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U.S. Planning a Force to Stay in Afghanistan
New York Times By MICHAEL R. GORDON November 25, 2012
WASHINGTON - American and allied military planners are drawing up the broad outlines of a force that would remain in Afghanistan following the handover to Afghan security after 2014, including a small counterterrorism force with an eye toward Al Qaeda, senior officials say.
Under the emerging plan, the American counterterrorism force might number less than 1,000, one military official said. In a parallel effort, NATO forces would advise Afghan forces at major regional military and police headquarters but most likely have a minimal battlefield role, with the exception of some special operations advisers.
Final decisions on the size of the American and NATO presence after 2014 and its precise configuration have not been made by the United States or its allies. But one option calls for about 10,000 American and several thousand non-American NATO troops.
The planning for a post-2014 mission has emerged as an early test for President Obama in his new term as he tries to flesh out the strategy for transferring the responsibility for security to the Afghans. But it is not the only challenge: After the White House decides what sort of military presence to propose to the Afghan government for after 2014, it must turn to the question of how quickly to reduce its troop force before then.
As one of his last acts as senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen is expected to submit a formal recommendation for how quickly to begin withdrawing the United States’ 66,000 troops. Two American officials who are involved in Afghan issues said that General Allen wants to keep a significant military capability through the fighting season ending in fall 2013, which could translate to a force of more than 60,000 troops until the end of that period.
Afghan forces are to assume the lead role for the war next year, and a military officer said that such troop level would enable the United States to better support them, maintain the initiative and control critical terrain.
But such an approach may entail a heavier military involvement than the White House, which appears weary of the war, might like.
The White House is expected to ask General Allen to submit a range of options for drawing down forces next year, including some involving substantial reductions in troop levels.
“The White House has not yet asked General Allen for his assessment, nor have we begun considering any specific recommendations for troop numbers in 2013 and 2014,” said George Little, the Pentagon spokesman. “What is true is that in June 2011 the president made clear that our forces would continue to come home at a steady pace as we transition to an Afghan lead for security. That it still the case.”
The issue is already a politically contentious one. Some leading Democratic lawmakers have signaled that they would like to see steady troop reductions next year while Republicans have argued that speedy withdrawals would jeopardize hard-won gains.
There are also questions about General Allen’s future: his e-mails to a woman linked to the F.B.I. inquiry that disclosed David H. Petraeus’s affair are being investigated by the Pentagon Inspector General.
But General Allen has resumed his duties in Kabul, and Mr. Obama has said that he thinks highly of his military performance. The Marine general who has been nominated to replace him, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., is not scheduled to take up the post until early February and recently told Congress that he had not been part of the planning process.
The planning for a post-2014 force is the Obama administration’s first order of business on Afghanistan for several reasons. The United States has opened talks with the Afghans on a security agreement that would authorize an American troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014. So American officials need to define what role American and NATO forces might play then.
In addition, NATO’s political arm has authorized the alliance’s military planners to develop a concept for how to carry out the post-2014 mission, which is to be approved by the alliance’s defense ministers early next year.
The planning for after 2014 turns on vexing questions on how to guard against the expansion of terrorist groups and advise an Afghan military that has little airpower, poor logistics and difficulties evacuating and treating its own wounded. But it will also depend heavily on the willingness of allied nations to contribute troops and funds.
One question is the scope of the mission for the American counterterrorism force. The targets of the counterterrorism force would include Al Qaeda and possibly Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group linked to Al Qaeda that was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and which is found in small numbers in northeast Afghanistan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan might also make the list.
But it was unclear whether the Pakistani-based Haqqani network, which American commandos have focused on for the past two years, would also be a potential target of the American force. Officials say that does not appear to be contemplated by the White House.
An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy they would advise. It is generally expected that they would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters. The arrangement would largely insulate the NATO advisers from the battlefield, though officials said advisers might accompany Afghan brigades on major operations.
It is unlikely that NATO officers would advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield. That would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster and would entail more risk that most nations seem prepared to assume, though some American experts believe it would make the Afghan military more effective. Still, NATO special operations advisers would be likely to accompany Afghan Army commandos and police SWAT-type units on the battlefield, under the emerging plan.
A major challenge is that Afghanistan will not have an effective air force before 2017, if then. American officials said that NATO airpower would remain in Afghanistan after 2014 but will likely only be used on behalf of NATO and American troops and perhaps Afghan units that are accompanied by NATO advisers. NATO forces rely heavily on airpower for airstrikes, supply and medical evacuation since Afghanistan’s roads are poor and often seeded with bombs.
To compensate for Afghanistan’s limited airpower, American officials are working on a number of fixes, including providing Afghan forces with armored vehicles that would be equipped with mortars and assault guns. The United States is also looking into expanding the purchase of turboprop planes for the Afghans and is trying to help Afghan pilots learn to fly at night.
Equally troubling is the problem of medical evacuations. After 2014, the Afghans will almost certainly need to rely on a system that depends more on ground transportation than helicopters. The Americans want to help them develop more field hospitals.
Senior Afghan military officials are well aware of their deficiencies and are counting on American support.
“Until 2017, we will have American pilots and engineers flying with us,” said Gen. Abdul Wahab Wardak, the Afghan Air Force Commander. “They will start the handover of the air force at the beginning of 2017 and at the end of the year it will be complete.”
General Wardak also noted that the Afghan military needed NATO help to provide “close air support and medevac.” And he ticked off a long list of equipment he hoped to receive from the United States, including transport airplanes and parts.
Still, in the broader sense, a senior American military officer acknowledged that the United States faced formidable difficulties in getting the Afghans ready to operate on their own.
The challenge, the officer said, is “building the back end” of the army and the police: “We’ve been focused on their fighting ability. Now it’s the time we need to focus on getting them the ability to get what they need so they can fight.”
Reporting was contributed by Matthew Rosenberg and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Eric Schmitt and Wesley S. Morgan from Washington.
New units focus on support role in Afghanistan
USA TODAY By Paul McLeary, Defense News November 25. 2012
Bringing a new focus to the training and advising mission while pushing Afghans to take the lead in security operations, up to eight newly designed units -- dubbed security force assistance brigades -- will replace an equal number of Army brigade combat teams across the east and south of Afghanistan by next spring.
Not only will the new brigades focus more on training and mentoring Afghan National Security Forces than leading combat and counterinsurgency missions, but they will also deploy at about half of the strength of the brigade combat teams they're replacing. Each security force assistance brigade is 1,400 to 2,000 soldiers, as opposed to the 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers in a fully manned brigade.
The move has major implications for the mission in Afghanistan, as the number of U.S. forces will probably decline as smaller brigades take the place of their larger predecessors, and Afghan forces take the lead in planning and executing operations. There are 68,000 U.S. service members in country. Roughly 40,000 of those are soldiers.
Pentagon and Army officials stress that no final decision has been made on the size of the U.S. contingent in Afghanistan in the run-up to the White House-imposed December 2014 conclusion of combat operations, but Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said last week that he expects some decisions to be made over the next month.
"The first decision that has to be made is, what are we going to leave behind after 2014?" he said. "I believe that that decision will be made after the first of the year, but we haven't even started intense discussions on it yet."
At their core, the brigades will be made up of a number of security force assistance teams of 10 to 20 officers and noncommissioned officers each, who will rely on the remainder of the brigade for their security, logistics, intelligence and joint fires needs.
While individual teams have deployed throughout 2012 to mentor Afghan forces, they have been forced to rely on whichever brigade owned the battlespace for security, transportation, intelligence and logistics. This added to the brigade's workload and, at times, caused some friction between the teams and the host brigade since the teams' goals didn't always align with those of the brigade commander.
The problem was that the two groups had not worked together prior to deployment. The small size of the teams also put them at risk of green-on-blue attacks since they weren't large enough to provide for their own security.
The new model gives these teams their own security, joint fires, intel and logistics capabilities so they can function independently.
"Although they won't take the whole brigade," Odierno said, "this will allow us to take the soldiers and leaders (needed for training), and who will also provide security for those teams. It integrates them into unity of command and unity of effort. It's something similar to the brigades that we established there at the end in Iraq. So I think this is the right way to go."
The deployments mark a major shift in the way the Afghanistan fight is being waged, said Army Col. Randy Lane, chief of campaign plans at International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Afghanistan. "Arguably, the most important thing we have to do now is not the fighting, but instead enabling the Afghans to secure themselves, and we think that this is the best way forward."
By next December, a year into the security force assistance brigades model and a year away from the end of combat, International Security Assistance Force leadership expects to see the Afghans operating independently, with some advisers continuing to work closely with some brigades. The Afghans "will be out there and really conducting all of the operations from police all the way up to COIN operations, and leading this all the way into the (Afghan) presidential elections in April 2014," Lane said.
The brigade concept also paves the way for an enduring training mission that will last beyond the December 2014 drawdown date originally outlined by President Barack Obama. Over the past year, the 2014 date has been transformed, with little public debate, from what was initially considered the end of U.S. involvement in fighting the Taliban to the beginning of what is merely a smaller footprint for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
In comments during a swing through Asia on Nov. 12, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that outgoing International Security Assistance Force chief Marine Gen. John Allen was working on plans to identify the right number of troops to stay behind for "the post-2014 enduring presence." It would include missions such as counterterrorism, training, advising and assisting the Afghan army and police.
(Contributing: Aaron Mehta, Defense News)
Human Rights watch urges no amnesty for Afghan Taliban
Khaama Press November 26, 2012 By Sadaf Shinwari
An international human rights group urged Afghan authorities Monday to refuse to give Taliban insurgents immunity from prosecution in return for peace talks.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said President Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed administration had pledged amnesty for the Taliban if they join a Kabul-backed peace scheme. “Providing immunity from prosecution for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious human rights abuses violates international law,” HRW said in a statement. “Future government talks with the Taliban should not hinge upon denying justice to victims of war crimes and other abuses,” said Brad Adams, the group’s Asia director.
Afghanistan has a troubling history of providing amnesty for war crimes. In 2007 a coalition of powerful warlords and their supporters in the parliament were able to pass the National Stability and Reconciliation Law. This law seeks to prevent the prosecution of individuals responsible for large-scale human rights abuses in the preceding decades.
The law states that all those who were engaged in armed conflict before the formation of the Interim Administration in Afghanistan in December 2001 shall “enjoy all their legal rights and shall not be prosecuted.” It provides that those engaged in current hostilities will be granted immunity if they agree to reconciliation with the government, effectively providing amnesty for future crimes.
President Hamid Karzai, who had previously promised not to sign the National Stability and Reconciliation Law, quietly permitted it to be published in the government’s official gazette and to enter into force in early 2010. Human Rights Watch at that time urged the repeal of the law, calling it “an invitation for future human rights abuses” and expressing concern that its extension to those currently engaged in hostilities “allows insurgent commanders to get away with mass murder.” The official adoption of the law passed largely unremarked by the international community, leading to concerns that Afghanistan’s international partners were prepared to tolerate impunity for war crimes.
“The High Peace Council’s call for immunity shows the dire predictions about the amnesty law coming true,” Adams said. “Amnesty for war crimes does not need to be, and should not be, a precondition for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.”
The UN, Human Rights Watch, and others have collected considerable information implicating Taliban members in war crimes, including attacks targeting civilians, indiscriminate attacks by suicide bombers and pressure-plate mines, summary executions, and use of children in combat including as suicide bombers. Commanders who ordered unlawful attacks, or who knew or should have known about serious abuses by their forces but made no effort to stop them, are subject to prosecution for war crimes.
The Taliban has a code of conduct for its fighters, which in some ways reflects international law on armed conflict. It includes provisions for protection of civilians, stating that all Taliban members “with all their power must be careful with regard to the lives of the common people,” and that those who fail to do so shall be punished. It also prohibits use of children as fighters.
Taliban spokesmen frequently deny claims that its members commit violations of international law. For example, the Taliban in October stated that “our Mujahedeen never place live landmines in any part of the country but each mine is controlled by a remote and detonated on military targets only.” On November 6 the Taliban issued a statement saying that it “assures the nation that it will never forgive the civilian slayers whosoever they may be.”
“Why is the High Peace Council rushing to offer amnesty to Taliban officials when even the Taliban’s own code of conduct and statements acknowledge that targeting civilians is illegal?” Adams said. “The High Peace Council cannot ignore the demands of justice.”
Afghan Clash Raises Sectarian Fears
Melee Between Shiite and Sunni Students Over Religious Custom Adds to Concern Over Coalition's Exit
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB And ZIAULHAQ SULTANI November 25, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan's sectarian tensions boiled over this weekend when university students split between the two main Muslim sects attacked each other, leaving one dead and 27 wounded, and stoking fears the violence could reopen old civil-war fault-lines.
Students commemorating Ashura—a Shiite religious day of mourning—were prevented by their Sunni peers from celebrating at dormitories housing students from four of Kabul's major universities, both Shiite and Sunni students said.
The students say they were being discriminated against for their religious beliefs and called in reinforcements from nearby Hazara communities, which are predominantly Shiite. Hundreds of people, not all of them students, were involved in the clashes.
After Saturday's bloodshed, Afghanistan's ministry of higher education suspended classes at all four universities, including Kabul University, for 10 days, to fix the damage at the campus and to wait for tensions between students to cool, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. Students living at the dormitories have been asked to find temporary accommodation.
On Sunday morning, police created a cordon around the badly damaged dormitories, whose windows were mostly shattered, allowing students to enter one by one to collect their belongings.
Many of the students interviewed as they stood waiting to enter the dorms said they didn't think the sectarian tensions would ease. "There is discrimination against Hazaras, and students coming from other provinces think we aren't Muslim. I don't think the Shiite and Sunni students can live together in same dormitories," said Ali Jan, 24 years old, a Hazara psychology student from Bamiyan province, the Hazara heartland.
Saturday's bloodshed comes shortly after gunbattles paralyzed swaths of Kabul in September, sparked by a minor traffic incident that pitted the Hazara population against Tajiks from the Panjshir valley. This weekend's clashes again saw Hazara students fighting Sunnis from Afghanistan's Tajik and Pashtun ethnicities, witnesses said.
Afghanistan was plunged into civil war in 1992, after the Soviet-backed Communist government collapsed, and rival Tajik, Hazara, Pashtun and Uzbek warlords battled for power, leaving most of Kabul in rubble.
Many Afghans are fearful of a similar conflict as the U.S.-led military coalition prepares to withdraw most of its forces in 2014.
"We are worried about 2014, when foreign forces leave," said Burhanuddin, 23, a first-year medical student who is Sunni and goes by one name. "The majority of students think they need to prepare themselves for civil war again because the government has lost the trust of the people and they are not capable. They couldn't even quiet down [Saturday's] small dispute."
Afghanistan's Hazaras are still reeling from two major bombings that targeted their community as they gathered to commemorate Ashura last year, killing about 60, many women and children. Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant Sunni extremist group, claimed responsibility for the attack. Many Sunni extremists view Shiites as heretics.
Across the Islamic world, tensions between Sunnis and Shiites are on the rise, especially as the Sunni-led insurgency in Syria, backed by Sunni powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Shiite Iran and himself belongs to an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.
Saturday's incident began, witnesses and police said, at about 3:30 p.m. as Hazara students gathered at the dormitories' mosque to commemorate Ashura, which marks the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein. They prepared to flagellate themselves—a tradition that, some Sunnis believe, violates Islamic law.
They were swiftly blocked by Sunni students, resulting in minor skirmishes that appeared to be quickly quelled once Afghanistan's minister of higher education arrived to mediate between the two groups, Shiite and Sunni students involved said.
But by that point, Hazara students—always sensitive to discrimination against their religious beliefs—had called in reinforcements, with hundreds rushing to the campus wielding sticks and waving the flag of Hussein, a symbol of their Ashura mourning ceremonies that day, witnesses said.
Police reinforcements were called to secure the scene, about 200 working to prevent the crowd from descending on the university, interior ministry officials said. By 4:30 p.m., clashes were raging inside the dormitories, which house about 4,000 students. The police were spread too thin to contain the situation both inside and outside the building.
At about 7:30 p.m. police stabilized the situation inside the dormitory. But roughly a hundred Hazaras living near the university again tried to storm the dorms, throwing rocks at the police. The police shot in the air, dispersing the crowd about 15 minutes later for a second and final time.
The incidents of sectarian tensions in Kabul that are becoming more frequent create a vicious circle, analysts say. "Every time something like this happens, it becomes easier for it to happen again. It makes it part of the story and part of what maybe needs to be avenged," said Martine van Bijlert, the co-director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network. "If you get too many of such incidents, it becomes easier for them to spread and get out of control."
Write to Maria Abi-Habib at Maria.Habib@dowjones.com
Bullets Fly Around Provincial Peace Talks in Afghanistan
TIME By Nick McDonell and Muhib Habibi Nov. 26, 2012
Sangin - From the district office roof, an Afghan Special Forces (ASF) team stared into the dark that had fallen over Sangin’s mud compounds. They were pulling overnight guard for a peace and reconciliation meeting, listening to a captured Taliban radio. Ranking officer Bashir swept a forearm against the starry horizon.
“They are close.”
He turned up the volume. Taliban fighters were discussing safe areas, movements, a car bomb, who would bring the blankets. It was a chill night.
“Mostly it is propaganda,” said Bashir. His men remained vigilant.
It had been a long day. That morning, they had driven from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province. Their convoy included an array of Afghanistan‘s security forces —ASF, Border Police, Afghan National Police (ANP), and National Directorate of Security (NDS). All had come to secure the area in advance of the peace meeting, or jirga. Word was that Helmand Governor Al-haj Mohammed Naeem, Peace High Council Chairman Salahudin Rabbani, and several other notables — including U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham, would be attending. Sangin is a famous Taliban stronghold, but according to Afghan officials, significant gains have been made. The meeting occasioned the release–and intended reintegration–of 20 insurgent prisoners.
Bashir and his team had more immediate concerns. Their convoy had taken fire on the way up. They escapedunscathed, but in the Governor’s convoy, a few hours behind, two ANP officers had been killed, a third injured.
The location of both attacks — Fatikhan village — was unsurprising to Bashir. Fatikhan is distinguished by a fertile bend in the Lashkar Gah – Sangin road. An Afghan National Army (ANA) base overlooks the turn, and Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) posts line it. These forces, however, have not driven the insurgents from the surrounding cornfields and poplar groves. Several ANCOP officers simply looked on as rounds zipped into the first convoy.
Still, on the morning of the peace jirga, some attendees were optimistic. Haji Malim ShowaliKahn, Chairman of the Lashkar Gah Peace and Reconciliation Council, sat beneath a wall of banners he agreed with: Peace is life, war is death; Make unity for a better future and join the peace.
Khan was a turbaned old man with a grand gray beard. He quoted the Koran: “‘The love of country is the love of faith.’” While he conceded obstacles to peace with the Taliban — “hostility between the tribes, poverty, the neighbor countries” — he insisted that compared with 2009, there is much less violence in Sangin. International reports bear out his assessment, citing decreased attacks since U.S. Marines arrived in September 2010. As one United Nations report notes of the area, however, “there is a high likelihood of under reporting.”
Above the banners, Bashir patrolled the mezzanine. Pashtun elders filled the courtyard. Cross-legged in the corners, Afghan journalists traded notes. Explosions in the distance did not unsettle them. “When the insurgency started, it started here,” said Helmand Khamosh, a reporter with Shamshad News. “This is why, when the peace starts, they want it to start here. This is why they are coming here: to make the point.”
The point sounded simple. Under aposter of President Hamid Karzai, Governor Naeem asked the people of Sangin to support reintegration, which would in turn facilitate development projects like the district highway and Kajaki dam turbine. Chairman Rabbani called on Taliban to reintegrate. Lesser officials echoed them through bouts of deafening feedback. Behind the podium, local elders sat in easy chairs marked for Ambassador Cunningham and other embassy staff.
In conclusion, the officials thanked God and the assembled and returned to the District Governor’s compound. Elders hurried to free flat bread and stew. Assistants packed up the banners and speakers. Everything was going back to Lashkar Gah. When the courtyard cleared, programs and printed Koran verses were strewn about the ground.
Above, Bashir and his men ate a late lunch. A pair of NDS officers stopped by for a smoke. Bashir’s men offered them soft drinks.
“Don’t drink too much,” said one, “you’ll leak when you get to Fatikhan.”
“I’m drinking Pepsi,” joked the other, “it will all come out as gas.”
Presently, a call came over the radio. The convoy was departing. Bashir and his men packed into their hi-lux. They sped through Sangin’s narrow bazaars out into the beige countryside, back towards Fatikhan.
Several trucks behind, a squat Border Police commander, Ghulam Rasul, shouted to the gunners in his bay. Intelligence reported potential ambushes in two places, he said, and Taliban in possession of an 82mm anti-tank gun. The convoy would thus circle the barren backside of Fatikhan.
It was impossible, at times, to see through the dust kicked up by the truck ahead. But all passed the village without incident. Rasul and his Border Police halted. The dust had cleared and the road was paved again, but the front of the convoy — ANP and Bashir’s ASF— had sped out of sight. They could not be raised. The back of the convoy — NDS — seemed far behind. The Border Police, for the moment, were alone.
Rasul tried to make a call, but had no reception. He barked for another phone. For a few tense minutes, officers exited their vehicles and loitered, some silent, some laughing. Shots cracked the middle distance. When the rear of the convoy reappeared, the Border Police jumped in their cars and squealed off.
A few minutes south, bullets struck Rasul’s truck. Border Police returned fire as the convoy condensed into a traffic jam behind a cluster of abandoned mud buildings. At wall’s edge, Bashir wind-milled a long arm, urging the various forces along. But there was little progress beyond the buildings. It seemed safer behind them. Though outgoingfire dwarfed incoming, both were consistent.
Stuck behind an armored humvee, Rasul stepped to the asphalt. He walked at ease among the crowd of machine gunners, apparently issuing orders. As some of the vehicles broke cover, Rasul’s driver wove ahead and lost his commander in the fray.
At that point, Rasul later explained, a civilian walking along the road was shot. The commander had not been delayed long: “if he was injured I would have helped him. Unfortunately he was dead.” Even so, when his truck reached the far end of the compound, Rasul was sprinting to catch up. He slammed the door behind him. Bashir and his men had driven on. It was still two-hours to Lashkar Gah.
Between moments of lighter gunfire which followed, Rasul lamented the plight of civilians generally. He estimated that it was only 10 to 15 Taliban that had tied down the convoy of 20-plus vehicles. He complained of corruption and lack of planning among the security forces. But there were no more traffic jams, and the convoy arrived in Lashkar Gah at dusk, with only minor injuries.
“I would love to retire,” remarked Rasul, headed to his barracks. He claimed he was a 29-year veteran of the Border Police. “But the country needs me.”
Three days later, the International Coalition’s Regional Command South West issued a press release. It included footage of Ambassador Cunningham inside the Sangin District Governor’s compound, but not of the jirga itself. “The successful Sangin Peace Jirga” it concluded, “gave the diplomats a firsthand view of the progress being made in the once insurgent hotbed of Sangin.”
In Lashkar Gah, there was a different view. One civil court judge, Qazi Fazily Ahmad, noted that “a peace meeting normally means a group comes from both sides. But there was no one representing the other side. The government received their answer.”
Contacted by phone, Taliban Spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi was even more dismissive of the jirga.
“Step by step we have our own movements,” he said in a measured crackle, “our own resistance. These infidels and their slaves, what they are doing is nothing. These jirgas are happening, but there is resistance everywhere. These kind of things have noresult. This is not the time of peace talking.”
Afghan Students Demand Reprieve For Killer Of French Soldiers
November 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan have demonstrated against the death sentence imposed on an Afghan soldier for killing five French troops.
The students blocked a road leading into Jalalabad on November 26 to demand a reprieve for the soldier, Abdul Sabor.
A court found Sabor guilty of killing the French soldiers in January while they were jogging at their base in the eastern province of Kapisa.
He is the first Afghan convicted of carrying out a so-called green-on-blue attack, in which members of Afghan security forces turn their weapons on allied foreign troops.
The students also burned Israeli and U.S. flags in protest at the shelling of the Gaza Strip during eight days of violence earlier this month that left six Israelis and 166 Palestinians dead.
Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa
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HALO Trust Co-Founder Sees 'Good Successes' On Land-Mine Front
November 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Fewer land mines are being laid down today than in recent decades -- but huge numbers of them remain in the ground in postconflict countries around the world. RFE/RL's Charles Recknagel spoke to Guy Willoughby, co-founder of the HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization clearing mines in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other countries.
RFE/RL: You say there is some good news regarding land mines: many fewer are being laid down by armies in conflicts today than in previous decades. Why is that?
Guy Willoughby: There are very, very few land mines being laid at the moment anywhere in the world, and certainly nothing like the numbers that were laid in the '80s or the '90s. You must remember that land mines -- antipersonnel mines -- are normally laid by armies that are on their back foot and facing defeat. They are laid by armies which have run out of troops or don't have enough troops to defend their key strategic points. So, in the past, they laid antipersonnel mines as "soldiers that never sleep and don't need feeding."
Perhaps why there are fewer being laid now is that there are less of these big conflicts going on with relatively static armies, one army facing another army, where one of the armies has far fewer troops and therefore lays land mines. That is not the style currently of warfare in the last five to 10 years, on a global basis.
RFE/RL: What about the way governments think about land mines? Is that changing? We see that 80 percent of the world's countries have agreed to be bound by the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, yet mines are still being produced.
Willoughby: I think one of the successes of the Mine Ban Treaty was a stigmatization of land mines, accepting that in a postconflict situation the civilians have their lives heavily impacted by land mines because land mines take so long to clear. If you want to bring a country back to normality after a conflict, then it is much, much easier to do that if there are no land mines.
There has been very good progress because some of the major mine manufacturers, such as the Italians, who manufactured and exported a very large number of land mines, are no longer doing so. So, there have been good successes.
RFE/RL: None of the world's biggest military powers has signed the Mine Ban Treaty, but they take quite different approaches to the land mine problem. The United States bans the export of land mines, while Russia and China do not. As your organization cleans up after conflicts, where do you see most of the land mines coming from?
Willoughby: If one looks at the tens of thousands of mines that the Halo Trust clears every year, most of those mines originate from Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan.
RFE/RL: In many postconflict countries, huge numbers of mines remain in the ground. What kind of numbers are we talking about worldwide?
Willoughby: In most [postconflict] countries, we are probably talking tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands. There will be one or two places that probably still have a million land mines. There will be a million land mines to still clear on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border and there may still be a million mines left on the Cambodia-Thai border from the mine belt laid there in the 1970s and '80s.
RFE/RL: People in postconflict countries must wonder why their own governments or military don't make removing mines a bigger priority. Why is there a need for outside organizations like yours to do much of the work?
Willoughby: One must bear in mind that most of these countries have had appalling conflicts and are going through their own postconflict reconstruction phase. Their demands on their funding are for building hospitals, schools, clearing land mines, infrastructure tasks, water supplies, agriculture, etc., so they have a huge demand for funding.
It's not necessarily the case that reconstructed armies are good at demining. They tend to have so many other priorities. So, the HALO Trust model of employing either ex-soldiers or ex-combatants or reintegrated or rural folk trying to earn a living while their land is cleared of land mines, that model does work very well and is welcomed by the governments of Angola, Mozambique, Kosovo, and so on.
For Private Security Guards in Kabul, Hazardous Duty
New York Times By AZAM AHMED November 25, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - For the replacement Afghan security guards, their new posting — an established traffic checkpoint in a heavily guarded Western enclave in Kabul — would seem to be a decent one, other than the fact that three of their predecessors had just been killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.
The site itself told the story: the blast crater from the attack, on Wednesday, had been covered by two rows of green sandbags stacked 10 feet high, and ball bearings from the bomber’s vest pockmarked the neighboring walls. An excavator shoved dirt loosened from the blast into tidy mounds along the edges of the street, which sits a few blocks from the American Embassy in the city’s Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood.
The new arrivals, private guards who work for a foreign security contractor, forlornly bear the assignment. Among the dead were friends and co-workers, including a 36-year-old guard named Shamsuddin, a father of two, and Mohammed Homayoun, 28.
The replacements are jittery, clutching their assault rifles as a supervisor stands nearby, scanning the street.
“They’re deeply hurt because they lost their colleagues,” said the supervisor, who would not give his name. “They were like members of the same family.”
The guards may well have the most thankless job in Afghanistan, serving as the first line of defense against bombings and bullets meant for Westerners and high-profile Afghan government officials. In countless cases, such private security guards are the ones killed by thwarted attacks. On Wednesday, the bomber detonated his vest after the guards demanded his identification, police officials said.
Private security companies have had a troubled and controversial history in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has called for them to be banned, concerned that the armed companies, about 50 in all employing about 40,000 guards across the country, were becoming de facto militias. The president eventually made exceptions for embassies and international organizations, but required the firms to be licensed. Mr. Karzai remains committed to handing over security to Afghan government forces.
But tensions persist. In January, the government shut down a Canadian security company after two of its contractors, both British, were discovered with a trunk full of unlicensed Kalashnikov rifles. The guard forces are also frequently named in cases of abuses against civilians, including bullying and extortion.
Still, the front-line guard posts fall almost exclusively to Afghan security employees, who are typically paid just a few hundred dollars a month. Given the risks, the fact that the openings continue to be filled is testament to the poverty that racks this country.
“He had no other options except to work as a guard, which he knew was a risky job,” said Ghausuddin, referring to Shamsuddin, his brother.
Originally from Panjshir, Shamsuddin lived with his wife and two young children in a two-room apartment in Kabul’s Karte Parwan neighborhood.
After his family’s home was destroyed during the war, Shamsuddin and his brother moved elsewhere to find work.
Shamsuddin was briefly employed as a military officer in Nangarhar Province but left to take a job as a laborer in Iran. Eventually, Ghausuddin persuaded his younger brother to return and join him in Kabul.
Rather than sign up with the military again, Shamsuddin chose to work as a security guard, a position he held for nine years at different companies. In his latest job, he earned about $200 a month — barely enough to support the family, his wife said.
Now, it is unclear how they will make ends meet. Ghausuddin figures it will fall on him to support his brother’s wife, 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. The family is hoping for compensation from the security company.
“I think I will be responsible to look after them, even though I am not working,” he said. “We haven’t talked about that yet, where everyone will stay.”
Jawad Sukhanyar contributed to this report.
Bicycle bomb wounds 26 Afghans
KABUL, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- A powerful explosive device placed on a bicycle went off on Monday in Khost city, capital of Khost province 150 km southeast of Afghan capital Kabul, leaving over two dozen people, all civilians, injured, the provincial administration confirmed in a statement sent to media.
"The terrorists planted explosive object in a bicycle and detonated it in Sargardan Choak area in Khost city this morning, injuring 26 innocent civilians," the statement added.
In the statement the Khost provincial administration put the attack on the "enemies of peace", a term referring to Taliban militants by Afghan officials.
The statement also called on security organs to spare no efforts in identifying and punishing those behind subversive activities in Khost and elsewhere in the country.
Earlier, a local official on the condition of anonymity reported killing two people and injuring 18 others in the blast that rocked Khost city.
"The terrorists planted the bomb in the cavities of a bicycle and detonated it with a remote control in Sargardan Choak area, Khost city at around 11:00 a.m. local time, killing two people and injuring 18, mostly civilians," the official told Xinhua but declined to give his name, saying authorized officials would brief the media after investigation.
Hospital sources have also confirmed the injury of over two dozen people in the blast.
Director of health department in Khost city, Amir Badshah has confirmed that 26 injured people had been taken to hospitals for medical treatment, some of whom were in critical condition.
In the conflict-ridden Afghanistan, the non-combatants often bear the brunt of the endemic conflicts.
"Between January 1 and June 30, 2012, conflict-related violence resulted in 3,099 civilian casualties or 1,145 civilians killed and 1,954 others injured, a 15 percent decrease in overall civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2011," a report of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released here in last August said. The report attributed 80 percent of harming civilians to the anti-government militants.
According to the report, 3,021 civilians died last year, 1,510 of them in the first six months in the conflict-battered Afghanistan.
Optical Fiber Networks for Central, North Afghanistan Underway
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Sunday, 25 November 2012
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) is spending most of its annual budget on building optical fiber networks with plans underway for more development in Afghanistan's central and northeast provinces.
MoCIT Minister Amirzai Sangin on Sunday said in an interview with TOLOnews that the focus for the new networks are in the country's central provinces of Bamyan, Daikondi, and Ghor, as well as northeast provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan.
"The contract for these projects are made. An advance amount of money is specified for the projects which are general. We have been working on them this year," Sangin said.
"One of the contracts of these projects is at the special supplies commission and we expect its approval soon, so that the payment will be done by [the month of] Qaws," he added.
Qaws is a month in the Persian calendar which ends December 20 in the Gregorian calendar.
Sangin said once the approval for the projects is finalised, the Ministry will have spent 70 to 80 percent of its annual budget.
More than 40 percent of its budget has already been spent – most of it on electronic identification processes and optical fiber networks, he added.
Recent Violence Against Women Appalling: Officials
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 25 November 2012
Human rights organisations observed the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Sunday saying that recent violence against women in Afghanistan is appalling.
Rights activists said women in Afghanistan have been always treated as the subordinate gender and until recently have not played a large role in society which has impacted its development and progress.
"The violence has increased 28 percent compared to last year. In the current month alone [five days into Qaws], we have four cases of violence against women recorded so far," said Sima Samar, the chair of Afghanistan Independent Commission of Human Rights (AIHRC).
The Minister of Women's Affairs said the past nine months has seen 3,600 cases of violence against women recorded by the ministry.
"The forms of violence are very shocking. We are very concerned over the issue," Hassan Banoo Ghazanfar said.
Some of the human rights organisations believe the recent violence to be exceptional.
Forced marriage, forced prostitution, underage marriage, child rape, beheading, beating, cutting body parts, and other forms of violence have all recently been reported - even a man hammering nails into his wife's head.
"You heard about the father who raped his daughter. Such violence has not had any roots in Afghanistan," said Fawzia Koofi, Head of the Commission of Women's Affairs at parliament.
There are still women who are punished by drumhead court-martials in parts of the country that are controlled by the Afghan government, such as the case of Sabera, a teenage girl in central province of Ghazni, who was whipped 101 times by a several Mullahs on the accusation that she had a relationship with a man.
Most of the drumhead court-martials are believed to be related to Islam.
"Islam provides women special rights. Those who carry out violence against women are not familiar with Islam," said Mawlawi Abdulhadi Hedayat, religious affairs expert.
"We have given the responsibility to a number of scholars to acknowledge people from over the pulpits," said Dai-ul-Haq Abed, Deputy Minister of Hajja and Religious Affairs.
Although the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women is held in the country every year, the women rights organisations consider it symbolic.
Women rights and eliminating the violence against women are said to be government priorities and there are laws made regarding it, but it is believed that there are groups with the government which do not consider the value of women.
There are serious concerns that women's rights will be the first to suffer in any breakdown after 2014 of the gains made so far.
Lawmakers Criticise Ministries Budget Spending
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Sunday, 25 November 2012
The Parliamentary commission of finance and budget said Sunday that 11 government organisations including the Ministries of Defense and Public Health did not responsibly spend their budgets in 1390 (2010-2011).
Commission deputy Siddiq Ahmad Osmani said that the country's laws are not considered in spending the budgets, criticising unbalanced distribution by the Ministry of Finance towards government organisations.
He also criticised the lack of coordination between the estimated budgets and the way it is spent by most government organisations.
"There is no match between the estimated budget and its expenditure," Osmani said.
The public health ministry was singled out for its poor distribution of funds.
"There is no medicine even in a hospital only 50 meters away from the Ministry of Public Health," said Nangarhar MP Sayed Ikram.
But the ministry dismissed the issue.
"None of the executive organisations have equal income and outcome," said Public Health Minister Suraya Dalil.
Including some of the independent directorates, the Ministries of Defense, Counter Narcotics, Public Works, Economics, and Public Health did not spend more than 95 percent of their 1390 budget.
In the current financial year, the Ministry of Finance says the spending of each ministry to date is the following:
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has spent 40.13 percent of its budget
Ministry of Urban Development: 78 percent
Ministry of Women's Affairs: 51 percent
Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations: 46 percent
Ministry of Public Welfare: 46 percent
Ministry of Rural Development: 42 percent
Ministry of Labors, Social Affairs, Martyrs & Disabled: 41 percent
Ministry of Counter-Narcotics: 38 percent
Ministry of Economics: 35 percent
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock: 30 percent
Ministry of Transportation and Aviation: 30 percent
National Directorate of Security: more than 40 percent
Directorate of Nomads: 57 percent.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
New York Times By MICHAEL R. GORDON November 25, 2012
WASHINGTON - American and allied military planners are drawing up the broad outlines of a force that would remain in Afghanistan following the handover to Afghan security after 2014, including a small counterterrorism force with an eye toward Al Qaeda, senior officials say.
Under the emerging plan, the American counterterrorism force might number less than 1,000, one military official said. In a parallel effort, NATO forces would advise Afghan forces at major regional military and police headquarters but most likely have a minimal battlefield role, with the exception of some special operations advisers.
Final decisions on the size of the American and NATO presence after 2014 and its precise configuration have not been made by the United States or its allies. But one option calls for about 10,000 American and several thousand non-American NATO troops.
The planning for a post-2014 mission has emerged as an early test for President Obama in his new term as he tries to flesh out the strategy for transferring the responsibility for security to the Afghans. But it is not the only challenge: After the White House decides what sort of military presence to propose to the Afghan government for after 2014, it must turn to the question of how quickly to reduce its troop force before then.
As one of his last acts as senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen is expected to submit a formal recommendation for how quickly to begin withdrawing the United States’ 66,000 troops. Two American officials who are involved in Afghan issues said that General Allen wants to keep a significant military capability through the fighting season ending in fall 2013, which could translate to a force of more than 60,000 troops until the end of that period.
Afghan forces are to assume the lead role for the war next year, and a military officer said that such troop level would enable the United States to better support them, maintain the initiative and control critical terrain.
But such an approach may entail a heavier military involvement than the White House, which appears weary of the war, might like.
The White House is expected to ask General Allen to submit a range of options for drawing down forces next year, including some involving substantial reductions in troop levels.
“The White House has not yet asked General Allen for his assessment, nor have we begun considering any specific recommendations for troop numbers in 2013 and 2014,” said George Little, the Pentagon spokesman. “What is true is that in June 2011 the president made clear that our forces would continue to come home at a steady pace as we transition to an Afghan lead for security. That it still the case.”
The issue is already a politically contentious one. Some leading Democratic lawmakers have signaled that they would like to see steady troop reductions next year while Republicans have argued that speedy withdrawals would jeopardize hard-won gains.
There are also questions about General Allen’s future: his e-mails to a woman linked to the F.B.I. inquiry that disclosed David H. Petraeus’s affair are being investigated by the Pentagon Inspector General.
But General Allen has resumed his duties in Kabul, and Mr. Obama has said that he thinks highly of his military performance. The Marine general who has been nominated to replace him, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., is not scheduled to take up the post until early February and recently told Congress that he had not been part of the planning process.
The planning for a post-2014 force is the Obama administration’s first order of business on Afghanistan for several reasons. The United States has opened talks with the Afghans on a security agreement that would authorize an American troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014. So American officials need to define what role American and NATO forces might play then.
In addition, NATO’s political arm has authorized the alliance’s military planners to develop a concept for how to carry out the post-2014 mission, which is to be approved by the alliance’s defense ministers early next year.
The planning for after 2014 turns on vexing questions on how to guard against the expansion of terrorist groups and advise an Afghan military that has little airpower, poor logistics and difficulties evacuating and treating its own wounded. But it will also depend heavily on the willingness of allied nations to contribute troops and funds.
One question is the scope of the mission for the American counterterrorism force. The targets of the counterterrorism force would include Al Qaeda and possibly Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group linked to Al Qaeda that was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and which is found in small numbers in northeast Afghanistan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan might also make the list.
But it was unclear whether the Pakistani-based Haqqani network, which American commandos have focused on for the past two years, would also be a potential target of the American force. Officials say that does not appear to be contemplated by the White House.
An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy they would advise. It is generally expected that they would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters. The arrangement would largely insulate the NATO advisers from the battlefield, though officials said advisers might accompany Afghan brigades on major operations.
It is unlikely that NATO officers would advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield. That would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster and would entail more risk that most nations seem prepared to assume, though some American experts believe it would make the Afghan military more effective. Still, NATO special operations advisers would be likely to accompany Afghan Army commandos and police SWAT-type units on the battlefield, under the emerging plan.
A major challenge is that Afghanistan will not have an effective air force before 2017, if then. American officials said that NATO airpower would remain in Afghanistan after 2014 but will likely only be used on behalf of NATO and American troops and perhaps Afghan units that are accompanied by NATO advisers. NATO forces rely heavily on airpower for airstrikes, supply and medical evacuation since Afghanistan’s roads are poor and often seeded with bombs.
To compensate for Afghanistan’s limited airpower, American officials are working on a number of fixes, including providing Afghan forces with armored vehicles that would be equipped with mortars and assault guns. The United States is also looking into expanding the purchase of turboprop planes for the Afghans and is trying to help Afghan pilots learn to fly at night.
Equally troubling is the problem of medical evacuations. After 2014, the Afghans will almost certainly need to rely on a system that depends more on ground transportation than helicopters. The Americans want to help them develop more field hospitals.
Senior Afghan military officials are well aware of their deficiencies and are counting on American support.
“Until 2017, we will have American pilots and engineers flying with us,” said Gen. Abdul Wahab Wardak, the Afghan Air Force Commander. “They will start the handover of the air force at the beginning of 2017 and at the end of the year it will be complete.”
General Wardak also noted that the Afghan military needed NATO help to provide “close air support and medevac.” And he ticked off a long list of equipment he hoped to receive from the United States, including transport airplanes and parts.
Still, in the broader sense, a senior American military officer acknowledged that the United States faced formidable difficulties in getting the Afghans ready to operate on their own.
The challenge, the officer said, is “building the back end” of the army and the police: “We’ve been focused on their fighting ability. Now it’s the time we need to focus on getting them the ability to get what they need so they can fight.”
Reporting was contributed by Matthew Rosenberg and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Eric Schmitt and Wesley S. Morgan from Washington.
New units focus on support role in Afghanistan
USA TODAY By Paul McLeary, Defense News November 25. 2012
Bringing a new focus to the training and advising mission while pushing Afghans to take the lead in security operations, up to eight newly designed units -- dubbed security force assistance brigades -- will replace an equal number of Army brigade combat teams across the east and south of Afghanistan by next spring.
Not only will the new brigades focus more on training and mentoring Afghan National Security Forces than leading combat and counterinsurgency missions, but they will also deploy at about half of the strength of the brigade combat teams they're replacing. Each security force assistance brigade is 1,400 to 2,000 soldiers, as opposed to the 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers in a fully manned brigade.
The move has major implications for the mission in Afghanistan, as the number of U.S. forces will probably decline as smaller brigades take the place of their larger predecessors, and Afghan forces take the lead in planning and executing operations. There are 68,000 U.S. service members in country. Roughly 40,000 of those are soldiers.
Pentagon and Army officials stress that no final decision has been made on the size of the U.S. contingent in Afghanistan in the run-up to the White House-imposed December 2014 conclusion of combat operations, but Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said last week that he expects some decisions to be made over the next month.
"The first decision that has to be made is, what are we going to leave behind after 2014?" he said. "I believe that that decision will be made after the first of the year, but we haven't even started intense discussions on it yet."
At their core, the brigades will be made up of a number of security force assistance teams of 10 to 20 officers and noncommissioned officers each, who will rely on the remainder of the brigade for their security, logistics, intelligence and joint fires needs.
While individual teams have deployed throughout 2012 to mentor Afghan forces, they have been forced to rely on whichever brigade owned the battlespace for security, transportation, intelligence and logistics. This added to the brigade's workload and, at times, caused some friction between the teams and the host brigade since the teams' goals didn't always align with those of the brigade commander.
The problem was that the two groups had not worked together prior to deployment. The small size of the teams also put them at risk of green-on-blue attacks since they weren't large enough to provide for their own security.
The new model gives these teams their own security, joint fires, intel and logistics capabilities so they can function independently.
"Although they won't take the whole brigade," Odierno said, "this will allow us to take the soldiers and leaders (needed for training), and who will also provide security for those teams. It integrates them into unity of command and unity of effort. It's something similar to the brigades that we established there at the end in Iraq. So I think this is the right way to go."
The deployments mark a major shift in the way the Afghanistan fight is being waged, said Army Col. Randy Lane, chief of campaign plans at International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Afghanistan. "Arguably, the most important thing we have to do now is not the fighting, but instead enabling the Afghans to secure themselves, and we think that this is the best way forward."
By next December, a year into the security force assistance brigades model and a year away from the end of combat, International Security Assistance Force leadership expects to see the Afghans operating independently, with some advisers continuing to work closely with some brigades. The Afghans "will be out there and really conducting all of the operations from police all the way up to COIN operations, and leading this all the way into the (Afghan) presidential elections in April 2014," Lane said.
The brigade concept also paves the way for an enduring training mission that will last beyond the December 2014 drawdown date originally outlined by President Barack Obama. Over the past year, the 2014 date has been transformed, with little public debate, from what was initially considered the end of U.S. involvement in fighting the Taliban to the beginning of what is merely a smaller footprint for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
In comments during a swing through Asia on Nov. 12, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that outgoing International Security Assistance Force chief Marine Gen. John Allen was working on plans to identify the right number of troops to stay behind for "the post-2014 enduring presence." It would include missions such as counterterrorism, training, advising and assisting the Afghan army and police.
(Contributing: Aaron Mehta, Defense News)
Human Rights watch urges no amnesty for Afghan Taliban
Khaama Press November 26, 2012 By Sadaf Shinwari
An international human rights group urged Afghan authorities Monday to refuse to give Taliban insurgents immunity from prosecution in return for peace talks.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said President Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed administration had pledged amnesty for the Taliban if they join a Kabul-backed peace scheme. “Providing immunity from prosecution for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious human rights abuses violates international law,” HRW said in a statement. “Future government talks with the Taliban should not hinge upon denying justice to victims of war crimes and other abuses,” said Brad Adams, the group’s Asia director.
Afghanistan has a troubling history of providing amnesty for war crimes. In 2007 a coalition of powerful warlords and their supporters in the parliament were able to pass the National Stability and Reconciliation Law. This law seeks to prevent the prosecution of individuals responsible for large-scale human rights abuses in the preceding decades.
The law states that all those who were engaged in armed conflict before the formation of the Interim Administration in Afghanistan in December 2001 shall “enjoy all their legal rights and shall not be prosecuted.” It provides that those engaged in current hostilities will be granted immunity if they agree to reconciliation with the government, effectively providing amnesty for future crimes.
President Hamid Karzai, who had previously promised not to sign the National Stability and Reconciliation Law, quietly permitted it to be published in the government’s official gazette and to enter into force in early 2010. Human Rights Watch at that time urged the repeal of the law, calling it “an invitation for future human rights abuses” and expressing concern that its extension to those currently engaged in hostilities “allows insurgent commanders to get away with mass murder.” The official adoption of the law passed largely unremarked by the international community, leading to concerns that Afghanistan’s international partners were prepared to tolerate impunity for war crimes.
“The High Peace Council’s call for immunity shows the dire predictions about the amnesty law coming true,” Adams said. “Amnesty for war crimes does not need to be, and should not be, a precondition for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.”
The UN, Human Rights Watch, and others have collected considerable information implicating Taliban members in war crimes, including attacks targeting civilians, indiscriminate attacks by suicide bombers and pressure-plate mines, summary executions, and use of children in combat including as suicide bombers. Commanders who ordered unlawful attacks, or who knew or should have known about serious abuses by their forces but made no effort to stop them, are subject to prosecution for war crimes.
The Taliban has a code of conduct for its fighters, which in some ways reflects international law on armed conflict. It includes provisions for protection of civilians, stating that all Taliban members “with all their power must be careful with regard to the lives of the common people,” and that those who fail to do so shall be punished. It also prohibits use of children as fighters.
Taliban spokesmen frequently deny claims that its members commit violations of international law. For example, the Taliban in October stated that “our Mujahedeen never place live landmines in any part of the country but each mine is controlled by a remote and detonated on military targets only.” On November 6 the Taliban issued a statement saying that it “assures the nation that it will never forgive the civilian slayers whosoever they may be.”
“Why is the High Peace Council rushing to offer amnesty to Taliban officials when even the Taliban’s own code of conduct and statements acknowledge that targeting civilians is illegal?” Adams said. “The High Peace Council cannot ignore the demands of justice.”
Afghan Clash Raises Sectarian Fears
Melee Between Shiite and Sunni Students Over Religious Custom Adds to Concern Over Coalition's Exit
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB And ZIAULHAQ SULTANI November 25, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan's sectarian tensions boiled over this weekend when university students split between the two main Muslim sects attacked each other, leaving one dead and 27 wounded, and stoking fears the violence could reopen old civil-war fault-lines.
Students commemorating Ashura—a Shiite religious day of mourning—were prevented by their Sunni peers from celebrating at dormitories housing students from four of Kabul's major universities, both Shiite and Sunni students said.
The students say they were being discriminated against for their religious beliefs and called in reinforcements from nearby Hazara communities, which are predominantly Shiite. Hundreds of people, not all of them students, were involved in the clashes.
After Saturday's bloodshed, Afghanistan's ministry of higher education suspended classes at all four universities, including Kabul University, for 10 days, to fix the damage at the campus and to wait for tensions between students to cool, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. Students living at the dormitories have been asked to find temporary accommodation.
On Sunday morning, police created a cordon around the badly damaged dormitories, whose windows were mostly shattered, allowing students to enter one by one to collect their belongings.
Many of the students interviewed as they stood waiting to enter the dorms said they didn't think the sectarian tensions would ease. "There is discrimination against Hazaras, and students coming from other provinces think we aren't Muslim. I don't think the Shiite and Sunni students can live together in same dormitories," said Ali Jan, 24 years old, a Hazara psychology student from Bamiyan province, the Hazara heartland.
Saturday's bloodshed comes shortly after gunbattles paralyzed swaths of Kabul in September, sparked by a minor traffic incident that pitted the Hazara population against Tajiks from the Panjshir valley. This weekend's clashes again saw Hazara students fighting Sunnis from Afghanistan's Tajik and Pashtun ethnicities, witnesses said.
Afghanistan was plunged into civil war in 1992, after the Soviet-backed Communist government collapsed, and rival Tajik, Hazara, Pashtun and Uzbek warlords battled for power, leaving most of Kabul in rubble.
Many Afghans are fearful of a similar conflict as the U.S.-led military coalition prepares to withdraw most of its forces in 2014.
"We are worried about 2014, when foreign forces leave," said Burhanuddin, 23, a first-year medical student who is Sunni and goes by one name. "The majority of students think they need to prepare themselves for civil war again because the government has lost the trust of the people and they are not capable. They couldn't even quiet down [Saturday's] small dispute."
Afghanistan's Hazaras are still reeling from two major bombings that targeted their community as they gathered to commemorate Ashura last year, killing about 60, many women and children. Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant Sunni extremist group, claimed responsibility for the attack. Many Sunni extremists view Shiites as heretics.
Across the Islamic world, tensions between Sunnis and Shiites are on the rise, especially as the Sunni-led insurgency in Syria, backed by Sunni powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Shiite Iran and himself belongs to an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.
Saturday's incident began, witnesses and police said, at about 3:30 p.m. as Hazara students gathered at the dormitories' mosque to commemorate Ashura, which marks the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein. They prepared to flagellate themselves—a tradition that, some Sunnis believe, violates Islamic law.
They were swiftly blocked by Sunni students, resulting in minor skirmishes that appeared to be quickly quelled once Afghanistan's minister of higher education arrived to mediate between the two groups, Shiite and Sunni students involved said.
But by that point, Hazara students—always sensitive to discrimination against their religious beliefs—had called in reinforcements, with hundreds rushing to the campus wielding sticks and waving the flag of Hussein, a symbol of their Ashura mourning ceremonies that day, witnesses said.
Police reinforcements were called to secure the scene, about 200 working to prevent the crowd from descending on the university, interior ministry officials said. By 4:30 p.m., clashes were raging inside the dormitories, which house about 4,000 students. The police were spread too thin to contain the situation both inside and outside the building.
At about 7:30 p.m. police stabilized the situation inside the dormitory. But roughly a hundred Hazaras living near the university again tried to storm the dorms, throwing rocks at the police. The police shot in the air, dispersing the crowd about 15 minutes later for a second and final time.
The incidents of sectarian tensions in Kabul that are becoming more frequent create a vicious circle, analysts say. "Every time something like this happens, it becomes easier for it to happen again. It makes it part of the story and part of what maybe needs to be avenged," said Martine van Bijlert, the co-director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network. "If you get too many of such incidents, it becomes easier for them to spread and get out of control."
Write to Maria Abi-Habib at Maria.Habib@dowjones.com
Bullets Fly Around Provincial Peace Talks in Afghanistan
TIME By Nick McDonell and Muhib Habibi Nov. 26, 2012
Sangin - From the district office roof, an Afghan Special Forces (ASF) team stared into the dark that had fallen over Sangin’s mud compounds. They were pulling overnight guard for a peace and reconciliation meeting, listening to a captured Taliban radio. Ranking officer Bashir swept a forearm against the starry horizon.
“They are close.”
He turned up the volume. Taliban fighters were discussing safe areas, movements, a car bomb, who would bring the blankets. It was a chill night.
“Mostly it is propaganda,” said Bashir. His men remained vigilant.
It had been a long day. That morning, they had driven from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province. Their convoy included an array of Afghanistan‘s security forces —ASF, Border Police, Afghan National Police (ANP), and National Directorate of Security (NDS). All had come to secure the area in advance of the peace meeting, or jirga. Word was that Helmand Governor Al-haj Mohammed Naeem, Peace High Council Chairman Salahudin Rabbani, and several other notables — including U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham, would be attending. Sangin is a famous Taliban stronghold, but according to Afghan officials, significant gains have been made. The meeting occasioned the release–and intended reintegration–of 20 insurgent prisoners.
Bashir and his team had more immediate concerns. Their convoy had taken fire on the way up. They escapedunscathed, but in the Governor’s convoy, a few hours behind, two ANP officers had been killed, a third injured.
The location of both attacks — Fatikhan village — was unsurprising to Bashir. Fatikhan is distinguished by a fertile bend in the Lashkar Gah – Sangin road. An Afghan National Army (ANA) base overlooks the turn, and Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) posts line it. These forces, however, have not driven the insurgents from the surrounding cornfields and poplar groves. Several ANCOP officers simply looked on as rounds zipped into the first convoy.
Still, on the morning of the peace jirga, some attendees were optimistic. Haji Malim ShowaliKahn, Chairman of the Lashkar Gah Peace and Reconciliation Council, sat beneath a wall of banners he agreed with: Peace is life, war is death; Make unity for a better future and join the peace.
Khan was a turbaned old man with a grand gray beard. He quoted the Koran: “‘The love of country is the love of faith.’” While he conceded obstacles to peace with the Taliban — “hostility between the tribes, poverty, the neighbor countries” — he insisted that compared with 2009, there is much less violence in Sangin. International reports bear out his assessment, citing decreased attacks since U.S. Marines arrived in September 2010. As one United Nations report notes of the area, however, “there is a high likelihood of under reporting.”
Above the banners, Bashir patrolled the mezzanine. Pashtun elders filled the courtyard. Cross-legged in the corners, Afghan journalists traded notes. Explosions in the distance did not unsettle them. “When the insurgency started, it started here,” said Helmand Khamosh, a reporter with Shamshad News. “This is why, when the peace starts, they want it to start here. This is why they are coming here: to make the point.”
The point sounded simple. Under aposter of President Hamid Karzai, Governor Naeem asked the people of Sangin to support reintegration, which would in turn facilitate development projects like the district highway and Kajaki dam turbine. Chairman Rabbani called on Taliban to reintegrate. Lesser officials echoed them through bouts of deafening feedback. Behind the podium, local elders sat in easy chairs marked for Ambassador Cunningham and other embassy staff.
In conclusion, the officials thanked God and the assembled and returned to the District Governor’s compound. Elders hurried to free flat bread and stew. Assistants packed up the banners and speakers. Everything was going back to Lashkar Gah. When the courtyard cleared, programs and printed Koran verses were strewn about the ground.
Above, Bashir and his men ate a late lunch. A pair of NDS officers stopped by for a smoke. Bashir’s men offered them soft drinks.
“Don’t drink too much,” said one, “you’ll leak when you get to Fatikhan.”
“I’m drinking Pepsi,” joked the other, “it will all come out as gas.”
Presently, a call came over the radio. The convoy was departing. Bashir and his men packed into their hi-lux. They sped through Sangin’s narrow bazaars out into the beige countryside, back towards Fatikhan.
Several trucks behind, a squat Border Police commander, Ghulam Rasul, shouted to the gunners in his bay. Intelligence reported potential ambushes in two places, he said, and Taliban in possession of an 82mm anti-tank gun. The convoy would thus circle the barren backside of Fatikhan.
It was impossible, at times, to see through the dust kicked up by the truck ahead. But all passed the village without incident. Rasul and his Border Police halted. The dust had cleared and the road was paved again, but the front of the convoy — ANP and Bashir’s ASF— had sped out of sight. They could not be raised. The back of the convoy — NDS — seemed far behind. The Border Police, for the moment, were alone.
Rasul tried to make a call, but had no reception. He barked for another phone. For a few tense minutes, officers exited their vehicles and loitered, some silent, some laughing. Shots cracked the middle distance. When the rear of the convoy reappeared, the Border Police jumped in their cars and squealed off.
A few minutes south, bullets struck Rasul’s truck. Border Police returned fire as the convoy condensed into a traffic jam behind a cluster of abandoned mud buildings. At wall’s edge, Bashir wind-milled a long arm, urging the various forces along. But there was little progress beyond the buildings. It seemed safer behind them. Though outgoingfire dwarfed incoming, both were consistent.
Stuck behind an armored humvee, Rasul stepped to the asphalt. He walked at ease among the crowd of machine gunners, apparently issuing orders. As some of the vehicles broke cover, Rasul’s driver wove ahead and lost his commander in the fray.
At that point, Rasul later explained, a civilian walking along the road was shot. The commander had not been delayed long: “if he was injured I would have helped him. Unfortunately he was dead.” Even so, when his truck reached the far end of the compound, Rasul was sprinting to catch up. He slammed the door behind him. Bashir and his men had driven on. It was still two-hours to Lashkar Gah.
Between moments of lighter gunfire which followed, Rasul lamented the plight of civilians generally. He estimated that it was only 10 to 15 Taliban that had tied down the convoy of 20-plus vehicles. He complained of corruption and lack of planning among the security forces. But there were no more traffic jams, and the convoy arrived in Lashkar Gah at dusk, with only minor injuries.
“I would love to retire,” remarked Rasul, headed to his barracks. He claimed he was a 29-year veteran of the Border Police. “But the country needs me.”
Three days later, the International Coalition’s Regional Command South West issued a press release. It included footage of Ambassador Cunningham inside the Sangin District Governor’s compound, but not of the jirga itself. “The successful Sangin Peace Jirga” it concluded, “gave the diplomats a firsthand view of the progress being made in the once insurgent hotbed of Sangin.”
In Lashkar Gah, there was a different view. One civil court judge, Qazi Fazily Ahmad, noted that “a peace meeting normally means a group comes from both sides. But there was no one representing the other side. The government received their answer.”
Contacted by phone, Taliban Spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi was even more dismissive of the jirga.
“Step by step we have our own movements,” he said in a measured crackle, “our own resistance. These infidels and their slaves, what they are doing is nothing. These jirgas are happening, but there is resistance everywhere. These kind of things have noresult. This is not the time of peace talking.”
Afghan Students Demand Reprieve For Killer Of French Soldiers
November 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan have demonstrated against the death sentence imposed on an Afghan soldier for killing five French troops.
The students blocked a road leading into Jalalabad on November 26 to demand a reprieve for the soldier, Abdul Sabor.
A court found Sabor guilty of killing the French soldiers in January while they were jogging at their base in the eastern province of Kapisa.
He is the first Afghan convicted of carrying out a so-called green-on-blue attack, in which members of Afghan security forces turn their weapons on allied foreign troops.
The students also burned Israeli and U.S. flags in protest at the shelling of the Gaza Strip during eight days of violence earlier this month that left six Israelis and 166 Palestinians dead.
Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa
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HALO Trust Co-Founder Sees 'Good Successes' On Land-Mine Front
November 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Fewer land mines are being laid down today than in recent decades -- but huge numbers of them remain in the ground in postconflict countries around the world. RFE/RL's Charles Recknagel spoke to Guy Willoughby, co-founder of the HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization clearing mines in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other countries.
RFE/RL: You say there is some good news regarding land mines: many fewer are being laid down by armies in conflicts today than in previous decades. Why is that?
Guy Willoughby: There are very, very few land mines being laid at the moment anywhere in the world, and certainly nothing like the numbers that were laid in the '80s or the '90s. You must remember that land mines -- antipersonnel mines -- are normally laid by armies that are on their back foot and facing defeat. They are laid by armies which have run out of troops or don't have enough troops to defend their key strategic points. So, in the past, they laid antipersonnel mines as "soldiers that never sleep and don't need feeding."
Perhaps why there are fewer being laid now is that there are less of these big conflicts going on with relatively static armies, one army facing another army, where one of the armies has far fewer troops and therefore lays land mines. That is not the style currently of warfare in the last five to 10 years, on a global basis.
RFE/RL: What about the way governments think about land mines? Is that changing? We see that 80 percent of the world's countries have agreed to be bound by the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, yet mines are still being produced.
Willoughby: I think one of the successes of the Mine Ban Treaty was a stigmatization of land mines, accepting that in a postconflict situation the civilians have their lives heavily impacted by land mines because land mines take so long to clear. If you want to bring a country back to normality after a conflict, then it is much, much easier to do that if there are no land mines.
There has been very good progress because some of the major mine manufacturers, such as the Italians, who manufactured and exported a very large number of land mines, are no longer doing so. So, there have been good successes.
RFE/RL: None of the world's biggest military powers has signed the Mine Ban Treaty, but they take quite different approaches to the land mine problem. The United States bans the export of land mines, while Russia and China do not. As your organization cleans up after conflicts, where do you see most of the land mines coming from?
Willoughby: If one looks at the tens of thousands of mines that the Halo Trust clears every year, most of those mines originate from Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan.
RFE/RL: In many postconflict countries, huge numbers of mines remain in the ground. What kind of numbers are we talking about worldwide?
Willoughby: In most [postconflict] countries, we are probably talking tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands. There will be one or two places that probably still have a million land mines. There will be a million land mines to still clear on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border and there may still be a million mines left on the Cambodia-Thai border from the mine belt laid there in the 1970s and '80s.
RFE/RL: People in postconflict countries must wonder why their own governments or military don't make removing mines a bigger priority. Why is there a need for outside organizations like yours to do much of the work?
Willoughby: One must bear in mind that most of these countries have had appalling conflicts and are going through their own postconflict reconstruction phase. Their demands on their funding are for building hospitals, schools, clearing land mines, infrastructure tasks, water supplies, agriculture, etc., so they have a huge demand for funding.
It's not necessarily the case that reconstructed armies are good at demining. They tend to have so many other priorities. So, the HALO Trust model of employing either ex-soldiers or ex-combatants or reintegrated or rural folk trying to earn a living while their land is cleared of land mines, that model does work very well and is welcomed by the governments of Angola, Mozambique, Kosovo, and so on.
For Private Security Guards in Kabul, Hazardous Duty
New York Times By AZAM AHMED November 25, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - For the replacement Afghan security guards, their new posting — an established traffic checkpoint in a heavily guarded Western enclave in Kabul — would seem to be a decent one, other than the fact that three of their predecessors had just been killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.
The site itself told the story: the blast crater from the attack, on Wednesday, had been covered by two rows of green sandbags stacked 10 feet high, and ball bearings from the bomber’s vest pockmarked the neighboring walls. An excavator shoved dirt loosened from the blast into tidy mounds along the edges of the street, which sits a few blocks from the American Embassy in the city’s Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood.
The new arrivals, private guards who work for a foreign security contractor, forlornly bear the assignment. Among the dead were friends and co-workers, including a 36-year-old guard named Shamsuddin, a father of two, and Mohammed Homayoun, 28.
The replacements are jittery, clutching their assault rifles as a supervisor stands nearby, scanning the street.
“They’re deeply hurt because they lost their colleagues,” said the supervisor, who would not give his name. “They were like members of the same family.”
The guards may well have the most thankless job in Afghanistan, serving as the first line of defense against bombings and bullets meant for Westerners and high-profile Afghan government officials. In countless cases, such private security guards are the ones killed by thwarted attacks. On Wednesday, the bomber detonated his vest after the guards demanded his identification, police officials said.
Private security companies have had a troubled and controversial history in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has called for them to be banned, concerned that the armed companies, about 50 in all employing about 40,000 guards across the country, were becoming de facto militias. The president eventually made exceptions for embassies and international organizations, but required the firms to be licensed. Mr. Karzai remains committed to handing over security to Afghan government forces.
But tensions persist. In January, the government shut down a Canadian security company after two of its contractors, both British, were discovered with a trunk full of unlicensed Kalashnikov rifles. The guard forces are also frequently named in cases of abuses against civilians, including bullying and extortion.
Still, the front-line guard posts fall almost exclusively to Afghan security employees, who are typically paid just a few hundred dollars a month. Given the risks, the fact that the openings continue to be filled is testament to the poverty that racks this country.
“He had no other options except to work as a guard, which he knew was a risky job,” said Ghausuddin, referring to Shamsuddin, his brother.
Originally from Panjshir, Shamsuddin lived with his wife and two young children in a two-room apartment in Kabul’s Karte Parwan neighborhood.
After his family’s home was destroyed during the war, Shamsuddin and his brother moved elsewhere to find work.
Shamsuddin was briefly employed as a military officer in Nangarhar Province but left to take a job as a laborer in Iran. Eventually, Ghausuddin persuaded his younger brother to return and join him in Kabul.
Rather than sign up with the military again, Shamsuddin chose to work as a security guard, a position he held for nine years at different companies. In his latest job, he earned about $200 a month — barely enough to support the family, his wife said.
Now, it is unclear how they will make ends meet. Ghausuddin figures it will fall on him to support his brother’s wife, 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. The family is hoping for compensation from the security company.
“I think I will be responsible to look after them, even though I am not working,” he said. “We haven’t talked about that yet, where everyone will stay.”
Jawad Sukhanyar contributed to this report.
Bicycle bomb wounds 26 Afghans
KABUL, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- A powerful explosive device placed on a bicycle went off on Monday in Khost city, capital of Khost province 150 km southeast of Afghan capital Kabul, leaving over two dozen people, all civilians, injured, the provincial administration confirmed in a statement sent to media.
"The terrorists planted explosive object in a bicycle and detonated it in Sargardan Choak area in Khost city this morning, injuring 26 innocent civilians," the statement added.
In the statement the Khost provincial administration put the attack on the "enemies of peace", a term referring to Taliban militants by Afghan officials.
The statement also called on security organs to spare no efforts in identifying and punishing those behind subversive activities in Khost and elsewhere in the country.
Earlier, a local official on the condition of anonymity reported killing two people and injuring 18 others in the blast that rocked Khost city.
"The terrorists planted the bomb in the cavities of a bicycle and detonated it with a remote control in Sargardan Choak area, Khost city at around 11:00 a.m. local time, killing two people and injuring 18, mostly civilians," the official told Xinhua but declined to give his name, saying authorized officials would brief the media after investigation.
Hospital sources have also confirmed the injury of over two dozen people in the blast.
Director of health department in Khost city, Amir Badshah has confirmed that 26 injured people had been taken to hospitals for medical treatment, some of whom were in critical condition.
In the conflict-ridden Afghanistan, the non-combatants often bear the brunt of the endemic conflicts.
"Between January 1 and June 30, 2012, conflict-related violence resulted in 3,099 civilian casualties or 1,145 civilians killed and 1,954 others injured, a 15 percent decrease in overall civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2011," a report of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released here in last August said. The report attributed 80 percent of harming civilians to the anti-government militants.
According to the report, 3,021 civilians died last year, 1,510 of them in the first six months in the conflict-battered Afghanistan.
Optical Fiber Networks for Central, North Afghanistan Underway
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Sunday, 25 November 2012
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) is spending most of its annual budget on building optical fiber networks with plans underway for more development in Afghanistan's central and northeast provinces.
MoCIT Minister Amirzai Sangin on Sunday said in an interview with TOLOnews that the focus for the new networks are in the country's central provinces of Bamyan, Daikondi, and Ghor, as well as northeast provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan.
"The contract for these projects are made. An advance amount of money is specified for the projects which are general. We have been working on them this year," Sangin said.
"One of the contracts of these projects is at the special supplies commission and we expect its approval soon, so that the payment will be done by [the month of] Qaws," he added.
Qaws is a month in the Persian calendar which ends December 20 in the Gregorian calendar.
Sangin said once the approval for the projects is finalised, the Ministry will have spent 70 to 80 percent of its annual budget.
More than 40 percent of its budget has already been spent – most of it on electronic identification processes and optical fiber networks, he added.
Recent Violence Against Women Appalling: Officials
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 25 November 2012
Human rights organisations observed the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Sunday saying that recent violence against women in Afghanistan is appalling.
Rights activists said women in Afghanistan have been always treated as the subordinate gender and until recently have not played a large role in society which has impacted its development and progress.
"The violence has increased 28 percent compared to last year. In the current month alone [five days into Qaws], we have four cases of violence against women recorded so far," said Sima Samar, the chair of Afghanistan Independent Commission of Human Rights (AIHRC).
The Minister of Women's Affairs said the past nine months has seen 3,600 cases of violence against women recorded by the ministry.
"The forms of violence are very shocking. We are very concerned over the issue," Hassan Banoo Ghazanfar said.
Some of the human rights organisations believe the recent violence to be exceptional.
Forced marriage, forced prostitution, underage marriage, child rape, beheading, beating, cutting body parts, and other forms of violence have all recently been reported - even a man hammering nails into his wife's head.
"You heard about the father who raped his daughter. Such violence has not had any roots in Afghanistan," said Fawzia Koofi, Head of the Commission of Women's Affairs at parliament.
There are still women who are punished by drumhead court-martials in parts of the country that are controlled by the Afghan government, such as the case of Sabera, a teenage girl in central province of Ghazni, who was whipped 101 times by a several Mullahs on the accusation that she had a relationship with a man.
Most of the drumhead court-martials are believed to be related to Islam.
"Islam provides women special rights. Those who carry out violence against women are not familiar with Islam," said Mawlawi Abdulhadi Hedayat, religious affairs expert.
"We have given the responsibility to a number of scholars to acknowledge people from over the pulpits," said Dai-ul-Haq Abed, Deputy Minister of Hajja and Religious Affairs.
Although the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women is held in the country every year, the women rights organisations consider it symbolic.
Women rights and eliminating the violence against women are said to be government priorities and there are laws made regarding it, but it is believed that there are groups with the government which do not consider the value of women.
There are serious concerns that women's rights will be the first to suffer in any breakdown after 2014 of the gains made so far.
Lawmakers Criticise Ministries Budget Spending
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Sunday, 25 November 2012
The Parliamentary commission of finance and budget said Sunday that 11 government organisations including the Ministries of Defense and Public Health did not responsibly spend their budgets in 1390 (2010-2011).
Commission deputy Siddiq Ahmad Osmani said that the country's laws are not considered in spending the budgets, criticising unbalanced distribution by the Ministry of Finance towards government organisations.
He also criticised the lack of coordination between the estimated budgets and the way it is spent by most government organisations.
"There is no match between the estimated budget and its expenditure," Osmani said.
The public health ministry was singled out for its poor distribution of funds.
"There is no medicine even in a hospital only 50 meters away from the Ministry of Public Health," said Nangarhar MP Sayed Ikram.
But the ministry dismissed the issue.
"None of the executive organisations have equal income and outcome," said Public Health Minister Suraya Dalil.
Including some of the independent directorates, the Ministries of Defense, Counter Narcotics, Public Works, Economics, and Public Health did not spend more than 95 percent of their 1390 budget.
In the current financial year, the Ministry of Finance says the spending of each ministry to date is the following:
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has spent 40.13 percent of its budget
Ministry of Urban Development: 78 percent
Ministry of Women's Affairs: 51 percent
Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations: 46 percent
Ministry of Public Welfare: 46 percent
Ministry of Rural Development: 42 percent
Ministry of Labors, Social Affairs, Martyrs & Disabled: 41 percent
Ministry of Counter-Narcotics: 38 percent
Ministry of Economics: 35 percent
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock: 30 percent
Ministry of Transportation and Aviation: 30 percent
National Directorate of Security: more than 40 percent
Directorate of Nomads: 57 percent.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com