army units across the country to monitor Afghan soldiers at every step, from recruitment and training to deployment and home leave, these people said.
The intent is to identify and weed out any potential troublemakers before problems turn deadly, Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview. "Every soldier has to become an informer," he said.
So-called green-on-blue attacks by Afghan servicemen on coalition personnel claimed at least 77 lives in the past five years, with three-quarters occurring since early 2010. Last year, an analyst for the U.S. military warned that the attacks were turning into a "growing systemic threat" to the mission, in a study that has since become classified.
The severity of this threat was amplified Monday, when an Afghan policeman killed at least one coalition soldier from Albania in the southern Kandahar province, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the Afghan government was taking "unprecedented steps" to address the problem following the killing of four French soldiers by an Afghan service member on Jan. 20. That incident, in Kapisa province, prompted Paris to accelerate the withdrawal of its troops.
Afghan and American officials say they realize that sowing distrust between ISAF soldiers and their Afghan counterparts has become a Taliban strategy.
"They recognize that the real center of gravity on our side, the thing that holds us together, gives us our strength, is the relationship between Afghans and ISAF," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, commander of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. "They are going to continue to attack that."
As part of the new effort, NDS agents will keep watch on new recruits, conduct more thorough background checks than the Afghan army can currently undertake, monitor the young soldiers as they go through training, and embed in military forces with soldiers at their bases, officials said. The plan will include both uniformed Afghan intelligence officers mingling with the units and covert operatives among the soldiers who will report back to the NDS, officials said.
NDS will also attempt to keep an eye on Afghan soldiers when they go on leave. Military commanders are especially concerned about soldiers who return home to Taliban-infiltrated areas of Afghanistan and visit parts of neighboring Pakistan where the insurgent leaders plot their strategies.
"Home leave represents opportunities for people to rethink their relationship to the Afghans and their partners. Sometimes people come back changed from leave," said Gen. Bolger.
As another layer of protection, ISAF has also started placing armed soldiers in meetings with Afghan officials and service members, to act as a "guardian angel" able to react in case of a sudden green-on-blue attack. "It's a dangerous society and we have an enemy that's announced this as a tactic, so we'd actually be irresponsible if we don't take these kinds of steps," said Gen. Bolger.
Even though the Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of the recent green-on-blue attacks, American commanders say insurgent infiltrators represent only a small proportion of the fratricide killings. "Some of them are, in fact, infiltrators," said Gen. Allen. "But the majority have been people who have self-radicalized themselves for a whole variety of reasons."
Only one of the 43 attacks by Afghan police or soldiers on coalition forces since May 2007 involved more than one attacker, said Gen. Bolger. In many cases, investigators concluded that the attackers were driven by disputes with their coalition partners or by personal problems at home.
That appeared to be the case with Afghan Air Force Col. Ahmed Gul, who killed nine Americans in April 2011 at Kabul International Airport. Col. Gul lived in Pakistan for 18 months and told at least one person in 2008 that he planned to return to Afghanistan "because he wanted to kill Americans," according to a U.S. Air Force investigation that was released last month. It found no evidence of direct links between the colonel and the Taliban.
U.S. and Afghan military officials have been wrestling with this problem for years, but the Jan. 20 shooting of four French soldiers was a catalyst: The 21-year-old gunman, one of the few attackers to be captured alive, told investigators that he bribed a recruiter to join the army, ran away to Pakistan, and then returned to bribe the same recruiter so he could rejoin the army. —Matt Murray contributed to this article.
Afghanistan Confirms Indirect Contacts With Taliban Leader
February 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says his government talks to the Taliban "every day" through intermediaries about a potential settlement of the Afghan conflict.
Karzai told Australian television that the Taliban figures he communicated with indirectly include Mullah Mohammad Omar, who heads the movement's leadership in the so-called Quetta Shura.
In a related development, a member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council said he was optimistic about the outcome of potential peace talks with the Taliban.
Ismail Qasim Yar told RFE/RL that "until recently, the Taliban leadership would say they wouldn't start negotiations if there was even one American soldier in Afghanistan."
But now, he said, with tens of thousands of U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, the Taliban has been "engaged in talks with U.S. officials for some months."
He added that the first steps were being taken to pave the way for direct peace talks, which he said could begin "soon."
So far preliminary issues, such as an exchange of prisoners, are being discussed.
The 70-member Peace Council was set up two years ago.
Officials Say Taliban Behead Four Afghans For Alleged Spying
February 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province say Taliban militants have beheaded four Afghan civilians whom they believed had been spying for the Afghan government.
Officials of the provincial administration said the bodies of the men were discovered in the Washir district of Helmand.
No comment on the reported beheadings was immediately available from a Taliban representative.
20 Taliban surrender in western Afghan province
HERAT, Afghanistan, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- A group of 20 Taliban rebels surrendered to the government in the western Afghan province of Herat, the provincial governor said on Tuesday.
"A total of 20 Taliban fighters under Mullah Abdul Ghani renounced violence and joined the government-initiated peace process in Gulran district on Monday," Governor Daud Sabah told Xinhua.
He said that the former rebels also handed over weapons and homemade bombs to the security officials during a surrendering ceremony held in the district on Monday.
More than 460 anti-government militants have laid down arms and joined the peace and national reconciliation process over the past eight months in Herat province, according to Sabah.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
30 Insurgents Surrender to Afghan Authorities
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Insurgents in Kandahar and Herat on Monday laid down their weapons and agreed to support the Afghan government.
Ten insurgents laid down their weapons and surrendered to authorities in southern Kandahar province, local officials said.
The men were active in the Panjwaye district of Kandahar and organised anti-government activities there, provincial spokesman Zulmai Ayoubi told TOLOnews.
Mr Ayoubi added that security will improve as more insurgents renounce violence in the province.
Separately, in western Herat province 20 insurgents including their commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani, surrendered to the government in the Gularan district of the province which lies about 640km from Kabul, provincial governor Daud Saba said.
The men fought against the government in the district, he said.
The commander and their men submitted their weapons to security troops, he added.
In the past eight months, 400 insurgent groups have joined the Afghan peace process in the province, officials said.
Dozens of insurgents have recently joined the peace process in the provinces after Afghan and Nato forces increased military operations to clear the country of insurgents.
Afghans prepare to fight for their future in London
Reuters Feb 21, 2012
The sounds produced by the three Afghan athletes going to the London Olympics are fierce: elongated wails ricochet off the chipped and dilapidated walls of the taekwondo centre, while leather smacks and slaps at the boxing gym.
In a country wrenched by decades of war, perhaps it is no surprise that all three, a taekwondo male duo including the Beijing bronze medallist Rohullah Nikpai, and the teenage female boxer Sadaf Rahimi, followed fighting sports.
They were born into a conflict that still rages, and chronic insecurity and poverty mean they train in spartan spaces with little financial support, and currently freezing cold in the country's worst winter for 30 years.
"The difference between me and others is I want to show other countries that an Afghan girl can fight," the 17-year-old Rahimi said, squinting from a protective face mask that pinches her cheeks and black kohl-lined eyes.
Like Nikpai, Rahimi and her family fled to neighbouring Iran to escape the violence and brutal oppression of the Taliban, who were toppled just over a decade ago.
The austere Islamist group had publicly stoned women to death for charges of adultery at the Ghazi stadium, where Rahimi, her two sisters and the rest of the country's first team of female boxers, set up in 2007, practice today.
Her muscular shoulders rippling as she readies to throw punches at her coach, Rahimi said she feared the Taliban, who banned women from education, sports and most work, would regain a share in power through early talks with Afghan and US officials aimed at ending the Nato-led war.
"I hope the Taliban don't come back and take over," she said, wincing and starting to untie pink shoelaces over her knuckles, used instead of hard-to-get strapping. "But if they do, I urge them to let women engage in sports and go to school".
Mohammad Saber Sharifi, her coach and a former professional boxer and advocate of Afghan women's rights, especially through sport, said Rahimi had been given a wild card to compete at the Olympics, so she can sidestep further qualifying rounds.
She will soon leave Kabul's rutted and snowbound streets for London to train for the Olympics, where women's boxing is debuting as a sport, he said.
On the other side of Kabul from Ghazi stadium, in an equally barren practice space, 24-year-old Nikpai and fellow taekwondo Olympic contender Nesar Ahmad Bahawi kick and punch in preparation for competition at London's ExCel centre in August.
Wearing red chest and back guards made from the material used in bulletproof vests, the pair make high-pitched screeches as they take aim, typical of the sport.
But despite winning Afghanistan's first Olympic medal at Beijing four years ago, Nikpai bemoaned the lack of support given to sport in his country.
"Nesar and I don't have a good place to train, facilities, or even a regular transport system and proper electricity," he said, his breath steaming in the frigid air of the training centre, whose small heater did little to combat the frozen white landscape outside.
Poor conditions are not limited to taekwondo, whose national team members get a monthly stipend of between $10 (Dh 36.7) to $14.
Sharifi, whose team have never trained in a ring, said tiny budgets severely limit their success.
"We can't really compare ourselves to the world," said Nikpai, who was lured to taekwondo after watching hours of action films as a refugee in Iran. He returned to Kabul in 2004.
Nikpai received a hero's welcome upon his return from Beijing and was summoned to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presented him with a brand new flat, money and a car.
General Mohammad Zahir Akhbar, the head of the Afghan Olympic Committee, said he hopes more athletes in wrestling, judo and athletics will qualify for London. "We are war-torn, our athletes face economic and security problems, but we are aiming for medals," he said.
First-time Olympian Bahawi, who took up taekwondo at the behest of his family because he kept kicking his friends, said triumph at international competitions could be a way to lift security at home.
"Sport brings a message of peace and stability in the country," said the 25 year old from the country's eastern Kapisa province before knocking flat a teammate with two quick kicks on his side.
* Reuters
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
CNN By Masoud Popalzai and Sarah Jones February 21, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Baghram Airfield in Afghanistan on Tuesday, spurred by reports that soldiers had burned a copy of the Quran at the base.
NATO officials acknowledged that Islamic religious materials, including copies of the Quran, had been improperly disposed at the base, but could not definitely say whether any was burned.
"We think very little was disposed (of)," said Col. Gary Kolb. "We don't think any was burned because we were able to recover most of the materials."
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan quickly apologized and said he had launched an investigation.
"I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused, to the President of Afghanistan, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan," Gen. John R. Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said.
"I assure you ... I promise you ... this was NOT intentional in any way," he said in a statement.
Local citizens who work at the base discovered the material that been put into a burn pit at the base by NATO personnel and alerted officials.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them," Allen said. "The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities."
Soon after, up to 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the base. The protests were peaceful, authorities said.
Muslims regard the Quran as the absolute word of God. It is so highly revered that many Muslims will not pick up the holy book without ablution, a ritual washing of the hands.
Desecrating the book, such as burning it, is therefore seen as an unforgivable affront -- as an act of intolerance and bigotry.
Last year, when controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran and burned a copy, Afghans took to the streets by the thousands.
In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, demonstrators stormed a United Nations office and killed 12 people.
In Kandahar, three people were killed in one demonstration and nine in another when police and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed.
American officials vociferously condemned the pastor's act.
"It was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible," said Gen. David Petraeus, who headed the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan at the time.
In 2010, Afghans protested outside the Forward Operating Base Mirwais in response to an alleged Quran burning inside the base. But ISAF said the suspected burning was a routine burn-pit session in which military documents are destroyed.
The protest turned violent when the Afghans began throwing rocks at the base guards. An ISAF service member shot a protester who aimed his AK-47 toward a guard tower, military officials said.
CNN's Masoud Popalzai contributed to this report from Kabul and Sarah Jones from Atlanta.
U.S. Commander Apologizes Over Koran Mistreatment
February 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The commander of international troops in Afghanistan has confirmed that foreign troops have "improperly" disposed of Islamic religious materials, including Korans.
U.S. General John Allen on February 21 offered "sincere apologies" to Afghanistan's government and people, saying the mistreatment of the Islamic materials at the Bagram base north of Kabul was "not intentional" and was halted as soon as officials discovered it.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them," Allen said. "The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities."
A crowd estimated at some 2,000 people gathered outside the security walls of the sprawling Bagram compound early on February 21 to protest the destruction of Korans.
Some in the crowd threw gasoline bombs and fired slingshots and hunting guns, while others shouted "Death to Americans" and "Death to infidels."
NATO guards responded by firing rubber bullets from a watchtower. An AFP photographer who was struck in the neck by a rubber bullet said he saw at least seven Afghans who were injured by rubber bullets.
No deaths were reported at the Bagram protests.
Several hundred people also gathered at protests in Kabul.
Found In The Trash
Ahmad Zaki Zahed, an Afghan provincial council chief, said U.S. military officials gave him about 30 copies of the Koran that had been recovered at Bagram before they were destroyed.
He said some of the books, which were used by Bagram detainees, were partially burned, while others had escaped damage.
Zahed said five Afghan workers at Bagram told him that the materials were in trash transported by two NATO soldiers in a truck late on February 20 to a pit where garbage is burned. He said the disposal process was stopped when the workers noticed the religious books in the trash.
Attempt To Prevent Violence
Allen's candid apology -- broadcast repeatedly on Afghan television -- appeared to be aimed at limiting damage and anger after similar incidents involving the Islamic holy book led to violence and deadly attacks on foreigners.
"I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused -- my apologies to the president of Afghanistan, my apologies to the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and most importantly, my apologies to the noble people of Afghanistan," Allen said in his televised apology.
"I would like to thank the local Afghan people who helped us identify the error and who worked with us to immediately take corrective action."
In April 2011, 10 people were killed and dozens injured in Afghanistan during days of unrest that were unleashed by the burning of a Koran by a radical U.S. Christian minister, Terry Jones, in Florida.
Afghanistan to Spy on Its Soldiers
Effort Seeks to Curtail Attacks by Local Uniformed Troops on Coalition Forces, Say Afghan and U.S. Military Leaders
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM FEBRUARY 21, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan is rolling out an ambitious plan to spy on its own soldiers, the most serious attempt so far to halt a string of attacks by Afghan troops on their Western comrades-in-arms, according to Afghan and American military leaders.
As part of the effort, agents of the National Directorate of Security, the country's spy agency, will be deployed to army units across the country to monitor Afghan soldiers at every step, from recruitment and training to deployment and home leave, these people said.
The intent is to identify and weed out any potential troublemakers before problems turn deadly, Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview. "Every soldier has to become an informer," he said.
So-called green-on-blue attacks by Afghan servicemen on coalition personnel claimed at least 77 lives in the past five years, with three-quarters occurring since early 2010. Last year, an analyst for the U.S. military warned that the attacks were turning into a "growing systemic threat" to the mission, in a study that has since become classified.
The severity of this threat was amplified Monday, when an Afghan policeman killed at least one coalition soldier from Albania in the southern Kandahar province, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the Afghan government was taking "unprecedented steps" to address the problem following the killing of four French soldiers by an Afghan service member on Jan. 20. That incident, in Kapisa province, prompted Paris to accelerate the withdrawal of its troops.
Afghan and American officials say they realize that sowing distrust between ISAF soldiers and their Afghan counterparts has become a Taliban strategy.
"They recognize that the real center of gravity on our side, the thing that holds us together, gives us our strength, is the relationship between Afghans and ISAF," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, commander of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. "They are going to continue to attack that."
As part of the new effort, NDS agents will keep watch on new recruits, conduct more thorough background checks than the Afghan army can currently undertake, monitor the young soldiers as they go through training, and embed in military forces with soldiers at their bases, officials said. The plan will include both uniformed Afghan intelligence officers mingling with the units and covert operatives among the soldiers who will report back to the NDS, officials said.
NDS will also attempt to keep an eye on Afghan soldiers when they go on leave. Military commanders are especially concerned about soldiers who return home to Taliban-infiltrated areas of Afghanistan and visit parts of neighboring Pakistan where the insurgent leaders plot their strategies.
"Home leave represents opportunities for people to rethink their relationship to the Afghans and their partners. Sometimes people come back changed from leave," said Gen. Bolger.
As another layer of protection, ISAF has also started placing armed soldiers in meetings with Afghan officials and service members, to act as a "guardian angel" able to react in case of a sudden green-on-blue attack. "It's a dangerous society and we have an enemy that's announced this as a tactic, so we'd actually be irresponsible if we don't take these kinds of steps," said Gen. Bolger.
Even though the Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of the recent green-on-blue attacks, American commanders say insurgent infiltrators represent only a small proportion of the fratricide killings. "Some of them are, in fact, infiltrators," said Gen. Allen. "But the majority have been people who have self-radicalized themselves for a whole variety of reasons."
Only one of the 43 attacks by Afghan police or soldiers on coalition forces since May 2007 involved more than one attacker, said Gen. Bolger. In many cases, investigators concluded that the attackers were driven by disputes with their coalition partners or by personal problems at home.
That appeared to be the case with Afghan Air Force Col. Ahmed Gul, who killed nine Americans in April 2011 at Kabul International Airport. Col. Gul lived in Pakistan for 18 months and told at least one person in 2008 that he planned to return to Afghanistan "because he wanted to kill Americans," according to a U.S. Air Force investigation that was released last month. It found no evidence of direct links between the colonel and the Taliban.
U.S. and Afghan military officials have been wrestling with this problem for years, but the Jan. 20 shooting of four French soldiers was a catalyst: The 21-year-old gunman, one of the few attackers to be captured alive, told investigators that he bribed a recruiter to join the army, ran away to Pakistan, and then returned to bribe the same recruiter so he could rejoin the army. —Matt Murray contributed to this article.
Afghanistan Confirms Indirect Contacts With Taliban Leader
February 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says his government talks to the Taliban "every day" through intermediaries about a potential settlement of the Afghan conflict.
Karzai told Australian television that the Taliban figures he communicated with indirectly include Mullah Mohammad Omar, who heads the movement's leadership in the so-called Quetta Shura.
In a related development, a member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council said he was optimistic about the outcome of potential peace talks with the Taliban.
Ismail Qasim Yar told RFE/RL that "until recently, the Taliban leadership would say they wouldn't start negotiations if there was even one American soldier in Afghanistan."
But now, he said, with tens of thousands of U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, the Taliban has been "engaged in talks with U.S. officials for some months."
He added that the first steps were being taken to pave the way for direct peace talks, which he said could begin "soon."
So far preliminary issues, such as an exchange of prisoners, are being discussed.
The 70-member Peace Council was set up two years ago.
Officials Say Taliban Behead Four Afghans For Alleged Spying
February 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province say Taliban militants have beheaded four Afghan civilians whom they believed had been spying for the Afghan government.
Officials of the provincial administration said the bodies of the men were discovered in the Washir district of Helmand.
No comment on the reported beheadings was immediately available from a Taliban representative.
20 Taliban surrender in western Afghan province
HERAT, Afghanistan, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- A group of 20 Taliban rebels surrendered to the government in the western Afghan province of Herat, the provincial governor said on Tuesday.
"A total of 20 Taliban fighters under Mullah Abdul Ghani renounced violence and joined the government-initiated peace process in Gulran district on Monday," Governor Daud Sabah told Xinhua.
He said that the former rebels also handed over weapons and homemade bombs to the security officials during a surrendering ceremony held in the district on Monday.
More than 460 anti-government militants have laid down arms and joined the peace and national reconciliation process over the past eight months in Herat province, according to Sabah.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
30 Insurgents Surrender to Afghan Authorities
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Insurgents in Kandahar and Herat on Monday laid down their weapons and agreed to support the Afghan government.
Ten insurgents laid down their weapons and surrendered to authorities in southern Kandahar province, local officials said.
The men were active in the Panjwaye district of Kandahar and organised anti-government activities there, provincial spokesman Zulmai Ayoubi told TOLOnews.
Mr Ayoubi added that security will improve as more insurgents renounce violence in the province.
Separately, in western Herat province 20 insurgents including their commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani, surrendered to the government in the Gularan district of the province which lies about 640km from Kabul, provincial governor Daud Saba said.
The men fought against the government in the district, he said.
The commander and their men submitted their weapons to security troops, he added.
In the past eight months, 400 insurgent groups have joined the Afghan peace process in the province, officials said.
Dozens of insurgents have recently joined the peace process in the provinces after Afghan and Nato forces increased military operations to clear the country of insurgents.
Afghans prepare to fight for their future in London
Reuters Feb 21, 2012
The sounds produced by the three Afghan athletes going to the London Olympics are fierce: elongated wails ricochet off the chipped and dilapidated walls of the taekwondo centre, while leather smacks and slaps at the boxing gym.
In a country wrenched by decades of war, perhaps it is no surprise that all three, a taekwondo male duo including the Beijing bronze medallist Rohullah Nikpai, and the teenage female boxer Sadaf Rahimi, followed fighting sports.
They were born into a conflict that still rages, and chronic insecurity and poverty mean they train in spartan spaces with little financial support, and currently freezing cold in the country's worst winter for 30 years.
"The difference between me and others is I want to show other countries that an Afghan girl can fight," the 17-year-old Rahimi said, squinting from a protective face mask that pinches her cheeks and black kohl-lined eyes.
Like Nikpai, Rahimi and her family fled to neighbouring Iran to escape the violence and brutal oppression of the Taliban, who were toppled just over a decade ago.
The austere Islamist group had publicly stoned women to death for charges of adultery at the Ghazi stadium, where Rahimi, her two sisters and the rest of the country's first team of female boxers, set up in 2007, practice today.
Her muscular shoulders rippling as she readies to throw punches at her coach, Rahimi said she feared the Taliban, who banned women from education, sports and most work, would regain a share in power through early talks with Afghan and US officials aimed at ending the Nato-led war.
"I hope the Taliban don't come back and take over," she said, wincing and starting to untie pink shoelaces over her knuckles, used instead of hard-to-get strapping. "But if they do, I urge them to let women engage in sports and go to school".
Mohammad Saber Sharifi, her coach and a former professional boxer and advocate of Afghan women's rights, especially through sport, said Rahimi had been given a wild card to compete at the Olympics, so she can sidestep further qualifying rounds.
She will soon leave Kabul's rutted and snowbound streets for London to train for the Olympics, where women's boxing is debuting as a sport, he said.
On the other side of Kabul from Ghazi stadium, in an equally barren practice space, 24-year-old Nikpai and fellow taekwondo Olympic contender Nesar Ahmad Bahawi kick and punch in preparation for competition at London's ExCel centre in August.
Wearing red chest and back guards made from the material used in bulletproof vests, the pair make high-pitched screeches as they take aim, typical of the sport.
But despite winning Afghanistan's first Olympic medal at Beijing four years ago, Nikpai bemoaned the lack of support given to sport in his country.
"Nesar and I don't have a good place to train, facilities, or even a regular transport system and proper electricity," he said, his breath steaming in the frigid air of the training centre, whose small heater did little to combat the frozen white landscape outside.
Poor conditions are not limited to taekwondo, whose national team members get a monthly stipend of between $10 (Dh 36.7) to $14.
Sharifi, whose team have never trained in a ring, said tiny budgets severely limit their success.
"We can't really compare ourselves to the world," said Nikpai, who was lured to taekwondo after watching hours of action films as a refugee in Iran. He returned to Kabul in 2004.
Nikpai received a hero's welcome upon his return from Beijing and was summoned to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presented him with a brand new flat, money and a car.
General Mohammad Zahir Akhbar, the head of the Afghan Olympic Committee, said he hopes more athletes in wrestling, judo and athletics will qualify for London. "We are war-torn, our athletes face economic and security problems, but we are aiming for medals," he said.
First-time Olympian Bahawi, who took up taekwondo at the behest of his family because he kept kicking his friends, said triumph at international competitions could be a way to lift security at home.
"Sport brings a message of peace and stability in the country," said the 25 year old from the country's eastern Kapisa province before knocking flat a teammate with two quick kicks on his side.
* Reuters
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