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Karzai in India to woo investment in Afghanistan
Karzai in India to seek investment, review security in war-torn Afghanistan
By Nirmala George, Associated Press
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Indian companies on Monday to invest in his country, and India's leader said economic development in the war-torn nation would contribute to stability in the region.
"Investment opportunities are better today in Afghanistan, a country that is more confident of its future," Karzai told reporters after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Karzai's five-day visit is viewed as a bid to shore up security in the faction-ridden region before the planned departure of most NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
India has invested more than $2 billion in Afghan infrastructure, including highways and hospitals and rural electricity projects. New Delhi is hoping to gain some influence in the country after 2014, when Afghan forces become responsible for the entire country's security.
"India has been a generous front-line partner in Afghanistan's rebuilding and reconstruction efforts," Karzai said.
Singh said his talks with Karzai covered bilateral relations and regional security.
"I reiterated to President Karzai our belief that Afghanistan's regional economic integration will contribute to the overall prosperity and stability in the region," Singh told reporters.
The two countries signed four agreements, including ones on mining and development of small enterprises.
Karzai, who arrived in India over the weekend, said one of his priorities during the visit is to urge Indian companies to invest in his country.
"Indian businessmen need not shy away. The Chinese came five to six years before you and they have already got two or three major contracts," Karzai told business leaders in Mumbai on Sunday.
He said Afghanistan would lay out a "red carpet" welcome for Indian businesses. "You should come in large numbers," Karzai said.
The two leaders also reviewed a strategic partnership agreement that the countries signed last year, Indian officials said.
India is helping the Afghan government rebuild its police forces, judiciary and diplomatic services. Small batches of Afghan soldiers are undergoing training at military schools in India.
"India is involved in capacity building in various fields including the security sector," said Yash Sinha, a top official in the Ministry of External Affairs. He refused to say how many Afghan soldiers had been trained in India.
India and Afghanistan are careful that their cooperation is not viewed as a threat by Pakistan, which lies sandwiched between them.
The governments of India and Afghanistan share a distrust of Pakistan. Afghanistan says Pakistan contributes to Afghan instability by offering a safe haven to Taliban insurgents. India accuses Pakistan of harboring and nurturing terrorists who have carried out attacks in India.
Karzai, who earned his college degree in India, has visited New Delhi more than a half dozen times in the past few years, most recently in October 2011.
Horror stories from young Afghans at US hearing
By GENE JOHNSON | Associated Press
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) — The soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians watched as child after child described the bloodbath that left their parents and other loved ones dead. Whatever reaction Staff Sgt. Robert Bales might have had, he kept hidden behind a calm face.
Three sessions of nighttime testimony in Bales' preliminary hearing, scheduled to accommodate witnesses participating by video link from Afghanistan, wrapped up late Sunday. After the hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the investigating officer will decide whether to court-martial Bales, who could be sentenced to death if convicted.
The witnesses were as young as little Robina, just 7, who wore a deep-red head covering and a nervous smile. She described how she hid behind her father when a gunman came to their village that night, how the stranger fired, and how her father died, cursing in pain and anger.
"I was standing behind my father," she testified Saturday night. "He shot my father."
One of the bullets struck her in the leg, but she didn't realize it right away.
Prosecutors say Bales slipped away from his base to attack two villages in Kandahar province, killing 16 civilians, including nine children. The slayings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.
The villagers also took out their anger on Afghan police, a police official from Kandahar testified Sunday night. Maj. Khudai Dad, chief of criminal techniques with the Afghan Uniform Police, said that at one of the compounds the morning after the attack, women upset about the attacks and about what they saw as a late arrival by Afghan officials pelted him with shoes, a major insult in Afghanistan and many other Islamic countries.
The stories recounted by the villagers have been harrowing. They described torched bodies, a son finding his wounded father, and boys cowering behind a curtain while others screamed, "We are children! We are children!"
Bales, 39, an Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, has not entered a plea and was not expected to testify at the preliminary hearing. His attorneys have not discussed the evidence, but say he has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered a concussive head injury while serving in Iraq.
During cross-examination of several witnesses, Bales' attorney John Henry Browne sought to elicit testimony about whether there might have been more than one shooter.
Dad, the police official, testified that he did not believe one soldier could have carried out the attacks, though he offered no evidence to support that opinion, and nearly all other testimony and evidence at the hearing pointed toward a single shooter.
One Army Criminal Investigations Command special agent testified earlier that several months after the massacre, she took a statement from one woman whose husband was killed. The woman reported that there were two soldiers in her room — one took her husband out of the room and shot him, and the other held her back when she tried to follow.
But other eyewitnesses reported that there was just one shooter, and several soldiers have testified that Bales returned to his base at Camp Belambay, just before dawn, alone and covered in blood.
A video taken from a surveillance blimp also captured a sole figure returning to the base.
The Afghan witnesses recounted the villagers who lived in the attacked compounds and listed the names of those killed. The bodies were buried quickly under Islamic custom, and no forensic evidence was available to prove the number of victims.
Prosecutors said that between the two attacks, Bales woke a fellow soldier, reported what he'd done and said he was headed out to kill more. The soldier testified that he didn't believe what Bales said, and went back to sleep.
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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
Afghan Peace Envoy To Meet With Pakistani Officials
By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal November 12, 2012
ISLAMABAD -- Peace envoy Salahuddin Rabbani, who chairs Afghanistan's so-called High Peace Council, departed for neighboring Pakistan expressing hope that "common efforts" could help foster reconciliation efforts in his country.
Officials at the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad told RFE/RL that Rabbani would conduct three days of talks in Islamabad.
He planned to meet with top Pakistani officials on Islamabad's role in the reconciliation process, which comes after decades of foreign invasion, occupation, and civil war in Afghanistan.
"I hope that through clear and frank negotiations, Pakistan will change its position towards peace process in Afghanistan," Rabbani told parliament before his departure for Pakistan. "Our common efforts with grand Islamic organizations and centers helps change Pakistani thinking and approach towards war and peace issues in Afghanistan. This is one of the important things that can be useful consolidating durable peace.”
The Afghan peace envoy was invited by Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
Rabbani's visit had been postponed twice in the past, including most recently in early August.
The peace process in Afghanistan will mainly depend on possible talks between the Afghan government and leaders of the Taliban insurgency, some of whom are based in Pakistan.
Afghanistan shortlists companies from Dubai, Kuwait, Turkey for major oil and gas project
By Associated Press, via The Washington Post
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government has shortlisted companies from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for a major oil and gas exploration project, a step in the country’s quest to reap revenues from its vast untapped mineral and energy resources.
Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said Monday that bids from Dubai’s Dragon Oil, Kuwait Energy, and the Turkish Petroleum Corp. have been selected for the tender involving exploration rights in the Tajik Basin in northern Afghanistan.
The basin’s oil reserves are estimated at more than 1 billion barrels.
The government said in a statement that the bids will be considered in a “thorough, transparent, and fair bidding process until the announcement of the results of the evaluation process,” adding that the contract will be signed in March. The statement said 20 international companies had expressed interest in the project and that eight were judged eligible, including Texas-based Exxon Mobil.
The Tajik Basin is located between the northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz. The tender includes the six blocks known to contain hydrocarbon reserves. The blocks may be awarded to a single bidder or to multiple bidders, the ministry said.
Afghanistan has been looking for ways to exploit some of its mineral wealth to offset the loss of revenues when foreign aid and spending drops in step with the withdrawal of international combat troops by year-end 2014. The government has been keen to develop an oil-extraction and refining capability for the landlocked nation, which is entirely reliant on fuel imports from neighboring Iran and Central Asian countries.
Afghanistan’s mineral wealth — estimated at up to $3 trillion dollars — has been detailed in several surveys, the most extensive of which were conducted by the Soviets in the 1970s. Mining companies, both Afghan and foreign, have already shown interest, notably in its copper, iron and oil. Also highly sought are so-called rare earth elements, used in cell phones, hybrid car batteries, wind turbines and by the defense industries.
But most mineral riches are scattered throughout the country, including in the war-wracked southern and eastern areas.
China’s National Petroleum Corporation became the first foreign company to start oil production extraction in Afghanistan, and is scheduled to build the country’s first refinery within the next three years.
The Chinese firm’s contract covers gas blocks in Sari Pul and Faryab, an area known as the Amu Darya River Basin that was first explored by Soviet engineers in the 1960s.
China has also made a hefty investment in Afghan minerals, signing a $3 billion contract to mine copper.
Pakistan lodges protest with Afghanistan over border shelling
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Monday lodged a formal protest with Afghanistan over cross-border shelling which killed four Pakistanis on Sunday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.
The Pakistan military said that Afghan National Army troops fired mortars from one of its posts which hit a vehicle in Pakistani territory, killing four people including two children. "Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani conveyed deep concern of the Government of Pakistan to the Afghan Ambassador today over the unprovoked border shelling by the Afghan forces last evening killing four civilians," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Condemning the attacks, the foreign secretary said that such attacks were unhelpful and unproductive, and would only vitiate the conducive environment that Pakistan is trying to create for promotion of peace and stability in the region, it said.
He also strongly urged the Afghan government to take appropriate measures to prevent recurrence of similar incidents in future, the statement said.
The army said that the slain men were going back after collecting woods in South Waziristan tribal region when Afghan mortars struck their vehicle.
Both sides routinely accuse each other of cross-border shelling.
The incident occurred at a time when the Afghan peace envoy, Salahuddin Rabbani, is due in Islamabad later Monday for talks to push the reconciliation process in the war-shattered country.
Rabbani will discuss Pakistan's role in Afghan peace process during his meeting with Pakistan civilian and military leadership.
Karzai in India to Push for Investments
VOA News November 12, 2012
Afghanistan's president and India's prime minister have signed agreements boosting cooperation in a number of areas, including small development projects, mines and youth affairs.
Hamid Karzai met with Manmohan Singh Monday in New Delhi to appeal for increased investment in war-torn Afghanistan.
President Karzai said Monday after the two leaders met that investment opportunities are better today in Afghanistan because the country is more confident about its future.
India has already invested more than $2 billion in Afghanistan's infrastructure. The two countries are careful that their cooperation efforts are not viewed as a threat by Pakistan, which lies sandwiched between India and Afghanistan.
Before holding talks in New Delhi with Singh Monday, President Karzai met with other high-level Indian officials and visited Mahatma Gandhi's memorial.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
India reiterates commitment to nation building efforts of Afghanistan
NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- India Monday reiterated its firm commitment to the "nation-building" efforts of war-ravaged Afghanistan as New Delhi and Kabul inked four pacts at the backdrop of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the national capital.
"We have had detailed and frank discussions today covering the entire spectrum of bilateral relations. We reviewed progress of the strategic partnership agreement, discussed the need to develop strategic economic partnership that will build on our synergies," Indian Prime Minister said after the meeting.
Singh added, "India supports the nation-building efforts of Afghanistan. We also support efforts to achieve lasting peace in Afghanistan. I expressed to President Karzai our belief that sustained international support and cooperation in all respects, including combating terrorism emanating from the neighborhood, will help Afghanistan meet these challenges."
He also stressed the country's development assistance to Afghanistan currently stands at two billion U.S. dollars.
The two countries inked four pacts in diverse areas, including mines, youth affairs, small development projects and fertilizers, with President Karzai describing India as "a very generous front- line partner and supporter to Afghanistan's reconstruction and development. India has striven with us for the hard-earned income of its people and the difficult walk that we had for development and reconstruction."
Stating that his visit to India was to woo Indian investors, President Karzai said, "my visit here this time is focused on talking to and asking and requesting Indian business to come to Afghanistan. In fact, Investment opportunities in Afghanistan today are better in a country that is more confident in its future and is willing to receive investment from its friends, particularly India."
Earlier this morning, President Karzai, who flew into the Indian capital Sunday from Mumbai where he arrived on Friday afternoon on a four-day visit, was accorded ceremonial welcome by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhawan, the latter's official residence.
Pakistan hosts regional meet on Counter-Narcotics on Nov. 12-13
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ministers from twelve regional countries would be participating in the Regional Ministerial Conference on Counter-narcotics in Islamabad from November 12 to 13, officials said Sunday.
The invited countries included Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
The Foreign Ministry said the aim of the Ministerial Conference is to share national experiences in countering the menace of illicit drugs and discuss prospects of regional cooperation in developing pragmatic, comprehensive and sustainable ways of addressing the multifaceted challenge posed by illicit drugs production, demand and trafficking.
President Asif Ali Zardari, who has taken the initiative, will inaugurate the conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Moazzam Khan said.
The democratic government of Pakistan has taken a number of steps in the recent past to address the growing threat of narcotics. As a result, Pakistan became a Poppy Free Country in 2011 and, currently, leads the world in narcotic drugs control, officials said.
The production, demand and trafficking of narcotics are a serious threat, which transcend national boundaries.
The President's initiative would further boost joint efforts with key regional partners to counter narcotics, a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Two Haqqani leaders detained in Afghanistan
KABUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Two leaders of Haqqani network were captured in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the NATO-led coalition forces confirmed.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader during an operation in Paktiya province today," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
The Taliban-linked Haqqani network mostly operates in eastern Afghanistan and capital Kabul against security forces.
The arrested leader is suspected of being responsible for transferring weapons and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) into central Paktiya province.
Another Haqqani leader was detained in an operation in neighboring Logar province.
"The arrested leader is alleged to be responsible for facilitating weapons and directing attacks against Afghan and coalition forces within central and northern Logar province," the statement said.
In addition, they also arrested a Taliban leader in southern Afghan province of Kandahar.
"The arrested leader commanded an IED attack cell in central Kandahar province that provided subordinate insurgent fighters with IED materials, weapons and ammunition," according to the statement.
British Soldier Among Those Killed in Afghan Attacks
VOA News November 12, 2012
A gunman wearing an Afghan army uniform has shot and killed a member of the U.S.-led coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.
British officials have identified the soldier killed Sunday in restive Helmand province as a member of The Royal Scots Borderers.
The killing is the latest in a series of insider attacks that have fractured the trust between NATO forces and their Afghan allies in the fight against the Taliban.
Separately, Afghan officials said 11 civilians were killed by explosions in the east and south. A roadside bomb blast killed six members of a family, including a mother and her hours-old baby.
Police say the family was heading home from the hospital where the mother had given birth when their truck hit the bomb Sunday in eastern Khost province.
Also Sunday, three people were killed in southern Helmand province when their vehicle detonated a land mine.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the blasts. However, roadside bombs are the weapons of choice for Taliban insurgents fighting to bring down the Western-backed government in Kabul. The bombs often miss their military targets and hit civilians who use the same roads.
Resilient Afghan governor frets about budget, not bombs
Reuters By Matthew Green Mon Nov 12, 2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - In four years serving as a governor in southern Afghanistan, Tooryalai Wesa has survived nine assassination attempts, most recently by a visitor who hid a pistol in the sole of his shoe.
It is a measure of the changes unfolding in his native Kandahar province -- also the birthplace of the Taliban -- that he seems more preoccupied with the size of his budget than the risk that his enemies might kill him.
"We don't have enough resources from the government," the burly technocrat said in an interview at his compound. "What was promised, even that was not enough for us."
With most foreign combat troops due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, what happens in Kandahar will help decide whether President Barack Obama's decision to send another 30,000 U.S. troops -- most to the south -- in 2010 set Afghanistan on the path to stability, or was a costly waste.
U.S. commanders who lobbied for the troop increase saw Kandahar as the make-or-break battleground, believing they needed to rout the Taliban on their home turf to reinvigorate the West's faltering campaign.
With Obama's "surge" force gone, U.S. and Afghan officials are looking for evidence that Kandahar has reached a tipping point where mutually dependent gains in security and governance are enough to ensure the Taliban cannot rise again.
CASH SHORTFALL
Wesa says the U.S.-backed effort to transform Kandahar's shell of a state into a credible administration is working, but he needs more money from Kabul more quickly to finish projects and provide services so disillusionment doesn't set in.
"Afghanistan is new, the transition process is new, there are shortcomings, there are problems in each new system," he said. "Hopefully in the near future it will be on time."
The fact Wesa is even alive might be considered a victory.
Wesa, an unassuming professor of agriculture who spent years working in Canada, was appointed by President Hamid Karzai in late 2008. He did not strike U.S. officials as the most likely candidate to navigate the rough-and-tumble world of politics among Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
When the troop surge started, U.S. officials feared mafia-style networks competing for a share of Afghanistan's rich, illicit heroin trade, as well as huge war contracts, would stifle reconstruction projects. Wesa says the influence of Kandahar's notorious warlords has started to wane.
"Those people are on the decline here," he said. "They don't have the luxuries they used to have here."
In turn, Wesa's own stature has grown by default.
In July 2011, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's half-brother and chairman of Kandahar's provincial council, was assassinated. Despite the innocuous title, Ahmed Wali Karzai was in reality one of the most powerful men in Kandahar.
CITY FEELS SAFER
Slowly, basic administration has begun to develop after U.S. and Afghan troops, who suffered hundreds of casualties, advanced into hamlets, vineyards and orchards where Taliban bombs and snipers lay in wait.
Wesa said district governors can now drive to far-flung villages, once an unthinkable proposition. Complaints are finding their way to his office, a sign of a more meaningful link between rural areas and the city.
"The governance was not there. As soon as we got there, people were with us," said Wesa in his office, where a large photograph of Hamid Karzai looms from behind his desk.
"The plan is to go further."
Kandahar city certainly feels safer than it did in 2010, when it was repeatedly rocked by car bombings and tightly choreographed insurgent attacks. A brutally effective campaign of assassinations of officials has also slowed.
Wesa himself has not faced another attempt on his life since April's failed shoe gunman.
There are other hopeful signs. Students are clamoring to enroll at Kandahar University and, in farming districts where U.S. forces have started to reduce their footprint, insurgents have yet to stage a meaningful comeback.
But the Taliban have not conceded. In August, the Kandahar police chief survived a bomb blast, while three of his men were killed in a bomb attack in Kandahar city last week. Insurgents still harry Afghan and U.S. forces in remote areas and nobody can be sure gains will survive as more foreign troops leave.
With Afghanistan's elite starting to manoeuvre ahead of a presidential election in April 2014, when Karzai is due to step down, political careers are already in flux.
More significant than Wesa's personal fate will be whether the administration that has started to evolve will endure. "The way things go, I think I am optimistic," Wesa said.
"Do you think we will live in war forever?"
(Editing by Michael Georgy and Paul Tait)
NDS Staff Attend Human Rights Training
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Sunday, 11 November 2012
National Directorate of Security (NDS) personnel attended a human rights awareness workshop on Sunday as part of their ongoing training to improve law enforcement in Afghanistan.
Speaking at the inauguration, NDS deputy chief Sayed Hussain Fakhri stressed that the personnel will be trained in human rights and other enforcable laws of the country to improve performance in keeping prisoners and detention centers.
"This is the fifth Human Rights Awareness workshop conducted for the NDS personnel. They will be trained in human rights and other enforced laws," Fakhri said adding that the prison officials are dealing with the detainees in accordance with laws of the country and consider all aspects of human rights.
He said that all arrests the NDS officials make are done so on the basis of evidence and representatives of the justice organs are present at the time of any arrest operations.
"The officials cannot make arrests without proven evidences, permission of relevant organs, and prosecutors and representatives of courts are present at the time of the arrest," he added.
According to the officials, the Human Rights department was formed within the NDS earlier this year which works in close collaboration with its counterparts in the Ministry of Justice and the Independent Human Rights Commission.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Karzai in India to seek investment, review security in war-torn Afghanistan
By Nirmala George, Associated Press
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Indian companies on Monday to invest in his country, and India's leader said economic development in the war-torn nation would contribute to stability in the region.
"Investment opportunities are better today in Afghanistan, a country that is more confident of its future," Karzai told reporters after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Karzai's five-day visit is viewed as a bid to shore up security in the faction-ridden region before the planned departure of most NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
India has invested more than $2 billion in Afghan infrastructure, including highways and hospitals and rural electricity projects. New Delhi is hoping to gain some influence in the country after 2014, when Afghan forces become responsible for the entire country's security.
"India has been a generous front-line partner in Afghanistan's rebuilding and reconstruction efforts," Karzai said.
Singh said his talks with Karzai covered bilateral relations and regional security.
"I reiterated to President Karzai our belief that Afghanistan's regional economic integration will contribute to the overall prosperity and stability in the region," Singh told reporters.
The two countries signed four agreements, including ones on mining and development of small enterprises.
Karzai, who arrived in India over the weekend, said one of his priorities during the visit is to urge Indian companies to invest in his country.
"Indian businessmen need not shy away. The Chinese came five to six years before you and they have already got two or three major contracts," Karzai told business leaders in Mumbai on Sunday.
He said Afghanistan would lay out a "red carpet" welcome for Indian businesses. "You should come in large numbers," Karzai said.
The two leaders also reviewed a strategic partnership agreement that the countries signed last year, Indian officials said.
India is helping the Afghan government rebuild its police forces, judiciary and diplomatic services. Small batches of Afghan soldiers are undergoing training at military schools in India.
"India is involved in capacity building in various fields including the security sector," said Yash Sinha, a top official in the Ministry of External Affairs. He refused to say how many Afghan soldiers had been trained in India.
India and Afghanistan are careful that their cooperation is not viewed as a threat by Pakistan, which lies sandwiched between them.
The governments of India and Afghanistan share a distrust of Pakistan. Afghanistan says Pakistan contributes to Afghan instability by offering a safe haven to Taliban insurgents. India accuses Pakistan of harboring and nurturing terrorists who have carried out attacks in India.
Karzai, who earned his college degree in India, has visited New Delhi more than a half dozen times in the past few years, most recently in October 2011.
Horror stories from young Afghans at US hearing
By GENE JOHNSON | Associated Press
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) — The soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians watched as child after child described the bloodbath that left their parents and other loved ones dead. Whatever reaction Staff Sgt. Robert Bales might have had, he kept hidden behind a calm face.
Three sessions of nighttime testimony in Bales' preliminary hearing, scheduled to accommodate witnesses participating by video link from Afghanistan, wrapped up late Sunday. After the hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the investigating officer will decide whether to court-martial Bales, who could be sentenced to death if convicted.
The witnesses were as young as little Robina, just 7, who wore a deep-red head covering and a nervous smile. She described how she hid behind her father when a gunman came to their village that night, how the stranger fired, and how her father died, cursing in pain and anger.
"I was standing behind my father," she testified Saturday night. "He shot my father."
One of the bullets struck her in the leg, but she didn't realize it right away.
Prosecutors say Bales slipped away from his base to attack two villages in Kandahar province, killing 16 civilians, including nine children. The slayings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.
The villagers also took out their anger on Afghan police, a police official from Kandahar testified Sunday night. Maj. Khudai Dad, chief of criminal techniques with the Afghan Uniform Police, said that at one of the compounds the morning after the attack, women upset about the attacks and about what they saw as a late arrival by Afghan officials pelted him with shoes, a major insult in Afghanistan and many other Islamic countries.
The stories recounted by the villagers have been harrowing. They described torched bodies, a son finding his wounded father, and boys cowering behind a curtain while others screamed, "We are children! We are children!"
Bales, 39, an Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, has not entered a plea and was not expected to testify at the preliminary hearing. His attorneys have not discussed the evidence, but say he has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered a concussive head injury while serving in Iraq.
During cross-examination of several witnesses, Bales' attorney John Henry Browne sought to elicit testimony about whether there might have been more than one shooter.
Dad, the police official, testified that he did not believe one soldier could have carried out the attacks, though he offered no evidence to support that opinion, and nearly all other testimony and evidence at the hearing pointed toward a single shooter.
One Army Criminal Investigations Command special agent testified earlier that several months after the massacre, she took a statement from one woman whose husband was killed. The woman reported that there were two soldiers in her room — one took her husband out of the room and shot him, and the other held her back when she tried to follow.
But other eyewitnesses reported that there was just one shooter, and several soldiers have testified that Bales returned to his base at Camp Belambay, just before dawn, alone and covered in blood.
A video taken from a surveillance blimp also captured a sole figure returning to the base.
The Afghan witnesses recounted the villagers who lived in the attacked compounds and listed the names of those killed. The bodies were buried quickly under Islamic custom, and no forensic evidence was available to prove the number of victims.
Prosecutors said that between the two attacks, Bales woke a fellow soldier, reported what he'd done and said he was headed out to kill more. The soldier testified that he didn't believe what Bales said, and went back to sleep.
___
Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
Afghan Peace Envoy To Meet With Pakistani Officials
By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal November 12, 2012
ISLAMABAD -- Peace envoy Salahuddin Rabbani, who chairs Afghanistan's so-called High Peace Council, departed for neighboring Pakistan expressing hope that "common efforts" could help foster reconciliation efforts in his country.
Officials at the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad told RFE/RL that Rabbani would conduct three days of talks in Islamabad.
He planned to meet with top Pakistani officials on Islamabad's role in the reconciliation process, which comes after decades of foreign invasion, occupation, and civil war in Afghanistan.
"I hope that through clear and frank negotiations, Pakistan will change its position towards peace process in Afghanistan," Rabbani told parliament before his departure for Pakistan. "Our common efforts with grand Islamic organizations and centers helps change Pakistani thinking and approach towards war and peace issues in Afghanistan. This is one of the important things that can be useful consolidating durable peace.”
The Afghan peace envoy was invited by Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
Rabbani's visit had been postponed twice in the past, including most recently in early August.
The peace process in Afghanistan will mainly depend on possible talks between the Afghan government and leaders of the Taliban insurgency, some of whom are based in Pakistan.
Afghanistan shortlists companies from Dubai, Kuwait, Turkey for major oil and gas project
By Associated Press, via The Washington Post
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government has shortlisted companies from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for a major oil and gas exploration project, a step in the country’s quest to reap revenues from its vast untapped mineral and energy resources.
Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said Monday that bids from Dubai’s Dragon Oil, Kuwait Energy, and the Turkish Petroleum Corp. have been selected for the tender involving exploration rights in the Tajik Basin in northern Afghanistan.
The basin’s oil reserves are estimated at more than 1 billion barrels.
The government said in a statement that the bids will be considered in a “thorough, transparent, and fair bidding process until the announcement of the results of the evaluation process,” adding that the contract will be signed in March. The statement said 20 international companies had expressed interest in the project and that eight were judged eligible, including Texas-based Exxon Mobil.
The Tajik Basin is located between the northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz. The tender includes the six blocks known to contain hydrocarbon reserves. The blocks may be awarded to a single bidder or to multiple bidders, the ministry said.
Afghanistan has been looking for ways to exploit some of its mineral wealth to offset the loss of revenues when foreign aid and spending drops in step with the withdrawal of international combat troops by year-end 2014. The government has been keen to develop an oil-extraction and refining capability for the landlocked nation, which is entirely reliant on fuel imports from neighboring Iran and Central Asian countries.
Afghanistan’s mineral wealth — estimated at up to $3 trillion dollars — has been detailed in several surveys, the most extensive of which were conducted by the Soviets in the 1970s. Mining companies, both Afghan and foreign, have already shown interest, notably in its copper, iron and oil. Also highly sought are so-called rare earth elements, used in cell phones, hybrid car batteries, wind turbines and by the defense industries.
But most mineral riches are scattered throughout the country, including in the war-wracked southern and eastern areas.
China’s National Petroleum Corporation became the first foreign company to start oil production extraction in Afghanistan, and is scheduled to build the country’s first refinery within the next three years.
The Chinese firm’s contract covers gas blocks in Sari Pul and Faryab, an area known as the Amu Darya River Basin that was first explored by Soviet engineers in the 1960s.
China has also made a hefty investment in Afghan minerals, signing a $3 billion contract to mine copper.
Pakistan lodges protest with Afghanistan over border shelling
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Monday lodged a formal protest with Afghanistan over cross-border shelling which killed four Pakistanis on Sunday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.
The Pakistan military said that Afghan National Army troops fired mortars from one of its posts which hit a vehicle in Pakistani territory, killing four people including two children. "Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani conveyed deep concern of the Government of Pakistan to the Afghan Ambassador today over the unprovoked border shelling by the Afghan forces last evening killing four civilians," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Condemning the attacks, the foreign secretary said that such attacks were unhelpful and unproductive, and would only vitiate the conducive environment that Pakistan is trying to create for promotion of peace and stability in the region, it said.
He also strongly urged the Afghan government to take appropriate measures to prevent recurrence of similar incidents in future, the statement said.
The army said that the slain men were going back after collecting woods in South Waziristan tribal region when Afghan mortars struck their vehicle.
Both sides routinely accuse each other of cross-border shelling.
The incident occurred at a time when the Afghan peace envoy, Salahuddin Rabbani, is due in Islamabad later Monday for talks to push the reconciliation process in the war-shattered country.
Rabbani will discuss Pakistan's role in Afghan peace process during his meeting with Pakistan civilian and military leadership.
Karzai in India to Push for Investments
VOA News November 12, 2012
Afghanistan's president and India's prime minister have signed agreements boosting cooperation in a number of areas, including small development projects, mines and youth affairs.
Hamid Karzai met with Manmohan Singh Monday in New Delhi to appeal for increased investment in war-torn Afghanistan.
President Karzai said Monday after the two leaders met that investment opportunities are better today in Afghanistan because the country is more confident about its future.
India has already invested more than $2 billion in Afghanistan's infrastructure. The two countries are careful that their cooperation efforts are not viewed as a threat by Pakistan, which lies sandwiched between India and Afghanistan.
Before holding talks in New Delhi with Singh Monday, President Karzai met with other high-level Indian officials and visited Mahatma Gandhi's memorial.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
India reiterates commitment to nation building efforts of Afghanistan
NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- India Monday reiterated its firm commitment to the "nation-building" efforts of war-ravaged Afghanistan as New Delhi and Kabul inked four pacts at the backdrop of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the national capital.
"We have had detailed and frank discussions today covering the entire spectrum of bilateral relations. We reviewed progress of the strategic partnership agreement, discussed the need to develop strategic economic partnership that will build on our synergies," Indian Prime Minister said after the meeting.
Singh added, "India supports the nation-building efforts of Afghanistan. We also support efforts to achieve lasting peace in Afghanistan. I expressed to President Karzai our belief that sustained international support and cooperation in all respects, including combating terrorism emanating from the neighborhood, will help Afghanistan meet these challenges."
He also stressed the country's development assistance to Afghanistan currently stands at two billion U.S. dollars.
The two countries inked four pacts in diverse areas, including mines, youth affairs, small development projects and fertilizers, with President Karzai describing India as "a very generous front- line partner and supporter to Afghanistan's reconstruction and development. India has striven with us for the hard-earned income of its people and the difficult walk that we had for development and reconstruction."
Stating that his visit to India was to woo Indian investors, President Karzai said, "my visit here this time is focused on talking to and asking and requesting Indian business to come to Afghanistan. In fact, Investment opportunities in Afghanistan today are better in a country that is more confident in its future and is willing to receive investment from its friends, particularly India."
Earlier this morning, President Karzai, who flew into the Indian capital Sunday from Mumbai where he arrived on Friday afternoon on a four-day visit, was accorded ceremonial welcome by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhawan, the latter's official residence.
Pakistan hosts regional meet on Counter-Narcotics on Nov. 12-13
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ministers from twelve regional countries would be participating in the Regional Ministerial Conference on Counter-narcotics in Islamabad from November 12 to 13, officials said Sunday.
The invited countries included Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
The Foreign Ministry said the aim of the Ministerial Conference is to share national experiences in countering the menace of illicit drugs and discuss prospects of regional cooperation in developing pragmatic, comprehensive and sustainable ways of addressing the multifaceted challenge posed by illicit drugs production, demand and trafficking.
President Asif Ali Zardari, who has taken the initiative, will inaugurate the conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Moazzam Khan said.
The democratic government of Pakistan has taken a number of steps in the recent past to address the growing threat of narcotics. As a result, Pakistan became a Poppy Free Country in 2011 and, currently, leads the world in narcotic drugs control, officials said.
The production, demand and trafficking of narcotics are a serious threat, which transcend national boundaries.
The President's initiative would further boost joint efforts with key regional partners to counter narcotics, a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Two Haqqani leaders detained in Afghanistan
KABUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Two leaders of Haqqani network were captured in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the NATO-led coalition forces confirmed.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader during an operation in Paktiya province today," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
The Taliban-linked Haqqani network mostly operates in eastern Afghanistan and capital Kabul against security forces.
The arrested leader is suspected of being responsible for transferring weapons and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) into central Paktiya province.
Another Haqqani leader was detained in an operation in neighboring Logar province.
"The arrested leader is alleged to be responsible for facilitating weapons and directing attacks against Afghan and coalition forces within central and northern Logar province," the statement said.
In addition, they also arrested a Taliban leader in southern Afghan province of Kandahar.
"The arrested leader commanded an IED attack cell in central Kandahar province that provided subordinate insurgent fighters with IED materials, weapons and ammunition," according to the statement.
British Soldier Among Those Killed in Afghan Attacks
VOA News November 12, 2012
A gunman wearing an Afghan army uniform has shot and killed a member of the U.S.-led coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.
British officials have identified the soldier killed Sunday in restive Helmand province as a member of The Royal Scots Borderers.
The killing is the latest in a series of insider attacks that have fractured the trust between NATO forces and their Afghan allies in the fight against the Taliban.
Separately, Afghan officials said 11 civilians were killed by explosions in the east and south. A roadside bomb blast killed six members of a family, including a mother and her hours-old baby.
Police say the family was heading home from the hospital where the mother had given birth when their truck hit the bomb Sunday in eastern Khost province.
Also Sunday, three people were killed in southern Helmand province when their vehicle detonated a land mine.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the blasts. However, roadside bombs are the weapons of choice for Taliban insurgents fighting to bring down the Western-backed government in Kabul. The bombs often miss their military targets and hit civilians who use the same roads.
Resilient Afghan governor frets about budget, not bombs
Reuters By Matthew Green Mon Nov 12, 2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - In four years serving as a governor in southern Afghanistan, Tooryalai Wesa has survived nine assassination attempts, most recently by a visitor who hid a pistol in the sole of his shoe.
It is a measure of the changes unfolding in his native Kandahar province -- also the birthplace of the Taliban -- that he seems more preoccupied with the size of his budget than the risk that his enemies might kill him.
"We don't have enough resources from the government," the burly technocrat said in an interview at his compound. "What was promised, even that was not enough for us."
With most foreign combat troops due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, what happens in Kandahar will help decide whether President Barack Obama's decision to send another 30,000 U.S. troops -- most to the south -- in 2010 set Afghanistan on the path to stability, or was a costly waste.
U.S. commanders who lobbied for the troop increase saw Kandahar as the make-or-break battleground, believing they needed to rout the Taliban on their home turf to reinvigorate the West's faltering campaign.
With Obama's "surge" force gone, U.S. and Afghan officials are looking for evidence that Kandahar has reached a tipping point where mutually dependent gains in security and governance are enough to ensure the Taliban cannot rise again.
CASH SHORTFALL
Wesa says the U.S.-backed effort to transform Kandahar's shell of a state into a credible administration is working, but he needs more money from Kabul more quickly to finish projects and provide services so disillusionment doesn't set in.
"Afghanistan is new, the transition process is new, there are shortcomings, there are problems in each new system," he said. "Hopefully in the near future it will be on time."
The fact Wesa is even alive might be considered a victory.
Wesa, an unassuming professor of agriculture who spent years working in Canada, was appointed by President Hamid Karzai in late 2008. He did not strike U.S. officials as the most likely candidate to navigate the rough-and-tumble world of politics among Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
When the troop surge started, U.S. officials feared mafia-style networks competing for a share of Afghanistan's rich, illicit heroin trade, as well as huge war contracts, would stifle reconstruction projects. Wesa says the influence of Kandahar's notorious warlords has started to wane.
"Those people are on the decline here," he said. "They don't have the luxuries they used to have here."
In turn, Wesa's own stature has grown by default.
In July 2011, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's half-brother and chairman of Kandahar's provincial council, was assassinated. Despite the innocuous title, Ahmed Wali Karzai was in reality one of the most powerful men in Kandahar.
CITY FEELS SAFER
Slowly, basic administration has begun to develop after U.S. and Afghan troops, who suffered hundreds of casualties, advanced into hamlets, vineyards and orchards where Taliban bombs and snipers lay in wait.
Wesa said district governors can now drive to far-flung villages, once an unthinkable proposition. Complaints are finding their way to his office, a sign of a more meaningful link between rural areas and the city.
"The governance was not there. As soon as we got there, people were with us," said Wesa in his office, where a large photograph of Hamid Karzai looms from behind his desk.
"The plan is to go further."
Kandahar city certainly feels safer than it did in 2010, when it was repeatedly rocked by car bombings and tightly choreographed insurgent attacks. A brutally effective campaign of assassinations of officials has also slowed.
Wesa himself has not faced another attempt on his life since April's failed shoe gunman.
There are other hopeful signs. Students are clamoring to enroll at Kandahar University and, in farming districts where U.S. forces have started to reduce their footprint, insurgents have yet to stage a meaningful comeback.
But the Taliban have not conceded. In August, the Kandahar police chief survived a bomb blast, while three of his men were killed in a bomb attack in Kandahar city last week. Insurgents still harry Afghan and U.S. forces in remote areas and nobody can be sure gains will survive as more foreign troops leave.
With Afghanistan's elite starting to manoeuvre ahead of a presidential election in April 2014, when Karzai is due to step down, political careers are already in flux.
More significant than Wesa's personal fate will be whether the administration that has started to evolve will endure. "The way things go, I think I am optimistic," Wesa said.
"Do you think we will live in war forever?"
(Editing by Michael Georgy and Paul Tait)
NDS Staff Attend Human Rights Training
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Sunday, 11 November 2012
National Directorate of Security (NDS) personnel attended a human rights awareness workshop on Sunday as part of their ongoing training to improve law enforcement in Afghanistan.
Speaking at the inauguration, NDS deputy chief Sayed Hussain Fakhri stressed that the personnel will be trained in human rights and other enforcable laws of the country to improve performance in keeping prisoners and detention centers.
"This is the fifth Human Rights Awareness workshop conducted for the NDS personnel. They will be trained in human rights and other enforced laws," Fakhri said adding that the prison officials are dealing with the detainees in accordance with laws of the country and consider all aspects of human rights.
He said that all arrests the NDS officials make are done so on the basis of evidence and representatives of the justice organs are present at the time of any arrest operations.
"The officials cannot make arrests without proven evidences, permission of relevant organs, and prosecutors and representatives of courts are present at the time of the arrest," he added.
According to the officials, the Human Rights department was formed within the NDS earlier this year which works in close collaboration with its counterparts in the Ministry of Justice and the Independent Human Rights Commission.
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