Tweet
fghanistan Welcomes Obama Plan for Drawdown
VOA News February 13, 2013
The Afghan government has welcomed President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States will withdraw 34,000 troops from Afghanistan over the next year.
Obama made the promise Tuesday in his annual State of the Union address. He said about half of the U.S. forces currently serving in Afghanistan - roughly 34,000 - will be home within a year.
The office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that Obama's announcement is "something Afghanistan has wanted for so long now."
It added that "the withdrawal in spring of foreign forces from Afghan villages will definitely help in ensuring peace and full security in Afghanistan."
Last month, Obama and Karzai agreed that security responsibilities will be transferred from the U.S.-led coalition to Afghan security forces this spring rather than in late summer, as originally planned.
Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters Wednesday that Afghanistan is ready to fill the vacuum left by U.S. troops and other NATO forces. A full transfer of security control from NATO to Afghan forces is scheduled for 2014.
But a spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the only acceptable path was for all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan immediately.
Critics of the drawdown have expressed fears that the departure of NATO troops will destabilize the country.
At its peak in the decade-long war, the United States had about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Afghans Accuse NATO Of Killing Children In Air Strike
February 13, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Local Afghan officials say a NATO air strike has killed 10 civilians, including five children, in eastern Afghanistan.
Kunar Province Governor Fazlullah Wahidi said NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) carried out the February 13 attack without informing local authorities.
He said at least four Taliban fighters were also killed in the strike, which occurred in the village of Chawgam.
ISAF spokesman Major Adam Wojack said he was aware of an incident that "matched" the report from Kunar but said he could not confirm the number of deaths or the civilian casualties.
"We take all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and we are currently assessing the incident," Wojack said.
Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces are a highly sensitive issue and are regularly condemned by President Hamid Karzai.
The Afghan government on February 13 welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States would withdraw more than half of its troops from Afghanistan over the next year in anticipation of the international coalition concluding its combat mission by the end of 2014.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Is the UK abandoning its Afghan interpreters?
BBC News 11/02/2013
The American who has just relinquished command of all Nato forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, says: "We have an obligation to look after them". But the Afghan interpreters who work for the British, often in battle and always in danger, feel they have been abandoned, reports BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale.
They interpreters are young men like Abdul, who is now in hiding. We arrange to meet him at an agreed location near Kabul.
As well as carrying his old Nato credentials he holds a folder with the death threats he says he has received. Fears for his own safety and that of his family have forced him to give up his job.
He shows the letters from the Taliban accusing him of spying and warning that he'll be punished. He says he received a similar telephone call the night before.
Abdul tells me that when the British leave he and the other interpreters who have worked for them will be the first targets. "They will chop our heads off," he says.
He has shown the same messages to the British authorities in Kabul, but so far he says his requests for asylum have been rejected. He asks: "What kind of proof do they need?" When he's dead, he says, it will be too late.
'They'll target me'
Abdul is not alone. On a recent trip to a large military base in Helmand, we were approached by a group of more than a dozen interpreters who work for the British, all now worried about what will happen when Nato leaves.
They wait until our media minders have gone before they talk. They are mostly men in their twenties and thirties, some dressed in their British military uniforms waiting to go out on patrol.
We are not allowed to show their faces, or use their real names - one indication of the real dangers they face.
Naz, who has been working for British troops for three years, tells me that when he goes on leave back home near Kabul, he goes "hidingly". He says he is scared that his neighbours and relatives might find out what he does.
Like Abdul, his biggest concern is what happens when the British leave. He has no doubt "they will target me to kill me". I ask who are "they"? The Taliban, he says.
Mohammed, who comes from Helmand, says: "The withdrawal of British forces will land me in deep trouble". Another, Zah, highlights the daily threats they face from locals: "They call us infidels - you work for the infidels so you are infidel!"
None of them believe that the Afghan police or army will be able to protect them, saying "they can't even protect themselves".
'No luck'
More than 600 interpreters work for the British military and Foreign Office. More than 20 have already been killed, with dozens more seriously injured. The interpreters tell me that another five have been killed while off duty, targeted by insurgents.
Their employers explain the dangers before they sign up to the job. They are paid more than $1,500 a month - a handsome wage in Afghanistan. But the departure of Nato forces is focusing minds on what happens next.
Most Nato countries have already set up special programmes to allow their interpreters to apply for asylum. But Britain has not.
In a statement the Ministry of Defence insisted it will not abandon its interpreters and that measures had been taken to reduce the risks they face. But the government says claims for asylum will be considered on merit on a case-by-case basis.
In answer to a recent parliamentary question the government stated: "We believe that a case-by-case assessment is a more reasonable and proportionate response than that adopted by the previous government's mass resettlement of over 900 locally employed staff in Iraq."
It said "that scheme was expensive, complex to administer and took little account of any individual need for protection".
Back in Helmand the interpreters want to know why they are not being offered the same help as those Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British. One says: "They should think about us." Another claims that all other Nato interpreters are being offered refuge, but they are not. "This is not fair!" he says.
Before he left Afghanistan as the overall commander of Nato forces, General John Allen says he shook the hands of 50 interpreters who worked for him. He says they are Afghan patriots.
"They've been wounded, they've died alongside us and they are tremendously dedicated to the cause. I think we have an obligation to look after them."
Gen Allen says each Nato country will have to decide how it deals with the issue, depending on its own immigration rules. But he points out that in other recent conflicts the nations involved have made special efforts to take account of their commitment.
Back near Kabul, Abdul is still hoping that he can change the British government's mind. He is one of a number of Afghans taking part in a legal challenge.
Lawyers Leigh Day and Co have written to the government asking for the scheme adopted in Iraq to be extended to Afghanistan.
Abdul says his situation is no different to that of the interpreters who worked in Iraq.
"They got the luck and we have not," he says.
Fears of the Future Haunt a Budding Generation of Afghan Strivers
New York Times By GRAHAM BOWLEY February 11, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The landmarks of this capital city’s new middle class light up a once-restrained night sky — vast and glittering wedding halls with aspirational names like “Kabul-Paris,” streetlamp networks, come-hither billboards for energy drinks.
After the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, thousands of Afghan families returned from abroad, or came in from the countryside, to construct urban and increasingly Westernized lives. They built homes and careers based on an influx of foreign money, expanded bureaucracies and new educational opportunities.
And they are the ones most haunted by the fear that it could all just be a bubble, doomed to pop once foreign money and Western militaries stop holding it up.
“We are enjoying life,” said Rasool Mohibzada, 31, a former taxi driver who sold chickpeas and balloons in Pakistan during the Taliban years, but after returning to Kabul won a job as an I.T. manager for the British Council, the cultural relations agency of the British government.
Sitting in the large house he built on a $95,000 plot of land in airy western Kabul and playing with his 5-year-old daughter, he is a member of a young Afghan generation whose eyes burn with modest aspiration for what would be by outside standards an ordinary life — access to electricity, schools for his son and daughter, rule of law, security.
“But I am quite afraid about the future at the moment,” he said. “If I got the chance, I would go now.”
Though all of Afghanistan’s major cities have grown and changed, the biggest differences, by far, can be seen in Kabul. Its population has exploded, now more than 5 million compared with 1.2 million in 2001, and its streets, planned for 30,000 cars, are clogged with 650,000, according to the mayor, Mohammad Yunus Nawandish. He is drawing up an expanded city plan that can accommodate up to 8 million residents.
The new urban elite makes up only a tiny slice of Afghan life — most of the newcomers to Kabul are impoverished migrants who now occupy terraces of rough mud houses that have splashed up onto the rocky hillsides surrounding the city.
And the norm is still grinding poverty for about 70 percent of Afghans, who live in the countryside, or about 25 million people by some estimates. Taken as a whole, life expectancy for Afghans is still just 48 years, and the average annual national income per capita is about $410. That makes the contrast with the markers of the middle class all the more striking: in Kabul, there are beauty parlors, a bowling alley, new television stations, access to health care (although Afghans must travel abroad for serious treatment), restaurants like Afghan Fried Chicken and children’s birthday parties hosted at nice hotels.
At the private American University of Afghanistan, privileged young adults — some of them the offspring of top officials and businessmen who have minted fortunes in the war economy — stride the five-acre Kabul campus, paying up to $6,000 a year for degrees in law and other subjects.
Some in the new generation have succeeded in the private sector, like Haji Safiullah, 42, a serious, thin-faced man, who owns three pharmacies and is branching out into construction, building apartment blocks in Kabul, Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif.
“I am one of the people who have invested more than $1 million in different businesses,” Mr. Safiullah said.
Even as the United States is deliberating how large a force, if any, will stay in Afghanistan past the 2014 end of the international combat mission, Mr. Safiullah holds to the belief that the Americans will not leave Afghanistan altogether for many years. All the same, he is clear about the shape that catastrophe will take if the world averts its gaze: a deterioration of security and an economic collapse.
“To tell you the truth, I am not that worried about the future, because the international community has invested a lot in Afghanistan,” he said. “They will not let this investment fail.”
However, he keeps a Kalashnikov rifle beneath his counter just in case.
Others are mindful of how much could be lost if Taliban values are allowed to dominate Kabul again, particularly women like Malalai Ishaqzai, 47. She was part of a first wave of women to join Parliament, serving from 2005 to 2010, and started a business selling bottled fruit juices.
She lives in an enclave of Kabul apartment blocks called the Mikrorayon, where billboards hawking energy drinks, cellphones, bodybuilding gyms, private schools and airline flights illustrate the perks of new urbanites.
Ms. Ishaqzai, too, refuses to believe that the United States will abandon the Afghan Army to defend the country alone. “If the Americans leave, 100 percent I can’t live here as an ex-M.P., as a politician,” she said.
Many members of this new generation that came of age in the past decade now work in government ministries or for programs run by development organizations like the World Bank, where they can earn monthly salaries as high as $5,000.
But their programs, paid for by organizations like the Department of Agriculture, are gradually winding down or shifting to the Afghan government’s budget, and civil servants’ pay is being cut. The World Bank estimates that there are 5,000 staff members in the main ministries whose salaries are paid by foreign money.
Some Western officials here expect some share of those people who returned from abroad in the past 10 years, from Europe, for example, or the United States, to leave once ministry salaries are reduced and when the economy inevitably slows.
The richest Afghans already have second homes abroad and can leave if security worsens. But others in the middle class and below lack that option. Many families tell stories of a brother or son who has gone to India to find an illicit path abroad or who is trying another escape plan.
Asylum applications by Afghans to 44 leading industrialized nations last year reached 31,780 by November, according to provisional estimates by the United Nations, only slightly below the rate of applications in 2011, when 36,247 Afghans sought asylum abroad, the highest number since 2001.
Many seek to enter Europe: Afghanistan was the top country of origin for asylum seekers in the European Union in 2011, according to the European Asylum Support Office, and that trend continued last year.
The American Embassy in Kabul says it has not seen an increase in nonimmigrant visa applications. But last year, the United States suspended an educational exchange program taking hundreds of Afghan high school students to America because many were failing to return to Afghanistan.
Many, however, are determined to stay, and have visions of driving more change on their own terms.
More than 80 prominent young Afghans recently caused waves when they announced a new independent political movement crossing ethnic lines. They are optimistic about Afghanistan’s prospects, even as they acknowledge the difficulties.
“In these 10 years, the country has changed, and it can work,” said Haseeb Humayoon, who runs a business consultancy and is a founding member of the movement, called Afghanistan 1400, referring to the year 2020-21, or 1400 in the Afghan calendar.
“If we want it to develop as a country, then we have to start for ourselves,” said Najlla Habibyar, the chief executive of the Export Promotion Agency and another founding member.
It is at wedding celebrations, so central to Afghan culture and society, that hope is easiest, and the fears are most remote. There is comfort in some measure of freedom, and in some of the finer things, for now at the very least.
At a party recently for Sami Yadgari, about 1,000 raucous male guests packed one hall of Uranus Palace, one of Kabul’s huge and dazzling wedding complexes. Mr. Yadgari’s new wife and the female guests celebrated in a separate hall.
For about $12,000 for a night’s revelry, the dinner tables were lavishly supplied, the space was elegantly decked with ornate chandeliers, and armed security guards kept watch. Mr. Yadgari, who works for the Ministry of Finance, thrashed the air jubilantly in a ring of male dancers as a wedding singer blasted out a ballad hailing Afghan pride and perseverance.
“This is the land of freedom,” he sang. “This is the land of high mountains. This is the land of heroes. Each stone of this country is a ruby.”
Entrepreneurial Afghan Women Changing Perceptions
Matthew Hilburn VOA News February 12, 2013
When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Zainularab Miri was a teacher in Kabul. The Taliban shut down schools for girls, and Miri fled to her home province of Ghazni where the Taliban had less influence.
There, she continued to teach secretly and opened a small, clandestine beekeeping and honey-making business, all the while fearing that if the Taliban found out about either, it could cost her life. She called the Taliban era “a black period for Afghan women.”
When the Taliban were overthrown, Miri was able to take her business out of hiding, but she really didn’t know how to run it, much less expand it.
In 2006, she was selected to take part in Project Artemis, hosted by the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona. The program aims to bring Afghan women entrepreneurs to the U.S. for an intensive, two-week business skills course.
“I was running my business, but I didn’t know how to operate it well or track my accounts,” Miri said in a video about the program. “My ability as a businesswoman grew from Earth to sky. What I learned about management, marketing and leadership had a profound impact on my business.”
Now, she has hundreds of bee hives and has taught other women the business.
From black to gold
Miri’s experience under the Taliban was not uncommon, and many women had it worse. Some were publicly flogged; their movement was severely curtailed; access to health care was made difficult, and many faced forced marriages while still minors. Those were just a few of the burdens faced by women under the Taliban. Once the Taliban were forced from power, women still faced a host of new challenges.
While Afghan businesswomen still have many hurdles to overcome - they still may need to rely on men for many external dealings such as negotiations and making deliveries - Artemis is making progress toward changing how women are viewed by society at large.
This year’s class of 11 was the fifth class to participate. They were selected from over 250 applicants.They range in age from 22 to 39 and are involved in a wide variety of businesses, including dairy production, hand-carved wood products, media production and website design.
Funding for the program has come from both the private and public sectors, including the U.S. Department of State, Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft. But according to Ambassador Barbara Barrett, the founder of the program, the most important source of funding has been private individuals.
According to Thunderbird, 74 Afghan women have graduated from the program and their businesses employ over 2,000 women and men.
Just the beginning
The learning doesn’t stop after the two-week program.
Each Afghan woman is paired with a mentor who remains in contact with their mentee for at least two years.
One of this year’s mentors is Dr. Charlotte Cole, senior vice president of global education for Sesame Workshop. The Workshop produces local Sesame Street programs, seen in over 140 countries, including Afghanistan.
“I have traveled to Afghanistan and have been very touched by the extraordinary people I have met there. Despite the challenges confronting them, there is a sense of optimism and hope that is inspiring and motivating,” said Cole. “If there is something I can do to help - even in a small way - it would be an honor and a privilege to support an Afghan woman.”
According to Barrett, the business expertise of the Afghan woman entering the program has skyrocketed over the years, largely because of the networks early graduates established to pass on what they learned.
“One thing the original class committed to was to mentor at least 20 women back in their home communities,” she said.
Barrett said the women of the first class went way further and mentored more than 20.
“The first class was comprised of a lot of women who had only a very basic education or engagement in business,” she added. “Now we get the cream of the crop.”
“We were all blown away by this class of women,” said Amy Scerra, Project Artemis program manager with Thunderbird for Good. “They are resilient, they know what they want, and they speak up for what they want and what they want to do.”
It’s not only the women who directly participate in the Artemis Project who benefit. One of the most important aspects is networking and passing along skills to other women.
Asila, a graduate of this year’s program who runs a saffron business in Herat province, said that while she has big dreams to export the pricey spice overseas, she also plans to share what she’s learned with other women in her province, giving them the opportunity to become entrepreneurs as well.
Cultural shift
Perhaps even more important than what is learned in the classroom and from mentors is the psychological impact the program seems to have on the women.
“The other part of it is the empowerment,” said Scerra. “For the first time, many of them are feeling like they’re supported and people are believing in them. The concept of supporting other women and networking was foreign. We emphasize team building and trust.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Asila, who said that in Afghanistan, when women say they want to do something like start a business, “most people don’t believe they can do it.”
As the women’s influence grows, the hope is there can be some fundamental change in how women are viewed.
Rangina Hamidi, a 2005 graduate of the program who runs an embroidering business, says when a woman earns money, it gives her power and prevents her from being seen as a liability to a family.
“Food, clothing, health, every aspect of [a woman’s] life has to be taken care of by a male figure of the household,” she said in a video about the program. “Now with an ability to earn money at home, they have an ability to be an asset to the family. Indirectly we’re also changing the social dynamics of the society, and that is an important step to changing women’s rights and women’s social reality. By the mere fact that they have money in their hands, they’re making decisions.”
But it’s not only women who are benefitting, said Barrett. During a trip to Afghanistan, she visited the Afghan Women Business Federation, which was primarily established by Artemis graduates. While there, she said she saw men learning computer and business marketing skills from women.
“Men were counting on women and learning from women in a big cultural shift,” she said.
Still, Barrett is realistic about how far Afghan women still have to go.
“We will be thrilled when we don’t have to give the women of Afghanistan a boost,” she said. “We have no perceptions that we’re close to a lack of need. There remains a great deal of need and while there is a need we will continue the program.”
Karen Brown, who teaches operations management and project leadership at Thunderbird, said it’s important to remember that these women all have to control their business and their personal lives.
“None of them have a house husband who says ‘Honey, I’ll do the chores’,” she said “These are courageous energetic women who are doing something that has not been historically common for women and they are to be greatly admired.”
Panjwai residents uprise against Taliban in Kandahar
Khaama Press By Meena Haseeb 12 Feb 2013
Local residents in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan started fighting the Taliban militants in the latest wave of public uprising in this province.
The public uprising was started by residents fo Panjwai district.
According to the local residents they have killed at least three Taliban militants in this district so far.
One of the organizer of public uprising Abdul Wadood said local residents of Panjwai district started fight against the Taliban militants after residents of Chahar Qaria area were mistreated and tortured.
Panjwai district chief Fazal Mohammad Ishaq said he supports the local residents to fight the Taliban militants and the local government is prepared to assist the local fighters.
Taliban militants group yet to comment regarding the report.
Public uprising against the Taliban militants started from Andar district of eastern Ghazni province and later expanded to the southern regions of the country.
According to reports wounded Afghan spy chief Asadullah Khalid has been active and supportive in backing anti-Taliban uprisings in insurgent-held areas of eastern Afghanistan.
Public uprising in various provinces of Afghanistan created concerns among the Afghan parliament members and other officials who are believing that arbitrary uprising will lead to serious security challenges in the future for the Afghan government.
Despite sanctions, U.S. aid to Afghanistan might also be helping Iran
McClatchy Newspapers By Matthew Schofield 11/02/2013
WASHINGTON - The Afghan National Army may have broken the U.S.-led economic embargo against Iran by using American aid to buy Iranian fuel for its military vehicles, generators and cooking processes, according to a military audit and experts on the region.
Recent safeguards installed to stop the possibility of the practice might not be enough, according to the audit, which came out in January.
While there is no direct evidence that the Afghan army actually purchased Iranian oil with American tax dollars, the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction describes the possibility as a cause for concern.
Between a third and half of all fuel bought by Afghanistan comes from Iran, the audit stated, citing figures compiled by the Department of State. Another quarter of its supply comes from Turkmenistan, and is commonly mixed with Iranian fuel.
The report notes that the U.S.-funded fuel purchasing program between 2007 and 2012 provided at least $1.1 billion to the Afghan army. But the money has been so poorly tracked, the audit notes, that it is impossible to determine the origin of the fuel.
“The fact that the United States paid for the acquisition and delivery of imported fuel for the Afghan National Security Forces raises concerns that U.S. funds could have been used to pay for imports of fuel potentially in violation of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran,” the audit stated.
In a related development, the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Monday issued a wide-ranging report on Afghanistan funding that noted, "Persistent corruption in Afghanistan undermines security and the people’s belief in the government, as well as effective accountability of U.S. funds provided directly to the Afghan government."
Afghanistan gets around international sanction requirements on Iranian goods for reasons of economic necessity, and – on a more practical level – because the countries share a long border, and goods into Afghanistan increasingly pass through Iranian ports.
Jamie Graybeal, deputy public affairs officer for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the Combined Security Transition Command responsible for overseeing the fuel program “recognizes and appreciates” the concerns of the report.
“Despite actions taken by the Department of Defense to prevent the purchase of Iranian fuel with U.S. funds, risk remains for the potential violation of U.S. economic sanctions,” he said by email.
He added that the command has conducted a review, but found no support for allegations that “DOD funds were used to support the Iranian petroleum industry, but we will continue to work closely with (the special inspector general) on this and other issues.”
The report, however, raises questions about whether the primary means to address this concern – a requirement that all Afghan companies selling fuel to the Afghan National Security Forces certify that their fuel does not come from Iran – lacks the investigative teeth to ensure that it occurs.
Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who leads the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, said by email that the senator was “concerned by the lack of oversight and accountability detailed in the report and will be reviewing it with her policy staff in the coming days.”
A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on concerns with the fuel program, including the failure to be able to account for $475 million in 2012.
The audit also questioned whether the fuel program was excessive. It also said that Iranian fuel is less refined than fuel from other sources, and if used to power machines and vehicles provided by the United States and the international community, could lead to premature deterioration of the equipment.
Another major concern was that as the mission in Afghanistan begins to shrink, cash for the fuel program is supposed to expand to an estimated $2.8 billion between now and 2018. The report reflects a fear that without a reliable system in place by the end of 2014 to track the money, it’s unlikely after that point that Afghan government officials will heed American concerns.
A recent United Nations report on corruption in Afghanistan, notes: “While corruption is seen by Afghans as one of the most urgent challenges facing their country, it seems to be increasingly embedded in social practices, with patronage and bribery being an acceptable part of day to day life.”
Ahmad Majidyar, an expert on Iran and Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, said that it was difficult to imagine what it would take to stop Afghan officials from buying Iranian fuel, regardless of certification requirements.
He noted that as global sanctions against Iranian oil have intensified, the rogue nation has focused intensely on trade with neighbors, and trade with Afghanistan has increased from $800 million in 2008 to $2.5 billion last year, heading toward an expected $6 billion in the near future. Iranian oil, he said, would have to be a large part of that.
“Iran can’t compensate for their losses in oil sales to China and India with sales to Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is the only alternative they’ve got,” Majidyar said.
Pakistan's Rehman Meeting With Taliban Confirmed
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Monday, 11 February 2013
A Pakistan political leader has met with the Afghan Taliban in Qatar in an unexpected move that the Pakistani government has distanced itself from and some Afghan analysts say will not bring any positive results.
Head of the Islamic conservative party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Maulana Fazlur Rehman met with the Taliban representatives in Doha on Sunday.
It is understood that he met a group headed by Tayyab Agha, a close aide to Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
A former Taliban member believes that Rehman's efforts will be futile in assisting the peace process which hinges more on the major parties.
"Pakistan should show a positive view [towards negotiations] and those Afghan Taliban who are located in Pakistan should also show eagerness and the Afghan government should also give a positive answer. Then I think these problems will be solved. Otherwise if there is negative outlook like there is now, I don't think there will be any good results," Sayed Akbar Agha, former head of Taliban affiliated Jaysh al-Muslimin group, told TOLOnews.
Political analyst Jawid Kohestani said that are some concerns that Rehman is working for Pakistan's benefits rather than Afghanistan's.
"Fazlur Rehman's efforts to improve relations between the Taliban are not to create better relations with the Afghanistan government," he told TOLOnews.
However, the Pakistan government Sunday distanced itself from the meeting with Interior Minister Rehman Malik saying the JUI-F chief was no longer an ally of the Pakistan Peoples Party government and was acting "in his personal capacity".
"Fazlur Rehman is the head of an independent party... the government does not have any business in his negotiations with the [Afghan] Taliban or any other stakeholder," Malik was quoted by the Express Tribune as telling reporters.
There are understood to be around a dozen Taliban representatives in Doha setting up an office with the support of the Afghan government.
Reports of the Rehman meeting were earlier dismissed by the Afghan foreign ministry as not important, despite the Afghan government's repeated demand to all interested parties including Pakistan that it leads any Taliban negotiations.
"It is not important which Maulana has travelled to Qatar," Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told TOLOnews on Sunday.
Afghanistan's High Peace Council member reiterated this Monday, saying that any negotiations must include Afghans.
"The efforts should be according to Afghan policy otherwise it will not be acceptable for us," Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar said.
WFP Turns to Local Factories for Produce
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Monday, 11 February 2013
The World Food Program (WFP) will purchase more Afghan biscuits for its food programmes instead of importing them from abroad -- a huge boost to the local industry, Afghan officials said Monday.
The WFP office in Afghanistan said that previously biscuits were imported from countries such as India and Malaysia, but now the Afghan factories are capable of supplying the organisation's demands.
"The decision will improve the country's economic and local factories. The organisation [sourced] from several countries and after some observation we contracted with local factories," WFP spokesman in Kabul Assadullah Azhari said Monday.
"The biscuits will be distributed to students in various provinces," he added.
The WFP has around 1.8 million Afghan students under a food programme which includes lessons on food. An additional 670,000 students will join the programme this year, officials said.
An Afghan biscuit factory, which supplies to the WFP, said the organisation's demands have noticeably grown.
"Last year, the [WFP] office constructed us to supply 50 tonnes of biscuits... This year they requested 142 tonnes which we have already prepared, and now they have requested 150 more from us," factory owner Abdul Raziq Nasiri told TOLOnews.
Nasiri said the factory can produce about six tonnes of biscuits in a day.
Kabul Urged To Protect Sexually Abused Children
RFE/RL February 11, 2013
A 13-year-old boy has been jailed for having sex in a park with two adult men, the latest case of a victim of a sexual crime being punished in Afghanistan.
In October 2012, the boy was convicted of having sex with the men in a park in the western province of Herat and sentenced to a year in juvenile detention.
As Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports, Afghan law prohibits "pederasty," commonly understood to mean sex between a man and a boy, and makes it a crime punishable by five to 15 years in prison. "Moral crimes" include not only pederasty but any sexual relations between people who are not married to each other, and have been used to punish the victim of a crime.
"When a man has sex with a 13-year-old child, the child is a victim of rape, not a criminal offender," says Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director. "The Afghan government should never have victimized this boy a second time, but instead should have released him immediately with urgent protection and assistance."
HRW quoted a prosecutor involved in the case as saying that the boy was prosecuted because he said he had consented to sex with several men. The men were also arrested and charged with moral crimes, but the outcome of their cases are not known.
As the number of street children in Afghanistan has grown, more and more children are exposed to the risk of sexual abuse. HRW has urged the Afghan government to raise the legal age of consent to protect children, and to expand the law passed in 2009 on violence against women -- which defined rape as a crime for the first time -- to include men and boys.
"Afghan lawmakers should move forward promptly in revising the penal code to provide better protection for both victims and criminal suspects," Adams says. "The revision should ensure that rape is seen as a serious crime, whether committed against men and boys or women and girls, and that victims are not treated as criminals."
HRW also called attention to the practice of "bacha bazi," where young boys work as dancers to entertain groups of men. As women and girls are not permitted to entertain men, the boys are often dressed in women's clothing and subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation.
"The Afghan government needs to take urgent steps to protect children from sexual assault, including boys who are abused through the practice of bacha bazi," Adams says. "Treating boys who have been raped as criminals undermines all government efforts to protect children from abuse."
The previously taboo subject of rape and sexual abuse has slowly emerged as a topic of public debate in the deeply conservative country. Media coverage of two rape cases in the northern Takhar and Sari Pol provinces in 2010, where girls as young as 11 were gang raped, prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to meet with the victims and their families. He promised to crack down on rape and bring the attackers to justice.
-- Dan Wisniewski
MPs Condemn Govt Pressure on Election Commission
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Monday, 11 February 2013
Members of a parliamentary group Monday spoke out against the Afghan government's push to use old registration cards in the upcoming presidential election, citing greater risk of fraud.
The Resalat Parliamentary Group released a statement warning the executive arm of the government that if the 2014 election collapses with fraud, it will mean a failure of democracy and Afghanistan will enter a huge crisis.
"In order to have a transparent election, we should have the exact statistics of the population which the government has delayed to undertake. The government decision to use the old [voting] cards is paving the way for fraud in the election," Resalat member Zahir Saadat said in the statement.
The group asked the government to respect the autonomy of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) which had initially recommended a new registration and electronic voting cards country-wide.
It also called on both the Parliament and Senate to pressure the government to approve such decisions soon, and it called on the international community not to support an undemocratic process.
"The international community should know that the Afghan government is following a policy that is weakening the electoral system," Zahir added.
But the IEC responded Monday saying that it is making its own decisions without pressure from the government.
"Several parties and organisations including the government are trying to interfere and change the outcomes for themselves, but the election commission is not allowing anyone to illegally interfere and reach their aims," spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told TOLOnews.
The presidential and provincial council elections will be held April 5 2014.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News February 13, 2013
The Afghan government has welcomed President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States will withdraw 34,000 troops from Afghanistan over the next year.
Obama made the promise Tuesday in his annual State of the Union address. He said about half of the U.S. forces currently serving in Afghanistan - roughly 34,000 - will be home within a year.
The office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that Obama's announcement is "something Afghanistan has wanted for so long now."
It added that "the withdrawal in spring of foreign forces from Afghan villages will definitely help in ensuring peace and full security in Afghanistan."
Last month, Obama and Karzai agreed that security responsibilities will be transferred from the U.S.-led coalition to Afghan security forces this spring rather than in late summer, as originally planned.
Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters Wednesday that Afghanistan is ready to fill the vacuum left by U.S. troops and other NATO forces. A full transfer of security control from NATO to Afghan forces is scheduled for 2014.
But a spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the only acceptable path was for all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan immediately.
Critics of the drawdown have expressed fears that the departure of NATO troops will destabilize the country.
At its peak in the decade-long war, the United States had about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Afghans Accuse NATO Of Killing Children In Air Strike
February 13, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Local Afghan officials say a NATO air strike has killed 10 civilians, including five children, in eastern Afghanistan.
Kunar Province Governor Fazlullah Wahidi said NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) carried out the February 13 attack without informing local authorities.
He said at least four Taliban fighters were also killed in the strike, which occurred in the village of Chawgam.
ISAF spokesman Major Adam Wojack said he was aware of an incident that "matched" the report from Kunar but said he could not confirm the number of deaths or the civilian casualties.
"We take all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and we are currently assessing the incident," Wojack said.
Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces are a highly sensitive issue and are regularly condemned by President Hamid Karzai.
The Afghan government on February 13 welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States would withdraw more than half of its troops from Afghanistan over the next year in anticipation of the international coalition concluding its combat mission by the end of 2014.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Is the UK abandoning its Afghan interpreters?
BBC News 11/02/2013
The American who has just relinquished command of all Nato forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, says: "We have an obligation to look after them". But the Afghan interpreters who work for the British, often in battle and always in danger, feel they have been abandoned, reports BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale.
They interpreters are young men like Abdul, who is now in hiding. We arrange to meet him at an agreed location near Kabul.
As well as carrying his old Nato credentials he holds a folder with the death threats he says he has received. Fears for his own safety and that of his family have forced him to give up his job.
He shows the letters from the Taliban accusing him of spying and warning that he'll be punished. He says he received a similar telephone call the night before.
Abdul tells me that when the British leave he and the other interpreters who have worked for them will be the first targets. "They will chop our heads off," he says.
He has shown the same messages to the British authorities in Kabul, but so far he says his requests for asylum have been rejected. He asks: "What kind of proof do they need?" When he's dead, he says, it will be too late.
'They'll target me'
Abdul is not alone. On a recent trip to a large military base in Helmand, we were approached by a group of more than a dozen interpreters who work for the British, all now worried about what will happen when Nato leaves.
They wait until our media minders have gone before they talk. They are mostly men in their twenties and thirties, some dressed in their British military uniforms waiting to go out on patrol.
We are not allowed to show their faces, or use their real names - one indication of the real dangers they face.
Naz, who has been working for British troops for three years, tells me that when he goes on leave back home near Kabul, he goes "hidingly". He says he is scared that his neighbours and relatives might find out what he does.
Like Abdul, his biggest concern is what happens when the British leave. He has no doubt "they will target me to kill me". I ask who are "they"? The Taliban, he says.
Mohammed, who comes from Helmand, says: "The withdrawal of British forces will land me in deep trouble". Another, Zah, highlights the daily threats they face from locals: "They call us infidels - you work for the infidels so you are infidel!"
None of them believe that the Afghan police or army will be able to protect them, saying "they can't even protect themselves".
'No luck'
More than 600 interpreters work for the British military and Foreign Office. More than 20 have already been killed, with dozens more seriously injured. The interpreters tell me that another five have been killed while off duty, targeted by insurgents.
Their employers explain the dangers before they sign up to the job. They are paid more than $1,500 a month - a handsome wage in Afghanistan. But the departure of Nato forces is focusing minds on what happens next.
Most Nato countries have already set up special programmes to allow their interpreters to apply for asylum. But Britain has not.
In a statement the Ministry of Defence insisted it will not abandon its interpreters and that measures had been taken to reduce the risks they face. But the government says claims for asylum will be considered on merit on a case-by-case basis.
In answer to a recent parliamentary question the government stated: "We believe that a case-by-case assessment is a more reasonable and proportionate response than that adopted by the previous government's mass resettlement of over 900 locally employed staff in Iraq."
It said "that scheme was expensive, complex to administer and took little account of any individual need for protection".
Back in Helmand the interpreters want to know why they are not being offered the same help as those Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British. One says: "They should think about us." Another claims that all other Nato interpreters are being offered refuge, but they are not. "This is not fair!" he says.
Before he left Afghanistan as the overall commander of Nato forces, General John Allen says he shook the hands of 50 interpreters who worked for him. He says they are Afghan patriots.
"They've been wounded, they've died alongside us and they are tremendously dedicated to the cause. I think we have an obligation to look after them."
Gen Allen says each Nato country will have to decide how it deals with the issue, depending on its own immigration rules. But he points out that in other recent conflicts the nations involved have made special efforts to take account of their commitment.
Back near Kabul, Abdul is still hoping that he can change the British government's mind. He is one of a number of Afghans taking part in a legal challenge.
Lawyers Leigh Day and Co have written to the government asking for the scheme adopted in Iraq to be extended to Afghanistan.
Abdul says his situation is no different to that of the interpreters who worked in Iraq.
"They got the luck and we have not," he says.
Fears of the Future Haunt a Budding Generation of Afghan Strivers
New York Times By GRAHAM BOWLEY February 11, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The landmarks of this capital city’s new middle class light up a once-restrained night sky — vast and glittering wedding halls with aspirational names like “Kabul-Paris,” streetlamp networks, come-hither billboards for energy drinks.
After the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, thousands of Afghan families returned from abroad, or came in from the countryside, to construct urban and increasingly Westernized lives. They built homes and careers based on an influx of foreign money, expanded bureaucracies and new educational opportunities.
And they are the ones most haunted by the fear that it could all just be a bubble, doomed to pop once foreign money and Western militaries stop holding it up.
“We are enjoying life,” said Rasool Mohibzada, 31, a former taxi driver who sold chickpeas and balloons in Pakistan during the Taliban years, but after returning to Kabul won a job as an I.T. manager for the British Council, the cultural relations agency of the British government.
Sitting in the large house he built on a $95,000 plot of land in airy western Kabul and playing with his 5-year-old daughter, he is a member of a young Afghan generation whose eyes burn with modest aspiration for what would be by outside standards an ordinary life — access to electricity, schools for his son and daughter, rule of law, security.
“But I am quite afraid about the future at the moment,” he said. “If I got the chance, I would go now.”
Though all of Afghanistan’s major cities have grown and changed, the biggest differences, by far, can be seen in Kabul. Its population has exploded, now more than 5 million compared with 1.2 million in 2001, and its streets, planned for 30,000 cars, are clogged with 650,000, according to the mayor, Mohammad Yunus Nawandish. He is drawing up an expanded city plan that can accommodate up to 8 million residents.
The new urban elite makes up only a tiny slice of Afghan life — most of the newcomers to Kabul are impoverished migrants who now occupy terraces of rough mud houses that have splashed up onto the rocky hillsides surrounding the city.
And the norm is still grinding poverty for about 70 percent of Afghans, who live in the countryside, or about 25 million people by some estimates. Taken as a whole, life expectancy for Afghans is still just 48 years, and the average annual national income per capita is about $410. That makes the contrast with the markers of the middle class all the more striking: in Kabul, there are beauty parlors, a bowling alley, new television stations, access to health care (although Afghans must travel abroad for serious treatment), restaurants like Afghan Fried Chicken and children’s birthday parties hosted at nice hotels.
At the private American University of Afghanistan, privileged young adults — some of them the offspring of top officials and businessmen who have minted fortunes in the war economy — stride the five-acre Kabul campus, paying up to $6,000 a year for degrees in law and other subjects.
Some in the new generation have succeeded in the private sector, like Haji Safiullah, 42, a serious, thin-faced man, who owns three pharmacies and is branching out into construction, building apartment blocks in Kabul, Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif.
“I am one of the people who have invested more than $1 million in different businesses,” Mr. Safiullah said.
Even as the United States is deliberating how large a force, if any, will stay in Afghanistan past the 2014 end of the international combat mission, Mr. Safiullah holds to the belief that the Americans will not leave Afghanistan altogether for many years. All the same, he is clear about the shape that catastrophe will take if the world averts its gaze: a deterioration of security and an economic collapse.
“To tell you the truth, I am not that worried about the future, because the international community has invested a lot in Afghanistan,” he said. “They will not let this investment fail.”
However, he keeps a Kalashnikov rifle beneath his counter just in case.
Others are mindful of how much could be lost if Taliban values are allowed to dominate Kabul again, particularly women like Malalai Ishaqzai, 47. She was part of a first wave of women to join Parliament, serving from 2005 to 2010, and started a business selling bottled fruit juices.
She lives in an enclave of Kabul apartment blocks called the Mikrorayon, where billboards hawking energy drinks, cellphones, bodybuilding gyms, private schools and airline flights illustrate the perks of new urbanites.
Ms. Ishaqzai, too, refuses to believe that the United States will abandon the Afghan Army to defend the country alone. “If the Americans leave, 100 percent I can’t live here as an ex-M.P., as a politician,” she said.
Many members of this new generation that came of age in the past decade now work in government ministries or for programs run by development organizations like the World Bank, where they can earn monthly salaries as high as $5,000.
But their programs, paid for by organizations like the Department of Agriculture, are gradually winding down or shifting to the Afghan government’s budget, and civil servants’ pay is being cut. The World Bank estimates that there are 5,000 staff members in the main ministries whose salaries are paid by foreign money.
Some Western officials here expect some share of those people who returned from abroad in the past 10 years, from Europe, for example, or the United States, to leave once ministry salaries are reduced and when the economy inevitably slows.
The richest Afghans already have second homes abroad and can leave if security worsens. But others in the middle class and below lack that option. Many families tell stories of a brother or son who has gone to India to find an illicit path abroad or who is trying another escape plan.
Asylum applications by Afghans to 44 leading industrialized nations last year reached 31,780 by November, according to provisional estimates by the United Nations, only slightly below the rate of applications in 2011, when 36,247 Afghans sought asylum abroad, the highest number since 2001.
Many seek to enter Europe: Afghanistan was the top country of origin for asylum seekers in the European Union in 2011, according to the European Asylum Support Office, and that trend continued last year.
The American Embassy in Kabul says it has not seen an increase in nonimmigrant visa applications. But last year, the United States suspended an educational exchange program taking hundreds of Afghan high school students to America because many were failing to return to Afghanistan.
Many, however, are determined to stay, and have visions of driving more change on their own terms.
More than 80 prominent young Afghans recently caused waves when they announced a new independent political movement crossing ethnic lines. They are optimistic about Afghanistan’s prospects, even as they acknowledge the difficulties.
“In these 10 years, the country has changed, and it can work,” said Haseeb Humayoon, who runs a business consultancy and is a founding member of the movement, called Afghanistan 1400, referring to the year 2020-21, or 1400 in the Afghan calendar.
“If we want it to develop as a country, then we have to start for ourselves,” said Najlla Habibyar, the chief executive of the Export Promotion Agency and another founding member.
It is at wedding celebrations, so central to Afghan culture and society, that hope is easiest, and the fears are most remote. There is comfort in some measure of freedom, and in some of the finer things, for now at the very least.
At a party recently for Sami Yadgari, about 1,000 raucous male guests packed one hall of Uranus Palace, one of Kabul’s huge and dazzling wedding complexes. Mr. Yadgari’s new wife and the female guests celebrated in a separate hall.
For about $12,000 for a night’s revelry, the dinner tables were lavishly supplied, the space was elegantly decked with ornate chandeliers, and armed security guards kept watch. Mr. Yadgari, who works for the Ministry of Finance, thrashed the air jubilantly in a ring of male dancers as a wedding singer blasted out a ballad hailing Afghan pride and perseverance.
“This is the land of freedom,” he sang. “This is the land of high mountains. This is the land of heroes. Each stone of this country is a ruby.”
Entrepreneurial Afghan Women Changing Perceptions
Matthew Hilburn VOA News February 12, 2013
When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Zainularab Miri was a teacher in Kabul. The Taliban shut down schools for girls, and Miri fled to her home province of Ghazni where the Taliban had less influence.
There, she continued to teach secretly and opened a small, clandestine beekeeping and honey-making business, all the while fearing that if the Taliban found out about either, it could cost her life. She called the Taliban era “a black period for Afghan women.”
When the Taliban were overthrown, Miri was able to take her business out of hiding, but she really didn’t know how to run it, much less expand it.
In 2006, she was selected to take part in Project Artemis, hosted by the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona. The program aims to bring Afghan women entrepreneurs to the U.S. for an intensive, two-week business skills course.
“I was running my business, but I didn’t know how to operate it well or track my accounts,” Miri said in a video about the program. “My ability as a businesswoman grew from Earth to sky. What I learned about management, marketing and leadership had a profound impact on my business.”
Now, she has hundreds of bee hives and has taught other women the business.
From black to gold
Miri’s experience under the Taliban was not uncommon, and many women had it worse. Some were publicly flogged; their movement was severely curtailed; access to health care was made difficult, and many faced forced marriages while still minors. Those were just a few of the burdens faced by women under the Taliban. Once the Taliban were forced from power, women still faced a host of new challenges.
While Afghan businesswomen still have many hurdles to overcome - they still may need to rely on men for many external dealings such as negotiations and making deliveries - Artemis is making progress toward changing how women are viewed by society at large.
This year’s class of 11 was the fifth class to participate. They were selected from over 250 applicants.They range in age from 22 to 39 and are involved in a wide variety of businesses, including dairy production, hand-carved wood products, media production and website design.
Funding for the program has come from both the private and public sectors, including the U.S. Department of State, Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft. But according to Ambassador Barbara Barrett, the founder of the program, the most important source of funding has been private individuals.
According to Thunderbird, 74 Afghan women have graduated from the program and their businesses employ over 2,000 women and men.
Just the beginning
The learning doesn’t stop after the two-week program.
Each Afghan woman is paired with a mentor who remains in contact with their mentee for at least two years.
One of this year’s mentors is Dr. Charlotte Cole, senior vice president of global education for Sesame Workshop. The Workshop produces local Sesame Street programs, seen in over 140 countries, including Afghanistan.
“I have traveled to Afghanistan and have been very touched by the extraordinary people I have met there. Despite the challenges confronting them, there is a sense of optimism and hope that is inspiring and motivating,” said Cole. “If there is something I can do to help - even in a small way - it would be an honor and a privilege to support an Afghan woman.”
According to Barrett, the business expertise of the Afghan woman entering the program has skyrocketed over the years, largely because of the networks early graduates established to pass on what they learned.
“One thing the original class committed to was to mentor at least 20 women back in their home communities,” she said.
Barrett said the women of the first class went way further and mentored more than 20.
“The first class was comprised of a lot of women who had only a very basic education or engagement in business,” she added. “Now we get the cream of the crop.”
“We were all blown away by this class of women,” said Amy Scerra, Project Artemis program manager with Thunderbird for Good. “They are resilient, they know what they want, and they speak up for what they want and what they want to do.”
It’s not only the women who directly participate in the Artemis Project who benefit. One of the most important aspects is networking and passing along skills to other women.
Asila, a graduate of this year’s program who runs a saffron business in Herat province, said that while she has big dreams to export the pricey spice overseas, she also plans to share what she’s learned with other women in her province, giving them the opportunity to become entrepreneurs as well.
Cultural shift
Perhaps even more important than what is learned in the classroom and from mentors is the psychological impact the program seems to have on the women.
“The other part of it is the empowerment,” said Scerra. “For the first time, many of them are feeling like they’re supported and people are believing in them. The concept of supporting other women and networking was foreign. We emphasize team building and trust.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Asila, who said that in Afghanistan, when women say they want to do something like start a business, “most people don’t believe they can do it.”
As the women’s influence grows, the hope is there can be some fundamental change in how women are viewed.
Rangina Hamidi, a 2005 graduate of the program who runs an embroidering business, says when a woman earns money, it gives her power and prevents her from being seen as a liability to a family.
“Food, clothing, health, every aspect of [a woman’s] life has to be taken care of by a male figure of the household,” she said in a video about the program. “Now with an ability to earn money at home, they have an ability to be an asset to the family. Indirectly we’re also changing the social dynamics of the society, and that is an important step to changing women’s rights and women’s social reality. By the mere fact that they have money in their hands, they’re making decisions.”
But it’s not only women who are benefitting, said Barrett. During a trip to Afghanistan, she visited the Afghan Women Business Federation, which was primarily established by Artemis graduates. While there, she said she saw men learning computer and business marketing skills from women.
“Men were counting on women and learning from women in a big cultural shift,” she said.
Still, Barrett is realistic about how far Afghan women still have to go.
“We will be thrilled when we don’t have to give the women of Afghanistan a boost,” she said. “We have no perceptions that we’re close to a lack of need. There remains a great deal of need and while there is a need we will continue the program.”
Karen Brown, who teaches operations management and project leadership at Thunderbird, said it’s important to remember that these women all have to control their business and their personal lives.
“None of them have a house husband who says ‘Honey, I’ll do the chores’,” she said “These are courageous energetic women who are doing something that has not been historically common for women and they are to be greatly admired.”
Panjwai residents uprise against Taliban in Kandahar
Khaama Press By Meena Haseeb 12 Feb 2013
Local residents in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan started fighting the Taliban militants in the latest wave of public uprising in this province.
The public uprising was started by residents fo Panjwai district.
According to the local residents they have killed at least three Taliban militants in this district so far.
One of the organizer of public uprising Abdul Wadood said local residents of Panjwai district started fight against the Taliban militants after residents of Chahar Qaria area were mistreated and tortured.
Panjwai district chief Fazal Mohammad Ishaq said he supports the local residents to fight the Taliban militants and the local government is prepared to assist the local fighters.
Taliban militants group yet to comment regarding the report.
Public uprising against the Taliban militants started from Andar district of eastern Ghazni province and later expanded to the southern regions of the country.
According to reports wounded Afghan spy chief Asadullah Khalid has been active and supportive in backing anti-Taliban uprisings in insurgent-held areas of eastern Afghanistan.
Public uprising in various provinces of Afghanistan created concerns among the Afghan parliament members and other officials who are believing that arbitrary uprising will lead to serious security challenges in the future for the Afghan government.
Despite sanctions, U.S. aid to Afghanistan might also be helping Iran
McClatchy Newspapers By Matthew Schofield 11/02/2013
WASHINGTON - The Afghan National Army may have broken the U.S.-led economic embargo against Iran by using American aid to buy Iranian fuel for its military vehicles, generators and cooking processes, according to a military audit and experts on the region.
Recent safeguards installed to stop the possibility of the practice might not be enough, according to the audit, which came out in January.
While there is no direct evidence that the Afghan army actually purchased Iranian oil with American tax dollars, the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction describes the possibility as a cause for concern.
Between a third and half of all fuel bought by Afghanistan comes from Iran, the audit stated, citing figures compiled by the Department of State. Another quarter of its supply comes from Turkmenistan, and is commonly mixed with Iranian fuel.
The report notes that the U.S.-funded fuel purchasing program between 2007 and 2012 provided at least $1.1 billion to the Afghan army. But the money has been so poorly tracked, the audit notes, that it is impossible to determine the origin of the fuel.
“The fact that the United States paid for the acquisition and delivery of imported fuel for the Afghan National Security Forces raises concerns that U.S. funds could have been used to pay for imports of fuel potentially in violation of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran,” the audit stated.
In a related development, the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Monday issued a wide-ranging report on Afghanistan funding that noted, "Persistent corruption in Afghanistan undermines security and the people’s belief in the government, as well as effective accountability of U.S. funds provided directly to the Afghan government."
Afghanistan gets around international sanction requirements on Iranian goods for reasons of economic necessity, and – on a more practical level – because the countries share a long border, and goods into Afghanistan increasingly pass through Iranian ports.
Jamie Graybeal, deputy public affairs officer for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the Combined Security Transition Command responsible for overseeing the fuel program “recognizes and appreciates” the concerns of the report.
“Despite actions taken by the Department of Defense to prevent the purchase of Iranian fuel with U.S. funds, risk remains for the potential violation of U.S. economic sanctions,” he said by email.
He added that the command has conducted a review, but found no support for allegations that “DOD funds were used to support the Iranian petroleum industry, but we will continue to work closely with (the special inspector general) on this and other issues.”
The report, however, raises questions about whether the primary means to address this concern – a requirement that all Afghan companies selling fuel to the Afghan National Security Forces certify that their fuel does not come from Iran – lacks the investigative teeth to ensure that it occurs.
Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who leads the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, said by email that the senator was “concerned by the lack of oversight and accountability detailed in the report and will be reviewing it with her policy staff in the coming days.”
A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on concerns with the fuel program, including the failure to be able to account for $475 million in 2012.
The audit also questioned whether the fuel program was excessive. It also said that Iranian fuel is less refined than fuel from other sources, and if used to power machines and vehicles provided by the United States and the international community, could lead to premature deterioration of the equipment.
Another major concern was that as the mission in Afghanistan begins to shrink, cash for the fuel program is supposed to expand to an estimated $2.8 billion between now and 2018. The report reflects a fear that without a reliable system in place by the end of 2014 to track the money, it’s unlikely after that point that Afghan government officials will heed American concerns.
A recent United Nations report on corruption in Afghanistan, notes: “While corruption is seen by Afghans as one of the most urgent challenges facing their country, it seems to be increasingly embedded in social practices, with patronage and bribery being an acceptable part of day to day life.”
Ahmad Majidyar, an expert on Iran and Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, said that it was difficult to imagine what it would take to stop Afghan officials from buying Iranian fuel, regardless of certification requirements.
He noted that as global sanctions against Iranian oil have intensified, the rogue nation has focused intensely on trade with neighbors, and trade with Afghanistan has increased from $800 million in 2008 to $2.5 billion last year, heading toward an expected $6 billion in the near future. Iranian oil, he said, would have to be a large part of that.
“Iran can’t compensate for their losses in oil sales to China and India with sales to Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is the only alternative they’ve got,” Majidyar said.
Pakistan's Rehman Meeting With Taliban Confirmed
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Monday, 11 February 2013
A Pakistan political leader has met with the Afghan Taliban in Qatar in an unexpected move that the Pakistani government has distanced itself from and some Afghan analysts say will not bring any positive results.
Head of the Islamic conservative party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Maulana Fazlur Rehman met with the Taliban representatives in Doha on Sunday.
It is understood that he met a group headed by Tayyab Agha, a close aide to Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
A former Taliban member believes that Rehman's efforts will be futile in assisting the peace process which hinges more on the major parties.
"Pakistan should show a positive view [towards negotiations] and those Afghan Taliban who are located in Pakistan should also show eagerness and the Afghan government should also give a positive answer. Then I think these problems will be solved. Otherwise if there is negative outlook like there is now, I don't think there will be any good results," Sayed Akbar Agha, former head of Taliban affiliated Jaysh al-Muslimin group, told TOLOnews.
Political analyst Jawid Kohestani said that are some concerns that Rehman is working for Pakistan's benefits rather than Afghanistan's.
"Fazlur Rehman's efforts to improve relations between the Taliban are not to create better relations with the Afghanistan government," he told TOLOnews.
However, the Pakistan government Sunday distanced itself from the meeting with Interior Minister Rehman Malik saying the JUI-F chief was no longer an ally of the Pakistan Peoples Party government and was acting "in his personal capacity".
"Fazlur Rehman is the head of an independent party... the government does not have any business in his negotiations with the [Afghan] Taliban or any other stakeholder," Malik was quoted by the Express Tribune as telling reporters.
There are understood to be around a dozen Taliban representatives in Doha setting up an office with the support of the Afghan government.
Reports of the Rehman meeting were earlier dismissed by the Afghan foreign ministry as not important, despite the Afghan government's repeated demand to all interested parties including Pakistan that it leads any Taliban negotiations.
"It is not important which Maulana has travelled to Qatar," Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told TOLOnews on Sunday.
Afghanistan's High Peace Council member reiterated this Monday, saying that any negotiations must include Afghans.
"The efforts should be according to Afghan policy otherwise it will not be acceptable for us," Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar said.
WFP Turns to Local Factories for Produce
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Monday, 11 February 2013
The World Food Program (WFP) will purchase more Afghan biscuits for its food programmes instead of importing them from abroad -- a huge boost to the local industry, Afghan officials said Monday.
The WFP office in Afghanistan said that previously biscuits were imported from countries such as India and Malaysia, but now the Afghan factories are capable of supplying the organisation's demands.
"The decision will improve the country's economic and local factories. The organisation [sourced] from several countries and after some observation we contracted with local factories," WFP spokesman in Kabul Assadullah Azhari said Monday.
"The biscuits will be distributed to students in various provinces," he added.
The WFP has around 1.8 million Afghan students under a food programme which includes lessons on food. An additional 670,000 students will join the programme this year, officials said.
An Afghan biscuit factory, which supplies to the WFP, said the organisation's demands have noticeably grown.
"Last year, the [WFP] office constructed us to supply 50 tonnes of biscuits... This year they requested 142 tonnes which we have already prepared, and now they have requested 150 more from us," factory owner Abdul Raziq Nasiri told TOLOnews.
Nasiri said the factory can produce about six tonnes of biscuits in a day.
Kabul Urged To Protect Sexually Abused Children
RFE/RL February 11, 2013
A 13-year-old boy has been jailed for having sex in a park with two adult men, the latest case of a victim of a sexual crime being punished in Afghanistan.
In October 2012, the boy was convicted of having sex with the men in a park in the western province of Herat and sentenced to a year in juvenile detention.
As Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports, Afghan law prohibits "pederasty," commonly understood to mean sex between a man and a boy, and makes it a crime punishable by five to 15 years in prison. "Moral crimes" include not only pederasty but any sexual relations between people who are not married to each other, and have been used to punish the victim of a crime.
"When a man has sex with a 13-year-old child, the child is a victim of rape, not a criminal offender," says Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director. "The Afghan government should never have victimized this boy a second time, but instead should have released him immediately with urgent protection and assistance."
HRW quoted a prosecutor involved in the case as saying that the boy was prosecuted because he said he had consented to sex with several men. The men were also arrested and charged with moral crimes, but the outcome of their cases are not known.
As the number of street children in Afghanistan has grown, more and more children are exposed to the risk of sexual abuse. HRW has urged the Afghan government to raise the legal age of consent to protect children, and to expand the law passed in 2009 on violence against women -- which defined rape as a crime for the first time -- to include men and boys.
"Afghan lawmakers should move forward promptly in revising the penal code to provide better protection for both victims and criminal suspects," Adams says. "The revision should ensure that rape is seen as a serious crime, whether committed against men and boys or women and girls, and that victims are not treated as criminals."
HRW also called attention to the practice of "bacha bazi," where young boys work as dancers to entertain groups of men. As women and girls are not permitted to entertain men, the boys are often dressed in women's clothing and subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation.
"The Afghan government needs to take urgent steps to protect children from sexual assault, including boys who are abused through the practice of bacha bazi," Adams says. "Treating boys who have been raped as criminals undermines all government efforts to protect children from abuse."
The previously taboo subject of rape and sexual abuse has slowly emerged as a topic of public debate in the deeply conservative country. Media coverage of two rape cases in the northern Takhar and Sari Pol provinces in 2010, where girls as young as 11 were gang raped, prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to meet with the victims and their families. He promised to crack down on rape and bring the attackers to justice.
-- Dan Wisniewski
MPs Condemn Govt Pressure on Election Commission
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Monday, 11 February 2013
Members of a parliamentary group Monday spoke out against the Afghan government's push to use old registration cards in the upcoming presidential election, citing greater risk of fraud.
The Resalat Parliamentary Group released a statement warning the executive arm of the government that if the 2014 election collapses with fraud, it will mean a failure of democracy and Afghanistan will enter a huge crisis.
"In order to have a transparent election, we should have the exact statistics of the population which the government has delayed to undertake. The government decision to use the old [voting] cards is paving the way for fraud in the election," Resalat member Zahir Saadat said in the statement.
The group asked the government to respect the autonomy of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) which had initially recommended a new registration and electronic voting cards country-wide.
It also called on both the Parliament and Senate to pressure the government to approve such decisions soon, and it called on the international community not to support an undemocratic process.
"The international community should know that the Afghan government is following a policy that is weakening the electoral system," Zahir added.
But the IEC responded Monday saying that it is making its own decisions without pressure from the government.
"Several parties and organisations including the government are trying to interfere and change the outcomes for themselves, but the election commission is not allowing anyone to illegally interfere and reach their aims," spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told TOLOnews.
The presidential and provincial council elections will be held April 5 2014.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com