[Afghan News] August 2, 2012

[یاسمینه]

Afghan forces thwart insurgent attack on Kabul
By Mirwais Harooni
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan security forces killed five insurgents and wounded one during a pre-dawn raid in Kabul on Thursday, with authorities saying they had thwarted a mass attack and captured intelligence pointing to the militant Haqqani network.
Soldiers from Afghanistan's spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), launched the raid just after midnight, entering a single-story house compound on the fringes of Kabul which the insurgents were using as a base.
"They planned mass attacks in different parts of Kabul disguised in burqas," the NDS said in a statement, referring to the head-to-toe covering worn by many Afghan women and sometimes used by insurgents to evade detection.
Police said two insurgents escaped during a gun battle that raged for five hours around the isolated compound, where the insurgents had been amassing weapons in a newly built brick house.
The militants had three vehicles loaded with explosives and suicide-bomb vests, as well as large stores of rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, and planned to occupy a high-rise building to attack the city's business heart.
The Taliban issued a statement denying that Thursday's operation had targeted their fighters, although the insurgents often play down their defeats and inflate successes.
The NDS said target maps and telephone numbers recovered from the compound had numbers for the Haqqani network based outside Afghanistan.
Haqqani network militants, allied with the Taliban and largely based in northwest Pakistan's lawless border lands, have been blamed by NATO-led forces in Afghanistan for several high profile attacks in recent months.
Dozens of militants launched a coordinated assault in central Kabul on April 15, occupying a high-rise construction site and pounding the city's diplomatic and government centre with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in an attack that took 18 hours to quell.
On June 22, Afghan security forces backed by foreign advisers fought a day-long battle with insurgents after a Taliban attack on a lakeside hotel on Kabul's outskirts.
But security forces and NATO-led foreign troops say the sporadic attacks do not point to weaknesses in Afghan forces and intelligence ahead of a withdrawal by most foreign combat troops to be completed by 2014.
"PROGRESS"
The United States is pressing Pakistan to step up its efforts to root out militants, in particular the Haqqanis.
Pakistan has strong traditional links with the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups but it denies accusations it uses them as proxies to gain leverage in Afghanistan ahead of any settlement to the war, or in case a civil war breaks out after foreign troops leave.
Pakistan has also long complained that the United States has overlooked its contribution to the fight against militants.
NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. General John Allen, met Pakistani counterparts in Islamabad on Thursday to discuss cross border security in the wake of hundreds of rocket attacks in eastern Afghanistan which Afghan officials have blamed on the Pakistan army.
Pakistan has denied the accusation.
"We are making significant progress toward building a partnership that is enduring, strategic, carefully defined, and that enhances the security and prosperity of the region," Allen said in a statement after his talks.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan has acknowledged an 11 percent spike in attacks over the past three months since the start of the summer fighting period, although overall the number of foreign soldiers killed is down on last year.
Eighty-five were killed in June and July against 119 over the same period last year.
(Writing by Rob Taylor; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Top US commander in Afghanistan visits Pakistan
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan discussed border coordination with Pakistan's army chief Thursday during his first visit since Islamabad ended its seven-month blockade of NATO troop supplies.
Pakistan closed its Afghan border to NATO in November in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the two sides have held a series of meetings since then to try to prevent such an incident from occurring again.
Pakistan reopened the route in early July after the U.S. finally apologized for the deaths, which Washington said were an accident. Both countries have made public statements since then about the need to move forward and patch up their troubled relationship, but major disagreements continue.
"We are making significant progress toward building a partnership that is enduring, strategic, carefully defined, and that enhances the security and prosperity of the region," a press release quoted Gen. John Allen as saying after his meeting with Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
The U.S. has long been frustrated by Islamabad's refusal to target Afghan Taliban militants and their allies using Pakistani territory to stage attacks against troops in Afghanistan. Many analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to target groups with which it has strong historical ties and could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.
Pakistan has denied this, saying its forces are stretched too thin fighting Pakistani Taliban militants at war with the state. It has also criticized NATO and Afghan forces for not doing enough to stop Pakistani militants holed up in Afghanistan from launching attacks across the border into Pakistan.
Pakistan has also demanded the U.S stop drone strikes targeting militants in its northwest tribal region, although officials within the government and the military have supported these attacks in the past. The strikes are unpopular in Pakistan because many people believe they mostly kill civilians — an allegation denied by the U.S.
The months-long dispute over the deaths of the Pakistani troops in November and the subsequent closure of the NATO supply line intensified feelings of anger and distrust on both sides.
Even though Pakistan reopened the supply line in early July, bureaucratic delays, disputes over compensation and security concerns have prevented the flow of trucks from really picking up steam. One of the two Afghan crossings used by NATO has been closed for about a week as officials work with the Pakistani military to protect against militant attacks.
But both sides have an incentive to prevent their troubled relationship from totally falling apart.
The U.S. needs Pakistan's help to negotiate a peace treaty with the Taliban in Afghanistan, while Islamabad wants Washington to continue sending billions of dollars in aid that shore up its shaky government finances.

Afghan finance minister faces corruption investigation
By Rob Taylor and Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's top anti-corruption chief said on Thursday the finance minister's business affairs will be investigated after accusations aired on Afghan television that he stashed away more than $1 million in overseas banks.
Hazarat Omar Zakhilwal, championed by international donors for his integrity in a country mired in graft, over the past five years had transferred the money to accounts in Canada, according Afghanistan's largest commercial TV channel, Tolo TV.
Tolo showed what it said were his private bank statements on one of its programs.
Zakhilwal, in an interview with the station late on Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing and said there was nothing untoward in the transfers, which were the result of legitimate work and business interests before entering government.
"Before I came back to Afghanistan, I was a lecturer of economics in Canada and (as a consultant) I had good sources of income too worth $1,500 per day," Zakhilwal, also President Hamid Karzai's top economics counselor, told Tolo.
Zakhilwal, who moved back to Afghanistan from Canada, became Finance Minister in February 2009 and was former head of the country's investment support agency. He has also been a consultant to the World Bank and United Nations.
Afghanistan's High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption chief, Dr. Azizullah Ludin, told Reuters that he was not convinced by the denials and an investigation would begin into Zakhilwal's business affairs on Saturday.
The team looking into the transfers would include officials from Ludin's office, as well as intelligence officials from the National Directorate of Security and the Attorney-General's office.
"The minister of finance says this money is from his business, but I asked him "what sort of business do you have?'," Ludin said. "We will investigate this seriously."
Afghanistan is regularly ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries, with more than $16 billion pledged in future aid at an international donor's conference in Tokyo tied to a serious effort to crack down on graft.
FOURTH CAR "WORTH $160,000"
Afghanistan's Western backers have repeatedly called for more action to counter rampant skimming and kickbacks paid from the more than $50 billion in reconstruction money that has flooded into the country since 2001.
Karzai last month issued a decree ordering all ministries to take steps to cut down on nepotism and corruption, while directing the Supreme Court to accelerate investigations already under way.
The directive, while less than Western backers had hoped, also pointed to a growing realization within the government that corruption must be addressed and senior figures prosecuted, diplomats said.
Ludin said his office had already confirmed that, from 2007 until 2011, $1,080,000 was transferred to Zakhilwal's personal accounts held with Standard Chartered and Alfalah banks, including $200,000 from a private company in 2009.
Tolo said that amounts of between $50,000 and $100,000 were transferred from 2007 onwards, including $100,000 transferred in July 2007 to a bank in Canada to buy a house.
A payment of $70,000 was sent to his sister, Malalai Zakhilwal, the station said.
The monthly salary of an Afghan minister was $2,000 with $1,400 in food allowances, Ludin said, and yet Zakhilwal had recently bought a car worth $160,000.
"We should investigate this because he already has three cars belonging to the government," Ludin said.
Zakilwal's spokesman said the money mostly came from business dealings prior to 2007 and said the investigation should instead focus on "how government and private secrets were disclosed".
Zakhilwal as finance minister oversees government revenue from taxation, as well as customs, the department most frequently accused of corruption and bribery demands.
Ludin said there were serious problems in the finance ministry, with "extreme fraud cases" already uncovered involving customs officials at the Torkham border post alongside Pakistan and the Hiratan customs outpost near Uzbekistan, in the north.
More than $60 million had gone missing over the years in Hiratan alone, he said.
Asked by Tolo about the transfers, Zakhilwal said he had been "happier when I was working in roles outside of the government, because there were less conspiracies surrounding me".
(Additional reporting by Mirwais Haroooni, Editing by Michael Georgy and Nick Macfie)

24 insurgents killed in operations in Afghanistan: gov't
KABUL, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police and army, backed by the NATO-led coalition troops, have killed two dozen Taliban insurgents within the past 24 hours in different provinces, the country's Interior Ministry said Thursday morning.
"During the past 24 hours, Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan National Army, Afghan intelligence agency and coalition forces launched 16 joint clearance operations in Laghman, Kunduz, Baghlan, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan, Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, Khost and Paktika provinces, killing 24 Taliban insurgents," the ministry said in a statement.
Two more insurgents were wounded and three others detained by the joint forces, the statement added.
They also found and seized weapons, the statement said, without mentioning if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to make comments.
Separately, three militants were killed when their roadside bombs went off prematurely along a main road in Bala Marghab District of western Badghis province Wednesday, according to the statement.
"Meanwhile, the ANP discovered and defused three anti-vehicle mines a as a result of security operations in the Nahar Saraj District and Lashkar Gah City, capital of southern Helmand province, yesterday," the interior ministry statement added.
Earlier Thursday, a policeman was killed and another police officer was injured when two men armed with knives attacked them in the Safyano area of Lashkar Gah city, provincial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi told Xinhua.
Afghan forces and some 130,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militant groups throughout the country recently as spring and summer, known as "fighting season", draw near.
Records kept by Xinhua, based on figures released by the Afghan Interior Ministry, reveal that more than 480 insurgents have been killed, 56 wounded and nearly 380 detained over the past one month by the joint forces across the country.

28 Taliban rebels surrender in W. Afghan province
CHEQHCHERAN, Afghanistan, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- More than two dozen Taliban insurgents have renounced the violence and joined the Afghan peace and reconciliation process in western Afghan province of Ghor on Thursday, a provincial government spokesman said.
"As many as 28 Taliban, including two local insurgent commanders named Mullah Esa and Abdul Karim, joined the government in Chahar Sada and Shahrak districts Thursday morning," spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi told Xinhua.
They also handed over a handful of weapons to security authorities, he added.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have not made any comment yet.
The Afghan government set up a 70-member High Peace Council in the summer of 2010 to encourage Taliban to disarm and give up militancy against the government.
Up to 5,000 Taliban foot soldiers and local commanders have joined the government over the past one year, according to the Afghan officials.

5 civilians killed by militants in Afghan Logar province
By ANI
Kabul, Aug. 2 (Xinhua-ANI): Five civilians were killed by militants in Logar province 60 km south of Afghan capital of Kabul, a provincial government spokesman said Thursday.
"A total of 10 civilians were kidnapped by militants two weeks ago in Logar but the bullet-riddle bodies of five were found in Shash-Qala area of Charkh district late on Wednesday," spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish told Xinhua.
The militants kidnapped them in charges of working for government and the NATO-led forces, he said.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging more than a decade- long insurgency, launched an annual spring offensive starting from May 3 to target Afghan forces as well as U.S. and NATO troops across the country.
The Taliban has warned people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Taliban killed four civilians in Jalrez district of neighboring Wardak province on Tuesday while another five civilians, who were working as daily wagers in a joint Afghan and NATO-led coalition force military camp, were also killed in Jalrez district on July 21.
A total of 3,021 Afghan civilians were killed in 2011, an 8 percent rise from the previous year, according to the United Nations annual report released in Kabul in February. (Xinhua-ANI)

Afghans fear what will happen when troops leave
Afghans fear future after foreign troops leave even after donor nations pledge ongoing support
By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Asadullah Ramin has lost all hope in his homeland — he's so worried about what will happen when U.S. and international troops leave that he's ready to pay a smuggler to whisk his family out of Afghanistan.
It would cost the 50-year-old, self-employed electronics engineer tens of thousands of dollars to leave his middle-class life in the Afghan capital and start a new chapter with his wife and their three daughters. He has done OK in recent years, even getting contracts from the foreign forces, and he has warm memories of Kabul from his teens — before Soviet forces invaded the nation.
But he wouldn't hesitate for a moment. He already paid to have his two sons smuggled to a European county he won't disclose.
"If I could go in the next hour, I would leave everything — the house, my shop," Ramin said, tears welling in his eyes as he spoke in his dusty workshop.
"I have no hope, no hope," he said, opening his palms as if pleading to be understood.
The United States and its allies have tried to reassure Afghans that they are not abandoning the country when international combat troops leave by the end of 2014. Donor nations have pledged billions to bankroll Afghan security forces and billions more in development aid. Country after country has signed a long-term partnership pact with Kabul.
But the promises have done little to buoy the hopes of Afghans who are in despair about the future of their nation.
Among Afghans around the country interviewed by The Associated Press, the worry is pervasive. Many are deeply skeptical that Afghan police and security forces, which the U.S.-led coalition has spent years trying to build, will be able to fight insurgents and militants without American and NATO fighting alongside. Worse-case scenarios that some fear: The Afghan forces could splinter along ethnic line and prompt civil war, the nation could plunge into a deep recession, or the Kabul government — plagued with corruption and still fragile despite efforts to establish its authority — would remain too weak to hold off a Taliban takeover.
Just a 45-minute drive south of Kabul, residents of Wardak province directly feel the tenuousness. The province is a battleground for Afghan and coalition forces trying to squash hotbeds of the Taliban. Residents quickly warn visitors that it's dangerous just to go past a checkpoint less a kilometer (half-mile) outside the provincial capital, Maidan Shahr.
"We don't know if the government has been successful or not," 17-year-old Mohammad Ashaq said, chatting inside a tiny pharmacy in the city. "Most people think that after 2014, the government will not exist."
Hanging over the fears is a sense that history could repeat itself. Afghans felt abandoned by the U.S. after 1989, when the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan. U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters battling the Soviets dried up quickly and Afghanistan sank into civil war as militias and warlords battled for power, devastating Kabul. That was followed by the rise of the Taliban and years of rule under their repressive regime.
In one sign of the lack of confidence, the number of Afghan asylum seekers in 44 industrialized countries went up 34 percent in 2011 over the year before, according to the latest figures issued by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2011, 35,700 Afghans sought asylum, compared to 26,000 the year before.
Another sign: the real estate market in Kabul.
Broker Mir Ahmad Shah says this is the worst of his seven years selling properties in the capital. No one wants to buy. A piece of land that went for $100,000 last year now is priced as low as $60,000, but even at that cut-rate price buyers aren't tempted. It's in part because of increased security worries the past year, but it's "especially because of the announcement about the coalition leaving," he said.
"I'm not hopeful for the future and it's not just me," he said, waving his hand toward small shops across the street where a vendor was selling live chickens. "The shopkeepers, the businessmen — they are all hopeless." One of his listings is the home of a man selling to move to Canada, he added.
The Americans insist that the pledges of international support going forward will prevent the worst from happening. The pledges make the possibility of another civil war or deep recession "unlikely scenarios," according to Ryan Crocker, who just stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.
At a NATO summit in May in Chicago, NATO members agreed to help the Afghan government bankroll its security forces post-2014. Earlier this month in Tokyo, the international community pledged $16 billion in aid — at least through 2015 — to further help rebuild.
"We are not even imagining abandoning Afghanistan," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a stop in Kabul en route to the Tokyo gathering. She announced that Afghanistan was the newest "major non-NATO ally" — a statement of political support for the country's long-term stability and close defense cooperation.
Afghan, U.S. and coalition officials believe Afghan forces are getting more capable day by day. They boast that while insurgents remain a threat, they have been forced out of population centers. Seventy-five percent of the Afghan population lives in areas where security is being transferred to Afghan forces, they said.
The Afghan army and police force suffer from low levels of literacy, corruption within their ranks and lack of equipment and experience, but are showing themselves to be increasingly capable on the battlefield — and there are still two years to go, Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told the AP in a recent interview.
"It's gaining experience. It's gaining leadership," Allen said.
Still, civilians are increasingly caught in the middle of the fight against insurgents. Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed as insurgents stepped up suicide attacks and roadside bombs, according to the United Nations.
In the south, where the Taliban have their strongest roots, the governor of Helmand province praises the security gains. In 2008, the provincial capital Lashkar Gah was surrounded by militants and the Taliban controlled a number of districts. There was only one brigade of the Afghan army in the province, and the police forces were plagued by drug addiction, Gov. Gulab Mangal told Pentagon reporters recently.
But after years of operations by coalition and Afghan forces, insurgents have been pushed back. Today, 80 percent of the Helmand police are trained and equipped, he said, declaring Helmand is "open for business.'
Aftab Jan, a 35-year-old who runs a hotel business in Lashkar Gah, agrees. "We used to be scared to even go out of our homes to work as we might never return alive, but now we can walk around and do our business safely."
But, he said, "If the foreign forces leave us on our own now, then we are going to go back to zero all at once."
"It will mean being under the same old Taliban hold," he said. "All these years would mean nothing. The war and struggle over bringing peace to this land would mean nothing."
Even in Kabul where there are more jobs and educational opportunities than in the outlying provinces, it's difficult to be positive. Every day, people in the capital are confronted by scores of penniless Afghans — men without limbs and women clutching soiled babies — who beg from motorists idling in traffic.
Regwida Neayish, a 19-year-old in her second year of college in Kabul, wants to leave Afghanistan to study abroad to become a doctor — although she promises to return.
"I don't think there is a future for us," Neayish, a soft-spoken woman in a baby blue headscarf, said at a new women's only Internet cafe.
"It's in our hands to study and work hard, but there are no jobs for the people of Afghanistan. ... There is nothing, nothing," she said.
Her mother, Frozan Marofi, who was checking her email across the room, had a more positive outlook.
Instead of wringing their hands about what might happen in 2014, Marofi said, Afghans should be thinking about how they can improve life now.
"Maybe after 2014, we will have a very, very nice life."
Unconvinced, her daughter giggled into her headscarf and said, "I just want to go to another country."
___
Associated Press Writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.

More than 200 youths commissioned to Afghan police
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Up to 202 Afghan youths after receiving a two-month necessary training course in a police training center, graduated Thursday and commissioned to the Afghan National Police (ANP), a police official said.
"Today, a total of 202 police officers after graduation from the two-month training course commissioned to the ANP," head of the police training center in Mazar-e-Sharif 305 km north of capital Kabul, Abdul Rahman Haqtash, told Xinhua.
All the newly graduated police officers will be deployed to the northern provinces of the country to further ensure law and order, Haqtash added.
Afghanistan is due to take over the leadership of its own security duties from U.S. and NATO forces by the end of 2014.
The Afghan police and army took security duties from foreign forces in areas where more than half of the population lives.
Under U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10,000 U.S. troops already pulled out of Afghanistan last year and another 23, 000 will return home by September this year.

Afghan Intelligence Says Foreign Spy Rings Busted In Government Ranks
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan August 2, 2012
KABUL -- The Afghan intelligence service claims to have arrested senior government officials who spied for neighboring countries.
The head of the National Security Directorate intelligence service, Rahmatullah Nabil, told the Afghan parliament on August 1 that 15 government employees, including senior bureaucrats and a military general, had been arrested.
He said that some of them confessed to spying for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and Iranian spy services.
Nabil said Afghan intelligence had exposed numerous plots to assassinate senior Afghan officials by arresting insurgent infiltrators within the security forces.
He said that overall the intelligence service had improved its ability to uncover and thwart terrorist cells plotting suicide attacks against government figures during the past year.
Media reports noted that despite the government's claims, Taliban infiltrators periodically kill international troops and Afghan officials.

NZ to help fund, build largest solar energy plant in Afghanistan
WELLINGTON, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand is to help fund the largest solar energy plant in Afghanistan, which will be built by two New Zealand companies, the New Zealand government announced Thursday.
Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said the New Zealand government would provide 18.6 million NZ dollars (15.05 million U. S. dollars) for a solar energy system in the Bamyan province, where New Zealand troops have been helping in reconstruction.
Two New Zealand companies, NetCon Ltd. and Sustainable Energy Services International, had been awarded the contract for the 1.05 MW plant, with construction expected to be completed at the end of 2013, McCully said in a statement.
"New Zealand has had a close relationship with Bamyan since the first Provincial Reconstruction Team arrived in 2003. Energy is a top priority for Afghanistan's development and the government of Bamyan is welcoming this initiative to bring power to the province, " McCully said.
"We are pleased to be able to provide a system that will reliably supply power to about 2,500 homes, businesses, and government buildings," he said.
"This project is as much about building a utility and training staff as it is about constructing a reliable energy facility. The system must be sustainable in the long term, so to that end the government will set a tariff that is affordable, but also covers the cost of maintenance."

Afghanistan Struggles to Educate its Youth
Sharon Behn VOA News August 1, 2012
KABUL — Afghanistan is trying to unify the country through a new national educational curriculum. But a lack of security, books, trained teachers and schools is making it very challenging.
Modern education is a challenge in Afghanistan. Educators are struggling with the aftermath of decades of war and differing political ideologies.
Education Ministry spokesman Amanullah Iman says it has taken 10 years to design and begin to implement a new curriculum. And a lot of challenges remain.
"The first problem is insecurity in southern provinces, 500 schools are closed there, and around 300,000 students are not going to school because they don't have access," he said. "The second priority is our professional teachers, because half of our teachers don't have proper professional training, and that is an important issue."
Iman says the ministry also has been rewriting the country's Islamic educational texts. In the past the Taliban, educated in Pakistan, had influenced the religious material.
"One of the big challenges has been Islamic studies, because many students studied in neighboring countries and when studying Islamic studies there they were against Afghanistan," he said. "So we have designed a new curriculum with our teachers and our Islamic scholars and in our national languages, we have focused more on love of country, and we hope to publish and introduce it soon."
Roughly 4.5 million books have yet to be published, due to a lack of money. Another five million books of the general curriculum are stuck on NATO supply trucks that were frozen in Pakistan for the last eight months.
Three million students around the country still don't have access to schools. And out of 16,000 schools, 7,000 are held outdoors or in tents because there are not enough buildings.
The Taliban continues to destroy schools in the south, and targets girls trying to get an education.
Arzu Omid of the group Women for Change says it is essential that girls get to school.
"If we want to bring about change in our lives, especially in the life of Afghan women, we need education," she said.
In Kabul, university students say the educational system is out of date and broken.
University student Hamid Aman says classes are crowded, and teachers unprepared.
"In schools these days you will see 70 to 80 students in a class, and the teacher can't teach that many students well," he said. "So, first you need to change the class size, then the teachers. In rural areas there are students graduating from high school who can't even read or write properly. Then those graduates are teaching the middle school children, so the students aren't learning anything."
The Taliban has fought against the new books, which focus on gender equality and globalization.
Ahmad Khalid Fahim of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan says the new curriculum is key to a modern Afghanistan.
"A national curriculum that defines the Afghan identity, but of course in a global perspective," he said. "To tell it in short sentences: to produce a local Afghan with a global outlook."
Afghanistan's leaders know it is the children who must be able to fulfill their country's expectations.

Top 3 lessons the US military has learned in Afghanistan war
As defense budget wranglings continue on Capitol Hill, much of the debate about one of the Pentagon’s largest expenses – Afghanistan – centers around just how effective the decade-long fight has been. Put more sharply, what has America received for the $443 billion it has spent so far on the war? (That's the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office covering 2001-2011.)At the Pentagon and in testimony on Capitol Hill, the US military is taking part in its own cost-benefit analysis. Here are three top lessons the US military has learned in Afghanistan.
Christian Science Monitor
As defense budget wranglings continue on Capitol Hill, much of the debate about one of the Pentagon’s largest expenses – Afghanistan – centers around just how effective the decade-long fight has been. Put more sharply, what has America received for the $443 billion it has spent so far on the war? (That's the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office covering 2001-2011.)
At the Pentagon and in testimony on Capitol Hill, the US military is taking part in its own cost-benefit analysis. Here are three top lessons the US military has learned in Afghanistan.
1. Watch the money
Staggering corruption has consistently undermined the mission of US troops in Afghanistan, according to top US officials.
A new congressionally mandated report on Afghanistan released in late July paints a dismal picture of the scale: It finds that “a significant proportion” of the $400 million the US has invested in large-scale projects in 2011 has been “wasted, due to weaknesses in planning, coordination, and execution, raising sustainability concerns and risking adverse counterinsurgency effects.”
These are projects designed to win local support in areas where US troops are fighting.
Yet the money continues to flow. Already, the US has committed more than $90 billion in development dollars in 2013 – a tough sell for voters in a time of fiscal austerity, noted Sen. Robert Menendez (D) of New Jersey during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday.
“How do we justify and expect that we will effectively – if we were to commit to those funds – effectively use those funds toward the development of a sustainable economy in Afghanistan, something that I could go to taxpayers back in New Jersey and say, ‘Yeah, this is worthy of our support and it's going to be well spent based upon experience we've had so far?’ ” he said during the hearing.
It doesn’t help that the Afghan finance minister has come under investigation, after an Afghan television network turned up what may be payoffs from businesses deposited into his private bank accounts.
This does not serve to increase confidence among the Afghan citizenry ahead of 2014 elections, also the year US combat troops are set to leave the country.
“Ultimately, it is the political transition that will determine whether our military gains are sustainable, and the strength and quality of the Afghan state we leave behind,” noted Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Yet corruption and graft make it difficult for both American voters and their Afghan counterparts to have any confidence in the political process.
2. Make it last: Build an Army Afghanistan can sustain after US troops leave
It has been a cornerstone of US military policy in Afghanistan: As Afghan soldiers and police stand up, US troops can stand down.
That has been happening more slowly than US officials had hoped, with an attrition rate of some 25 percent per year within the Afghan National Army (ANA), according to a senior NATO official.
Brig. Gen. Thomas Putt, director of Afghan National Security Forces Development in Kabul, promised that NATO will meet its goals to build up the size of Afghan security forces to suitable levels by October.
Many new recruits have been attracted to the force by literacy programs sponsored by the US military. Most Afghans are illiterate, and teaching new recruits how to read “has become a real draw for the security forces as we move forward,” Putt said during a Pentagon briefing Aug. 1. “It is also, I think, a secret weapon that the insurgents can’t provide, and that’s one draw down the road that we think will pay huge dividends as we go forward.”
But the ongoing question will be how to sustain these forces long after US troops leave.
So far, very few Afghan units can operate “independently” of US advisers. This fact was brought into sharp relief with a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in July that charged the Pentagon with being evasive when it comes to evaluating the capabilities of Afghan security forces. It found that the “tools used to assess the performance of the [Afghan military] units have changed several times.”
Indeed, the highest level of achievement for an ANA unit had previously been “independent.” As of August 2011, that top rating was changed to “independent with advisers.” The Pentagon made these changes, the GAO charged, to make it seem as if the ANA were making more progress than it actually has. The GAO investigation further found that these changes were "partly responsible for the increase in ANSF units rated at the highest level."
Much of the costs for standing up and even maintaining the Afghan Army will require US money for years to come. The United States is covering most of the costs of the ANA and, with an annual budget of $4.1 billion, “the Afghan government has limited ability to financially support its security forces,” the GAO reports.
The looming threat is that after US troops leave, ANA fighters might have to take their US-provided training and find work elsewhere if they want a steady paycheck. This, in turn, raises the specter of private militias.
The nominee to be the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, James Cunningham, addressed the threat in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on July 31. “I think the talk of rearming and of reforming of militias is overstated,” he said. “But the temptation is there, and the uncertainty about how various groups will advance their interests in the future is very much on the table.”
3. Pay attention to the neighbors
The US relationship with Pakistan, which shared a border with Afghanistan, has been an ongoing source of frustration for the US military.
It was only in June that Pakistan reopened its border after closing it in November 2011, when American forces accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers during an airstrike.
This was previously the crossing point for the vast majority of the Pentagon’s supplies for its troops in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials said they were waiting for the US to apologize for the deaths.
That this apology was long in coming speaks to the resentment that some Pentagon officials harbor for what they see as Pakistan's failure to earnestly crack down on Taliban insurgents that continue to launch crossborder attacks on US troops.
Pakistani officials have resentments of their own – specifically, US drone strikes targeting Al Qaeda militants hiding out in Pakistan's tribal regions, which in some cases have also killed Pakistani civilians.
American lawmakers for their part see a great deal of US aid to Pakistan expended without much US strategic gain. Sen. Bob Corker (R) of Tennessee described US-Pakistan ties as a "pay-for-play" relationship as he inquired about US strategy during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Since it is more of a transactional relationship – not one that is built on goodwill – how do we leverage the resources that we have to cause Pakistan to act in ways that we would like to see them act?"
This is the ongoing question within the halls of the Pentagon, as well as on Capitol Hill. “What happens in the region ... as a whole will do more to determine the outcome in Afghanistan than any shift in [US] strategy,” Senator Kerry noted in the same hearing. “And Pakistan, in particular, remains central to that effort.”

Karzai: a 'prisoner in his palace'?
NBC News By Ali Arouzi 01/08/2012
KABUL - Afghanistan seems as fragile as ever. There is a sense that with the U.S.-led NATO draw-down expected in 2014 the country could slip back into some of its darkest most socially-restrictive and violent days.
Most Afghans you speak to in Kabul or outside of the capital fear that their country will once again be overrun by the Taliban or be engulfed by a civil war. And most of their criticism is aimed at President Hamid Karzai, who seems to have little control over the country outside of Kabul. (Of course, NATO troops – especially American forces – face scathing criticism as well).
Almost every province that immediately surrounds Kabul is firmly in the hands of the Taliban: Logar, Wardak, Parwan, Kapisa, Laghman, and about 70 percent of Nangarhar are Taliban controlled, according to locals, and they all border Kabul.
I recently traveled to Charai Qamber, a small village just about five miles southeast of Kabul’s city limits, to speak with locals and find out what they think of the security situation.
I asked Mohammad, one of the village elders who would only give his first name, what he thought of Karzai’s control over the security situation in the country. Did he think he seemed more like the ‘Mayor of Kabul,’ rather than the president of Afghanistan? He roared with laughter and said, “Not even mayor!”
Life no better
Mohammad spoke about the president of his country with a tone of disdain. He said Karzai has done nothing for his village or for the country as a whole – instead, he had made a few cronies in Kabul rich.
While Mohammad said he did not like the Taliban, he thought his life was better before the U.S.-led invasion and Karzai’s rule. He also believed Karzai had only given the veneer of semi-stability in Kabul, but that it was beginning to show major cracks.
In the same village I spoke to a man named Babur, which means happiness, but he seemed far from it.
Babur, who also only gave his first name, had a litany of complaints. He bemoaned the fact that his village had never been visited by an Afghan or American government official – despite the fact that there was a U.S-funded military academy just a mile away from the village, which should have provided much needed jobs, but had not.
Nor did he have a sense of security, even though they were just a few miles away from Kabul where there are checkpoints everywhere and heavily armed security forces.
He also complained that his village did not have electricity or running water – villagers have to walk half a mile to a well near the academy. He spoke with contempt about America but seemed to be fond of Iran and Pakistan. Not a good sign for winning hearts and minds.
Taliban country
The village of Charai Qamber where I chatted with Mohammad and Babur is just about 10 miles away from the site of a horrific public execution, reportedly by the Taliban, of a woman accused of adultery in early July.
Video of the woman’s execution outraged Afghans and the world alike – particularly since it was so close to Kabul.
I saw one woman listening to my conversation with the men and I asked her about the woman’s murder in the nearby village.
She would not give her name and only spoke to me reluctantly. She said that in Kabul it is tolerable for women to go outside. But she added that where she lives, women don’t stand a chance and are at the mercy of the Taliban.
We tried to travel to Parwan province – its borders are just about six miles outside of Kabul. But because it is controlled by the Taliban, we only reached the outskirts; the security team we were traveling with in Afghanistan felt it was too dangerous to venture much further.
Even on the edge of the province I got the feeling that we were being watched very closely. No one approached us to talk, which is unusual in Afghanistan, and we received unwelcoming looks.
Is a Taliban takeover inevitable?
Dr. Wadeer Safi, head of the political science department at Kabul University, said he has mixed feelings about the planned NATO draw down in 2014.
He does not believe that NATO would disappear into “thin air.” Nor did he think the country would break out into civil war or a coup d'état. Rather, he is confident NATO will leave a strong enough presence to deal with the security situation in the country and that it will be able to handle small battles with the Taliban.
However he did point out that politics is a fickle business and if the coalition did not leave a strong security presence, the Taliban could take control. He suggested that the army and police force could always just “hand themselves over” and join the Taliban.
I posed the same question to Safi about whether or not Karzai seemed more like the mayor of Kabul, rather than president.
“A mayor is better off than Karzai because he can leave the city. Karzai is a prisoner in his palace,” he said with a laugh.

'It touches my heart': Olympics bring pride, hope to Afghanistan
By Atia Abawi, NBC News
KABUL – It’s not exactly Olympic fever in Afghanistan, but there is excitement in the air about the six athletes – including a female sprinter – who are representing the war-torn nation at the London Games. Cheering on their compatriots has given some in the country’s capital a welcome distraction from the summer heat.
Students at Kardan University in Kabul are in the middle of exams, but that hasn’t stopped many of them from carving out time in the evening to watch the Games.
“I really enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies. I felt so proud when I saw our country’s flag in the hands of our Afghans in the stadium. And they were the first country to come in after Greece!” said Mohammad Naeem Mamozai, who is studying English Literature.
“We are a country who has fought for more than 30 years, but when I see my country’s representation in that kind of event, it touches my heart,” he added. “We Afghans are not fans of war and we can also represent the better parts of life.”
The Afghan athletes do not have state-of-the-art facilities to train in, making it difficult to compete at the world level. But nonetheless, their countrymen are overjoyed to see them at the Olympic Games.
“I was watching our player in judo, but he lost in 10 seconds,” Muslim Khurram, a business major, said. “I was trying to call my friends to watch, but he lost before they could turn on their television sets.”
Khurram added that even if their players lose, Afghans are still proud because the Games have given them a sense of unity.
“When I go on Facebook now, I see posts from people who used to talk about politics and supporting various political groups now talking about our Olympic players and supporting them,” he said. “And they post ‘Long Live Afghanistan!’ I feel so proud when I see our Afghan flag. We should come together and be united. We should be supporting our country!”
Hoping to medal
Despite the judo defeat, Afghans still hope for a medal. Next week their best chance for Olympic accolades lies with 25-year-old Rohullah Nikpai, who will compete in the men’s taekwondo events.
In 2008, Nikpai brought home Afghanistan’s first ever Olympic medal – the bronze. He was greeted by an overjoyed nation.
This year one woman is on the Afghan team. Tahmina Kohistani, a 23-year-old sprinter, will participate in the 100-meter track and field events. She’s not expected to medal but her presence alone is seen as a victory by some of her countrywomen.
“It’s not important to me that she brings home a medal, I’m just happy for Afghanistan and especially happy an Afghan woman is participating in the London Olympics,” said Mehr Angiz, a female security advisor at Kabul International Airport.
“During the Taliban we were not allowed to come out of our homes, but today you see a lot of women working, like me,” she said. “In the future, I hope a lot more women will join sports, like [soccer], volleyball and maybe even a women’s cricket team.” (Cricket is not an Olympic sport at the moment).
The games are being broadcasted by local television channel SABA-TV who won the rights to distribute the coverage in Afghanistan. The channel said they were not able to set up public viewings of the games for security reasons, but they have still received positive feedback.
“The feedback from people has been very good,” said Abdul Waheed Hamidi, managing director of SABA-TV. “People have been calling and telling us that they appreciate our service. Not just by phone, but we were also getting emails and Facebook messages about our broadcast.”
It is the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and focus on spiritual cleansing – not sports. But that hasn’t stopped some from breaking the fast while watching the Games on TV after the sun has set.
NBC’s Akbar Shinwari contributed to this report.

Afghan Lawmakers to Summon Ministers of Defense, Interior over Pakistan Shelling
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 01 August 2012
Afghan lawmakers today asked the Ministers of Defense and Interior to brief parliament on Saturday to on cross border rocket attack in eastern Kunar province.
"MPs have not taken sufficient action and this is why Pakistani attacks are increasing in some provinces. We most summon the ministers," Paktiya's MP Gul Padshah Majidi said.
On Tuesday, the Afghan National Army's chief of staff, Shir Mohammad Karimi, told Afghan senators that the rocket attacks from Pakistan on Nuristan and Kunar provinces aimed to pressure the Afghan government into recognising the Durand Line.
Afghan officials said Pakistan was behind the attacks and blamed the country's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and the army for the rockets.
General Karimi told lawmakers that the issue had been brought up with Nato and US officials a number of times.
According to local officials, nearly 1,000 rockets have landed in Afghanistan's border regions since the start of this year.
The Afghan senators told the Afghan top security officials that the forces should take action against Pakistan.

Afghan Drug Trade Sends Tremors
Dispute Over Trafficking Sparks Security Crisis Along Opium Route Through Neighboring Tajikistan
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV August 1, 2012
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - A dispute over the drug trade lies at the heart of a security crisis that has gripped this Central Asian nation, as Afghanistan's opium industry sows instability across the region.
Senior Tajik law enforcement officials are involved in this trade, Western officials say, including a border commander targeted by government forces last week in the worst violence since the country's civil war ended in 1997.
This narcotics business enjoys protection at the highest levels of the Tajik government, Western law-enforcement officials believe. "State security agencies and departments are still reluctant or unable to arrest and prosecute high-level drug smugglers—there is just too much drug flow through Tajikistan for any other view," the U.S. State Department said this year in its annual narcotics report.
Tajik officials say the government is committed to the fight against narcotics trafficking.
Up to 80 tons of heroin and 20 tons of opium are smuggled through Tajikistan's 835-mile frontier with Afghanistan every year, on the way to consumers in Russia and Europe, according to United Nations estimates.
A sizable portion of this drug flow comes through the narrow river that separates Afghanistan from Gorno-Badakhshan, the mountainous eastern province where Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon sent thousands of government forces to launch an assault last week.
On Wednesday, some security forces began pulling out from neighborhoods in the provincial capital city of Khorog. The government said that approximately 200 gunmen surrendered weapons. With the main local warlords still at large, the potential remained for fighting to resume.
The main target of this operation was Talib Ayombekov, a border police lieutenant-colonel in charge of a large part of the Afghan frontier. Like many other civil war-era rebel commanders, Mr. Ayombekov joined the government under 1997 peace accords. Tajik authorities say he is one of the region's main drug lords and also runs a cigarette- and gem-smuggling business.
Over the past few years, President Rakhmon, a former Soviet apparatchik, has steadily pushed out other former rebel commanders, consolidating his authority. Gorno-Badakhshan, a sparsely populated area that accounts for nearly half Tajikistan's territory, was the only major region where former rebels still enjoyed considerable sway.
Many Tajiks and Western officials describe the latest campaign as driven, at least in part, by a desire of criminal networks allied with Mr. Rakhmon and hailing from his hometown of Kulyab to muscle in on Mr. Ayombekov's lucrative turf.
"This was about economic control, and a dispute between the center and local structures over the region's business, legal and illegal," says Parviz Mullojanov, a political analyst in Dushanbe.
Tajik authorities say they launched the operation to arrest Mr. Ayombekov because they believe he orchestrated the assassination of the province's state security chief, Gen. Abdullo Nazarov, earlier in the month. Mr. Ayombekov denied the accusation and called for an independent inquiry.
Three other Gorno-Badakhshan commanders—includinganother former border police lieutenant-colonel—took up arms to defend him when government forces entered Khorog on July 24. Dozens of servicemen and local fighters, and an unknown number of civilians, were killed.
The two sides have since maintained a cease-fire, with government officials proposing an amnesty to the three other rebel leaders and to all fighters—excluding Mr. Ayombekov and whoever killed Gen. Nazarov.
"Both sides are looking for a compromise, which is likely to be a return to the status quo," Mr. Mullojanov says. "The local population won't forgive them if there will be high civilian casualties."
Details of what is happening in Khorog are sketchy, as the Tajik government has maintained a blackout of the province's mobile-phone networks, closed the roads, and on Wednesday expanded its practice of blocking access to independent news websites across the country.
"Maybe things in Khorog aren't going as well as they claim, and they don't want anyone to know about it," said Zebo Tadjibaeva, executive director of the Dushanbe-based Asia-Plus news agency, whose site was blocked Wednesday on government orders.
A man who managed to flee Khorog this week for the relative safety of Dushanbe said he had little sympathy for either Mr. Ayombekov or the assassinated security chief, Gen. Nazarov. "A general and a colonel couldn't manage to divide the spoils, and now a war has begun," he said as he arrived in Dushanbe in a dusty SUV, after a 14-hour trek. "Tell me, what does this have to do with us, the peaceful residents who suffer as a result?"
The Tajik crisis, meanwhile, has reverberated across the frontier in Afghanistan, where Mr. Ayombekov has high-level friendships and business connections, especially among fellow members of the Ismaili sect of Islam that dominates Gorno-Badakhshan, according to Tajik officials. Afghan authorities said Wednesday they arrested the chief of Afghan police in a district not far from Khorog on suspicion of helping the Gorno-Badakhshan fighters.
"We worry that the conflict in Tajikistan will create problems between our government and the Tajik one," says Afghan national security adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta. "The problem on the Tajik border is about smuggling. We will deploy forces to crush the smugglers."
While Gorno-Badakhshan is an important smuggling route, it is complemented by the drug flow through the rest of Tajikistan, including bulk shipments via a modern bridge that the U.S. built across the Panji river in 2007 to facilitate legitimate trade and supplies for coalition forces, Western officials say. "Why take it on a donkey if you can drive it by the truckload?" one official says.
In Dushanbe, capital of the poorest former Soviet republic, drug wealth is converted to gaudy new buildings, largely unoccupied, and fleets of Porsches and BMWs and even an occasional stretch Hummer plying the city's crumbling streets.
From Tajikistan, heroin exits in sealed railway cars or on the several daily flights that ferry guest laborers to Russia, which hosts more than a million workers from Tajikistan. "Once heroin crosses the Afghan border into a Central Asian state, there are no obstacles and no frontiers anymore, the way is open," says Russian Ambassador to Kabul Andrey Avetisyan. —Maria Abi-Habib contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

Afghan scavengers in Karachi crosshairs
By Hasan Mansoor | AFP
Barkat Khan was shot dead as he slept, curled up in the muck in one of the roughest parts of Karachi. He was a dirt-poor 13-year-old Afghan who never went to school and never dared to dream of a better life.
Friends say he was an innocent victim of an increasingly vicious cycle of ethnic violence in Pakistan's largest city, a battleground between economic migrants from the northwest and Afghanistan, and original settlers from India.
Barkat was one of more than 20,000 children -- the vast majority of them Afghans -- who work for $2 a day, collecting rubbish dumped by the 18 million residents of Karachi.
They toil from dawn to night, braving the punishing summer climate and health dangers posed by toxic waste. Without passports and legal status, they have little protection.
And now they are caught up in one of Pakistan's most under-reported wars: the violence that tears neighbourhoods of the country's richest city to shreds, trampling underfoot the unknown and the defenceless.
"Karachi has become too dangerous. People are being killed indiscriminately, among them, my friend," said a mournful 12-year-old Jamali, picking up a soggy piece of cardboard.
He and Barkat came to Pakistan as babies when their parents fled the southern city of Kandahar when US-led troops invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.
Like tens of thousands of Afghans, the family eventually moved to Karachi in search of work, abandoning their first port of call, the southwestern city of Quetta where Taliban and their families are said to have settled.
"Barkat started collecting garbage right after arriving in Karachi, along with his father. Our families lived together for some time," said Jamali.
Five years later, Barkat was dead, shot in May at point blank range as he slept outside a food stall that offers free dinners to Karachi's poorest. His parents are devastated by the loss of their only child.
"Barkat was a lovable boy, very hardworking, who wanted to earn a lot of money to see his parents happy, especially his mother who is shattered after his death," said his cousin, Mohammad Mukhtar, 19, who also collects rubbish.
"Relatives told me that she hasn't yet recovered from the shock."
Police say Barkat was an unwitting victim of ethnic and political violence that has reached record levels in Karachi, Pakistan's economic powerhouse, which accounts for 42 percent of GDP.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says more than 1,100 people have been killed so far this year -- the vast majority without any political affiliation whatsoever.
If the killings continue at the same pace, 2012 will top the 1,715 who perished last year, itself the worst death toll in 16 years.
The troubles are blamed on Mohajirs, Urdu speakers who migrated from India after partition and who dominate the city, and an influx of Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan's northwest.
Migration and population growth have put enormous pressure on resources in the Arabian Sea port city, where the economy has been under serious pressure since 9/11.
The Mohajirs are represented by the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), led by Altaf Hussain, who exiled himself to Britain in 1992 over threats to his life.
It has 52 seats in the Sindh provincial assembly, while the secular Awami National Party (ANP), the leading Pashtun representation in Karachi, has two seats.
According to official figures, there are 500,000 Afghans in the city, 80 percent registered as refugees and the rest undocumented or illegal economic migrants.
The vast majority of them live in poverty, like Jamali who lives in Koochi, one of three ghettos reserved for Afghans in the city.
His family live near the neighbourhood where a UN doctor from Ghana was shot while working on a polio vaccination programme that had been condemned by the Taliban.
But the rag-pickers live at around 400 compounds dotted around the city, divided by bamboo into dozens of cubicles shaded from the sun by polythene sheets.
Each cubicle is shared by two to three, who pile up plastic bags stuffed with waste to snatch a few hours' sleep, before rising at dawn to start again.
Karachi produces around 12,000 tons of waste a day and has no proper solid waste disposal system. Much of it goes into the drains or is dumped along roads or across the city.
Part of it ends up at government designated landfill sites, which seldom handle waste disposal on any scientific basis.
Contractors pay money to their parents every week, based on the weight of the rubbish they collect, and the children eat at restaurants and charities offering free meals, in order to save as much of their salaries as possible for their families.
The refuse is sold onto middlemen, who sell it to recycling factories -- paper, cardboard, copper, iron, animal bones and other discarded articles are all in high demand.
Officials say rag-pickers do a valuable job, but that there are risks involved.
Rana Asif Habib, head of Initiator, a charity working for underprivileged children, says they handle hospital waste without the necessary protection kits, leading to contractions of diseases such as hepatitis and scabies.
"They also get infected by eating food from the garbage. They can't afford to see a doctor. If they want to, no state-run hospitals treat them well."
Afghans are particularly vulnerable, he added.
"They are often antagonised by police and their employers, but they can't complain because they are not Pakistanis."
Despite the dangers, Jamali still thinks Karachi is better than Afghanistan.
"Karachi is very dangerous. Nobody knows when a bullet will hit, yet we have a lot more opportunities here. We are not going anywhere now."

With journalist's arrest, has Afghan election season begun?
The arrest of journalist Dr. Hussain Yasa raises concerns that Afghanistan's upcoming 2014 election could see a return of intimidation by all political parties.
Christian Science Monitor By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer August 1, 2012
Afghanistan's intelligence agency arrested a prominent Afghan journalist and opposition political adviser this weekend, raising questions about media and political freedom in the country ahead of expected elections and the NATO draw down in 2014.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) arrested and interrogated Hussain Yasa on suspicion of espionage for Pakistan, an allegation Dr. Yasa denies. He was taken in custody shortly after meeting politicians to discuss an election reform scheme.
The arrest of Yasa comes at a time when the Karzai administration is proposing changes to a mass media law that would restrict the ability of the news media to discuss issues of national security and religion. Afghanistan is entering a sensitive political season, with maneuvering among power players to shape the upcoming elections that will determine who will lead Afghanistan after most NATO troops depart. The past record of Afghan security agencies, including the NDS, of staying professional and above the political fray is not encouraging.
Candace Rondeaux, International Crisis Group’s senior analyst based in Kabul, says that the upcoming 2014 presidential elections carry the risk that multiple actors -- and not just the Karzai administration -- could use different parts of the security agencies against each other.
“There is a risk that as political competition heats up ahead of the 2014 presidential elections state resources could be used to silence rivals and critics,” Ms. Rondeaux writes in an email. “This need not be solely a Karzai run and owned enterprise; there are a number of powerful political players who are well positioned to exert their control over the parts of the security services to further their own political ambitions.”
The NDS admits to arresting, releasing, and rearresting Yasa this weekend because of what it regards as suspicious activity, including frequent visits to the Pakistani embassy.
“Dr. Hussain Yasa has been arrested and held for questioning by the NDS for his repeatedly going to and visiting the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul, and especially the intelligence officer of the Pakistan Embassy,” says Lutfullah Mashal, spokesman for the NDS.
Yasa, however, maintains that he was simply participating in legitimate politics, attending a meeting of the National Front of Afghanistan at a recent meeting in Kabul.
In a written statement obtained by the Monitor, Yasa describes his arrest last week and the first round of interrogation.
"They were interested that I hadn’t asked them why I was kidnapped yet. After an hour or so, I was taken to another room where one of their senior officers, a tall, clean shaven man was sitting. His attitude was not unfriendly; he asked me triumphantly, 'You must have realized you sins?'
"I said, 'No, but I think I have the right to ask.'

'You will come to know everything during the interrogation,' he retorted. He then said, 'We just want some facts, don’t feel yourself imprisoned, make yourself at home. You will be our guest for the next couple of days.'
Yasa was held for 27 hours, and then released on bail because of his need for diabetic treatment. On Tuesday, however, he was rearrested, Mr. Mashal said, and the NDS intends to hand him over to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution on likely charges of espionage. 'A proud Afghan'
While President Hamid Karzai is restricted by the Afghan Constitution from seeking a third term in office in 2014, critics of his administration worry that his control over security agencies such as the NDS will give him power to restrict the activities of his rivals, including some of the warlords and political leaders that form the National Front of Afghanistan.
One of those National Front leaders, Mohammad Mohaqiq, alleges in a statement this weekend, that Yasa was targeted not because of his visits to the Pakistani embassy, nor because of his possession of dual citizenship, but rather because he is a member of the Hazara ethnic group, and thus hostile to Karzai’s ethnic Pashtuns.
“A proud Afghan and an honest Hazara community member, Yasa has been known to me for the past 20 years,” said Mr. Mohaqiq, in a statement. “I know many ministers and advisors who have the citizenship of Pakistan, the US, Canada and other countries. This dual nationality is a pride for them. Why is it a sin in Yasa case?”
Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul, says it is giving the Karzai government too much credit to say that it is “misusing the security institutions.”
“That suggests internal coherence and a systematic persecution of rivals or critics, which we (AAN) do not see,” Mr. Ruttig writes in an email. The security, judiciary, and civil institutions are still unstable, and run by people with personal or factional loyalties, and often with little regard for the rule of law, he says.
“There are laws, often relatively good ones, but they are not implemented, and those with power can afford to ignore them, put themselves above them. This gives them the room to carry out personal or political vendettas, and if you are the target of one, there is no trustworthy institution you can take recourse to.”
Ms. Rondeaux says Afghan elections have had a history of foul play.
“Given recent experience during the 2009 and 2010 polls, we can and should anticipate that targeted assassinations, kidnappings and even false arrests will be only a few of the tools employed by political players seeking gain an edge in the race for the presidency in Afghanistan,” she says.
Speaking for the NDS, Mr. Mashal denies that Yasa has been targeted because of his media activities or his connections with top leaders of the National Front of Afghanistan, who are likely rivals for President Karzai’s successor in upcoming 2014 elections. “The NDS respects all political parties, and we have no problem with Dr. Yasa’s political activities. We have no problem with his media activities. We have not received any direction from the palace or other political parties. This is only related to his activities with the Pakistani embassy.”
(Full disclosure: Lutfullah Mashal once worked for The Christian Science Monitor as an interpreter, before joining the Afghan government as a spokesman.)

Election Chief says 2014 Presidential Election Requires $80M
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Wednesday, 01 August 2012
The Head of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IED), Fazel Ahmad Manawi, said on Wednesday that a transparent and free presidential election in 2014 would cost $80 million.
Speaking at a press conference, Manawi said, "Candidate and voter registration will begin by 1392 [March 2013]." He emphasized that no government authority or foreign authority can intervene in the election process or results and urged government, political parties and civil society members to cooperate.
Manawi added, "The upcoming presidential election will also provide the opportunity for Afghan forces to take responsibility for security during the election process and we will be able to hold the election on time."
The budget for the election will be transferred to the election commission through the Ministry of Finance, he added. The budgetary discussion is underway with international donors.
When the process of voter registration begins shortly, it will provide jobs for more than 45,000 Afghans.

Herat Rapist Sentenced to 50 Years in Jail
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 01 August 2012
Herat's Provincial Court sentenced Wakil Ahmad, 35, who is accused of raping two minor girls, up to 50 years in jail.
According to law, the maximum sentence for a rapist is 20 years in prison. However, Ahmad raped two girls and attempted to rape another and was given a sentence up to 50 years.
Fariha, 8, and Roshan, 11, were raped as they took their animals to the desert for feeding two months ago. The girls were hospitalized for several days after the incident.
Ahmad attempted to rape another woman and was arrested with the help of local residents.
"According to article number 158 of Afghanistan's Criminal Law, he is sentence to 50 years in jail and must spend up to 20 years in prison," Ghulam Rasool Mansoor, the Head of Herat's Provincial Court said during the hearing.
Ahmad dismissed the allegations and said that they were "only allegations." He added, "I am not satisfied with court's verdict."
Police have also arrested a mullah in the north -central Samangan province for allegedly raping a teenage girl.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com