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Locals turn against Taliban in eastern Afghanistan
Taliban-forced school closures and attacks have presented a big problem in Afghanistan. Residents in Andar are rebelling against the Taliban, but that doesn't mean that they are siding with the government.
By Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor
A group of villagers in eastern Afghanistan took up arms against the Taliban and say they’ve now managed to regain control.
In Ghazni’s Andar district, one of the areas hit hardest by a series of recent Taliban-forced school closures, nearly 400 locals from eight villages in the eastern Afghan province reportedly gathered to confront the Taliban. In the two weeks of fighting, 11 people were reportedly killed; three from the citizens’ militia and eight Taliban fighters, but villagers say they’ve managed to reopen 81 of Andar’s 83 schools.
Though the fighting in Andar may serve as an indication that locals now have less patience for the Taliban’s extremist ideologies than they did almost 11 years ago, it’s not a clear beacon of hope that the tide is turning toward stability in Afghanistan. So far, the uprising remains localized and those who have stood up against the Taliban say they’re not ready to side with the government either.
“The uprising is happening because no one could tolerate the closure of the schools in the entire district. That’s why the ordinary citizens and tribal elders decided to start fighting for the schools,” says Nek Mohammad, a tribal elder in Ghanzi.
After the US leaves Afghanistan: 5 challenges
Throughout Afghanistan, violence dropped the first part of this year. Fighting in Ghazni continues and it remains one of the more violent areas in the country. However, locals say the intensity has diminished but caution that appearances can be deceiving. The Taliban still controls many aspects of their life and has simply focused more on high-profile assassinations, rather than fighting Afghan and international forces, they say.
“The fighting and the attacks have decreased but it doesn’t mean that the Taliban has left the areas where they were strong,” says Khial Mohammad Hussaini, a tribal elder from Ghazni.
Motorcycles and schools
Ghazni’s Taliban began threatening schools largely in response to a ban on unregistered motorcycles. Local authorities say the prohibition has severely restricted the insurgents’ movements and the Taliban sought to use school closures as a means to pressure the government to change the policy.
The pervasiveness of the Taliban is a daily challenge, say many Ghazni residents. Those in the predominately rural province say they feel trapped between the Taliban, the Afghan government, and international forces, none of whom offer enough support to make the locals feel comfortable.
“The schools are not the only problem. People are poor in the districts and sometimes 10 or 15 Taliban members will come to a family and force the family to feed them,” says Mohammad Jamil, a tribal elder in Ghazni. “People don’t feel free out there. Their freedom is restricted. If they want to stay alive out there, they’ll have to always say yes to the Taliban, and the government.”
Many locals are frustrated by lost development opportunities because of the instability. The US alone has appropriated $100 billion for the reconstruction of Afghanistan since the war began. Many locals say they’re frustrated with the insurgency for impeding rebuilding efforts, potentially cutting them off from aid money.
“When an insurgency loses the support of the people, its defeat is possible,” says Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies and a native of Ghazni. Referring to those who stood up to the Taliban in Andar.
Not necessarily pro-government
This disenchantment with the Taliban has not, however, necessarily translated into renewed support for the government. In the eyes of Ghazni residents, the local government in particular bears much of the blame for allowing the situation to slip from their control.
This disappointment has led some of those now fighting the Taliban to say they’d turn away government support, preferring to handle their own problems.
“In Ghazni when the Taliban grows strong, it doesn’t mean that the people support them. People don’t really support them. They are just quiet because they don’t have any government support behind them. That’s why they are accepting the Taliban out there in their area, but they’re not happy with it,” says Shah Gul Rezayee, a member of parliament from Ghanzi.
Despite the success of those who stood up to the Taliban in Andar district, not everyone supports them. One resident of Andar who asked to withhold his name for security reasons said that he did not see those who stood up to the Taliban as liberators, but rather, it looked more like the beginnings of yet a new militia with its own agenda.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
Intrigue in Karzai Family as an Afghan Era Closes
By JAMES RISEN The New York Times June 3, 2012
WASHINGTON — With the end in sight for Hamid Karzai’s days in office as Afghanistan’s president, members of his family are trying to protect their status, weighing how to hold on to power while secretly fighting among themselves for control of the fortune they have amassed in the last decade.
One brother, Qayum Karzai, is mulling a run for the presidency when his brother steps down in 2014. Other brothers have been battling over the crown jewel in the family empire — the largest private residential development in Afghanistan. The conflict over the project, known as Aino Mena, has provoked accusations of theft and extortion, even reports of an assassination plot.
“It’s family,” Qayum Karzai said. “They get upset, and over time they get over it. I hope they get over it.”
One Karzai brother is also said to have imprisoned a longtime Karzai aide in an effort to make him disclose the whereabouts of money and assets that relatives suspect were hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, another of President Karzai’s brothers and the political boss of southern Afghanistan who was assassinated last year. He was often accused of benefiting from the Afghan opium trade and an array of corrupt deals, though he denied such claims.
The looming withdrawal of American and NATO troops by 2014 from the still unresolved war, along with President Karzai’s coming exit, is causing anxiety among the Afghan elite who have been among the war’s biggest beneficiaries, enriching themselves from American military contracts, insider business deals with foreign companies, government corruption and narcotics trafficking.
“If you are one of the Afghan oligarchs, where you put your money and where you live is an open question now,” Seth Jones, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, said. “That means you are thinking about moving your money and finding a backup option about where to live.”
The president’s family — many of whom are American citizens who returned to Afghanistan after an American-led coalition toppled the Taliban in 2001 and brought Mr. Karzai to power — are among those who have prospered the most, by the accounts of many Afghan businessmen and government insiders.
Several political observers in Kabul said any candidacy by Qayum Karzai, a longtime Maryland resident who has served in the Afghan Parliament, would be a long shot because of the nation’s fatigue with Hamid Karzai and widespread resentment over the rampant corruption that has tainted his government.
Even some of the Karzai family’s own business partners are among the critics.
“We have an illegitimate and irresponsible government because of Karzai and his family,” said Abdullah Nadi, an Afghan-American developer from Virginia who is a partner in the Aino Mena housing development, but who is trying to get out of the venture.
While exploiting their opportunities in Afghanistan, the extended Karzai family has for years simmered with tensions, jealousies, business rivalries, blood feuds and even accusations of murder. With the often-fractious family, it can be difficult to discern the truth, but everyone agrees that the conflict over control of its empire can be traced back to the death in July 2011 of Ahmed Wali Karzai, who had risen from working as a waiter in Chicago to become one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan, serving as the chairman of the Kandahar Provincial Council.
His murder, by an Afghan thought to be a loyal supporter, left a power vacuum in Kandahar — and in the Karzai family. President Karzai appointed another brother, Shah Wali Karzai, to take on their slain brother’s role as head of the Populzai, the Karzai’s family tribe.
No one expected much from him. Quiet and reserved, he was largely overshadowed by Ahmed Wali Karzai, and even lived in his more powerful brother’s compound in Kandahar.
But Shah Wali Karzai has been transformed in the past year. In addition to his role as tribal chief, he serves as project manager of Aino Mena, the sprawling residential development on the outskirts of Kandahar being developed by AFCO, a corporation owned by another brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and his four partners.
They have built 3,000 homes, with plans for a total of 14,700. The developers are building on 10,000 acres, land that Afghan military officials have claimed was illegally seized from the Ministry of Defense.
Emboldened after Ahmed Wali Karzai’s death, Shah Wali Karzai appeared no longer satisfied to serve just as an employee at Aino Mena. At some point in the past few months, he created his own corporation in Kandahar and then secretly moved all of the cash from the housing development’s bank accounts to those of his new business.
According to several AFCO partners, Shah Wali Karzai had transferred about $55 million. “He simply opened another company, and put the money in that company,” Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview.
Mr. Nadi, one of the partners in Aino Mena, accused Shah Wali Karzai of forging his signature on documents to make it appear as if he had approved the creation of Shah Wali Karzai’s company as the new corporate parent of Aino Mena. “I had no clue what the hell was going on,” Mr. Nadi said in an interview.
When Mahmoud Karzai discovered what his brother had done, he demanded that Shah Wali return the money. But Shah Wali refused, and instead insisted that he be made a partner in Aino Mena. Mahmoud and his partners refused, and the two sides settled into a bitter stalemate.
Shah Wali Karzai does not deny transferring the money to his corporation. But he justified his actions by saying that he is protecting the money for the sake of the people of Kandahar. He has told others in Kandahar that if he had not taken the money, Mahmoud Karzai could have moved it to secret bank accounts in Dubai. Aino Mena would then have risked failure just like Kabul Bank, another of Mahmoud Karzai’s business ventures, he argued.
Mahmoud Karzai was a key figure in the scandal surrounding the near-collapse of the bank, which was Afghanistan’s largest, in 2010. It lost about $900 million in insider deals, much of which is believed to have ended up in secret bank accounts in Dubai. Last year, a federal grand jury in New York began a criminal investigation into Mahmoud Karzai’s business activities in Afghanistan, pursuing accusations of tax evasion, racketeering and extortion. No charges have been brought against Mahmoud Karzai, who is a United States citizen.
“The money belongs to the people of Kandahar,” Shah Wali Karzai said in a statement in response to questions about transferring the housing development funds. “They paid much of that money for the infrastructure at Aino Mena.”
He added, “When I became project manager, they owed money to the bank and local contractors, and all the money was paid off as I turned around that company from an almost bankrupt one to a successful one.”
Mahmoud Karzai said he and his partners have filed complaints with the Afghan attorney general, accusing Shah Wali Karzai of stealing their money and using extortion to gain a partnership stake in Aino Mena. The attorney general has refused to move against Shah Wali Karzai, apparently unwilling to get involved in what he sees as a family battle.
Qayum Karzai said he attempted to negotiate a settlement, but has backed off. “Tempers were flaring up,” he said in an interview. “I tried to mediate, but I failed.”
President Karzai has been reluctant to take sides in the family dispute, though his government has been drawn into the matter. The Afghan Central Bank has finally intervened, freezing the bank accounts of Shah Wali Karzai’s company. Mahmoud Karzai said a deal was in the works, but other partners said the dispute had not been resolved.
In the midst of the conflict, Afghan security officials uncovered a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai. About two months ago, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan domestic intelligence agency, identified at least three Afghans, including two former employees of the Aino Mena development, who had been involved in a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai and possibly others. One man was arrested and later released. The two former Aino Mena employees implicated in the plot had both been fired by Mahmoud Karzai.
Afghan security officials have not accused Shah Wali Karzai of any involvement in the scheme. He denies any involvement in it, and Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview, “I refuse to believe that my brother had anything to do with it.”
Family members said that Shah Wali Karzai had also been trying to unlock the secrets of his dead brother’s fortune.
After Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed, his most trusted aide, Zamarai — like many Afghans, he uses only one name — moved to Dubai. Reports of his lavish lifestyle there fed suspicions within the family that Zamarai had access to riches hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps through accounts and properties that had been placed in Zamarai’s name.
When Zamarai returned recently to Kandahar — some family members claim he was lured back by Aziz Karzai, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Russia and President Karzai’s uncle, an account the envoy flatly denies — he was detained by security personnel working for Shah Wali Karzai, according to relatives.
Mahmoud Karzai says he believes that Zamarai knows the whereabouts of “one or two million dollars.” Others familiar with the matter say that Shah Wali Karzai suspects that Zamarai knows about hundreds of millions of dollars more hidden in Dubai and elsewhere, including assets in Afghan businesses and real estate.
Zamarai is being held at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, where he is guarded by Shah Wali Karzai’s security personnel rather than the regular prison guards, according to several people familiar with the matter but who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the Karzai family.
He has not been charged with any crime.
When asked through Gerald Posner, a Karzai family lawyer, about Zamarai and whether he is holding him, Shah Wali Karzai declined to comment.
New 'strategic' plan for Afghan-China ties: Kabul
AFP via Yahoo! Malaysia News
Afghanistan and China will this week announce the elevation of their relationship "to a new strategic level", Kabul's foreign ministry said Monday, as NATO forces prepare to pull out of the country.
The announcement will be made by Presidents Hamid Karzai and Hu Jintao on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai told AFP.
The SCO is a Central Asian grouping headed by Beijing and Moscow, and intended as a counterweight to US influence in the region.
"This new step is a solid reaffirmation of the ever growing importance and significance of the friendship and economic, political, cultural and other fields of cooperation and partnership between Afghanistan and China," Mosazai said.
The two countries share views and commitment over the security and stability of Afghanistan and the wider region and the necessity of joint efforts "to tackle the menaces of terrorism and extremism", he said.
Mosazai gave no details of any security role China might play in Kabul's fight against hardline Islamist Taliban insurgents, saying the announcement "will be fleshed out by both sides as we move forward in our friendship and cooperation".
Afghanistan last month signed a strategic agreement with the United States, covering relations between the two countries after US-led NATO forces withdraw in 2014, and with several other countries including France and India.
No pact will be signed in Beijing but it is likely that a joint declaration will be developed into a future agreement, a government source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
China has already secured major oil and copper mining concessions in Afghanistan, which is believed to be sitting on more than $1 trillion worth of minerals.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and focuses on regional issues including anti-terrorism.
Afghanistan will attend the Beijing summit as a guest member.
Interview: China is Afghanistan's most reliable friend: Chinese Ambassador
KABUL, June 4 (Xinhua) -- China is the most reliable friend of Afghanistan, said Xu Feihong, Chinese ambassador to the war-torn country, just days before Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to China.
During his third ever visit to China, according to Xu, Karzai will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit as a guest for the fifth time, after which he will meet with Chinese leaders and visit several Chinese cities and provinces such as Beijing and Hubei.
"SCO has always seen Afghanistan as an important partner in the region," noted the Chinese ambassador, "We have been engaging in close coordination with Afghanistan in areas like trade, culture and fighting terrorism, secessionism, extremism and narcotics."
As a significant platform for Afghanistan to enhance cooperation and dialogue with its neighbors, Xu added, SCO will furthre strengthen cooperation and coordination on Afghan-related issues, in an effort to improve Afghanistan's capability to deal with new challenges during transition and achieve peace, stalibility, independence and development in the long term.
In 1955, China and Afghanistan established diplomatic relations, which were upgraded to the Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership in 2006. The two countries have ever since kept frequent high- level exchanges and fruitful cooperation in terms of politics, economy, non-traditional security and cultural exchanges.
The development of China-Afghanistan relationship has rich historical background, pervasive public support and realistic significance, serving as a perfect example of mutual respect and support among developing countries, accordnig to the top Chinese diplomat in Afghanistan.
Xu spoke highly of Afghanistan's achievements in post-war reconstruction. "In the past ten years, under the leadership of Afghan government and support of the international community, the reconstruction has born fruitful results. Political and national reconciliation through peaceful negotiation has become a consensus among all parties." Afghanistan also has seen improvement in areas like security, economy, social welfare and human rights, he added.
The Chinese diplomat also called upon the international community to fulfill their promises in 2011 Bonn Conference and previous international conferences regarding Afghan issue, in a collective effort to build a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.
Over the past 10 years, China has been providing a considerable amount of aid to Afghanistan, building infrastructure, promoting mutual cooperation, training Afghan officials and professionals and offering scholarships to Afghan students, said Xu, and will in its own way continue to provide assistance to the Afghan security forces within its capacity, and help Afghanistan strengthen its security competence.
"China is the most reliable friend of Afghanistan," concluded Xu, "We will always stand side by side with Afghanistan and its people."
Firefight, air strikes kill 3 Taliban, wounds 9 including 5 Afghan soldiers
LOGAR, Afghanistan, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Three Taliban fighters were killed and nine others including five Afghan soldiers sustained injuries as clash flared up between Afghan soldiers and Taliban fighters in Logar province 60 km south of capital Kabul on Monday, a local official said.
"A group of Afghan soldiers were on routine patrol in Charkh district this afternoon when the Taliban militants ambushed and injured five soldiers. The soldiers called in NATO-led forces airpower and the aircrafts pounded Taliban positions killing three on the spot," governor of Charkh district Hamayon Farooq told Xinhua.
Four civilians were also injured in the firefight, he said without giving more details.
Taliban militants are yet to make comment.
Roadside bomb kills 2 students in Kabul
KABUL, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Two students lost their lives as anti-government militants detonated a roadside bomb in their attack of a military vehicle in the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday, Kabul police said in a press release.
"Two innocent students were martyred as a mine planted by insurgents was detonated by a remote control at 12:30 p.m. (local time) when a military vehicle was passing the area in Mosahi district," reads the press release.
There were no casualties on the military personnel, it added.
Taliban are Against Peace: NDS
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 03 June 2012
The Taliban are against peace and stability in the country and are trying to increase their insurgent activities together with the terrorist groups in Pakistan, NDS officials said Sunday.
Spokesman for the National Directorate of Security Sahfiqullah Taheri said that as the international community is putting more pressure on Pakistan to combat terrorism honestly, the insurgents are trying to increase violence in Afghanistan through the Taliban and other Pakistani terrorist networks.
"The Taliban don't want peace in Afghanistan, they want to overrun the recent political achievements in the country, in coordination with terrorist groups in Pakistan, they are trying to escalate violence,"Taheri told reporters in a press briefing.
He also said that several people were arrested recently while involved in insurgent activity with documents and ID cards of Pakistan.
"We have proof. They were born in Pakistan, trained in Pakistani Madarasas and terrorist training camps," he told reporters, adding that members of five terrorist groups were killed or detained recently in Helmand, Ghazni and Kabul with Pakistani nationals among them.
Feature: With war and neglect, Afghans suffer from environmental problems
by Farid Behbud, Yangtze Yan
KABUL, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The war-weary Kabulis bear numerous challenges including environmental problems and ecological contamination besides the protracted war and insurgency.
"These brick kilns are sending thick black smoke to the sky regularly, 24 hours a day without any break," said Abdul Wodud, a resident of Deh Yaya, a sub-district in the northeastern outskirts of Kabul.
"There are more than 1,000 brick kilns in Dah Sabz district and surrounding areas which cause enormous environmental problems in Dah Sabz district and neighboring areas including Dah Yaya sub- district," Wodud told Xinhua on Monday ahead of the World Environment Day which is observed every year on June 5 to raise global awareness of the need to take positive environmental actions.
In Afghanistan, continued drought and protracted war added to the environmental problems. There is no modern garbage disposal center to digest the garbage produced by some 4 million people in Kabul or recycle factories in Kabul and other big cities.
"We have had a beautiful view in Dah Sabz 20 years ago with dozens of grape gardens around here but we have lost them all due to drought and conflicts. Nowadays those gardens have been changed to trenches and cavities and those grape trees have been changed to brick kilns," Wodud said.
The volume of pollution in Kabul city, where all political, military and diplomatic missions are located, can be gauged from the fact that a thick ply of cloud-like dust covers the city space almost every day.
"The environment and the air of our cities including Kabul are hugely polluted which is extremely hazardous to our health and even causes ailment and mortality," Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, the deputy chief of Afghan Environment Directorate, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The brick kilns have been denounced by environmentalists for a long period but the government has failed to close them down in the outskirts of Kabul and other areas nearby.
"We are being driven crazy with this situation, my children are sick, you know, those kilns burn rubber and old car tire, discharging poisonous gas to the area, causing the incidence of respiratory diseases in our neighborhood," Wodud went on to say.
Kabul, the capital of the war-torn but under-construction Central Asian nation, has not been spared, as poor civic amenities, battered streets and pitiable sewerage system have hugely contributed to the pollution there.
Environmental official Malikyar said that the rate of pollution in Kabul has reached the alarming level and warned "living in Kabul would be unsafe after five years if the status quo continues. "
Contrary to some developed and developing nations, Afghanistan faces no problem of greenhouse gases, rather the lack of drainage system and the surge of second-hand vehicles that have caused the air pollution.
And there is no chemical factory or plant in Afghan cities that produce carbon dioxide or other gases. However, burning tires in brick kilns, public baths, battered roads, congested streets, smoke emitting from vehicles and poor forestation campaign have been contributing to the polluting environment.
"Building unplanned houses, dense population and the lack of sewage system would gradually contaminate underground water in Kabul and eventually cause a variety of diseases," Malikyar warned.
More than 50 percent of Afghans are said to have no access to potable water.
Like security problems in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan, the high rate of pollution would also hurt people, said Abdullah Fahim, advisor to the Afghan Public Health Ministry.
"The polluted air in Kabul causes a variety of diseases including skin disease, eye problems and even lung cancer," Fahim told Xinhua in a telephone interview.
Fahim, who works as a medical practitioner, warned that the presence of lead in the polluted air would also cause brain ailment, affect digest system and cause heart problems.
"In the past we had nothing in this territory but a blue sky and limpid water in rivers in Kabul and across the country but at the present we have a gray sky and a river full of garbage and plastic bags here in Kabul," said Ghulam Hazrat, a Kabul resident.
"Since working in Kabul as a taxi driver over the past four years, I have gotten the respiratory problem," said taxi driver Farhad Mohammadi, complaining that "the Kabul municipality has set up a landfill on a saline area in northern edge of Kabul airport just beside a road which goes to Kasaba neighborhood where thousands of families live."
Mohammadi said the municipality authorities should have carried out a series of environmental recovery work in that saline area with salty mud, yet they changed it to a landfill and dozens of trucks discharge trash there every day.
"Several dozens of waste scavenger, including children, rush to the area to sort out for plastic, metal and other materials for selling. When I pass this area I close up my car windows but the malodorous garbage of the landfill drives me crazy," Mohammadi said.
Calling on Afghans to make efforts to keep the environment clean, a number of non-governmental organizations including a Kabul- based Green Club and Union of Afghanistan Youth, in addition to the government's support for greenery, plan to celebrate the International Environment Day by holding a number of programs.
Taliban Beaten in North, Isaf Major says
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 03 June 2012
The Taliban's attacks on Afghan and foreign security forces have decreased since last year, the top Isaf commander in the north said Sunday.
Major General Erich Pfeffer said that while improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are still a major challenge for peace and stability in Afghanistan, he stressed that the Taliban had lost their capability to fight the Afghan security forces.
"With all challenges and problems, we are looking forward to major progress in strengthening the Afghan military forces," Pfeffer said.
"They have already had remarkable progress in the past, and we will continue supporting them."
He also emphasised that Afghan security forces should properly trained and fully equipped to take security responsibilities by the end of 2014.
The security transition is underway with the first and second phases accomplished, and the third underway. Plans for the fourth phase are in progress.
With the completion of the third phase, more than 75% of the country will be under the full control of the Afghan security forces.
Takhar School Girls Poisoned
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 03 June 2012
More than 30 female students from Nahid Shahid high school in the Farkhar district of northern Takhar district were apparently poisoned Saturday, a provincial spokesman Mustafa Rasouli said.
This has been the seventh time in as many weeks that there has been reports of school poisonings, mainly in Takhar province.
Rasouli said that local security officials had put money towards helping arrest any person who poisons students in Takhar province, with an amount of 200,000 Afs.
Meanwhile, Afghan lawmakers have condemned the incidents and called it an inhumane and non-Islamic act. They also called on the ministries of interior, education, public health and the national directorate of security to do more investigations in this regard and send the results to the parliament within two weeks.
"The representatives condemn the poisoning of girls as an inhumane and non-Islamic act," Herat MP Mohammad Saleh Saljoqi said.
The MPs suggested the work being done by local officials in investigating the incidents is not satisfactory.
"There is a possibility that such actions are pre-planned, the report from local officials were not satisfactory and should be followed seriously," Badakhshan MP Fauzia Kofi said Sunday.
"Some of the students who were poisoned in the past incident have been affected with psychological disorders, even though their families treated them in Pakistan."
School poisoning has turned into major problem for the Afghan government, especially with Takhar female students seemingly being the main targets.
Iran Issues List Of Banned Cities, Banned University Courses For Afghans
RFE/RL June 03, 2012
Iran's National Organization for Educational Testing has issued a list of university courses that are banned for Afghans living in Iran, including atomic physics, nuclear engineering, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, and military sciences.
The list has been published by the semi-official Mehr news agency, which reports that Afghans are banned from studying courses that will create "employment obligations" for the Islamic republic.
Mehr also says that Afghans can apply only at universities that are not located in areas where they have been banned from living.
The "prohibited areas" where Afghans are not allowed to reside, according to Mehr's list, include a dozen provinces and a number of cities in different parts of Iran.
Recent limitations on Afghans living in Iran have angered some Iranians who have protested mainly on social media.
Afghans see slow healthcare improvements
Aljazeera By Bernard Smith June 4, 2012
Most of our travelling around Afghanistan involves being thrown around in the back of an ageing 4x4 vehicle as it bashes around on unmade, potholed, rutted roads. So it was with our trip to Pashtun Zarghun in the western province of Herat, two hours each way trying to not smack your head on the doorframe.
Properly laid, tarmacked roads transform rural communities. They let farmers take their goods to market while others can access better healthcare in urban centres. Roads can also open up closed communities to new ideas and different ways of thinking. It is also harder for the Taliban to plant homemade bombs under tarmacked roads, whereas it is easy to bury one under a few centimetres of gravel.
There was a bomb planted along the road we travelled to Pashtun Zarghun. As we hurtled down the dirt road we saw the army ahead, directing people around where the bomb had been planted. A villager had tipped-off the police. The army officer in charge told us that it was a remote controlled device adding that our team might have been the target. We always take a police escort on journeys into rural areas. It is possible news of our plans leaked out.
Anyway, this area is supposed to be comparatively safe. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces handed over security responsibility to Afghan forces six months ago. But the Afghan officer at the bomb site said that, in the last three to four weeks, the Taliban have started to reappear in the villages on the way to Pashtun Zarghun.
Our focus this time in Pashtun Zarghun was healthcare.
There have been major improvements in the last ten years. Afghans can expect to live up to 64 years, up from 50 a few years ago, according to a survey conducted by the Afghan foreign ministry that was paid for by foreign donors. But rural healthcare is basic. Children get immunised and there are midwives to deliver babies.
However, if a pregnant woman starts bleeding or showing other complications she will have to make the 60km journey to the main hospital in Herat city. That means a two-hour drive on the rutted dirt road. There's an 80 per cent chance she will die on the journey, according to a doctor at Pashtun Zarghun's clinic.
Ghulam Naby Azizi, Pashtun Zarghun's district governor, told us that he was desperate for a road to link to Herat, and that he had been promised one five years ago.
"With all the aid that has been given to Afghanistan in the past 10 years nothing has come to Pashtun Zarghun. You have seen the road – we do not have one laid road in Pashtun Zarghun," he said.
Azizi has been district governor for 10 months. Locally he seems popular, particularly for co-ordinating operations against the Taliban. The area is still safe he says. But at the end of the interview Azizi tells us he's just resigned his post, because, he says, he's not been paid since he started the job.
So soon, Azizi will make the bone shaking journey out of Pashtun Zarghun along the unmade road where the Taliban is regaining influence.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Taliban-forced school closures and attacks have presented a big problem in Afghanistan. Residents in Andar are rebelling against the Taliban, but that doesn't mean that they are siding with the government.
By Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor
A group of villagers in eastern Afghanistan took up arms against the Taliban and say they’ve now managed to regain control.
In Ghazni’s Andar district, one of the areas hit hardest by a series of recent Taliban-forced school closures, nearly 400 locals from eight villages in the eastern Afghan province reportedly gathered to confront the Taliban. In the two weeks of fighting, 11 people were reportedly killed; three from the citizens’ militia and eight Taliban fighters, but villagers say they’ve managed to reopen 81 of Andar’s 83 schools.
Though the fighting in Andar may serve as an indication that locals now have less patience for the Taliban’s extremist ideologies than they did almost 11 years ago, it’s not a clear beacon of hope that the tide is turning toward stability in Afghanistan. So far, the uprising remains localized and those who have stood up against the Taliban say they’re not ready to side with the government either.
“The uprising is happening because no one could tolerate the closure of the schools in the entire district. That’s why the ordinary citizens and tribal elders decided to start fighting for the schools,” says Nek Mohammad, a tribal elder in Ghanzi.
After the US leaves Afghanistan: 5 challenges
Throughout Afghanistan, violence dropped the first part of this year. Fighting in Ghazni continues and it remains one of the more violent areas in the country. However, locals say the intensity has diminished but caution that appearances can be deceiving. The Taliban still controls many aspects of their life and has simply focused more on high-profile assassinations, rather than fighting Afghan and international forces, they say.
“The fighting and the attacks have decreased but it doesn’t mean that the Taliban has left the areas where they were strong,” says Khial Mohammad Hussaini, a tribal elder from Ghazni.
Motorcycles and schools
Ghazni’s Taliban began threatening schools largely in response to a ban on unregistered motorcycles. Local authorities say the prohibition has severely restricted the insurgents’ movements and the Taliban sought to use school closures as a means to pressure the government to change the policy.
The pervasiveness of the Taliban is a daily challenge, say many Ghazni residents. Those in the predominately rural province say they feel trapped between the Taliban, the Afghan government, and international forces, none of whom offer enough support to make the locals feel comfortable.
“The schools are not the only problem. People are poor in the districts and sometimes 10 or 15 Taliban members will come to a family and force the family to feed them,” says Mohammad Jamil, a tribal elder in Ghazni. “People don’t feel free out there. Their freedom is restricted. If they want to stay alive out there, they’ll have to always say yes to the Taliban, and the government.”
Many locals are frustrated by lost development opportunities because of the instability. The US alone has appropriated $100 billion for the reconstruction of Afghanistan since the war began. Many locals say they’re frustrated with the insurgency for impeding rebuilding efforts, potentially cutting them off from aid money.
“When an insurgency loses the support of the people, its defeat is possible,” says Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies and a native of Ghazni. Referring to those who stood up to the Taliban in Andar.
Not necessarily pro-government
This disenchantment with the Taliban has not, however, necessarily translated into renewed support for the government. In the eyes of Ghazni residents, the local government in particular bears much of the blame for allowing the situation to slip from their control.
This disappointment has led some of those now fighting the Taliban to say they’d turn away government support, preferring to handle their own problems.
“In Ghazni when the Taliban grows strong, it doesn’t mean that the people support them. People don’t really support them. They are just quiet because they don’t have any government support behind them. That’s why they are accepting the Taliban out there in their area, but they’re not happy with it,” says Shah Gul Rezayee, a member of parliament from Ghanzi.
Despite the success of those who stood up to the Taliban in Andar district, not everyone supports them. One resident of Andar who asked to withhold his name for security reasons said that he did not see those who stood up to the Taliban as liberators, but rather, it looked more like the beginnings of yet a new militia with its own agenda.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
Intrigue in Karzai Family as an Afghan Era Closes
By JAMES RISEN The New York Times June 3, 2012
WASHINGTON — With the end in sight for Hamid Karzai’s days in office as Afghanistan’s president, members of his family are trying to protect their status, weighing how to hold on to power while secretly fighting among themselves for control of the fortune they have amassed in the last decade.
One brother, Qayum Karzai, is mulling a run for the presidency when his brother steps down in 2014. Other brothers have been battling over the crown jewel in the family empire — the largest private residential development in Afghanistan. The conflict over the project, known as Aino Mena, has provoked accusations of theft and extortion, even reports of an assassination plot.
“It’s family,” Qayum Karzai said. “They get upset, and over time they get over it. I hope they get over it.”
One Karzai brother is also said to have imprisoned a longtime Karzai aide in an effort to make him disclose the whereabouts of money and assets that relatives suspect were hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, another of President Karzai’s brothers and the political boss of southern Afghanistan who was assassinated last year. He was often accused of benefiting from the Afghan opium trade and an array of corrupt deals, though he denied such claims.
The looming withdrawal of American and NATO troops by 2014 from the still unresolved war, along with President Karzai’s coming exit, is causing anxiety among the Afghan elite who have been among the war’s biggest beneficiaries, enriching themselves from American military contracts, insider business deals with foreign companies, government corruption and narcotics trafficking.
“If you are one of the Afghan oligarchs, where you put your money and where you live is an open question now,” Seth Jones, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, said. “That means you are thinking about moving your money and finding a backup option about where to live.”
The president’s family — many of whom are American citizens who returned to Afghanistan after an American-led coalition toppled the Taliban in 2001 and brought Mr. Karzai to power — are among those who have prospered the most, by the accounts of many Afghan businessmen and government insiders.
Several political observers in Kabul said any candidacy by Qayum Karzai, a longtime Maryland resident who has served in the Afghan Parliament, would be a long shot because of the nation’s fatigue with Hamid Karzai and widespread resentment over the rampant corruption that has tainted his government.
Even some of the Karzai family’s own business partners are among the critics.
“We have an illegitimate and irresponsible government because of Karzai and his family,” said Abdullah Nadi, an Afghan-American developer from Virginia who is a partner in the Aino Mena housing development, but who is trying to get out of the venture.
While exploiting their opportunities in Afghanistan, the extended Karzai family has for years simmered with tensions, jealousies, business rivalries, blood feuds and even accusations of murder. With the often-fractious family, it can be difficult to discern the truth, but everyone agrees that the conflict over control of its empire can be traced back to the death in July 2011 of Ahmed Wali Karzai, who had risen from working as a waiter in Chicago to become one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan, serving as the chairman of the Kandahar Provincial Council.
His murder, by an Afghan thought to be a loyal supporter, left a power vacuum in Kandahar — and in the Karzai family. President Karzai appointed another brother, Shah Wali Karzai, to take on their slain brother’s role as head of the Populzai, the Karzai’s family tribe.
No one expected much from him. Quiet and reserved, he was largely overshadowed by Ahmed Wali Karzai, and even lived in his more powerful brother’s compound in Kandahar.
But Shah Wali Karzai has been transformed in the past year. In addition to his role as tribal chief, he serves as project manager of Aino Mena, the sprawling residential development on the outskirts of Kandahar being developed by AFCO, a corporation owned by another brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and his four partners.
They have built 3,000 homes, with plans for a total of 14,700. The developers are building on 10,000 acres, land that Afghan military officials have claimed was illegally seized from the Ministry of Defense.
Emboldened after Ahmed Wali Karzai’s death, Shah Wali Karzai appeared no longer satisfied to serve just as an employee at Aino Mena. At some point in the past few months, he created his own corporation in Kandahar and then secretly moved all of the cash from the housing development’s bank accounts to those of his new business.
According to several AFCO partners, Shah Wali Karzai had transferred about $55 million. “He simply opened another company, and put the money in that company,” Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview.
Mr. Nadi, one of the partners in Aino Mena, accused Shah Wali Karzai of forging his signature on documents to make it appear as if he had approved the creation of Shah Wali Karzai’s company as the new corporate parent of Aino Mena. “I had no clue what the hell was going on,” Mr. Nadi said in an interview.
When Mahmoud Karzai discovered what his brother had done, he demanded that Shah Wali return the money. But Shah Wali refused, and instead insisted that he be made a partner in Aino Mena. Mahmoud and his partners refused, and the two sides settled into a bitter stalemate.
Shah Wali Karzai does not deny transferring the money to his corporation. But he justified his actions by saying that he is protecting the money for the sake of the people of Kandahar. He has told others in Kandahar that if he had not taken the money, Mahmoud Karzai could have moved it to secret bank accounts in Dubai. Aino Mena would then have risked failure just like Kabul Bank, another of Mahmoud Karzai’s business ventures, he argued.
Mahmoud Karzai was a key figure in the scandal surrounding the near-collapse of the bank, which was Afghanistan’s largest, in 2010. It lost about $900 million in insider deals, much of which is believed to have ended up in secret bank accounts in Dubai. Last year, a federal grand jury in New York began a criminal investigation into Mahmoud Karzai’s business activities in Afghanistan, pursuing accusations of tax evasion, racketeering and extortion. No charges have been brought against Mahmoud Karzai, who is a United States citizen.
“The money belongs to the people of Kandahar,” Shah Wali Karzai said in a statement in response to questions about transferring the housing development funds. “They paid much of that money for the infrastructure at Aino Mena.”
He added, “When I became project manager, they owed money to the bank and local contractors, and all the money was paid off as I turned around that company from an almost bankrupt one to a successful one.”
Mahmoud Karzai said he and his partners have filed complaints with the Afghan attorney general, accusing Shah Wali Karzai of stealing their money and using extortion to gain a partnership stake in Aino Mena. The attorney general has refused to move against Shah Wali Karzai, apparently unwilling to get involved in what he sees as a family battle.
Qayum Karzai said he attempted to negotiate a settlement, but has backed off. “Tempers were flaring up,” he said in an interview. “I tried to mediate, but I failed.”
President Karzai has been reluctant to take sides in the family dispute, though his government has been drawn into the matter. The Afghan Central Bank has finally intervened, freezing the bank accounts of Shah Wali Karzai’s company. Mahmoud Karzai said a deal was in the works, but other partners said the dispute had not been resolved.
In the midst of the conflict, Afghan security officials uncovered a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai. About two months ago, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan domestic intelligence agency, identified at least three Afghans, including two former employees of the Aino Mena development, who had been involved in a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai and possibly others. One man was arrested and later released. The two former Aino Mena employees implicated in the plot had both been fired by Mahmoud Karzai.
Afghan security officials have not accused Shah Wali Karzai of any involvement in the scheme. He denies any involvement in it, and Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview, “I refuse to believe that my brother had anything to do with it.”
Family members said that Shah Wali Karzai had also been trying to unlock the secrets of his dead brother’s fortune.
After Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed, his most trusted aide, Zamarai — like many Afghans, he uses only one name — moved to Dubai. Reports of his lavish lifestyle there fed suspicions within the family that Zamarai had access to riches hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps through accounts and properties that had been placed in Zamarai’s name.
When Zamarai returned recently to Kandahar — some family members claim he was lured back by Aziz Karzai, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Russia and President Karzai’s uncle, an account the envoy flatly denies — he was detained by security personnel working for Shah Wali Karzai, according to relatives.
Mahmoud Karzai says he believes that Zamarai knows the whereabouts of “one or two million dollars.” Others familiar with the matter say that Shah Wali Karzai suspects that Zamarai knows about hundreds of millions of dollars more hidden in Dubai and elsewhere, including assets in Afghan businesses and real estate.
Zamarai is being held at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, where he is guarded by Shah Wali Karzai’s security personnel rather than the regular prison guards, according to several people familiar with the matter but who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the Karzai family.
He has not been charged with any crime.
When asked through Gerald Posner, a Karzai family lawyer, about Zamarai and whether he is holding him, Shah Wali Karzai declined to comment.
New 'strategic' plan for Afghan-China ties: Kabul
AFP via Yahoo! Malaysia News
Afghanistan and China will this week announce the elevation of their relationship "to a new strategic level", Kabul's foreign ministry said Monday, as NATO forces prepare to pull out of the country.
The announcement will be made by Presidents Hamid Karzai and Hu Jintao on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai told AFP.
The SCO is a Central Asian grouping headed by Beijing and Moscow, and intended as a counterweight to US influence in the region.
"This new step is a solid reaffirmation of the ever growing importance and significance of the friendship and economic, political, cultural and other fields of cooperation and partnership between Afghanistan and China," Mosazai said.
The two countries share views and commitment over the security and stability of Afghanistan and the wider region and the necessity of joint efforts "to tackle the menaces of terrorism and extremism", he said.
Mosazai gave no details of any security role China might play in Kabul's fight against hardline Islamist Taliban insurgents, saying the announcement "will be fleshed out by both sides as we move forward in our friendship and cooperation".
Afghanistan last month signed a strategic agreement with the United States, covering relations between the two countries after US-led NATO forces withdraw in 2014, and with several other countries including France and India.
No pact will be signed in Beijing but it is likely that a joint declaration will be developed into a future agreement, a government source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
China has already secured major oil and copper mining concessions in Afghanistan, which is believed to be sitting on more than $1 trillion worth of minerals.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and focuses on regional issues including anti-terrorism.
Afghanistan will attend the Beijing summit as a guest member.
Interview: China is Afghanistan's most reliable friend: Chinese Ambassador
KABUL, June 4 (Xinhua) -- China is the most reliable friend of Afghanistan, said Xu Feihong, Chinese ambassador to the war-torn country, just days before Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to China.
During his third ever visit to China, according to Xu, Karzai will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit as a guest for the fifth time, after which he will meet with Chinese leaders and visit several Chinese cities and provinces such as Beijing and Hubei.
"SCO has always seen Afghanistan as an important partner in the region," noted the Chinese ambassador, "We have been engaging in close coordination with Afghanistan in areas like trade, culture and fighting terrorism, secessionism, extremism and narcotics."
As a significant platform for Afghanistan to enhance cooperation and dialogue with its neighbors, Xu added, SCO will furthre strengthen cooperation and coordination on Afghan-related issues, in an effort to improve Afghanistan's capability to deal with new challenges during transition and achieve peace, stalibility, independence and development in the long term.
In 1955, China and Afghanistan established diplomatic relations, which were upgraded to the Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership in 2006. The two countries have ever since kept frequent high- level exchanges and fruitful cooperation in terms of politics, economy, non-traditional security and cultural exchanges.
The development of China-Afghanistan relationship has rich historical background, pervasive public support and realistic significance, serving as a perfect example of mutual respect and support among developing countries, accordnig to the top Chinese diplomat in Afghanistan.
Xu spoke highly of Afghanistan's achievements in post-war reconstruction. "In the past ten years, under the leadership of Afghan government and support of the international community, the reconstruction has born fruitful results. Political and national reconciliation through peaceful negotiation has become a consensus among all parties." Afghanistan also has seen improvement in areas like security, economy, social welfare and human rights, he added.
The Chinese diplomat also called upon the international community to fulfill their promises in 2011 Bonn Conference and previous international conferences regarding Afghan issue, in a collective effort to build a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.
Over the past 10 years, China has been providing a considerable amount of aid to Afghanistan, building infrastructure, promoting mutual cooperation, training Afghan officials and professionals and offering scholarships to Afghan students, said Xu, and will in its own way continue to provide assistance to the Afghan security forces within its capacity, and help Afghanistan strengthen its security competence.
"China is the most reliable friend of Afghanistan," concluded Xu, "We will always stand side by side with Afghanistan and its people."
Firefight, air strikes kill 3 Taliban, wounds 9 including 5 Afghan soldiers
LOGAR, Afghanistan, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Three Taliban fighters were killed and nine others including five Afghan soldiers sustained injuries as clash flared up between Afghan soldiers and Taliban fighters in Logar province 60 km south of capital Kabul on Monday, a local official said.
"A group of Afghan soldiers were on routine patrol in Charkh district this afternoon when the Taliban militants ambushed and injured five soldiers. The soldiers called in NATO-led forces airpower and the aircrafts pounded Taliban positions killing three on the spot," governor of Charkh district Hamayon Farooq told Xinhua.
Four civilians were also injured in the firefight, he said without giving more details.
Taliban militants are yet to make comment.
Roadside bomb kills 2 students in Kabul
KABUL, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Two students lost their lives as anti-government militants detonated a roadside bomb in their attack of a military vehicle in the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday, Kabul police said in a press release.
"Two innocent students were martyred as a mine planted by insurgents was detonated by a remote control at 12:30 p.m. (local time) when a military vehicle was passing the area in Mosahi district," reads the press release.
There were no casualties on the military personnel, it added.
Taliban are Against Peace: NDS
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 03 June 2012
The Taliban are against peace and stability in the country and are trying to increase their insurgent activities together with the terrorist groups in Pakistan, NDS officials said Sunday.
Spokesman for the National Directorate of Security Sahfiqullah Taheri said that as the international community is putting more pressure on Pakistan to combat terrorism honestly, the insurgents are trying to increase violence in Afghanistan through the Taliban and other Pakistani terrorist networks.
"The Taliban don't want peace in Afghanistan, they want to overrun the recent political achievements in the country, in coordination with terrorist groups in Pakistan, they are trying to escalate violence,"Taheri told reporters in a press briefing.
He also said that several people were arrested recently while involved in insurgent activity with documents and ID cards of Pakistan.
"We have proof. They were born in Pakistan, trained in Pakistani Madarasas and terrorist training camps," he told reporters, adding that members of five terrorist groups were killed or detained recently in Helmand, Ghazni and Kabul with Pakistani nationals among them.
Feature: With war and neglect, Afghans suffer from environmental problems
by Farid Behbud, Yangtze Yan
KABUL, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The war-weary Kabulis bear numerous challenges including environmental problems and ecological contamination besides the protracted war and insurgency.
"These brick kilns are sending thick black smoke to the sky regularly, 24 hours a day without any break," said Abdul Wodud, a resident of Deh Yaya, a sub-district in the northeastern outskirts of Kabul.
"There are more than 1,000 brick kilns in Dah Sabz district and surrounding areas which cause enormous environmental problems in Dah Sabz district and neighboring areas including Dah Yaya sub- district," Wodud told Xinhua on Monday ahead of the World Environment Day which is observed every year on June 5 to raise global awareness of the need to take positive environmental actions.
In Afghanistan, continued drought and protracted war added to the environmental problems. There is no modern garbage disposal center to digest the garbage produced by some 4 million people in Kabul or recycle factories in Kabul and other big cities.
"We have had a beautiful view in Dah Sabz 20 years ago with dozens of grape gardens around here but we have lost them all due to drought and conflicts. Nowadays those gardens have been changed to trenches and cavities and those grape trees have been changed to brick kilns," Wodud said.
The volume of pollution in Kabul city, where all political, military and diplomatic missions are located, can be gauged from the fact that a thick ply of cloud-like dust covers the city space almost every day.
"The environment and the air of our cities including Kabul are hugely polluted which is extremely hazardous to our health and even causes ailment and mortality," Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, the deputy chief of Afghan Environment Directorate, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The brick kilns have been denounced by environmentalists for a long period but the government has failed to close them down in the outskirts of Kabul and other areas nearby.
"We are being driven crazy with this situation, my children are sick, you know, those kilns burn rubber and old car tire, discharging poisonous gas to the area, causing the incidence of respiratory diseases in our neighborhood," Wodud went on to say.
Kabul, the capital of the war-torn but under-construction Central Asian nation, has not been spared, as poor civic amenities, battered streets and pitiable sewerage system have hugely contributed to the pollution there.
Environmental official Malikyar said that the rate of pollution in Kabul has reached the alarming level and warned "living in Kabul would be unsafe after five years if the status quo continues. "
Contrary to some developed and developing nations, Afghanistan faces no problem of greenhouse gases, rather the lack of drainage system and the surge of second-hand vehicles that have caused the air pollution.
And there is no chemical factory or plant in Afghan cities that produce carbon dioxide or other gases. However, burning tires in brick kilns, public baths, battered roads, congested streets, smoke emitting from vehicles and poor forestation campaign have been contributing to the polluting environment.
"Building unplanned houses, dense population and the lack of sewage system would gradually contaminate underground water in Kabul and eventually cause a variety of diseases," Malikyar warned.
More than 50 percent of Afghans are said to have no access to potable water.
Like security problems in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan, the high rate of pollution would also hurt people, said Abdullah Fahim, advisor to the Afghan Public Health Ministry.
"The polluted air in Kabul causes a variety of diseases including skin disease, eye problems and even lung cancer," Fahim told Xinhua in a telephone interview.
Fahim, who works as a medical practitioner, warned that the presence of lead in the polluted air would also cause brain ailment, affect digest system and cause heart problems.
"In the past we had nothing in this territory but a blue sky and limpid water in rivers in Kabul and across the country but at the present we have a gray sky and a river full of garbage and plastic bags here in Kabul," said Ghulam Hazrat, a Kabul resident.
"Since working in Kabul as a taxi driver over the past four years, I have gotten the respiratory problem," said taxi driver Farhad Mohammadi, complaining that "the Kabul municipality has set up a landfill on a saline area in northern edge of Kabul airport just beside a road which goes to Kasaba neighborhood where thousands of families live."
Mohammadi said the municipality authorities should have carried out a series of environmental recovery work in that saline area with salty mud, yet they changed it to a landfill and dozens of trucks discharge trash there every day.
"Several dozens of waste scavenger, including children, rush to the area to sort out for plastic, metal and other materials for selling. When I pass this area I close up my car windows but the malodorous garbage of the landfill drives me crazy," Mohammadi said.
Calling on Afghans to make efforts to keep the environment clean, a number of non-governmental organizations including a Kabul- based Green Club and Union of Afghanistan Youth, in addition to the government's support for greenery, plan to celebrate the International Environment Day by holding a number of programs.
Taliban Beaten in North, Isaf Major says
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 03 June 2012
The Taliban's attacks on Afghan and foreign security forces have decreased since last year, the top Isaf commander in the north said Sunday.
Major General Erich Pfeffer said that while improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are still a major challenge for peace and stability in Afghanistan, he stressed that the Taliban had lost their capability to fight the Afghan security forces.
"With all challenges and problems, we are looking forward to major progress in strengthening the Afghan military forces," Pfeffer said.
"They have already had remarkable progress in the past, and we will continue supporting them."
He also emphasised that Afghan security forces should properly trained and fully equipped to take security responsibilities by the end of 2014.
The security transition is underway with the first and second phases accomplished, and the third underway. Plans for the fourth phase are in progress.
With the completion of the third phase, more than 75% of the country will be under the full control of the Afghan security forces.
Takhar School Girls Poisoned
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 03 June 2012
More than 30 female students from Nahid Shahid high school in the Farkhar district of northern Takhar district were apparently poisoned Saturday, a provincial spokesman Mustafa Rasouli said.
This has been the seventh time in as many weeks that there has been reports of school poisonings, mainly in Takhar province.
Rasouli said that local security officials had put money towards helping arrest any person who poisons students in Takhar province, with an amount of 200,000 Afs.
Meanwhile, Afghan lawmakers have condemned the incidents and called it an inhumane and non-Islamic act. They also called on the ministries of interior, education, public health and the national directorate of security to do more investigations in this regard and send the results to the parliament within two weeks.
"The representatives condemn the poisoning of girls as an inhumane and non-Islamic act," Herat MP Mohammad Saleh Saljoqi said.
The MPs suggested the work being done by local officials in investigating the incidents is not satisfactory.
"There is a possibility that such actions are pre-planned, the report from local officials were not satisfactory and should be followed seriously," Badakhshan MP Fauzia Kofi said Sunday.
"Some of the students who were poisoned in the past incident have been affected with psychological disorders, even though their families treated them in Pakistan."
School poisoning has turned into major problem for the Afghan government, especially with Takhar female students seemingly being the main targets.
Iran Issues List Of Banned Cities, Banned University Courses For Afghans
RFE/RL June 03, 2012
Iran's National Organization for Educational Testing has issued a list of university courses that are banned for Afghans living in Iran, including atomic physics, nuclear engineering, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, and military sciences.
The list has been published by the semi-official Mehr news agency, which reports that Afghans are banned from studying courses that will create "employment obligations" for the Islamic republic.
Mehr also says that Afghans can apply only at universities that are not located in areas where they have been banned from living.
The "prohibited areas" where Afghans are not allowed to reside, according to Mehr's list, include a dozen provinces and a number of cities in different parts of Iran.
Recent limitations on Afghans living in Iran have angered some Iranians who have protested mainly on social media.
Afghans see slow healthcare improvements
Aljazeera By Bernard Smith June 4, 2012
Most of our travelling around Afghanistan involves being thrown around in the back of an ageing 4x4 vehicle as it bashes around on unmade, potholed, rutted roads. So it was with our trip to Pashtun Zarghun in the western province of Herat, two hours each way trying to not smack your head on the doorframe.
Properly laid, tarmacked roads transform rural communities. They let farmers take their goods to market while others can access better healthcare in urban centres. Roads can also open up closed communities to new ideas and different ways of thinking. It is also harder for the Taliban to plant homemade bombs under tarmacked roads, whereas it is easy to bury one under a few centimetres of gravel.
There was a bomb planted along the road we travelled to Pashtun Zarghun. As we hurtled down the dirt road we saw the army ahead, directing people around where the bomb had been planted. A villager had tipped-off the police. The army officer in charge told us that it was a remote controlled device adding that our team might have been the target. We always take a police escort on journeys into rural areas. It is possible news of our plans leaked out.
Anyway, this area is supposed to be comparatively safe. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces handed over security responsibility to Afghan forces six months ago. But the Afghan officer at the bomb site said that, in the last three to four weeks, the Taliban have started to reappear in the villages on the way to Pashtun Zarghun.
Our focus this time in Pashtun Zarghun was healthcare.
There have been major improvements in the last ten years. Afghans can expect to live up to 64 years, up from 50 a few years ago, according to a survey conducted by the Afghan foreign ministry that was paid for by foreign donors. But rural healthcare is basic. Children get immunised and there are midwives to deliver babies.
However, if a pregnant woman starts bleeding or showing other complications she will have to make the 60km journey to the main hospital in Herat city. That means a two-hour drive on the rutted dirt road. There's an 80 per cent chance she will die on the journey, according to a doctor at Pashtun Zarghun's clinic.
Ghulam Naby Azizi, Pashtun Zarghun's district governor, told us that he was desperate for a road to link to Herat, and that he had been promised one five years ago.
"With all the aid that has been given to Afghanistan in the past 10 years nothing has come to Pashtun Zarghun. You have seen the road – we do not have one laid road in Pashtun Zarghun," he said.
Azizi has been district governor for 10 months. Locally he seems popular, particularly for co-ordinating operations against the Taliban. The area is still safe he says. But at the end of the interview Azizi tells us he's just resigned his post, because, he says, he's not been paid since he started the job.
So soon, Azizi will make the bone shaking journey out of Pashtun Zarghun along the unmade road where the Taliban is regaining influence.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com