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Karzai Says Mullah Omar Can Run For President
April 2, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told a German newspaper that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar can run for president in the election scheduled for next year.
In an interview published on April 2 by the German daily newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung," Karzai said Omar "can give Afghans the opportunity to vote for or against him."
Karzai, whose term as president expires next year, added that the Afghan Constitution is valid for all Afghans and "the Taliban also should benefit from it."
But he reiterated that the militant group needed to first break its ties with Al-Qaeda and renounce violence in order to join the political process.
Karzai's comments come after he visited Qatar over the weekend to discuss the formal opening of a political office there for the Taliban.
Based on reporting by AP and sueddeutsche.de
Pakistan rejects Afghanistan's claim over border constructions
ISLAMABAD, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Tuesday rejected Afghan government's claim that Pakistani military has started unilateral construction and is engaged in physical reinforcement activities along the border in the eastern Ningarhar province.
Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it has conveyed grave concern about the development to the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul, Muhammad Sadiq and demanded halt to all activities.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, Jawed Ludin, told Ambassador Sadiq that these activities are against all accepted international norms, provocative and unacceptable to the Afghan government, and that the government of Pakistan must halt them immediately, an Afghan Foreign Ministry statement said.
Responding to the assertions by the Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said that Pakistan has an old post called Gursal well inside Pakistani territory bordering Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, which is under routine renovation.
He said that both sides are supposed to inform any new construction closer to border areas under the recently signed Tripartite Border SOP.
"Despite being a renovation work, Pakistan shared this information with the Afghan side as a gesture of goodwill. The same was also shared with the Afghan visiting delegation to Mohmand Agency on 24 January 2013," the Pakistani spokesman said.
He said the renovation of the post is primarily meant to interdict terrorists and criminals as well as better management of the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin's recent concerns about construction and physical reinforcement along the Afghan border are therefore not in keeping with the spirit of the understanding on good border management and the recently signed Tripartite Border SOP".
He said Better managements of the border through strengthening border posts located in each other's territory are in the interest of the two countries to have an effective check over terrorists and criminals. Pakistan suggests to the Afghan Government to take similar measures on their side of the border posts.
The Spokesperson added that Pakistan remains committed to extending all possible support and facilitation for peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan.
Pakistan Border Post Sparks New Feud With Afghanistan
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE in Kabul and SAEED SHAH in Islamabad April 1, 2013
The Afghan government demanded on Monday that Pakistan halt "provocative and unacceptable" activities along their shared border, objecting to the uncoordinated construction of a Pakistani check post and stepping up a verbal war between the two neighbors.
The rift sharpens a recent confrontation that threatens to worsen already strained Afghan-Pakistani relations.
Over the past month, the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeatedly accused Pakistan of trying to undermine the prospects of peace with the Taliban. Last week, Kabul called off participation in a military exercise in Pakistan to protest alleged cross-border shelling, and complained that Pakistan had made unacceptable demands, such as breaking Kabul's ties with India, during a February summit in London.
Pakistan denied it imposed demands on Kabul during the summit and denied the shelling.
Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin on Monday expressed "grave concern" to Pakistani Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq over the construction and reinforcement of a border post along the Durand Line, the British-drawn boundary between the two countries, Afghanistan's foreign ministry said.
Mr. Ludin told Mr. Sadiq the construction was "against all accepted international norms, provocative and unacceptable to the Afghan government," the ministry said.
Col. Wali Khan Shinwari, an Afghan border police commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the Pakistanis began building the border post last week near the villages of Hatam Kalai and Kodzarai and he reported it to Kabul. He said there haven't been clashes between Afghan and Pakistani forces in the area.
However, Islamabad has long complained that a branch of the Pakistani Taliban that is based just across the border, in eastern Afghanistan, especially in Kunar and Nuristan provinces, uses that territory to mount raids into Pakistan.
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the spokesman of Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the border post—which stands next to Goshta district in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, bordering Mohmand Agency, one of Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas—didn't encroach on Afghan territory.
"This is in Mohmand, on our side," Mr. Chaudhry said. "We are constructing something there. We have a post there. It is on our side. So I don't know what the issue is." He added: "There are mechanisms in place [between Pakistan and Afghanistan] to resolve issues. Making allegations is not the way, the idea is to build trust."
This latest dispute touches a third rail in Afghan-Pakistani relations: a border line that was drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of British India, in 1893, and that cuts through the ethnic Pashtun heartland. Islamabad has tried to push Kabul to accept the Durand Line as the official border between the two countries ever since Pakistan's independence in 1947, but Afghanistan has never accepted it as an international frontier.
"Anything that happens along the Durand Line must be agreed by both sides," said an Afghan official. "This unilateral action by the Pakistani side is unacceptable to us."
Border security in the region is also a top priority for the U.S. military, whose grievance that Afghan insurgents are using Pakistani territory as a haven are a mirror image of Pakistan's own complaint.
On Monday, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, flew to Pakistan to discuss regional concerns with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who oversees Pakistan's key security and foreign policy issues. It is Gen. Dunford's first visit to Pakistan since taking over as head of the International Security Assistance Force in February.
The two generals discussed several hot-button issues, including cross-border attacks, according to a joint statement. Gen. Kayani "emphasized the need to continue supporting all efforts to bring peace to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region," the statement read. "He urged ISAF to help Pakistan check cross-border attacks launched from inside Afghanistan." —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
Afghan spy chief recovers from injuries, returns to Afghanistan
By MEENA HASEEB - 02 Apr 2013, 2:16 pm Khaama Press
Afghan spy chief, head of the national directorate for security (NDS) Asadullah Khalid returned back to Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Asadullah Khalid was injured following a suicide bomb blast in capital Kabul after a suicide bomber who introduced himself as the Taliban peace envoy detonated his explosives while meeting him in one of his guesthouses on December 6 last year.
He was taken to intelligence hospital in capital Kabul after the attack and was later transferred to coalition forces hospital in Bagram airfield.
He was later admitted to a US hospital for further treatment. The attacker was purportedly carrying a peace message on behalf of the Taliban when he detonated himself.
Attack on NDS chief Asadullah Khalid was reminiscent of the September 2011 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, at the time the head of a body created by Mr. Karzai to open peace talks with the Taliban.
Mr. Rabbani was killed in his Kabul home by a purported peace emissary who carried a bomb concealed in his headgear. At the time, though, the Taliban didn’t claim responsibility for the killing.
Airstrike kills 8 Taliban fighters in W. Afghanistan
FARAH, Afghanistan, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Eight Taliban militants were killed as aircraft targeted a Taliban hideout in Farah province 695 km west of Kabul Monday night, provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kintoz said Tuesday.
"Acting upon intelligence report, the aircraft pounded a Taliban hideout in Pushtrod district last night killing eight Taliban rebels including a local commander Mullah Mansoor and two would-be suicide bombers last night," Kintoz told Xinhua.
Taliban militants fighting the government are yet to make comment.
Afghanistan issues 100bn new Afghani bank notes
By SAYED JAWAD - 02 Apr 2013, 3:54 pm Khaama Press
The Central Bank of Afghanistan — Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) officials on Tuesday announced that fresh banknotes amounting to one hundred billion Afghanis have recently been printed.
DAB officials also informed that the latest specifications have been placed in the new banknotes in a bid to make it easier to differentiate from the fake notes.
The officials also added that the Central Bank of Afghanistan remains committed to meet the needs and issues of th Afghan market.
The new bank notes are due to be distributed in accordance with the market demands, DAB officials said adding that the new banknotes have been printing considering the needs of the market for the next five years.
A British firm was contracted to print the new Afghan bank notes and the contract was reportedly given to the firm against $20 million.
According to reports the Afghan government has also ordered to print another one hundred million Afghanis and the new bank notes will be printed as per the demands of the Afghan market.
In the meantime deputy governor for the Central Bank of Afghanistan Khan Afzal Hadawal said the new specifications of the bank notes will remain confidential with the bank while some of the specifications will be made public in the near future.
This comes as the residents of Kabul city and other provinces of Afghanistan including the business owners complained of facing issues with the fake bank notes in the market.
Karzai Orders Jailed Mullahs to be Investigated
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Monday, 01 April 2013
President Hamid Karzai has appointed a commission to investigate the imprisonment of about 1000 mullahs in Afghanistan's prisons who were jailed for preaching anti-government propaganda, the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs said Monday.
The imprisoned mullahs allegedly have links to insurgent groups such as Taliban or Al Qaeda, but Karzai wants their cases investigated and the innocent to be freed, Deputy Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs Dai-ul-Haq Abid told TOLOnews.
"More than 1000 religious clerics are imprisoned in the jail and at a meeting which the Ulema had with President Karzai, he [Karzai] promised the Ulema that the innocent will be released," Abid said.
The Ulema Council confirmed the statement saying that only those involved in actual attacks are likely to remain in jail.
"According to the president, those scholars who are innocent and are imprisoned on the basis of various charges will be released, and those scholars who did lesser crimes or who were charged for their [insurgent] links must be released too. But those scholars who were involved in attacks and murders must be punished," Ulema Council deputy and spokesman Enayatullah Baligh told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, the Hajj Ministry also said that there are more than 100,000 mosques around the country which are beyond the reach or control of the government and there is no supervision of their mullahs.
Of Afghanistan's 160,000 mosques, about 4,000 are monitored by the Hajj Ministry and 50,000 mosques are registered with the government.
"Only 4,000 mosques are monitored officially by us and more than 50,000 are registered. But more than 100,000 are not registered [or monitored]," Abid said.
Monitoring a mosque involves sending a government representative from the ministry to listen to the Friday sermons of the mullahs.
Top US General in Afghanistan Visits Pakistan
Ayaz Gul VOA News April 1, 2013
ISLAMABAD — The commander of NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan has made his first official visit to neighboring Pakistan, after assuming command earlier this year. His visit comes amid continuing recriminations between Afghan and Pakistani officials, undermining hopes that a recent thaw in ties could help bring Taliban insurgents to the negotiating table.
General Joseph Dunford, commander of the NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan, met Monday with military chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistan army is headquartered.
A joint statement released after the meeting said the two leaders discussed ways to strengthen military cooperation and “pressuring militants who threaten security along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”
Officials in Pakistan allege that fugitive militants taking refuge in Afghanistan cross the border with the help of Afghan insurgents to attack Pakistani civilian and military targets. They also are critical of the Afghan National Army for not stopping the violence.
Former Pakistan military spokesman retired General Athar Abbas says such infiltrations and insurgent violence inside Afghanistan are likely to intensify if international forces withdraw from the country by the end of next year without having an effective peace plan in place. He cites the long, porous border.
"If it does not happen and the area is left without coming up with a formula, which basically puts a political dispensation, which is agreeable, approved or acceptable to main stakeholders in Afghanistan, I think then the turbulence or instability in Afghanistan is likely to spill over to Pakistan, and that is our main worry," said Abbas.
But Afghan officials have alleged that efforts aimed at political reconciliation with the Taliban are not progressing because Pakistan is not living up to its commitment to facilitate the peace process.
Golalai Noor Safi, a female Afghan lawmaker and member of the High Peace Council tasked with negotiating peace with the Taliban, also blames Pakistan for the recent tensions.
"We think that the Pakistani side is not honest in their relations and every day they change their mind about the [peace] process, about Afghanistan, about the situation," said Safi.
Hours after Monday's meeting between NATO and Pakistani top commanders, Afghanistan again accused Pakistan of continuing cross-border rocket and artillery attacks on Kunar, one of its eastern border provinces.
Last month, Afghanistan canceled a military trip to Pakistan over alleged cross-border shelling by Pakistani troops. Pakistan criticized the decision as an "overreaction."
Pakistan’s traditional links with some influential insurgent Afghan groups, including the Taliban, are seen as vital in international-backed efforts to try to bring an end to the violence in Afghanistan, to ensure an orderly withdrawal of foreign forces from the country.
Kabul alleges that Islamabad is not interested in promoting the Afghan peace process, a charge Islamabad denies.
Afghan Officials Say Opium Cultivation Rising
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan April 1, 2013
KABUL -- Afghan officials say illegal opium cultivation in the country has increased this year despite efforts to target traffickers and provide farmers with alternative livelihoods.
Qayum Samir, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Counternarcotics Ministry, told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan on April 1 that an estimated 157,000 hectares of land are being illegally used for opium cultivation this spring.
The ministry believes that is about 3,000 hectares more than at the same time last year.
Samir blamed a lack of security and widespread poverty for the rise in opium production.
The spokesman said the ministry has set up special taskforces to eradicate opium farms in four southern and southeastern provinces, including Kandahar, Helmand, Nimruz, and Farah, which are the highest-volume regions for opium production.
The ministry intends to expand the opium eradication to other areas.
More Afghans Seek Asylum as Troops Prepare to Withdraw
Bethany Matta VOA News April 1, 2013
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — For decades, some Afghans have fled insecurity at home by taking a risky journey abroad to claim asylum. As worries grow about what will happen after foreign troops withdraw in 2014, more people are considering taking a gamble on a future far from home. Afghans know there are perils and payoffs in the journey.
Afghan asylum seekers arrive in Indonesia, thousands of kilometers short of their goal for a new life in Australia. Last year authorities in Canberra reported the number of arriving asylum seekers rose by a third, and the largest single group were Afghans.
Many of them are young, educated and have plenty of work experience, like Najibullah, who asked we conceal his appearance.
“I want to go to Australia. There are my friends, classmates, they are working there part-time and also they are studying at university, as well,” he said.
Expensive, dangerous escape
The price for the journey can run as much as $20,000. With many asylum seekers traveling secretly in unsafe boats, however, hundreds die annually from starvation or drowning.
Despite the risks at sea, there are signs that the number of Afghans leaving the country is increasing, as foreign troops prepare to leave, said General Aminullah Amarkhil, the head of Interpol at the Afghan Interior Ministry.
“Huge numbers of Afghans are busy working with these troops, around 40,000 to 50,000," said Amarkhil. "They speak English and know how to use computers well. When NATO leaves, these people will not only be jobless, but those who have worked with military organizations or NGOs [non-governmental organizations] think it will be dangerous for them to stay in the country.”
Three months ago, Mohammad Akram's 15-year-old son Yahya left for Iran with relatives. The boy made his way to a United Nations school in Turkey, and that is when Akram received the call.
“I told him he should return to the U.N. school he was studying at, but he wouldn't accept what I was saying. He said he wanted to go to Turkey so he could make his way to Europe,” said Akram.
The following night was the last time Akram spoke to his son. Yahya called home to say goodbye and asked his father to pray for him. Akram learned his son was lost on a boat along with 29 others. He still does not know what happened, despite paying government investigators.
“But there has been no result. It’s a shame for them to do nothing for us… What can I do? I lost my son and I spent money to find his corpse,” said Akram.
Akram and his family are struggling to come to terms with the death. He said the family's only remaining wish is to have their son's body back.
Angelina Jolie funds all-girls school in Afghanistan
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie confirmed on Monday that she has opened an all-girls school in Afghanistan, according to eonline.
Jolie, the goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has funded a girls-only primary school outside the Afghan capital of Kabul, where there is a large refugee population and education of females is lacking.
The Education Partnership for Children of Conflict aims to reach a total of one million “children in conflict, post-conflict refugee and emergency situations,” Angelina said at a press conference announcing its launch.
She plans to build more schools around the world from profits gained from her jewellery collection, Style of Jolie, designed by Robert Procop.
"We launched this collaborative collection with the intent that 100 percent of the profits will go to charity," Procop said.
Angelina was named Goodwill Ambassador for The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2001.
The organisation credits the actress with carrying out more than 40 field missions in remote regions around the world “to highlight the plight of millions of uprooted people and to advocate for their protection”, according to a statement on the UNHCR website.
Iran sanctions spur boom for Pakistani diesel smugglers
Reuters By Hamdan Albaloshi Mon Apr 1, 2013
JOGAR, Pakistan - Some of the contraband is spirited across the mountains in Pepsi bottles carried by child smugglers. Yet more is loaded into pick-up trucks or siphoned into barrels and strapped onto mules.
So lucrative are the returns that even seasoned opium traffickers are abandoning their traditional cargo to grab a share of Pakistan's closest thing to an oil boom: a roaring trade in illicit Iranian diesel.
As Western powers tighten sanctions on Iran, an unexpected set of beneficiaries has emerged in the hard-scrabble Pakistani province of Baluchistan - smugglers lured by surging profits for black market fuel.
"Why smuggle opium when you can earn as much money by smuggling diesel? It's much safer," said a former opium trader from the Pakistani town of Mand, a smuggling hub near the Iranian border.
"Besides, I'm now called a successful businessman -- not a drug dealer," said the man, who gave his name as Hamid.
Diesel smuggling has long been a part of the illicit trade in Baluchistan, where a thriving commerce in goods from guns and narcotics to duty free cigarettes and second hand Toyotas constitutes one the arteries of the globalised criminal economy.
But a Reuters inquiry into the fuel trade, based on interviews with participants across the province and a visit to remote parts of the frontier, has revealed that sanctions on Iran has made diesel smuggling extremely remunerative.
The findings also raise questions about the possible degree of complicity in fuel smuggling among Pakistani security forces stationed in Baluchistan, a vast province sandwiched between Iran and Afghanistan.
Covering almost half of Pakistan's land area but extremely sparsely populated, Baluchistan is home to both insurgents campaigning for an independent Baluch homeland, and drug cartels shipping Afghan opium and heroin to world markets.
In Nushki, a small town on one of the roads cutting through Baluchistan's arid moonscape, diesel traders preparing to drive to the Iran border had little to fear from the law.
"Bringing in fuel this way is so much cheaper and makes great profits," said one of the transporters, a burly man wearing a gold watch who had the demeanour of a wealthy businessman. "Even though there are security check points at all these border towns inside Pakistan, no one ever stops me. Why wouldn't I do this?"
TWICE AS MUCH
For years, diesel smuggled from Iran has supplemented the 2.7 million to 3 million tonnes (20 million to 22 million barrels) of diesel that Pakistan's state oil company buys from the Kuwait Petroleum Corp each year.
The illegal trade cooled in late 2010 when Iran cut fuel subsidies, narrowing profit margins for importers. But smugglers have gone into overdrive since late September, when growing pressure from Western sanctions caused the Iranian rial to lose forty per cent of its value against the dollar in a week, making diesel even cheaper for Pakistani buyers.
Iran sets its diesel price at 4,500 Iranian rials a litre, (about 15 U.S. cents at the open market rate) - less than the price of mineral water. In Pakistan, a litre of smuggled diesel can sell for 104 rupees a litre -- cheaper than the official price of 112 rupees a litre.
In Baluchistan, diesel dealers are making so much cash that some passenger transporters are trading in buses to buy pick-up trucks sturdy enough to make the journey to the frontier across river fords and forbidding escarpments.
"I sold my mini-bus to buy a pick-up. It earns me twice as much as the passenger van," said a man called Altaf, who has started ferrying Iranian diesel to the town of Turbat in Baluchistan.
At Jogar, a border pass in granite mountains, children trek across the hills bearing Iranian diesel in Pepsi bottles. Some is transported on donkeys. On the Baluchistan coast, smuggling proceeds on an industrial scale as diesel arrives at ports via vessels plying the Gulf of Oman.
Like tributaries feeding a river, individual smugglers bring their barrels to depots, where the cargo is aggregated into tanker trucks.
There is no way to reliably measure the amount of fuel involved, but traders believe that 100-130 tankers -- each capable of carrying 25,000-40,000 litres -- are filled with illicit Iranian diesel in Baluchistan each day.
The tankers then deliver the fuel to markets across Pakistan, or into Afghanistan, whose reliance on Iranian refined products poses a particular dilemma for Washington.
In January, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned that fuel purchases made for Afghan security forces using U.S. government funds may have included Iranian petroleum products, which would be a violation of Washington's own sanctions on Tehran.
Iran's attempts to boost formal energy ties with Pakistan are also a concern for the U.S. government. Washington has voiced opposition to plans to build a pipeline through Baluchistan to tap Iranian natural gas, which Pakistan sees as a possible answer to its chronic electricity shortages.
"ARMED HENCHMEN"
The ease with which diesel smuggling has blossomed anew underscores the tenuous writ of the authorities in Baluchistan, a region with a long history of independence that has felt marginalised ever since it was merged into Pakistan in 1948.
So large are the sums involved that many suspect elements in the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which has primary security responsibility in Baluchistan, and other agencies are involved.
"The Frontier Corps, coast guards and police provide the smugglers with protection in return for their share," said a senior government official in Makran, a southern coastal strip in Baluchistan and smuggling hotspot.
The Frontier Corps declined comment, but has in the past denied involvement in illegal trade, saying it has repeatedly confronted heavily armed heroin traffickers.
Fuel importers and marketers said, however, that Pakistan's over-stretched security forces turn a blind eye.
"Vehicles loaded with Iranian diesel and petrol provide us with fuel as a routine matter -- there are no hindrances to its transportation," said Ghulam Ali, who sells the smuggled products openly in Quetta, the main city in Baluchistan.
Akbar Baloch, who runs an import and export business from a village near the Iran border, said influential figures on both sides of the frontier were involved. "Their armed henchmen escort the vehicles used for smuggling," he added.
Iran's government, already battling Western moves to restrict supplies of gasoline and other refined products, has sought to stem smuggling by introducing a system of smart cards to ration subsidised fuel.
In Pakistan, authorities admit they are overwhelmed. Ibrahim Vighio, a senior customs official in Quetta, said the government plans to form a new 1,000-strong anti-smuggling unit. "We have lack of forces, proper weapons and equipment to stop the smuggling," he said.
(Additional reporting by Gul Yousufzai In QUETTA and; Jessica Jaganathan in SINGAPORE, Writing by Matthew Green; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Afghan Who Agreed to Trade His Daughter to End a Debt Says It Was Paid
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN April 1, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - After the publication of an article in The New York Times on Monday about an Afghan man who had agreed to give his 6-year-old daughter in marriage to pay off his debt to another man, the father called The Times and said the debt had been paid nearly a month ago by an anonymous donor.
The father, Taj Mohammad, who had fled the fighting in Helmand Province four years ago with his family and has been living in a refugee camp in Kabul, had borrowed $2,500 to pay for medical care for his wife and children, as well as for firewood. When the man he had borrowed from demanded his money back, Mr. Mohammad was unable to come up with the sum, he said.
After a traditional jirga, or extrajudicial proceeding, involving elders in the refugee camp, he agreed that if he could not pay the money back in a year, he would give his daughter in marriage to the lender’s son. The case came to the attention of The Times this winter because Mr. Mohammed’s 3-year-old son had frozen to death.
After hearing about the daughter’s case through earlier news reports, a donor offered to pay the debt, but stressed that the donation’s origin should remain private. Kimberley Motley, an American lawyer through whom the donor worked, said the transaction had taken place in early March. But Mr. Mohammad, for reasons that remained unclear and despite numerous conversations with reporters since then, did not tell The Times about it until after Monday’s article.
As recently as in a telephone interview on Friday, when he was asked about any developments in the case, he did not mention the donation. Asked on Monday why he had not said anything about it, he gave no direct answer.
Potentially complicating matters was that the payment was made through a jirga, Afghanistan’s unofficial justice system, which, while abided by in some cases, does not have the force of a formal proceeding in the courts. And it could be superseded by another jirga.
Ms. Motley, in an unusual step, chose to organize a jirga to undo the marriage commitment and repay the debt because the system is more expeditious and less intimidating than the courts to the impoverished displaced residents in the camps, she said. She acted as the jirga’s chairwoman, although the councils are almost always convened and presided over by local elders.
She said she had been concerned that the money might not be used to buy back the girl, given the extreme poverty in the camps, so she was present when Mr. Mohammad gave the money to the lender. She had each side sign the document; those who could not read or write, like Mr. Mohammad, signed with thumbprints.
Ms. Motley said she had taken every step she could think of to try to ensure that the deal holds — including having a mullah present as well as elders from the camp and witnesses for each side.
“This is as good as it gets,” she said.
She said she had not publicized the jirga or the payment in deference to the donor’s desire for discretion.
Still, some human rights experts, as well as Afghan law professors, questioned whether the two families would respect the jirga’s decision.
“Is this sustainable? I cannot guarantee it,” said Ahmad Gul Wasiq, a law professor at Nangarhar University, who specializes in family disputes. “There’s no guarantee that two years from now the lender won’t show up with a bunch of armed men and take the girl. Since the foundation of the agreement is unofficial, then everything is unofficial.”
Mr. Mohammad’s original commitment of his daughter, and its sanction by a jirga in the refugee camp, was illegal under Afghanistan’s Elimination of Violence Against Women law, according to the United Nations human rights division in Kabul. However, the law is enforced only if the victim or her relatives file a complaint, which leaves open the possibility of such informal practices.
The United Nations director of human rights for Afghanistan, Georgette Gagnon, said both the initial use of the girl to pay a debt and the decision to turn to a jirga to undo it “showed the weakness in both the informal and official justice system when it comes to the protection of women and girls.”
The refugee camps in Kabul are rife with families in tough circumstances, and the Afghan government does little to address them — in part because some officials would rather have the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled fighting return home. Though it is illegal under national law, child marriage is not uncommon in the camps, and there are a number of cases of it among displaced families, according to the aid group Aschiana. The group works in several refugee camps, including the Charahi Qambar camp, where Mr. Mohammad’s family lives.
Several aid groups deal with women’s and children’s issues in Afghanistan. In addition to Aschiana, they include Women for Afghan Women, which runs a network of shelters.
MPs Delay Impeachment Vote on Ministers of Botched Budgets
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Monday, 01 April 2013
Parliament on Monday delayed the vote on whether four government ministers will be impeached until after all 11 ministers who are under scrutiny for mismanaged budgets have been questioned by the lawmakers.
The ministers of economy, finance, information and culture, and mines appeared before parliament on Monday to answer for their ministries failure to spend more than 50 percent of their respective development budgets in 1390 (March 2011-March 2012).
A planned impeachment vote on the four ministers was delayed until the remaining seven ministers of interior, defence, water and energy, education, urban development, higher education, and counter-narcotics have all been questioned on the same budget mismanagement charge.
Of the four ministers who appeared today, two claimed the accusation against their ministry was false and two said they could not spend the allocated amount because they never received the funds.
"In 1390, we spent 68 percent of our development budget," Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi told the lawmakers.
Economic Minister Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal said, "We have made the economic strategy of the government for four years and we spent 87 percent of our development budget [in 1390]."
Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said that the ministry – which apparently only spent 23 percent of its development budget – struggled financially after some foreign companies did not pay money owed.
"Some of the money existed in the budget [plan] but we did not receive it and two foreign companies refused to pay money to our ministry," he told parliament.
The Minister of Information and Culture Sayed Makhdom Rahin made a similar complaint.
"The money existed on paper, but the ministry did not receive the money and so our actual budget was less," he said.
The lawmakers were divided on whether to hold the confidence vote today or at a later date. Some were angered by the decision to put off the vote with suggestions that some of the MPs were "working for" the ministers. "Some of the lawmakers are dealing with the ministers and supporting the ministers. They were not representing the people of Afghanistan; they were working for the ministers," MP Shukria Barekzai said.
Kandahar MP Mohammad Naaem Lalai Hamidzai agreed.
"Unfortunately, a number of lawmakers acted with the ministers in the parliament. This is worrisome and should be avoided," he said.
MP Fatima Aziz said it was not clear what was the result of the day's session.
"Unfortunately, it ended without any result and it's against the rules of the procedures of the house. I thought that we were starting voting for the ministers [today]," she said.
The remaining seven ministers will appear before parliament on Wednesday and Saturday this week.
Political Parties Ask Karzai for Clarity on Qatar Trip
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Monday, 01 April 2013
Afghan political leaders on Monday called for President Hamid Karzai to be transparent about his two-day visit to Qatar and, specifically, the outcome of talks on the Taliban office and peace deals.
Karzai returned to Kabul on Sunday night after two days in the Gulf nation where he met with Qatari government officials and business owners ahead of plans to open a political office for the Taliban in Doha, the nation's capital.
"The peace process and dealing with the Taliban is a very important thing for Afghanistan, so it should be discussed with the people, parliament, civil society and the political parties. The president cannot make these decisions himself," said Moeen Marastiyal, member of Truth and Justice Party.
Some of the parties' members suggested that the government was hiding its plans for dealing with the Taliban.
"Nowadays, the government has lost its way against the Taliban. We are concerned about the day when the Taliban come to negotiate and the government will not have any way to negotiate. We think that suggesting privileges to the Taliban is a sign of the government's weakness," member of National Coalition party Mohammad Asim said.
Karzai did not officially meet with any Taliban negotiators during the trip, despite reports last week in the Qatari media that the insurgent group was sending "moderate" envoys to negotiate.
On Sunday, Karzai met with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and discussed "bilateral cooperation in different areas including the Afghan peace process and Qatari investments in Afghanistan," according to a statement from Karzai's office, but it did not elaborate.
TOLOnews' requests for comment from the presidential office on the Qatar trip were not responded to on Monday.
The trip comes amid heightened tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan over their relationship with the insurgents. Both countries have recently accused the other of supporting the Taliban insurgency in some form in order to foment unrest in the neighbouring country.
Karzai's spokesman said last week that the Pakistan had abandoned the peace process and imposed "impossible" pre-conditions on any further discussions including asking Afghanistan to cut ties with India. Pakistan rejected the statement and reiterated its commitment to the peace process.
Meanwhile, a report was released citing Pakistan's intelligence agency accusing the Afghan government of supporting elements of the Taliban.
The Afghan government has been pushing hard to get the Taliban to negotiate a peace deal before the end of 2014, but the Taliban has consistently refused to talk with the Karzai regime, referring to it as a puppet government.
Govt Introduces New Rules for Overloaded Vehicles
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Monday, 01 April 2013
New procedures for large freight trucks will be introduced in Afghanistan amid concerns that overloaded vehicles are damaging the roads, the Ministry of Public Works said Monday.
The new rules mean overloaded vehicles will be fined, and after three fines, they will be confiscated.
"We have focused on fines in this procedure because it is best way to fight against the overloading of vehicles. We will fine drivers three times and after that we will seize their vehicles," the Deputy Minister of Public Works Ahmad Shah said.
"In order to completely eradicate the problem we will make this a law in the future," he added.
The ministry said to be made a law it still requires the approval of the Council of Ministers.
Afghanistan's main roads are made to take 60 tonnes weight, but now the traders and drivers are loading up out to 90 tonnes on some trucks which is seriously damaging roads and as a result leading to longer term economic harm, officials said.
More Afghans Seek Asylum as Troops Prepare to Withdraw
Voice of America By Bethany Matta April 01, 2013
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - For decades, some Afghans have fled insecurity at home by taking a risky journey abroad to claim asylum. As worries grow about what will happen after foreign troops withdraw in 2014, more people are considering taking a gamble on a future far from home. Afghans know there are perils and payoffs in the journey.
Afghan asylum seekers arrive in Indonesia, thousands of kilometers short of their goal for a new life in Australia. Last year authorities in Canberra reported the number of arriving asylum seekers rose by a third, and the largest single group were Afghans.
Many of them are young, educated and have plenty of work experience, like Najibullah, who asked we conceal his appearance.
“I want to go to Australia. There are my friends, classmates, they are working there part-time and also they are studying at university, as well,” he said.
Expensive, dangerous escape
The price for the journey can run as much as $20,000. With many asylum seekers traveling secretly in unsafe boats, however, hundreds die annually from starvation or drowning.
Despite the risks at sea, there are signs that the number of Afghans leaving the country is increasing, as foreign troops prepare to leave, said General Aminullah Amarkhil, the head of Interpol at the Afghan Interior Ministry.
“Huge numbers of Afghans are busy working with these troops, around 40,000 to 50,000," said Amarkhil. "They speak English and know how to use computers well. When NATO leaves, these people will not only be jobless, but those who have worked with military organizations or NGOs [non-governmental organizations] think it will be dangerous for them to stay in the country.”
Three months ago, Mohammad Akram's 15-year-old son Yahya left for Iran with relatives. The boy made his way to a United Nations school in Turkey, and that is when Akram received the call.
“I told him he should return to the U.N. school he was studying at, but he wouldn't accept what I was saying. He said he wanted to go to Turkey so he could make his way to Europe,” said Akram.
The following night was the last time Akram spoke to his son. Yahya called home to say goodbye and asked his father to pray for him. Akram learned his son was lost on a boat along with 29 others. He still does not know what happened, despite paying government investigators.
“But there has been no result. It’s a shame for them to do nothing for us What can I do? I lost my son and I spent money to find his corpse,” said Akram.
Akram and his family are struggling to come to terms with the death. He said the family's only remaining wish is to have their son's body back.
Jawzjan Boy Found Hanged After Suspected Rape
TOLOnews.com Monday, 01 April 2013
A ten-year-old boy has been murdered after he was allegedly rape in the Aqcha district of northern Jawzjan province, according to local officials.
The media office of the Jawzjan police on Monday said that the boy left his family home to collect water and never returned.
His mother went looking for him and found him dead, hanging by the neck in a garden near their home, the office said.
No one has been arrested or charged in relation to the incident but police are still investigating, the office added.
Jawzjan police commander Gen Abdul Aziz Azat said that the murder happened on March 27 and added that the rape was not confirmed.
"This boy was an orphan and he was living with his mother. His body was found on the 27th and it is not clear yet whether he was raped or not," he told TOLOnews.
In Afghanistan, a person is said to be an orphan if their father has died.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
April 2, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told a German newspaper that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar can run for president in the election scheduled for next year.
In an interview published on April 2 by the German daily newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung," Karzai said Omar "can give Afghans the opportunity to vote for or against him."
Karzai, whose term as president expires next year, added that the Afghan Constitution is valid for all Afghans and "the Taliban also should benefit from it."
But he reiterated that the militant group needed to first break its ties with Al-Qaeda and renounce violence in order to join the political process.
Karzai's comments come after he visited Qatar over the weekend to discuss the formal opening of a political office there for the Taliban.
Based on reporting by AP and sueddeutsche.de
Pakistan rejects Afghanistan's claim over border constructions
ISLAMABAD, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Tuesday rejected Afghan government's claim that Pakistani military has started unilateral construction and is engaged in physical reinforcement activities along the border in the eastern Ningarhar province.
Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it has conveyed grave concern about the development to the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul, Muhammad Sadiq and demanded halt to all activities.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, Jawed Ludin, told Ambassador Sadiq that these activities are against all accepted international norms, provocative and unacceptable to the Afghan government, and that the government of Pakistan must halt them immediately, an Afghan Foreign Ministry statement said.
Responding to the assertions by the Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said that Pakistan has an old post called Gursal well inside Pakistani territory bordering Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, which is under routine renovation.
He said that both sides are supposed to inform any new construction closer to border areas under the recently signed Tripartite Border SOP.
"Despite being a renovation work, Pakistan shared this information with the Afghan side as a gesture of goodwill. The same was also shared with the Afghan visiting delegation to Mohmand Agency on 24 January 2013," the Pakistani spokesman said.
He said the renovation of the post is primarily meant to interdict terrorists and criminals as well as better management of the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin's recent concerns about construction and physical reinforcement along the Afghan border are therefore not in keeping with the spirit of the understanding on good border management and the recently signed Tripartite Border SOP".
He said Better managements of the border through strengthening border posts located in each other's territory are in the interest of the two countries to have an effective check over terrorists and criminals. Pakistan suggests to the Afghan Government to take similar measures on their side of the border posts.
The Spokesperson added that Pakistan remains committed to extending all possible support and facilitation for peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan.
Pakistan Border Post Sparks New Feud With Afghanistan
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE in Kabul and SAEED SHAH in Islamabad April 1, 2013
The Afghan government demanded on Monday that Pakistan halt "provocative and unacceptable" activities along their shared border, objecting to the uncoordinated construction of a Pakistani check post and stepping up a verbal war between the two neighbors.
The rift sharpens a recent confrontation that threatens to worsen already strained Afghan-Pakistani relations.
Over the past month, the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeatedly accused Pakistan of trying to undermine the prospects of peace with the Taliban. Last week, Kabul called off participation in a military exercise in Pakistan to protest alleged cross-border shelling, and complained that Pakistan had made unacceptable demands, such as breaking Kabul's ties with India, during a February summit in London.
Pakistan denied it imposed demands on Kabul during the summit and denied the shelling.
Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin on Monday expressed "grave concern" to Pakistani Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq over the construction and reinforcement of a border post along the Durand Line, the British-drawn boundary between the two countries, Afghanistan's foreign ministry said.
Mr. Ludin told Mr. Sadiq the construction was "against all accepted international norms, provocative and unacceptable to the Afghan government," the ministry said.
Col. Wali Khan Shinwari, an Afghan border police commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the Pakistanis began building the border post last week near the villages of Hatam Kalai and Kodzarai and he reported it to Kabul. He said there haven't been clashes between Afghan and Pakistani forces in the area.
However, Islamabad has long complained that a branch of the Pakistani Taliban that is based just across the border, in eastern Afghanistan, especially in Kunar and Nuristan provinces, uses that territory to mount raids into Pakistan.
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the spokesman of Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the border post—which stands next to Goshta district in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, bordering Mohmand Agency, one of Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas—didn't encroach on Afghan territory.
"This is in Mohmand, on our side," Mr. Chaudhry said. "We are constructing something there. We have a post there. It is on our side. So I don't know what the issue is." He added: "There are mechanisms in place [between Pakistan and Afghanistan] to resolve issues. Making allegations is not the way, the idea is to build trust."
This latest dispute touches a third rail in Afghan-Pakistani relations: a border line that was drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of British India, in 1893, and that cuts through the ethnic Pashtun heartland. Islamabad has tried to push Kabul to accept the Durand Line as the official border between the two countries ever since Pakistan's independence in 1947, but Afghanistan has never accepted it as an international frontier.
"Anything that happens along the Durand Line must be agreed by both sides," said an Afghan official. "This unilateral action by the Pakistani side is unacceptable to us."
Border security in the region is also a top priority for the U.S. military, whose grievance that Afghan insurgents are using Pakistani territory as a haven are a mirror image of Pakistan's own complaint.
On Monday, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, flew to Pakistan to discuss regional concerns with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who oversees Pakistan's key security and foreign policy issues. It is Gen. Dunford's first visit to Pakistan since taking over as head of the International Security Assistance Force in February.
The two generals discussed several hot-button issues, including cross-border attacks, according to a joint statement. Gen. Kayani "emphasized the need to continue supporting all efforts to bring peace to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region," the statement read. "He urged ISAF to help Pakistan check cross-border attacks launched from inside Afghanistan." —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
Afghan spy chief recovers from injuries, returns to Afghanistan
By MEENA HASEEB - 02 Apr 2013, 2:16 pm Khaama Press
Afghan spy chief, head of the national directorate for security (NDS) Asadullah Khalid returned back to Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Asadullah Khalid was injured following a suicide bomb blast in capital Kabul after a suicide bomber who introduced himself as the Taliban peace envoy detonated his explosives while meeting him in one of his guesthouses on December 6 last year.
He was taken to intelligence hospital in capital Kabul after the attack and was later transferred to coalition forces hospital in Bagram airfield.
He was later admitted to a US hospital for further treatment. The attacker was purportedly carrying a peace message on behalf of the Taliban when he detonated himself.
Attack on NDS chief Asadullah Khalid was reminiscent of the September 2011 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, at the time the head of a body created by Mr. Karzai to open peace talks with the Taliban.
Mr. Rabbani was killed in his Kabul home by a purported peace emissary who carried a bomb concealed in his headgear. At the time, though, the Taliban didn’t claim responsibility for the killing.
Airstrike kills 8 Taliban fighters in W. Afghanistan
FARAH, Afghanistan, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Eight Taliban militants were killed as aircraft targeted a Taliban hideout in Farah province 695 km west of Kabul Monday night, provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kintoz said Tuesday.
"Acting upon intelligence report, the aircraft pounded a Taliban hideout in Pushtrod district last night killing eight Taliban rebels including a local commander Mullah Mansoor and two would-be suicide bombers last night," Kintoz told Xinhua.
Taliban militants fighting the government are yet to make comment.
Afghanistan issues 100bn new Afghani bank notes
By SAYED JAWAD - 02 Apr 2013, 3:54 pm Khaama Press
The Central Bank of Afghanistan — Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) officials on Tuesday announced that fresh banknotes amounting to one hundred billion Afghanis have recently been printed.
DAB officials also informed that the latest specifications have been placed in the new banknotes in a bid to make it easier to differentiate from the fake notes.
The officials also added that the Central Bank of Afghanistan remains committed to meet the needs and issues of th Afghan market.
The new bank notes are due to be distributed in accordance with the market demands, DAB officials said adding that the new banknotes have been printing considering the needs of the market for the next five years.
A British firm was contracted to print the new Afghan bank notes and the contract was reportedly given to the firm against $20 million.
According to reports the Afghan government has also ordered to print another one hundred million Afghanis and the new bank notes will be printed as per the demands of the Afghan market.
In the meantime deputy governor for the Central Bank of Afghanistan Khan Afzal Hadawal said the new specifications of the bank notes will remain confidential with the bank while some of the specifications will be made public in the near future.
This comes as the residents of Kabul city and other provinces of Afghanistan including the business owners complained of facing issues with the fake bank notes in the market.
Karzai Orders Jailed Mullahs to be Investigated
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Monday, 01 April 2013
President Hamid Karzai has appointed a commission to investigate the imprisonment of about 1000 mullahs in Afghanistan's prisons who were jailed for preaching anti-government propaganda, the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs said Monday.
The imprisoned mullahs allegedly have links to insurgent groups such as Taliban or Al Qaeda, but Karzai wants their cases investigated and the innocent to be freed, Deputy Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs Dai-ul-Haq Abid told TOLOnews.
"More than 1000 religious clerics are imprisoned in the jail and at a meeting which the Ulema had with President Karzai, he [Karzai] promised the Ulema that the innocent will be released," Abid said.
The Ulema Council confirmed the statement saying that only those involved in actual attacks are likely to remain in jail.
"According to the president, those scholars who are innocent and are imprisoned on the basis of various charges will be released, and those scholars who did lesser crimes or who were charged for their [insurgent] links must be released too. But those scholars who were involved in attacks and murders must be punished," Ulema Council deputy and spokesman Enayatullah Baligh told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, the Hajj Ministry also said that there are more than 100,000 mosques around the country which are beyond the reach or control of the government and there is no supervision of their mullahs.
Of Afghanistan's 160,000 mosques, about 4,000 are monitored by the Hajj Ministry and 50,000 mosques are registered with the government.
"Only 4,000 mosques are monitored officially by us and more than 50,000 are registered. But more than 100,000 are not registered [or monitored]," Abid said.
Monitoring a mosque involves sending a government representative from the ministry to listen to the Friday sermons of the mullahs.
Top US General in Afghanistan Visits Pakistan
Ayaz Gul VOA News April 1, 2013
ISLAMABAD — The commander of NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan has made his first official visit to neighboring Pakistan, after assuming command earlier this year. His visit comes amid continuing recriminations between Afghan and Pakistani officials, undermining hopes that a recent thaw in ties could help bring Taliban insurgents to the negotiating table.
General Joseph Dunford, commander of the NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan, met Monday with military chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistan army is headquartered.
A joint statement released after the meeting said the two leaders discussed ways to strengthen military cooperation and “pressuring militants who threaten security along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”
Officials in Pakistan allege that fugitive militants taking refuge in Afghanistan cross the border with the help of Afghan insurgents to attack Pakistani civilian and military targets. They also are critical of the Afghan National Army for not stopping the violence.
Former Pakistan military spokesman retired General Athar Abbas says such infiltrations and insurgent violence inside Afghanistan are likely to intensify if international forces withdraw from the country by the end of next year without having an effective peace plan in place. He cites the long, porous border.
"If it does not happen and the area is left without coming up with a formula, which basically puts a political dispensation, which is agreeable, approved or acceptable to main stakeholders in Afghanistan, I think then the turbulence or instability in Afghanistan is likely to spill over to Pakistan, and that is our main worry," said Abbas.
But Afghan officials have alleged that efforts aimed at political reconciliation with the Taliban are not progressing because Pakistan is not living up to its commitment to facilitate the peace process.
Golalai Noor Safi, a female Afghan lawmaker and member of the High Peace Council tasked with negotiating peace with the Taliban, also blames Pakistan for the recent tensions.
"We think that the Pakistani side is not honest in their relations and every day they change their mind about the [peace] process, about Afghanistan, about the situation," said Safi.
Hours after Monday's meeting between NATO and Pakistani top commanders, Afghanistan again accused Pakistan of continuing cross-border rocket and artillery attacks on Kunar, one of its eastern border provinces.
Last month, Afghanistan canceled a military trip to Pakistan over alleged cross-border shelling by Pakistani troops. Pakistan criticized the decision as an "overreaction."
Pakistan’s traditional links with some influential insurgent Afghan groups, including the Taliban, are seen as vital in international-backed efforts to try to bring an end to the violence in Afghanistan, to ensure an orderly withdrawal of foreign forces from the country.
Kabul alleges that Islamabad is not interested in promoting the Afghan peace process, a charge Islamabad denies.
Afghan Officials Say Opium Cultivation Rising
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan April 1, 2013
KABUL -- Afghan officials say illegal opium cultivation in the country has increased this year despite efforts to target traffickers and provide farmers with alternative livelihoods.
Qayum Samir, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Counternarcotics Ministry, told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan on April 1 that an estimated 157,000 hectares of land are being illegally used for opium cultivation this spring.
The ministry believes that is about 3,000 hectares more than at the same time last year.
Samir blamed a lack of security and widespread poverty for the rise in opium production.
The spokesman said the ministry has set up special taskforces to eradicate opium farms in four southern and southeastern provinces, including Kandahar, Helmand, Nimruz, and Farah, which are the highest-volume regions for opium production.
The ministry intends to expand the opium eradication to other areas.
More Afghans Seek Asylum as Troops Prepare to Withdraw
Bethany Matta VOA News April 1, 2013
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — For decades, some Afghans have fled insecurity at home by taking a risky journey abroad to claim asylum. As worries grow about what will happen after foreign troops withdraw in 2014, more people are considering taking a gamble on a future far from home. Afghans know there are perils and payoffs in the journey.
Afghan asylum seekers arrive in Indonesia, thousands of kilometers short of their goal for a new life in Australia. Last year authorities in Canberra reported the number of arriving asylum seekers rose by a third, and the largest single group were Afghans.
Many of them are young, educated and have plenty of work experience, like Najibullah, who asked we conceal his appearance.
“I want to go to Australia. There are my friends, classmates, they are working there part-time and also they are studying at university, as well,” he said.
Expensive, dangerous escape
The price for the journey can run as much as $20,000. With many asylum seekers traveling secretly in unsafe boats, however, hundreds die annually from starvation or drowning.
Despite the risks at sea, there are signs that the number of Afghans leaving the country is increasing, as foreign troops prepare to leave, said General Aminullah Amarkhil, the head of Interpol at the Afghan Interior Ministry.
“Huge numbers of Afghans are busy working with these troops, around 40,000 to 50,000," said Amarkhil. "They speak English and know how to use computers well. When NATO leaves, these people will not only be jobless, but those who have worked with military organizations or NGOs [non-governmental organizations] think it will be dangerous for them to stay in the country.”
Three months ago, Mohammad Akram's 15-year-old son Yahya left for Iran with relatives. The boy made his way to a United Nations school in Turkey, and that is when Akram received the call.
“I told him he should return to the U.N. school he was studying at, but he wouldn't accept what I was saying. He said he wanted to go to Turkey so he could make his way to Europe,” said Akram.
The following night was the last time Akram spoke to his son. Yahya called home to say goodbye and asked his father to pray for him. Akram learned his son was lost on a boat along with 29 others. He still does not know what happened, despite paying government investigators.
“But there has been no result. It’s a shame for them to do nothing for us… What can I do? I lost my son and I spent money to find his corpse,” said Akram.
Akram and his family are struggling to come to terms with the death. He said the family's only remaining wish is to have their son's body back.
Angelina Jolie funds all-girls school in Afghanistan
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie confirmed on Monday that she has opened an all-girls school in Afghanistan, according to eonline.
Jolie, the goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has funded a girls-only primary school outside the Afghan capital of Kabul, where there is a large refugee population and education of females is lacking.
The Education Partnership for Children of Conflict aims to reach a total of one million “children in conflict, post-conflict refugee and emergency situations,” Angelina said at a press conference announcing its launch.
She plans to build more schools around the world from profits gained from her jewellery collection, Style of Jolie, designed by Robert Procop.
"We launched this collaborative collection with the intent that 100 percent of the profits will go to charity," Procop said.
Angelina was named Goodwill Ambassador for The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2001.
The organisation credits the actress with carrying out more than 40 field missions in remote regions around the world “to highlight the plight of millions of uprooted people and to advocate for their protection”, according to a statement on the UNHCR website.
Iran sanctions spur boom for Pakistani diesel smugglers
Reuters By Hamdan Albaloshi Mon Apr 1, 2013
JOGAR, Pakistan - Some of the contraband is spirited across the mountains in Pepsi bottles carried by child smugglers. Yet more is loaded into pick-up trucks or siphoned into barrels and strapped onto mules.
So lucrative are the returns that even seasoned opium traffickers are abandoning their traditional cargo to grab a share of Pakistan's closest thing to an oil boom: a roaring trade in illicit Iranian diesel.
As Western powers tighten sanctions on Iran, an unexpected set of beneficiaries has emerged in the hard-scrabble Pakistani province of Baluchistan - smugglers lured by surging profits for black market fuel.
"Why smuggle opium when you can earn as much money by smuggling diesel? It's much safer," said a former opium trader from the Pakistani town of Mand, a smuggling hub near the Iranian border.
"Besides, I'm now called a successful businessman -- not a drug dealer," said the man, who gave his name as Hamid.
Diesel smuggling has long been a part of the illicit trade in Baluchistan, where a thriving commerce in goods from guns and narcotics to duty free cigarettes and second hand Toyotas constitutes one the arteries of the globalised criminal economy.
But a Reuters inquiry into the fuel trade, based on interviews with participants across the province and a visit to remote parts of the frontier, has revealed that sanctions on Iran has made diesel smuggling extremely remunerative.
The findings also raise questions about the possible degree of complicity in fuel smuggling among Pakistani security forces stationed in Baluchistan, a vast province sandwiched between Iran and Afghanistan.
Covering almost half of Pakistan's land area but extremely sparsely populated, Baluchistan is home to both insurgents campaigning for an independent Baluch homeland, and drug cartels shipping Afghan opium and heroin to world markets.
In Nushki, a small town on one of the roads cutting through Baluchistan's arid moonscape, diesel traders preparing to drive to the Iran border had little to fear from the law.
"Bringing in fuel this way is so much cheaper and makes great profits," said one of the transporters, a burly man wearing a gold watch who had the demeanour of a wealthy businessman. "Even though there are security check points at all these border towns inside Pakistan, no one ever stops me. Why wouldn't I do this?"
TWICE AS MUCH
For years, diesel smuggled from Iran has supplemented the 2.7 million to 3 million tonnes (20 million to 22 million barrels) of diesel that Pakistan's state oil company buys from the Kuwait Petroleum Corp each year.
The illegal trade cooled in late 2010 when Iran cut fuel subsidies, narrowing profit margins for importers. But smugglers have gone into overdrive since late September, when growing pressure from Western sanctions caused the Iranian rial to lose forty per cent of its value against the dollar in a week, making diesel even cheaper for Pakistani buyers.
Iran sets its diesel price at 4,500 Iranian rials a litre, (about 15 U.S. cents at the open market rate) - less than the price of mineral water. In Pakistan, a litre of smuggled diesel can sell for 104 rupees a litre -- cheaper than the official price of 112 rupees a litre.
In Baluchistan, diesel dealers are making so much cash that some passenger transporters are trading in buses to buy pick-up trucks sturdy enough to make the journey to the frontier across river fords and forbidding escarpments.
"I sold my mini-bus to buy a pick-up. It earns me twice as much as the passenger van," said a man called Altaf, who has started ferrying Iranian diesel to the town of Turbat in Baluchistan.
At Jogar, a border pass in granite mountains, children trek across the hills bearing Iranian diesel in Pepsi bottles. Some is transported on donkeys. On the Baluchistan coast, smuggling proceeds on an industrial scale as diesel arrives at ports via vessels plying the Gulf of Oman.
Like tributaries feeding a river, individual smugglers bring their barrels to depots, where the cargo is aggregated into tanker trucks.
There is no way to reliably measure the amount of fuel involved, but traders believe that 100-130 tankers -- each capable of carrying 25,000-40,000 litres -- are filled with illicit Iranian diesel in Baluchistan each day.
The tankers then deliver the fuel to markets across Pakistan, or into Afghanistan, whose reliance on Iranian refined products poses a particular dilemma for Washington.
In January, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned that fuel purchases made for Afghan security forces using U.S. government funds may have included Iranian petroleum products, which would be a violation of Washington's own sanctions on Tehran.
Iran's attempts to boost formal energy ties with Pakistan are also a concern for the U.S. government. Washington has voiced opposition to plans to build a pipeline through Baluchistan to tap Iranian natural gas, which Pakistan sees as a possible answer to its chronic electricity shortages.
"ARMED HENCHMEN"
The ease with which diesel smuggling has blossomed anew underscores the tenuous writ of the authorities in Baluchistan, a region with a long history of independence that has felt marginalised ever since it was merged into Pakistan in 1948.
So large are the sums involved that many suspect elements in the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which has primary security responsibility in Baluchistan, and other agencies are involved.
"The Frontier Corps, coast guards and police provide the smugglers with protection in return for their share," said a senior government official in Makran, a southern coastal strip in Baluchistan and smuggling hotspot.
The Frontier Corps declined comment, but has in the past denied involvement in illegal trade, saying it has repeatedly confronted heavily armed heroin traffickers.
Fuel importers and marketers said, however, that Pakistan's over-stretched security forces turn a blind eye.
"Vehicles loaded with Iranian diesel and petrol provide us with fuel as a routine matter -- there are no hindrances to its transportation," said Ghulam Ali, who sells the smuggled products openly in Quetta, the main city in Baluchistan.
Akbar Baloch, who runs an import and export business from a village near the Iran border, said influential figures on both sides of the frontier were involved. "Their armed henchmen escort the vehicles used for smuggling," he added.
Iran's government, already battling Western moves to restrict supplies of gasoline and other refined products, has sought to stem smuggling by introducing a system of smart cards to ration subsidised fuel.
In Pakistan, authorities admit they are overwhelmed. Ibrahim Vighio, a senior customs official in Quetta, said the government plans to form a new 1,000-strong anti-smuggling unit. "We have lack of forces, proper weapons and equipment to stop the smuggling," he said.
(Additional reporting by Gul Yousufzai In QUETTA and; Jessica Jaganathan in SINGAPORE, Writing by Matthew Green; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Afghan Who Agreed to Trade His Daughter to End a Debt Says It Was Paid
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN April 1, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - After the publication of an article in The New York Times on Monday about an Afghan man who had agreed to give his 6-year-old daughter in marriage to pay off his debt to another man, the father called The Times and said the debt had been paid nearly a month ago by an anonymous donor.
The father, Taj Mohammad, who had fled the fighting in Helmand Province four years ago with his family and has been living in a refugee camp in Kabul, had borrowed $2,500 to pay for medical care for his wife and children, as well as for firewood. When the man he had borrowed from demanded his money back, Mr. Mohammad was unable to come up with the sum, he said.
After a traditional jirga, or extrajudicial proceeding, involving elders in the refugee camp, he agreed that if he could not pay the money back in a year, he would give his daughter in marriage to the lender’s son. The case came to the attention of The Times this winter because Mr. Mohammed’s 3-year-old son had frozen to death.
After hearing about the daughter’s case through earlier news reports, a donor offered to pay the debt, but stressed that the donation’s origin should remain private. Kimberley Motley, an American lawyer through whom the donor worked, said the transaction had taken place in early March. But Mr. Mohammad, for reasons that remained unclear and despite numerous conversations with reporters since then, did not tell The Times about it until after Monday’s article.
As recently as in a telephone interview on Friday, when he was asked about any developments in the case, he did not mention the donation. Asked on Monday why he had not said anything about it, he gave no direct answer.
Potentially complicating matters was that the payment was made through a jirga, Afghanistan’s unofficial justice system, which, while abided by in some cases, does not have the force of a formal proceeding in the courts. And it could be superseded by another jirga.
Ms. Motley, in an unusual step, chose to organize a jirga to undo the marriage commitment and repay the debt because the system is more expeditious and less intimidating than the courts to the impoverished displaced residents in the camps, she said. She acted as the jirga’s chairwoman, although the councils are almost always convened and presided over by local elders.
She said she had been concerned that the money might not be used to buy back the girl, given the extreme poverty in the camps, so she was present when Mr. Mohammad gave the money to the lender. She had each side sign the document; those who could not read or write, like Mr. Mohammad, signed with thumbprints.
Ms. Motley said she had taken every step she could think of to try to ensure that the deal holds — including having a mullah present as well as elders from the camp and witnesses for each side.
“This is as good as it gets,” she said.
She said she had not publicized the jirga or the payment in deference to the donor’s desire for discretion.
Still, some human rights experts, as well as Afghan law professors, questioned whether the two families would respect the jirga’s decision.
“Is this sustainable? I cannot guarantee it,” said Ahmad Gul Wasiq, a law professor at Nangarhar University, who specializes in family disputes. “There’s no guarantee that two years from now the lender won’t show up with a bunch of armed men and take the girl. Since the foundation of the agreement is unofficial, then everything is unofficial.”
Mr. Mohammad’s original commitment of his daughter, and its sanction by a jirga in the refugee camp, was illegal under Afghanistan’s Elimination of Violence Against Women law, according to the United Nations human rights division in Kabul. However, the law is enforced only if the victim or her relatives file a complaint, which leaves open the possibility of such informal practices.
The United Nations director of human rights for Afghanistan, Georgette Gagnon, said both the initial use of the girl to pay a debt and the decision to turn to a jirga to undo it “showed the weakness in both the informal and official justice system when it comes to the protection of women and girls.”
The refugee camps in Kabul are rife with families in tough circumstances, and the Afghan government does little to address them — in part because some officials would rather have the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled fighting return home. Though it is illegal under national law, child marriage is not uncommon in the camps, and there are a number of cases of it among displaced families, according to the aid group Aschiana. The group works in several refugee camps, including the Charahi Qambar camp, where Mr. Mohammad’s family lives.
Several aid groups deal with women’s and children’s issues in Afghanistan. In addition to Aschiana, they include Women for Afghan Women, which runs a network of shelters.
MPs Delay Impeachment Vote on Ministers of Botched Budgets
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Monday, 01 April 2013
Parliament on Monday delayed the vote on whether four government ministers will be impeached until after all 11 ministers who are under scrutiny for mismanaged budgets have been questioned by the lawmakers.
The ministers of economy, finance, information and culture, and mines appeared before parliament on Monday to answer for their ministries failure to spend more than 50 percent of their respective development budgets in 1390 (March 2011-March 2012).
A planned impeachment vote on the four ministers was delayed until the remaining seven ministers of interior, defence, water and energy, education, urban development, higher education, and counter-narcotics have all been questioned on the same budget mismanagement charge.
Of the four ministers who appeared today, two claimed the accusation against their ministry was false and two said they could not spend the allocated amount because they never received the funds.
"In 1390, we spent 68 percent of our development budget," Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi told the lawmakers.
Economic Minister Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal said, "We have made the economic strategy of the government for four years and we spent 87 percent of our development budget [in 1390]."
Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said that the ministry – which apparently only spent 23 percent of its development budget – struggled financially after some foreign companies did not pay money owed.
"Some of the money existed in the budget [plan] but we did not receive it and two foreign companies refused to pay money to our ministry," he told parliament.
The Minister of Information and Culture Sayed Makhdom Rahin made a similar complaint.
"The money existed on paper, but the ministry did not receive the money and so our actual budget was less," he said.
The lawmakers were divided on whether to hold the confidence vote today or at a later date. Some were angered by the decision to put off the vote with suggestions that some of the MPs were "working for" the ministers. "Some of the lawmakers are dealing with the ministers and supporting the ministers. They were not representing the people of Afghanistan; they were working for the ministers," MP Shukria Barekzai said.
Kandahar MP Mohammad Naaem Lalai Hamidzai agreed.
"Unfortunately, a number of lawmakers acted with the ministers in the parliament. This is worrisome and should be avoided," he said.
MP Fatima Aziz said it was not clear what was the result of the day's session.
"Unfortunately, it ended without any result and it's against the rules of the procedures of the house. I thought that we were starting voting for the ministers [today]," she said.
The remaining seven ministers will appear before parliament on Wednesday and Saturday this week.
Political Parties Ask Karzai for Clarity on Qatar Trip
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Monday, 01 April 2013
Afghan political leaders on Monday called for President Hamid Karzai to be transparent about his two-day visit to Qatar and, specifically, the outcome of talks on the Taliban office and peace deals.
Karzai returned to Kabul on Sunday night after two days in the Gulf nation where he met with Qatari government officials and business owners ahead of plans to open a political office for the Taliban in Doha, the nation's capital.
"The peace process and dealing with the Taliban is a very important thing for Afghanistan, so it should be discussed with the people, parliament, civil society and the political parties. The president cannot make these decisions himself," said Moeen Marastiyal, member of Truth and Justice Party.
Some of the parties' members suggested that the government was hiding its plans for dealing with the Taliban.
"Nowadays, the government has lost its way against the Taliban. We are concerned about the day when the Taliban come to negotiate and the government will not have any way to negotiate. We think that suggesting privileges to the Taliban is a sign of the government's weakness," member of National Coalition party Mohammad Asim said.
Karzai did not officially meet with any Taliban negotiators during the trip, despite reports last week in the Qatari media that the insurgent group was sending "moderate" envoys to negotiate.
On Sunday, Karzai met with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and discussed "bilateral cooperation in different areas including the Afghan peace process and Qatari investments in Afghanistan," according to a statement from Karzai's office, but it did not elaborate.
TOLOnews' requests for comment from the presidential office on the Qatar trip were not responded to on Monday.
The trip comes amid heightened tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan over their relationship with the insurgents. Both countries have recently accused the other of supporting the Taliban insurgency in some form in order to foment unrest in the neighbouring country.
Karzai's spokesman said last week that the Pakistan had abandoned the peace process and imposed "impossible" pre-conditions on any further discussions including asking Afghanistan to cut ties with India. Pakistan rejected the statement and reiterated its commitment to the peace process.
Meanwhile, a report was released citing Pakistan's intelligence agency accusing the Afghan government of supporting elements of the Taliban.
The Afghan government has been pushing hard to get the Taliban to negotiate a peace deal before the end of 2014, but the Taliban has consistently refused to talk with the Karzai regime, referring to it as a puppet government.
Govt Introduces New Rules for Overloaded Vehicles
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Monday, 01 April 2013
New procedures for large freight trucks will be introduced in Afghanistan amid concerns that overloaded vehicles are damaging the roads, the Ministry of Public Works said Monday.
The new rules mean overloaded vehicles will be fined, and after three fines, they will be confiscated.
"We have focused on fines in this procedure because it is best way to fight against the overloading of vehicles. We will fine drivers three times and after that we will seize their vehicles," the Deputy Minister of Public Works Ahmad Shah said.
"In order to completely eradicate the problem we will make this a law in the future," he added.
The ministry said to be made a law it still requires the approval of the Council of Ministers.
Afghanistan's main roads are made to take 60 tonnes weight, but now the traders and drivers are loading up out to 90 tonnes on some trucks which is seriously damaging roads and as a result leading to longer term economic harm, officials said.
More Afghans Seek Asylum as Troops Prepare to Withdraw
Voice of America By Bethany Matta April 01, 2013
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - For decades, some Afghans have fled insecurity at home by taking a risky journey abroad to claim asylum. As worries grow about what will happen after foreign troops withdraw in 2014, more people are considering taking a gamble on a future far from home. Afghans know there are perils and payoffs in the journey.
Afghan asylum seekers arrive in Indonesia, thousands of kilometers short of their goal for a new life in Australia. Last year authorities in Canberra reported the number of arriving asylum seekers rose by a third, and the largest single group were Afghans.
Many of them are young, educated and have plenty of work experience, like Najibullah, who asked we conceal his appearance.
“I want to go to Australia. There are my friends, classmates, they are working there part-time and also they are studying at university, as well,” he said.
Expensive, dangerous escape
The price for the journey can run as much as $20,000. With many asylum seekers traveling secretly in unsafe boats, however, hundreds die annually from starvation or drowning.
Despite the risks at sea, there are signs that the number of Afghans leaving the country is increasing, as foreign troops prepare to leave, said General Aminullah Amarkhil, the head of Interpol at the Afghan Interior Ministry.
“Huge numbers of Afghans are busy working with these troops, around 40,000 to 50,000," said Amarkhil. "They speak English and know how to use computers well. When NATO leaves, these people will not only be jobless, but those who have worked with military organizations or NGOs [non-governmental organizations] think it will be dangerous for them to stay in the country.”
Three months ago, Mohammad Akram's 15-year-old son Yahya left for Iran with relatives. The boy made his way to a United Nations school in Turkey, and that is when Akram received the call.
“I told him he should return to the U.N. school he was studying at, but he wouldn't accept what I was saying. He said he wanted to go to Turkey so he could make his way to Europe,” said Akram.
The following night was the last time Akram spoke to his son. Yahya called home to say goodbye and asked his father to pray for him. Akram learned his son was lost on a boat along with 29 others. He still does not know what happened, despite paying government investigators.
“But there has been no result. It’s a shame for them to do nothing for us What can I do? I lost my son and I spent money to find his corpse,” said Akram.
Akram and his family are struggling to come to terms with the death. He said the family's only remaining wish is to have their son's body back.
Jawzjan Boy Found Hanged After Suspected Rape
TOLOnews.com Monday, 01 April 2013
A ten-year-old boy has been murdered after he was allegedly rape in the Aqcha district of northern Jawzjan province, according to local officials.
The media office of the Jawzjan police on Monday said that the boy left his family home to collect water and never returned.
His mother went looking for him and found him dead, hanging by the neck in a garden near their home, the office said.
No one has been arrested or charged in relation to the incident but police are still investigating, the office added.
Jawzjan police commander Gen Abdul Aziz Azat said that the murder happened on March 27 and added that the rape was not confirmed.
"This boy was an orphan and he was living with his mother. His body was found on the 27th and it is not clear yet whether he was raped or not," he told TOLOnews.
In Afghanistan, a person is said to be an orphan if their father has died.
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