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Afghanistan presses Pakistan to free Taliban
By By SEBASTIAN ABBOT and DEB RIECHMANN | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Afghan foreign minister pressed Pakistan on Friday to free more Taliban detainees in Islamabad's custody in a bid to help coax the militant group into peace negotiations to end the 11-year-old war in Afghanistan, officials said.
Afghanistan's top diplomat, Zalmay Rasoul, pushed his case in talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, during a one-day visit to Islamabad. Their discussions followed Pakistan's decision earlier this month to release nine Taliban prisoners in a move that Kabul welcomed as a positive first step and an indication that Islamabad supports the stalled Afghan peace process.
The cooperation of Pakistan, which has longstanding ties to the Taliban, is seen as key to jumpstarting an Afghan peace process that has made little headway since it began several years ago, hobbled by distrust among the major players, including the United States. The Afghan and U.S. governments accuse Islamabad of backing insurgents — an allegation Pakistan denies — and say many militant leaders are hiding in the country.
With Afghan presidential elections and the withdrawal of most foreign combat troops looming in 2014, Afghanistan and its international allies are trying to push a peace process with the Taliban to bring an end to the conflict.
Afghanistan needs Pakistan's help in reaching out to top Taliban leaders, but still insists that peace talks be led by Afghans, saying it will fight those who try to interfere.
Rasoul, the Afghan foreign minister, was expected to press Pakistan to free more Taliban prisoners during his one-day visit to Islamabad on Friday, including the militant group's former deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the talks.
It's unclear whether Pakistan made any concrete commitments to free additional prisoners, including Baradar, who was captured in Pakistan in 2010 because he reportedly was having secret talks with the Afghans.
The Pakistani foreign minister said during a joint news conference that the release of prisoners was "discussed thoroughly, and I'm quite sure that we would all agree that we are making forward movement."
Khar said that the two countries had "operationalized" a joint commission announced last year to address the prisoner release issue. They also agreed to hold a conference of Muslim scholars in January to speak out against terrorism.
Pakistan also shared with Afghanistan a draft of a strategic partnership agreement the two countries hope to negotiate over the next year, Khar said. Afghanistan signed a similar agreement with Pakistan's archenemy India last year, causing consternation in Islamabad.
The Afghan foreign minister welcomed Pakistan's efforts, saying "we want all Afghan Taliban to return in their country, join the constitutional political process there and play their part in furthering the construction and development of our nation."
The Taliban prisoners released earlier by Pakistan, including some senior leaders, are believed to still be in the country, said the Afghan official who spoke ahead of Rasoul's visit. Afghanistan hopes the freed militants will play a constructive role in the peace process, the official said, while acknowledging that it is too soon to know what role, if any, they will hold.
While it's unclear whether the Taliban are interested in negotiating peace, the official maintained that there are indeed key Taliban figures who support a political process to end the violence, but that some of them are afraid to establish direct contact with the Afghan government because some of those who did in the past were killed or detained.
Afghanistan wants Pakistan to encourage Taliban leaders to join the Afghan-led peace process and allow Taliban negotiators to travel to third countries for talks without detaining them or putting pressure on their families, the official said.
Informal contacts have been established with Taliban officials in recent years, but so far no formal negotiations have begun.
Waheed Muzhda, a political analyst in Kabul and an expert on Taliban issues, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that about two months ago he met informally in Qatar with several Taliban figures, including Tayyab Agha, a personal emissary of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a former deputy at two ministries during the Taliban regime.
He said the Taliban are interested in talks, but with the U.S. and not with the Afghan government. If any negotiations begin, they would be between the U.S. and the Taliban, he said.
"If there was a good result from that, then the Afghan government could be involved," he said.
___
Riechmann reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Kabul.
Afghan Foreign Minister Asks Pakistan For 'Honest' Cooperation
November 30, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul says he has asked Pakistan for "honest, results-oriented cooperation" to support Afghanistan's peace process.
Rasul made the remarks during a joint press conference with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar after the two met for talks in Islamabad on November 30.
"Peace in Afghanistan also is a prerequisite for peace and security in the region, including peace and security here in Pakistan. So we are asking countries in the region and beyond to support the Afghan peaceful process in an honest and concrete way," Rasul said.
Rasul welcomed the November 15 release of at least nine Taliban commanders in a bid to help build trust between the Taliban and Kabul.
Earlier, Rasul's spokesman said the Afghan foreign minister was urging Islamabad to release more detained Taliban.
Rasul said that he hopes Islamabad will take other concrete measures to encourage peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.
"Both our countries face a common threat: the threat of terrorism and extremism, which requires our best common effort to overcome," Rasul said.
"I hope and pray that we can firmly move away from the legacy of the past between our countries and work together to unlock the far more important and truly enormous potential of honest, results-oriented cooperation between us in all areas."
For her part, Khar said she and Rasul agreed to "operationalize" a joint commission that would address the issue of releasing more Taliban prisoners who might become involved in the peace process in Afghanistan.
But she stressed that Pakistan's role in Afghanistan's reconciliation process cannot be more than "a facilitator to whatever future the Afghans choose for themselves."
Khar also announced that Islamabad and Kabul have taken the first steps toward negotiating a strategic partnership agreement.
Khar said she and Rasul also discussed the fight against terrorism and control of the illegal narcotics trade.
With reporting by dpa, Dailytimes.com.pk, Reuters, and RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal
Pakistan, Afghanistan to hold religious talk in Kabul
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan and Afghanistan Friday decided to hold a conference of religious scholars of the two countries in Kabul in January to seek their help for the peace process, foreign ministers of the two countries said after their talks in Islamabad.
Reaffirming support to Afghan-led, Afghan-driven and Afghan- owned reconciliation process, Pakistani Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, assured her Afghan counterpart, Dr. Zalmay Rassoul, that her country will continue to play the role of a facilitator in the peace process.
"Pakistan will pursue the track which the Afghans choose for itself," she said at a joint press conference.
Hina Rabbani Khar said that both the countries face common challenges of terrorism and narcotics and collective efforts are required to deal with these challenges.
She also handed over draft of a proposed "Strategic Partnership Agreement" to Afghanistan to further build up bilateral relations with the neighboring country.
Answering a question about the strategic partnership agreement, both the foreign ministers expressed the confidence that it will be finalized soon to build stronger bilateral relations.
Later addressing a joint news conference, Hina Rabbani Khar said the visit of Afghan foreign minister marks the initiation of negotiations on the strategic partnership between the two countries.
Hina Rabbani Khar expressed keeness of Pakistan to build strong bilateral relations with Afghanistan on the basis of mutual respect and sovereign equality. "It is Pakistan's strong desire to further strengthen cultural and religious affinities existing between the two neighboring countries."
Referring to the trade potential between Pakistan and Afghanistan, she said the bilateral trade currently stands at 2.5 billion U.S. dollars. There is a great potential to further increase this volume. She hoped that extension of Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement to Tajikistan and then the other central Asian countries will help exploit the strategic position of Afghanistan to enhance regional trade. It will certainly be a win-win situation for both Pakistan and Afghanistan and the region.
Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul said his country will never allow its soil used against Pakistan. Afghanistan will do everything possible to avoid the damage coming from Pakistan. He said shelling into Pakistan from Afghan side has reduced significantly recently and both the countries need to work together to sort out the issues.
He said both the countries need to work together to unlock the potential of honest and result oriented cooperation based on mutual interest and respect. Zalmay Rasool said peace in Afghanistan is a prerequisite for peace and stability in Pakistan and the region. He added that Pakistan has a crucial role to play in the success of reconciliation process.
"We want the Afghan Taliban to return to their homeland and contribute in the peace, progress and development of the country."
The Afghan foreign minister said there is a complete consensus on the peace process in Afghanistan. This is the reason that women have also been part of this process. He said his country is committed to the peace process because the people have suffered greatly in the past many years. He expressed the confidence that the peace process will make forward movement.
Senate backs quicker withdrawal from Afghanistan
By By DONNA CASSATA | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Reflecting a war-weary nation, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday for an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after more than a decade of fighting.
The strong bipartisan vote of 62-33 sends a clear message to President Barack Obama and the military as they engage in high-stakes talks about the pace of drawing down the 66,000 U.S. troops there, with a White House announcement expected within weeks.
Although the vote was on a nonbinding amendment to a defense policy bill, its significance could not be discounted amid the current discussions.
Thirteen Republicans, including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top GOP lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, backed the measure.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., its chief sponsor, argued that al-Qaida is stronger in other parts of the world and that nation-building in Afghanistan has gone off track. His measure endorsed Obama's timetable to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014 but pressed for a quicker pace, without specifying how that would be achieved.
"It is time to end this war, end the longest war in United States history," Merkley said during Senate debate.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday the U.S. will need to keep troops in Afghanistan even after the combat mission ends in 2014 because al-Qaida is still present in the country and is trying to strengthen its influence.
He would not say how many American troops he thinks will be needed to conduct that mission, nor did he mention a time period.
"The goal here is an enduring presence therefore that will direct itself toward three important missions. One is obviously counterterrorism to insure that we continue to go after whatever al-Qaida targets remain in Afghanistan," Panetta told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He added that the United States also will have to train and assist the Afghan forces while providing support.
The overall defense bill authorizes $631 billion for weapons, ships, aircraft and a 1.7 percent pay raise for military personnel. The White House threatened to veto the legislation in its current form, citing limits on the president's authority in handling detainees at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and restrictions on cuts to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.
The Senate hopes to wrap up its version of the bill by week's end. It then would have to be reconciled with the legislation the House passed in May. The House bill calls for Obama to maintain a force of at least 68,000 troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2014.
Late Thursday, the Senate revived last year's debate over how to handle terror suspects and whether restrictions interfere with the president's powers as commander in chief.
Lawmakers approved an amendment that would prevent the transfer of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to prisons in the United States. The vote was 54-41, with several Democrats vulnerable in the 2014 elections voting with Republicans.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., argued that the 166 terror suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-styled mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, should remain at the U.S. naval facility and not be transferred to any facility on American soil.
Responding to Ayotte, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the United States not only can but has handled terrorist suspects, with 180 now languishing in super maximum prisons. Feinstein complained that the measure would erase the president's flexibility.
"I don't think the right thing to do is to tie anyone's hands," she said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., who had pushed for several of the provisions on terror suspects in last year's defense bill, said Ayotte's measure was "unwise in terms of our national security." He also warned that the provision was certain to draw a presidential veto.
In fact, the administration, in threatening to veto the bill, strongly objected to a provision restricting the president's authority to transfer terror suspects from Guantanamo to foreign countries. The provision is in current law.
The White House said the provisions were "misguided when they were enacted and should not be renewed."
Current law denies suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subjects them to the possibility they would be held indefinitely. It reaffirms the post-Sept. 11 authorization for the use of military force that allows indefinite detention of enemy combatants.
An unusual coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans backed an amendment by Feinstein that said the government may not detain a U.S. citizen or legal resident indefinitely without charge or trial even with the authorization to use military force or declaration of war.
Feinstein recalled the dark days of World War II when the United States forcibly removed thousands of Japanese-Americans and placed them in permanent internment camps amid unfounded fears that they were spies and a national security threat.
Civil rights groups said the measure did not go far enough, but it was approved on a 67-29 vote with the backing of conservative Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah.
The Senate eliminated one provision from the bill that had attracted White House objections. In a strong bipartisan vote Wednesday, senators voted to allow Pentagon investment in alternative fuels.
___
AP National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
Al Qaeda battle in Afghanistan to stretch for years: U.S.
By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda fighters are still trying to make inroads into Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, cautioning that battling the group would be a core U.S. mission there for years to come.
Panetta made the comments as the United States weighs how large a military force to keep in Afghanistan when the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, ending a war that, at that point, will have stretched for over 13 years.
There are approximately 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the residual force may number less than 10,000. President Barack Obama could decide in the coming weeks, although no deadline has been set.
Commenting on the scope of a post-2014 counter-terrorism mission, Panetta did not mention al Qaeda allies or Taliban militants battling U.S. forces. He said fighting the core al Qaeda group to prevent it from re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan was "going to be the fundamental thrust of the (counter-terrorism) effort."
A narrow focus could help limit the size of the mission.
"Although we clearly have had an impact on (al Qaeda's) presence in Afghanistan, the fact is that they continue to show up," Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon.
"And intelligence continues to indicate that they are looking for some kind of capability to be able to go into Afghanistan as well."
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated there were still only about 100 al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.
But Jeffrey Dressler, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said looking only at al Qaeda fighters - as opposed to those who ally with them - carried enormous risks.
"I think the mistake that we've made all along is too narrowly defining the threat," Dressler said.
Beyond counter-terrorism, Panetta said the post-2014 U.S. presence in Afghanistan would also need to have a "train-and-assist mission" to further develop the Afghan Army.
He also said the United States would need to provide "enablers" - specialists who perform tasks such as destroying landmines or treating the injured - to support U.S. forces.
Panetta declined to offer any estimate for the size of the force, saying that is "exactly what's being discussed" now.
Afghan, ISAF forces detain Haqqani local leader
By ANI
Kabul, Nov. 30 (Xinhua-ANI): Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) arrested a local leader of the Haqqani network, the military wing of Taliban outift, in Logar province 60 km south of Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, the alliance said in a statement released here.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader in Logar province, today," the statement said, adding that the Haqqani leader acquired weapons for Haqqani fighters and directed attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout Muhammad Aghah district of the province.
The statement said that at the time of the arrest, the Haqqani leader was overseeing the movement of improvised explosive devices and Haqqani fighters in preparation for an attack, but it did not reveal his name.
The Haqqani network is mostly active in Kabul and eastern and southeastern provinces along the border with Pakistan's tribal areas.
Taliban militants are yet to make comment. (Xinhua-ANI)
Security forces arrest Afghan accused of funding the Taliban
Reuters By Matthew Green 29/11/2012
ISLAMABAD - Coalition and Afghan forces have arrested a currency dealer suspected of handling millions of dollars of Taliban cash as part of a widening campaign to block insurgent finances ahead of a security handover in 2014, officials said on Thursday.
The U.S. Treasury has accused Haji Mohammed Qasim of using his network of money transfer shops to help Taliban commanders send funds to fighters in southern Helmand Province, scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the 11-year war.
"I can confirm he was arrested during a joint operation conducted by Afghan and coalition troops," Captain Dan Einert, a spokesman for ISAF, the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, said in an email. ISAF gave no further details.
Dealers in the currency market in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar said Qasim had been arrested by U.S. troops, Afghan police and intelligence officers who raided the exchange in October.
"The Americans won't tell us where he is," said Haji Kandiagha, the president of the exchange. "Everyone is angry about this, they don't know what the Americans will do."
As the United States and its allies withdraw the vast majority of their combat troops, Western officials are hoping to weaken the still resilient insurgency by disrupting its funding channels before Afghan forces assume full responsibility for security.
The Treasury imposed sanctions on Qasim and his Rahat money transfer company last week, adding him to a growing list of individuals subjected to a U.S. asset freeze on suspicion of facilitating Taliban payments. He was also accused of smuggling weapons and ammunition on behalf of the insurgents.
The Treasury had no immediate comment on the arrest.
Treasury officials in Washington made no reference to Qasim's arrest in last week's statement announcing the sanctions, which was issued in Washington.
The discrepancy appeared to underline the complexity of U.S. attempts to counter insurgent finance, which often involve multiple organisations conducting covert work.
U.S. officials believe the Taliban relies on a trust-based payment system known as hawala which is prevalent in much of the Islamic world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The system allows customers to rapidly move large sums across borders outside the scrutiny of regulators.
Afghan hawala dealers say they are being unfairly targeted since they cannot be held responsible if Taliban sympathisers use their services without their knowledge. They also resent the fact that the Treasury does not publish the evidence it uses to justify imposing sanctions on individuals such as Qasim.
The Treasury says that as of early this year Qasim's hawala company had received $500,000 of Taliban cash through his branch in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta. The manager of the Quetta shop, Musa Kalim, was also sanctioned, but there was no indication he had been arrested by Pakistani authorities.
"As of late 2011, the bulk of Kalim's hawala business consisted of transferring Taliban and smugglers' funds," the Treasury said in a statement. "Kalim also managed the transfer of funds from donors in the Gulf to support Taliban fighters."
The Taliban leadership is believed to have adopted Quetta as a rear base after it was ousted by the U.S. military in 2001. Pakistan denies sheltering the Taliban.
The U.S. Treasury says Qasim served as a financial assistant to Mullah Naim Barich, the top Taliban commander in Helmand Province, the heartland of Afghanistan's heroin industry.
Washington designated Barich as a major suspected drug smuggler on November 15, marking the first time a Taliban commander had been added to what is known as the "Kingpin" list.
The Taliban dismissed the "Kingpin" designation and said nobody from the movement was involved in narcotics trafficking.
(Editing by Jon Hemming)
Chinese return to Afghan mine project - minister
Reuters By Michael Georgy Thu Nov 29, 2012
KABUL - Most of the roughly 170 Chinese workers who fled rocket attacks on the largest foreign investment project in Afghanistan have returned because of improved security, the Afghan mining minister said on Thursday.
Officials had been trying to convince Chinese workers to restart work at the Aynak copper deposit in Logar province, one of the most dangerous regions of the country.
Insurgents have been trying to wreck the flagship government mining project. But Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani said about 150 Chinese engineers, geologists and experts had returned because the Interior Ministry has given a special citizens' protection force better weapons and increased checkpoints on hilltops.
He said Afghanistan would welcome foreign investors in addition to the consortium running the Aynak copper deposit, China Metallurgical Group (MCC) CNMET.UL and Jiangxi Copper JXPROM.UL 600362.SS.
"The first policy priority is to get more investment regardless of where the investment will come," Shahrani told Reuters.
"I am very much in favour of bringing some degree of diversification in the investment."
The project has been under way since 2007, with licenses expected to be issued at the end of December and Chinese companies overseeing the project about to begin the final stage of construction, expected to take at least three years.
With commercial production expected to start at the end of 2014, according to the minister, the mine could generate annual income of close to half a billion dollars.
International aid for Afghanistan is already expected to fall short of the $6 billion a year required to promote economic growth, and a further $4.1 billion needed to pay the bill for the 350,000-strong security forces as NATO draws down.
HUGE POTENTIAL, MANY RISKS
Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, wants to tap into what Shahrani says is more than $1 trillion in mineral deposits.
In the 10 years following the 2014 pullout of most NATO combat troops, he hopes the government revenues from oil, natural gas iron, copper and other mining ventures will generate $4 billion in annual revenue for the government.
But Shahrani says that will only come under the right conditions: better security, government transparency, better terms for foreign investors and less corruption.
Major infrastructure work is also an issue. To move commodities, Afghanistan would have to build costly railroads through rough and mountainous terrain.
"We are not going to deny the difficulty with regard to the governance issues. At the same time, in the last two years a lot of reforms have been launched," he said.
"(At) Aynak, one of the mistakes we made was we did not have the monitoring mechanisms in place. No mining contract will be considered as a state secret or hidden document anymore."
Turning to the dominant issue of security, he said Afghan forces have come a long way, but at this stage would not be ready to protect Afghanistan's economic interests.
"If the (foreign) forces left tomorrow, for example, the negative impact would not be limited to mining," he said.
He said the government hoped to give the local community around mining projects jobs and a sense of ownership in ventures and access to basic services to stifle Taliban recruitment.
The Taliban have fired rockets at mining projects, planted improvised explosive devices along roads and arrived armed on motorcycles to threaten people.
"The Taliban are not strong enough to take control of a big mining area. But they will try to disturb the area. It has been happening for a while," said Shahrani.
Some companies see enough potential in Afghanistan's natural resources to commit to the country.
A consortium comprised of Turkish Petroleum Corporation, Kuwait Energy and Dubai-based Dragon Oil have been selected in the last two days to explore and produce two oil blocks in the Afghan Tajik basin, said Shahrani.
He expects production to start in four years.
A decision is also near in tenders for four major gold and copper deposits in different parts of the country, he said.
The country has no major mining projects in operation.
But Shahrani is encouraged by the few ventures in their early stages, like an 1.8 million tonne iron ore deposit that he said had attracted the attention of the Indian government and a private Canadian company.
Looking ahead, he believes China and India will be the biggest players in the nascent Afghan mining sector but he is hoping to lure other investors, predicting that one day international commodity trade houses will eye Afghanistan.
"Our expectation is that in the next ten years with all this development, Afghanistan will emerge as a major commodity-producing country in the region," he said. (Reporting by Michael Georgy; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Afghan-Born Designer Hopes Mine-Clearing Ball Makes Homeland Safer
By Omid Marzban and Ron Synovitz November 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Massoud Hassani was a young boy living on the northern edge of Kabul during the final days of Soviet occupation when he first built sphere-shaped toys from cheap materials.
As he and his brother watched the wind blow the puzzle-like constructions along the ground, the toys ultimately would be carried off into the desert near Kabul's main airport where the boys were not allowed to walk -- a restricted area littered with land mines and unexploded ordnance.
Wind Powered
Hassani and his family left Afghanistan in 1993 after his father was killed. But as a design-school student in Eindhoven, Netherlands years later, Hassani's childhood memories from Kabul became the inspiration for an invention he hopes will save lives back in Afghanistan. It is a wind-driven mine-clearing device that Hassani calls a "Mine Kafon."
"It actually began a very long time ago when I was a kid. We used to play with these kind of objects where there were a lot of land mines. We grew up in an area like that," Hassani says.
"Then when I was at [design school] and I tried to do a project for graduation, I was trying to think about the past and come up with new ideas. I put these two ideas together and Mine Kafon was born."
The Mine Kafon -- which in Dari means "Mine Exploder" -- is about the height of a man. It has only been built as a prototype so far. But Hassani and an explosive ordnance disposal team from the Dutch military have taken it to Morocco for desert testing. Hassani now is trying to attract funding to set up an organization that can deploy more test models in Africa and Afghanistan.
At less than $60, the Mine Kafon's price tag is a fraction of that of high-tech mine-clearing robots with sophisticated detection sensors.
The human-driven Aardvark mine-flailing vehicles used by NATO to clear Bagram Air Field's massive compound north of Kabul cost about $500,000 each.
With more than 10 million land mines still awaiting removal in Afghanistan, Hassani says his device can be useful for villagers who might otherwise have to wait decades for their farmland to be cleared.
"Mine Kafon is actually a wind-powered anti-land-mine ball. It has a core and a lot of bamboo poles integrated in it. Every bamboo pole ends with a disc. It looks like a dandelion seed," Hassani says.
"So it moves around in the desert and if it hits a land mine there will be an explosion because the Mine Kafon is as heavy as a person and it mimics the feet of a human being. In this case, it destroys itself in the place of a human."
Drawbacks
Hassani also attaches a GPS tracking device within the core of each Mine Kafon. That allows its location to be tracked and mapped in real time on the Internet. He says each device can detonate up to four land mines before it is destroyed.
Mine-clearance experts say there are some drawbacks to Hassani's invention. Since it is moved by the wind, a Mine Kafon creates random footpath-sized swathes through a field. It needs a push in a strong wind to move.
By comparison, a mine-flailing vehicle like the Aardvark is used to systematically clear an entire field by beating three-meter-wide strips of ground with chains that rotate 300 times each minute. Every piece of ground is struck at least twice, with the chains digging down 20 centimeters.
Even then, flail vehicles do not have the 100-percent efficiency needed to declare a field safe for farming. But they clear out vegetation, making it easier and faster for human teams to check an area manually.
Hassani admits there are limitations to his invention, but he sees his device as a way for local villagers to cheaply survey areas they know are dangerous.
"For the big [demining] companies, it would be totally a different way of clearing land mines because they are used to doing it the same way for 60 years now. For them, it will be a big challenge to accept this idea," Hassani said.
"But on the other hand, it is very cheap. It is very affordable. So that could be also a [benefit]. And it can even help villagers if they are provided with these bamboo poles and these puzzle pieces. Then they can construct them and put them in locations where it is dangerous."
After getting feedback about his prototype from experts, Hassani says he has begun designing a cylindrical Mine Kafon that could clear wider paths.
Conflict continues to displace Afghans, study finds
CNN By Masoud Popalzai November 30, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - The number of people forced to flee their homes in Afghanistan is increasing and the conditions for the displaced are falling well below international standards, a new study by the Norwegian Refugee Council found.
In 2012 alone, spreading conflict in Afghanistan has forced more than 166,000 Afghans to flee their homes, bringing the total number of people internally displaced by conflict to at least 460,000 since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, according to the council's report.
The numbers alone don't tell the full story, it says. Most of the internally displaced people "are living in appalling conditions and in situations of extreme poverty," Dan Tyler, protection and advocacy manager at NRC Afghanistan, told CNN.
India-Pakistan dynamic holds key to Afghanistan's future
Lack of employment, insufficient food and water supplies, and poor quality housing or shelters -- typically tents or unsubstantial mud homes -- are among the problems internally displaced people are facing, especially during the winter, when their shelters can not offer enough protection against the cold, the report says.
Last winter brought Afghanistan's displacement crisis into sharp focus, and revealed the scale of suffering facing displaced people, with reports of "at least 100 confirmed deaths, mostly of children, who died from the cold or illness in Kabul alone," Tyler said.
One of the displaced people, Mohammad Ibrahim, 42, fled his home in Greshk district of southern Helmand province almost three years ago with his wife and five children. Now he lives under a mud hut in a makeshift camp in the eastern part of Kabul, the capital city.
"I am really worried about what will happen to our children this winter," Ibrahim told CNN. "Last winter more than 10 children died just in our makeshift camp due to cold, and I don't know how many more would die this winter, which has already started."
Ibrahim added that last year he thought that he would be in a better situation by this year's winter, "but I was wrong."
The study also says that displaced families report facing obstacles to find health services and to access education for their children, with over a third of the displaced children lacking access to schools.
According to Tyler, very few provinces are immune from either receiving or creating internally displace people, but the southern and southeastern regions are the main origination areas, and the majority of people go to big cities, especially Kabul, where security and livelihood opportunities, as well as access to services, is perceived to be greater.
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The report adds that more than half of the people surveyed identified the Taliban and other anti-government groups as the key causes of insecurity in their homes communities and the primary drivers of their displacement.
The Norwegian Refugee Council's study reveals worrying gaps in protection and assistance because of the challenges of collecting information and coordinating responses amid increasing insecurity. Many humanitarian actors tasked with collecting data on displacement have limited access to those most in need, it says.
The Afghan government's response to the displacement crisis has also been inadequate, the report says. Insufficient funding, capacity and lack of expertise on the part of central and local authorities means conditions for the displaced, both during the period of their displacement and during the course of their return have fallen well below international standards, according to the study.
"There is also concern that, as international troops withdraw from Afghanistan (by 2014), there will be less funding available to meet the humanitarian needs" of internally displaced people, Tyler said.
There is growing awareness that during and beyond the security transition, more would need to be done to profile the needs of displaced people. "But whether the humanitarian community will have time to prepare (for), or the funding to respond to a deepening displacement crisis is far from certain," he warned.
Officials Warn of Penalties for Brutality Against Women
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Thursday, 29 November 2012
Anyone found guilty of killing women and girls will be executed, the Attorney General's office warned after another girl was murdered this week apparently for refusing an offer of marriage.
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said that with reported cases of violence against women on the rise, the penalties brought against the perpetrators will be tough.
"In Kabul alone there are 1,320 cases of violence against women under investigation. Some of the cases have been sent to the High Court," Nazari said on Thursday.
"Beheading, murder are deliberate cases and according to the law their penalty is execution," he added.
President Hamid Karzai also addressed the topic in his bi-weekly national radio address on Thursday urging every member of society to see it as their duty to end the brutality.
"Both our religion and our culture give tremendous respect to women. Women are mothers and enjoy a valuable respect in Islam" he said.
He called on religious scholars and community leaders to preach it and on the media to broadcast programs that help communicate messages against any form of domestic violence.
Giseena, 14, had her throat slit on Tuesday in northern Kunduz province while she was out collecting water for her home.
Two men have been arrested for her murder, one of them her cousin who had asked to marry Giseena but was refused by her father.
"A girl, Giseena, was murdered in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz. The cause of the case is not completely clear but it is said that the man wanted to wed the girl but when he received a negative answer from the girl and her family, they killed her," head of Kunduz Women's Affairs department Nadera Giya said.
Kunduz police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini confirmed that at least one of the two men arrested was a relative.
"Two men were arrested – one is her cousin – and primary findings show that the man had wanted to marry her," Hussaini told TOLOnews.
Giseena is the eleventh female to be murdered in Kunduz province this Persian calendar year (since March 21).
Across Afghanistan, serious cases of violence and abuse have been resgistered by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reaching almost 4000 in the first eight months of the Persian year.
Karzai Posing Challenges to 2014 Election: Politicians
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Thursday, 29 November 2012
Political leaders who met with President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday to discuss the 2014 presidential election fear Karzai is using his power to challenge measures intended to combat fraud.
Although Karzai has made it clear he will not challenge the next election himself, some politicians are anxious that he will use his power to ensure his preferred successor is elected.
"Our understanding of the discussion was that President Karzai and his team will launch the elections but our concern is over transparency because he can support any candidate and can use government facilities," Rights and Justice Party Moeen Marastiyal told TOLOnews Thursday.
Karzai fanned these concerns by repeating his opposition to two foreigners on the seven-person board of the Election Complaints Commission, and saying at the meeting that the previous election cards should be valid for the 2014 election, despite pundits having said that that they are insufficient to combat voter fraud.
"The president said that the Election Complaints Commission field office should be governed under the local appeal courts. We oppose this because they will be government organs after that," National Coalition of Afghanistan spokesman Fazel Ahmad Sancharaki said.
The Wednesday meeting between Karzai and political leaders across the spectrum was described in a presidential statement as a consultation, but some politicians said the president's position was unmoved.
Baghlan Former Police Chiefs Will Be Captured: MOI
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 29 November 2012
The two former district police chiefs in northern Baghlan province who have defied the arrest warrant against them will be captured, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) has assured, after an attempt on Tuesday ended in bloodshed.
"No one can disobey the law. They will face a hard reaction from the police and will soon be arrested," MOI spokesperson Sediq Seddiqi said Thursday of the Baghlan-e Markazee district's former police leaders.
Former district chief of the Afghan National Police Mohammad Kamin and former district chief of the Afghan Civil Order Police Amir Gul are refusing to go quietly after they were dismissed and the order for their arrest was issued earlier this month.
A violent clash ensued on Tuesday when the pair fought back against the government forces sent to detain them with the support of illegally armed locals, understood to be men loyal to the former commanders.
At least four of the illegally armed men were killed and one police officer was wounded, the MOI said.
Kamin is accused of ordering his men to shoot at the three Afghan soldiers, killing them. Gul is accused of abusing his power and extortion.
Nangarhar Deputy District Governor Assassinated
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 29 November 2012
A deputy district governor in eastern Nangarhar province was assassinated in an attack on his home last night, local security officials said Thursday.
Ansarullah was killed at around midnight on Wednesday when unknown gunmen attacked his residential home in the Eidyakhil area of Nangarhar's Chaparhar district, according to the provincial police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incident but police are still investigating, he told TOLOnews.
No group including the Taliban has claimed the responsibility for the attack.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By By SEBASTIAN ABBOT and DEB RIECHMANN | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Afghan foreign minister pressed Pakistan on Friday to free more Taliban detainees in Islamabad's custody in a bid to help coax the militant group into peace negotiations to end the 11-year-old war in Afghanistan, officials said.
Afghanistan's top diplomat, Zalmay Rasoul, pushed his case in talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, during a one-day visit to Islamabad. Their discussions followed Pakistan's decision earlier this month to release nine Taliban prisoners in a move that Kabul welcomed as a positive first step and an indication that Islamabad supports the stalled Afghan peace process.
The cooperation of Pakistan, which has longstanding ties to the Taliban, is seen as key to jumpstarting an Afghan peace process that has made little headway since it began several years ago, hobbled by distrust among the major players, including the United States. The Afghan and U.S. governments accuse Islamabad of backing insurgents — an allegation Pakistan denies — and say many militant leaders are hiding in the country.
With Afghan presidential elections and the withdrawal of most foreign combat troops looming in 2014, Afghanistan and its international allies are trying to push a peace process with the Taliban to bring an end to the conflict.
Afghanistan needs Pakistan's help in reaching out to top Taliban leaders, but still insists that peace talks be led by Afghans, saying it will fight those who try to interfere.
Rasoul, the Afghan foreign minister, was expected to press Pakistan to free more Taliban prisoners during his one-day visit to Islamabad on Friday, including the militant group's former deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the talks.
It's unclear whether Pakistan made any concrete commitments to free additional prisoners, including Baradar, who was captured in Pakistan in 2010 because he reportedly was having secret talks with the Afghans.
The Pakistani foreign minister said during a joint news conference that the release of prisoners was "discussed thoroughly, and I'm quite sure that we would all agree that we are making forward movement."
Khar said that the two countries had "operationalized" a joint commission announced last year to address the prisoner release issue. They also agreed to hold a conference of Muslim scholars in January to speak out against terrorism.
Pakistan also shared with Afghanistan a draft of a strategic partnership agreement the two countries hope to negotiate over the next year, Khar said. Afghanistan signed a similar agreement with Pakistan's archenemy India last year, causing consternation in Islamabad.
The Afghan foreign minister welcomed Pakistan's efforts, saying "we want all Afghan Taliban to return in their country, join the constitutional political process there and play their part in furthering the construction and development of our nation."
The Taliban prisoners released earlier by Pakistan, including some senior leaders, are believed to still be in the country, said the Afghan official who spoke ahead of Rasoul's visit. Afghanistan hopes the freed militants will play a constructive role in the peace process, the official said, while acknowledging that it is too soon to know what role, if any, they will hold.
While it's unclear whether the Taliban are interested in negotiating peace, the official maintained that there are indeed key Taliban figures who support a political process to end the violence, but that some of them are afraid to establish direct contact with the Afghan government because some of those who did in the past were killed or detained.
Afghanistan wants Pakistan to encourage Taliban leaders to join the Afghan-led peace process and allow Taliban negotiators to travel to third countries for talks without detaining them or putting pressure on their families, the official said.
Informal contacts have been established with Taliban officials in recent years, but so far no formal negotiations have begun.
Waheed Muzhda, a political analyst in Kabul and an expert on Taliban issues, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that about two months ago he met informally in Qatar with several Taliban figures, including Tayyab Agha, a personal emissary of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a former deputy at two ministries during the Taliban regime.
He said the Taliban are interested in talks, but with the U.S. and not with the Afghan government. If any negotiations begin, they would be between the U.S. and the Taliban, he said.
"If there was a good result from that, then the Afghan government could be involved," he said.
___
Riechmann reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Kabul.
Afghan Foreign Minister Asks Pakistan For 'Honest' Cooperation
November 30, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul says he has asked Pakistan for "honest, results-oriented cooperation" to support Afghanistan's peace process.
Rasul made the remarks during a joint press conference with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar after the two met for talks in Islamabad on November 30.
"Peace in Afghanistan also is a prerequisite for peace and security in the region, including peace and security here in Pakistan. So we are asking countries in the region and beyond to support the Afghan peaceful process in an honest and concrete way," Rasul said.
Rasul welcomed the November 15 release of at least nine Taliban commanders in a bid to help build trust between the Taliban and Kabul.
Earlier, Rasul's spokesman said the Afghan foreign minister was urging Islamabad to release more detained Taliban.
Rasul said that he hopes Islamabad will take other concrete measures to encourage peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.
"Both our countries face a common threat: the threat of terrorism and extremism, which requires our best common effort to overcome," Rasul said.
"I hope and pray that we can firmly move away from the legacy of the past between our countries and work together to unlock the far more important and truly enormous potential of honest, results-oriented cooperation between us in all areas."
For her part, Khar said she and Rasul agreed to "operationalize" a joint commission that would address the issue of releasing more Taliban prisoners who might become involved in the peace process in Afghanistan.
But she stressed that Pakistan's role in Afghanistan's reconciliation process cannot be more than "a facilitator to whatever future the Afghans choose for themselves."
Khar also announced that Islamabad and Kabul have taken the first steps toward negotiating a strategic partnership agreement.
Khar said she and Rasul also discussed the fight against terrorism and control of the illegal narcotics trade.
With reporting by dpa, Dailytimes.com.pk, Reuters, and RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal
Pakistan, Afghanistan to hold religious talk in Kabul
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan and Afghanistan Friday decided to hold a conference of religious scholars of the two countries in Kabul in January to seek their help for the peace process, foreign ministers of the two countries said after their talks in Islamabad.
Reaffirming support to Afghan-led, Afghan-driven and Afghan- owned reconciliation process, Pakistani Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, assured her Afghan counterpart, Dr. Zalmay Rassoul, that her country will continue to play the role of a facilitator in the peace process.
"Pakistan will pursue the track which the Afghans choose for itself," she said at a joint press conference.
Hina Rabbani Khar said that both the countries face common challenges of terrorism and narcotics and collective efforts are required to deal with these challenges.
She also handed over draft of a proposed "Strategic Partnership Agreement" to Afghanistan to further build up bilateral relations with the neighboring country.
Answering a question about the strategic partnership agreement, both the foreign ministers expressed the confidence that it will be finalized soon to build stronger bilateral relations.
Later addressing a joint news conference, Hina Rabbani Khar said the visit of Afghan foreign minister marks the initiation of negotiations on the strategic partnership between the two countries.
Hina Rabbani Khar expressed keeness of Pakistan to build strong bilateral relations with Afghanistan on the basis of mutual respect and sovereign equality. "It is Pakistan's strong desire to further strengthen cultural and religious affinities existing between the two neighboring countries."
Referring to the trade potential between Pakistan and Afghanistan, she said the bilateral trade currently stands at 2.5 billion U.S. dollars. There is a great potential to further increase this volume. She hoped that extension of Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement to Tajikistan and then the other central Asian countries will help exploit the strategic position of Afghanistan to enhance regional trade. It will certainly be a win-win situation for both Pakistan and Afghanistan and the region.
Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul said his country will never allow its soil used against Pakistan. Afghanistan will do everything possible to avoid the damage coming from Pakistan. He said shelling into Pakistan from Afghan side has reduced significantly recently and both the countries need to work together to sort out the issues.
He said both the countries need to work together to unlock the potential of honest and result oriented cooperation based on mutual interest and respect. Zalmay Rasool said peace in Afghanistan is a prerequisite for peace and stability in Pakistan and the region. He added that Pakistan has a crucial role to play in the success of reconciliation process.
"We want the Afghan Taliban to return to their homeland and contribute in the peace, progress and development of the country."
The Afghan foreign minister said there is a complete consensus on the peace process in Afghanistan. This is the reason that women have also been part of this process. He said his country is committed to the peace process because the people have suffered greatly in the past many years. He expressed the confidence that the peace process will make forward movement.
Senate backs quicker withdrawal from Afghanistan
By By DONNA CASSATA | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Reflecting a war-weary nation, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday for an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after more than a decade of fighting.
The strong bipartisan vote of 62-33 sends a clear message to President Barack Obama and the military as they engage in high-stakes talks about the pace of drawing down the 66,000 U.S. troops there, with a White House announcement expected within weeks.
Although the vote was on a nonbinding amendment to a defense policy bill, its significance could not be discounted amid the current discussions.
Thirteen Republicans, including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top GOP lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, backed the measure.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., its chief sponsor, argued that al-Qaida is stronger in other parts of the world and that nation-building in Afghanistan has gone off track. His measure endorsed Obama's timetable to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014 but pressed for a quicker pace, without specifying how that would be achieved.
"It is time to end this war, end the longest war in United States history," Merkley said during Senate debate.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday the U.S. will need to keep troops in Afghanistan even after the combat mission ends in 2014 because al-Qaida is still present in the country and is trying to strengthen its influence.
He would not say how many American troops he thinks will be needed to conduct that mission, nor did he mention a time period.
"The goal here is an enduring presence therefore that will direct itself toward three important missions. One is obviously counterterrorism to insure that we continue to go after whatever al-Qaida targets remain in Afghanistan," Panetta told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He added that the United States also will have to train and assist the Afghan forces while providing support.
The overall defense bill authorizes $631 billion for weapons, ships, aircraft and a 1.7 percent pay raise for military personnel. The White House threatened to veto the legislation in its current form, citing limits on the president's authority in handling detainees at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and restrictions on cuts to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.
The Senate hopes to wrap up its version of the bill by week's end. It then would have to be reconciled with the legislation the House passed in May. The House bill calls for Obama to maintain a force of at least 68,000 troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2014.
Late Thursday, the Senate revived last year's debate over how to handle terror suspects and whether restrictions interfere with the president's powers as commander in chief.
Lawmakers approved an amendment that would prevent the transfer of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to prisons in the United States. The vote was 54-41, with several Democrats vulnerable in the 2014 elections voting with Republicans.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., argued that the 166 terror suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-styled mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, should remain at the U.S. naval facility and not be transferred to any facility on American soil.
Responding to Ayotte, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the United States not only can but has handled terrorist suspects, with 180 now languishing in super maximum prisons. Feinstein complained that the measure would erase the president's flexibility.
"I don't think the right thing to do is to tie anyone's hands," she said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., who had pushed for several of the provisions on terror suspects in last year's defense bill, said Ayotte's measure was "unwise in terms of our national security." He also warned that the provision was certain to draw a presidential veto.
In fact, the administration, in threatening to veto the bill, strongly objected to a provision restricting the president's authority to transfer terror suspects from Guantanamo to foreign countries. The provision is in current law.
The White House said the provisions were "misguided when they were enacted and should not be renewed."
Current law denies suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subjects them to the possibility they would be held indefinitely. It reaffirms the post-Sept. 11 authorization for the use of military force that allows indefinite detention of enemy combatants.
An unusual coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans backed an amendment by Feinstein that said the government may not detain a U.S. citizen or legal resident indefinitely without charge or trial even with the authorization to use military force or declaration of war.
Feinstein recalled the dark days of World War II when the United States forcibly removed thousands of Japanese-Americans and placed them in permanent internment camps amid unfounded fears that they were spies and a national security threat.
Civil rights groups said the measure did not go far enough, but it was approved on a 67-29 vote with the backing of conservative Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah.
The Senate eliminated one provision from the bill that had attracted White House objections. In a strong bipartisan vote Wednesday, senators voted to allow Pentagon investment in alternative fuels.
___
AP National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
Al Qaeda battle in Afghanistan to stretch for years: U.S.
By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda fighters are still trying to make inroads into Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, cautioning that battling the group would be a core U.S. mission there for years to come.
Panetta made the comments as the United States weighs how large a military force to keep in Afghanistan when the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, ending a war that, at that point, will have stretched for over 13 years.
There are approximately 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the residual force may number less than 10,000. President Barack Obama could decide in the coming weeks, although no deadline has been set.
Commenting on the scope of a post-2014 counter-terrorism mission, Panetta did not mention al Qaeda allies or Taliban militants battling U.S. forces. He said fighting the core al Qaeda group to prevent it from re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan was "going to be the fundamental thrust of the (counter-terrorism) effort."
A narrow focus could help limit the size of the mission.
"Although we clearly have had an impact on (al Qaeda's) presence in Afghanistan, the fact is that they continue to show up," Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon.
"And intelligence continues to indicate that they are looking for some kind of capability to be able to go into Afghanistan as well."
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated there were still only about 100 al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.
But Jeffrey Dressler, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said looking only at al Qaeda fighters - as opposed to those who ally with them - carried enormous risks.
"I think the mistake that we've made all along is too narrowly defining the threat," Dressler said.
Beyond counter-terrorism, Panetta said the post-2014 U.S. presence in Afghanistan would also need to have a "train-and-assist mission" to further develop the Afghan Army.
He also said the United States would need to provide "enablers" - specialists who perform tasks such as destroying landmines or treating the injured - to support U.S. forces.
Panetta declined to offer any estimate for the size of the force, saying that is "exactly what's being discussed" now.
Afghan, ISAF forces detain Haqqani local leader
By ANI
Kabul, Nov. 30 (Xinhua-ANI): Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) arrested a local leader of the Haqqani network, the military wing of Taliban outift, in Logar province 60 km south of Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, the alliance said in a statement released here.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader in Logar province, today," the statement said, adding that the Haqqani leader acquired weapons for Haqqani fighters and directed attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout Muhammad Aghah district of the province.
The statement said that at the time of the arrest, the Haqqani leader was overseeing the movement of improvised explosive devices and Haqqani fighters in preparation for an attack, but it did not reveal his name.
The Haqqani network is mostly active in Kabul and eastern and southeastern provinces along the border with Pakistan's tribal areas.
Taliban militants are yet to make comment. (Xinhua-ANI)
Security forces arrest Afghan accused of funding the Taliban
Reuters By Matthew Green 29/11/2012
ISLAMABAD - Coalition and Afghan forces have arrested a currency dealer suspected of handling millions of dollars of Taliban cash as part of a widening campaign to block insurgent finances ahead of a security handover in 2014, officials said on Thursday.
The U.S. Treasury has accused Haji Mohammed Qasim of using his network of money transfer shops to help Taliban commanders send funds to fighters in southern Helmand Province, scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the 11-year war.
"I can confirm he was arrested during a joint operation conducted by Afghan and coalition troops," Captain Dan Einert, a spokesman for ISAF, the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, said in an email. ISAF gave no further details.
Dealers in the currency market in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar said Qasim had been arrested by U.S. troops, Afghan police and intelligence officers who raided the exchange in October.
"The Americans won't tell us where he is," said Haji Kandiagha, the president of the exchange. "Everyone is angry about this, they don't know what the Americans will do."
As the United States and its allies withdraw the vast majority of their combat troops, Western officials are hoping to weaken the still resilient insurgency by disrupting its funding channels before Afghan forces assume full responsibility for security.
The Treasury imposed sanctions on Qasim and his Rahat money transfer company last week, adding him to a growing list of individuals subjected to a U.S. asset freeze on suspicion of facilitating Taliban payments. He was also accused of smuggling weapons and ammunition on behalf of the insurgents.
The Treasury had no immediate comment on the arrest.
Treasury officials in Washington made no reference to Qasim's arrest in last week's statement announcing the sanctions, which was issued in Washington.
The discrepancy appeared to underline the complexity of U.S. attempts to counter insurgent finance, which often involve multiple organisations conducting covert work.
U.S. officials believe the Taliban relies on a trust-based payment system known as hawala which is prevalent in much of the Islamic world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The system allows customers to rapidly move large sums across borders outside the scrutiny of regulators.
Afghan hawala dealers say they are being unfairly targeted since they cannot be held responsible if Taliban sympathisers use their services without their knowledge. They also resent the fact that the Treasury does not publish the evidence it uses to justify imposing sanctions on individuals such as Qasim.
The Treasury says that as of early this year Qasim's hawala company had received $500,000 of Taliban cash through his branch in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta. The manager of the Quetta shop, Musa Kalim, was also sanctioned, but there was no indication he had been arrested by Pakistani authorities.
"As of late 2011, the bulk of Kalim's hawala business consisted of transferring Taliban and smugglers' funds," the Treasury said in a statement. "Kalim also managed the transfer of funds from donors in the Gulf to support Taliban fighters."
The Taliban leadership is believed to have adopted Quetta as a rear base after it was ousted by the U.S. military in 2001. Pakistan denies sheltering the Taliban.
The U.S. Treasury says Qasim served as a financial assistant to Mullah Naim Barich, the top Taliban commander in Helmand Province, the heartland of Afghanistan's heroin industry.
Washington designated Barich as a major suspected drug smuggler on November 15, marking the first time a Taliban commander had been added to what is known as the "Kingpin" list.
The Taliban dismissed the "Kingpin" designation and said nobody from the movement was involved in narcotics trafficking.
(Editing by Jon Hemming)
Chinese return to Afghan mine project - minister
Reuters By Michael Georgy Thu Nov 29, 2012
KABUL - Most of the roughly 170 Chinese workers who fled rocket attacks on the largest foreign investment project in Afghanistan have returned because of improved security, the Afghan mining minister said on Thursday.
Officials had been trying to convince Chinese workers to restart work at the Aynak copper deposit in Logar province, one of the most dangerous regions of the country.
Insurgents have been trying to wreck the flagship government mining project. But Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani said about 150 Chinese engineers, geologists and experts had returned because the Interior Ministry has given a special citizens' protection force better weapons and increased checkpoints on hilltops.
He said Afghanistan would welcome foreign investors in addition to the consortium running the Aynak copper deposit, China Metallurgical Group (MCC) CNMET.UL and Jiangxi Copper JXPROM.UL 600362.SS.
"The first policy priority is to get more investment regardless of where the investment will come," Shahrani told Reuters.
"I am very much in favour of bringing some degree of diversification in the investment."
The project has been under way since 2007, with licenses expected to be issued at the end of December and Chinese companies overseeing the project about to begin the final stage of construction, expected to take at least three years.
With commercial production expected to start at the end of 2014, according to the minister, the mine could generate annual income of close to half a billion dollars.
International aid for Afghanistan is already expected to fall short of the $6 billion a year required to promote economic growth, and a further $4.1 billion needed to pay the bill for the 350,000-strong security forces as NATO draws down.
HUGE POTENTIAL, MANY RISKS
Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, wants to tap into what Shahrani says is more than $1 trillion in mineral deposits.
In the 10 years following the 2014 pullout of most NATO combat troops, he hopes the government revenues from oil, natural gas iron, copper and other mining ventures will generate $4 billion in annual revenue for the government.
But Shahrani says that will only come under the right conditions: better security, government transparency, better terms for foreign investors and less corruption.
Major infrastructure work is also an issue. To move commodities, Afghanistan would have to build costly railroads through rough and mountainous terrain.
"We are not going to deny the difficulty with regard to the governance issues. At the same time, in the last two years a lot of reforms have been launched," he said.
"(At) Aynak, one of the mistakes we made was we did not have the monitoring mechanisms in place. No mining contract will be considered as a state secret or hidden document anymore."
Turning to the dominant issue of security, he said Afghan forces have come a long way, but at this stage would not be ready to protect Afghanistan's economic interests.
"If the (foreign) forces left tomorrow, for example, the negative impact would not be limited to mining," he said.
He said the government hoped to give the local community around mining projects jobs and a sense of ownership in ventures and access to basic services to stifle Taliban recruitment.
The Taliban have fired rockets at mining projects, planted improvised explosive devices along roads and arrived armed on motorcycles to threaten people.
"The Taliban are not strong enough to take control of a big mining area. But they will try to disturb the area. It has been happening for a while," said Shahrani.
Some companies see enough potential in Afghanistan's natural resources to commit to the country.
A consortium comprised of Turkish Petroleum Corporation, Kuwait Energy and Dubai-based Dragon Oil have been selected in the last two days to explore and produce two oil blocks in the Afghan Tajik basin, said Shahrani.
He expects production to start in four years.
A decision is also near in tenders for four major gold and copper deposits in different parts of the country, he said.
The country has no major mining projects in operation.
But Shahrani is encouraged by the few ventures in their early stages, like an 1.8 million tonne iron ore deposit that he said had attracted the attention of the Indian government and a private Canadian company.
Looking ahead, he believes China and India will be the biggest players in the nascent Afghan mining sector but he is hoping to lure other investors, predicting that one day international commodity trade houses will eye Afghanistan.
"Our expectation is that in the next ten years with all this development, Afghanistan will emerge as a major commodity-producing country in the region," he said. (Reporting by Michael Georgy; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Afghan-Born Designer Hopes Mine-Clearing Ball Makes Homeland Safer
By Omid Marzban and Ron Synovitz November 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Massoud Hassani was a young boy living on the northern edge of Kabul during the final days of Soviet occupation when he first built sphere-shaped toys from cheap materials.
As he and his brother watched the wind blow the puzzle-like constructions along the ground, the toys ultimately would be carried off into the desert near Kabul's main airport where the boys were not allowed to walk -- a restricted area littered with land mines and unexploded ordnance.
Wind Powered
Hassani and his family left Afghanistan in 1993 after his father was killed. But as a design-school student in Eindhoven, Netherlands years later, Hassani's childhood memories from Kabul became the inspiration for an invention he hopes will save lives back in Afghanistan. It is a wind-driven mine-clearing device that Hassani calls a "Mine Kafon."
"It actually began a very long time ago when I was a kid. We used to play with these kind of objects where there were a lot of land mines. We grew up in an area like that," Hassani says.
"Then when I was at [design school] and I tried to do a project for graduation, I was trying to think about the past and come up with new ideas. I put these two ideas together and Mine Kafon was born."
The Mine Kafon -- which in Dari means "Mine Exploder" -- is about the height of a man. It has only been built as a prototype so far. But Hassani and an explosive ordnance disposal team from the Dutch military have taken it to Morocco for desert testing. Hassani now is trying to attract funding to set up an organization that can deploy more test models in Africa and Afghanistan.
At less than $60, the Mine Kafon's price tag is a fraction of that of high-tech mine-clearing robots with sophisticated detection sensors.
The human-driven Aardvark mine-flailing vehicles used by NATO to clear Bagram Air Field's massive compound north of Kabul cost about $500,000 each.
With more than 10 million land mines still awaiting removal in Afghanistan, Hassani says his device can be useful for villagers who might otherwise have to wait decades for their farmland to be cleared.
"Mine Kafon is actually a wind-powered anti-land-mine ball. It has a core and a lot of bamboo poles integrated in it. Every bamboo pole ends with a disc. It looks like a dandelion seed," Hassani says.
"So it moves around in the desert and if it hits a land mine there will be an explosion because the Mine Kafon is as heavy as a person and it mimics the feet of a human being. In this case, it destroys itself in the place of a human."
Drawbacks
Hassani also attaches a GPS tracking device within the core of each Mine Kafon. That allows its location to be tracked and mapped in real time on the Internet. He says each device can detonate up to four land mines before it is destroyed.
Mine-clearance experts say there are some drawbacks to Hassani's invention. Since it is moved by the wind, a Mine Kafon creates random footpath-sized swathes through a field. It needs a push in a strong wind to move.
By comparison, a mine-flailing vehicle like the Aardvark is used to systematically clear an entire field by beating three-meter-wide strips of ground with chains that rotate 300 times each minute. Every piece of ground is struck at least twice, with the chains digging down 20 centimeters.
Even then, flail vehicles do not have the 100-percent efficiency needed to declare a field safe for farming. But they clear out vegetation, making it easier and faster for human teams to check an area manually.
Hassani admits there are limitations to his invention, but he sees his device as a way for local villagers to cheaply survey areas they know are dangerous.
"For the big [demining] companies, it would be totally a different way of clearing land mines because they are used to doing it the same way for 60 years now. For them, it will be a big challenge to accept this idea," Hassani said.
"But on the other hand, it is very cheap. It is very affordable. So that could be also a [benefit]. And it can even help villagers if they are provided with these bamboo poles and these puzzle pieces. Then they can construct them and put them in locations where it is dangerous."
After getting feedback about his prototype from experts, Hassani says he has begun designing a cylindrical Mine Kafon that could clear wider paths.
Conflict continues to displace Afghans, study finds
CNN By Masoud Popalzai November 30, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - The number of people forced to flee their homes in Afghanistan is increasing and the conditions for the displaced are falling well below international standards, a new study by the Norwegian Refugee Council found.
In 2012 alone, spreading conflict in Afghanistan has forced more than 166,000 Afghans to flee their homes, bringing the total number of people internally displaced by conflict to at least 460,000 since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, according to the council's report.
The numbers alone don't tell the full story, it says. Most of the internally displaced people "are living in appalling conditions and in situations of extreme poverty," Dan Tyler, protection and advocacy manager at NRC Afghanistan, told CNN.
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Lack of employment, insufficient food and water supplies, and poor quality housing or shelters -- typically tents or unsubstantial mud homes -- are among the problems internally displaced people are facing, especially during the winter, when their shelters can not offer enough protection against the cold, the report says.
Last winter brought Afghanistan's displacement crisis into sharp focus, and revealed the scale of suffering facing displaced people, with reports of "at least 100 confirmed deaths, mostly of children, who died from the cold or illness in Kabul alone," Tyler said.
One of the displaced people, Mohammad Ibrahim, 42, fled his home in Greshk district of southern Helmand province almost three years ago with his wife and five children. Now he lives under a mud hut in a makeshift camp in the eastern part of Kabul, the capital city.
"I am really worried about what will happen to our children this winter," Ibrahim told CNN. "Last winter more than 10 children died just in our makeshift camp due to cold, and I don't know how many more would die this winter, which has already started."
Ibrahim added that last year he thought that he would be in a better situation by this year's winter, "but I was wrong."
The study also says that displaced families report facing obstacles to find health services and to access education for their children, with over a third of the displaced children lacking access to schools.
According to Tyler, very few provinces are immune from either receiving or creating internally displace people, but the southern and southeastern regions are the main origination areas, and the majority of people go to big cities, especially Kabul, where security and livelihood opportunities, as well as access to services, is perceived to be greater.
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The report adds that more than half of the people surveyed identified the Taliban and other anti-government groups as the key causes of insecurity in their homes communities and the primary drivers of their displacement.
The Norwegian Refugee Council's study reveals worrying gaps in protection and assistance because of the challenges of collecting information and coordinating responses amid increasing insecurity. Many humanitarian actors tasked with collecting data on displacement have limited access to those most in need, it says.
The Afghan government's response to the displacement crisis has also been inadequate, the report says. Insufficient funding, capacity and lack of expertise on the part of central and local authorities means conditions for the displaced, both during the period of their displacement and during the course of their return have fallen well below international standards, according to the study.
"There is also concern that, as international troops withdraw from Afghanistan (by 2014), there will be less funding available to meet the humanitarian needs" of internally displaced people, Tyler said.
There is growing awareness that during and beyond the security transition, more would need to be done to profile the needs of displaced people. "But whether the humanitarian community will have time to prepare (for), or the funding to respond to a deepening displacement crisis is far from certain," he warned.
Officials Warn of Penalties for Brutality Against Women
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Thursday, 29 November 2012
Anyone found guilty of killing women and girls will be executed, the Attorney General's office warned after another girl was murdered this week apparently for refusing an offer of marriage.
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said that with reported cases of violence against women on the rise, the penalties brought against the perpetrators will be tough.
"In Kabul alone there are 1,320 cases of violence against women under investigation. Some of the cases have been sent to the High Court," Nazari said on Thursday.
"Beheading, murder are deliberate cases and according to the law their penalty is execution," he added.
President Hamid Karzai also addressed the topic in his bi-weekly national radio address on Thursday urging every member of society to see it as their duty to end the brutality.
"Both our religion and our culture give tremendous respect to women. Women are mothers and enjoy a valuable respect in Islam" he said.
He called on religious scholars and community leaders to preach it and on the media to broadcast programs that help communicate messages against any form of domestic violence.
Giseena, 14, had her throat slit on Tuesday in northern Kunduz province while she was out collecting water for her home.
Two men have been arrested for her murder, one of them her cousin who had asked to marry Giseena but was refused by her father.
"A girl, Giseena, was murdered in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz. The cause of the case is not completely clear but it is said that the man wanted to wed the girl but when he received a negative answer from the girl and her family, they killed her," head of Kunduz Women's Affairs department Nadera Giya said.
Kunduz police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini confirmed that at least one of the two men arrested was a relative.
"Two men were arrested – one is her cousin – and primary findings show that the man had wanted to marry her," Hussaini told TOLOnews.
Giseena is the eleventh female to be murdered in Kunduz province this Persian calendar year (since March 21).
Across Afghanistan, serious cases of violence and abuse have been resgistered by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reaching almost 4000 in the first eight months of the Persian year.
Karzai Posing Challenges to 2014 Election: Politicians
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Thursday, 29 November 2012
Political leaders who met with President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday to discuss the 2014 presidential election fear Karzai is using his power to challenge measures intended to combat fraud.
Although Karzai has made it clear he will not challenge the next election himself, some politicians are anxious that he will use his power to ensure his preferred successor is elected.
"Our understanding of the discussion was that President Karzai and his team will launch the elections but our concern is over transparency because he can support any candidate and can use government facilities," Rights and Justice Party Moeen Marastiyal told TOLOnews Thursday.
Karzai fanned these concerns by repeating his opposition to two foreigners on the seven-person board of the Election Complaints Commission, and saying at the meeting that the previous election cards should be valid for the 2014 election, despite pundits having said that that they are insufficient to combat voter fraud.
"The president said that the Election Complaints Commission field office should be governed under the local appeal courts. We oppose this because they will be government organs after that," National Coalition of Afghanistan spokesman Fazel Ahmad Sancharaki said.
The Wednesday meeting between Karzai and political leaders across the spectrum was described in a presidential statement as a consultation, but some politicians said the president's position was unmoved.
Baghlan Former Police Chiefs Will Be Captured: MOI
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 29 November 2012
The two former district police chiefs in northern Baghlan province who have defied the arrest warrant against them will be captured, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) has assured, after an attempt on Tuesday ended in bloodshed.
"No one can disobey the law. They will face a hard reaction from the police and will soon be arrested," MOI spokesperson Sediq Seddiqi said Thursday of the Baghlan-e Markazee district's former police leaders.
Former district chief of the Afghan National Police Mohammad Kamin and former district chief of the Afghan Civil Order Police Amir Gul are refusing to go quietly after they were dismissed and the order for their arrest was issued earlier this month.
A violent clash ensued on Tuesday when the pair fought back against the government forces sent to detain them with the support of illegally armed locals, understood to be men loyal to the former commanders.
At least four of the illegally armed men were killed and one police officer was wounded, the MOI said.
Kamin is accused of ordering his men to shoot at the three Afghan soldiers, killing them. Gul is accused of abusing his power and extortion.
Nangarhar Deputy District Governor Assassinated
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 29 November 2012
A deputy district governor in eastern Nangarhar province was assassinated in an attack on his home last night, local security officials said Thursday.
Ansarullah was killed at around midnight on Wednesday when unknown gunmen attacked his residential home in the Eidyakhil area of Nangarhar's Chaparhar district, according to the provincial police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incident but police are still investigating, he told TOLOnews.
No group including the Taliban has claimed the responsibility for the attack.
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