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US Audit Finds Afghanistan Incapable of Sustaining Security
Luis Ramirez VOA News November 1, 2012
PENTAGON — A U.S. government audit warns that Afghanistan will likely be incapable of sustaining its security forces beyond the 2014 pullout of international troops due to incompetence.
The report contains the latest in a series of warnings by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction about the country's ability to run itself when U.S. and NATO troops leave in 2014.
Released Wednesday, the report focuses on the Afghan government’s operations and maintenance capabilities, including the budgeting, purchasing, and logistics systems - which the watchdog group says are undeveloped.
The focus of the audit is the government’s administrative systems, but security analyst Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington says the deficiencies are a major threat to peace in the country after 2014.
“To be blunt, it means that people on the front lines aren’t going to be fed, paid, and or have the proper equipment to take care of the security situation and when soldiers aren’t given that, what happens is they tend to either leave post or turn their guns on the government,” Schmitt said.
The inspector general says one major problem is the high number of soldiers and contractors who are illiterate and cannot do things like read manuals and blueprints to operate power and wastewater plants.
The report criticizes contractors who have been paid to train the Afghans to take over administrative matters by 2014, saying one company has run out of money 16 months before the pullout with only half the job complete.
In the last fiscal year, NATO spent $800 million on supporting operations and maintenance services, which included training for Afghan government officials.
Afghan election chief says Taliban candidate eligible to run for president
Kabul, Nov. 1 (ANI): The Taliban and other insurgent leaders could stand as candidates in Afghanistan's next presidential election which is scheduled to be held in April 2014, the country's top poll official has said.
President Hamid Karzai, who is serving his second term as leader of the war-torn nation, is constitutionally barred from running in the election and no clear candidate to succeed him has yet emerged.
The vote is seen as crucial to Afghan stability after the withdrawal of NATO troops.
"We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates. There will be no discrimination," The Express Tribune quoted Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) as saying. He insisted his body would act impartially.
Hezb-i-Islami is the faction of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar which waged an insurgency along with the Taliban against Karzai's Western-backed government.
The Taliban, whose hardline regime was overthrown in 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion for harbouring Osama bin Laden, did not take part in the 2009 election, instead attacking polling stations.
The International Crisis Group think-tank warned this month that the Kabul government could fall apart after NATO troops pull out, particularly if the presidential elections are plagued by fraud.
Under the Afghan system, voters elect the president as an individual rather than as a representative of a party, and candidates must submit their nominations by October 6, 2013. The IEC will then rule on their admissibility and publish a final list of candidates on November 16. (ANI)
In This Corner, a Much-Needed Distraction
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG October 31, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghans love a good fight. Dog fights, ram fights, partridge fights — if two combatants square off here, there is sure to be a crowd cheering them on.
So when a German promoter this week brought the spectacle of professional boxing to Kabul — an international title fight with an Afghan contender, no less — the only real question for many Afghans was what took so long and, of course, how to get tickets.
The Thrilla in Manila it was not. Billed as the Fight 4 Peace, Tuesday night’s match played out more like the Squabble in Kabul.
The championship at stake was the unclaimed intercontinental middleweight belt of the World Boxing Organization, a title that is about as second-tier as it gets. The contenders — Hamid Rahimi, 29, a German of Afghan descent, and Said Mbwela, 23, of Tanzania — were recognizable names nowhere beyond Afghanistan. To keep the crowd’s attention, there was also a praying mullah, a soccer ball juggler, a pair of Afghan pop stars and two slender men who pantomimed a Thai kickboxing match. Despite the fact that Mr. Rahimi was the clear crowd favorite, many onlookers acknowledged that his eventual victory through a technical knockout was dubious.
But they loved it anyway. Thousands showed up to see the match, and riot police officers were needed to keep those without tickets from storming the venue. Tens of thousands or more watched it on television. Afterward, young men cruised the streets, hanging out of car windows and chanting “Ha-Mid! Ha-Mid! Ha-Mid!”
By Wednesday morning, the match was the biggest news in the capital. Ahmad Noor, 42, a construction company manager, quipped that Mr. Rahimi’s fame now equaled that of President Hamid Karzai and Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. (Mr. Omar surely would have been displeased with the comparison, since he banned boxing when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.)
Adel, 30, a street-side snack vendor who uses only a single name, said Mr. Rahimi’s victory was better than Id al-Adha, a major Islamic holiday that ended a few days ago. In American terms, that would be like saying it was better than Christmas.
If anything, the late summer and autumn of 2012 may well be remembered by Kabulis as the time when Western-style professional sports finally came to their city. The boxing match, as well as a string of soccer games, gave many a good reason to forget, at least for a few hours, the Taliban, the foreigners, the warlords and every other unwelcome group or unsavory character that has inflicted pain and suffering here.
Afghanistan has long had an active amateur sports scene, and Afghan athletes have competed internationally in the last few years. But many of those efforts — a women’s boxing team, for instance — often seemed to be at least partly geared toward Westerners eager to see how their countries’ efforts were changing Afghanistan.
This season’s big sports events, in contrast, were aimed squarely at Afghans themselves. Before the Fight 4 Peace came the Afghan Premier League, a well-organized professional soccer league that concluded its inaugural season a few weeks ago.
Both the boxing match and the soccer league had the trappings of big-time American or European sports events, with corporate sponsorships and live television broadcasts. Each was easily as big a story to Afghans as the events here that grabbed the Western news media’s attention, like the end of the American surge, which played out during the Premier League season.
“Why do I have to think about the Taliban or Obama when I watch a game? What do you think about?” snapped Muhammad Ishaq Geran at a Premier League match in late September when asked a few too many questions about watching soccer under Taliban rule.
Mr. Geran, 48, an administrator at the Ministry of Public Health, said the Taliban had nearly ruined soccer for him. Back when they were in power, games were often turned into propaganda spectacles with executions and amputations at half time.
He hated it. But with television, music, dancing and a host of other entertainment options banned, the soccer games “were the only entertainment we had,” he said. So he closed his eyes during the executions.
Now that Afghanistan had the Premier League, he could finally find the same escape in sports that fans do all over the world, he said. The cheap tickets — 30 afghanis, or $0.60, a seat — and live television broadcasts helped, too.
The Squabble in Kabul provided the same escape but at a steeper price. Tickets were 3,000 afghanis, about $60, and scalpers were selling them for as much as 12,000 afghanis, or nearly $240.
The ring was set up inside what is known as the loya jirga tent, a large concrete conference hall originally built for Afghan leaders to meet and decide matters of national importance, like whether to sign a strategic partnership deal with the United States.
No one was debating international affairs on Tuesday night. First came the mullah, who recited a prayer that he said the Prophet Muhammad spoke before conquering Mecca. Then came blaring pop music of a decidedly un-Islamic bent — “give me what you got in store, girl, I’m begging for more” — and the other opening acts.
The roughly 3,000 men at the tent were riled up by the time the fight got under way. Mr. Mbwela, who had to know he did not have a fan in the house, quickly embraced the role of the villain, theatrically pumping his fists at the crowd between rounds.
The fighters each got in their punches until early in the seventh round when Mr. Rahimi hit Mr. Mbwela in the shoulder. The Tanzanian retreated to his corner, gripping the shoulder with his glove. The fight was over.
The crowd went wild at the announcement Mr. Rahimi had won. Even Mr. Mbwela appeared to get caught up in the moment. He grabbed the new champion, who is now marketing an energy drink here, and lifted him into the air — and spawned Afghanistan’s latest conspiracy theory: that of the rigged boxing match.
“I think it was fixed,” said Arash, 27, a money exchanger who uses only a single name. “His rival grabbed him and raised him even though he was defeated.”
Afghan skirmishes, increasing militancy claims 38 lives in Taliban former stronghold
KABUL, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Increasing Taliban-linked militancy and conflicts have claimed the lives of 38 people including 14 civilians and two dozen anti-government militants over the past two weeks in the southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces --the former stronghold of Taliban, officials said.
On Wednesday only, 14 people, all non-combatants, lost their lives in the militants' linked activities in the form of deadly roadside bombings in Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand provinces, said officials.
In the latest violent incident, a roadside bomb presumably planted by Taliban militants, struck a civilian car in Marouf district of Kandahar province Wednesday evening killing six innocent civilians, a local official confirmed.
"The tragic and deadly incident happened Wednesday evening in Sang village of Marouf district, resulting in the death of six people including two women, three children and one man," spokesman for Kandahar's provincial administration Jawed Faisal told Xinhua.
He also blamed the attack on the enemies of peace, a term used for Taliban militants by government officials. However, the outfit fighting the government has yet to make comment.
In a similar incident also on Wednesday in Dezro village of Musa Qala district in Helmand province 555 km south of capital city Kabul, eight civilians including seven women were killed and two others injured, Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement released Wednesday.
"A civilian car ran onto a roadside bomb planted by the Taliban terrorists in Dizro area of Musa Qala district at about 9 a.m. local time, sparking a powerful blast and leaving eight civilians dead on the spot," the ministry said in a statement.
Two more civilians were wounded in the blast, the statement of the Interior Ministry said.
Meantime, police in Kandahar, the birthplace of Taliban outfit, announced the elimination of two dozen Taliban fighters elsewhere in Kandahar province over the past two weeks.
"Twenty four Taliban rebels have been killed during series of operations over the past two weeks elsewhere in Kandahar province, " Rahmatullah Atrafi, deputy to Kandahar provincial police chief told a press conference on Wednesday.
One armed Taliban fighter sustained injuries and three others have been detained during the operations, he added.
There were no casualties on the security forces, he said. Taliban militants have yet to comment.
Taliban militants, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have often attacked Afghan forces and about 100, 000 NATO-led forces with the roadside bombs or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and suicide attacks. However, the lethal homemade weapons often inflict casualties on civilians.
A total of 1,145 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflicts and violent security mishaps in the first six months this year in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, 15 percent down in overall civilian casualties from a year earlier, according to a United Nations report released here in Kabul on Aug. 8.
The UN report, however, attributed 80 percent of the civilian deaths to the attacks committed by Taliban insurgents and other armed groups opposing the Afghan government. Another 10 percent of the deaths were attributed to Afghan and NATO-led forces and the remaining 10 percent were unattributed.
Disease outbreaks prompt action
DUBAI, 1 November 2012 (IRIN) - Afghanistan is taking steps to improve its routine immunization coverage, after a drop in coverage led to a sharp increase in measles outbreaks last year, killing more than 300 children.
Since the start of the last Afghan winter, in November 2011, 9,000 measles cases were reported across almost every province in the country, as compared to 3,000 cases over the same period the year before. Aid workers described the increase as an emergency situation that should serve as a “ringing alarm bell”.
It was the culmination of several years of decreasing vaccination coverage due to rising insecurity, decreased access, difficult terrain and harsh winters that cut off thousands of villages. Last year’s severe drought also contributed.
Routine immunization is supposed to cover measles, polio, Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenza type B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and tuberculosis.
“The main issue is access,” said Maria Luisa Galer, the coordinator of the international aid community’s health cluster in Afghanistan. “We probably have to revise and adapt the strategy to this context,” she told IRIN.
In its 2011-2015 plan for the National Immunization Programme, the Ministry of Public Health writes: “Considering the current constraints and challenges in Afghanistan, reaching 95 percent [measles vaccine] coverage nationally and at least 80 percent in each district through routine immunization services is not easily achievable.”
According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of suspended or non-functional health facilities in Afghanistan increased by 40 percent between 2011 and 2012, reaching 540.
The Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS), the government programme responsible for healthcare delivery at the primary level, does not cover the whole country. “On paper it covers 80 percent, but practically it is close to 60 percent,” said Islam Saeed, director of the government’s Disease Early Warning System (DEWS). The rest is left to humanitarian NGOs and the private sector, but they, too, face challenges.
“Day by day, the [security] situation becomes worse and our access to the people for providing health services becomes more limited,” said Sayed Zubair Sadat, responsible for the Afghan Red Crescent Society’s 45 health clinics nationwide. “We had problems conducting the [Expanded Programme on Immunization] in the border areas and conflict provinces,” he told IRIN.
“Not covered by anyone”
Experts say nearly 30 percent of the population has no or very poor access to primary health care, including immunization, and the percentage is estimated to be as high as 70 percent in areas of conflict in the south. In some communities, the closest health facility is 70km away. Last year, there were some districts where the government was not present at all.
“We have lots of big areas… that are not covered by anyone - no health facilities, no private sector, no NGOs in the whole area,” Saeed told IRIN.
Where vaccinations do take place, quality can also be an issue, and government officials readily admit the lack of capacity of their staff to properly manage cold chains, for example.
“There has been a decline not only in the coverage, but also in the quality of routine immunization,” said Elena Vuolo, external relations officer with the World Health Organizations (WHO) in Afghanistan. BPHS, which is responsible for immunizations, “is overburdened with several activities they have to carry out with limited resources, and difficult access,” she told IRIN.
In the National Priority Programmes, which outline government priorities until 2015, the government admits many vaccinators lack initial training, and that budget shortages in past years prevented supervisory and monitoring visits by provincial level management teams. It found this to be “a major cause” in decreasing immunization coverage.
Quality of vaccinations
The last national measles vaccination campaign was in 2009, but according to Shakoor Waciqi, who used to manage the government’s immunization programme in the 1990s but now works with WHO, the target age group was limited and “the quality of the campaign was sub-optimal”.
Given the number of outbreaks last year, health workers say the immunization clearly did not reach 90 percent of children in every district - the minimum required to prevent outbreaks. According to DEWS, there have been 285 disease outbreaks, including 179 measles outbreaks, in 2012 so far. (An outbreak is defined as more than five cases within a defined geographical area within the incubation period of the disease).
“In some areas, the coverage is less than 20 percent. In some areas, it is zero percent,” Saeed, of DEWS, said.
Another problem is the lack of a baseline to accurately gauge how many children to target. Afghanistan has not conducted a census since the 1970s. Aid workers worry that the figures used to create targets are outdated, and thus many children are missing in the national statistics.
Preventing a repeat
As a new winter approaches, WHO is trying to prevent a repeat of last year.
In July, it began an emergency nationwide measles vaccination campaign, vaccinating more than six million children between nine months and 10 years old in 16 provinces. It is planning to continue with the remaining 18 provinces in November.
While measles cases are still appearing, the numbers have decreased sharply after the first phase of the measles campaign, WHO says. In November, the government and WHO will be training immunization officials in advance of the second phase of the measles vaccination campaign.
Health officials are also taking other steps to improve immunization.
This year, WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Public Health combined the measles and polio vaccination campaigns, Vuolo said, suggesting the “piggy-back” model could make better use of resources in the future.
As part of a winter contingency plan, health workers also started pre-positioning medicines in areas that will be cut off during the winter; and establishing temporary sub-health centres to serve villagers in remote areas through the winter.
Mobile health teams
The government is increasingly recognizing the important role of mobile health teams, in some cases airlifting teams by helicopter into remote areas. This is part of an approach to tailor immunization strategies to the specific context of an area, instead of applying “one blanket method for every province”, Galer said. The government is also planning to use more female vaccinators to increase access to women; and to improve the reporting forms to improve monitoring.
A new task force is aimed at coordinating activities linked to the surveillance of and response to diseases, bringing together people from different government departments as well as WHO, Saeed and Waciqi said.
There are also initiatives aimed at integrating the various disease surveillance systems into one mechanism and consolidating all health information under one department responsible for analysis.
To fight Taliban, US must give Afghanistan schools
President Obama and Mitt Romney both pledge to leave Afghanistan in 2014. But neither discussed the importance of establishing schools for the children of a war-torn nation where nearly half the population is under the age of 15. The Taliban are most scared of books, not bombs.
By Faheem Younus | Christian Science Monitor
After watching the presidential debates, now watch the 2007 biographical drama, "Charlie Wilson’s War." It’s about the period when the United States was leaving Afghanistan after wrapping up its covert anti-Soviet operation there. Tom Hanks, who played the role of Congressman Charlie Wilson in the movie, pleaded with lawmakers, “One million dollars for school reconstruction….Did you hear me say? It was a million, not a billion, for a school construction?”
This is what he got in return: “Nobody gives a [darn] about a school in Pakistan.” Or Afghanistan.
Caution: A quarter century later, America is about to make the same mistake. President Obama and Mitt Romney have both pledged to leave Afghanistan by 2014. But neither discussed the importance of establishing schools for the children of a war torn nation where nearly half the population is under the age of 15.
The recent Taliban assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani champion of girls' education, shows: The Taliban are most scared of books, not bombs. Establishing an educational infrastructure in Afghanistan is the most cost effective long-term strategy for grassroots change.
The cost effectiveness could be shown in multiple ways. “For the cost of just one soldier in Afghanistan for one year, we could start about 20 schools,” said Nicholas Kristoff in a July 2010 column in The New York Times.
Mr. Kristoff says Greg Mortenson, the author of “Three Cups of Tea,” told him that “for the cost of just 246 American soldiers in Afghanistan for a year, we could pay for a higher education plan for all Afghanistan.” Can you imagine the global impact of educating a tribal society over the next decade, all for less than 0.1 percent of our annual military spending?
To be fair, the US government has made some strides. In December 2011, an Afghan version of “Sesame Street” – a program funded by the US State Department and produced in consultation with Afghanistan's Ministry of Education – was launched. Afghanistan has one of the highest proportions of school-age children in the world, yet less than half are in school.
This leaves millions of young Afghans, mostly girls and women, vulnerable to poverty and Taliban influence. As the US withdraws its troops and the Taliban regain control – which they will in varying degrees – they are likely to enforce misogynistic policies with impunity and recruit 14-year olds for suicide bombings.
Some will blame Islam itself for this inhumanity. But their reasoning doesn’t hold up. Why don’t American Muslims blow themselves up? Because they are educated. They have a good life. They have plans for tomorrow. For an Afghan kid, it’s different.
About 12,000 Afghan civilians were killed just between 2007 and 2011. Their children are put in a position where they may be more easily recruited by the Taliban to fight in “God’s army against the infidel.” This army is funded in part by Saudi oil money to nurture the extremist Wahhabi and anti-western mindset in the religious madrassahs. In the 1980s, the Saudis matched America’s anti-communism budget of $500 million to uproot the Soviets in Afghanistan. Now, their motivations for funding the Taliban are different.
Taliban have other help as well – notably from the Pakistani Army and many Pakistani politicians and religious parties. Recently, an ex-cricketer-turn-Pakistani-politician, Imran Khan, publicly gave legitimacy to their cause by declaring the Afghan conflict “a holy war” justified by Islamic law. Ignore this paradigm of support, and America’s decade-long gains will be washed away within a year.
OPINION: Afghanistan Field Guide: Don't wear sunglasses and eight other essential tips
Before America leaves Afghanistan, Washington should pledge at least $1 billion to establish secular schools for boys and girls in Afghanistan. And policymakers should work with Islamabad to help fund and establish schools in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The funds should go toward hiring qualified teachers, developing standardized curricula, and constructing a robust infrastructure to support these schools, their staff, and their students. If armed protection for such schools is required, it should come from locally hired forces.
Spent right, these dollars could achieve what counterinsurgency missions, bombers, and drones could not.
Dr. Faheem Younus is a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the founder of Muslimerican.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FaheemYounus.
Afghanistan: Taliban fear grips once peaceful Parwan province
Not far from the largest US military base in Afghanistan, the Taliban is making major inroads.
Chris Sands GlobalPost November 1, 2012 03:44
PARWAN, Afghanistan — Just a few miles from the biggest US military base in Afghanistan is the headquarters of Parwan's provincial governor.
More than a year after it was attacked by a team of suicide bombers, the buildings remain peppered with bullet holes, scarred by shrapnel and in some places stained with blood.
The compound in the town of Charikar is still open for business. There is no other option. But the damage stands as proof that even in once peaceful areas, the war has begun to leave an indelible mark.
Since the US invaded in 2001, Parawan has never been regarded as dangerous.
Bordering Kabul and situated on two highways that are essential transport links to the center and north of the country, it was traditionally seen as a stronghold of the anti-Taliban opposition.
Then the insurgents slowly began to appear.
First they were only in the mountains and a few remote valleys. Next they started to emerge elsewhere, their message of resistance in the name of Islam finding support across districts and among different ethnic groups.
Soon they felt confident enough to search cars in broad daylight, stage public executions and regularly attempt high-profile operations in Charikar, the provincial capital. Today they are active in roughly half of Parwan. Many people believe the situation will get worse.
As spokeswoman for the governor, Roshna Khalid was at work when the insurgents struck last summer. While the assault was unfolding, she saw "a very handsome man" in a police uniform who she did not initially realize was a suicide bomber.
"I don't know why he didn't shoot me because they shot all my other friends and colleagues," she said.
As the carnage unfolded, Khalid spent much of the time hiding in her office. She hunkered against a wall, reciting prayers and thinking about her family. By the time the attack was over, the insurgents had killed at least 22 people.
She has continued to receive threats ordering her to quit her job or face the consequences. Gunmen have also attempted to kidnap one of her sons.
Khalid admitted the local government is worried that Afghan security forces will be unable to cope if all conventional NATO combat troops exit the country as scheduled by the end of 2014.
"If they do not train and equip our police and army we will not be able to control the situation," she said. "Time is very short. Day by day the foreigners are saying they are leaving soon, so it depends on them."
Most of the trouble here can be traced to the region of Ghorband, which encompasses four of Parwan's 10 districts. In some places there, the Taliban essentially have full control, while in others they can move relatively freely around the inhospitable landscape.
The first obvious sign that the insurgents were in the ascendancy in this area came in June 2011. Jawad Zahak, a prominent official in neighboring Bamiyan province, was kidnapped and reportedly beheaded as he travelled on the main road through Ghorband. This route to central Afghanistan is now the scene of frequent attacks and even insurgent checkpoints.
Speaking at his small convenience store not far from Taliban territory, shopkeeper Abdul Samad said one of his relatives in the Afghan army had been killed in an ambush on the same highway when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up his truck.
"Day and night the situation is very bad there," he said.
A number of other noticeable incidents have occurred. Infamously, earlier this year a woman accused of adultery was executed in front of a crowd of villagers in Shinwari district. Her death was captured on video.
Some, however, welcome the militants' presence. Hassan, a Kabul University student from Ghorband, told GlobalPost the rebels had backing from ethnic Hazaras and Tajiks in the area, as well as Pashtuns.
"They have received a lot of support from local people. Before there was thieving, drug addicts, dog fighting and all these other illegal activities. Now none of this is happening and the Taliban have crushed them. No one commits injustice. This is not just coming from my mind, it is the truth from society," he said.
There are signs that the resistance is now taking root elsewhere in Parwan. Rockets are often shot at Bagram Air Field, the biggest US military installation in the country. According to the local government, they are fired from areas that are not part of Ghorband.
In one such assault, the plane of Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was damaged as it waited on the ground in August. In similar circumstances, three members of the Afghan intelligence service were killed when their helicopter was hit.
The dangers in Parwan are not confined only to the insurgency, with many people here also possessing unlicensed guns and the threat of common criminality rising.
Zakia Sangin, a member of parliament for the province, said local security forces could "lose control of the center and the green areas" if they are not given better equipment before the foreign troops withdraw.
Unable to visit Ghorband for some time, she added that she now feels vulnerable even in Charikar. "When I stay in my own home I worry that I am not safe," she said.
Karzai Holds Special Kabul Bank Tribunal
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday chaired a meeting to discuss and assess the progress made in recovering Kabul Bank's loans.
He ordered the relevant authorities to sell all the assets of Kabul Bank both in Afghanistan and abroad and transfer its money to government.
According to Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) nearly 60 percent of Kabul Bank's assets and loans have been retrieved, however several assets have been handed over to UAE government to be sold out under the UAE's rules.
"So far we have retrieved 60 percent of Kabul Bank's assets and loans. As far as the assets are concerned outside the country, particularly in Dubai, instead of selling them through property dealers we handed over all of them to the UAE government to be sold under their rules," DAB governor Noorullah Delawari said.
Karzai ordered Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal and DAB to make sure that the British forensics audit firm Kroll Associates identifies in a formal report how much money was sent to foreign Banks in Kabul Bank transactions.
Delawari believes around US$400 million was transferred abroad to unknown people and banks.
"There are nearly $400m transferred to unknown people, it was the duty of Kroll to determine this according to their contract," Delawari added.
Karzai also ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General's Office to follow up the extradition of foreign DAB governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat who stands accused in the Kabul Bank scandal and is currently in US.
Kabul Bank Special Tribunal also ordered action to follow up the cases of those guilty of Kabul Bank statement.
"Shir Khan Farnood, Khalilullah Firozi, Kabul Bank CEO Mahmood Musa Ghazi and former DAB governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat with several of DAB and Kabul Bank employees are included, a total of number of 23 people are guilty," head of Tribunal Shams-ur-Rahman Shams said.
He also added that 13 borrowers including Mahmood Karzai, Hassin Fahim, Gul Bahar Habibi, Ghafar Dawi, Mohammad Dawood Nasiri and Haji Tahir are following their case with the tribunal. Hassin Fahim and Mahmood Karzai have paid their debts but still owe from their shares.
According to a presidential statement released Wednesday, around $138 million has been recovered in cash and $185 million worth of property both in and outside Afghanistan have been taken over.
Another $218 million acknowledged as debt by the borrowers is yet to be returned. The statement concluded that the remaining amount of $529 million is still disputed.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Luis Ramirez VOA News November 1, 2012
PENTAGON — A U.S. government audit warns that Afghanistan will likely be incapable of sustaining its security forces beyond the 2014 pullout of international troops due to incompetence.
The report contains the latest in a series of warnings by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction about the country's ability to run itself when U.S. and NATO troops leave in 2014.
Released Wednesday, the report focuses on the Afghan government’s operations and maintenance capabilities, including the budgeting, purchasing, and logistics systems - which the watchdog group says are undeveloped.
The focus of the audit is the government’s administrative systems, but security analyst Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington says the deficiencies are a major threat to peace in the country after 2014.
“To be blunt, it means that people on the front lines aren’t going to be fed, paid, and or have the proper equipment to take care of the security situation and when soldiers aren’t given that, what happens is they tend to either leave post or turn their guns on the government,” Schmitt said.
The inspector general says one major problem is the high number of soldiers and contractors who are illiterate and cannot do things like read manuals and blueprints to operate power and wastewater plants.
The report criticizes contractors who have been paid to train the Afghans to take over administrative matters by 2014, saying one company has run out of money 16 months before the pullout with only half the job complete.
In the last fiscal year, NATO spent $800 million on supporting operations and maintenance services, which included training for Afghan government officials.
Afghan election chief says Taliban candidate eligible to run for president
Kabul, Nov. 1 (ANI): The Taliban and other insurgent leaders could stand as candidates in Afghanistan's next presidential election which is scheduled to be held in April 2014, the country's top poll official has said.
President Hamid Karzai, who is serving his second term as leader of the war-torn nation, is constitutionally barred from running in the election and no clear candidate to succeed him has yet emerged.
The vote is seen as crucial to Afghan stability after the withdrawal of NATO troops.
"We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates. There will be no discrimination," The Express Tribune quoted Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) as saying. He insisted his body would act impartially.
Hezb-i-Islami is the faction of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar which waged an insurgency along with the Taliban against Karzai's Western-backed government.
The Taliban, whose hardline regime was overthrown in 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion for harbouring Osama bin Laden, did not take part in the 2009 election, instead attacking polling stations.
The International Crisis Group think-tank warned this month that the Kabul government could fall apart after NATO troops pull out, particularly if the presidential elections are plagued by fraud.
Under the Afghan system, voters elect the president as an individual rather than as a representative of a party, and candidates must submit their nominations by October 6, 2013. The IEC will then rule on their admissibility and publish a final list of candidates on November 16. (ANI)
In This Corner, a Much-Needed Distraction
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG October 31, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghans love a good fight. Dog fights, ram fights, partridge fights — if two combatants square off here, there is sure to be a crowd cheering them on.
So when a German promoter this week brought the spectacle of professional boxing to Kabul — an international title fight with an Afghan contender, no less — the only real question for many Afghans was what took so long and, of course, how to get tickets.
The Thrilla in Manila it was not. Billed as the Fight 4 Peace, Tuesday night’s match played out more like the Squabble in Kabul.
The championship at stake was the unclaimed intercontinental middleweight belt of the World Boxing Organization, a title that is about as second-tier as it gets. The contenders — Hamid Rahimi, 29, a German of Afghan descent, and Said Mbwela, 23, of Tanzania — were recognizable names nowhere beyond Afghanistan. To keep the crowd’s attention, there was also a praying mullah, a soccer ball juggler, a pair of Afghan pop stars and two slender men who pantomimed a Thai kickboxing match. Despite the fact that Mr. Rahimi was the clear crowd favorite, many onlookers acknowledged that his eventual victory through a technical knockout was dubious.
But they loved it anyway. Thousands showed up to see the match, and riot police officers were needed to keep those without tickets from storming the venue. Tens of thousands or more watched it on television. Afterward, young men cruised the streets, hanging out of car windows and chanting “Ha-Mid! Ha-Mid! Ha-Mid!”
By Wednesday morning, the match was the biggest news in the capital. Ahmad Noor, 42, a construction company manager, quipped that Mr. Rahimi’s fame now equaled that of President Hamid Karzai and Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. (Mr. Omar surely would have been displeased with the comparison, since he banned boxing when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.)
Adel, 30, a street-side snack vendor who uses only a single name, said Mr. Rahimi’s victory was better than Id al-Adha, a major Islamic holiday that ended a few days ago. In American terms, that would be like saying it was better than Christmas.
If anything, the late summer and autumn of 2012 may well be remembered by Kabulis as the time when Western-style professional sports finally came to their city. The boxing match, as well as a string of soccer games, gave many a good reason to forget, at least for a few hours, the Taliban, the foreigners, the warlords and every other unwelcome group or unsavory character that has inflicted pain and suffering here.
Afghanistan has long had an active amateur sports scene, and Afghan athletes have competed internationally in the last few years. But many of those efforts — a women’s boxing team, for instance — often seemed to be at least partly geared toward Westerners eager to see how their countries’ efforts were changing Afghanistan.
This season’s big sports events, in contrast, were aimed squarely at Afghans themselves. Before the Fight 4 Peace came the Afghan Premier League, a well-organized professional soccer league that concluded its inaugural season a few weeks ago.
Both the boxing match and the soccer league had the trappings of big-time American or European sports events, with corporate sponsorships and live television broadcasts. Each was easily as big a story to Afghans as the events here that grabbed the Western news media’s attention, like the end of the American surge, which played out during the Premier League season.
“Why do I have to think about the Taliban or Obama when I watch a game? What do you think about?” snapped Muhammad Ishaq Geran at a Premier League match in late September when asked a few too many questions about watching soccer under Taliban rule.
Mr. Geran, 48, an administrator at the Ministry of Public Health, said the Taliban had nearly ruined soccer for him. Back when they were in power, games were often turned into propaganda spectacles with executions and amputations at half time.
He hated it. But with television, music, dancing and a host of other entertainment options banned, the soccer games “were the only entertainment we had,” he said. So he closed his eyes during the executions.
Now that Afghanistan had the Premier League, he could finally find the same escape in sports that fans do all over the world, he said. The cheap tickets — 30 afghanis, or $0.60, a seat — and live television broadcasts helped, too.
The Squabble in Kabul provided the same escape but at a steeper price. Tickets were 3,000 afghanis, about $60, and scalpers were selling them for as much as 12,000 afghanis, or nearly $240.
The ring was set up inside what is known as the loya jirga tent, a large concrete conference hall originally built for Afghan leaders to meet and decide matters of national importance, like whether to sign a strategic partnership deal with the United States.
No one was debating international affairs on Tuesday night. First came the mullah, who recited a prayer that he said the Prophet Muhammad spoke before conquering Mecca. Then came blaring pop music of a decidedly un-Islamic bent — “give me what you got in store, girl, I’m begging for more” — and the other opening acts.
The roughly 3,000 men at the tent were riled up by the time the fight got under way. Mr. Mbwela, who had to know he did not have a fan in the house, quickly embraced the role of the villain, theatrically pumping his fists at the crowd between rounds.
The fighters each got in their punches until early in the seventh round when Mr. Rahimi hit Mr. Mbwela in the shoulder. The Tanzanian retreated to his corner, gripping the shoulder with his glove. The fight was over.
The crowd went wild at the announcement Mr. Rahimi had won. Even Mr. Mbwela appeared to get caught up in the moment. He grabbed the new champion, who is now marketing an energy drink here, and lifted him into the air — and spawned Afghanistan’s latest conspiracy theory: that of the rigged boxing match.
“I think it was fixed,” said Arash, 27, a money exchanger who uses only a single name. “His rival grabbed him and raised him even though he was defeated.”
Afghan skirmishes, increasing militancy claims 38 lives in Taliban former stronghold
KABUL, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Increasing Taliban-linked militancy and conflicts have claimed the lives of 38 people including 14 civilians and two dozen anti-government militants over the past two weeks in the southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces --the former stronghold of Taliban, officials said.
On Wednesday only, 14 people, all non-combatants, lost their lives in the militants' linked activities in the form of deadly roadside bombings in Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand provinces, said officials.
In the latest violent incident, a roadside bomb presumably planted by Taliban militants, struck a civilian car in Marouf district of Kandahar province Wednesday evening killing six innocent civilians, a local official confirmed.
"The tragic and deadly incident happened Wednesday evening in Sang village of Marouf district, resulting in the death of six people including two women, three children and one man," spokesman for Kandahar's provincial administration Jawed Faisal told Xinhua.
He also blamed the attack on the enemies of peace, a term used for Taliban militants by government officials. However, the outfit fighting the government has yet to make comment.
In a similar incident also on Wednesday in Dezro village of Musa Qala district in Helmand province 555 km south of capital city Kabul, eight civilians including seven women were killed and two others injured, Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement released Wednesday.
"A civilian car ran onto a roadside bomb planted by the Taliban terrorists in Dizro area of Musa Qala district at about 9 a.m. local time, sparking a powerful blast and leaving eight civilians dead on the spot," the ministry said in a statement.
Two more civilians were wounded in the blast, the statement of the Interior Ministry said.
Meantime, police in Kandahar, the birthplace of Taliban outfit, announced the elimination of two dozen Taliban fighters elsewhere in Kandahar province over the past two weeks.
"Twenty four Taliban rebels have been killed during series of operations over the past two weeks elsewhere in Kandahar province, " Rahmatullah Atrafi, deputy to Kandahar provincial police chief told a press conference on Wednesday.
One armed Taliban fighter sustained injuries and three others have been detained during the operations, he added.
There were no casualties on the security forces, he said. Taliban militants have yet to comment.
Taliban militants, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have often attacked Afghan forces and about 100, 000 NATO-led forces with the roadside bombs or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and suicide attacks. However, the lethal homemade weapons often inflict casualties on civilians.
A total of 1,145 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflicts and violent security mishaps in the first six months this year in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, 15 percent down in overall civilian casualties from a year earlier, according to a United Nations report released here in Kabul on Aug. 8.
The UN report, however, attributed 80 percent of the civilian deaths to the attacks committed by Taliban insurgents and other armed groups opposing the Afghan government. Another 10 percent of the deaths were attributed to Afghan and NATO-led forces and the remaining 10 percent were unattributed.
Disease outbreaks prompt action
DUBAI, 1 November 2012 (IRIN) - Afghanistan is taking steps to improve its routine immunization coverage, after a drop in coverage led to a sharp increase in measles outbreaks last year, killing more than 300 children.
Since the start of the last Afghan winter, in November 2011, 9,000 measles cases were reported across almost every province in the country, as compared to 3,000 cases over the same period the year before. Aid workers described the increase as an emergency situation that should serve as a “ringing alarm bell”.
It was the culmination of several years of decreasing vaccination coverage due to rising insecurity, decreased access, difficult terrain and harsh winters that cut off thousands of villages. Last year’s severe drought also contributed.
Routine immunization is supposed to cover measles, polio, Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenza type B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and tuberculosis.
“The main issue is access,” said Maria Luisa Galer, the coordinator of the international aid community’s health cluster in Afghanistan. “We probably have to revise and adapt the strategy to this context,” she told IRIN.
In its 2011-2015 plan for the National Immunization Programme, the Ministry of Public Health writes: “Considering the current constraints and challenges in Afghanistan, reaching 95 percent [measles vaccine] coverage nationally and at least 80 percent in each district through routine immunization services is not easily achievable.”
According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of suspended or non-functional health facilities in Afghanistan increased by 40 percent between 2011 and 2012, reaching 540.
The Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS), the government programme responsible for healthcare delivery at the primary level, does not cover the whole country. “On paper it covers 80 percent, but practically it is close to 60 percent,” said Islam Saeed, director of the government’s Disease Early Warning System (DEWS). The rest is left to humanitarian NGOs and the private sector, but they, too, face challenges.
“Day by day, the [security] situation becomes worse and our access to the people for providing health services becomes more limited,” said Sayed Zubair Sadat, responsible for the Afghan Red Crescent Society’s 45 health clinics nationwide. “We had problems conducting the [Expanded Programme on Immunization] in the border areas and conflict provinces,” he told IRIN.
“Not covered by anyone”
Experts say nearly 30 percent of the population has no or very poor access to primary health care, including immunization, and the percentage is estimated to be as high as 70 percent in areas of conflict in the south. In some communities, the closest health facility is 70km away. Last year, there were some districts where the government was not present at all.
“We have lots of big areas… that are not covered by anyone - no health facilities, no private sector, no NGOs in the whole area,” Saeed told IRIN.
Where vaccinations do take place, quality can also be an issue, and government officials readily admit the lack of capacity of their staff to properly manage cold chains, for example.
“There has been a decline not only in the coverage, but also in the quality of routine immunization,” said Elena Vuolo, external relations officer with the World Health Organizations (WHO) in Afghanistan. BPHS, which is responsible for immunizations, “is overburdened with several activities they have to carry out with limited resources, and difficult access,” she told IRIN.
In the National Priority Programmes, which outline government priorities until 2015, the government admits many vaccinators lack initial training, and that budget shortages in past years prevented supervisory and monitoring visits by provincial level management teams. It found this to be “a major cause” in decreasing immunization coverage.
Quality of vaccinations
The last national measles vaccination campaign was in 2009, but according to Shakoor Waciqi, who used to manage the government’s immunization programme in the 1990s but now works with WHO, the target age group was limited and “the quality of the campaign was sub-optimal”.
Given the number of outbreaks last year, health workers say the immunization clearly did not reach 90 percent of children in every district - the minimum required to prevent outbreaks. According to DEWS, there have been 285 disease outbreaks, including 179 measles outbreaks, in 2012 so far. (An outbreak is defined as more than five cases within a defined geographical area within the incubation period of the disease).
“In some areas, the coverage is less than 20 percent. In some areas, it is zero percent,” Saeed, of DEWS, said.
Another problem is the lack of a baseline to accurately gauge how many children to target. Afghanistan has not conducted a census since the 1970s. Aid workers worry that the figures used to create targets are outdated, and thus many children are missing in the national statistics.
Preventing a repeat
As a new winter approaches, WHO is trying to prevent a repeat of last year.
In July, it began an emergency nationwide measles vaccination campaign, vaccinating more than six million children between nine months and 10 years old in 16 provinces. It is planning to continue with the remaining 18 provinces in November.
While measles cases are still appearing, the numbers have decreased sharply after the first phase of the measles campaign, WHO says. In November, the government and WHO will be training immunization officials in advance of the second phase of the measles vaccination campaign.
Health officials are also taking other steps to improve immunization.
This year, WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Public Health combined the measles and polio vaccination campaigns, Vuolo said, suggesting the “piggy-back” model could make better use of resources in the future.
As part of a winter contingency plan, health workers also started pre-positioning medicines in areas that will be cut off during the winter; and establishing temporary sub-health centres to serve villagers in remote areas through the winter.
Mobile health teams
The government is increasingly recognizing the important role of mobile health teams, in some cases airlifting teams by helicopter into remote areas. This is part of an approach to tailor immunization strategies to the specific context of an area, instead of applying “one blanket method for every province”, Galer said. The government is also planning to use more female vaccinators to increase access to women; and to improve the reporting forms to improve monitoring.
A new task force is aimed at coordinating activities linked to the surveillance of and response to diseases, bringing together people from different government departments as well as WHO, Saeed and Waciqi said.
There are also initiatives aimed at integrating the various disease surveillance systems into one mechanism and consolidating all health information under one department responsible for analysis.
To fight Taliban, US must give Afghanistan schools
President Obama and Mitt Romney both pledge to leave Afghanistan in 2014. But neither discussed the importance of establishing schools for the children of a war-torn nation where nearly half the population is under the age of 15. The Taliban are most scared of books, not bombs.
By Faheem Younus | Christian Science Monitor
After watching the presidential debates, now watch the 2007 biographical drama, "Charlie Wilson’s War." It’s about the period when the United States was leaving Afghanistan after wrapping up its covert anti-Soviet operation there. Tom Hanks, who played the role of Congressman Charlie Wilson in the movie, pleaded with lawmakers, “One million dollars for school reconstruction….Did you hear me say? It was a million, not a billion, for a school construction?”
This is what he got in return: “Nobody gives a [darn] about a school in Pakistan.” Or Afghanistan.
Caution: A quarter century later, America is about to make the same mistake. President Obama and Mitt Romney have both pledged to leave Afghanistan by 2014. But neither discussed the importance of establishing schools for the children of a war torn nation where nearly half the population is under the age of 15.
The recent Taliban assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani champion of girls' education, shows: The Taliban are most scared of books, not bombs. Establishing an educational infrastructure in Afghanistan is the most cost effective long-term strategy for grassroots change.
The cost effectiveness could be shown in multiple ways. “For the cost of just one soldier in Afghanistan for one year, we could start about 20 schools,” said Nicholas Kristoff in a July 2010 column in The New York Times.
Mr. Kristoff says Greg Mortenson, the author of “Three Cups of Tea,” told him that “for the cost of just 246 American soldiers in Afghanistan for a year, we could pay for a higher education plan for all Afghanistan.” Can you imagine the global impact of educating a tribal society over the next decade, all for less than 0.1 percent of our annual military spending?
To be fair, the US government has made some strides. In December 2011, an Afghan version of “Sesame Street” – a program funded by the US State Department and produced in consultation with Afghanistan's Ministry of Education – was launched. Afghanistan has one of the highest proportions of school-age children in the world, yet less than half are in school.
This leaves millions of young Afghans, mostly girls and women, vulnerable to poverty and Taliban influence. As the US withdraws its troops and the Taliban regain control – which they will in varying degrees – they are likely to enforce misogynistic policies with impunity and recruit 14-year olds for suicide bombings.
Some will blame Islam itself for this inhumanity. But their reasoning doesn’t hold up. Why don’t American Muslims blow themselves up? Because they are educated. They have a good life. They have plans for tomorrow. For an Afghan kid, it’s different.
About 12,000 Afghan civilians were killed just between 2007 and 2011. Their children are put in a position where they may be more easily recruited by the Taliban to fight in “God’s army against the infidel.” This army is funded in part by Saudi oil money to nurture the extremist Wahhabi and anti-western mindset in the religious madrassahs. In the 1980s, the Saudis matched America’s anti-communism budget of $500 million to uproot the Soviets in Afghanistan. Now, their motivations for funding the Taliban are different.
Taliban have other help as well – notably from the Pakistani Army and many Pakistani politicians and religious parties. Recently, an ex-cricketer-turn-Pakistani-politician, Imran Khan, publicly gave legitimacy to their cause by declaring the Afghan conflict “a holy war” justified by Islamic law. Ignore this paradigm of support, and America’s decade-long gains will be washed away within a year.
OPINION: Afghanistan Field Guide: Don't wear sunglasses and eight other essential tips
Before America leaves Afghanistan, Washington should pledge at least $1 billion to establish secular schools for boys and girls in Afghanistan. And policymakers should work with Islamabad to help fund and establish schools in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The funds should go toward hiring qualified teachers, developing standardized curricula, and constructing a robust infrastructure to support these schools, their staff, and their students. If armed protection for such schools is required, it should come from locally hired forces.
Spent right, these dollars could achieve what counterinsurgency missions, bombers, and drones could not.
Dr. Faheem Younus is a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the founder of Muslimerican.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FaheemYounus.
Afghanistan: Taliban fear grips once peaceful Parwan province
Not far from the largest US military base in Afghanistan, the Taliban is making major inroads.
Chris Sands GlobalPost November 1, 2012 03:44
PARWAN, Afghanistan — Just a few miles from the biggest US military base in Afghanistan is the headquarters of Parwan's provincial governor.
More than a year after it was attacked by a team of suicide bombers, the buildings remain peppered with bullet holes, scarred by shrapnel and in some places stained with blood.
The compound in the town of Charikar is still open for business. There is no other option. But the damage stands as proof that even in once peaceful areas, the war has begun to leave an indelible mark.
Since the US invaded in 2001, Parawan has never been regarded as dangerous.
Bordering Kabul and situated on two highways that are essential transport links to the center and north of the country, it was traditionally seen as a stronghold of the anti-Taliban opposition.
Then the insurgents slowly began to appear.
First they were only in the mountains and a few remote valleys. Next they started to emerge elsewhere, their message of resistance in the name of Islam finding support across districts and among different ethnic groups.
Soon they felt confident enough to search cars in broad daylight, stage public executions and regularly attempt high-profile operations in Charikar, the provincial capital. Today they are active in roughly half of Parwan. Many people believe the situation will get worse.
As spokeswoman for the governor, Roshna Khalid was at work when the insurgents struck last summer. While the assault was unfolding, she saw "a very handsome man" in a police uniform who she did not initially realize was a suicide bomber.
"I don't know why he didn't shoot me because they shot all my other friends and colleagues," she said.
As the carnage unfolded, Khalid spent much of the time hiding in her office. She hunkered against a wall, reciting prayers and thinking about her family. By the time the attack was over, the insurgents had killed at least 22 people.
She has continued to receive threats ordering her to quit her job or face the consequences. Gunmen have also attempted to kidnap one of her sons.
Khalid admitted the local government is worried that Afghan security forces will be unable to cope if all conventional NATO combat troops exit the country as scheduled by the end of 2014.
"If they do not train and equip our police and army we will not be able to control the situation," she said. "Time is very short. Day by day the foreigners are saying they are leaving soon, so it depends on them."
Most of the trouble here can be traced to the region of Ghorband, which encompasses four of Parwan's 10 districts. In some places there, the Taliban essentially have full control, while in others they can move relatively freely around the inhospitable landscape.
The first obvious sign that the insurgents were in the ascendancy in this area came in June 2011. Jawad Zahak, a prominent official in neighboring Bamiyan province, was kidnapped and reportedly beheaded as he travelled on the main road through Ghorband. This route to central Afghanistan is now the scene of frequent attacks and even insurgent checkpoints.
Speaking at his small convenience store not far from Taliban territory, shopkeeper Abdul Samad said one of his relatives in the Afghan army had been killed in an ambush on the same highway when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up his truck.
"Day and night the situation is very bad there," he said.
A number of other noticeable incidents have occurred. Infamously, earlier this year a woman accused of adultery was executed in front of a crowd of villagers in Shinwari district. Her death was captured on video.
Some, however, welcome the militants' presence. Hassan, a Kabul University student from Ghorband, told GlobalPost the rebels had backing from ethnic Hazaras and Tajiks in the area, as well as Pashtuns.
"They have received a lot of support from local people. Before there was thieving, drug addicts, dog fighting and all these other illegal activities. Now none of this is happening and the Taliban have crushed them. No one commits injustice. This is not just coming from my mind, it is the truth from society," he said.
There are signs that the resistance is now taking root elsewhere in Parwan. Rockets are often shot at Bagram Air Field, the biggest US military installation in the country. According to the local government, they are fired from areas that are not part of Ghorband.
In one such assault, the plane of Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was damaged as it waited on the ground in August. In similar circumstances, three members of the Afghan intelligence service were killed when their helicopter was hit.
The dangers in Parwan are not confined only to the insurgency, with many people here also possessing unlicensed guns and the threat of common criminality rising.
Zakia Sangin, a member of parliament for the province, said local security forces could "lose control of the center and the green areas" if they are not given better equipment before the foreign troops withdraw.
Unable to visit Ghorband for some time, she added that she now feels vulnerable even in Charikar. "When I stay in my own home I worry that I am not safe," she said.
Karzai Holds Special Kabul Bank Tribunal
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday chaired a meeting to discuss and assess the progress made in recovering Kabul Bank's loans.
He ordered the relevant authorities to sell all the assets of Kabul Bank both in Afghanistan and abroad and transfer its money to government.
According to Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) nearly 60 percent of Kabul Bank's assets and loans have been retrieved, however several assets have been handed over to UAE government to be sold out under the UAE's rules.
"So far we have retrieved 60 percent of Kabul Bank's assets and loans. As far as the assets are concerned outside the country, particularly in Dubai, instead of selling them through property dealers we handed over all of them to the UAE government to be sold under their rules," DAB governor Noorullah Delawari said.
Karzai ordered Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal and DAB to make sure that the British forensics audit firm Kroll Associates identifies in a formal report how much money was sent to foreign Banks in Kabul Bank transactions.
Delawari believes around US$400 million was transferred abroad to unknown people and banks.
"There are nearly $400m transferred to unknown people, it was the duty of Kroll to determine this according to their contract," Delawari added.
Karzai also ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General's Office to follow up the extradition of foreign DAB governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat who stands accused in the Kabul Bank scandal and is currently in US.
Kabul Bank Special Tribunal also ordered action to follow up the cases of those guilty of Kabul Bank statement.
"Shir Khan Farnood, Khalilullah Firozi, Kabul Bank CEO Mahmood Musa Ghazi and former DAB governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat with several of DAB and Kabul Bank employees are included, a total of number of 23 people are guilty," head of Tribunal Shams-ur-Rahman Shams said.
He also added that 13 borrowers including Mahmood Karzai, Hassin Fahim, Gul Bahar Habibi, Ghafar Dawi, Mohammad Dawood Nasiri and Haji Tahir are following their case with the tribunal. Hassin Fahim and Mahmood Karzai have paid their debts but still owe from their shares.
According to a presidential statement released Wednesday, around $138 million has been recovered in cash and $185 million worth of property both in and outside Afghanistan have been taken over.
Another $218 million acknowledged as debt by the borrowers is yet to be returned. The statement concluded that the remaining amount of $529 million is still disputed.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
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