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Violence erupts in Afghanistan; death of 6 US troops in blast is reminder that war is not over
By Associated Press, The Washington Post July 9
KABUL, Afghanistan — An insurgent bomb killed six American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, part of a surge of violence that has dealt a stark reminder that war is still raging as NATO plots an exit strategy for the end of 2014.
Violence raged across the country Monday, including grisly attacks by multiple suicide bombers, a day after donor nations meeting in Tokyo to pledge $16 billion in aid.
President Hamid Karzai and his top ministers said the pledges exceeded their expectations and sent a strong signal that the international community will not abandon Afghanistan even though foreign troops have started to leave.
It also sent a message to Karzai’s adversaries in the Taliban and elsewhere, who are hoping his support will weaken once the foreign combat troops leave or move into support roles in 2 1/2 years.
Sunday was a particularly deadly day in Afghanistan. Roadside bombs and militant attacks killed seven American soldiers, 19 Afghan civilians and seven Afghan policemen.
Violence erupted again on Monday as militants launched suicide attacks on two police headquarters and carried out other assaults that left 20 people dead — three policemen, an Afghan prosecutor, two children and 14 attackers, according to officials. At least 60 other people were wounded.
German Brig. Gen. Gunter Katz, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said the six Americans were killed Sunday when their armored vehicle struck a bomb in eastern Afghanistan. He said a seventh American soldier was killed in a separate insurgent attack Sunday in the south.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for that attack in Wardak province, just south of Kabul. Coalition and Afghan forces are trying to secure areas of Wardak that insurgents use as gateway into the Afghan capital, where they have staged high-profile attacks on Afghan government and NATO targets.
Monday’s violence began when gunmen assassinated a chief prosecutor in eastern Ghazni province as he drove to work. Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy provincial governor, said Sahar Gul was shot twice.
Later in the day, three suicide bombers riding in a three-wheeled vehicle blew themselves up in Kandahar city, said Kandahar provincial spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal.
Then nearly a dozen other suicide attackers tried to storm the police headquarters in Kandahar, but they failed to enter the compound, Faisal said. The incident was still being investigated, but Faisal said authorities suspect that the three attackers in the vehicle, a form of miniature pickup known as a Zaranj, were headed toward police headquarters when their explosives detonated prematurely.
Three policemen and two children were killed in the attack. Another 18 police and 12 civilians were wounded.
“I’m not happy to sit here and announce such bad news, but we are facing an enemy that doesn’t have a heart, so we have to be strong,” Kandahar provincial Gov. Tooryalai Wesa told reporters at a news conference. “They don’t care about the innocent people. They just want to scare the people.”
A total of 14 suicide attackers, who fired at police for about two hours from several directions, blew themselves up or were shot and killed by police, Kandahar officials said.
Militants also attacked a police headquarters building in Shibirghan, the capital of Jawzjan province in the relatively peaceful north.
Provincial governor Mohammad Aleem Saaie said a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up near the headquarters. No one died, but he said 26 people were wounded, including two policemen, a doctor and a prosecutor.
“This was another attack against innocent civilians,” said Gen. Abdul Aziz Ghairat, the provincial police chief. “The majority of the wounded people are civilians.”
Attackers have picked up the pace during the summer months, planting improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, along roads or footpaths. But during the past year, U.S. troops found and avoided more homemade bombs than a year ago because of improvements in training, equipment and intelligence, the U.S. military said.
In the first three months of this year, 5 percent of the bombs planted across Afghanistan hit their mark, according to the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization. That’s down from 10 to 12 percent over the same three-month period a year ago.
So far this year, 231 U.S. and other NATO forces have been killed in Afghanistan. That compares with 271 in the first six months of last year.
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Associated Press writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Provincial Chief Prosecutor assassinated in E. Afghanistan
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, July 9 (Xinhua) -- A senior Afghan official was killed in a drive-by shooting in the country's eastern province of Ghazni on Monday morning, a provincial official said.
"The Chief Prosecutor of Ghazni province, Sayed Sahar Gul, was driving from home to office at around 8:00 a.m. local time in fifth sub-district in provincial capital Ghazni city when two gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire, killing him on the spot," deputy provincial governor, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, told Xinhua.
The assailants fled the area shortly after the shooting and a teenage girl student was also injured in the incident.
An investigation was under way into the incident, he added.
Afghan officials and pro-government figures have been repeatedly targeted by the militants since May 3 when Taliban insurgents launched an annual spring offensive.
The insurgent group has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a purported Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the incident.
On Sunday morning, a provincial education official was killed by militants in western Badghis province.
Public Execution of Afghan Woman Draws Condemnation
VOA News July 9, 2012
The head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has condemned the public execution of a young woman by a member of the Taliban in Parwan province.
General John Allen described the videotaped shooting in a village near Kabul as “an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty.”
The woman was accused of being romantically involved with two members of the Taliban. Male villagers are heard cheering on the tape after the woman was shot at close range. Some villagers shouted “long live the Afghan mujahedeen,” a reference to the Taliban.
General Allen said the Taliban's “continued brutality” toward innocent civilians, particularly women, “must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
The Afghan government said the execution was “un-Islamic” and “inhuman” and has ordered the Parwan police to find the culprits and bring them to justice.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said “we are going to investigate thoroughly this video and we will
find those culprits and those Taliban who are behind this act of violence, terrorism and brutal act. There is no definition, no meaning for this any more.''
Parwan officials say the public shooting happened late last month.
Afghan women's rights activists have raised concerns about the status of women once international combat forces withdraw from the war-torn country. There is particular concern about U.S. and Afghan efforts to negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban.
Under Taliban rule in the 1990s women were not allowed to work, get an education or leave the house without a male escort.
Separately on Monday, NATO confirmed that the six coalition soldiers who were killed in Sunday's roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan were American. A seventh U.S. soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in the south on Sunday.
The Taliban said it planted the bomb that killed the six U.S. soldiers in Wardak province.
Sunday was a deadly day for Afghan civilians as well, with 14 killed in two roadside bombings in the southern province of Kandahar.
NATO spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told reporters in Kabul on Monday, “yesterday was a tough day for Afghan civilians, coalition and Afghan forces. A number of people were killed or injured due to a number of roadside bombs and conflicts. I extend my sincere condolences to the loved ones, family members and friends of those who were killed or injured.”
Afghan police hunt woman's executioner
By Sardar Ahmad | AFP
A manhunt was under way Monday for Taliban militants who publicly executed a woman accused of adultery, Afghan authorities said, as outrage mounted after a video of the cold-blooded killing surfaced.
President Hamid Karzai called the killing "disgusting and unforgivable" and ordered security forces to spare no effort in arresting and punishing those responsible.
The commander of NATO's 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, offered to help local security forces track and capture the men involved in what he called "an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty".
The brutal shooting of the lone woman before a cheering mob of men is shown in graphic detail in a video of the event in a village in Parwan province some 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of the capital Kabul.
"We have sent a police force to the area," Parwan provincial governor Basir Salangi told AFP, adding that the government had no permanent presence in the valley.
"They are searching for the Taliban who are responsible but the Taliban, including the killer, have fled to the mountains."
Roshna Khalid, Salangi's spokeswoman, separately told AFP the 22-year-old woman, named as Najiba, was married to a member of the hardline Islamist Taliban and was accused of adultery with a Taliban commander.
"Within one hour they decided that she was guilty and sentenced her to death. They shot her in front of villagers in her village, Qol," she said.
Public executions of alleged adulterers were common when the Taliban regime was in power from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a US-led invasion for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.
The Taliban have since waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai said Afghanistan's suffering people were not expecting a repeat of such incidents after the fall of the Taliban regime.
"Murdering a woman who did not even have a voice for defending herself is a sign of cowardness and such a crime is unforgivable in Islam and the country's laws," he said.
The video also drew international condemnation, with British Foreign Secretary William Hague saying he was "shocked and disgusted" by the execution.
"Such deplorable actions underline the vital need for better protection of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan," he said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before the video surfaced, made a powerful plea Sunday for the rights of women in Afghanistan, amid fears that recent gains for women are under threat as NATO troops prepare to leave in 2014.
Clinton, who was addressing a world conference in Tokyo on Afghanistan's future, said: "The United States believes strongly that no nation can achieve peace, stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered."
The video opens with the woman, wrapped in a grey shawl, sitting at the edge of a ditch in a village surrounded by dozens of men, some perched on rooftops for a better view.
As she sits with her back to the crowd a bearded man is seen reading verses from the Koran condemning adultery, before saying: "We cannot forgive her, God tells us to finish her."
The video then shows a man in white being handed an AK-47 rifle. Some local reports said the shooter was the woman's husband but Khalid, the governor's spokeswoman, told AFP that he was a relative of the victim's husband.
The executioner approaches to within a couple of metres (yards) of the woman, says "Allahu akhbar" (God is great), and fires a total of 13 shots as the crowd cheers wildly, shouting "Long live Islam", "Long live mujahideen (holy warriors)".
Feature: Execution of woman by Taliban reveals Afghan women's vulnerability
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Amid national and international campaigns to protect women rights in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan, a popular local television Tolo aired a horrific footage of Taliban behavior towards women on Sunday night and Monday morning that shocked all the viewers.
The shocking footage was about the public extra-judicial killing of a poor woman days ago by a group of armed Taliban fighters in a village of Parwan province, 75 km north of Afghan capital Kabul.
"Oh God. I cannot see, it is a barbaric act against humanity," Kabul resident Ahmad Wali said while watching TV.
The one- or two- minute video recording, displayed on mini- screen, was the film of a shawl-wearing woman sitting helplessly on a ground in Shinwari district in the presence of 100 or so Taliban insurgents and spectators.
The woman known as Najiba, 22, was accused of adultery and after verdict by the Taliban judge, a bearded and turbaned man fired several shots killing her on the spot. After execution of the poor woman the jubilant Taliban militants chanted slogans of " long live Taliban, Taliban implement Islamic law".
However, Afghans question of the desert court as biased, saying both the lady and her paramour should have been punished in a legal court if they were found guilty.
The brutal killing of the alleged adulterer by Taliban is taking place amid government efforts to encourage national reconciliation with Taliban to find a negotiated settlement for Afghan crisis, where women rights bodies have warned that any reconciliation with Taliban would negatively affect all the achievements have made over the past decade.
Taliban militants during their reign which was ended by the U.S. -led military campaign in late 2001 had banned schools for girls and confined women to their houses besides awarding public punishment including hands and feet amputation, lashing, stoning and execution.
"The brutal killing of the woman in Parwan reminds the public execution of alleged criminals by Taliban in the national sport stadium in Kabul before their collapse," said another TV watcher Abdul Azim, adding the execution speaks of Taliban sway in the countryside.
Both President Hamid Karzai and his Interior Ministry have strongly condemned the extra-judicial killing of the woman by Taliban in Parwan, vowing to launch a big operation to find the culprits.
"The murder of a woman who has had no voice to rise for her self-defense against the weapon and brutality of a number of criminals is a clear symbol of the cowardice and wickedness of her murderers," Karzai said in a statement released by his office on Monday, adding that "Such a crime is unforgivable in the sacred religion of Islam and the laws of the country."
He instructed the security officials not to spare any efforts in arresting and punishing the perpetrators.
Nonetheless, Afghan ordinary citizens doubt the government's ability to bring to justice the criminals particularly the Taliban fighters.
"It is just an empty promise to comfort the families of the victim and cool down the feeling of the citizens," a 50-year-old lady teacher in Kabul told Xinhua, believing that no one dares to violate human rights particularly the rights of women in Afghanistan if the government had punished the murderers publicly.
Murdering woman in Parwan district is not the first case of Taliban' desert court against women since their regime ouster a decade ago.
Previously, the armed outfit had stoned to death a woman and a man for similar charge in Dasht-e-Archi district of Kunduz province in 2010, after killing two ladies in Ghazni province and lashing another lady in Ghor province couple of years ago.
However, the women status has been considerably improved in the post-Taliban Afghanistan as women serve as parliamentarians, cabinet ministers, artists and traders, the segment is still suffering.
The body of a women along with two of her children allegedly killed by her husband were taken to hospital in the eastern Ghazni city last Wednesday, head of Ghazni city hospital, Baz Mohammad Humat said.
"The execution of Najiba by Taliban in Parwan is not the first and will not be the last. Such crimes would go unchecked until the government is serious to fight the right abusers," said the lady teacher without giving her name.
Another $16 billion in aid, but Afghan businessmen say help us
World leaders in Tokyo pledge more aid to Afghanistan. But Afghan businessmen worry that the country is too aid dependent and want help with the private sector.
Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent July 8, 2012
Kandahar, Afghanistan - International donors representing about 70 countries and organizations met in Tokyo on Sunday to pledge $16 billion to Afghanistan’s reconstruction over the next four years.
The announcement was welcome news for many in Afghanistan, but nearly 11 years into the US-led war many Afghans and international officials have expressed considerable disappointment with an aid effort that they say has fallen short thus far. With these new pledges in place, there is hope that lessons learned will be applied to improve aid spending in the coming years.
Among complaints of fraud, mismanagement, waste, and missed opportunities that Afghans want addressed, many say they would like to see foreign assistance work harder to adequately develop Afghanistan’s private sector so it can begin to create jobs and a sustainable economy.
“The government does not have the capacity to create more jobs. The only way to create more employment opportunities is to support the private sector,” says Mohammad Rahim Rahimi, director of the Ministry of Economics in Kandahar. “We are still asking the international community for support, but if they had spent development money appropriately I’m sure we would be self-sufficient and we would be able to support our economy.”
Despite the improvements foreign aid has brought to Afghanistan, it’s also managed to place the economy in a perilous position where it is dependent on aid for its existence. Presently 90 percent of the Afghan government’s budget depends on foreign aid and money from the international donor community and military spending makes up about 97 percent of the country’s GDP.
In this climate, a generation of young professionals has come of age only knowing employment in the lucrative non-governmental organization (NGO) sector and is now struggling to find work as donor spending decreases.
Since graduating from college in 2006, Abdul Ahad has worked only for NGOs. Now the program coordinator for Human Resources Development Agency, he says that his organization is down from a high of six donor-funded projects that employed a total of about 150 in 2009 to only two projects and a third minor one that employ just 25 people.
Speaking about colleagues who lost their jobs, Mr. Ahad says, “They are not getting jobs in the NGO sector, they are getting jobs in the private sector with small businesses and low salaries.” The NGO sector is known throughout Afghanistan for providing salaries well above market rates.
Meanwhile, those who’ve sought to create economic opportunities outside the world of international donor spending say they’ve received limited support.
In 2003, Khalilurahman Ahmadi and his brothers decided to start a pipe and plastic factory in Kandahar. Though the family business was fruit import and export with no factory experience, Mr. Ahmadi says he and his brothers felt inspired to “help the country,” which was in dire need of industry. Since then, Ahmadi has focused on building the family’s new company, Imran Atiqu PVC.
Initially, several family friends from Iran and Pakistan with experience in running a plastic factory came to Afghanistan to help, but they left when security began deteriorating in 2005 and 2006.
Ahmadi, who has only a sixth-grade education and no factory background, could not train employees and he says he found little help from the international community. What training they did provide in Kandahar he says was usually related to management skills, not technical education.
Ahmadi also must deal with employees who are often illiterate with no formal education to speak of. Such employees are prone to make mistakes using digital scales, a serious problem in the plastics business where a minor measurement error can seriously change the composition of a pipe.
“In the last 11 years we have change from the money that has been spent. We have security forces, some roads were built, and some other projects were implemented. But as for support for the private sector, I am not happy,” says Ahmadi.
One of the most serious problems Ahmadi faces is the lack of a sustainable electricity source. The US has provided generator power that electrifies the industrial area that is home to Imran Atiqu PVC and other factories, but Americans still provide the fuel to power the generators. Despite commitments at the Tokyo conference, there are still concerns about what will happen as US and NATO forces draw down.
Only 18 percent of Afghanistan has access to reliable electricity, up from 6 percent in 2002. In Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, there is much frustration that hydroelectric dam projects in the area that could solve this problem remain incomplete.
“Billions of dollars have been spent in Afghanistan, but what have we gotten as a benefit?” says Mohammad Kabir Darwaish, an independent economic analyst in Kandahar. “We spent all this money, but the main thing that can support our economy is electricity and it has not been built.”
More than industry, throughout Afghanistan many are betting on the mining sector and finding new markets for agricultural products to fill in the gaps as donor spending inevitably recedes. The mining sector, however, has yet to become operational and begin creating jobs or revenue for the state.
The latest round of international pledges of assistance comes with more strings attached. The money is conditional on the Afghan government reducing corruption and improving governance. In addition to taking stronger anti-corruption measures, the Afghan government must meet good governance standards to receive up to 20 percent of the donor money.
Pakistanis mass to protest resumption of NATO supply line to Afghanistan
Thousands if Pakistanis protested the reopening of NATO supply routes, during massive demonstrations led by the Defense of Pakistan Council. The Council claims the protests will continue outside of Parliament but will not turn violent.
Sunday, July 8th 2012, 07:12 PM New York Daily News -
Thousands of followers of leading Islamist clerics began marching Sunday from the eastern city of Lahore to the capital, Islamabad, to protest Pakistan's decision to once again let NATO move Afghanistan-bound supply convoys through the country after a seven-month hiatus.
The protest was organized by the Defense of Pakistan Council, a coalition of hard-line religious groups that has among its leaders Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, an Islamic cleric who India claims engineered the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people. The procession _ made up of buses, cars and motorcycles _ was peaceful.
Pakistani leaders have been bracing for a popular backlash since announcing last week that the nation was allowing NATO supply routes through the country to reopen. The blockade was imposed after the American air strikes that mistakenly killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border in November. The first NATO container trucks crossed from Pakistan to Afghanistan on Thursday.
Until Sunday, protests throughout the country against the resumption of NATO supply convoys have been relatively small and sporadic. Defense of Pakistan Council leaders say they will continue their demonstration outside Parliament once they reach Islamabad but will ensure their protests do not become violent.
Though the Defense of Pakistan Council's popularity is largely confined to conservative followers, Pakistani officials are nevertheless watching the group's actions closely, mainly because anti-American sentiment runs high throughout the country. Some experts believe Pakistani civilian leaders delayed reopening the NATO supply routes for so long out of concern that the move would trigger anger in the streets _ a particularly troubling prospect for President Asif Ali Zardari's government as it prepares for national elections.
Along with Saeed, the Defense of Pakistan Council's leadership includes Maulana Samiul-Haq, regarded by many as the father of the Taliban movement, and Hamid Gul, a former chief of Pakistan's premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) who has long been viewed as a key supporter of insurgents battling U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Saeed, who was seen alongside other Islamist clerics atop a vehicle leading the caravan Sunday, maintains a high profile despite the $10-million bounty that the U.S. government placed on him in April. Saeed is suspected of having ties with Al-Qaida and, with the help of the ISI, founded the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 1980s. He now heads Lashkar-e-Taiba's social welfare wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, long regarded by the U.S. and India as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba's militant activities.
Pakistani officials refuse to arrest Saeed, saying the U.S. must provide evidence that ties him to militant activities before they can take him into custody.
Time to Get It Right: Revising Priorities in Afghanistan
The Huffington Post By Nigel Jenkins Afghanistan Country Director for the International Rescue Committee 09/07/2012
I increasingly get the sense of living in an Afghanistan different from the one portrayed in the news media. As the international community prepares to disengage militarily by 2014, much of what makes news is the coalition's justification for withdrawal rather than the actual condition of the country. The focus seems to be on what we in the non-profit, humanitarian assistance world call 'hard security', essentially anything military or government-related. So we typically hear about whether the Afghan military and police are ready to assume control of the country's security, or whether the government of Hamid Karzai is prepared to run the country on its own. We do not hear about the important "human security" indicators that aid agency colleagues and I believe portray a seriously deteriorating situation.
These indicators include, for example, the number of Afghans displaced from their homes and the percentage of refugees who have not only returned to Afghanistan but have also been able to survive on their own. Together, these indicators enable us to evaluate the well-being of the Afghan people and to determine how good a job we have all done in helping the 30million people of this impoverished and conflict-ridden country. And judging by these measures, the international community has a long way to go. Sunday's meeting in Tokyo to consider development priorities in Afghanistan should have been be an opportunity to get it right.
When I drive through the streets of Kabul or travel into outlying provinces to see humanitarian aid projects carried out by my organisation, the International Rescue Committee, I see profound need. It epitomises the collective failure of the international community to break the cycle of poverty, violence and suffering that continues to plague the country after 10 years of massive military and civilian assistance. Most of that foreign aid has been military and government-related. The US Congressional Budget Office says the war cost America $443 (£283) billion through 2011, and in the same period the UK spent approximately £17 billion. The human cost has also been staggering: 12,000 civilians killed in the past five years alone, according to the UN, along with 2,000 NATO soldiers.
I have lived here for a bit more than a year, but I'm still shocked by the level of human suffering. In Kabul alone, there are dozens of what are euphemistically called "informal settlements." They are nothing more than slums of mud huts, with no water or sewers, providing temporary shelter for as many as 30,000 displaced people. Many living in these wretched warrens are former refugees who were prodded to return from the comparative safety of Pakistan and Iran. Others are internal exiles who have fled the conflict that ebbs and flows across Afghanistan.
A just published IRC policy report, Afghanistan: The Perilous Road Ahead, provides a snapshot of many of those essential "human security" indicators, and makes for sobering reading. Afghan people are voting with their feet: a record high number of Afghans sought asylum in other countries last year, while returns of refugees from neighbouring countries hit a record low. At the same time there was more internal displacement than at any time in the past decade. The UN refugee agency says the number of Afghans uprooted by violence last year rose by 41% to close to a half-million people. The UN mission in Afghanistan says 2011 was the deadliest year for civilians in the past decade, with 3,021 deaths. That's a 25% increase in two years. These are the figures that are most telling about the human security crisis in Afghanistan. The report also points out that while violence is the primary cause of Afghan displacement, natural disasters such as floods and droughts, and a lack of basic services (schools and medical c
are) and job opportunities add to their woes. These are especially acute challenges in much of rural Afghanistan, which receives virtually no assistance from the Afghan government.
The focus now must be on getting basic services to the local level. We could utilise non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like the one I work for, to do this. In many cases, NGOs work in places in which the Afghan government has no presence, and they already enjoy the trust and confidence of local communities. This approach would continue to address underdevelopment and create economic opportunities that would enhance Afghans' quality of life. It would better prepare them to cope with conflict and recurring disasters. As we assess security, we must broaden the standard indicators to include human security threats such as economic and environmental challenges. We must also consider what population movements can tell us. Utilising all these indicators would provide an effective barometer indicating Afghanistan's ability to cope in an increasingly uncertain environment.
The focus must also be on investing in Afghans themselves. Providing funding to ensure all have food, water, shelter, and employment should be the priority. That will curtail their need to constantly move in search of those basic needs that most of us take for granted.
If we don't act, and instead turn our collective backs on Afghanistan, I fear a return to the violent years of the late 1980s, when warlords carved up the country into fiefdoms and terrorised the civilian population. We cannot let 2014 mark the start of yet another cycle of extreme hardship for an entire Afghan generation that has known nothing else.
Karzai Renews Call for Dialogue with Taliban
Miguel Quintana VOA News July 9, 2012
TOKYO — Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai has renewed his call for talks with the Taliban, one day after international donors pledged $16 billion in aid for the reconstruction of his country.
Karzai says his administration will give top priority to establishing a peace process with the Taliban to stabilize the country and consolidate the gains made in the past 10 years.
"All those Taliban and other militant bodies that are working against their own country now are welcome to participate in the life of the country and to benefit from the laws and the freedom that Afghanistan offers today, with the condition that they respect the Afghan constitution, that they continue with the rebuilding of Afghanistan and that they renounce violence," he said.
The Afghan president said he believes dialogue with the Taliban is essential to solving the ongoing conflict. He says negotiations should no longer be affected by the presence of foreign troops in the country, which the militants have repeatedly denounced.
"As the presence of the international community in Afghanistan is a reality, so is the need for [the Taliban] to participate in any peace talks that we may have together," he said. "But primarily it is for us Afghans to get together and see to it that the country sees better days and that Afghans all join hands for a better country."
Karzai maintains that after the withdrawal of all combat troops by 2014, the presence of foreign soldiers will be negotiated on a bilateral basis. He says, in the case of the United States, military bases will be allowed on a provisional basis for a period of 10 years.
Karzai also invited neighboring Pakistan to participate in the peace process by arranging talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders present in Pakistan. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined her Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in calling for Taliban fighters to join the reconciliation effort.
No sign of Taliban infiltration into Afghan army, police: ISAF
KABUL, July 9 (Xinhua) -- There is no indication or sign of Taliban infiltration into the ranks of the Afghan army and police forces, a spokesman for NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said here Monday.
"Incidents where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed ISAF service members are individual cases and each one has its own underlying circumstances and motives as to the reason why," spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told a weekly press conference.
In the latest such attack, a man in Afghan army uniform opened fire on foreign colleagues in a military camp in eastern Wardak province injuring five U.S. soldiers on July 3.
"I would like to emphasize that there is no indication that these incidents are linked to insurgents or part of any larger coordinated effort," he said.
In another incident, a gunman wearing army uniform shot dead three British soldiers with ISAF after an argument in southern Helmand province on July 1.
Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and NATO forces frequently claimed responsibility for such incidents.
There have been 18 such attacks so far this year, leaving a total of 26 foreign soldiers dead.
Katz also confirmed that the six ISAF soldiers who were killed in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) or roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday were Americans, without disclosing the exact location of the incident.
Meanwhile, an Afghan official said that the incident took place in eastern Wardak province late on Sunday.
"There was a powerful IED blast in Mullah Khil area of provincial capital Maidan Shar late on Sunday that left several coalition forces dead and their vehicle was also destroyed in the attack," a spokesman for provincial government, Shahidullah Shahid, told Xinhua on Monday.
9 Afghan soldiers killed as bus overturns
AYBAK, Afghanistan, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Nine Afghan soldiers were killed and 20 others injured as their bus overturned in northern Afghan province of Samangan on Monday, police said.
"In the tragic incident which took place at around 8 a.m. local time today in Hazrat Sultan district, nine personnel of the national army were martyred and 20 others injured," police spokesman in the northern region Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai told Xinhua.
The ill-fated soldiers were bound for the eastern Paktia province on duty when they met the accident, he added.
Kabul, A City Stretched Beyond Its Limits
NPR By Sean Carberry July 8, 2012
Kabul was once a relatively lush haven for several hundred thousand residents. But decades of war, migration and chaotic sprawl have turned the Afghan capital into a barely functioning dust bowl.
The tired infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of nearly 5 million people. And 70 percent of Kabul is now a cramped, ad hoc development where water, sewers and electricity are in short supply.
Somehow, life goes on. But the city seems to be nearing its breaking point.
Between the lack of vegetation on the surrounding hills, and the lack of pavement, there is a constant haze of dust hovering above the city. Life is tough, especially in extremely poor areas like Tap-e-maranjan, a densely packed, unplanned neighborhood clinging to a hillside.
"There is no electricity," says Aji Gul, who has lived in the neighborhood the past four years. "There is no water, so we buy it from private businesses."
Aji Gul is a street vendor, struggling to make ends meet. A rugged man in his 50s with reddish-brown skin, he once had a nice house in the city. He spent 10 years in Pakistan to escape the fighting in Kabul, and when he returned, he found he could only afford to live here, in Tap-e-maranjan.
He says the government has no plans to help the neighborhood. The residents are trying to tell the government they need services.
"There are a lot of problems here, but we have no choice," he says. "We can't afford to go anywhere else."
Four years ago, he says there were a lot of vacant houses and empty lots here. Now, it's full of people from all over the country.
Some came to escape fighting elsewhere in the country; others came hoping for better opportunities. Seventeen people live in Aji Gul's small two-room house. Some homes here have more than 20 residents.
"The poorest people coming to the city are doubling up in houses because that's the closest they can get to their jobs," says Jolyon Leslie, an architect from South Africa who has been working in Afghanistan for 20 years with various private aid groups. He says people tend to move in with relatives and stay as long as they can.
A Growing Sea Of Sprawl
A hillside near the Nadir Shah Mausoleum — a famous Kabul landmark — provides a unique perspective on Kabul's growth.
The land to the east of the city was once all agricultural.
Now, "as far as the eye can see, it's a kind of low-rise sprawl over towards the mountains, so the entire cityscape has changed," says Leslie.
On the other side of the hilltop, Leslie points out the old city and the old citadel. He describes how it extends over to the north to a blue dome — the Pul-e Khishti. It's a 20th century mosque, but it sits on a very old site.
He says this stretch was at one time the entire city of Kabul.
Now, the city center is like a buoy floating in a sea of sprawl. Leslie says that once a center of culture, commerce, and educated classes, central Kabul more and more resembles a slum. As more poor people have crowded in to be closer to work opportunities, drugs, prostitution and criminality have moved in as well.
But the scene isn't all bleak. There are some new high-rises going up and neighborhoods where people are renovating their homes. Houses painted in bright pastels and sporting steel frame windows with mirrored glass stand out against the mud-colored houses in the hills.
"There's a very, very clear process of consolidation and gentrification," Leslie says.
He says that people who are living on what is technically seized government land are less worried about being kicked out, so they are investing more in their houses.
"And they're also more prosperous, there's no doubt about it," he says as he points across the hill at a house where workers are building an additional floor. "That money's coming from somewhere — somebody's got a new job, somebody's got a new shop, so it's quite a positive sign in that view."
There is economic growth in the city. There are people who have made a lot of money, working in the security industry or in high-paying jobs with foreign aid organizations.
At the same time, there's plenty of money coming in from corruption and the country's massive opium trade. That's why people refer to the gaudy new multistory mansions springing up around the city as "poppy palaces."
And Leslie says that although many of the hillside houses look well-built from the outside, much of the new construction is extremely shoddy.
He says that when — it's not a matter of "if" — the big Kabul earthquake hits, "it's going to be quite scary depending in the intensity."
"A lot of these buildings that look quite nice are going to come down like a pack of cards," Leslie says.
Government Services Lag
Driving from the hilltop to the city center highlights another of Kabul's challenges — traffic. The mostly unpaved streets are choked with five to 10 times the number of cars they were designed to handle.
On top of that, vendors, beggars, pedestrians, bicycles and donkey carts all compete for space. And there's not a working traffic light in the city. It can take hours to cross from one side of Kabul to the other.
The Chindawol neighborhood in Kabul's Old City is an industrial and residential area.
"Most of the people in this area are shopkeepers," says Haji Khahesta Gul, a shopkeeper himself, selling grains and other dry goods.
Before the Soviets invaded, Chindawol used to be a residential area for educated and elite Afghans. It has also been the main dry food market. Over the years, that's changed. The area has been swarmed by people, mostly illiterate and low-skilled.
Gul, who is in his 50s, says that 10 years ago he had a great business, but it's been deteriorating. He points out that the city has doubled in size in the past decade.
"But still you don't see any fundamental thing that the government has done in the last decade," he says. Ghalub Nemat understands this all too well. He's a government engineer with the Ministry of Urban Development. He says that 50 percent of the urban population in the entire country is in Kabul, and for the last several decades, the government hasn't kept pace with the growth of the city.
He says that about 70 percent of the Kabul area is informally developed.
"What Kabul municipality is doing, what our ministry is doing, they're trying to control the informal areas," he says. "And the government is not able to do it."
Nemat says to this day there is no central sewage system, barely 25 percent of the people have direct access to potable water, and wide swaths of the city have no or infrequent electricity.
He says the government can't solve these problems, and he hopes the private sector can help fill the gaps. But for now, the private sector seems more focused on catering to the elites, not the masses.
For The Wealthy, New Urban Islands
Increasingly, people like Nemat are moving to new planned developments on the periphery of the city, where there is less pollution.
"There were poets, there were poems, there were so many books written on Kabul, beautiful Kabul," says Nemat. "But I'm not seeing it now."
One of the new communities is Shahrak Aria. It's composed of a couple of dozen five- and six-story, off-white apartment buildings, though there are more phases of development to come. It's a gated, high-end community, designed to be self-sufficient.
Rather than car horns, ice cream vendors or people in the street, you hear periodic airplanes or helicopters flying overhead since it's across the street from the airport.
"There is very good parking, playgrounds for kids, water 24 hours, modern construction, so we're all happy here," says Dr. Mohammed Faridoon, who moved to Shahrak Aria three years ago.
It has its own restaurants and grocery stores, as well as its own water supply and sewage system. By the time the development is complete, there will be thousands of apartments and a shopping mall — people will have to venture from this urban island only to go to work.
"I like this because it is a closed compound, it's very good in terms of security," says Faridoon, who is in his 50s. He says it's quiet and peaceful, unlike his old neighborhood, which was noisy and full of problems.
Ultimately, many with means are looking to escape the chaos of Kabul — to isolate themselves in secure compounds away from the masses struggling to get by. But only a tiny minority can hide out in these gated communities. The rest are stuck trying to survive in a city stretched far beyond its capacity.
NPR's Aimal Yaqubi contributed to this story
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Associated Press, The Washington Post July 9
KABUL, Afghanistan — An insurgent bomb killed six American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, part of a surge of violence that has dealt a stark reminder that war is still raging as NATO plots an exit strategy for the end of 2014.
Violence raged across the country Monday, including grisly attacks by multiple suicide bombers, a day after donor nations meeting in Tokyo to pledge $16 billion in aid.
President Hamid Karzai and his top ministers said the pledges exceeded their expectations and sent a strong signal that the international community will not abandon Afghanistan even though foreign troops have started to leave.
It also sent a message to Karzai’s adversaries in the Taliban and elsewhere, who are hoping his support will weaken once the foreign combat troops leave or move into support roles in 2 1/2 years.
Sunday was a particularly deadly day in Afghanistan. Roadside bombs and militant attacks killed seven American soldiers, 19 Afghan civilians and seven Afghan policemen.
Violence erupted again on Monday as militants launched suicide attacks on two police headquarters and carried out other assaults that left 20 people dead — three policemen, an Afghan prosecutor, two children and 14 attackers, according to officials. At least 60 other people were wounded.
German Brig. Gen. Gunter Katz, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said the six Americans were killed Sunday when their armored vehicle struck a bomb in eastern Afghanistan. He said a seventh American soldier was killed in a separate insurgent attack Sunday in the south.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for that attack in Wardak province, just south of Kabul. Coalition and Afghan forces are trying to secure areas of Wardak that insurgents use as gateway into the Afghan capital, where they have staged high-profile attacks on Afghan government and NATO targets.
Monday’s violence began when gunmen assassinated a chief prosecutor in eastern Ghazni province as he drove to work. Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy provincial governor, said Sahar Gul was shot twice.
Later in the day, three suicide bombers riding in a three-wheeled vehicle blew themselves up in Kandahar city, said Kandahar provincial spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal.
Then nearly a dozen other suicide attackers tried to storm the police headquarters in Kandahar, but they failed to enter the compound, Faisal said. The incident was still being investigated, but Faisal said authorities suspect that the three attackers in the vehicle, a form of miniature pickup known as a Zaranj, were headed toward police headquarters when their explosives detonated prematurely.
Three policemen and two children were killed in the attack. Another 18 police and 12 civilians were wounded.
“I’m not happy to sit here and announce such bad news, but we are facing an enemy that doesn’t have a heart, so we have to be strong,” Kandahar provincial Gov. Tooryalai Wesa told reporters at a news conference. “They don’t care about the innocent people. They just want to scare the people.”
A total of 14 suicide attackers, who fired at police for about two hours from several directions, blew themselves up or were shot and killed by police, Kandahar officials said.
Militants also attacked a police headquarters building in Shibirghan, the capital of Jawzjan province in the relatively peaceful north.
Provincial governor Mohammad Aleem Saaie said a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up near the headquarters. No one died, but he said 26 people were wounded, including two policemen, a doctor and a prosecutor.
“This was another attack against innocent civilians,” said Gen. Abdul Aziz Ghairat, the provincial police chief. “The majority of the wounded people are civilians.”
Attackers have picked up the pace during the summer months, planting improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, along roads or footpaths. But during the past year, U.S. troops found and avoided more homemade bombs than a year ago because of improvements in training, equipment and intelligence, the U.S. military said.
In the first three months of this year, 5 percent of the bombs planted across Afghanistan hit their mark, according to the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization. That’s down from 10 to 12 percent over the same three-month period a year ago.
So far this year, 231 U.S. and other NATO forces have been killed in Afghanistan. That compares with 271 in the first six months of last year.
___
Associated Press writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Provincial Chief Prosecutor assassinated in E. Afghanistan
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, July 9 (Xinhua) -- A senior Afghan official was killed in a drive-by shooting in the country's eastern province of Ghazni on Monday morning, a provincial official said.
"The Chief Prosecutor of Ghazni province, Sayed Sahar Gul, was driving from home to office at around 8:00 a.m. local time in fifth sub-district in provincial capital Ghazni city when two gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire, killing him on the spot," deputy provincial governor, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, told Xinhua.
The assailants fled the area shortly after the shooting and a teenage girl student was also injured in the incident.
An investigation was under way into the incident, he added.
Afghan officials and pro-government figures have been repeatedly targeted by the militants since May 3 when Taliban insurgents launched an annual spring offensive.
The insurgent group has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a purported Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the incident.
On Sunday morning, a provincial education official was killed by militants in western Badghis province.
Public Execution of Afghan Woman Draws Condemnation
VOA News July 9, 2012
The head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has condemned the public execution of a young woman by a member of the Taliban in Parwan province.
General John Allen described the videotaped shooting in a village near Kabul as “an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty.”
The woman was accused of being romantically involved with two members of the Taliban. Male villagers are heard cheering on the tape after the woman was shot at close range. Some villagers shouted “long live the Afghan mujahedeen,” a reference to the Taliban.
General Allen said the Taliban's “continued brutality” toward innocent civilians, particularly women, “must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
The Afghan government said the execution was “un-Islamic” and “inhuman” and has ordered the Parwan police to find the culprits and bring them to justice.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said “we are going to investigate thoroughly this video and we will
find those culprits and those Taliban who are behind this act of violence, terrorism and brutal act. There is no definition, no meaning for this any more.''
Parwan officials say the public shooting happened late last month.
Afghan women's rights activists have raised concerns about the status of women once international combat forces withdraw from the war-torn country. There is particular concern about U.S. and Afghan efforts to negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban.
Under Taliban rule in the 1990s women were not allowed to work, get an education or leave the house without a male escort.
Separately on Monday, NATO confirmed that the six coalition soldiers who were killed in Sunday's roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan were American. A seventh U.S. soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in the south on Sunday.
The Taliban said it planted the bomb that killed the six U.S. soldiers in Wardak province.
Sunday was a deadly day for Afghan civilians as well, with 14 killed in two roadside bombings in the southern province of Kandahar.
NATO spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told reporters in Kabul on Monday, “yesterday was a tough day for Afghan civilians, coalition and Afghan forces. A number of people were killed or injured due to a number of roadside bombs and conflicts. I extend my sincere condolences to the loved ones, family members and friends of those who were killed or injured.”
Afghan police hunt woman's executioner
By Sardar Ahmad | AFP
A manhunt was under way Monday for Taliban militants who publicly executed a woman accused of adultery, Afghan authorities said, as outrage mounted after a video of the cold-blooded killing surfaced.
President Hamid Karzai called the killing "disgusting and unforgivable" and ordered security forces to spare no effort in arresting and punishing those responsible.
The commander of NATO's 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, offered to help local security forces track and capture the men involved in what he called "an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty".
The brutal shooting of the lone woman before a cheering mob of men is shown in graphic detail in a video of the event in a village in Parwan province some 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of the capital Kabul.
"We have sent a police force to the area," Parwan provincial governor Basir Salangi told AFP, adding that the government had no permanent presence in the valley.
"They are searching for the Taliban who are responsible but the Taliban, including the killer, have fled to the mountains."
Roshna Khalid, Salangi's spokeswoman, separately told AFP the 22-year-old woman, named as Najiba, was married to a member of the hardline Islamist Taliban and was accused of adultery with a Taliban commander.
"Within one hour they decided that she was guilty and sentenced her to death. They shot her in front of villagers in her village, Qol," she said.
Public executions of alleged adulterers were common when the Taliban regime was in power from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a US-led invasion for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.
The Taliban have since waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai said Afghanistan's suffering people were not expecting a repeat of such incidents after the fall of the Taliban regime.
"Murdering a woman who did not even have a voice for defending herself is a sign of cowardness and such a crime is unforgivable in Islam and the country's laws," he said.
The video also drew international condemnation, with British Foreign Secretary William Hague saying he was "shocked and disgusted" by the execution.
"Such deplorable actions underline the vital need for better protection of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan," he said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before the video surfaced, made a powerful plea Sunday for the rights of women in Afghanistan, amid fears that recent gains for women are under threat as NATO troops prepare to leave in 2014.
Clinton, who was addressing a world conference in Tokyo on Afghanistan's future, said: "The United States believes strongly that no nation can achieve peace, stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered."
The video opens with the woman, wrapped in a grey shawl, sitting at the edge of a ditch in a village surrounded by dozens of men, some perched on rooftops for a better view.
As she sits with her back to the crowd a bearded man is seen reading verses from the Koran condemning adultery, before saying: "We cannot forgive her, God tells us to finish her."
The video then shows a man in white being handed an AK-47 rifle. Some local reports said the shooter was the woman's husband but Khalid, the governor's spokeswoman, told AFP that he was a relative of the victim's husband.
The executioner approaches to within a couple of metres (yards) of the woman, says "Allahu akhbar" (God is great), and fires a total of 13 shots as the crowd cheers wildly, shouting "Long live Islam", "Long live mujahideen (holy warriors)".
Feature: Execution of woman by Taliban reveals Afghan women's vulnerability
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Amid national and international campaigns to protect women rights in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan, a popular local television Tolo aired a horrific footage of Taliban behavior towards women on Sunday night and Monday morning that shocked all the viewers.
The shocking footage was about the public extra-judicial killing of a poor woman days ago by a group of armed Taliban fighters in a village of Parwan province, 75 km north of Afghan capital Kabul.
"Oh God. I cannot see, it is a barbaric act against humanity," Kabul resident Ahmad Wali said while watching TV.
The one- or two- minute video recording, displayed on mini- screen, was the film of a shawl-wearing woman sitting helplessly on a ground in Shinwari district in the presence of 100 or so Taliban insurgents and spectators.
The woman known as Najiba, 22, was accused of adultery and after verdict by the Taliban judge, a bearded and turbaned man fired several shots killing her on the spot. After execution of the poor woman the jubilant Taliban militants chanted slogans of " long live Taliban, Taliban implement Islamic law".
However, Afghans question of the desert court as biased, saying both the lady and her paramour should have been punished in a legal court if they were found guilty.
The brutal killing of the alleged adulterer by Taliban is taking place amid government efforts to encourage national reconciliation with Taliban to find a negotiated settlement for Afghan crisis, where women rights bodies have warned that any reconciliation with Taliban would negatively affect all the achievements have made over the past decade.
Taliban militants during their reign which was ended by the U.S. -led military campaign in late 2001 had banned schools for girls and confined women to their houses besides awarding public punishment including hands and feet amputation, lashing, stoning and execution.
"The brutal killing of the woman in Parwan reminds the public execution of alleged criminals by Taliban in the national sport stadium in Kabul before their collapse," said another TV watcher Abdul Azim, adding the execution speaks of Taliban sway in the countryside.
Both President Hamid Karzai and his Interior Ministry have strongly condemned the extra-judicial killing of the woman by Taliban in Parwan, vowing to launch a big operation to find the culprits.
"The murder of a woman who has had no voice to rise for her self-defense against the weapon and brutality of a number of criminals is a clear symbol of the cowardice and wickedness of her murderers," Karzai said in a statement released by his office on Monday, adding that "Such a crime is unforgivable in the sacred religion of Islam and the laws of the country."
He instructed the security officials not to spare any efforts in arresting and punishing the perpetrators.
Nonetheless, Afghan ordinary citizens doubt the government's ability to bring to justice the criminals particularly the Taliban fighters.
"It is just an empty promise to comfort the families of the victim and cool down the feeling of the citizens," a 50-year-old lady teacher in Kabul told Xinhua, believing that no one dares to violate human rights particularly the rights of women in Afghanistan if the government had punished the murderers publicly.
Murdering woman in Parwan district is not the first case of Taliban' desert court against women since their regime ouster a decade ago.
Previously, the armed outfit had stoned to death a woman and a man for similar charge in Dasht-e-Archi district of Kunduz province in 2010, after killing two ladies in Ghazni province and lashing another lady in Ghor province couple of years ago.
However, the women status has been considerably improved in the post-Taliban Afghanistan as women serve as parliamentarians, cabinet ministers, artists and traders, the segment is still suffering.
The body of a women along with two of her children allegedly killed by her husband were taken to hospital in the eastern Ghazni city last Wednesday, head of Ghazni city hospital, Baz Mohammad Humat said.
"The execution of Najiba by Taliban in Parwan is not the first and will not be the last. Such crimes would go unchecked until the government is serious to fight the right abusers," said the lady teacher without giving her name.
Another $16 billion in aid, but Afghan businessmen say help us
World leaders in Tokyo pledge more aid to Afghanistan. But Afghan businessmen worry that the country is too aid dependent and want help with the private sector.
Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent July 8, 2012
Kandahar, Afghanistan - International donors representing about 70 countries and organizations met in Tokyo on Sunday to pledge $16 billion to Afghanistan’s reconstruction over the next four years.
The announcement was welcome news for many in Afghanistan, but nearly 11 years into the US-led war many Afghans and international officials have expressed considerable disappointment with an aid effort that they say has fallen short thus far. With these new pledges in place, there is hope that lessons learned will be applied to improve aid spending in the coming years.
Among complaints of fraud, mismanagement, waste, and missed opportunities that Afghans want addressed, many say they would like to see foreign assistance work harder to adequately develop Afghanistan’s private sector so it can begin to create jobs and a sustainable economy.
“The government does not have the capacity to create more jobs. The only way to create more employment opportunities is to support the private sector,” says Mohammad Rahim Rahimi, director of the Ministry of Economics in Kandahar. “We are still asking the international community for support, but if they had spent development money appropriately I’m sure we would be self-sufficient and we would be able to support our economy.”
Despite the improvements foreign aid has brought to Afghanistan, it’s also managed to place the economy in a perilous position where it is dependent on aid for its existence. Presently 90 percent of the Afghan government’s budget depends on foreign aid and money from the international donor community and military spending makes up about 97 percent of the country’s GDP.
In this climate, a generation of young professionals has come of age only knowing employment in the lucrative non-governmental organization (NGO) sector and is now struggling to find work as donor spending decreases.
Since graduating from college in 2006, Abdul Ahad has worked only for NGOs. Now the program coordinator for Human Resources Development Agency, he says that his organization is down from a high of six donor-funded projects that employed a total of about 150 in 2009 to only two projects and a third minor one that employ just 25 people.
Speaking about colleagues who lost their jobs, Mr. Ahad says, “They are not getting jobs in the NGO sector, they are getting jobs in the private sector with small businesses and low salaries.” The NGO sector is known throughout Afghanistan for providing salaries well above market rates.
Meanwhile, those who’ve sought to create economic opportunities outside the world of international donor spending say they’ve received limited support.
In 2003, Khalilurahman Ahmadi and his brothers decided to start a pipe and plastic factory in Kandahar. Though the family business was fruit import and export with no factory experience, Mr. Ahmadi says he and his brothers felt inspired to “help the country,” which was in dire need of industry. Since then, Ahmadi has focused on building the family’s new company, Imran Atiqu PVC.
Initially, several family friends from Iran and Pakistan with experience in running a plastic factory came to Afghanistan to help, but they left when security began deteriorating in 2005 and 2006.
Ahmadi, who has only a sixth-grade education and no factory background, could not train employees and he says he found little help from the international community. What training they did provide in Kandahar he says was usually related to management skills, not technical education.
Ahmadi also must deal with employees who are often illiterate with no formal education to speak of. Such employees are prone to make mistakes using digital scales, a serious problem in the plastics business where a minor measurement error can seriously change the composition of a pipe.
“In the last 11 years we have change from the money that has been spent. We have security forces, some roads were built, and some other projects were implemented. But as for support for the private sector, I am not happy,” says Ahmadi.
One of the most serious problems Ahmadi faces is the lack of a sustainable electricity source. The US has provided generator power that electrifies the industrial area that is home to Imran Atiqu PVC and other factories, but Americans still provide the fuel to power the generators. Despite commitments at the Tokyo conference, there are still concerns about what will happen as US and NATO forces draw down.
Only 18 percent of Afghanistan has access to reliable electricity, up from 6 percent in 2002. In Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, there is much frustration that hydroelectric dam projects in the area that could solve this problem remain incomplete.
“Billions of dollars have been spent in Afghanistan, but what have we gotten as a benefit?” says Mohammad Kabir Darwaish, an independent economic analyst in Kandahar. “We spent all this money, but the main thing that can support our economy is electricity and it has not been built.”
More than industry, throughout Afghanistan many are betting on the mining sector and finding new markets for agricultural products to fill in the gaps as donor spending inevitably recedes. The mining sector, however, has yet to become operational and begin creating jobs or revenue for the state.
The latest round of international pledges of assistance comes with more strings attached. The money is conditional on the Afghan government reducing corruption and improving governance. In addition to taking stronger anti-corruption measures, the Afghan government must meet good governance standards to receive up to 20 percent of the donor money.
Pakistanis mass to protest resumption of NATO supply line to Afghanistan
Thousands if Pakistanis protested the reopening of NATO supply routes, during massive demonstrations led by the Defense of Pakistan Council. The Council claims the protests will continue outside of Parliament but will not turn violent.
Sunday, July 8th 2012, 07:12 PM New York Daily News -
Thousands of followers of leading Islamist clerics began marching Sunday from the eastern city of Lahore to the capital, Islamabad, to protest Pakistan's decision to once again let NATO move Afghanistan-bound supply convoys through the country after a seven-month hiatus.
The protest was organized by the Defense of Pakistan Council, a coalition of hard-line religious groups that has among its leaders Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, an Islamic cleric who India claims engineered the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people. The procession _ made up of buses, cars and motorcycles _ was peaceful.
Pakistani leaders have been bracing for a popular backlash since announcing last week that the nation was allowing NATO supply routes through the country to reopen. The blockade was imposed after the American air strikes that mistakenly killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border in November. The first NATO container trucks crossed from Pakistan to Afghanistan on Thursday.
Until Sunday, protests throughout the country against the resumption of NATO supply convoys have been relatively small and sporadic. Defense of Pakistan Council leaders say they will continue their demonstration outside Parliament once they reach Islamabad but will ensure their protests do not become violent.
Though the Defense of Pakistan Council's popularity is largely confined to conservative followers, Pakistani officials are nevertheless watching the group's actions closely, mainly because anti-American sentiment runs high throughout the country. Some experts believe Pakistani civilian leaders delayed reopening the NATO supply routes for so long out of concern that the move would trigger anger in the streets _ a particularly troubling prospect for President Asif Ali Zardari's government as it prepares for national elections.
Along with Saeed, the Defense of Pakistan Council's leadership includes Maulana Samiul-Haq, regarded by many as the father of the Taliban movement, and Hamid Gul, a former chief of Pakistan's premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) who has long been viewed as a key supporter of insurgents battling U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Saeed, who was seen alongside other Islamist clerics atop a vehicle leading the caravan Sunday, maintains a high profile despite the $10-million bounty that the U.S. government placed on him in April. Saeed is suspected of having ties with Al-Qaida and, with the help of the ISI, founded the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 1980s. He now heads Lashkar-e-Taiba's social welfare wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, long regarded by the U.S. and India as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba's militant activities.
Pakistani officials refuse to arrest Saeed, saying the U.S. must provide evidence that ties him to militant activities before they can take him into custody.
Time to Get It Right: Revising Priorities in Afghanistan
The Huffington Post By Nigel Jenkins Afghanistan Country Director for the International Rescue Committee 09/07/2012
I increasingly get the sense of living in an Afghanistan different from the one portrayed in the news media. As the international community prepares to disengage militarily by 2014, much of what makes news is the coalition's justification for withdrawal rather than the actual condition of the country. The focus seems to be on what we in the non-profit, humanitarian assistance world call 'hard security', essentially anything military or government-related. So we typically hear about whether the Afghan military and police are ready to assume control of the country's security, or whether the government of Hamid Karzai is prepared to run the country on its own. We do not hear about the important "human security" indicators that aid agency colleagues and I believe portray a seriously deteriorating situation.
These indicators include, for example, the number of Afghans displaced from their homes and the percentage of refugees who have not only returned to Afghanistan but have also been able to survive on their own. Together, these indicators enable us to evaluate the well-being of the Afghan people and to determine how good a job we have all done in helping the 30million people of this impoverished and conflict-ridden country. And judging by these measures, the international community has a long way to go. Sunday's meeting in Tokyo to consider development priorities in Afghanistan should have been be an opportunity to get it right.
When I drive through the streets of Kabul or travel into outlying provinces to see humanitarian aid projects carried out by my organisation, the International Rescue Committee, I see profound need. It epitomises the collective failure of the international community to break the cycle of poverty, violence and suffering that continues to plague the country after 10 years of massive military and civilian assistance. Most of that foreign aid has been military and government-related. The US Congressional Budget Office says the war cost America $443 (£283) billion through 2011, and in the same period the UK spent approximately £17 billion. The human cost has also been staggering: 12,000 civilians killed in the past five years alone, according to the UN, along with 2,000 NATO soldiers.
I have lived here for a bit more than a year, but I'm still shocked by the level of human suffering. In Kabul alone, there are dozens of what are euphemistically called "informal settlements." They are nothing more than slums of mud huts, with no water or sewers, providing temporary shelter for as many as 30,000 displaced people. Many living in these wretched warrens are former refugees who were prodded to return from the comparative safety of Pakistan and Iran. Others are internal exiles who have fled the conflict that ebbs and flows across Afghanistan.
A just published IRC policy report, Afghanistan: The Perilous Road Ahead, provides a snapshot of many of those essential "human security" indicators, and makes for sobering reading. Afghan people are voting with their feet: a record high number of Afghans sought asylum in other countries last year, while returns of refugees from neighbouring countries hit a record low. At the same time there was more internal displacement than at any time in the past decade. The UN refugee agency says the number of Afghans uprooted by violence last year rose by 41% to close to a half-million people. The UN mission in Afghanistan says 2011 was the deadliest year for civilians in the past decade, with 3,021 deaths. That's a 25% increase in two years. These are the figures that are most telling about the human security crisis in Afghanistan. The report also points out that while violence is the primary cause of Afghan displacement, natural disasters such as floods and droughts, and a lack of basic services (schools and medical c
are) and job opportunities add to their woes. These are especially acute challenges in much of rural Afghanistan, which receives virtually no assistance from the Afghan government.
The focus now must be on getting basic services to the local level. We could utilise non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like the one I work for, to do this. In many cases, NGOs work in places in which the Afghan government has no presence, and they already enjoy the trust and confidence of local communities. This approach would continue to address underdevelopment and create economic opportunities that would enhance Afghans' quality of life. It would better prepare them to cope with conflict and recurring disasters. As we assess security, we must broaden the standard indicators to include human security threats such as economic and environmental challenges. We must also consider what population movements can tell us. Utilising all these indicators would provide an effective barometer indicating Afghanistan's ability to cope in an increasingly uncertain environment.
The focus must also be on investing in Afghans themselves. Providing funding to ensure all have food, water, shelter, and employment should be the priority. That will curtail their need to constantly move in search of those basic needs that most of us take for granted.
If we don't act, and instead turn our collective backs on Afghanistan, I fear a return to the violent years of the late 1980s, when warlords carved up the country into fiefdoms and terrorised the civilian population. We cannot let 2014 mark the start of yet another cycle of extreme hardship for an entire Afghan generation that has known nothing else.
Karzai Renews Call for Dialogue with Taliban
Miguel Quintana VOA News July 9, 2012
TOKYO — Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai has renewed his call for talks with the Taliban, one day after international donors pledged $16 billion in aid for the reconstruction of his country.
Karzai says his administration will give top priority to establishing a peace process with the Taliban to stabilize the country and consolidate the gains made in the past 10 years.
"All those Taliban and other militant bodies that are working against their own country now are welcome to participate in the life of the country and to benefit from the laws and the freedom that Afghanistan offers today, with the condition that they respect the Afghan constitution, that they continue with the rebuilding of Afghanistan and that they renounce violence," he said.
The Afghan president said he believes dialogue with the Taliban is essential to solving the ongoing conflict. He says negotiations should no longer be affected by the presence of foreign troops in the country, which the militants have repeatedly denounced.
"As the presence of the international community in Afghanistan is a reality, so is the need for [the Taliban] to participate in any peace talks that we may have together," he said. "But primarily it is for us Afghans to get together and see to it that the country sees better days and that Afghans all join hands for a better country."
Karzai maintains that after the withdrawal of all combat troops by 2014, the presence of foreign soldiers will be negotiated on a bilateral basis. He says, in the case of the United States, military bases will be allowed on a provisional basis for a period of 10 years.
Karzai also invited neighboring Pakistan to participate in the peace process by arranging talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders present in Pakistan. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined her Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in calling for Taliban fighters to join the reconciliation effort.
No sign of Taliban infiltration into Afghan army, police: ISAF
KABUL, July 9 (Xinhua) -- There is no indication or sign of Taliban infiltration into the ranks of the Afghan army and police forces, a spokesman for NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said here Monday.
"Incidents where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed ISAF service members are individual cases and each one has its own underlying circumstances and motives as to the reason why," spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told a weekly press conference.
In the latest such attack, a man in Afghan army uniform opened fire on foreign colleagues in a military camp in eastern Wardak province injuring five U.S. soldiers on July 3.
"I would like to emphasize that there is no indication that these incidents are linked to insurgents or part of any larger coordinated effort," he said.
In another incident, a gunman wearing army uniform shot dead three British soldiers with ISAF after an argument in southern Helmand province on July 1.
Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and NATO forces frequently claimed responsibility for such incidents.
There have been 18 such attacks so far this year, leaving a total of 26 foreign soldiers dead.
Katz also confirmed that the six ISAF soldiers who were killed in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) or roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday were Americans, without disclosing the exact location of the incident.
Meanwhile, an Afghan official said that the incident took place in eastern Wardak province late on Sunday.
"There was a powerful IED blast in Mullah Khil area of provincial capital Maidan Shar late on Sunday that left several coalition forces dead and their vehicle was also destroyed in the attack," a spokesman for provincial government, Shahidullah Shahid, told Xinhua on Monday.
9 Afghan soldiers killed as bus overturns
AYBAK, Afghanistan, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Nine Afghan soldiers were killed and 20 others injured as their bus overturned in northern Afghan province of Samangan on Monday, police said.
"In the tragic incident which took place at around 8 a.m. local time today in Hazrat Sultan district, nine personnel of the national army were martyred and 20 others injured," police spokesman in the northern region Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai told Xinhua.
The ill-fated soldiers were bound for the eastern Paktia province on duty when they met the accident, he added.
Kabul, A City Stretched Beyond Its Limits
NPR By Sean Carberry July 8, 2012
Kabul was once a relatively lush haven for several hundred thousand residents. But decades of war, migration and chaotic sprawl have turned the Afghan capital into a barely functioning dust bowl.
The tired infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of nearly 5 million people. And 70 percent of Kabul is now a cramped, ad hoc development where water, sewers and electricity are in short supply.
Somehow, life goes on. But the city seems to be nearing its breaking point.
Between the lack of vegetation on the surrounding hills, and the lack of pavement, there is a constant haze of dust hovering above the city. Life is tough, especially in extremely poor areas like Tap-e-maranjan, a densely packed, unplanned neighborhood clinging to a hillside.
"There is no electricity," says Aji Gul, who has lived in the neighborhood the past four years. "There is no water, so we buy it from private businesses."
Aji Gul is a street vendor, struggling to make ends meet. A rugged man in his 50s with reddish-brown skin, he once had a nice house in the city. He spent 10 years in Pakistan to escape the fighting in Kabul, and when he returned, he found he could only afford to live here, in Tap-e-maranjan.
He says the government has no plans to help the neighborhood. The residents are trying to tell the government they need services.
"There are a lot of problems here, but we have no choice," he says. "We can't afford to go anywhere else."
Four years ago, he says there were a lot of vacant houses and empty lots here. Now, it's full of people from all over the country.
Some came to escape fighting elsewhere in the country; others came hoping for better opportunities. Seventeen people live in Aji Gul's small two-room house. Some homes here have more than 20 residents.
"The poorest people coming to the city are doubling up in houses because that's the closest they can get to their jobs," says Jolyon Leslie, an architect from South Africa who has been working in Afghanistan for 20 years with various private aid groups. He says people tend to move in with relatives and stay as long as they can.
A Growing Sea Of Sprawl
A hillside near the Nadir Shah Mausoleum — a famous Kabul landmark — provides a unique perspective on Kabul's growth.
The land to the east of the city was once all agricultural.
Now, "as far as the eye can see, it's a kind of low-rise sprawl over towards the mountains, so the entire cityscape has changed," says Leslie.
On the other side of the hilltop, Leslie points out the old city and the old citadel. He describes how it extends over to the north to a blue dome — the Pul-e Khishti. It's a 20th century mosque, but it sits on a very old site.
He says this stretch was at one time the entire city of Kabul.
Now, the city center is like a buoy floating in a sea of sprawl. Leslie says that once a center of culture, commerce, and educated classes, central Kabul more and more resembles a slum. As more poor people have crowded in to be closer to work opportunities, drugs, prostitution and criminality have moved in as well.
But the scene isn't all bleak. There are some new high-rises going up and neighborhoods where people are renovating their homes. Houses painted in bright pastels and sporting steel frame windows with mirrored glass stand out against the mud-colored houses in the hills.
"There's a very, very clear process of consolidation and gentrification," Leslie says.
He says that people who are living on what is technically seized government land are less worried about being kicked out, so they are investing more in their houses.
"And they're also more prosperous, there's no doubt about it," he says as he points across the hill at a house where workers are building an additional floor. "That money's coming from somewhere — somebody's got a new job, somebody's got a new shop, so it's quite a positive sign in that view."
There is economic growth in the city. There are people who have made a lot of money, working in the security industry or in high-paying jobs with foreign aid organizations.
At the same time, there's plenty of money coming in from corruption and the country's massive opium trade. That's why people refer to the gaudy new multistory mansions springing up around the city as "poppy palaces."
And Leslie says that although many of the hillside houses look well-built from the outside, much of the new construction is extremely shoddy.
He says that when — it's not a matter of "if" — the big Kabul earthquake hits, "it's going to be quite scary depending in the intensity."
"A lot of these buildings that look quite nice are going to come down like a pack of cards," Leslie says.
Government Services Lag
Driving from the hilltop to the city center highlights another of Kabul's challenges — traffic. The mostly unpaved streets are choked with five to 10 times the number of cars they were designed to handle.
On top of that, vendors, beggars, pedestrians, bicycles and donkey carts all compete for space. And there's not a working traffic light in the city. It can take hours to cross from one side of Kabul to the other.
The Chindawol neighborhood in Kabul's Old City is an industrial and residential area.
"Most of the people in this area are shopkeepers," says Haji Khahesta Gul, a shopkeeper himself, selling grains and other dry goods.
Before the Soviets invaded, Chindawol used to be a residential area for educated and elite Afghans. It has also been the main dry food market. Over the years, that's changed. The area has been swarmed by people, mostly illiterate and low-skilled.
Gul, who is in his 50s, says that 10 years ago he had a great business, but it's been deteriorating. He points out that the city has doubled in size in the past decade.
"But still you don't see any fundamental thing that the government has done in the last decade," he says. Ghalub Nemat understands this all too well. He's a government engineer with the Ministry of Urban Development. He says that 50 percent of the urban population in the entire country is in Kabul, and for the last several decades, the government hasn't kept pace with the growth of the city.
He says that about 70 percent of the Kabul area is informally developed.
"What Kabul municipality is doing, what our ministry is doing, they're trying to control the informal areas," he says. "And the government is not able to do it."
Nemat says to this day there is no central sewage system, barely 25 percent of the people have direct access to potable water, and wide swaths of the city have no or infrequent electricity.
He says the government can't solve these problems, and he hopes the private sector can help fill the gaps. But for now, the private sector seems more focused on catering to the elites, not the masses.
For The Wealthy, New Urban Islands
Increasingly, people like Nemat are moving to new planned developments on the periphery of the city, where there is less pollution.
"There were poets, there were poems, there were so many books written on Kabul, beautiful Kabul," says Nemat. "But I'm not seeing it now."
One of the new communities is Shahrak Aria. It's composed of a couple of dozen five- and six-story, off-white apartment buildings, though there are more phases of development to come. It's a gated, high-end community, designed to be self-sufficient.
Rather than car horns, ice cream vendors or people in the street, you hear periodic airplanes or helicopters flying overhead since it's across the street from the airport.
"There is very good parking, playgrounds for kids, water 24 hours, modern construction, so we're all happy here," says Dr. Mohammed Faridoon, who moved to Shahrak Aria three years ago.
It has its own restaurants and grocery stores, as well as its own water supply and sewage system. By the time the development is complete, there will be thousands of apartments and a shopping mall — people will have to venture from this urban island only to go to work.
"I like this because it is a closed compound, it's very good in terms of security," says Faridoon, who is in his 50s. He says it's quiet and peaceful, unlike his old neighborhood, which was noisy and full of problems.
Ultimately, many with means are looking to escape the chaos of Kabul — to isolate themselves in secure compounds away from the masses struggling to get by. But only a tiny minority can hide out in these gated communities. The rest are stuck trying to survive in a city stretched far beyond its capacity.
NPR's Aimal Yaqubi contributed to this story
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