Tweet
Afghans Seek A Homegrown Plan For Security
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 4, 2012
For years, Kandahar province has been a key focus of NATO's efforts to stabilize the country. The volatile region is the birthplace of the Taliban, and its capital is the country's second-largest city.
American troops have begun leaving this area by the thousands and are handing security responsibilities over to Afghan forces. Afghan officials claim things are getting better.
But many residents don't trust Western forces or their own government's claims, and they are now turning to a third party for help.
A Dangerous City
On a recent morning outside the main government compound in Panjwai district, provincial officials review plans for a new bazaar.
A year ago, the officials say, such a commercial venture wouldn't have been possible because of militants terrorizing this district, a 40-minute drive southwest of Kandahar city.
These days, provincial authorities are looking to attract investment and create jobs as the Afghan government attempts to strengthen its presence here.
Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wesa attends a packed meeting with Panjwai officials and residents. Several residents complain about schools that were promised but never built because funding wasn't sent from Kabul.
They also complain about Taliban fighters using tractors to tear up parts of a key road. That irritates Wesa, who demands to know why residents aren't standing up to them.
On the drive back to Kandahar city, Wesa explains his tough words.
"We built the road with the support of the Canadians when they were here, and so part of that road was damaged by the insurgencies. So that's why I told them, you know, that's your job — you have to protect the road you are using," says Wesa. "You are taking your agricultural products to the market, you are taking your patients to the doctor, you are sending children to school using that road, so you have to protect the roads."
Wesa believes the province will never be secure if residents don't cooperate. He says that in some districts where people have turned against the Taliban, the reward has been more development aid and an improved economy.
"And as I told them," he says, "if I put a tank on each house, still, if you do not support, that will not help. The tanks, the artilleries cannot bring peace. You folks can bring the peace here."
But many people in Panjwai say they feel powerless living with insecurity they describe as the worst in years. It's especially bad in outlying areas where residents talk of frequent battles between the Taliban, and U.S. and Afghan forces.
One such resident is Mullah Baran, 38. His younger brother was killed in a massacre last March blamed on a U.S. soldier. That soldier — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales — is awaiting trial on charges that he fatally shot 16 civilians in two villages of the district.
Baran says roadside bombs, raids by Afghan police and soldiers, and fighting that he claims destroyed his orchards forced him to move his extended family away from their home village.
He says he used some of the $50,000 the U.S. paid in compensation to the families of the March shooting to buy property in a safer area.
A day laborer named Jabar Khan also complains about the lack of security in Panjwai. He says he's especially scared of roadside bombs, which have killed whole families here.
That tracks with NATO reports on the security situation in Kandahar. While coalition officials say urban and district centers are largely safe, they agree with the locals that travel by road has become more deadly here and in neighboring Helmand.
Roadside bombings, which are down elsewhere in Afghanistan, are up 3 percent here.
The U.N. estimates that assassinations of officials and tribal elders are up a staggering 53 percent across Afghanistan over the past year, and they are especially common in Kandahar.
Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
At the house of provincial council chief Ehsan Noorzai, stern-looking bodyguards armed with Kalashnikovs keep a close eye on guests who meet with him.
Noorzai is among the few Afghan officials here who doesn't sugarcoat his concerns about the dangers of living in Kandahar.
He accuses Afghan forces of being corrupt and inept, and criticizes American forces for failing to reverse the worsening security trend — not just here, but across Afghanistan.
"If they were really here to rebuild Afghanistan, insecurity wouldn't be increasing day by day," says Noorzai. "They also said they would develop our country and make it prosperous. What have they done? The Taliban government, I'm sorry to say, was much better."
Noorzai says he also doesn't trust his government — which many Afghans view as corrupt and self-serving — to address the concerns of Kandahar residents.
He and about 50 other like-minded officials, tribal leaders and influential elders from across the province have been meeting in secret for the past two months to try to come up with a homegrown plan to revive Kandahar.
A similar plan was quashed four years ago by the Afghan president's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was Kandahar's top strongman. The proposal called for forming a council with representatives from the main tribes who would take over the duties of the existing provincial government.
Karzai was assassinated by one of his bodyguards last summer. With him gone, Noorzai believes there's no one to stop them this time from getting their plan launched.
"The idea is to come up with ways to address the current situation and expand our group's size to 1,500, and then descend on the government in Kabul," Noorzai says.
He admits it won't be easy. A lot of people they attempt to recruit to their group decline because they fear being killed, Noorzai says.
But others interviewed say they feel the government is making strides in improving security, at least in Kandahar city. Terrorist attacks are noticeably down in the provincial capital, compared with last year.
Many credit the 20-something provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, for whipping his force into shape, and cracking down on militants and criminals in the city.
His policemen run strict checkpoints on roads leading into Kandahar.
Raziq suffered serious injuries in an assassination attempt last week. A suicide truck bomber struck his convoy as he was returning to the city from a nearby community.
The fear of assassination attempts is evident at government compounds here: They are hidden from view by multiple layers of blast walls and razor wire.
But for the most part, residents interviewed in the provincial capital say they feel safer than before.
"We see more presence of the government everywhere," says Ehsanullah Ehsan, the headmaster of a co-ed school in Kandahar city. "That attention needs to continue. That attention needs to solidify. And then you can have stability."
RPT-Afghans won't heed US sanctions on Iran firms - chamber
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni and Amie Ferris-Rotman Mon Sep 3, 2012
Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce said on Monday it would not heed any calls from the United States to halt some business conducted with neighbouring Iran, saying abiding by U.S. sanctions would stifle its already suffering economy.
A U.S. Treasury delegation met officials from the Afghan central bank, private banks and other private businesses last week in Kabul, and urged them to not conduct business with Iranian firms with Western sanctions, the Afghan Chamber of Commerce said.
"There hasn't been a direct warning from the U.S ... but if an official request comes from the U.S. government I am sure the Afghan government will be clear in its quick reaction against it," said the chamber's vice chairman, Khan Jan Alokozai.
"If the U.S. makes us stop business with Iran, we will face an economic crisis," he told Reuters.
Despite a shaky political relationship, impoverished Afghanistan relies heavily on its richer western neighbour for food, energy and other goods.
Trade with Iran is worth about $2 billion a year, including oil for 15 percent of Afghan needs. This could increase if foreign aid and spending falls off as expected with a 2014 deadline for Western countries to pull out most of their troops.
Three Iranian businesses operating in Afghanistan, or with Afghan interests, have U.S. sanctions on them: Aryan Bank, National Iranian Oil Company and the operator of Iran's Bandar-Abbas port, through which passes a large volume of goods bound for Afghanistan.
Foreign firms doing business with sanctioned Iranian companies can themselves be hit with sanctions.
"UNPRECEDENTED PRESSURE"
U.S. Treasury official Luke Bronin, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said he spoke to Afghan officials last week about "the importance of using great care not to do business with Aryan Bank".
Aryan Bank has branches in the capital, Kabul, and in Herat city in the west, capital of the province bordering Iran. Herat is emerging as an Afghan business success story, riding on the profits of business with Iran.
Iran maintains that U.S. and European Union sanctions aimed at squeezing its oil income to curb its nuclear programme are not affecting its energy exports.
But Bronin said Iran was looking outside its traditional centre of business to survive the crippling sanctions.
"Iran at this point is under unprecedented pressure and they are looking at all potential avenues of (sanction) evasion," Bronin told reporters in Kabul.
"And that is one of reasons why we think it is so important to keep up the robust engagement that we have with the Afghan government and the strong cooperation we have," he said.
Afghan Central Bank governor Noorullah Delawari said it had referred the issue of not doing business with Aryan Bank to the Foreign Ministry and Afghanistan's Security Council.
"We are waiting for their guidance and their decision," Delawari told Reuters. (Editing by Robert Birsel)
Iran's FM to visit Afghanistan for economic meeting: report
TEHRAN, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi will attend a meeting of the Iran-Afghanistan Joint Economic Commission in Kabul, Press TV reported on Tuesday.
Heading a delegation which comprises consultants and experts in Afghanistan affairs, Salehi will leave Tehran on Tuesday.
Iran and Afghanistan are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the trade, banking and tourism sectors on Wednesday, said the report.
On Monday, a separate 30-member Iranian delegation travelled to Afghanistan to participate in the meeting, according to Press TV.
Afghan Suicide Bomber Kills At Least 25 At Funeral
September 4, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say at least 25 people were killed and 30 others injured by an apparent suicide bombing at a funeral in eastern Afghanistan.
Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar Province, confirmed the casualty figures to RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
Police said the attack took place at around 2:30 p.m. local time on September 4 in the remote Dur Baba district in Nangarhar Province.
Provincial Police chief Abdullah Stanekzai said the attacker targeted and injured the district governor, Hamesha Gul, by detonating explosives in a crowd gathered for the funeral of an influential tribal leader.
Stanekzai blamed Taliban militants.
There was no immediate comment from the Taliban.
Some villages in the Nangarhar mountainous region last month declared an uprising against Taliban extremism.
Based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters, and pajhwok.com
NATO Chief Says Afghan Attacks Will Not Hasten Pullout
September 4, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the alliance will not leave Afghanistan ahead of its end-of-2014 pullout date because of a surge in attacks against NATO-led troops by rogue members of the Afghan security forces.
"Don't forget that for the Taliban, it is impossible to win militarily, but they try to gain some PR by undermining trust and confidence between the foreign troops and the Afghan security forces," Rasmussen told the Reuters news agency in an interview.
"So, obviously, I will not exclude the possibility that the Taliban tries to infiltrate the Afghan security forces, but once again, they will not succeed in derailing our strategy."
At least 45 NATO-led troops have been reported killed by members of the Afghan security forces this year.
Based on reporting by Reuters
For Afghan Girl, Going To School Is Act Of Bravery
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 3, 2012
In Afghanistan, girls are required by law to go to school. However, many of them never do.
Death threats, acid attacks and bombings by Taliban militants and other extremists lead many parents who support female education to keep their daughters at home.
Sometimes, it's the families themselves who stand in the way. School officials in conservative communities say relatives are often more interested in marrying off their daughters or sisters than in helping them get an education.
But some girls, like 18-year-old Rahmaniya, are fighting back.
The 10th-grader in the southern city of Kandahar province says the moments she savors most in her life are those she spends learning.
Rahmaniya, whose last name is being withheld to protect her, says she didn't dare go to school until her father passed away five years ago. He had vowed to disown her if she tried to get an education.
These days, the slight girl with big brown eyes dreams of going to college to study journalism.
But she adds that it's hard to think about the future when her older brother keeps threatening to stab her to death with a knife he carries in his pocket.
"Several times he has beaten me up," she says. "He tells me, 'You go ahead and go to school, and I'll throw acid on you like the Taliban. I'll go to the Taliban, and they'll protect me if I do this in this land of infidels where girls go to school.' "
Driven Into Hiding
Rahmaniya believes her brother's anger is rooted in jealousy, since he quit school a long time ago.
Her family, like many in Kandahar, is also struggling to make ends meet, and the teen says her brother wants her to marry. In Afghanistan, dowries bring in a lot of cash for the bride's family.
"But I don't want to get married, at least not before I finish my studies," Rahmaniya says.
Her brother's insistence that she wed is something Rahmaniya says she uses against him.
She explains that when he threatens to blind or maim her, she reminds him that disfiguring her will make it impossible to find a husband.
Still, the threats and beatings have driven Rahmaniya into hiding. She moves every few days from one sympathetic relative's house to another to avoid being found by her brother.
Societal Taboos, Taliban
Last week, her mother agreed to help plan her daughter's escape to a women's shelter in Kabul so she could continue her studies in safety.
The plan fell apart when Rahmaniya's mother caved in to family pressure that her daughter marry a relative.
The mother says the man will allow Rahmaniya to attend school after they wed. But her daughter believes that's a lie and refuses to marry the relative.
Saying she feels trapped, Rahmaniya begins to cry.
"If it wasn't a sin to commit suicide, I would," she says. "Life has become very bitter."
Ehsanullah Ehsan, who is director of the Kandahar Institute of Modern Studies, where some 800 girls go to school, says Rahmaniya's case is not unique. He adds that societal taboos are oftentimes as problematic for his students as the Taliban.
"There are many other threats ... extremist threats, warlord threats, tribal lord threats, family honor threats, because still there are families in which education is an honor problem. So these women who are coming here, they are brave to come here for an education," he says.
Ehsan says that bravery has translated into a brighter future for many young women; 300 of his graduates have gotten jobs in Kandahar.
But Rahmaniya says she doesn't want to stay in Afghanistan.
She says she yearns to go abroad, but that she's found no one who can help her.
Local Haqqani leader killed in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- A local leader with the Haqqani network was killed in an airstrike in eastern Afghan province of Logar, the NATO-led coalition forces confirmed Tuesday.
"Afghan and coalition forces today confirmed the death of Haqqani leader Shabeer following a precision airstrike in Pul-e ' Alam district, Logar province, Sunday," the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
A Taliban-linked group of militants, the Haqqani network mostly operates in eastern Afghan provinces and capital Kabul, and has been responsible for many high-profile attacks including suicide bombings and improvised explosive device against security forces.
Afghan and coalition officials blamed the Haqqani network for a twin suicide bombings which left up to 16 people dead and nearly 90 others injured, including two U.S. soldiers, in Sayyidabad district of eastern Wardak province on Saturday.
"Shabeer was believed to have been coordinating a high-profile attack using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and had spent the days prior to his death acquiring explosives, weapons and insurgents for the planned attack," the statement added.
A post-strike assessment determined no civilian property was damaged and no civilians were harmed in the province 60 km south of Kabul, the statement added.
In southern Kandahar province, a joint unit of Afghan and coalition forces arrested a suspected Taliban explosives dealer during an operation in Zharay district earlier Tuesday, the statement said.
"Prior to his arrest, the Taliban explosives dealer had acquired several components for building homemade bombs," it said.
The Taliban insurgent group, which launched in May this year a spring rebel offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, has yet to make comments.
Afghan NGO Inspires Unlikely Reconciliation
By Frud Bezhan September 4, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- Recent Afghan history has been marked by war, much of it fought among Afghans themselves on the basis of religious, ethnic, or political rivalries.
So it should come as no surprise that even if they are all under the Afghan flag today, there are few places where onetime enemies can work together -- let alone live under the same roof.
Yet at a shelter in Kabul's old city, the scene of some of the fiercest interethnic and sectarian fighting in the country, a motley crew of battle-hardened veterans is doing just that.
Former combatants, many of them permanently disfigured, leave their differences at the door when they enter the shelter. There they can receive food, lodging, and even financial support thanks to the nongovernmental Union for Afghanistan's Disabled.
Mohammad Isaq, director of the Afghan-run union, says the shelter takes in Afghans regardless of their ethnicity, politics, religion, and past history. Brought together by their common misfortune, an unlikely solidarity has emerged.
"They all face the same pressing problems," Isaq says. "Each has a lot of family members they must provide for. They get around with difficulty. They don't have transport or enough money for medicine. Even the small amount of income that we can provide them is not enough."
Isaq adds that the shelter, which has over 100 registered occupants, is funded partly by locals and in part by the dwellers themselves, who undertake odd jobs. The work they find depends on their handicap: some haul building materials for construction crews, others help out in the bazaars, and some do handy work like repairing shoes, bikes, or even cars.
At the end of the day, Isaq says, all the members of the shelter bring back the money they have earned, which is then evenly distributed. The roughly 200 afghanis (roughly $4) they earn every day is then matched by the shelter.
'We Accept All Who Fought'
Bismaillah Wakil, an elderly, fidgety man, sits on a mattress on the ground, drinking tea with several of the shelter's occupants. As he sips quietly, Wakil recalls how he lost his leg during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fighting under the military wing of the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan party, under the leadership of former warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Wakil says he lost his leg in a Soviet bombardment.
Wakil, however, says he is not bitter, insisting that becoming handicapped and coming to the shelter has freed him of his long-held prejudices and intolerance.
"If we know a man is poor and lost his arms and legs doing what he thought was his duty, we accept him," he says. "That means even if they come from different tribes and groups. I live with mujahedin and those fighting for the government. These are people who have lost their arms and legs because they were looking to survive and have something to eat."
Atiq Wahidullah, a bearded middle-aged man, lies uncomfortably against the wall, scratching what remains of his right leg. He says he lost most of it in 1999, when he was a foot soldier for the former Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban coalition. He says Taliban militants showered the group's base in Panjshir, just north of Kabul, with rockets. One of the rockets landed just in front of him.
Like other shelter members, Wahidullah says he is enraged by the government's unwillingness to help and says much more needs to be done if it wants to win support. He says he receives an "absurd" stipend of 13,000 afghanis (around $270) a year, an amount he easily spends in a month supporting his family of six.
"We are pleading with the government. When you give the handicapped 13,000 afghanis a year, what can this provide for a family?" Wahidullah says. "Tomorrow, how can I let my children go and fight for the national army and become handicapped? We are asking the government for help because we can't do anything for ourselves."
'It's Here Or The Streets'
Wahidullah is just one of the estimated 900,000 Afghans that suffer from severe disability, according to Handicap International, an independent international aid organization. That means some 3 percent of the Afghan population, estimated to be around 30 million, live with permanent disfigurement. War-related disabilities, mainly the loss of limbs, accounts for the majority of that number, with land mines one of the primarily causes.
Sayid Anwar, who is blind, was once a fighter among the ranks of the Hizb-e Islami, headed by notorious former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now blacklisted as a terrorist by the United States.
Anwar says he stepped on a mine in the early 1990s, during the country's brutal civil war. He lost both of his legs as he and his group retreated from their positions on a hillside outside Kabul. He pays tribute to the shelter, insisting that if it was not for its support he and his family would be begging on the streets.
"The government hasn't given us anything. Everywhere I go now, they say: 'You're handicapped, we can't make use of you,'" Anwar says.
"If I wasn't here at the shelter I would be idly roaming the streets. It's because of this shelter that we get by every day. If this shelter wasn't here my family would be starving."
IED Blast Kills Isaf Soldier in Southern Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Monday, 03 September 2012
An Nato soldier died in the blast from an improvised explosive device (IED) in southern Afghanistan on Monday, Isaf said.
Isaf did not provide information on the soldier's nationality nor the location of the blast in its statement, as per its protocol.
It comes on the same day that New Zealand announced it would bring its troops home early from northern Afghanistan after three of its soldiers died in an IED blast on August 19, and two died in an insurgent clash the week before.
Deaths from the blast of an IED account for almost 45 percent of the Nato-led forces casualties, according to the website tracking this information iCasualties.org.
Monday's death brings the total number of coalition soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the start of US-led war to 323.
There are around 110,000 Isaf troops currently serving in Afghanistan.
Durand Line Does Not Exist, Former Pakistani Official Says
TOLOnews.com Monday, 03 September 2012
Former Pakistani military official Mohammad Shah said in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews that the question of the Durand Line was closed, and there is no need to further discuss the matter.
Shah dismissed the argument that the Durand Line - more or less the delineated border between Afghanistan and Pakistan signed on in 1893 - was only meant to be in place for 100 years.
"Who said that the Durand Line issue still exists? This is no such matter for me," he said. "If someone asks me about this, I will ask, Where have you seen this? Some say it was only meant for 100 years. Where is this written?" he told TOLOnews in Peshawar on Monday.
The Durand Line remains a controversial matter among Afghan government officials and the people, however the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Janan Mosazai said that the issue is not within his ministry's portfolio and is up to the people of Afghanistan to decide.
"This is an historical matter and is related to the Afghan people. It's out of the ambit of the Foreign Affairs Ministry," Mosazai said Monday.
Meanwhile, Information Minister of Pakistan's tribal area Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa, Meya Eftekhar Hussain said that Pashtuns living in the tribal region are facing many challenges as a consequence of the Durand Line.
"This is an historic fact that we are united [as Pashtuns], and we are also Pakistanis. In fact Pashtuns are facing many other major issues which undermine the issue of Durand Line at the moment," Hussain said.
The official border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is the Durand Line which was delineated and agreed upon by Afghanistan and the British in 1893 when India was under British rule and Pakistan did not exist.
When Pakistan was established in 1947 after the collapse of British rule in India, it "inherited" the Durand Line Agreement but there has never been a formal agreement or ratification between Islamabad and Kabul.
The Pashto and Ballouch areas of Afghanistan from before 1893 have remained inside Pakistan territory ever since.
Some argue that the Line was only meant to be in place for 100 years.
Lawmakers Concerned at Rise of Illegal Militia
TOLOnews.com Monday, 03 September 2012
Lawmakers raised concerns at the growth of armed groups, including those which are pro-government, after a clash between residents and local militia in Kunduz turned deadly on Sunday.
Illegal armed forces may pose a major threat to the security of Afghanistan, the speaker of the Parliament Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi said in Monday's sitting session.
"Most of the irresponsible local forces are a major threat for the security of Afghanistan," he said, urging the government to closely monitor the activities of such forces.
Kabul MP Shinkai Zahin Karokhil said that the northern Kunduz province should be protected from these forces before it turns into a fighting ground between different local armed groups.
The statements come after Sunday's incident in Kunduz killed or wounded as many as 20 civilians when local militia opened fire in a public place after clashing with some of the residents.
Provincial spokesman Enyatullah Khaliq said that at least eight civilians were killed and nine were injured after insurgents attacked local residents who retaliated the killing of two civilians the night before.
However, other witnesses and news reports claim that the armed men who fired on the civilians were not insurgents but a pro-governmnet group. Some say they were the local police.
Khaliq refuted the local police claim on Sunday, telling TOLOnews that there were no local police operating in the area.
Australia Won't Follow New Zealand's Early Afghan Pull-Out
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 04 September 2012
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday responded to calls for the country to withdraw from Afghanistan saying it remains committed to seeing through its mission.
The calls for withdrawal increased after a series of events in August, including the shooting deaths of three Australian soldiers by an Afghan colleague and Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly accusing the Australian troops of an unauthorised military operation.
Gillard's comments stressed Australia's commitment to Afghanistan after New Zealand (NZ) said Monday that its troops will end a decade-long deployment in Bamiyan province in April 2013, five months earlier than originally planned.
NZ's withdrawal was flagged last month after five of its soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in less than three weeks. In ten years, it has lost a total of 10 soldiers.
However, Gillard said she spoke with NZ Prime Minister John Key at the Pacific Island Forum recently and he told her the decision to pull out early was not linked to the soldiers' deaths.
Gillard said that Australia's withdrawal timetable has been laid out clearly, and has not changed.
"We are in transition now. That's a process that will take 12 to 18 months," she said. "What transition means is we are increasingly handing security leadership over to local Afghan forces, and we will see that mission through."
Karzai's condemnation of an Australian night raid in southern Uruzgan province as a unilateral, unauthorised operation which breached the special operations agreement signed with Nato in April has caused some strain.
Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith on Monday told reporters that Karzai's statement on the military operation was wrong.
"The statement that has been issued by President Karzai's palace over the weekend in Kabul that this operation was not authorised is wrong," he said at a press conference.
Karzai ordered an "all-out probe" into the operation that killed Afghan local residents a 70-year old man Haji Raz Mohammad and his 30 year-old son Abdul Jalil.
However, Smith said there had been a "misunderstanding".
"That is not factually correct, and this point has been made strongly by Australia's ambassador to Afghanistan to palace and presidential officials," he said.
Those killed or detained were later said to be insurgents who had helped or offered to help the Afghan soldier who shot the three Australian soldiers dead.
Major Hospital in Afghan East Struggles to Cope
Nangarhar doctors overstretched by swelling patient numbers and dearth of equipment.
IWPR By Hijratullah Ekhtyar 3 Sep 12
Afghanistan - Mobin Khan’s 12-year-old son Samiullah clearly needs specialist medical help. Both his legs were broken in a car crash in 2010, and two years later he remains confined to a wheelchair.
After a recent visit to the run-down Jalalabad Public Hospital in the eastern province of Nangarhar, however, Khan has little hope that Samiullah will make a full recovery.
There is hardly any medicine available at the overcrowded hospital, he said, and patients’ relatives are expected to pay for gauze and bandages themselves.
“This hospital does not resemble a hospital at all,” Khan said bitterly whilst pushing Samiullah’s wheelchair. “So I am taking my son home.”
With shortages of medicines and trained doctors, healthcare provision in Afghanistan remains poor. (See Unregulated Pharmacies Prompt Health Fears in Afghan Province, and Healthcare Crisis in Central Afghan District.) But patients and medics say Jalalabad’s hospital, which caters to a sizable chunk of the southern and eastern areas bordering Pakistan, stands out for its poor facilities, crowded wards and overstretched staff.
To the untrained eye, the hospital could be mistaken for a market or bus station. Cars, motorbikes and rickshaws are parked outside; water spills out from beneath a restroom and broken pipes leak into empty gutters overgrown with shrubs and weeds. Only the staff in white coats and people clutching prescriptions give away its true function.
Constructed 60 years ago, the hospital’s main building was designed to hold 100 beds. Today, it often has around 500 inpatients. Patient demand has outstripped the hospital’s capacity, but it still has roughly the same amount of staff and medical equipment as it did when it opened.
Dr Nawroz Shinwari heads the orthopaedic ward, which has ten doctors and two nurses on duty in the daytime, and only two doctors at night. Staff lack the supplies they need to mend broken bones, such as plaster and pins, and patients have to buy most of the medicine and materials they need, he said.
“Sometimes patients remain on the operating table for hours because of a lack of personnel, medicines and equipment,” he added.
Shinwari says his staff numbers have shrunk while admissions have spiralled – a result, he says, of more accidents since the roads in Nangarhar were paved and cars started driving faster.
Another orthopaedic doctor at the hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed that
“Even compared with hospitals in Kabul, let alone in other countries, we have very little equipment,” he said. “We’re still using carpenters’ drills for drilling bones.”
Nevertheless, the doctor said, medics had conducted over 700 major surgical operations and applied nearly 1,000 plaster casts in the past month. His own ward saw nearly 50 patients a day.
Dr Moqadasa Meraj, the hospital’s deputy director, says that in a typical month, between 5,000 and 6,000 patients are admitted and treated by the 32 specialists and 123 general doctors working there.
Dr Meraj says the hospital has seen some improvements thanks to help received from the Provincial Reconstruction Team, a joint military-civilian force run by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. It now has wards for children and sections for ear, nose and throat complains, eye problems and mental health, she said.
But she acknowledges there is still a long way to go.
“In terms of medical equipment and personnel, our hospital cannot be compared with the average hospital in other countries in this region,” she said. “Our equipment is 30 years old... and the staff are not capable of using more advanced equipment.”
Dr Sahel Nasrat, who works on infectious diseases, is exasperated by the lack of facilities to test for hepatitis, or to conduct CAT and MRI scans.
“There is no intensive care unit and no medicine for emergency cases,” Dr Nasrat said. “Nor do we have lab equipment for diagnoses.”
Doctors are supposed to receive additional training, but are hampered by the lack of either a library or internet access at the hospital, and there are no plans to send them abroad to go on courses. Given these problems, Dr Nasrat asked, “How can one learn?”
Dr Meraj sees little hope of radical improvement because HealthNet International, a non-government group that supports the hospital, has a limited budget.
Dr Homayun Zaheer, HealthNet’s director at the hospital, said out-of-date census figures hugely understate the size of the population served by the hospital.
Official numbers show the province with a population of 1.6 million, and this figure is used to determine the budget, Dr Zaheer said. But these numbers are out-of-date, and he believes Nangarhar now has as many as three million residents, nearly twice the official estimate.
“Donors approve our budget according to the province’s population. If Nangarhar’s statistics department put the population at three million, the hospital would get a bigger budget,” he said.
As well as Nangarhar, the Jalalabad hospital also serves the Laghman and Kunar regions, as well as parts of Kabul and Logar provinces.
HealthNet gets its funding from the European Union provides, and the NGO is currently operating under an agreement with the Afghan health ministry running from November 2011 to May 2013.
Under the agreement, HealthNet agreed to provide for 420 beds, but 50 more than this are in use, and 27 more staff are working there than the 527 stipulated.
“Even now, we are providing services that are not covered by our budget,” Dr Zaheer said. “This an extra financial burden that our NGO has shouldered.”
Not everyone is unhappy with the hospital’s services. Allahnazar recently admitted his one-year-old son for a two-week stay and the boy has since been discharged in good health.
“I am grateful to Dr Abbas – my son had a lung ailment and he treated it,” Allahnazar said of the doctor involved. “Without that, I would have had to take him to Pakistan, where I’d have needed to pay a lot of money to doctors and the police.”
Hijratullah Ekhtyar is an IWPR-trained reporter in Nangarhar province.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 4, 2012
For years, Kandahar province has been a key focus of NATO's efforts to stabilize the country. The volatile region is the birthplace of the Taliban, and its capital is the country's second-largest city.
American troops have begun leaving this area by the thousands and are handing security responsibilities over to Afghan forces. Afghan officials claim things are getting better.
But many residents don't trust Western forces or their own government's claims, and they are now turning to a third party for help.
A Dangerous City
On a recent morning outside the main government compound in Panjwai district, provincial officials review plans for a new bazaar.
A year ago, the officials say, such a commercial venture wouldn't have been possible because of militants terrorizing this district, a 40-minute drive southwest of Kandahar city.
These days, provincial authorities are looking to attract investment and create jobs as the Afghan government attempts to strengthen its presence here.
Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wesa attends a packed meeting with Panjwai officials and residents. Several residents complain about schools that were promised but never built because funding wasn't sent from Kabul.
They also complain about Taliban fighters using tractors to tear up parts of a key road. That irritates Wesa, who demands to know why residents aren't standing up to them.
On the drive back to Kandahar city, Wesa explains his tough words.
"We built the road with the support of the Canadians when they were here, and so part of that road was damaged by the insurgencies. So that's why I told them, you know, that's your job — you have to protect the road you are using," says Wesa. "You are taking your agricultural products to the market, you are taking your patients to the doctor, you are sending children to school using that road, so you have to protect the roads."
Wesa believes the province will never be secure if residents don't cooperate. He says that in some districts where people have turned against the Taliban, the reward has been more development aid and an improved economy.
"And as I told them," he says, "if I put a tank on each house, still, if you do not support, that will not help. The tanks, the artilleries cannot bring peace. You folks can bring the peace here."
But many people in Panjwai say they feel powerless living with insecurity they describe as the worst in years. It's especially bad in outlying areas where residents talk of frequent battles between the Taliban, and U.S. and Afghan forces.
One such resident is Mullah Baran, 38. His younger brother was killed in a massacre last March blamed on a U.S. soldier. That soldier — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales — is awaiting trial on charges that he fatally shot 16 civilians in two villages of the district.
Baran says roadside bombs, raids by Afghan police and soldiers, and fighting that he claims destroyed his orchards forced him to move his extended family away from their home village.
He says he used some of the $50,000 the U.S. paid in compensation to the families of the March shooting to buy property in a safer area.
A day laborer named Jabar Khan also complains about the lack of security in Panjwai. He says he's especially scared of roadside bombs, which have killed whole families here.
That tracks with NATO reports on the security situation in Kandahar. While coalition officials say urban and district centers are largely safe, they agree with the locals that travel by road has become more deadly here and in neighboring Helmand.
Roadside bombings, which are down elsewhere in Afghanistan, are up 3 percent here.
The U.N. estimates that assassinations of officials and tribal elders are up a staggering 53 percent across Afghanistan over the past year, and they are especially common in Kandahar.
Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
At the house of provincial council chief Ehsan Noorzai, stern-looking bodyguards armed with Kalashnikovs keep a close eye on guests who meet with him.
Noorzai is among the few Afghan officials here who doesn't sugarcoat his concerns about the dangers of living in Kandahar.
He accuses Afghan forces of being corrupt and inept, and criticizes American forces for failing to reverse the worsening security trend — not just here, but across Afghanistan.
"If they were really here to rebuild Afghanistan, insecurity wouldn't be increasing day by day," says Noorzai. "They also said they would develop our country and make it prosperous. What have they done? The Taliban government, I'm sorry to say, was much better."
Noorzai says he also doesn't trust his government — which many Afghans view as corrupt and self-serving — to address the concerns of Kandahar residents.
He and about 50 other like-minded officials, tribal leaders and influential elders from across the province have been meeting in secret for the past two months to try to come up with a homegrown plan to revive Kandahar.
A similar plan was quashed four years ago by the Afghan president's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was Kandahar's top strongman. The proposal called for forming a council with representatives from the main tribes who would take over the duties of the existing provincial government.
Karzai was assassinated by one of his bodyguards last summer. With him gone, Noorzai believes there's no one to stop them this time from getting their plan launched.
"The idea is to come up with ways to address the current situation and expand our group's size to 1,500, and then descend on the government in Kabul," Noorzai says.
He admits it won't be easy. A lot of people they attempt to recruit to their group decline because they fear being killed, Noorzai says.
But others interviewed say they feel the government is making strides in improving security, at least in Kandahar city. Terrorist attacks are noticeably down in the provincial capital, compared with last year.
Many credit the 20-something provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, for whipping his force into shape, and cracking down on militants and criminals in the city.
His policemen run strict checkpoints on roads leading into Kandahar.
Raziq suffered serious injuries in an assassination attempt last week. A suicide truck bomber struck his convoy as he was returning to the city from a nearby community.
The fear of assassination attempts is evident at government compounds here: They are hidden from view by multiple layers of blast walls and razor wire.
But for the most part, residents interviewed in the provincial capital say they feel safer than before.
"We see more presence of the government everywhere," says Ehsanullah Ehsan, the headmaster of a co-ed school in Kandahar city. "That attention needs to continue. That attention needs to solidify. And then you can have stability."
RPT-Afghans won't heed US sanctions on Iran firms - chamber
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni and Amie Ferris-Rotman Mon Sep 3, 2012
Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce said on Monday it would not heed any calls from the United States to halt some business conducted with neighbouring Iran, saying abiding by U.S. sanctions would stifle its already suffering economy.
A U.S. Treasury delegation met officials from the Afghan central bank, private banks and other private businesses last week in Kabul, and urged them to not conduct business with Iranian firms with Western sanctions, the Afghan Chamber of Commerce said.
"There hasn't been a direct warning from the U.S ... but if an official request comes from the U.S. government I am sure the Afghan government will be clear in its quick reaction against it," said the chamber's vice chairman, Khan Jan Alokozai.
"If the U.S. makes us stop business with Iran, we will face an economic crisis," he told Reuters.
Despite a shaky political relationship, impoverished Afghanistan relies heavily on its richer western neighbour for food, energy and other goods.
Trade with Iran is worth about $2 billion a year, including oil for 15 percent of Afghan needs. This could increase if foreign aid and spending falls off as expected with a 2014 deadline for Western countries to pull out most of their troops.
Three Iranian businesses operating in Afghanistan, or with Afghan interests, have U.S. sanctions on them: Aryan Bank, National Iranian Oil Company and the operator of Iran's Bandar-Abbas port, through which passes a large volume of goods bound for Afghanistan.
Foreign firms doing business with sanctioned Iranian companies can themselves be hit with sanctions.
"UNPRECEDENTED PRESSURE"
U.S. Treasury official Luke Bronin, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said he spoke to Afghan officials last week about "the importance of using great care not to do business with Aryan Bank".
Aryan Bank has branches in the capital, Kabul, and in Herat city in the west, capital of the province bordering Iran. Herat is emerging as an Afghan business success story, riding on the profits of business with Iran.
Iran maintains that U.S. and European Union sanctions aimed at squeezing its oil income to curb its nuclear programme are not affecting its energy exports.
But Bronin said Iran was looking outside its traditional centre of business to survive the crippling sanctions.
"Iran at this point is under unprecedented pressure and they are looking at all potential avenues of (sanction) evasion," Bronin told reporters in Kabul.
"And that is one of reasons why we think it is so important to keep up the robust engagement that we have with the Afghan government and the strong cooperation we have," he said.
Afghan Central Bank governor Noorullah Delawari said it had referred the issue of not doing business with Aryan Bank to the Foreign Ministry and Afghanistan's Security Council.
"We are waiting for their guidance and their decision," Delawari told Reuters. (Editing by Robert Birsel)
Iran's FM to visit Afghanistan for economic meeting: report
TEHRAN, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi will attend a meeting of the Iran-Afghanistan Joint Economic Commission in Kabul, Press TV reported on Tuesday.
Heading a delegation which comprises consultants and experts in Afghanistan affairs, Salehi will leave Tehran on Tuesday.
Iran and Afghanistan are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the trade, banking and tourism sectors on Wednesday, said the report.
On Monday, a separate 30-member Iranian delegation travelled to Afghanistan to participate in the meeting, according to Press TV.
Afghan Suicide Bomber Kills At Least 25 At Funeral
September 4, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say at least 25 people were killed and 30 others injured by an apparent suicide bombing at a funeral in eastern Afghanistan.
Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar Province, confirmed the casualty figures to RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
Police said the attack took place at around 2:30 p.m. local time on September 4 in the remote Dur Baba district in Nangarhar Province.
Provincial Police chief Abdullah Stanekzai said the attacker targeted and injured the district governor, Hamesha Gul, by detonating explosives in a crowd gathered for the funeral of an influential tribal leader.
Stanekzai blamed Taliban militants.
There was no immediate comment from the Taliban.
Some villages in the Nangarhar mountainous region last month declared an uprising against Taliban extremism.
Based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters, and pajhwok.com
NATO Chief Says Afghan Attacks Will Not Hasten Pullout
September 4, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the alliance will not leave Afghanistan ahead of its end-of-2014 pullout date because of a surge in attacks against NATO-led troops by rogue members of the Afghan security forces.
"Don't forget that for the Taliban, it is impossible to win militarily, but they try to gain some PR by undermining trust and confidence between the foreign troops and the Afghan security forces," Rasmussen told the Reuters news agency in an interview.
"So, obviously, I will not exclude the possibility that the Taliban tries to infiltrate the Afghan security forces, but once again, they will not succeed in derailing our strategy."
At least 45 NATO-led troops have been reported killed by members of the Afghan security forces this year.
Based on reporting by Reuters
For Afghan Girl, Going To School Is Act Of Bravery
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 3, 2012
In Afghanistan, girls are required by law to go to school. However, many of them never do.
Death threats, acid attacks and bombings by Taliban militants and other extremists lead many parents who support female education to keep their daughters at home.
Sometimes, it's the families themselves who stand in the way. School officials in conservative communities say relatives are often more interested in marrying off their daughters or sisters than in helping them get an education.
But some girls, like 18-year-old Rahmaniya, are fighting back.
The 10th-grader in the southern city of Kandahar province says the moments she savors most in her life are those she spends learning.
Rahmaniya, whose last name is being withheld to protect her, says she didn't dare go to school until her father passed away five years ago. He had vowed to disown her if she tried to get an education.
These days, the slight girl with big brown eyes dreams of going to college to study journalism.
But she adds that it's hard to think about the future when her older brother keeps threatening to stab her to death with a knife he carries in his pocket.
"Several times he has beaten me up," she says. "He tells me, 'You go ahead and go to school, and I'll throw acid on you like the Taliban. I'll go to the Taliban, and they'll protect me if I do this in this land of infidels where girls go to school.' "
Driven Into Hiding
Rahmaniya believes her brother's anger is rooted in jealousy, since he quit school a long time ago.
Her family, like many in Kandahar, is also struggling to make ends meet, and the teen says her brother wants her to marry. In Afghanistan, dowries bring in a lot of cash for the bride's family.
"But I don't want to get married, at least not before I finish my studies," Rahmaniya says.
Her brother's insistence that she wed is something Rahmaniya says she uses against him.
She explains that when he threatens to blind or maim her, she reminds him that disfiguring her will make it impossible to find a husband.
Still, the threats and beatings have driven Rahmaniya into hiding. She moves every few days from one sympathetic relative's house to another to avoid being found by her brother.
Societal Taboos, Taliban
Last week, her mother agreed to help plan her daughter's escape to a women's shelter in Kabul so she could continue her studies in safety.
The plan fell apart when Rahmaniya's mother caved in to family pressure that her daughter marry a relative.
The mother says the man will allow Rahmaniya to attend school after they wed. But her daughter believes that's a lie and refuses to marry the relative.
Saying she feels trapped, Rahmaniya begins to cry.
"If it wasn't a sin to commit suicide, I would," she says. "Life has become very bitter."
Ehsanullah Ehsan, who is director of the Kandahar Institute of Modern Studies, where some 800 girls go to school, says Rahmaniya's case is not unique. He adds that societal taboos are oftentimes as problematic for his students as the Taliban.
"There are many other threats ... extremist threats, warlord threats, tribal lord threats, family honor threats, because still there are families in which education is an honor problem. So these women who are coming here, they are brave to come here for an education," he says.
Ehsan says that bravery has translated into a brighter future for many young women; 300 of his graduates have gotten jobs in Kandahar.
But Rahmaniya says she doesn't want to stay in Afghanistan.
She says she yearns to go abroad, but that she's found no one who can help her.
Local Haqqani leader killed in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- A local leader with the Haqqani network was killed in an airstrike in eastern Afghan province of Logar, the NATO-led coalition forces confirmed Tuesday.
"Afghan and coalition forces today confirmed the death of Haqqani leader Shabeer following a precision airstrike in Pul-e ' Alam district, Logar province, Sunday," the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
A Taliban-linked group of militants, the Haqqani network mostly operates in eastern Afghan provinces and capital Kabul, and has been responsible for many high-profile attacks including suicide bombings and improvised explosive device against security forces.
Afghan and coalition officials blamed the Haqqani network for a twin suicide bombings which left up to 16 people dead and nearly 90 others injured, including two U.S. soldiers, in Sayyidabad district of eastern Wardak province on Saturday.
"Shabeer was believed to have been coordinating a high-profile attack using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and had spent the days prior to his death acquiring explosives, weapons and insurgents for the planned attack," the statement added.
A post-strike assessment determined no civilian property was damaged and no civilians were harmed in the province 60 km south of Kabul, the statement added.
In southern Kandahar province, a joint unit of Afghan and coalition forces arrested a suspected Taliban explosives dealer during an operation in Zharay district earlier Tuesday, the statement said.
"Prior to his arrest, the Taliban explosives dealer had acquired several components for building homemade bombs," it said.
The Taliban insurgent group, which launched in May this year a spring rebel offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, has yet to make comments.
Afghan NGO Inspires Unlikely Reconciliation
By Frud Bezhan September 4, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- Recent Afghan history has been marked by war, much of it fought among Afghans themselves on the basis of religious, ethnic, or political rivalries.
So it should come as no surprise that even if they are all under the Afghan flag today, there are few places where onetime enemies can work together -- let alone live under the same roof.
Yet at a shelter in Kabul's old city, the scene of some of the fiercest interethnic and sectarian fighting in the country, a motley crew of battle-hardened veterans is doing just that.
Former combatants, many of them permanently disfigured, leave their differences at the door when they enter the shelter. There they can receive food, lodging, and even financial support thanks to the nongovernmental Union for Afghanistan's Disabled.
Mohammad Isaq, director of the Afghan-run union, says the shelter takes in Afghans regardless of their ethnicity, politics, religion, and past history. Brought together by their common misfortune, an unlikely solidarity has emerged.
"They all face the same pressing problems," Isaq says. "Each has a lot of family members they must provide for. They get around with difficulty. They don't have transport or enough money for medicine. Even the small amount of income that we can provide them is not enough."
Isaq adds that the shelter, which has over 100 registered occupants, is funded partly by locals and in part by the dwellers themselves, who undertake odd jobs. The work they find depends on their handicap: some haul building materials for construction crews, others help out in the bazaars, and some do handy work like repairing shoes, bikes, or even cars.
At the end of the day, Isaq says, all the members of the shelter bring back the money they have earned, which is then evenly distributed. The roughly 200 afghanis (roughly $4) they earn every day is then matched by the shelter.
'We Accept All Who Fought'
Bismaillah Wakil, an elderly, fidgety man, sits on a mattress on the ground, drinking tea with several of the shelter's occupants. As he sips quietly, Wakil recalls how he lost his leg during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fighting under the military wing of the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan party, under the leadership of former warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Wakil says he lost his leg in a Soviet bombardment.
Wakil, however, says he is not bitter, insisting that becoming handicapped and coming to the shelter has freed him of his long-held prejudices and intolerance.
"If we know a man is poor and lost his arms and legs doing what he thought was his duty, we accept him," he says. "That means even if they come from different tribes and groups. I live with mujahedin and those fighting for the government. These are people who have lost their arms and legs because they were looking to survive and have something to eat."
Atiq Wahidullah, a bearded middle-aged man, lies uncomfortably against the wall, scratching what remains of his right leg. He says he lost most of it in 1999, when he was a foot soldier for the former Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban coalition. He says Taliban militants showered the group's base in Panjshir, just north of Kabul, with rockets. One of the rockets landed just in front of him.
Like other shelter members, Wahidullah says he is enraged by the government's unwillingness to help and says much more needs to be done if it wants to win support. He says he receives an "absurd" stipend of 13,000 afghanis (around $270) a year, an amount he easily spends in a month supporting his family of six.
"We are pleading with the government. When you give the handicapped 13,000 afghanis a year, what can this provide for a family?" Wahidullah says. "Tomorrow, how can I let my children go and fight for the national army and become handicapped? We are asking the government for help because we can't do anything for ourselves."
'It's Here Or The Streets'
Wahidullah is just one of the estimated 900,000 Afghans that suffer from severe disability, according to Handicap International, an independent international aid organization. That means some 3 percent of the Afghan population, estimated to be around 30 million, live with permanent disfigurement. War-related disabilities, mainly the loss of limbs, accounts for the majority of that number, with land mines one of the primarily causes.
Sayid Anwar, who is blind, was once a fighter among the ranks of the Hizb-e Islami, headed by notorious former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now blacklisted as a terrorist by the United States.
Anwar says he stepped on a mine in the early 1990s, during the country's brutal civil war. He lost both of his legs as he and his group retreated from their positions on a hillside outside Kabul. He pays tribute to the shelter, insisting that if it was not for its support he and his family would be begging on the streets.
"The government hasn't given us anything. Everywhere I go now, they say: 'You're handicapped, we can't make use of you,'" Anwar says.
"If I wasn't here at the shelter I would be idly roaming the streets. It's because of this shelter that we get by every day. If this shelter wasn't here my family would be starving."
IED Blast Kills Isaf Soldier in Southern Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Monday, 03 September 2012
An Nato soldier died in the blast from an improvised explosive device (IED) in southern Afghanistan on Monday, Isaf said.
Isaf did not provide information on the soldier's nationality nor the location of the blast in its statement, as per its protocol.
It comes on the same day that New Zealand announced it would bring its troops home early from northern Afghanistan after three of its soldiers died in an IED blast on August 19, and two died in an insurgent clash the week before.
Deaths from the blast of an IED account for almost 45 percent of the Nato-led forces casualties, according to the website tracking this information iCasualties.org.
Monday's death brings the total number of coalition soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the start of US-led war to 323.
There are around 110,000 Isaf troops currently serving in Afghanistan.
Durand Line Does Not Exist, Former Pakistani Official Says
TOLOnews.com Monday, 03 September 2012
Former Pakistani military official Mohammad Shah said in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews that the question of the Durand Line was closed, and there is no need to further discuss the matter.
Shah dismissed the argument that the Durand Line - more or less the delineated border between Afghanistan and Pakistan signed on in 1893 - was only meant to be in place for 100 years.
"Who said that the Durand Line issue still exists? This is no such matter for me," he said. "If someone asks me about this, I will ask, Where have you seen this? Some say it was only meant for 100 years. Where is this written?" he told TOLOnews in Peshawar on Monday.
The Durand Line remains a controversial matter among Afghan government officials and the people, however the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Janan Mosazai said that the issue is not within his ministry's portfolio and is up to the people of Afghanistan to decide.
"This is an historical matter and is related to the Afghan people. It's out of the ambit of the Foreign Affairs Ministry," Mosazai said Monday.
Meanwhile, Information Minister of Pakistan's tribal area Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa, Meya Eftekhar Hussain said that Pashtuns living in the tribal region are facing many challenges as a consequence of the Durand Line.
"This is an historic fact that we are united [as Pashtuns], and we are also Pakistanis. In fact Pashtuns are facing many other major issues which undermine the issue of Durand Line at the moment," Hussain said.
The official border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is the Durand Line which was delineated and agreed upon by Afghanistan and the British in 1893 when India was under British rule and Pakistan did not exist.
When Pakistan was established in 1947 after the collapse of British rule in India, it "inherited" the Durand Line Agreement but there has never been a formal agreement or ratification between Islamabad and Kabul.
The Pashto and Ballouch areas of Afghanistan from before 1893 have remained inside Pakistan territory ever since.
Some argue that the Line was only meant to be in place for 100 years.
Lawmakers Concerned at Rise of Illegal Militia
TOLOnews.com Monday, 03 September 2012
Lawmakers raised concerns at the growth of armed groups, including those which are pro-government, after a clash between residents and local militia in Kunduz turned deadly on Sunday.
Illegal armed forces may pose a major threat to the security of Afghanistan, the speaker of the Parliament Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi said in Monday's sitting session.
"Most of the irresponsible local forces are a major threat for the security of Afghanistan," he said, urging the government to closely monitor the activities of such forces.
Kabul MP Shinkai Zahin Karokhil said that the northern Kunduz province should be protected from these forces before it turns into a fighting ground between different local armed groups.
The statements come after Sunday's incident in Kunduz killed or wounded as many as 20 civilians when local militia opened fire in a public place after clashing with some of the residents.
Provincial spokesman Enyatullah Khaliq said that at least eight civilians were killed and nine were injured after insurgents attacked local residents who retaliated the killing of two civilians the night before.
However, other witnesses and news reports claim that the armed men who fired on the civilians were not insurgents but a pro-governmnet group. Some say they were the local police.
Khaliq refuted the local police claim on Sunday, telling TOLOnews that there were no local police operating in the area.
Australia Won't Follow New Zealand's Early Afghan Pull-Out
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 04 September 2012
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday responded to calls for the country to withdraw from Afghanistan saying it remains committed to seeing through its mission.
The calls for withdrawal increased after a series of events in August, including the shooting deaths of three Australian soldiers by an Afghan colleague and Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly accusing the Australian troops of an unauthorised military operation.
Gillard's comments stressed Australia's commitment to Afghanistan after New Zealand (NZ) said Monday that its troops will end a decade-long deployment in Bamiyan province in April 2013, five months earlier than originally planned.
NZ's withdrawal was flagged last month after five of its soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in less than three weeks. In ten years, it has lost a total of 10 soldiers.
However, Gillard said she spoke with NZ Prime Minister John Key at the Pacific Island Forum recently and he told her the decision to pull out early was not linked to the soldiers' deaths.
Gillard said that Australia's withdrawal timetable has been laid out clearly, and has not changed.
"We are in transition now. That's a process that will take 12 to 18 months," she said. "What transition means is we are increasingly handing security leadership over to local Afghan forces, and we will see that mission through."
Karzai's condemnation of an Australian night raid in southern Uruzgan province as a unilateral, unauthorised operation which breached the special operations agreement signed with Nato in April has caused some strain.
Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith on Monday told reporters that Karzai's statement on the military operation was wrong.
"The statement that has been issued by President Karzai's palace over the weekend in Kabul that this operation was not authorised is wrong," he said at a press conference.
Karzai ordered an "all-out probe" into the operation that killed Afghan local residents a 70-year old man Haji Raz Mohammad and his 30 year-old son Abdul Jalil.
However, Smith said there had been a "misunderstanding".
"That is not factually correct, and this point has been made strongly by Australia's ambassador to Afghanistan to palace and presidential officials," he said.
Those killed or detained were later said to be insurgents who had helped or offered to help the Afghan soldier who shot the three Australian soldiers dead.
Major Hospital in Afghan East Struggles to Cope
Nangarhar doctors overstretched by swelling patient numbers and dearth of equipment.
IWPR By Hijratullah Ekhtyar 3 Sep 12
Afghanistan - Mobin Khan’s 12-year-old son Samiullah clearly needs specialist medical help. Both his legs were broken in a car crash in 2010, and two years later he remains confined to a wheelchair.
After a recent visit to the run-down Jalalabad Public Hospital in the eastern province of Nangarhar, however, Khan has little hope that Samiullah will make a full recovery.
There is hardly any medicine available at the overcrowded hospital, he said, and patients’ relatives are expected to pay for gauze and bandages themselves.
“This hospital does not resemble a hospital at all,” Khan said bitterly whilst pushing Samiullah’s wheelchair. “So I am taking my son home.”
With shortages of medicines and trained doctors, healthcare provision in Afghanistan remains poor. (See Unregulated Pharmacies Prompt Health Fears in Afghan Province, and Healthcare Crisis in Central Afghan District.) But patients and medics say Jalalabad’s hospital, which caters to a sizable chunk of the southern and eastern areas bordering Pakistan, stands out for its poor facilities, crowded wards and overstretched staff.
To the untrained eye, the hospital could be mistaken for a market or bus station. Cars, motorbikes and rickshaws are parked outside; water spills out from beneath a restroom and broken pipes leak into empty gutters overgrown with shrubs and weeds. Only the staff in white coats and people clutching prescriptions give away its true function.
Constructed 60 years ago, the hospital’s main building was designed to hold 100 beds. Today, it often has around 500 inpatients. Patient demand has outstripped the hospital’s capacity, but it still has roughly the same amount of staff and medical equipment as it did when it opened.
Dr Nawroz Shinwari heads the orthopaedic ward, which has ten doctors and two nurses on duty in the daytime, and only two doctors at night. Staff lack the supplies they need to mend broken bones, such as plaster and pins, and patients have to buy most of the medicine and materials they need, he said.
“Sometimes patients remain on the operating table for hours because of a lack of personnel, medicines and equipment,” he added.
Shinwari says his staff numbers have shrunk while admissions have spiralled – a result, he says, of more accidents since the roads in Nangarhar were paved and cars started driving faster.
Another orthopaedic doctor at the hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed that
“Even compared with hospitals in Kabul, let alone in other countries, we have very little equipment,” he said. “We’re still using carpenters’ drills for drilling bones.”
Nevertheless, the doctor said, medics had conducted over 700 major surgical operations and applied nearly 1,000 plaster casts in the past month. His own ward saw nearly 50 patients a day.
Dr Moqadasa Meraj, the hospital’s deputy director, says that in a typical month, between 5,000 and 6,000 patients are admitted and treated by the 32 specialists and 123 general doctors working there.
Dr Meraj says the hospital has seen some improvements thanks to help received from the Provincial Reconstruction Team, a joint military-civilian force run by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. It now has wards for children and sections for ear, nose and throat complains, eye problems and mental health, she said.
But she acknowledges there is still a long way to go.
“In terms of medical equipment and personnel, our hospital cannot be compared with the average hospital in other countries in this region,” she said. “Our equipment is 30 years old... and the staff are not capable of using more advanced equipment.”
Dr Sahel Nasrat, who works on infectious diseases, is exasperated by the lack of facilities to test for hepatitis, or to conduct CAT and MRI scans.
“There is no intensive care unit and no medicine for emergency cases,” Dr Nasrat said. “Nor do we have lab equipment for diagnoses.”
Doctors are supposed to receive additional training, but are hampered by the lack of either a library or internet access at the hospital, and there are no plans to send them abroad to go on courses. Given these problems, Dr Nasrat asked, “How can one learn?”
Dr Meraj sees little hope of radical improvement because HealthNet International, a non-government group that supports the hospital, has a limited budget.
Dr Homayun Zaheer, HealthNet’s director at the hospital, said out-of-date census figures hugely understate the size of the population served by the hospital.
Official numbers show the province with a population of 1.6 million, and this figure is used to determine the budget, Dr Zaheer said. But these numbers are out-of-date, and he believes Nangarhar now has as many as three million residents, nearly twice the official estimate.
“Donors approve our budget according to the province’s population. If Nangarhar’s statistics department put the population at three million, the hospital would get a bigger budget,” he said.
As well as Nangarhar, the Jalalabad hospital also serves the Laghman and Kunar regions, as well as parts of Kabul and Logar provinces.
HealthNet gets its funding from the European Union provides, and the NGO is currently operating under an agreement with the Afghan health ministry running from November 2011 to May 2013.
Under the agreement, HealthNet agreed to provide for 420 beds, but 50 more than this are in use, and 27 more staff are working there than the 527 stipulated.
“Even now, we are providing services that are not covered by our budget,” Dr Zaheer said. “This an extra financial burden that our NGO has shouldered.”
Not everyone is unhappy with the hospital’s services. Allahnazar recently admitted his one-year-old son for a two-week stay and the boy has since been discharged in good health.
“I am grateful to Dr Abbas – my son had a lung ailment and he treated it,” Allahnazar said of the doctor involved. “Without that, I would have had to take him to Pakistan, where I’d have needed to pay a lot of money to doctors and the police.”
Hijratullah Ekhtyar is an IWPR-trained reporter in Nangarhar province.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com