[Afghan News] April 19, 2013

[یاسمینه]

Five Arrested In Afghanistan For Alleged Suicide-Bombing Plot
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan April 19, 2013
KABUL -- Afghan authorities say they have arrested five Taliban-linked militants, including a woman, who were planning to launch suicide attacks against civilians later this month.

Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told reporters the suspects were arrested in the eastern city of Jalalabad on April 18.

He said police seized suicide-bomb vests, explosives, and other weapons from the militants.

Sediqqi said the would-be suicide bombers were trained abroad, and they "have confessed their crime."

They were allegedly planning to launch coordinated attacks on April 27-28 in Kabul and Jalalabad.

April 28 is a public holiday in Afghanistan, marking the fall of the Soviet-backed government of President Najibullah in 1992.

With reporting by AFP


Afghan, Egyptian Clerics Declare Suicide Attacks 'Haram'
TOLOnews By Milad Sakandari 18 April 2013
Afghan and Egyptian religious scholars who met in Kabul Thursday have declared suicide attacks forbidden or 'haram' under Islam emphasising that this was in keeping with most Islamic teaching around the world.

The Afghanistan Islamic Research and Academic Centre hosted the meeting to discuss methods of peace and to clarify the controversial use of suicide bombers by Muslim extremist groups.

The scholars said the role of clerics in ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan is important and often overlooked.

"Peace has many methods that should be used and the High Peace Council must accept that they have made mistakes," head of the Centre Ataurahman Saleem said to those gathered for the meeting, adding that the methods used so far had failed given that government opposition groups had shown no sign of negotiating.

Egyptian mufti Ehsanul Haq addressed those at the meeting saying that the clerics lead society.

"I am telling you that if the scholars are righteous, the society will be righteous," he said. "Scholars must always state the facts and they must not say anything wrong because it will create disagreements among the people."

Presidential advisor and Pul-e-Khishti mosque imam Enayatullah Baleegh said the religious leaders need to be leaders.

"Scholars should not follow others and they must say the right thing," he said.

Suicide attacks have been forbidden by many Islamic leaders in the past, most notably by the senior mufti of Saudi Arabia in his Hajj address last year.


Taliban kill 13 anti-Taliban uprising forces in Ghazni
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 19 Apr 2013, 5:33 pm Khaama Press
Commanders of the public uprising forces against the Taliban militants in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan confirmed heavy casualties of the anti-Taliban forces in this province.

Anti-Taliban public uprising forces commander in Andar district, Eng. Lotfullah Kamrani said at least 13 people were killed after Taliban militants attacked a security check post.

Eng. Kamrani further added that Taliban militants attacked the security check post in yet another surprise attack during the past two years that incurred heavy casualties to resistance forces.

This comes as at least 6 anti-Taliban fighters were killed after Taliban militants attacked a security check post in September last year in Kansif area at Andar district.

Kansif is considered to be main area where anti-Taliban public uprising started and majority of the anti-Taliban activities are plotted from this area.

Andar is among the most volatile districts in eastern Ghanzi province of Afghanistan where Taliban militants are openly operating, that led to the public uprising against the militants.


Soviet-Afghan Battlefield Enemies Play Soccer Friendly
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 18, 2013 By Frud Bezhan
The last time Afghans and Soviet soldiers faced off, it was on the battlefield. Today, more than 20 years since the end of the bloody Afghan-Soviet war, they met again on much friendlier ground -- a soccer pitch.

A team of Afghan and Soviet veterans played a friendly soccer match on April 18 in Kabul. The match, played between ex-Soviet soldiers and former Afghan mujahedin, was meant help erase enmities stemming from the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.

But not everyone was thrilled about the game, which the Soviet team won 1-0.

Many Afghans harbor great resentment toward Moscow. In the course of the Soviet Union's decade-long occupation, an estimated 1 million Afghans were killed. Millions more fled the fighting and settled in neighboring countries as refugees. An estimated 15,000 Red Army soldiers lost their lives in the war.

Hares Kakar, an Afghan journalist living in Kabul, ridiculed the contest in a rant posted on Twitter. "We suffered a lot during the so-called jihad against Russians. Now former enemies are friends and drink 'red bull' together," he wrote.

"Dear Mujahedin & Soviet Union fighters! You could have played this soccer game years ago before fighting each other & killing millions."

On Facebook, Ahmad Shirin quipped: "Shameful," later adding that the game was "a slap on the face for our brave jihadists."

Friendly Gestures

Because Afghan authorities feared the game could attract violence, there was no pregame publicity. Only a few hundred spectators, many in good spirits, attended the match at the Afghanistan Football Federation Stadium in Kabul, which has a capacity of more than 5,000.

The two teams lined up for a photo shoot and shook hands with several Afghan officials, including Panjshir Province Governor Keramuddin Keram, before kickoff. And while a dozen Afghan police and soldiers circled the pitch just in case, the match was played without incident.

Due to Kabul's location, located some 1,700 meters above sea level, the game was shortened to 60 minutes from the usual 90.

Two more games are scheduled in Afghanistan. One is expected to be played on April 19 in the northern Panjshir Province, once a bastion of the resistance to the Soviet occupation. The other game will be hosted on April 21 in the city of Mazar-e Sharif, in the northern Balkh Province.

The matches come amid growing ties between Russia and Afghanistan. Moscow has embarked on a series of infrastructure and hydroelectric projects and, in a sign of goodwill, Russia recently scrapped almost $12 billion of debt owed by Kabul.

According to recent Russian media reports, Russian officials are exploring the possibility of sending military personnel to Afghanistan to repair and maintain military hardware once international forces withdraw at the end of 2014.

Apart from maintaining Russian hardware, including light weapons, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters, Moscow is also considering ways to expand its transport routes into Afghanistan via Central Asia. The supply routes, known as the Northern Distribution Network, are vital to maintain supplies for the Afghan security forces following the Western troop withdrawal.


Could mining bonanza be Afghanistan's next source of funding?
Afghanistan is weighing new regulations to extract its natural resources worth nearly $1 trillion. As foreign aid declines with the NATO forces withdrawal in 2014, this could bring the Afghan government new sources of income.
The Christian Science Monitor By Paige McClanahan April 18, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - An effort to make Afghanistan’s vast reserves of minerals, oil, and gas accessible to foreign investment – a crucial source of income as foreign aid declines – has hit a road block.

A draft law to update regulations governing Afghanistan’s extractives sector was due to be considered by the Afghan parliament earlier this month. But it was put on hold for further review last week when Minister of Justice Habibullah Ghalib called for a number of changes, according to a Ministry of Mines official.

If passed, the law could provide a new foundation for the country’s economy as foreign governments begin to reduce their levels of foreign assistance after international troops withdraw at the end of 2014. But it’s a prospect that members of civil society say needs to be handled with caution.

“The whole survival of the government depends on getting revenues,” says Sayed Zaman Hashemi, the director of legal services at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines. “So if there is a drawdown of international contributions, what are the sources that we’re going to get the money from? The only persistent source is the mining sector." “We have to improve the law,” Mr. Hashemi adds, because the present legislation, which was adopted in 2009, “is not investor friendly.”

Afghanistan’s untapped mineral resources – which include significant deposits of copper, gold, lithium, and iron ore – are worth nearly $1 trillion, according to an analysis conducted by the US Geological Survey and the Pentagon.

But the country must overcome many challenges before those mineral resources start flowing into the Afghan treasury. At the top of the list: improving the governance of the extractives sector, a topic that has caused some unease among potential investors.

“[Companies’] first concern is about regulatory and legal stability,” says Mr. Hashemi. Questions about security, he adds, are “one of the concerns, but not the main concern” that potential investors have raised.

For example, companies have complained that the existing law fails to offer sufficient guarantees that firms that invest in exploration will be granted licenses to exploit the resources that they discover in the process.

The Ministry of Mines is hoping to secure new contracts on six major extractives sites across Afghanistan, but any new bids will remain on hold until the new law is passed, several sources said.

“Companies don’t want to sign contracts based on the existing law because they think it’s not [investor-] friendly,” says Javed Noorani, a researcher at Integrity Watch Afghanistan.

The new draft law, versions of which have been under government consideration since at least last summer, would give the Ministry of Mines the option of granting a company both an exploration contract and an exploitation contract in one fell swoop. According to Mr. Noorani, who reviewed the Dari-language version of the draft law, the legislation would also remove the Afghan parliament’s role in authorizing major mining contracts. The parliament is currently required to approve contracts worth more than $50 million.

The law would also grant the Ministry of Mines authority over environmental and social issues related to mining, Noorani says, noting that mandates on both of those issues rightly lie with other ministries.

“We have concerns with the law,” says Noorani, adding: “A lot of authority is given to the Ministry of Mines to decide on policy unilaterally.”

Such a concentration of power is a dangerous prospect in Afghanistan, where corruption is already rife, not least in the extractives sector.

The country is in a three-way tie, alongside Somalia and North Korea, for the most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perceptions Index. Afghanistan’s previous minister of mines, Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, resigned in 2009 amid allegations that he had accepted a $30 million bribe from China Metallurgical Group. The Chinese state-owned company had been granted a 30-year lease to exploit the lucrative Mes Aynak copper site in 2007.

Despite such reports, Afghanistan’s rich reserves of natural resources have still managed to lure a number of investors to the country. At least four, and up to six, major bids for new mining and hydrocarbon projects are in the offing, pending the passage of the new law. The Ministry of Mines is eager to get those contracts signed before the next round of elections, which is scheduled to take place in April 2014.

Getting outside input on parliament’s discussion of the draft law, which could last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months, is complicated by the fact that the Ministry of Mines has yet to publish the draft law in English.

Campaigners warn that rushing the process, or limiting public input, could end up hurting the country in the long run.

“[Mining] is not a magic bullet. International examples of what can go wrong are rife,” says Juman Kubba, a campaigner at Global Witness, a London-based campaigning organization. “Without careful management, extractives development can lead to an exacerbation of corruption and conflict.”

“What we don’t want to see is a downward spiral which causes lasting harm to the Afghan people."


Pakistan's Malala Makes 'Time' Magazine's Most Influential List
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 18, 2013
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education is among the 100 most influential people in the world, according to the "Time" magazine.

The 15-year old was shot in the head in October by Taliban attackers while she was on her way from school in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

She now lives in Britain where she was brought for treatment, including skull surgery.

She has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Also on the list was Roya Mahboob, the first female CEO in Afghanistan.

"Time" magazine's annual list includes outstanding personalities in the arts, business, and politics.

U.S. President Barack Obama appears on the list for the eighth time, and his wife Michelle Obama, was also included.

With reporting by AFP


Afghanistan has what China wants
Foreign Policy By Dr. Alexandros Petersen Thursday, April 18, 2013
As we near the date of withdrawal for U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, the debate about the country's largest neighbor has shifted. No longer are American analysts worried about Chinese investments free-riding on U.S. and NATO stability efforts. Now, the hope is that China's massive state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will pour more funds into Afghanistan in the hope that foreign direct investment will shore up a centralized government and provide opportunities for all to make money instead of war. But, Chinese companies face many of the same uncertainties that U.S. forces and contractors have contended with for a decade.

Much has been written about the controversies and delays at the site of China's largest investment in the country: the gargantuan copper mine at Mes Aynak. Both company officials and local observers indicate that the SOE leading the project, China Metallurgical Group Corporation, is biding its time, waiting to assess the post-withdrawal security situation.

What could be far more significant in the long run, however, are Chinese plans for oil and gas investment in the north of the country. These have the potential to link Afghanistan into China's growing pipeline network in Central Asia, providing the infrastructure-led regional integration that U.S. officials have been touting for years. Nearby Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have grown wealthy and centralized partly due to Chinese energy investment. Could the same be true for Afghanistan in the future?

First, the oil has to come out of the ground. Afghan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani announced at last month's Mines and Money conference in Hong Kong that Beijing's flagship China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will very soon start oil production at its three concessions in northern Sar-e-Pul province. But, back in October, Shahrani announced the very same news. On the ground observers, independent consultants and this Reuters article confirmed that extraction actually began in the Fall and was ramped up in January. Perhaps this is just a question of wording. There could also be some confusion amongst journalists about what constitutes "extraction" and "commercial production".

However, there seems to be lack of clarity on exactly how much crude is coming out of the ground, where it will be refined and what sort of reserves CNPC is sitting on. Back in October Shahrani mentioned a production rate of 1950 barrels per day (bpd), whereas his latest comments indicate initial output of 5000 bpd, with plans for 25,000 bpd by the end of the year. This is a significant discrepancy. Last year, CNPC officials were discussing estimates closer to 2000 bpd, a figure corroborated by representatives of Watan Oil and Gas, CNPC's Afghan partner in the project.

It also seems that there is now some uncertainty about which of Afghanistan's northern neighbors will refine the oil, which according to CNPC and the Ministry is to be re-imported in the form of various petroleum products, such as gasoline and kerosene, for Afghan consumption. That said, CNPC has confirmed on numerous occasions that the crude is already being trucked in convoys across the border with Turkmenistan to be refined there. As Erica Downs mentions in her excellent, in-depth report on China's investments in Afghanistan, CNPC's oil extraction project in Sar-e-Pul is an extension of its mammoth operations in eastern Turkmenistan, from where the Central Asia-China natural gas pipeline extends all the way to Beijing, Shanghai and China's other east coast urban centers.

The three concessions that CNPC received in Afghanistan: the Kashkari, Bazarkhami and Zamarudsa oil blocks are part of the vast Amu Darya basin, the oil and natural gas reserves of which are thought to stretch from southeastern Turkmenistan to southern Tajikistan and across northern Afghanistan. In fact, this is the very same territory through which CNPC is planning to build a new natural gas pipeline to bring Turkmen resources to Xinjiang through northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The TATC project, as it has been labeled, would serve as an alternative route to the Central Asia-China pipeline, so that Chinese consumers are not dependent on Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as transit countries. Given CNPC's plans for a massive 65 billion cubic meters of gas annually to be imported from Turkmenistan, there will almost certainly be a need for another line.

In the past, CNPC has discussed the possibility of pipelines from Iran or other parts of the Gulf connecting to its Central Asian network, potentially through northern Afghanistan. CNPC recently abandoned its plans to develop part of Iran's gigantic South Pars gas field, but it is actively looking for new extractive opportunities in the country, despite international sanctions. If it already has infrastructure threaded through northern Afghanistan, it would be logical for CNPC to use the same provinces in which it is extracting oil as a thoroughfare for Gulf gas going to China.

In the face of these wide-ranging plans, Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines may be trying to keep its options open. Philadelphia-based chemical company FMC Corporation announced an agreement in late December to build a refinery in Jowzjan province, not far from CNPC's operations. FMC's plans call for processing oil extracted not only by CNPC, but also that expected to be produced in another section of the Amu Darya basin by a consortium made up of Dubai-based Dragon Oil, Kuwait Energy and Turkish Petroleum. Their blocks, Sanduqli and Mazer-e-Sharif, were only awarded in December and consortium representatives say that negotiations with the Ministry are ongoing. Afghan press reports claim a three year deal has been signed between CNPC and FMC, but no CNPC representatives were able to confirm that. So far, plans call for refining 60 bpd, so either way, CNPC will almost certainly continue to use its Turkmen connection to bring the crude to market.

The Afghan government consistently casts China's energy development plans as part of the post-withdrawal economic development strategy, and even the U.S. embassy in Kabul has partnered with the Chinese on low-key capacity-building projects. In the specific Afghan context, this may very well be the case, but when one zooms out to see that CNPC's operations in Afghanistan are just one piece of an immense energy network being developed by Chinese firms across Eurasia, it becomes clear that China's energy plans for Afghanistan ought to be monitored much more closely in the years to come. If the Central Asian experience provides any lessons, Chinese energy investment might provide medium-term prosperity at the expense of long-term sovereignty.

Dr. Alexandros Petersen is author of The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West, and Advisor to the European Energy Security Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His current research is available atwww.chinaincentralasia.com.


Red Cross: Security deteriorating in Afghanistan
By PATRICK QUINN | Associated Press – Thu, Apr 18, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross warned on Thursday that security was deteriorating across Afghanistan as militants flood the battlefield and conduct attacks in what could be the most defining spring fighting season of the nearly 12-year-old war.

This year is crucial for Afghanistan as the U.S.-led coalition is expected to hand over the lead for security in Afghanistan to the country's security forces sometime in the late spring. Foreign military forces are then expected to begin a massive withdrawal of forces that will culminate at the end of next year.

Gherardo Pontrandolfi, head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul, also urged the warring parties to prevent the deaths of civilians, who have become increasingly caught in the crossfire.

"Spring is a good season of the year usually. But unfortunately it has a negative connotation with the resumption of the fighting," he said. "Spring and summer will be very difficult for civilians especially in the months ahead. The civilian population is bearing the brunt of this conflict."

So far, April has been the deadliest month of this year. According to an Associated Press tally, 186 people — including civilians, security forces and foreign troops — have been killed in violence around the nation. More than 150 insurgents have also died, according to the tally.

The latest deaths came in southern Helmand province when insurgents shot and killed four laborers building a checkpoint for the Afghan army, said provincial spokesman Umar Zawaq. The Taliban have pledged to target anyone working for the government or the U.S.-led coalition.

Pontrandolfi said the Afghan Red Crescent had temporarily stopped humanitarian operations in northern Jawzjan province after unknown gunmen ambushed a medical van on Wednesday and killed two staff members of the local organization. Two other Red Crescent staff members were wounded in the attack.

"This is a tragedy, not only for the families of the deceased, but for all those needing medical attention, because now units like these might find it even more difficult to work in certain parts of the country," he said.

He added that the security situation has been made worse by a multitude of insurgent and criminal groups now operating around the country, a sign that the mainstream insurgent groups, such as the Taliban, might be fracturing. The Taliban usually allow the ICRC and affiliated groups, such the Red Crescent, to operate in areas they control.

"What we see is a proliferation and fragmentation of armed actors," Pontrandolfi said. "Fighting, roadblocks, roadside bombs and a general lack of security prevent medics and humanitarian aid from reaching the sick and wounded — just when they need it most."

The Taliban are stepping up their attacks this spring, analysts say, as they try to position themselves for power ahead of national elections next year and the planned withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. The persistent violence has undermined confidence in the ability of President Hamid Karzai's forces to take over the country's security.


Pakistan’s Former Military Ruler Arrested
Sharon Behn VOA News April 19, 2013
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was arrested Friday in connection with his dismissal of top judges while he was president. Musharraf did not resist the detention, and plans to appeal his case to the Supreme Court.

Several cars of armed police escorted Pakistan’s former military strongman Pervez Musharraf to court early Friday from his farmhouse on the outskirts of Islamabad. The judge swiftly placed the former president under house arrest.

The judge also ordered Musharraf to appear before an anti-terrorism court in two days time in a case implicating him of having acted unconstitutionally while in power.

Speaking outside of the gate of Musharraf’s home, top party leader Mohammad Amjad said the former president is ready to cooperate with any investigation.

“He is under house arrest. This morning he went to the judicial magistrate by himself and he surrendered himself before the magistrate and he said that I want to be a part of the investigation against the trial which is pending in the Thana secretariat [police station where the case was registered],” said Amjad.

It is the first time that a former president or military chief has been arrested by a civilian judiciary order. Pakistan has had three military coups and been under military rule for most of its 65-year history.

Government employee Mohammad Omar, who was among a group at an Islamabad market discussing the latest news, said the court’s action sent an important message. “The message for the military is that they should remain within their limits,” he said. “They are supposed to defend our borders and not get involved in internal matters. It is the job of a democratic government to govern, and the job of the military to defend the border.”

Retired General Talat Masood said the military establishment was not happy about the detention, as it opens the door for additional action against the country’s most powerful institution. “The army will be worried and very concerned that others may be arrested or will be charged for complicity, because Musharraf will say that I am not alone when the case is opened up - there are several cases against him - so I think he will try to involve his other colleagues which were with him and that of course will spread the net,” he stated.

Masood adds that much will depend on the judiciary’s approach to the case. But he said there is little the military can do to stop the process without risking a backlash among the Pakistani people.

Defense analyst Ayesha Siddiqa said the courteous way in which the former president was taken to court shows there are efforts going on to avoid the case turning ugly.

“This is a compromise: not arrested from the courtroom. He was arrested from his house in Chak Shahzad, he’ll probably be kept there, you know, until they found a way out - probably back-door negotiations with the judiciary to see how they can get rid of this man without creating too much embarrassment,” Siddiqa explained.

Pervez Musharraf fled the Islamabad High Court Thursday when the judge refused to extend his pre-trial bail, clearing the way for his arrest.

Ahmed Raza Kasuri, one of Musharraf’s senior lawyers told VOA that the former president would appeal his case all the way to the Supreme Court. He denied that the former military dictator would try to leave the country. “No, he’s going to stay with the people of Pakistan in their hour of crisis. So, in the coming days how the political events take turn, that is to be seen,” he said.

Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999. He was forced to step down in 2008 under threat of impeachment.

He lived in self-imposed exile for about four years before returning to Pakistan late last month with plans to run for parliament in general elections in May. Since his return, courts have ruled him ineligible for the poll. He also faces several other pending criminal cases dating to his time in power.


Audit criticizes USAID on power project in Afghanistan
McClatchy Newspapers By Lindsay Wise 18/04/2013
WASHINGTON - The U.S. goal of building a self-sufficient power network in Afghanistan is threatened by an expiring subsidy and poor project management by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to a new federal audit.

The U.S. government has committed $88 million to help Afghanistan’s national power utility boost revenue and improve its capacity to manage and maintain the country’s decrepit energy grid. Afghanistan ranks among the countries with the lowest energy production in the world.

The audit released Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that despite U.S. assistance, the Afghan national power utility in Kabul will be unable to pay its bills without an annual government subsidy, which will expire at the end of March 2014.

The audit also alleges that USAID may have inappropriately awarded a no-bid contract expansion to engineering firm Black & Veatch, based in Overland Park, Kan., and its former partner, Louis Berger Group of Morristown, N.J.

USAID initially awarded the contract in May 2009 to provide technical assistance, training and support to the Afghan national power utility for $3.4 million. Three months later, USAID modified the contract to focus on the commercialization of the power utility in Kandahar, and the original contract’s value jumped to $4.3 million.

USAID is required to seek bids from as many potential contractors as is practicable, but the agency gave the new task to the Black & Veatch/Louis Berger partnership “without full and open competition,” the audit found. At least two other potential bidders technically were capable of doing the work – including a contractor that already was providing similar commercialization services in Kabul, auditors said.

USAID justified the decision by saying that Black & Veatch had staff and processes in place ready to go, but the contractor didn’t even hold a “kickoff” meeting with Afghan national utility officials in Kandahar until August 2010, one year later, auditors said. It wasn’t until August 2011 – two years later – that the project’s task manager finally arrived, they said.

In addition, auditors found that the billing system Black & Veatch installed for the utility in Kandahar was inadequate, antiquated and incompatible with the system in Kabul. A Black & Veatch subcontractor responsible for the installation recommended replacing it with another system at a cost of more than $690,000. USAID now plans to replace that system, too, resulting in a waste of almost $700,000, auditors said.

Black & Veatch said in a written statement that the company hadn’t had time to thoroughly review the report, but it remains proud of its record of successfully completing numerous projects in Afghanistan.

“In doing so, we have helped bring power to the country’s hospitals, schools, businesses and homes,” the statement said. “Afghanistan remains a very difficult place to work and we put our lives on the line for the government and the people of Afghanistan.”

Asked about the no-bid contract extension, Black & Veatch stated that the company responds “fairly and within the requirements” to U.S. government requests for proposals.

USAID disagreed with the audit’s findings, saying that the Afghan national utility has made enormous progress in increasing revenues and capacity generation. Revenues have increased 50 percent in two years, and the power utility now covers about 28 percent of the Afghan population, the agency said in a written statement.

The audit “fails to account for the challenging task of supporting the establishment of an independently operating and sustainable national utility from the ground up,” the statement said.

USAID also defended its decision to grant a sole-source contract to Black & Veatch, explaining that the usual bidding process would have taken six to nine months and the contractor “already had relevant knowledge and skills that could allow them to complete the work.”

“USAID believes that open competitions are vital, and it is only under exceptional circumstances that exceptions are made,” the agency said.

USAID previously faced criticism for awarding a $266 million sole-source contract to Black & Veatch in 2010 to refurbish the Kajaki dam in southern Afghanistan. At the time, the agency claimed that competition would “have an adverse effect on programs.” Part of that project has since been turned over to Afghans to complete.

Founded in Kansas City, Mo., in 1915, Black & Veatch is one of the largest private companies in the United States. It has more than 110 offices worldwide and employs 8,000 people. In 2011, the company had revenues of more than $2 billion.


EU Voices Concerns About Rising Poppy Cultivation
TOLOnews By Saleha Soadat 18 April 2013
The European Union (EU) in Afghanistan is distressed at the rising cultivation of opium-producing poppy across Afghanistan, suggesting that the lack of security is the centre of the problem.

Alfred Grannas, deputy head of the EU delegation to Afghanistan, called on the government to do more to end the national and international problem, saying that figures show 90 percent of heroin consumed in Europe is produced in Afghanistan.

"We politically support the Afghan national counter-narcotics strategy, and we support the efforts through the joint coordination and monitoring board to have a faced approach to counter-narcotics in Afghanistan," Grannas told TOLOnews, adding that the EU also supports poppy eradication.

"We do that through a very comprehensive approach, so we do that through capacity building efforts in police, justice, and also border management. We do it through our interventions in areas of health and rural development. So, it is a very comprehensive approach crosscutting through all our development assistance intervention we have here in Afghanistan.

Grannas acknowledged that heroin itself is not produced in Afghanistan, but pointed out that 90 percent of the heroin is produced with Afghan poppy.

"The actual heroin may not be produced in Afghanistan – that is right. [But] the basis for the heroin production done elsewhere comes from Afghanistan... A hundred-percent accurate figure on who produces how much [heroin] we will never have because it's an illegal business, but from the relatively accurate estimates you can say that the poppy production that you have in Afghanistan – if you count through the process of producing heroin – that 90 percent heroin is based on poppy produced in Afghanistan because there is not that much coming from elsewhere," he said.

The Afghan counter-narcotics ministry said Thursday that its findings show that opium is mainly cultivated in insecure parts of the country and that the cultivation has dropped compared to previous years.

"Figures show that six years ago in 2007 there was more than 300 thousand acres of land [cultivating poppy in Helmand] which we don't have in Helmand now. The 2012 survey of Helmand suggested that about 75 thousand acres [are cultivating poppy] which is a decrease compared to 2007, 2008, and 2012," said Zabiullah Daim, legal and public awareness advisor to the Ministry of Counter Narcotics.

However a UN report released Monday said that poppy cultivation is likely to increase this year, and may even return to near record levels of production amid "unusually" high prices for opium.

Some pundits have suggested that the cultivation increase is related to more young Afghans looking for work and heading south to the poppy growing regions to earn short-term incomes scoring poppy.


After Airstrike, Afghan Points to C.I.A. and Secret Militias
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND April 18, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that the C.I.A. was responsible for calling in an airstrike on April 7 that left 17 Afghan civilians dead, 12 of them children, and that the secret Afghan militias that the agency controls behaved as if they were “responsible to no one.”

“It was a C.I.A. operation using a security structure that was in full service of the C.I.A. and run by the C.I.A.,” said the spokesman, Aimal Faizi, who said his remarks reflected the views of the Afghan president. Mr. Faizi also criticized the agency and American Special Operations troops for running numerous similar militias elsewhere in Afghanistan, with similar problems.

The criticism from Mr. Faizi and other Afghan officials pulled aside a curtain on a clandestine operation that went badly awry in the rugged mountains of eastern Kunar Province, killing an American C.I.A. employee and seriously wounding three other Americans working for the agency. The American who died had been in charge of a group of undercover paramilitaries known as the 0-4 Unit, a so-called Counterterrorist Pursuit Team, according to Afghan investigators.

Afghan reaction to the episode challenges the core assumptions in negotiations with the Afghan government about the nature of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan after 2014. The military wants a mission with two main goals: training Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism raids against groups like Al Qaeda. Special Operations forces and irregular forces like the militias run by the C.I.A. are a crucial part of the effort, American officials say.

But Mr. Karzai has been deeply suspicious about the activity of irregular forces in his country, and in March he banned American Special Operations forces from operating in Wardak Province. Now, the C.I.A. is the focus of his ire.

A spokesman for the C.I.A. would not comment about the case.

A spokesman for the American military, Col. Thomas Collins, declined to comment on the raid in Kunar Province or to discuss the military’s investigation into it. He said only that the operation was run by the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency.

“There was a battle going on, this N.D.S. unit was under grave pressure,” Colonel Collins said. “But as to what caused the civilian casualties, that’s still under investigation.”

Mr. Faizi said that after Mr. Karzai received a report from his own investigation, he fired the head of the National Directorate of Security in Kunar Province, whom others identified as Gen. Saadullah. (He uses only one name.)

But Mr. Faizi said that the 0-4 Unit, a roughly 1,200-member force, was not truly under the control of the Afghan security agency, asserting instead that American intelligence officials were solely responsible for the unit. “It was a joint op at most in name,” he said, “but really in fact a C.I.A.-run parallel security structure, and such structures have been a factor of insecurity themselves.”

Mr. Faizi said Mr. Karzai had ordered a review throughout the country of all Counterterrorist Pursuit Teams, which are mostly used in the east and the south, and of similar irregular forces run by the C.I.A. or by American Special Operations units.

“We are informed five minutes before they are conducting an operation,” Mr. Faizi said, “and our security agencies do not have authority over them.”

A United States official familiar with the events disagreed with that characterization. “The Afghan unit involved in this prolonged firefight with the Taliban was under Afghan government control — rumors of a ‘rogue’ unit or Americans commanding the team reflect internal power struggles in Kabul,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Details about the fighting in Kunar were scant in the days afterward. Mr. Karzai appointed a delegation to go there and investigate, and he later said he blamed both the Taliban and international forces for causing the civilian deaths, although at the time he did not mention the C.I.A. by name.

“As the reports confirm that armed Taliban were there in the area, we strongly condemn the use of civilians and their homes as shields by the Taliban, as well as we do not accept the conduct of any airstrike on residential areas under any name and for any purpose whatsoever,” Mr. Karzai said. “This act by the I.S.A.F. forces was a violation of human rights and the presidential executive order which bans airstrikes during operations in residential areas.”

Mr. Karzai ordered the ban on airstrikes on Feb. 16 after a coalition airstrike in Kunar Province killed 10 civilians, five of them children. That strike took place in the same district as the April 7 fighting — Shigal district — but in a different village. At the time, officials said that the airstrike had been called to support a joint operation involving the Afghan security agency, and that an investigation was under way.

Afghan officials, including the head of Mr. Karzai’s delegation investigating the latest Kunar episode, said that the earlier Kunar attack also involved elements of the 0-4 Unit under the command of American C.I.A. personnel, including the unidentified American who was killed on April 7.

A copy of the Kunar delegation’s report was obtained by The New York Times, and two members of the delegation were interviewed about the fighting: its chairman, Shuja ul-Malk Jalala, an adviser to Mr. Karzai, and Hajji Sakh Mushwanai, a member of Parliament from Kunar Province. One member of the 0-4 Unit was also interviewed, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to comment to the news media.

They all said that 75 members of the 0-4 Unit, with four American advisers along, marched for four hours into a mountainous area near the village of Sunoo on the night of April 6 and the morning of April 7.

The force was planning to arrest Taliban commanders suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda, and around 5 a.m. on April 7, it raided a house where one of them, Ali Khan, was believed to be living. But the only man present was a mentally ill man who could neither speak nor hear; he and about two dozen women and children were herded into one room of Mr. Khan’s house, the Afghans said.

A short time later, the house came under Taliban fire from all sides. “We had no choice but to stay in that house; we were totally surrounded,” the 0-4 Unit member said. “We thought this was the last day of our lives.”

One of the investigators, Mr. Mushwanai, saw matters differently. “These are irregular soldiers, and they do not know the rules of war very well,” he said. “By being in the house, it made those women and children a target.”

The Taliban’s barrage lasted until 8 a.m., when reinforcements from the 0-4 Unit arrived. The force that was pinned down in the house tried to withdraw, and the four Americans were hit by insurgent fire. Air support was called in to protect the retreat and to allow medical evacuation helicopters to rescue the wounded.

When the 0-4 Unit members left the house and withdrew from the area, they told investigators, all of the women and children were still alive. Hours later, when villagers reached the scene, all but a few of the women were dead, the report said. The investigators said they determined that none of the bombs or rockets used in the air-support operation — which included drones, jets and attack helicopters, they said — hit the house where the victims were. But the concussion from the explosions made the upper floor of the mud-and-timber house collapse on top of the victims.

One of the investigators, Mr. Jalala, said that of the 12 children killed, all were the sons, daughters, nieces or nephews of the Taliban commander, Mr. Khan, who was among seven insurgents killed in the attack. On that basis, Mr. Jalala rejected what he described as a coalition military claim that the Taliban had killed the civilians for propaganda purposes. “Common sense just doesn’t accept this,” he said. “Nobody would do that to their own family.”

He said it was clear from pictures that the house had collapsed on the family, and that the strikes, including by rockets that exploded in the yard, were the only possible cause.

Mr. Faizi, the presidential spokesman, agreed with that assessment. “There is no evidence they were killed by the Taliban,” he said. “These children were killed only because of the airstrikes. These are irresponsible armed militias and irresponsible armed people, carrying out operations for and on the payroll of the C.I.A.”

Mr. Mushwanai, the member of Parliament from Kunar, said his own home had been raided by the 0-4 Unit twice. “They shot out the TV and the water cooler,” he said. “America will leave behind these types of forces in 2014, and it will further destabilize Afghanistan.”

An Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kunar Province, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.


Afghan escapes Taliban oppression, but she fears for the others still there
Washington Post By Pamela Constable Friday, April 19, 2013
As an ambitious young woman in rural southern Afghanistan, Fouzia Durrani was headed for trouble. The region’s religious and tribal customs required her to stay home, marry a man chosen by her elders and spend her life as his cloistered servant.

But the 20-year-old student loved teaching young girls to read and write, and she rejected the man to whom she had been promised at age 3. Growing up as a doctor’s daughter in a postwar democracy, where education and rights for women were championed by the government and its Western backers, she believed she could strive for success and assert her independence.

She was wrong, and punishment came swiftly.

In 2011, her father was briefly kidnapped and threatened by resurgent Taliban forces, and her forced marriage was ordered by tribal elders. A sympathetic cousin helped her flee to Pakistan and the United States, but soon afterward he was killed in a suspicious bomb explosion.

Today, 18 months after her escape, Durrani is living with relatives in Sterling, ringing up blouses in a shopping mall and taking courses at Northern Virginia Community College. It is a free, fast-paced life that she could never have imagined back home, but she has already mastered driving with GPS, and her English is sprinkled with phrases she has learned from the evening news.

Next Thursday, Durrani, who was recently granted political asylum in the United States, will tell her story for the first time in public as the guest of honor at a Georgetown gala hosted by the nonprofit Tahirih Justice Center . But amid her relief and excitement, she also expressed guilt over the suffering of her family and the fate of the students she once urged to imagine a life outside four farmhouse walls.

“I feel such emptiness,” Durrani confided last week as she sat in her lawyer’s office in the District, nervously adjusting her head scarf. “Here I am living in a free society, but so many other girls are still back there. If I had been sent home, it would be like going into a dark cave forever.”

Oppression lingers

A decade after extremist Taliban forces were overthrown, Afghanistan now has laws protecting women’s rights and hundreds of new schools for girls. In the capital, Kabul, women sit in Parliament and work in government offices. But in rural provinces, many still live under the crushing constraints of traditional village life — illiterate, cowed and unaware that they have any individual rights.

According to international experts, incidents of violence and abuse of women in Afghanistan have skyrocketed, with more than 4,000 cases reported in the past year alone. Some have been whipped or burned with acid by Taliban moral enforcers, and others have been killed by husbands or brothers over family honor. Many victims are too fearful to go to the police, and few cases ever reach court.

The problem is especially persistent among southern Pashtun tribes, which produced the punitive Taliban militia and still adhere to an ancient code based on honor and revenge. In Durrani’s province of Kandahar, years of Western military and civilian efforts have failed to neutralize the Taliban or modernize tribal ways. Two female provincial officials have been assassinated, numerous female teachers killed and many girls’ schools forced to shut down.

“The Taliban never left,” said Durrani, whose family is Pashtun. “There are laws in Kabul, but it might as well be another country. Where I am from, the Taliban have the real power.” In her asylum petition, she wrote, “I cannot explain where Pashtun customs end and Taliban rule begins, because they operate together to control my life.”

It was not possible to confirm the details of Durrani’s story, but the asylum petition she filed last year, with help from lawyers at Tahirih and the firm of McDermott, Will and Emery, was compelling enough to convince U.S. immigration officials that she deserved permanent sanctuary.

Kerry Healey, a former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and head of a group that promotes judicial reform in Afghanistan, wrote an expert affidavit on her behalf. Healey stated that Taliban forces are the “de facto government” in Kandahar today and that many inhabitants are afraid to defy them because they know Western troops will soon leave for good.

By daring to teach other girls and refusing an arranged marriage, Healey wrote, Durrani would be viewed by the Taliban as a dangerous infidel and by Pashtun elders as having dishonored their clan. “Her whole life is an affront to Pashtun and Taliban values,” Healey wrote. If forced to return home, she would face “certain death.”

Durrani’s father, whose identity was withheld by her lawyers, wrote in a separate affidavit that he wanted his daughter to pursue her dreams and avoid a forced marriage, but that his hopes were crushed as the Taliban reasserted power.

In 2011, a tribal council ordered Durrani to submit to the groom, and her father was briefly kidnaped by Taliban enforcers, who accused him of raising a “foreign heretic.” In despair, the young woman slit her wrists and nearly bled to death.

Her parents, determined to save her, concocted a bridal shopping trip to Kabul, where Durrani instead went to the U.S. Embassy and was soon on a flight to Washington, armed with a student visa. If the plan had failed, her father wrote, she would “spend her life behind a thick burqa, serving food to guests and suffering in absolute silence. She would disappear.”

Hopes for the future

Durrani, one of a handful of women to win U.S. asylum on the basis of gender persecution, is now finding her way between two worlds. Every morning she commutes to work and college, wearing a tight head scarf and loose tunic over jeans and sneakers. Every evening she comes home to her brother’s apartment in Sterling, cooks sweet Afghan ravioli or crepes with her sister-in-law, and teaches bits of English to her tiny niece.

“I love everything here,” she said after dinner one recent evening, balancing a teacup on her head to make the little girl laugh. “I miss teaching, but someday I’m going to have my own business. I can picture myself standing in front of a room, telling people something. And I believe they will listen.”

Durrani, who prays five times a day and makes sure her scarf completely covers her hair, passionately advocates a vision of Islam that endorses education and personal freedoms for women. She often quotes Koranic verses to prove her point and dismisses the Taliban as ignorant religious tyrants.

“They beat women. They shave boys’ heads. They hurt people when our Islam prohibits hurting even a single ant,” Durrani said angrily. “They shut down schools when our Islam says that every man and woman must be educated. That’s what they are afraid of. If people get educated, no one will listen to them.”

Despite her outward poise and determination, Durrani is still haunted by the pain of leaving her parents and the social pressure from relatives and elders that once drove her to attempt suicide.

“I felt alone, like I was the one causing all the problems,” she said, looking away and wiping her eyes. “So many girls in Afghanistan are still caught by all those forces, with no way to escape. I cannot bear to imagine their lives.”


As Fighting Season Begins, a Gruesome Terrorist Attack Shakes Afghanistan
Time By Mujib Mashal April 18, 2013
Farah City - Many died instantly, execution-style, with bullet wounds in the back of their heads. Some bled to death. And others perished in the initial explosion that cleared the way for militants to take over two government buildings in this provincial capital; their grisly remains spattered nearby walls and pavements.

The April 3 attack in Farah city, in the west of Afghanistan, was the deadliest in nearly two years: it left over 50 dead and more than 100 wounded. Yet the carnage got little media attention because of Farah province’s marginalized status along the border with Iran and the difficulty reaching it over dangerous roads. The attack also signaled a potential shift in Taliban tactics as a new fighting season begins — while the Taliban’s high-profile attacks in recent years have grown more targeted, the wanton killing of civilians in Farah raises fresh doubt over security in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The assailants besieged the courthouse and the attorney general’s office at the heart of the city for a whole working day until commando forces ended the siege by killing the gunmen. The extent of the carnage has sapped the morale of the small city of about 100,000 people. More than a week after the attack, many residents remain gripped with fear. One elder said most people in the city were cutting back on activities that take place away from the safety of their homes. Another said his two young daughters still refuse to go school, fearing another attack.

“There were funerals everywhere — so there is no hope left in the city,” says Naser Royan, a Farah resident in his late 20s. “The day after the explosion, I asked a shopkeeper friend why he wouldn’t open his shop again. His words kept me awake till 3 a.m. that night. He said ‘What good is life if you share memories with a person one day, and the next day his flesh is smeared on your goods.’”

The attack began around 8 a.m. when military police stopped a suspicious army pickup truck approaching the road that leads to Farah city’s appeals court and the attorney general’s office, according to officials and security guards on duty. The back of the truck, loaded with explosives, was covered with a tarpaulin. “We did not have military police in our structure — but I recently deployed about 30 or so of my soldiers into the city as military police,” said Colonel Zalmay Nabard, commander of the Afghan army brigade in Farah. “Since it is a small unit, they know their own comrades and vehicles — this wasn’t one of theirs, and they tried to stop it.”

The assailants in the truck opened fire on the first guard who tried to stop it and they drove on. When two other guards blocked their way, the vehicle detonated. “We had to gather the flesh of our guards from nearby homes,” Nabard said. Authorities say they have intelligence that a second explosive-laden vehicle was also part of the plan — aimed at blowing up the governor’s office — but did not show up. They have narrowed in on it, but it remains at large.

The accounts about what happened next are conflicting. Some say that nine assailants, dressed in Afghan army uniforms, had already made their way toward the appeals court and the attorney general’s office. Others suggest the heavily armed Taliban arrived after the explosion and split between the attorney general’s office and the court — both were packed with visitors as working hours on Wednesday were under way already. Either way, fighting raged for nearly eight hours. Among the victims were 10 police personnel and army soldiers. The rest were judges, attorneys and other civilians, according to interviews with local residents and families of victims.

But Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Taliban, insists civilians were not killed. He says the Taliban do not consider attorneys and judges to be civilians but rather agents of the Kabul regime, and therefore legitimate targets. “We besieged all the rooms and shot them in the head one by one,” Ahmadi said. Without specifying the number, Ahmadi also claimed that the attackers managed to release some important political prisoners — one of the suggested motives for the Taliban targeting of the court.

Mohammad Akram Khpalwak, the governor of Farah province, refutes that. “There were no political prisoners at the court that day — it was all criminal cases being tried,” Khpalwak tells TIME.

Among the dead was Fraidoon, a 28-year-old Islamic-law graduate of Herat University. He had been serving as a clerk in the court for the past three years. “I was in the hospital in the morning visiting a sick relative when I heard about the attack at the court,” said Haji Said Ahmad Jan, Fraidoon’s father. He tried to call Fraidoon’s number, but the call wouldn’t go through. So he waited at the hospital until 4:30 p.m., inspecting every dead and injured person that was brought in, hoping his son would be among the injured. The register at the provincial hospital shows that 124 wounded people and 39 dead were brought in — others were taken to private hospitals or to their homes. To make room for the wounded, this small hospital had to clear the maternity ward, sending pregnant women home.

Commando forces eventually flew in from neighboring Herat province and helped end the resistance at around 4:30 p.m. — targeting the rooms where the insurgents were holed up with heavy artillery. After the fight was over, Ahmad Jan got a call that his son’s body was found in the courthouse. Fraidoon had a bullet in the head, one in the neck and one in his left torso. He leaves behind two young sons and a young daughter.

The attack has, once again, raised questions about the capabilities of Afghan security forces as they begin to take charge of security in most of the country while foreign forces continue their staggered withdrawal. Residents as well as provincial council members say not enough measures were in place to protect the city. A provincial council member said vehicles are rarely searched before they drive into major government buildings.

President Hamid Karzai visited the province to meet family members and offer his condolences. As is the tendency in Kabul, Karzai and his officials have blamed foreign hands — implicating both Iran, which shares a border with Farah, and Pakistan, long thought to be colluding with the Taliban. A senior army official in the province told TIME that he had a “strong guess” the attack was backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. But he could provide no reason why they would be behind the assault nor evidence other than that the uniforms the Taliban assailants were wearing looked more like those issued to the Iranian guards that those of Afghans. Farah’s governor also suspects foreign involvement. “I am not saying it could be foreign hands involved — I am saying it must be,” Khpalwak said. “We also have good intelligence on the capacity of the local Taliban — this was beyond them,” Khpalwak said. His intelligence shows that leadership of local Taliban was unaware of the attack.

But the officials’ answers have done little to quell local anger. “Security cannot be brought with empty words — it comes with action,” said Ahmad Jan, who lost his son. “For God’s sake, don’t give them room to kill our youth again,” he pleaded the government.

Such attacks, in which a large number of civilians were affected, also further intensify anger toward the Taliban and complicate Karzai’s outreach to the militants in hopes of striking a peace deal — a process that has floundered despite the President’s desperate attempts. While Karzai has gone out of his way to release hundreds of Taliban prisoners — often without due process, critics say — the Taliban have responded with attacking the court.

“Those who shed the blood of our innocent are not our brothers,” said activist Barry Salaam, referring to President Karzai usually addressing Taliban as “angry brothers.” A delegation of Salaam’s group, called Afghanistan 1400, a diverse political movement working toward a long-term vision for the country, was in Farah to speak to families and donate blood to the wounded.

They brought a message of defiance — that, while some are shedding blood, others are ready to donate. The 1400 in the group’s name is a reference to the turn of the Afghan millennia, eight years from now. “It’s time we value the Afghan lives being lost every day and stop compromising with those who are taking the lives,” Salaam said.


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