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Dozens Of Afghan Militants Reported Killed, Injured
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan March 27, 2013
LOGAR, Afghanistan -- Afghan officials say 23 Taliban militants have been killed and another 26 wounded during a two-day military operation that ended late on March 26 in the eastern province of Logar.
Provincial deputy police chief Khan Abdul Rahimzai told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that the operation in the village of Sajwan was conducted by Afghan and NATO-led international forces.
Rahimzai said more than 40 militants were captured during the operation in Logar, a volatile province where the Taliban has a relatively strong presence.
Other local officials said five civilians, including a woman and four children, were also killed during the operation.
In an e-mail to the media, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the deaths of only 12 Taliban fighters and put the number of civilian casualties at 28.
ISAF soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, March 27 (Xinhua) -- A soldier with the NATO-led coalition force was killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
"An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service member died following an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan today," ISAF said in a statement.
However, it did not identify the nationality of the victim and the exact place of the incident, saying it is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.
Troops mostly from the U.S. have been stationed in the eastern part of the war-torn country.
So far this year 24 ISAF soldiers with majority of them Americans have lost their lives in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan.
From Kabul love affair to Afghanistan's first centre for study of its history
Louis and Nancy Hatch Dupree's extramarital romance scandalised the city, but their collection of documents now forms the heart of the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University
The Guardian By Emma Graham-Harrison Tuesday 26 March 2013
Kabul - Nancy Hatch Dupree arrived in Kabul in 1962 as a diplomat's wife, blithely unaware that the great love of her life was waiting in a country that would become their shared passion and her home through decades of war and political turmoil.
Half a century later she is opening Afghanistan's first centre dedicated to the study of its own history and society, picked over for decades by foreign academics but often hard for Afghan scholars to explore in their country.
The Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University is inspired by the work and vision of Louis Dupree, the ethnographer and archaeologist, for whom Nancy left her husband, freeing her from endless embassy coffee mornings, and binding her forever to her adopted home.
"He always felt the people of Afghanistan were being short-changed, and all these people who were ruling from the centre looked upon the rural areas, the rural people, as being superstitious, unteachable, they couldn't learn anything," Dupree said. "Louis felt that was the wrong thing."
Their great romance nearly didn't happen. Nancy met Louis after she dropped off her draft manuscript for the first guidebook to Afghanistan, asking for his help filling two gaps. When she went to pick it up from him, there was a terse note saying "adequate but nothing original".
"I spun on my heel and started to leave, when I heard this voice saying 'come back here', so I went back and never left," she admitted with a grin at her spartan office just a few kilometres from the site of that meeting. "I was a scandal in Kabul, the two of us were." Their former spouses fuelled even more expat gossip in the then-sleepy capital when they went on to remarry each other.
The couple stayed in the Afghan capital for over a decade, Nancy writing guidebooks while Louis uncovered evidence of prehistoric settlements with stone tools so sophisticated other scholars dubbed their makers the "Michelangelos of the paleolithic era".
In the late 1970s they were pushed out by the Soviet-backed government, which also briefly imprisoned Louis and grilled him about the couple's famous afternoon cocktail parties, the "five o'clock follies".
They were not the only ones forced to flee a brutal regime and soon began working with Afghan refugees who gathered in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Along with the humanitarian work, they also started building up the collection now at the heart of the new centre, storing documents that most people saw as rubbish or fire-starters rather than historical records.
The only surviving copies of surveys and reports by aid groups, the newspapers of warring mujahideen factions and the Taliban government, and other records of Afghanistan's decades of chaos and muddled western efforts to help are now safely stored in underground stacks, along with similar records from the last decade of US and Nato intervention.
Louis died in 1989, but Nancy continued to add to their cache of information in Peshawar for years, only deeming it safe to return to Afghanistan in 2005 and even then made painstaking plans to bring back the documents safely. "I was very vulnerable, everything I had was paper, there were no backups," she said.
Nearly 300 plastic sacks, originally used for wheat or fertiliser, were filled with paper and then virtually smuggled back to Kabul, nestled among commercial shipments. Not a single sheet was lost or damaged, she says proudly.
But the successful return raised a whole new challenge for Dupree, who was already in her late 70s at the time – where to store them. She set her sights on a new intellectual centre, built for Afghan students rather than as an empty showpiece.
"There were a lot of people who were building clinics and schools, but there was no sense of ownership built in and nobody was using them very well," Dupree said to explain why she sought the help of a government known for corruption and actively avoided by most foreigners.
She got the finance ministry to provide funds and the university to provide land. Testament to her charm and prodigious work ethic are other contributions, including a top-end IT network provided at the personal order of the Estonian president.
"I feel really guilty just sitting around," she says, but is quick to credit others for the centre's success. "It's not the result of one individual's effort. It was a total manifestation of those buzzwords the United Nations uses, so dear to their reports and rhetoric, co-operation and co-ordination."
Dupree, who is now in her ninth decade but coy about her exact age, misses the peaceful city she knew as a younger woman. "Kabul is grim now. All of these concrete walls and these barriers and the razor wire. It is not my Kabul." Even so, she has no plans to leave. "I'm trying to finish what Louis was trying to do, and his shoes are too big." Housing history
The new Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU) is a traditionally inspired building that reflects Nancy Hatch Dupree's love of Afghan heritage and her enthusiasm about the advantages of technology.
"I wanted the building to be modern, to show that Afghanistan can do modern things, but I also wanted it to be recognisably traditional," Dupree said. "It has stout outside walls. Qalas [forts] in the countryside are built like that, and it is inward looking on to a courtyard."
The cedar beams came from Kunar, an insurgent stronghold in the east, after Dupree secured a presidential decree from old friend President Hamid Karzai allowing her to buy wood from stocks frozen after a logging moratorium (she is keen to emphasise no trees were cut for the centre).
The stone cladding for the outside walls, and the white marble inside come from the south and west of the capital, an area more usually mentioned as a Taliban transit route than source of beautiful building materials.
Its mission however is revolutionary, promoting serious research into Afghan history and society in a country where these can be such charged topics that the education minister last year decided to issue history textbooks that end in the 1970s.
"One of our focus is to promote the whole concept and methodology of doing decent research," Dupree said, laying out plans for exhibitions, seminars, lectures and other events in a university which is short on visiting scholars or opportunities for students to travel.
"The majority of students here think doing research is Googling, cutting and pasting. The whole concept that you can get great insights by doing research is not here, so we want to develop that, it's a sideline of sharing information."
The centre also runs mobile libraries to reach out to rural populations Louis Dupree felt were neglected by the central government; villages still struggle with access to education.
Afghan women tell Kerry of security fear
Washington Post By Anne Gearan March 26 , 2013
KABUL - Accepting a challenge from the captain of the Afghan women’s soccer team, Secretary of State John F. Kerry playfully hit a header Tuesday while hearing the success stories of a handful of female Afghan entrepreneurs.
“Hey!” Kerry called when he hit his shot and directed the ball to Zahra Mahmoodi, a founding member of the women’s team. She told him that girls were not allowed to play soccer during the rule of the Taliban, the radical Islamist movement that held power in Kabul from 1996 to 2001. Now they play regular matches, but only before select crowds — mostly made up of family members, because women playing sports outdoors is still taboo in much of the country.
Kerry bought a soccer ball hand-stitched by Afghan women and praised the group of businesswomen for their courage and drive. The event was part of Kerry’s first trip to Afghanistan as secretary of state and a reminder of the fragile advances made by women after nearly 12 years of U.S.-sponsored government here.
The Obama administration has set a hard deadline for the withdrawal of combat forces next year, but Kerry repeatedly pledged continuing U.S. support for Afghanistan’s economic and political stability, and for women.
Hassina Syed, founder of a trucking and catering conglomerate, told Kerry that there are opportunities for women but that she worries about security and the future.
“It’s a little bit insecurity,” she said in English. “I’m being polite to say a little bit.”
A resurgent Taliban has burned girls’ schools and threatened women in several areas of this deeply conservative country, despite the swift embrace of women’s education and the government’s oft-stated commitment to improving health care and opportunities for women.
The Taliban might regain some effective political control after U.S. forces leave or might strike a deal with the Kabul government. The Obama administration has said those are matters for Afghanistan to decide, but the kind of large-scale foreign help that Afghanistan will need is likely to be partly contingent on safeguarding gains for women.
In two days of talks, Kerry urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to help ensure a fair election for his replacement next year, something Karzai said is essential to Afghanistan’s future. Kerry met Tuesday with Afghan lawmakers, rights activists and the country’s chief elections officer. The United States is pushing Karzai’s loyalists and opponents to avoid a repeat of badly flawed and corrupt voting in 2009.
“You are engaged in a remarkable effort, and the whole world is watching,” Kerry told the lawmakers and others in brief remarks before reporters were sent out of the room.
Many of the businesswomen Kerry met earlier had specific requests: better access to credit, government contracting set-asides for women-owned businesses and, from Mahmoodi, more soccer pitches for women. At least one they formerly used has been appropriated as a helicopter landing zone, she said.
Mahmoodi told Kerry she hopes to take her team to the Olympics.
“The males don’t want the females to go outside, but we can’t just do that,” she said, rejecting with a smile the traditional notion that women’s place is indoors.
Afghan army officers Pakistan visit cancelled over shelling issues
By GHANIZADA - 27 Mar 2013, 2:59 pm Khaama Press
Afghan foreign ministry following a statement on Wednesday announced Afghanistan has cancelled a trip of the Afghan national army officers to Pakistan following recent cross-border incursion by Pakistan.
The statement further added, “An 11-member team of Afghan National Army officers were scheduled to travel to Quetta at the invitation of the Pakistan Army to take part in a simulation military exercise and headquarters drills at the Quetta Staff College.”
The source further added, “This visit will no longer take place due to the resumption of unacceptable Pakistani artillery shelling against different parts of Kunar province from across the Durand Line on Monday and Tuesday (March 25 and 26).”
Local authorities in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan on Tuesday said Pakistani military fired around 30 missiles in Dangam district on Monday.
Provincial governor Fazlullah Wahidi said Pakistani artillery shelling into Kunar province resumed on Monday afternoon.
He said no casualties were reported following the shelling.
Afghanistan Says Pakistan Ties Are Fraying
Optimism Over Peace Pledge Fades as Afghans Accuse Islamabad of Continuing to Press for Cross-Border Influence
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and NATHAN HODGE March 26, 2013
KABUL - Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan are growing increasingly strained, Afghan officials say, even as President Hamid Karzai has patched up, for now, his fraying ties with the U.S.
At the core of the disagreement is what role Pakistan, Afghanistan's larger neighbor and a traditional supporter of the Taliban, will play in the region's post-American order once most U.S.-led coalition forces withdraw next year.
A trilateral summit of Pakistani, Afghan and British leaders, held in England last month to discuss regional cooperation, was billed as a success after it ended with an optimistic pledge to seek a peace settlement with the Taliban within six months.
In reality, senior Afghan officials now say, Pakistani preconditions made at the summit—and rejected as unacceptable by Kabul—have set off a new crisis between the two neighbors. "What we ask from Pakistan is to prove that that country wants peace and stability in Afghanistan," Mr. Karzai's chief of staff, Abdel Karim Khurram, said in an interview.
Pakistani officials said they set no preconditions and that their government supports a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.
Pakistan was the Taliban's crucial supporter during the 1990s civil war, and U.S. and Afghan officials say the insurgency's leadership is still operating from Pakistani shelters. Afghanistan has long had a complicated relationship with its southern neighbor and has never recognized the validity of the British-drawn border between the two, the so-called Durand Line that cuts through the ethnic Pashtun heartland.
The U.K. summit "demonstrated the interfering but delusional tendency of some in Pakistan who choose to ignore Afghanistan's sovereigntyand continue to want tore-exert control in Afghanistan through armed proxies," the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement Monday. "Afghanistan's overtures for greater confidence, trust and cooperation have been routinely ignored."
In recent months, Mr. Karzai has repeatedly argued that the U.S.-led coalition is waging war in the wrong country, and that it should concentrate instead on terrorism's roots within Pakistan.
Mr. Karzai's demands that the U.S. withdraw special-operations forces from the province of Wardak near Kabul and transfer all Afghan detainees to Afghan custody prompted tensions with Washington this month—a spat that appeared to end as the U.S. moved to satisfy Afghan demands ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Kabul this week.
At the U.K. summit—held at Chequers, the British prime minister's country residence—Pakistani representatives demanded that Kabul dramatically curtail relations with India, send Afghan officers to train in Pakistani military academies and, most importantly, sign a strategic partnership agreement with Pakistan, according to Afghan officials. Mr. Karzai sealed a similar agreement with India in 2011.
With Pakistan, however, such an agreement could come only as a result of a successful peace process, and not as a precondition, Afghan officials say.
"For us, it is important that, before this accord is signed, there is peace," Mr. Khurram said. "The shelter of the groups that come and commit terror acts here is in Pakistan. How can we sign a strategic agreement of friendship with Pakistan when every day we see explosions and suicide bombings—and their roots lead to the other side of the Durand Line?"
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan's foreign ministry, challenged the Afghan account, saying that Islamabad didn't issue any demands at the Chequers talks. The strategic partnership, he said, was a proposal that came from the Afghans and "not a precondition." As for training Afghan officers, he said, it was just "a goodwill offer."
Afghan territory, he added, "should not be used by India—or by any other country—against Pakistan."
Pakistani officials in the past accused Indian agents in Afghanistan of fostering the separatist rebellion in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, an allegation denied in Kabul and New Delhi. Mr. Khurram, the Karzai spokesman, said Kabul has the right to build good relations with both India and Pakistan, just as it maintains friendly ties with Iran despite being a strategic ally of Iran's archenemy, the U.S.
Afghan officials say they are particularly suspicious Pakistani offers to train Afghan security forces, fearing that Islamabad could use the program to infiltrate Kabul's defense establishment. Several Afghan officers have refused offers of training in Pakistan because they were afraid of being branded as Pakistani spies on their return, an Afghan official said.
The one confidence-building measure agreed to at Chequers was a planned conference of Pakistani and Afghan Islamic scholars in Kabul that was supposed to condemn suicide bombings. The plan ended up fueling the crisis after the top Pakistani scholar issued statements justifying suicide attacks by the Afghan Taliban and refused to attend the meeting.
While Pakistan is currently governed by a caretaker administration ahead of elections scheduled for May, key foreign-policy and security issues are overseen by the Pakistani military and intelligence service rather than civilian politicians. The term of the powerful Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was present at Chequers and who met Mr. Kerry in Jordan on Sunday, isn't affected by the elections.
The recently hardened tone in Kabul contrasts with several previous attempts at outreach by Mr. Karzai, whose final term expires next year.
"President Karzai exploited every avenue to find a common understanding and language with the Pakistani establishment," but to no avail, said Amrullah Saleh, former director of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security intelligence service. "As he is seeing the end of his career in 2014, he sees no benefit of still practicing the rhetoric of brotherhood and good relations with the Pakistanis." —Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Nathan Hodge atnathan.hodge@wsj.com
Pakistan’s ISI accuse Afghanistan for supporting Taliban
By MEENA HASEEB - 27 Mar 2013, 4:21 pm Khaama Press
Pakistan’s military intelligence — Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) on Tuesday accused the Afghan government of supporting Taliban splinter groups.
ISI following a report presented to Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday alleged President Hamid Karzai’s administration was in league with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement, known collectively as the TTS, NBC news reported.
The report further added that he “recent nexus of TTS with Afghan government is likely to enhance the terrorist activities” in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border such as Mohman, Bajaur, Dir, Swat and Chitral.
According to the report anti-Pakistan elements, particularly from across the border in Afghanistan, had provided “strong support” in terms of money, logistics and training and this was “one of the main factors for increased militancy.”
Taliban’s ability to act “at will and to face security forces openly has been substantially curtailed.” the report concluded.
ISI in its report also added that internal rifts within the main Pakistani Taliban group had led to the creation of splinter groups.
The report said, “TTS, after having been dislodged from area, has resorted to [suicide bomb and improvised explosive device] attacks” on law-enforcement agencies and other officials.
According to the report around 3,871 Pakistani security personnel, more than 3,000 militants and more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in the border area in the last five years.
It also added that there had been 235 suicide attacks, 9,257 rocket attacks and 4,256 bombings during the same period.
Political Parties Warn Karzai Against Deals with Taliban
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Afghanistan's political parties fear that President Hamid Karzai may negotiate away some of the gains made against the Taliban in an attempt to secure a peace deal with the insurgent group.
Ahead of Karzai's visit to Qatar this week where he is expected to discuss peace options with the Taliban and the opening of the group's political office, government opposition groups in Afghanistan have called on him to be transparent about any promises made.
"Afghanistan's government gave privileges to the Taliban that mean the government cannot do anything, and now the government is trying in a last bid effort to put pressure on the Taliban to negotiate; but I think it has a weak position against the Taliban," National Coalition party member Eng Asim said.
The politicians said Karzai owes it to the Afghan people to be open about any verbal agreements he makes or is planning to make with the group.
"The president should inform the people what deals will happen there. The peace process is the issue of the Afghan people, so the people should know about it," deputy leader of the Right and Justice Party Moeen Marastyal said.
Although the aim of the talks are widely seen as the way to end the Taliban's use of violence to achieve its goals, some politicians view the talks as giving the insurgents more legitimacy than they deserve.
"The outcome of the trip will be to recognise a terrorist group as a political group. I think it goes against [Afghanistan's] constitution and the values of the last decade and the people's wishes ," National Front spokesman Sardar Rahimi said.
Karzai announced on Sunday that he will head to Qatar this week for the talks with the Taliban, although who he is meeting and for how long he will be there remains unclear.
The Taliban has repeatedly refused to negotiate with the Karzai government, declaring it a puppet regime of the Western powers.
Afghan Security Officials Fear ANSF Will Struggle in 2014
TOLOnews.com By Azim Arash Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Afghan Interior Minister Ghulam Mujtaba Patang on Tuesday warned that Afghanistan should expect serious challenges in 2014 if the security forces needs are not addressed.
Speaking before parliament, Patang voiced his concerns about the inadequate air force and border police and their capacity to takeover from the 100,330 foreign soldiers expected to withdraw in the next 20 months.
"Our borders are still open. We set up a delegation to examine the borders [security] and according to the delegation's assessment, we need 13,000 more police to cover our borders and also there should be Army Forces in order to support the police at the border," Patang said.
Afghanistan's top security officials went before parliament Tuesday to outline the security situation for the lawmakers as the US-led foreign forces wind down after more than a decade of war.
Chief of Army Staff Shir Mohammad Karimi also complained about the lack of equipment faced by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), in particular the lack of an air force.
"We lack vehicles. Some of our army units don't have cannons... And we must supply oil but we don't have tankers and a store," Karimi told the lawmakers.
The security officials concerns come even as other Afghan government officials insist that the ANSF is ready to take on the responsibility of defending the country after the international forces leave.
Meanwhile, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) representative Hasamoddin Hasam told the parliamentarians about the decision to delay the withdrawal of US Special Operations Forces (SOF) from Maidan Wardak province.
"We went to Maidan Wardak and visited the people. Most of the residents want the special forces to be in the province. We sent our findings to the National Security Council. After that the President called the governor and provincial council and decide that the US Special Forces should be expelled only from the Narkh district, but in the other districts they should stay until the completion of transferring responsibilities to the Afghan Forces," he said.
President Hamid Karzai on February 24 had ordered the US SOF to leave the province within two weeks. However three weeks later he came to an agreement with US and Isaf Commander Gen Joseph Dunford that the SOF will only leave Narkh district - one of eight districts in the province - and only when the ANSF were ready to take over from them.
Latest IMU capture indicates resiliency of terror group in Afghanistan
Long War Journal By Patrick Megahan March 26, 2013
Yesterday, Afghan and Coalition forces captured a commander from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan during yet another operation in the Kunduz district of Kunduz province. The International Security Assistance Force reported that the captured leader "is alleged to lead a cell of insurgent fighters responsible for improvised explosive device and direct fire attacks on Afghan and Coalition forces" and that before his arrest "he was believed actively planning to assassinate an Afghan National Security Forces official."
ISAF revealed to The Long War Journal that the detained leader is an Afghan national of Pashtun ethnicity. When asked if the insurgent fighters in his cell were foreign fighters, ISAF responded that "there are no indications of Uzbek or foreign involvement." Since the IMU is a designated foreign terrorist organization whose leadership is believed to be based in Pakistan, ISAF must have meant that all of the fighters in the cell were Afghan.
Yesterday's operation follows a similar raid conducted on March 18 that also captured an IMU commander in the same district.
Steep increase in frequency of operations against IMU so far in 2013
According to a study by The Long War Journal, Afghan and Coalition special operation forces have greatly increased the frequency of their efforts against the IMU so far this year. Yesterday's raid in Kunduz was the 12th operation targeting the al Qaeda-linked group this year, and the fourth in that district. By contrast, in the first three months of 2012, there were only six reported raids targeting IMU members in Afghanistan. During the same time in 2011 there were 11 raids, and in early 2010, only one.
Despite the high success rate these operations have had in killing or capturing IMU leaders and facilitators, it is worrisome that the number of raids in the first quarter of the year has doubled in comparison to last year. This trend is noteworthy in light of the fact that from 2010 through most of 2012, ISAF troop strength was at its highest in the more than decade long war.
To be fair, the majority of ISAF combat strength has been deployed in the south and east of the country, where the insurgency has been strongest. But that still does not explain why after 11 years of war and dozens of special operations raids targeting the IMU's leadership and facilitation networks in northern Afghanistan, the number of operations against the group is at its highest. Shouldn't the number of raids be at its lowest, indicating a diminished IMU presence?
Perhaps ISAF and its Special Operations Joint Task Force -Afghanistan (SOJTF-A) prioritize the targeting of members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, or other insurgent groups and are now just shifting the crosshairs onto the IMU. But according to The Long War Journal study, operations targeting al Qaeda members or insurgents with direct ties to the terrorist group have not significantly decreased this year either.
So far in the first quarter of this year, two operations have been conducted targeting al Qaeda, both in Afghanistan's restive Kunar province. By comparison, in the first three months of 2012 there was one such operation, in 2011 there were five, and again one in 2010. These numbers are not high, but they do indicate a fairly consistent operational tempo against the group that has been the primary target of US forces in the country since late 2001.
Today, Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith announced that at least 1,000 of his country's troops will be leaving by the end of 2013. The US and other ISAF partners have announced similar withdrawal plans that will shift the security burden almost entirely to Afghan forces. If the rate of operations against al Qaeda remains about the same and operations against the IMU are at a high, can the US and its allies have any confidence that Afghan forces will be able to defeat, or at least contain, these terrorist groups on their own?
Afghan man sells new-born twin babies due poverty in Baghlan
By SADAF SHINWARI - 27 Mar 2013, 3:28 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Baghlan province of Afghanistan, a local resident in this province has sold his two new-born baby girls against 20,000 to 30,000 Afghanis.
Provincial hospital chief Dr. Khalil Musadiq said the mother of the twin girls died during the delivery period after she was taken to the hospital.
Mr. Musadiq further added that the mother was not taken to the hospital on time due to economic issues and the main motive behind selling the twin babies was also poverty issues that the family was facing.
He said the twin babies were in good health condition however their mother died while delivering the babies.
Although maternal mortality and poverty is is not new in Afghanistan however this is the first time a man sales his twin new-born babies in northern Pul-e-Khumri city of Afghanistan.
A nurse in provincial hospital said the man sold his twin babies after his wife died.
Several Afghan kids have been sold by their parents in parts of Afghanistan during the past recent years due to poverty and domestic issues.
Kerry Says US Will Not Interfere in Afghan Election
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Washington will not interfere in Afghanistan's upcoming presidential election nor will it support any of the candidates directly, the US Secretary of State on Tuesday told Afghan officials in Kabul.
In a meeting behind closed doors at the US Embassy in Kabul, Secretary John Kerry met with a number of top Afghan officials, MPs, political parties and the international community, some of whom told TOLOnews that they welcomed his reassurance of the US impartiality and support for a fair and transparent election.
"The United Sates Secretary of State once again pledged that his country will support Afghanistan's democratic election process. As well he promised that the Unites States will never intervene in the internal affairs of the election and does not support any specific candidate. He said this is the right of Afghans to have a transparent, secure and broad election, and the Unites States supports a transparent election," MP Shukria Barakzai told TOLOnews.
Among those present at the meeting were education minister Farooq Wardak, deputy adviser to National Security Council Rahmatullah Nabil, member of National Coalition Mohammad Yunos Qanooni, head of Independent Elections Commission's secretariat Ziaulhaq Amerkhel, parliamentary first vice speaker Mirwais Yassini, MP Shukria Barikzai, and Afghan Human Rights commissioner Nader Naderi.
The importance of a transparent, fair, and inclusive election in Afghanistan was said to be a key topic of talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the US Secretary of State during his two-day visit to Kabul.
Before leaving Kabul, Kerry also visited an exhibition at the US Embassy which showcased products of businesses run by Afghan women - from traditional clothes and hand crafts to dry fruits.
Some of the women traders were present and spoke to Kerry of the need for more access to international markets and funding sources, both of which are the main challenges for the women-owned business.
Kerry assured that the US will assist in ways to improve growth of these investments.
Commerce Minister Calls for Pakistan to Fairly Implement Transit Pact
TOLOnews.com By Karim Amini Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Afghanistan will choose Iran for its trade transit purposes if Pakistan does not change its economic practices towards Afghanistan, the Minister of Commerce and Industries warned in a TOLOnews debate, broadcast Tuesday.
In the televised Af-Pak debate 'Across the Border', Commerce Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi claimed that Pakistan was not fairly adhering to the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Agreement (APTA) - freely travelling in Afghanistan but preventing Afghan goods from doing the same in Pakistan.
"Unfortunately, the Pakistani traders are an obstacle to our transit. Considering the APTA pact, Afghan vehicles are permitted to travel to Pakistani ports, but no vehicles have so far allowed to travel there.
This is distressing to us. We permit Pakistani vehicles to travel to our parts of the country... This is a lack of mutual agreement, we urge on a mutual agreement. There is much pressure on us and if there is nothing done to carry it out, we will – without a doubt – change the situation," Ahadi said.
Hamidullah Farouqi, the former Afghan Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, remarked that for decades Pakistan has used the transit route through Afghanistan for its political and military purposes.
"Unfortunately...our transit route has been the hostage of political and military issues for the last 35 to 40 years. Our Pakistani brothers have used the supply route – in contradiction with our social and economical demands – as a political and military tool," he said.
Ahadi also highlighted the problem of illicit imports into Afghanistan from Pakistan which Afghan traders are struggling to compete with.
"I can show you goods in Jalalabad that are smuggled from Pakistan... I can assure you that more than 80 percent of the goods in their shops are illicit, mostly imported from Pakistan. This is a problem for both countries. We need to work together," Ahadi said.
Also present at the debate were a number of Pakistani experts who argued that the transit issues stem from the problems between India and Pakistan.
"For a long period of time, Pakistan has had no good relationship with India. Although I think this relationship has slightly changed over the past two years. An improvement in the relationship with India will lead to the resolution of Pakistan's concerns," said Farhan Bukhari, Paksitani economics analyst.
"I have heard some Pakistanis saying that if India wants to go to Afghanistan via Pakistan, will it then let us go to Bangladesh from India and send our goods to other countries? This is not only a mutual problem," he added.
More than $2 billion of Afghanistan's imports - or one-quarter of its total - pass through Pakistan's territory, which demonstrates the need for solid transit agreements between the two.
Officials and experts at the debate who hailed from both sides of the border stressed the importance of there being more trust between the two countries.
This debate is being televised in Tuesday March 26 edition of 'Across the Border', aired on TOLOnews at 8:00pm, Kabul time.
In Afghan Child Abuse Cases, Victims Go to Jail
Rights activists say children are imprisoned for “moral crimes” while the perpetrators escape prosecution.
IWPR By Mina Habib 26 Mar 13
Afghanistan - The 15-year-old refused to give his name, his eyes cast down as he sat in an empty room in the children‘s correction centre in Kabul.
Slowly, he began to open up and tell his story. An orphan, he left his home province of Sar-e Pol a year ago and came to the Afghan city to study at an Islamic school. One day while out in the city, he saw a man struggling to carry two bags of groceries.
“I went to help him, and I took one of the bags and carried it to his home,” he said. “The man invited me to come inside for lunch since I’d helped him, but when I entered the room, he attacked me sexually. I jumped out of the window to escape, but he came outside and shouted out that I was a thief. The local police arrested me for robbery. They wouldn’t listen to me. I’ve been in prison for seven months, and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.”
As in other societies, sexual abuse of children is a highly sensitive issue in Afghanistan. The judicial system is not set up to cope, and the victims often end up being placed in juvenile detention centres under the catch-all terminology of “moral crime”, while their adult assailants go unpunished.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, AIHRC, lists numerous recorded cases of sexual abuse of girls and boys, but it underlines that many others are never reported because of concerns about shame and honour, and because people have little faith in the justice system.
“Systemic corruption, weak rule of law, and impunity lead to the offenders going unpunished, while the victims are punished,” Belal Sediqi, head of children’s affairs at the AIHRC, told IWPR.
Accurate information about numbers is hard to get, since some official agencies refuse to provide data. Staff at Afghanistan’s first-level children’s court told IWPR that they could not give the media any information about the sexual abuse of minors. It is also difficult to gain access to children held in juvenile detention.
Inconsistencies in Afghanistan’s laws impede justice. Child marriage is common in Afghanistan, and there is no age of consent. And while a 2009 law on violence against women made rape a criminal offence, it does not apply to male victims. The crime of “pederasty”, sex between a man and a boy, carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
More often than not, the charge of “moral crimes” – which covers all forms of sexual between unmarried individuals – is applied in cases where a child is assaulted.
Since victims thus become “culpable”, Sediqi says many of them – boys and girls alike – are simply locked up in the juvenile detention centre in Kabul.
Aziza Adalatkhwah, director of the detention centre, denied that any victims of sexual assault were being held there.
“This claim by the human rights commission is a lie,“ she said. “The victims of such incidents are not imprisoned.”
At the same time, Adalatkhwah acknowledged that some of the minors at the centre were being held for “moral crimes”.
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling for government action following the conviction of a minor on “moral crimes” charges, and other similar cases.
“When a man has sex with a 13-year-old child, the child is a victim of rape, not a criminal offender,” the group’s Asia director Brad Adams said.
Keramatullah Sediqi, director of research at the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, believes Islamic law offers effective deterrents.
He said the abuser should be put in a sack and thrown down a hillside. “If that was done, I am sure no one else would dare do such a thing,” he said.
Sediqi says cases of sexual assaults on minors rarely reach the stage where any kind of law can be applied. While some perpetrators are arrested, he argues that they do not receive the punishment they deserve. He cites a recent case where a 13-year-old boy was allegedly abused by a member of the Afghan National Army in February. No action was taken against the soldier.
“The [human rights] commission exerts pressure on investigative agencies to prosecute those responsible in such cases, but we remain unsatisfied with the results,” he added.
Lal Gul, the director of the Human Rights Organisation of Afghanistan, said that just as in other criminal cases, those accused of sexual assaults on minors can get away with it if they have enough influence.
“There is massive corruption in state institutions, particularly in the courts,” he said. “Warlords and the supporters of senior government figures are immune from the law. Unless the law is applied equally to everybody, we must assume that injustices of this kind will only increase.”
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained reporter in Kabul.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan March 27, 2013
LOGAR, Afghanistan -- Afghan officials say 23 Taliban militants have been killed and another 26 wounded during a two-day military operation that ended late on March 26 in the eastern province of Logar.
Provincial deputy police chief Khan Abdul Rahimzai told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that the operation in the village of Sajwan was conducted by Afghan and NATO-led international forces.
Rahimzai said more than 40 militants were captured during the operation in Logar, a volatile province where the Taliban has a relatively strong presence.
Other local officials said five civilians, including a woman and four children, were also killed during the operation.
In an e-mail to the media, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the deaths of only 12 Taliban fighters and put the number of civilian casualties at 28.
ISAF soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, March 27 (Xinhua) -- A soldier with the NATO-led coalition force was killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
"An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service member died following an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan today," ISAF said in a statement.
However, it did not identify the nationality of the victim and the exact place of the incident, saying it is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.
Troops mostly from the U.S. have been stationed in the eastern part of the war-torn country.
So far this year 24 ISAF soldiers with majority of them Americans have lost their lives in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan.
From Kabul love affair to Afghanistan's first centre for study of its history
Louis and Nancy Hatch Dupree's extramarital romance scandalised the city, but their collection of documents now forms the heart of the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University
The Guardian By Emma Graham-Harrison Tuesday 26 March 2013
Kabul - Nancy Hatch Dupree arrived in Kabul in 1962 as a diplomat's wife, blithely unaware that the great love of her life was waiting in a country that would become their shared passion and her home through decades of war and political turmoil.
Half a century later she is opening Afghanistan's first centre dedicated to the study of its own history and society, picked over for decades by foreign academics but often hard for Afghan scholars to explore in their country.
The Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University is inspired by the work and vision of Louis Dupree, the ethnographer and archaeologist, for whom Nancy left her husband, freeing her from endless embassy coffee mornings, and binding her forever to her adopted home.
"He always felt the people of Afghanistan were being short-changed, and all these people who were ruling from the centre looked upon the rural areas, the rural people, as being superstitious, unteachable, they couldn't learn anything," Dupree said. "Louis felt that was the wrong thing."
Their great romance nearly didn't happen. Nancy met Louis after she dropped off her draft manuscript for the first guidebook to Afghanistan, asking for his help filling two gaps. When she went to pick it up from him, there was a terse note saying "adequate but nothing original".
"I spun on my heel and started to leave, when I heard this voice saying 'come back here', so I went back and never left," she admitted with a grin at her spartan office just a few kilometres from the site of that meeting. "I was a scandal in Kabul, the two of us were." Their former spouses fuelled even more expat gossip in the then-sleepy capital when they went on to remarry each other.
The couple stayed in the Afghan capital for over a decade, Nancy writing guidebooks while Louis uncovered evidence of prehistoric settlements with stone tools so sophisticated other scholars dubbed their makers the "Michelangelos of the paleolithic era".
In the late 1970s they were pushed out by the Soviet-backed government, which also briefly imprisoned Louis and grilled him about the couple's famous afternoon cocktail parties, the "five o'clock follies".
They were not the only ones forced to flee a brutal regime and soon began working with Afghan refugees who gathered in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Along with the humanitarian work, they also started building up the collection now at the heart of the new centre, storing documents that most people saw as rubbish or fire-starters rather than historical records.
The only surviving copies of surveys and reports by aid groups, the newspapers of warring mujahideen factions and the Taliban government, and other records of Afghanistan's decades of chaos and muddled western efforts to help are now safely stored in underground stacks, along with similar records from the last decade of US and Nato intervention.
Louis died in 1989, but Nancy continued to add to their cache of information in Peshawar for years, only deeming it safe to return to Afghanistan in 2005 and even then made painstaking plans to bring back the documents safely. "I was very vulnerable, everything I had was paper, there were no backups," she said.
Nearly 300 plastic sacks, originally used for wheat or fertiliser, were filled with paper and then virtually smuggled back to Kabul, nestled among commercial shipments. Not a single sheet was lost or damaged, she says proudly.
But the successful return raised a whole new challenge for Dupree, who was already in her late 70s at the time – where to store them. She set her sights on a new intellectual centre, built for Afghan students rather than as an empty showpiece.
"There were a lot of people who were building clinics and schools, but there was no sense of ownership built in and nobody was using them very well," Dupree said to explain why she sought the help of a government known for corruption and actively avoided by most foreigners.
She got the finance ministry to provide funds and the university to provide land. Testament to her charm and prodigious work ethic are other contributions, including a top-end IT network provided at the personal order of the Estonian president.
"I feel really guilty just sitting around," she says, but is quick to credit others for the centre's success. "It's not the result of one individual's effort. It was a total manifestation of those buzzwords the United Nations uses, so dear to their reports and rhetoric, co-operation and co-ordination."
Dupree, who is now in her ninth decade but coy about her exact age, misses the peaceful city she knew as a younger woman. "Kabul is grim now. All of these concrete walls and these barriers and the razor wire. It is not my Kabul." Even so, she has no plans to leave. "I'm trying to finish what Louis was trying to do, and his shoes are too big." Housing history
The new Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU) is a traditionally inspired building that reflects Nancy Hatch Dupree's love of Afghan heritage and her enthusiasm about the advantages of technology.
"I wanted the building to be modern, to show that Afghanistan can do modern things, but I also wanted it to be recognisably traditional," Dupree said. "It has stout outside walls. Qalas [forts] in the countryside are built like that, and it is inward looking on to a courtyard."
The cedar beams came from Kunar, an insurgent stronghold in the east, after Dupree secured a presidential decree from old friend President Hamid Karzai allowing her to buy wood from stocks frozen after a logging moratorium (she is keen to emphasise no trees were cut for the centre).
The stone cladding for the outside walls, and the white marble inside come from the south and west of the capital, an area more usually mentioned as a Taliban transit route than source of beautiful building materials.
Its mission however is revolutionary, promoting serious research into Afghan history and society in a country where these can be such charged topics that the education minister last year decided to issue history textbooks that end in the 1970s.
"One of our focus is to promote the whole concept and methodology of doing decent research," Dupree said, laying out plans for exhibitions, seminars, lectures and other events in a university which is short on visiting scholars or opportunities for students to travel.
"The majority of students here think doing research is Googling, cutting and pasting. The whole concept that you can get great insights by doing research is not here, so we want to develop that, it's a sideline of sharing information."
The centre also runs mobile libraries to reach out to rural populations Louis Dupree felt were neglected by the central government; villages still struggle with access to education.
Afghan women tell Kerry of security fear
Washington Post By Anne Gearan March 26 , 2013
KABUL - Accepting a challenge from the captain of the Afghan women’s soccer team, Secretary of State John F. Kerry playfully hit a header Tuesday while hearing the success stories of a handful of female Afghan entrepreneurs.
“Hey!” Kerry called when he hit his shot and directed the ball to Zahra Mahmoodi, a founding member of the women’s team. She told him that girls were not allowed to play soccer during the rule of the Taliban, the radical Islamist movement that held power in Kabul from 1996 to 2001. Now they play regular matches, but only before select crowds — mostly made up of family members, because women playing sports outdoors is still taboo in much of the country.
Kerry bought a soccer ball hand-stitched by Afghan women and praised the group of businesswomen for their courage and drive. The event was part of Kerry’s first trip to Afghanistan as secretary of state and a reminder of the fragile advances made by women after nearly 12 years of U.S.-sponsored government here.
The Obama administration has set a hard deadline for the withdrawal of combat forces next year, but Kerry repeatedly pledged continuing U.S. support for Afghanistan’s economic and political stability, and for women.
Hassina Syed, founder of a trucking and catering conglomerate, told Kerry that there are opportunities for women but that she worries about security and the future.
“It’s a little bit insecurity,” she said in English. “I’m being polite to say a little bit.”
A resurgent Taliban has burned girls’ schools and threatened women in several areas of this deeply conservative country, despite the swift embrace of women’s education and the government’s oft-stated commitment to improving health care and opportunities for women.
The Taliban might regain some effective political control after U.S. forces leave or might strike a deal with the Kabul government. The Obama administration has said those are matters for Afghanistan to decide, but the kind of large-scale foreign help that Afghanistan will need is likely to be partly contingent on safeguarding gains for women.
In two days of talks, Kerry urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to help ensure a fair election for his replacement next year, something Karzai said is essential to Afghanistan’s future. Kerry met Tuesday with Afghan lawmakers, rights activists and the country’s chief elections officer. The United States is pushing Karzai’s loyalists and opponents to avoid a repeat of badly flawed and corrupt voting in 2009.
“You are engaged in a remarkable effort, and the whole world is watching,” Kerry told the lawmakers and others in brief remarks before reporters were sent out of the room.
Many of the businesswomen Kerry met earlier had specific requests: better access to credit, government contracting set-asides for women-owned businesses and, from Mahmoodi, more soccer pitches for women. At least one they formerly used has been appropriated as a helicopter landing zone, she said.
Mahmoodi told Kerry she hopes to take her team to the Olympics.
“The males don’t want the females to go outside, but we can’t just do that,” she said, rejecting with a smile the traditional notion that women’s place is indoors.
Afghan army officers Pakistan visit cancelled over shelling issues
By GHANIZADA - 27 Mar 2013, 2:59 pm Khaama Press
Afghan foreign ministry following a statement on Wednesday announced Afghanistan has cancelled a trip of the Afghan national army officers to Pakistan following recent cross-border incursion by Pakistan.
The statement further added, “An 11-member team of Afghan National Army officers were scheduled to travel to Quetta at the invitation of the Pakistan Army to take part in a simulation military exercise and headquarters drills at the Quetta Staff College.”
The source further added, “This visit will no longer take place due to the resumption of unacceptable Pakistani artillery shelling against different parts of Kunar province from across the Durand Line on Monday and Tuesday (March 25 and 26).”
Local authorities in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan on Tuesday said Pakistani military fired around 30 missiles in Dangam district on Monday.
Provincial governor Fazlullah Wahidi said Pakistani artillery shelling into Kunar province resumed on Monday afternoon.
He said no casualties were reported following the shelling.
Afghanistan Says Pakistan Ties Are Fraying
Optimism Over Peace Pledge Fades as Afghans Accuse Islamabad of Continuing to Press for Cross-Border Influence
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and NATHAN HODGE March 26, 2013
KABUL - Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan are growing increasingly strained, Afghan officials say, even as President Hamid Karzai has patched up, for now, his fraying ties with the U.S.
At the core of the disagreement is what role Pakistan, Afghanistan's larger neighbor and a traditional supporter of the Taliban, will play in the region's post-American order once most U.S.-led coalition forces withdraw next year.
A trilateral summit of Pakistani, Afghan and British leaders, held in England last month to discuss regional cooperation, was billed as a success after it ended with an optimistic pledge to seek a peace settlement with the Taliban within six months.
In reality, senior Afghan officials now say, Pakistani preconditions made at the summit—and rejected as unacceptable by Kabul—have set off a new crisis between the two neighbors. "What we ask from Pakistan is to prove that that country wants peace and stability in Afghanistan," Mr. Karzai's chief of staff, Abdel Karim Khurram, said in an interview.
Pakistani officials said they set no preconditions and that their government supports a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.
Pakistan was the Taliban's crucial supporter during the 1990s civil war, and U.S. and Afghan officials say the insurgency's leadership is still operating from Pakistani shelters. Afghanistan has long had a complicated relationship with its southern neighbor and has never recognized the validity of the British-drawn border between the two, the so-called Durand Line that cuts through the ethnic Pashtun heartland.
The U.K. summit "demonstrated the interfering but delusional tendency of some in Pakistan who choose to ignore Afghanistan's sovereigntyand continue to want tore-exert control in Afghanistan through armed proxies," the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement Monday. "Afghanistan's overtures for greater confidence, trust and cooperation have been routinely ignored."
In recent months, Mr. Karzai has repeatedly argued that the U.S.-led coalition is waging war in the wrong country, and that it should concentrate instead on terrorism's roots within Pakistan.
Mr. Karzai's demands that the U.S. withdraw special-operations forces from the province of Wardak near Kabul and transfer all Afghan detainees to Afghan custody prompted tensions with Washington this month—a spat that appeared to end as the U.S. moved to satisfy Afghan demands ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Kabul this week.
At the U.K. summit—held at Chequers, the British prime minister's country residence—Pakistani representatives demanded that Kabul dramatically curtail relations with India, send Afghan officers to train in Pakistani military academies and, most importantly, sign a strategic partnership agreement with Pakistan, according to Afghan officials. Mr. Karzai sealed a similar agreement with India in 2011.
With Pakistan, however, such an agreement could come only as a result of a successful peace process, and not as a precondition, Afghan officials say.
"For us, it is important that, before this accord is signed, there is peace," Mr. Khurram said. "The shelter of the groups that come and commit terror acts here is in Pakistan. How can we sign a strategic agreement of friendship with Pakistan when every day we see explosions and suicide bombings—and their roots lead to the other side of the Durand Line?"
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan's foreign ministry, challenged the Afghan account, saying that Islamabad didn't issue any demands at the Chequers talks. The strategic partnership, he said, was a proposal that came from the Afghans and "not a precondition." As for training Afghan officers, he said, it was just "a goodwill offer."
Afghan territory, he added, "should not be used by India—or by any other country—against Pakistan."
Pakistani officials in the past accused Indian agents in Afghanistan of fostering the separatist rebellion in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, an allegation denied in Kabul and New Delhi. Mr. Khurram, the Karzai spokesman, said Kabul has the right to build good relations with both India and Pakistan, just as it maintains friendly ties with Iran despite being a strategic ally of Iran's archenemy, the U.S.
Afghan officials say they are particularly suspicious Pakistani offers to train Afghan security forces, fearing that Islamabad could use the program to infiltrate Kabul's defense establishment. Several Afghan officers have refused offers of training in Pakistan because they were afraid of being branded as Pakistani spies on their return, an Afghan official said.
The one confidence-building measure agreed to at Chequers was a planned conference of Pakistani and Afghan Islamic scholars in Kabul that was supposed to condemn suicide bombings. The plan ended up fueling the crisis after the top Pakistani scholar issued statements justifying suicide attacks by the Afghan Taliban and refused to attend the meeting.
While Pakistan is currently governed by a caretaker administration ahead of elections scheduled for May, key foreign-policy and security issues are overseen by the Pakistani military and intelligence service rather than civilian politicians. The term of the powerful Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was present at Chequers and who met Mr. Kerry in Jordan on Sunday, isn't affected by the elections.
The recently hardened tone in Kabul contrasts with several previous attempts at outreach by Mr. Karzai, whose final term expires next year.
"President Karzai exploited every avenue to find a common understanding and language with the Pakistani establishment," but to no avail, said Amrullah Saleh, former director of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security intelligence service. "As he is seeing the end of his career in 2014, he sees no benefit of still practicing the rhetoric of brotherhood and good relations with the Pakistanis." —Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Nathan Hodge atnathan.hodge@wsj.com
Pakistan’s ISI accuse Afghanistan for supporting Taliban
By MEENA HASEEB - 27 Mar 2013, 4:21 pm Khaama Press
Pakistan’s military intelligence — Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) on Tuesday accused the Afghan government of supporting Taliban splinter groups.
ISI following a report presented to Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday alleged President Hamid Karzai’s administration was in league with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement, known collectively as the TTS, NBC news reported.
The report further added that he “recent nexus of TTS with Afghan government is likely to enhance the terrorist activities” in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border such as Mohman, Bajaur, Dir, Swat and Chitral.
According to the report anti-Pakistan elements, particularly from across the border in Afghanistan, had provided “strong support” in terms of money, logistics and training and this was “one of the main factors for increased militancy.”
Taliban’s ability to act “at will and to face security forces openly has been substantially curtailed.” the report concluded.
ISI in its report also added that internal rifts within the main Pakistani Taliban group had led to the creation of splinter groups.
The report said, “TTS, after having been dislodged from area, has resorted to [suicide bomb and improvised explosive device] attacks” on law-enforcement agencies and other officials.
According to the report around 3,871 Pakistani security personnel, more than 3,000 militants and more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in the border area in the last five years.
It also added that there had been 235 suicide attacks, 9,257 rocket attacks and 4,256 bombings during the same period.
Political Parties Warn Karzai Against Deals with Taliban
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Afghanistan's political parties fear that President Hamid Karzai may negotiate away some of the gains made against the Taliban in an attempt to secure a peace deal with the insurgent group.
Ahead of Karzai's visit to Qatar this week where he is expected to discuss peace options with the Taliban and the opening of the group's political office, government opposition groups in Afghanistan have called on him to be transparent about any promises made.
"Afghanistan's government gave privileges to the Taliban that mean the government cannot do anything, and now the government is trying in a last bid effort to put pressure on the Taliban to negotiate; but I think it has a weak position against the Taliban," National Coalition party member Eng Asim said.
The politicians said Karzai owes it to the Afghan people to be open about any verbal agreements he makes or is planning to make with the group.
"The president should inform the people what deals will happen there. The peace process is the issue of the Afghan people, so the people should know about it," deputy leader of the Right and Justice Party Moeen Marastyal said.
Although the aim of the talks are widely seen as the way to end the Taliban's use of violence to achieve its goals, some politicians view the talks as giving the insurgents more legitimacy than they deserve.
"The outcome of the trip will be to recognise a terrorist group as a political group. I think it goes against [Afghanistan's] constitution and the values of the last decade and the people's wishes ," National Front spokesman Sardar Rahimi said.
Karzai announced on Sunday that he will head to Qatar this week for the talks with the Taliban, although who he is meeting and for how long he will be there remains unclear.
The Taliban has repeatedly refused to negotiate with the Karzai government, declaring it a puppet regime of the Western powers.
Afghan Security Officials Fear ANSF Will Struggle in 2014
TOLOnews.com By Azim Arash Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Afghan Interior Minister Ghulam Mujtaba Patang on Tuesday warned that Afghanistan should expect serious challenges in 2014 if the security forces needs are not addressed.
Speaking before parliament, Patang voiced his concerns about the inadequate air force and border police and their capacity to takeover from the 100,330 foreign soldiers expected to withdraw in the next 20 months.
"Our borders are still open. We set up a delegation to examine the borders [security] and according to the delegation's assessment, we need 13,000 more police to cover our borders and also there should be Army Forces in order to support the police at the border," Patang said.
Afghanistan's top security officials went before parliament Tuesday to outline the security situation for the lawmakers as the US-led foreign forces wind down after more than a decade of war.
Chief of Army Staff Shir Mohammad Karimi also complained about the lack of equipment faced by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), in particular the lack of an air force.
"We lack vehicles. Some of our army units don't have cannons... And we must supply oil but we don't have tankers and a store," Karimi told the lawmakers.
The security officials concerns come even as other Afghan government officials insist that the ANSF is ready to take on the responsibility of defending the country after the international forces leave.
Meanwhile, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) representative Hasamoddin Hasam told the parliamentarians about the decision to delay the withdrawal of US Special Operations Forces (SOF) from Maidan Wardak province.
"We went to Maidan Wardak and visited the people. Most of the residents want the special forces to be in the province. We sent our findings to the National Security Council. After that the President called the governor and provincial council and decide that the US Special Forces should be expelled only from the Narkh district, but in the other districts they should stay until the completion of transferring responsibilities to the Afghan Forces," he said.
President Hamid Karzai on February 24 had ordered the US SOF to leave the province within two weeks. However three weeks later he came to an agreement with US and Isaf Commander Gen Joseph Dunford that the SOF will only leave Narkh district - one of eight districts in the province - and only when the ANSF were ready to take over from them.
Latest IMU capture indicates resiliency of terror group in Afghanistan
Long War Journal By Patrick Megahan March 26, 2013
Yesterday, Afghan and Coalition forces captured a commander from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan during yet another operation in the Kunduz district of Kunduz province. The International Security Assistance Force reported that the captured leader "is alleged to lead a cell of insurgent fighters responsible for improvised explosive device and direct fire attacks on Afghan and Coalition forces" and that before his arrest "he was believed actively planning to assassinate an Afghan National Security Forces official."
ISAF revealed to The Long War Journal that the detained leader is an Afghan national of Pashtun ethnicity. When asked if the insurgent fighters in his cell were foreign fighters, ISAF responded that "there are no indications of Uzbek or foreign involvement." Since the IMU is a designated foreign terrorist organization whose leadership is believed to be based in Pakistan, ISAF must have meant that all of the fighters in the cell were Afghan.
Yesterday's operation follows a similar raid conducted on March 18 that also captured an IMU commander in the same district.
Steep increase in frequency of operations against IMU so far in 2013
According to a study by The Long War Journal, Afghan and Coalition special operation forces have greatly increased the frequency of their efforts against the IMU so far this year. Yesterday's raid in Kunduz was the 12th operation targeting the al Qaeda-linked group this year, and the fourth in that district. By contrast, in the first three months of 2012, there were only six reported raids targeting IMU members in Afghanistan. During the same time in 2011 there were 11 raids, and in early 2010, only one.
Despite the high success rate these operations have had in killing or capturing IMU leaders and facilitators, it is worrisome that the number of raids in the first quarter of the year has doubled in comparison to last year. This trend is noteworthy in light of the fact that from 2010 through most of 2012, ISAF troop strength was at its highest in the more than decade long war.
To be fair, the majority of ISAF combat strength has been deployed in the south and east of the country, where the insurgency has been strongest. But that still does not explain why after 11 years of war and dozens of special operations raids targeting the IMU's leadership and facilitation networks in northern Afghanistan, the number of operations against the group is at its highest. Shouldn't the number of raids be at its lowest, indicating a diminished IMU presence?
Perhaps ISAF and its Special Operations Joint Task Force -Afghanistan (SOJTF-A) prioritize the targeting of members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, or other insurgent groups and are now just shifting the crosshairs onto the IMU. But according to The Long War Journal study, operations targeting al Qaeda members or insurgents with direct ties to the terrorist group have not significantly decreased this year either.
So far in the first quarter of this year, two operations have been conducted targeting al Qaeda, both in Afghanistan's restive Kunar province. By comparison, in the first three months of 2012 there was one such operation, in 2011 there were five, and again one in 2010. These numbers are not high, but they do indicate a fairly consistent operational tempo against the group that has been the primary target of US forces in the country since late 2001.
Today, Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith announced that at least 1,000 of his country's troops will be leaving by the end of 2013. The US and other ISAF partners have announced similar withdrawal plans that will shift the security burden almost entirely to Afghan forces. If the rate of operations against al Qaeda remains about the same and operations against the IMU are at a high, can the US and its allies have any confidence that Afghan forces will be able to defeat, or at least contain, these terrorist groups on their own?
Afghan man sells new-born twin babies due poverty in Baghlan
By SADAF SHINWARI - 27 Mar 2013, 3:28 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Baghlan province of Afghanistan, a local resident in this province has sold his two new-born baby girls against 20,000 to 30,000 Afghanis.
Provincial hospital chief Dr. Khalil Musadiq said the mother of the twin girls died during the delivery period after she was taken to the hospital.
Mr. Musadiq further added that the mother was not taken to the hospital on time due to economic issues and the main motive behind selling the twin babies was also poverty issues that the family was facing.
He said the twin babies were in good health condition however their mother died while delivering the babies.
Although maternal mortality and poverty is is not new in Afghanistan however this is the first time a man sales his twin new-born babies in northern Pul-e-Khumri city of Afghanistan.
A nurse in provincial hospital said the man sold his twin babies after his wife died.
Several Afghan kids have been sold by their parents in parts of Afghanistan during the past recent years due to poverty and domestic issues.
Kerry Says US Will Not Interfere in Afghan Election
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Washington will not interfere in Afghanistan's upcoming presidential election nor will it support any of the candidates directly, the US Secretary of State on Tuesday told Afghan officials in Kabul.
In a meeting behind closed doors at the US Embassy in Kabul, Secretary John Kerry met with a number of top Afghan officials, MPs, political parties and the international community, some of whom told TOLOnews that they welcomed his reassurance of the US impartiality and support for a fair and transparent election.
"The United Sates Secretary of State once again pledged that his country will support Afghanistan's democratic election process. As well he promised that the Unites States will never intervene in the internal affairs of the election and does not support any specific candidate. He said this is the right of Afghans to have a transparent, secure and broad election, and the Unites States supports a transparent election," MP Shukria Barakzai told TOLOnews.
Among those present at the meeting were education minister Farooq Wardak, deputy adviser to National Security Council Rahmatullah Nabil, member of National Coalition Mohammad Yunos Qanooni, head of Independent Elections Commission's secretariat Ziaulhaq Amerkhel, parliamentary first vice speaker Mirwais Yassini, MP Shukria Barikzai, and Afghan Human Rights commissioner Nader Naderi.
The importance of a transparent, fair, and inclusive election in Afghanistan was said to be a key topic of talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the US Secretary of State during his two-day visit to Kabul.
Before leaving Kabul, Kerry also visited an exhibition at the US Embassy which showcased products of businesses run by Afghan women - from traditional clothes and hand crafts to dry fruits.
Some of the women traders were present and spoke to Kerry of the need for more access to international markets and funding sources, both of which are the main challenges for the women-owned business.
Kerry assured that the US will assist in ways to improve growth of these investments.
Commerce Minister Calls for Pakistan to Fairly Implement Transit Pact
TOLOnews.com By Karim Amini Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Afghanistan will choose Iran for its trade transit purposes if Pakistan does not change its economic practices towards Afghanistan, the Minister of Commerce and Industries warned in a TOLOnews debate, broadcast Tuesday.
In the televised Af-Pak debate 'Across the Border', Commerce Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi claimed that Pakistan was not fairly adhering to the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Agreement (APTA) - freely travelling in Afghanistan but preventing Afghan goods from doing the same in Pakistan.
"Unfortunately, the Pakistani traders are an obstacle to our transit. Considering the APTA pact, Afghan vehicles are permitted to travel to Pakistani ports, but no vehicles have so far allowed to travel there.
This is distressing to us. We permit Pakistani vehicles to travel to our parts of the country... This is a lack of mutual agreement, we urge on a mutual agreement. There is much pressure on us and if there is nothing done to carry it out, we will – without a doubt – change the situation," Ahadi said.
Hamidullah Farouqi, the former Afghan Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, remarked that for decades Pakistan has used the transit route through Afghanistan for its political and military purposes.
"Unfortunately...our transit route has been the hostage of political and military issues for the last 35 to 40 years. Our Pakistani brothers have used the supply route – in contradiction with our social and economical demands – as a political and military tool," he said.
Ahadi also highlighted the problem of illicit imports into Afghanistan from Pakistan which Afghan traders are struggling to compete with.
"I can show you goods in Jalalabad that are smuggled from Pakistan... I can assure you that more than 80 percent of the goods in their shops are illicit, mostly imported from Pakistan. This is a problem for both countries. We need to work together," Ahadi said.
Also present at the debate were a number of Pakistani experts who argued that the transit issues stem from the problems between India and Pakistan.
"For a long period of time, Pakistan has had no good relationship with India. Although I think this relationship has slightly changed over the past two years. An improvement in the relationship with India will lead to the resolution of Pakistan's concerns," said Farhan Bukhari, Paksitani economics analyst.
"I have heard some Pakistanis saying that if India wants to go to Afghanistan via Pakistan, will it then let us go to Bangladesh from India and send our goods to other countries? This is not only a mutual problem," he added.
More than $2 billion of Afghanistan's imports - or one-quarter of its total - pass through Pakistan's territory, which demonstrates the need for solid transit agreements between the two.
Officials and experts at the debate who hailed from both sides of the border stressed the importance of there being more trust between the two countries.
This debate is being televised in Tuesday March 26 edition of 'Across the Border', aired on TOLOnews at 8:00pm, Kabul time.
In Afghan Child Abuse Cases, Victims Go to Jail
Rights activists say children are imprisoned for “moral crimes” while the perpetrators escape prosecution.
IWPR By Mina Habib 26 Mar 13
Afghanistan - The 15-year-old refused to give his name, his eyes cast down as he sat in an empty room in the children‘s correction centre in Kabul.
Slowly, he began to open up and tell his story. An orphan, he left his home province of Sar-e Pol a year ago and came to the Afghan city to study at an Islamic school. One day while out in the city, he saw a man struggling to carry two bags of groceries.
“I went to help him, and I took one of the bags and carried it to his home,” he said. “The man invited me to come inside for lunch since I’d helped him, but when I entered the room, he attacked me sexually. I jumped out of the window to escape, but he came outside and shouted out that I was a thief. The local police arrested me for robbery. They wouldn’t listen to me. I’ve been in prison for seven months, and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.”
As in other societies, sexual abuse of children is a highly sensitive issue in Afghanistan. The judicial system is not set up to cope, and the victims often end up being placed in juvenile detention centres under the catch-all terminology of “moral crime”, while their adult assailants go unpunished.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, AIHRC, lists numerous recorded cases of sexual abuse of girls and boys, but it underlines that many others are never reported because of concerns about shame and honour, and because people have little faith in the justice system.
“Systemic corruption, weak rule of law, and impunity lead to the offenders going unpunished, while the victims are punished,” Belal Sediqi, head of children’s affairs at the AIHRC, told IWPR.
Accurate information about numbers is hard to get, since some official agencies refuse to provide data. Staff at Afghanistan’s first-level children’s court told IWPR that they could not give the media any information about the sexual abuse of minors. It is also difficult to gain access to children held in juvenile detention.
Inconsistencies in Afghanistan’s laws impede justice. Child marriage is common in Afghanistan, and there is no age of consent. And while a 2009 law on violence against women made rape a criminal offence, it does not apply to male victims. The crime of “pederasty”, sex between a man and a boy, carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
More often than not, the charge of “moral crimes” – which covers all forms of sexual between unmarried individuals – is applied in cases where a child is assaulted.
Since victims thus become “culpable”, Sediqi says many of them – boys and girls alike – are simply locked up in the juvenile detention centre in Kabul.
Aziza Adalatkhwah, director of the detention centre, denied that any victims of sexual assault were being held there.
“This claim by the human rights commission is a lie,“ she said. “The victims of such incidents are not imprisoned.”
At the same time, Adalatkhwah acknowledged that some of the minors at the centre were being held for “moral crimes”.
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling for government action following the conviction of a minor on “moral crimes” charges, and other similar cases.
“When a man has sex with a 13-year-old child, the child is a victim of rape, not a criminal offender,” the group’s Asia director Brad Adams said.
Keramatullah Sediqi, director of research at the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, believes Islamic law offers effective deterrents.
He said the abuser should be put in a sack and thrown down a hillside. “If that was done, I am sure no one else would dare do such a thing,” he said.
Sediqi says cases of sexual assaults on minors rarely reach the stage where any kind of law can be applied. While some perpetrators are arrested, he argues that they do not receive the punishment they deserve. He cites a recent case where a 13-year-old boy was allegedly abused by a member of the Afghan National Army in February. No action was taken against the soldier.
“The [human rights] commission exerts pressure on investigative agencies to prosecute those responsible in such cases, but we remain unsatisfied with the results,” he added.
Lal Gul, the director of the Human Rights Organisation of Afghanistan, said that just as in other criminal cases, those accused of sexual assaults on minors can get away with it if they have enough influence.
“There is massive corruption in state institutions, particularly in the courts,” he said. “Warlords and the supporters of senior government figures are immune from the law. Unless the law is applied equally to everybody, we must assume that injustices of this kind will only increase.”
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained reporter in Kabul.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com