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Taliban attacks kill 9 people in Afghanistan
By THOMAS WAGNER | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Insurgents killed six police officers at a checkpoint and a suicide bomber killed three civilians at a shopping bazaar in separate attacks Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, while an independent security group warned 2013 is on track to be one of the most violent years of the war.
April already has been the deadliest month this year for security forces and Afghan and foreign civilians as the U.S. and other countries prepare to end their combat mission by the end of next year. According to an Associated Press tally, 222 people have been killed in violence around the nation this month, including Sunday's nine fatalities.
The Taliban ambushed the checkpoint in the Dayak district of Ghazni province, killing six police officers, wounding one and leaving one missing, said Col. Mohammad Hussain, deputy provincial police chief. The checkpoint was manned by Afghan local police, forces recruited at the village level that are nominally under the control of the Afghan Interior Ministry.
On Friday, Taliban insurgents attacked a local police checkpoint in Andar, a district of Ghazni province neighboring Dayak. They killed 13 officers, according to Sidiq Sidiqi, the Interior Ministry spokesman.
The second attack on Sunday hit Paktika province, which borders Ghazni. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a shopping bazaar around midday, killing three people and wounding five civilians and two police officers, said Mokhlis Afghan, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Among the dead was Asanullah Sadat, who stepped down as the district's governor two years ago.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for Taliban, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing. In an email to reporters, he said the Taliban used the bomber to target Sadat because of his close relations with the Afghan government and the U.S.
In other violence, the Taliban cut a hand and foot off each of two villagers they accused of helping escort coalition convoys, a spokesman for the provincial chief in western Herat province said.
Noor Khan Nekzad said the men were admitted to a hospital in Herat city on Sunday, two days after the amputations. The Taliban have long killed government employees and those who help the coalition, considering them enemy collaborators, but rarely have they meted out punishment by cutting off limbs.
Hostilities have surged in Afghanistan as the spring fighting season begins. This year is being closely watched because Afghan forces must operate with less support from the international military coalition. With foreign forces due to hand over combat responsibilities to the local forces next year, the current fighting is a test of their ability to take on the country's insurgency.
Reflecting the rise in bloodshed, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office said Sunday there were 2,331 insurgent-initiated attacks in the first quarter of this year, a 47 percent increase over the same January-March period last year. "We assess that the current re-escalation trend will be preserved throughout the entire season and that 2013 is set to become the second most violent year after 2011," which suffered 2,755 such attacks in the first three months of the year, the report said.
The U.S.-led NATO coalition has stopped releasing statistics on insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said the Afghan army carried out 2,209 military operations during a monthlong period ending Sunday. During that time, 467 insurgents and 107 soldiers were killed, and 362 militants were arrested, the ministry said in a report issued Sunday.
The rise of violence that his organization reported in early 2013 should raise serious concern, especially since a negotiated solution with Taliban "is far from the horizon" and questions remain about whether Afghan forces can fill the gap being left by the reduction in U.S.-led international forces, said Tomas Muzik, the director of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office.
The Taliban broke off formal talks with the Americans last year and have steadfastly rejected negotiations with the Afghan government, which they view as a puppet of foreign powers.
Afghanistan has about 100,000 international troops, including 66,000 from the United States. The U.S. force is to drop to about 32,000 by February 2014, making the No. 1 priority for the American military to do all it can to boost the strength and confidence of Afghan forces.
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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
U.S. special envoy, Pakistan army chief discuss Afghan reconciliation
ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Senior U.S. diplomats and defense officials met Pakistan army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and discussed matters of mutual interest with particular focus on Afghanistan reconciliation process, the military said on Sunday.
The army statement said that both sides discussed "matters of mutual interest" but did not give any more details about the talks.
The U.S. delegation comprised Ambassador David Pearce, Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Dagulas Lute, Special Assistant to the President on Afghanistan and Pakistan Peter Lavoy, Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs and Ambassador Richard Olson.
The visit comes at a time when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are tense over the cross-border tension.
Two top U.S. generals also visited Pakistan this month and discussed mainly about Afghanistan.
Sources said that the talks are also aimed at removing differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan and finding ways to work for the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
The U.S. State Department said ahead of the visit that in Islamabad, Pearce will hold meetings with senior Pakistan officials to discuss ways in which the United States and Pakistan can continue to work together to advance "our bilateral goals and affirm how both our countries can contribute to a secure, stable, and prosperous future for the region."
Afghanistan remains the second largest export market for Pakistan
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 21 Apr 2013, 9:48 pm Khaama Press
Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq on Sunday emphasized on Afghanistan peace as one of the top priority of Islamabad’s foreign policy.
While speaking during a seminar titled “Pak-Afghan relations in the changing world scenario” Mr. Sadiq said reconciliation among all ethnic groups and stakeholders in the war-affected country is the only solution for restoration of peace in the region.
Mohammad Sadiq quoted by Pakistan’s Dawn News said, official trade volume between Pakistan and Afghanistan is about $2 billion while the unofficial trade volume is about $5 billion thus making Afghanistan the second largest importer of Pakistani goods after United States.
Mr. Sadiq also added that thirty thousand Afghan students have graduated from Pakistani universities besides 2000 Afghan students were granted scholarships by the Pakistani universities.
According to Mohammad Sadiq, about 30 per cent of the human resource running the affairs in Afghanistan has graduated from Pakistani universities.
He said the government of Pakistan is considering a number of educational and infrastructural projects for Afghanistan besides the newly-built Liaquat Ali Khan Engineering University built in northern Balkh province of Afghanistan.
Several Killed In Afghan Suicide Bombing
April 21, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say three civilians have been killed and seven others injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up in eastern Afghanistan.
Paktika's provincial governor's office said in a statement that the blast occurred in the Janikhel district of southeast Paktika Province, on the border with Pakistan.
The statement said that Ehsanullah Sadat, former district governor for Janikhel who quit his post two years ago, was among the dead.
Two police officers were among those injured.
The statement blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghans," a term usually used by officials to refer to Taliban militants.
The injured were taken to the main district hospital and their condition is said to be stable.
Police Killed In 'Insider Attack'
Meanwhile, also in Afghanistan, insurgents have attacked a police checkpoint in Ghazni Province, Afghan officials say.
Six police officers were reportedly killed in the incident on April 21, which occurred while the officers were sleeping.
One was wounded and one is missing.
According to the AFP news agency, the militants were aided by one of the police officers, who led them into the post.
The slain officers were part of the Afghan Local Police, a U.S.-funded effort to recruit locals into community policing units.
More than 60 international troops and scores of Afghan security personnel have been killed in insider attacks in recent months, breeding mistrust in the run-up to the withdrawal of international combat forces by the end of 2014.
Taliban Chop Off Limbs Of Two Men
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, officials say Taliban militants have chopped off one hand and one leg of two young Afghan men.
The incident took place on April 20 in western Herat province, said Noor Khan Nekzad, the spokesman for the provincial governor.
He said the two men worked for a private security company providing logistics for NATO convoys.
Nekzad said the men were found in Herat's Rabat-e Sangi district and were receiving treatment in hospital in Herat city.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the amputations.
A statement from the Taliban said that the men had been found guilty of several highway robberies.
During their rule from 1996-2001, the Taliban imposed harsh justice, including flogging, stoning to death, and the amputation of limbs.
Based on reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, Pajhwok, and Khaama
Afghan interpreters could receive asylum
LONDON, April 21 (UPI) -- Britain's prime minister is set to decide whether to relocate hundreds of interpreters who are working with U.K. forces in Afghanistan, officials said.
Prime Minister David Cameron has been given three broad options and is expected to make a decision on Tuesday that could affect up to 1,100 Afghan nationals, including 600 interpreters, The Guardian reported.
Those Afghans could be in grave danger once NATO forces leave Afghanistan in 2014, The Guardian reported.
The Taliban has declared a death sentence on all Afghans working with NATO forces in the country, The Guardian said.
The first option includes offering a relocation package similar to the one given to local interpreters after the Iraq war.
Two cheaper ideas include offering economic incentives to interpreters to stay in Afghanistan, and requiring them to apply for asylum in the normal way without any preferential treatment.
Last week, senior military officials and politicians called for the interpreters to be offered asylum in the United Kingdom.
Afghan girls' school feared hit by poison gas
By Folad Hamdard | Reuters
TALUQAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - As many as 74 schoolgirls in Afghanistan's far north fell sick after smelling gas and were being examined for possible poisoning, local officials said on Sunday.
While instances of poisoning are sometimes later found to be false alarms, there have been numerous substantiated cases of mass poisonings of schoolgirls by elements of Afghanistan's ultra-conservative society that are opposed to female education.
Local officials said the girls became ill after smelling gas at their school, Bibi Maryam, in Takhar province's capital, Taluqan. The city is about 250 kilometers north of the country's capital, Kabul.
The Takhar governor's spokesman, Sulaiman Moradi, blamed "enemies of the government and the country" for the mass illness and said the aim was to stop girls from going to school.
The girls were taken to the provincial hospital and most were released after being treated, though several remained in a critical condition on Sunday evening, the head of the hospital, Dr Jamil Frotan, said.
"We have already sent samples of their blood to the Ministry of Public Health and it will soon become clear what the reason for their illness was," Frotan said.
The apparent poisoning came three days after more than a dozen students fell ill in another girls' high school in Taluqan. No-one has claimed responsibility for either incident.
Between May and June last year there were four poisoning attacks on a girls' school in Takhar, prompting local officials to order principals to stay in school until late and staff to search the grounds for suspicious objects and to test the water for contaminants.
Takhar has been a hotbed of militancy and criminal activity since 2009, with groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan active.
Since the 2001 ousting of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.
But periodic attacks against female students, their teachers and their school buildings, continue.
Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since 2001, but fears are growing that such gains could be traded away as Western forces prepare to leave and the Afghan government seeks peace talks with the Taliban.
(Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Stephen Powell)
MPs Call to Stop Releasing Taliban Prisoners
TOLOnews By Rafi Sediqi 20 April 2013
High Peace Council has been incapable of progressing peace talks with the armed opposition, first vice speaker of Afghan parliament said Saturday while a number of MPs suggested many of the imprisoned Taliban who were released have rejoined the insurgent groups and are fighting against the government.
"The peace process is just a waste of time. What High Peace Council has done so far has had no result and has been a failure," first vice speaker Mirwais Yasini said, marking out that the parliament is to send the government a new policy over the issue.
MP Shukria Barikzai said "So far, there has been no clear policy for peace. High Peace Council is a political project and not a national one."
"This council is kept by circles that seek to remain in power," she added.
Admitting challenges against peace talks, High Peace Council, however, said it has had achievements in some of the provinces across the country.
"As High Peace Council we are ready to continue our activities considering any plan the parliament would send to the council. High Peace Council has had achievements in a number of provinces," said Shahzada Shahid, the council's spokesman.
MPs also suggested that Afghanistan war is plotted by orders from Pakistani intelligence and that the neighbouring country will never aim for a stable Afghanistan. Some of the MPs called for an end to releasing Taliban prisoners as a number of the released are yet again fighting against the government.
"The war in Afghanistan is a war plotted by Pakistan," said MP Dawood Kalakani, "Pakistani military intelligence is making efforts to establish a Pakistan-ruled government in Afghanistan."
MP Zaheer Saadat said "The process of releasing the prisoners should be stopped because those Taliban who are released have rejoined the insurgent groups and are fighting against the government."
It will be too hard to provide security in Afghanistan, MPs added, as far as interferences from neighbouing countries are not pushed back and Pakistan does not assure the Afghan government and the international community of discontinuing its interference.
Afghanistan-US security agreement executable in 2015: Mosazai
By SAYED JAWAD - 21 Apr 2013, 9:12 pmK haama Press
Officials in Afghanistan foreign affairs ministry on Sunday announced that the security agreement between Kabul and Washington will be executable in early 2015 once the two nations agrees on the terms and conditions of the pact.
The officials further added that the two nations have not finalized talks over security agreement so far and the pact will be executable beyond 2014, once the terms and conditions have been agreed.
General director of the Afghan foreign ministry media office, Janan Mosazai on Sunday said satisfactory negotations are going on between Afghan and US officials.
Mr. Mosazai further added that the Afghan government is not in a hurry to take a decision in this regard since the security agreement will become executable after security transition is completed.
He said, “Security agreement between Kabul and Washington will be executable after security transition is completed. The security agreement will not become executable before 2014 despite the two nations agree earlier, and therefore the security pact will be adaptive at the beginning of 2015.”
In the meantime Janan Mosazai insisted that the security agreement should be finalized before 2014 which will be better for Afghanistan, since it will create a legal and bilateral framework between the two nations.
Afghan and US officials are holding talks over security agreement during the past 6 months to clarify the presence of US troops after 2014 and Washington’s long term support towards Afghan security forces.
U.S.-led wars cause massive civilian casualties: report
BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both started by the United States, have caused massive civilian casualties, says a report on the U.S. human rights record released on Sunday.
From 2001 to 2011, the U.S.-led "war on terror" killed between 14,000 and 110,000 per year, the report cites an article on the website of Stop the War Coalition as saying.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) tallied at least 10,292 non-combatants killed from 2007 to July 2011, says the report, titled "the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012," which was released by China's State Council Information Office.
The Iraq Body Count project records approximately 115,000 civilians killed in the cross-fire from 2003 to August 2011, according to the report.
Beyond the two states under occupation, the "War on Terror" has spilled into a number of neighboring countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing a great many civilians there, it says.
In addition, a news report, posted on BBC's website, pointed at recurrent U.S. drone attacks in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the report. "Just one in 50 victims of America's deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists - while the rest are innocent civilians," the report quotes an article on the website of the Daily Mail as saying.
The Last Days of the Americans in Afghanistan
In researching his new history, Return of a King of the 1842 British defeat in Afghanistan, William Dalrymple traced the army’s ill-fated retreat route. Under the protection of a warlord whose ancestors helped throw out Dalrymple’s, he found parallels to the retreat of the latest foreign power to invade the country: America.
The Daily Beast By William Dalrymple Apr 21, 2013
On my extended visits to Afghanistan to research Return of a King, I was keen to see as many of the places and landscapes associated with the First Anglo-Afghan War as was possible. I particularly wanted to retrace the route of the British forces’ catastrophic retreat and get to Gandamak, the site of the British last stand.
The route of the retreat backs on to the mountain range that leads to Tora Bora and the Pakistan border, the Ghilzai heartlands that have always been – along with Quetta – the Taliban’s main recruiting ground. I had been advised not to attempt to visit the area without local protection, so eventually set off in the company of a regional tribal leader who was also a minister in Karzai’s government: a mountain of a man named Anwar Khan Jagdalak, a former village wrestling champion and later captain of the Afghan Olympic wrestling team, who had made his name as a Jami’at-Islami Mujehedin commander in the jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s.
It was Jagdalak’s Ghilzai ancestors who inflicted some of the worst casualties on the British army of 1842, something he proudly repeated several times as we drove through the same passes. “They forced us to pick up guns to defend our honour,” he said. “So we killed every last one of those *******s.” None of this, incidentally, has stopped Jagdalak from sending his family away from Kabul to the greater safety of Northolt in north London.
On the day we were to drive to Gandamak, I had been told to report at seven in the morning to Jagdalak. Threading my way through a slalom of checkpoints and razor wire surrounding his Ministry, I arrived to find Jagdalak being hustled into a convoy of heavily armoured SUVs by his ever-present phalanx of Afghan bodyguards, with their walkie-talkies crackling and assault rifles primed.
Jagdalak drove himself, while pick-ups full of his protection followed behind. As we headed through the capital, evidence of the failure of the current occupation lay all around us. Kabul remains one of the poorest and scrappiest capital cities in the world, despite the US pouring around $80 billion into Afghanistan.
We bumped along potholed roads, past the blast walls of the US Embassy and the NATO barracks that has been built on the very site of the British cantonment of 170 years ago, then headed down the zigzagging road into the line of bleak mountain passes that link Kabul with the Khyber Pass.
It is a suitably dramatic and violent landscape: faultlines of crushed and tortured strata groaned and twisted in the gunpowder-coloured rockwalls rising on either side of us. Above, the jagged mountain tops were veiled in an ominous cloud of mist. As we drove, Jagdalak complained bitterly of the western treatment of his government. “In the 1980s when we were killing Russians for them, the Americans called us freedom fighters,” he muttered as we descended the first pass. “Now they just dismiss us as warlords.”
We left the main road at Sarobi, where the mountains debouch into a high-altitude ochre desert dotted with encampments of Ghilzai nomads, and headed into Taliban territory; a further five pick-up trucks full of Jagdalak’s old Mujehedin fighters, all brandishing rocket-propelled grenades and with faces wrapped in their turbans, appeared from a side road to escort us.
At the village of Jagdalak, on 12 January 1842, the last 200 frostbitten British soldiers found themselves surrounded by several thousand Ghilzai tribesmen; only a handful made it beyond the holly hedge. Our own welcome was, thankfully, somewhat warmer. The proud villagers took their old commander, now a government minister, on a trip through hills smelling of wild thyme and wormwood, and up through mountainsides carpeted with hollyhocks and mulberries and shaded by white poplars. Here, at the top of the surrounding peaks, near the watchtower where freezing sepoys had attempted to find shelter in 1842, lay the remains of Jagdalak’s old Mujehedin bunkers and entrenchments from which he had defied the Soviet army. Once the tour was completed, the villagers feasted us in an apricot orchard at the bottom of the valley: we sat on carpets under a trellis of vine and pomegranate blossom, as course after course of kebabs and raisin pullao were laid in front of us.
“[America’s invasion] is exactly the same,” said Jagdalak. “Both times the foreigners have come for their own interests, not for ours. They say, ‘We are your friends, we want to help.’ But they are lying.’
During lunch, as my hosts casually pointed out the site of the holly barrier and other places in the village where the British had been massacred in 1842, we compared our respective family memories of that war. I talked about my great-great-uncle, Colin Mackenzie, who had been taken hostage nearby, and I asked if they saw any parallels with the current situation. “It is exactly the same,” said Jagdalak. “Both times the foreigners have come for their own interests, not for ours. They say, ‘We are your friends, we want to help.’ But they are lying.’
“Whoever comes to Afghanistan, even now, they will face the fate of Burnes, Macnaghten and Dr Brydon,” agreed Mohammad Khan, our host in the village and the owner of the orchard where we were sitting. Everyone nodded sagely into their rice: the names of the fallen of 1842, long forgotten in their home country, were still common currency here.
“Since the British went we’ve had the Russians,” said one old man to my right. “We saw them off too, but not before they bombed many of the houses in the village.” He pointed at a ridge full of ruined mudbrick houses on the hills behind us.
“We are the roof of the world,” said Khan. “From here you can control and watch everywhere.”
“Afghanistan is like the crossroads for every nation that comes to power,” agreed Jagdalak. “But we do not have the strength to control our own destiny. Our fate is determined by our neighbours.”
It was nearly 5 p.m. before the final flaps of naan bread were cleared away, by which time it became clear that it was now too late to head on to Gandamak. Instead we went that evening by the main highway direct to the relative safety of Jalalabad, where we discovered we’d had a narrow escape. It turned out that there had been a battle at Gandamak that very morning between government forces and a group of villagers supported by the Taliban. Nine policemen had been killed and ten taken hostage over a dispute about opium poppies. The sheer size and length of the feast and our own gluttony had saved us from walking straight into an ambush. The battle had taken place on exactly the site of the British last stand in 1842.
The following morning in Jalalabad we went to a jirga, or assembly, of Ghilzai tribal elders, to which the greybeards of Gandamak had come, under a flag of truce, to discuss what had happened the day before. As Predator Drones took off and landed incessantly at the nearby airfield, we chatted over a pot of green tea. “Last month,” said one tribal elder from Gandamak, “some American officers called us to a hotel in Jalalabad for a meeting. One of them asked me, ‘Why do you hate us?’ I replied, ‘Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair, and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.”’
“What did he say to that?”
“He turned to his friend and said, ‘If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?’ In truth, all the Americans here know their game is over. It is just their politicians who deny this.”
“These are the last days of the Americans,” said the other elder. “Next it will be China.
William Dalrymple is the author of eight acclaimed works of history and travel, including, most recently, Return of the King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42, currently a No.1 bestseller in India, to be published in February in the UK and in April in the US. He divides his time between New Delhi and London, and is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Guardian.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Nangarhar Residents Ask for Governor's Dismissal
TOLOnews By Anisa Shahid 20 April 2013
The residents of eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar protested against the provincial governor Saturday, blocking four main entrances to the province's centre, Jalalabad.
The residents – who claim governor Gul Agha Sherzai has been unresponsive to impeding corruption, illegal land grabbing, and Pakistani military from Afghan soil – said they would continue their protest and the entrances to the city will be kept closed if the central government does not dismiss the governor in the next 24 hours.
"Pakistan will gradually come forward, they have reached Gushta district. We don't accept this," one of the protestors told TOLOnews, "They oppress Afghans, destroy our police and army forces, throw bombs on them."
Meanwhile, provincial spokesman of Nangarhar governor said the central government is informed of the residents' call, and a high-level delegation is to visit the province to investigate the matter.
"The governor has asked the president to send a high-level decision-making delegation to the province and inspect the issue legally," said spokesman of Nangarhar provincial governor, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.
Since 2003, Pakistan – with assistance from the coalition forces – has shifted 11 border posts from pervious locations on Afghan soil to Ghushta district of Nangarhar province alongside Durand Line, an act accompanied by reactions from the government and the people of Afghanistan.
Last week, Afghanistan's senate had also condemned the buildup of Pakistan's military on the border between the two countries, calling for clearer government policies on the neighbouring state, despite some media reports saying the matter was resolved.
The latest incident is Pakistan's construction of a controversial border gate on the Durand Line - the 2,400-kilometer border between the two countries which is recognized by Pakistan but not by Afghanistan.
The senate's condemnation came after Pakistani media reported that the matter had been "amicably resolved" after a meeting between senior military commanders of both countries in Rawalpindi, where Pakistan's army is headquartered.
An official Pakistan statement said that Afghanistan's Director General of Military Operations Maj Gen Afzal Aman had met with his Pakistani counterpart Maj Gen Ashfaq Nadeem Ahmed.
The statement also said that the construction is taking place in Pakistan's tribal district of Mohmand that borders Afghanistan - a clear attempt to clarify claims that the gate is being built in Afghanistan's territory.
Afghan senators repeated such claims last week.
HSK test held in Afghanistan for 1st time
KABUL, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, known as HSK or a proficiency test on Chinese language for non-native speakers, held its maiden test in Afghanistan, attracting 40 participants across the war-hit country.
Starting from Saturday, the test was separated into two days, respectively 5th level and 3rd level on each day, attracting 11 and 29 participants on each test.
The majority of the test participants are from the Confucius Institute of Kabul University, six of them are females.
The examinees were tested listening comprehension, reading comprehension and composition within 85 minutes.
A 3rd level candidate told Xinhua on the condition of anonymity that he is willing to enhance his Chinese proficiency through HSK test and would love to pursue further study in China after that.
According to Zhao Jingwu, the Chinese chief of Confucius Institute, the candidates of HSK 3rd level with a satisfactory score may earn the chance to study in China for one year, while the 5th level candidates may win scholarship to study their master degrees on Chinese language teaching in Chinese universities.
Re-opened in April 2013, Confucius Institute is cooperating with Chinese Department of Kabul University on instructing Chinese language. Around 100 students across Afghanistan are working on their bachelor degrees under the assistance from one Chinese teacher and two local instructors.
MoI Blames Badakhshan Insecurity on Eastern Neighbour
TOLOnews By Mursal Mansoory 20 April 2013
Afghan interior ministry said Saturday that Afghanistan's eastern neighbour is endeavouring to make the north-eastern province of Badakhshan insecure aiming to put obstacles over construction of the Silk Route to China.
Pakistan is believed to have recently had broader role in causing insecurity to the province's Wardooj district after it realised the historical Silk Route will connect Afghanistan to China and other countries in the region leading to less dependency of Afghanistan to its neighbouring countries on the east side.
"This highway which will be directly connected to China and will reduce our dependence on our neighbouring countries," said Sediq Sediqi, spokesman for Ministry of Interior Affairs, "This is not tolerable for some countries as they really want Afghanistan to be dependent on them, I mean [those] on the east side of Afghanistan."
Meanwhile, Ministry of Commerce and Industries considers the highway beneficial to the neighbouring countries and said that one of the challenges against construction of the road is the project plan not being implemented from the Afghan government side.
As believed by Ministry of Commerce and Industries, neighbouring countries are not making any efforts to stop the project.
"I think this is not only beneficial to Afghanistan but it will also be of benefits to Pakistan, Iran, and other countries," said the ministry spokesman Wahidullah Ghazi Khel.
"Those countries are also interested in this road becoming ready to use," he added.
Afghan MPs also believe that the main motive to conflicts in Wardooj district is to hold back the construction of this historical route.
"One of the main factors behind the current conflict in Wardooj – which is plotted by Pakistan and aimed to expand insecurity in the area – is to put off construction of the Silk Route," said Saranwal Abdul Maroof, Badakhshan MP.
MPs' concern comes as in a previous conflict between Afghan security forces and the Taliban in Wardooj district, as many as 16 Afghan army soldiers and about 60 members of the Taliban were killed, an incident following which a joint Afghan security forces operation cleared the district of insurgents.
To Boston From Kabul With Love
NBC News By Ron Mott, Correspondent, NBC News 20/04/2013
KABUL - After more than three decades of war, you would think Afghans would be desensitized to violent attacks like the Boston Marathon explosion. A Boston-based documentary filmmaker found just the opposite.
Instead of disregard, she found empathy among Kabul's residents for the three killed and more than 170 injured in the twin bomb blasts at the center of Boston 6,500 miles away. And she has the images to prove it.
In the wake of the attacks, Beth Murphy awakened Tuesday morning in Afghanistan to a confounding text message from her husband.
"I thought at first I was re-reading my own message to him saying, 'Yes, I'm OK'," said Beth Murphy. She was referring to a text message she had sent her husband about a large-scale Taliban attack in western Afghanistan on April 3 that left more than 40 people dead. "But it said, 'It's OK, we're safe.' So I did a double-take.
"I immediately went online before I even got back to him and saw what was happening in Boston, and [got] that overwhelming feeling of helplessness and sadness and feeling so far away. I thought, 'I'd really like to be home right now.'"
Murphy's husband, Dennis, and 5-year-old daughter were fine. But as a runner who had felt the joy and pain of crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon, she felt compelled to do something.
In an effort to show solidarity with the city she calls home, Murphy set off for her day's work on a documentary project in Kabul armed with a simple sign she made that read: "To Boston From Kabul With Love."
Her initial plan was to photograph herself holding the sign and post it online but reactions from Afghans to the unfolding tragedy in Boston prompted a change of plans.
"As I started to talk with people here about what was happening, I saw the expressions on their faces change," she said. "They experience things like this here all the time. You might expect that they'd be desensitized to it or talk about it with a lack of compassion, but it was the exact opposite. There was this shared experience of pain and suffering, and the way people expressed that to me was really beautiful."
Those expressions led Murphy to ask permission to photograph them holding her sign – a spontaneous idea that quickly spread around the world and went viral on the Internet. Murphy published a series of black and white photos rich with the color of everyday life here: a bookseller crouched before his wares, a chicken vendor with a trio of whole fryer birds hanging over his shoulder, a little girl's largely expressionless face starkly contrasted by those of her shrouded female relatives in the distance.
And the common thread binding the images and the people in them is a collective nod of empathy for the people of Boston.
"I've been really overwhelmed by the response," Murphy said. "It certainly wasn't anything that I anticipated. I'm happy that the pictures resonated because I think they speak to a common humanity that we all share."
Reduced security blamed for Taliban attack
The Washington Post By Rajiv Chandrasekaran April 21, 2013
The Taliban fighters who blew up a half-dozen U.S. Marine fighter jets on a sprawling NATO base last fall were able to walk easily onto the encampment because patrols of the perimeter had been scaled back and watchtowers left unmanned, according to senior military officials.
After the attack, which resulted in the deaths of two Marines and the largest loss of allied materiel in the 11-year-long Afghan war, the top U.S. commander on the base did not order a formal investigation into the security lapses or sanction any personnel responsible for guarding the facility, the officials said.
In the days following the raid, some U.S. and NATO military leaders insisted that the Taliban got lucky by choosing to breach where they did. But several officials with direct knowledge of the assault said in recent interviews that staffing decisions by U.S. and British commanders weakened the base’s defenses, making it easier for the insurgents to reconnoiter the compound and enter without resistance. Once inside, 15 insurgents used grenades to destroy almost an entire squadron of Marine AV-8B Harrier jets, a loss estimated by military officials at about $200 million.
The new account of the attack illustrates the challenge of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the coming months. Unlike Iraq, from which U.S. forces departed largely peacefully, Afghanistan remains perilous. U.S. intelligence officials say Taliban operatives are on the lookout for opportunities to strike if U.S. and NATO commanders reduce security as they send home thousands of troops.
An unmanned tower
The attack occurred on Camp Bastion, a British-run NATO air base in Helmand province that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast U.S. Marine facility that serves as the NATO headquarters for southwestern Afghanistan. Because Leatherneck does not have a runway, the Marines use Bastion as their principal air hub. Several hundred Marines live and work on the British side, and dozens of U.S. helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft park there.
The British are responsible for guarding Bastion, which is ringed by a chain-link fence and triple coils of razor wire. There are numerous tall watchtowers on the perimeter, which allow sentries to scan the horizon for potential attackers. Instead of placing their own soldiers in the towers, British commanders handed the job to troops from the Pacific island of Tonga, which has sent 55 soldiers to Afghanistan.
On the night of the attack — Sept. 14 — the tower closest to the Taliban point of entry was unmanned, according to four U.S. military officials who were at Camp Leatherneck at the time or received briefings about the incident later. Those officials and other military officers interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the attack or security measures at Camp Bastion, key elements of which remain classified.
Several watchtowers at Bastion were manned at the time, but the Tongan soldiers in those posts could not observe the area around the empty tower, the officials said. “There was dead space,” one official said.
A senior U.S. officer with direct knowledge of security on the bases said it was common for Bastion’s watchtowers to be unmanned. Long-standing U.S. military security protocols permit towers to be unoccupied only if other posts can observe the unmanned tower’s entire area of responsibility.
“Security at Camp Bastion is constantly reviewed . . . and is appropriate to the currently assessed threat level,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post.
U.S. Marines responsible for protecting Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion have not relied on watchtowers alone to protect the facilities. Since U.S. troops established Leatherneck in 2009, teams of Marines have patrolled a 230-square-mile swath of desert around the bases in an attempt to identify Taliban activity and persuade residents in makeshift villages there to report on suspicious activity.
In December 2011, 325 Marines were assigned to patrol the area, according to the senior U.S. officer with knowledge of security measures. In the month before the attack, however, the number was cut back to about 100, the officer said.
“We reduced the force to patrol [the area around the base] to the point where it was an unacceptable risk,” the officer said.
The top U.S. commander at Leatherneck at the time, Marine Maj. Gen. Charles Gurganus, who approved of the reduction, said force levels for perimeter patrols were based on U.S. and NATO assessments of possible threats. At the time, other military officials said, Marine intelligence analysts did not issue any specific warnings of a frontal assault by the Taliban.
“You can’t defend everywhere every day,” Gurganus said in response to a question about the attack. “You base your security on the threat you’ve got.” He said the Taliban caught “a lucky break.”
“When you’re fighting a war, the enemy gets a vote,” he said.
Other military officials said security incidents on the bases in the preceding months should have prompted increased vigilance. In March 2012, an Afghan interpreter working for British forces at Camp Bastion drove a flaming vehicle toward a U.S. military aircraft carrying then¬Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta. The vehicle crashed into a ditch and missed Panetta’s plane.
Marine officers also had been concerned about the performance of the Tongan troops, who were sometimes found asleep at their posts.
The senior officer with knowledge of security matters said some officers raised questions about the reduction of Marines to patrol the perimeter with Gurganus and were told that it was an “acceptable risk.”
In the months leading up to the September attack, Gurganus and his predecessor had to withdraw about 10,000 U.S. troops from Helmand, reducing total force levels to about 7,000. That cutback, the senior officer said, increased pressure to trim the patrol.
Despite the troop reduction, several officers stationed at Leatherneck at the time said many Marines with idle time could have been assigned to guard duty. Instead, some of them took online college classes and others worked out in the gym twice a day. And two weeks after the attack, a Texas hold ’em poker tournament was held at one of the recreation centers at Leatherneck.
“There was plenty of manpower to assign to base security,” one of the officers said. “It just wasn’t a priority.”
Detailed reconnaissance
Military officials believe the reduction in patrols allowed the insurgents to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the airfield before the attack, identifying the times during which guard towers were unoccupied and sketching maps of where planes were parked. The insurgents even publicized the maps after the attack.
On the night of the attack, Taliban insurgents dressed in what officials believe were stolen U.S. military uniforms slipped onto the base and destroyed the aircraft. Two Marines, Lt. Col. Christopher Raible, 40, and Sgt. Bradley Atwell, 27, were killed.
In the wake of the attack, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John R. Allen, assigned his deputy, Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw of the British army, to investigate the incident.
Gurganus ordered a colonel on his staff to conduct a review of security procedures on the bases. Gurganus did not order a formal Marines Corps judge advocate general investigation into the attack. He said he could not because Bastion is a NATO facility.
Other senior officers, however, contended that a formal U.S. investigation was warranted because two Marines were killed and so many aircraft were destroyed.
When the House Armed Service Committee asked to see the initial Marine security review earlier this year, senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff deemed it insufficient for release and ordered the Marines to conduct a fuller review, military officials said. But that examination still fell short of an official investigation.
No U.S. or British military personnel have been reprimanded as a result of the attack. The Marine Corps does not plan to release its review. NATO also intends to keep its investigation confidential, in part to avoid embarrassing the British for leaving towers unmanned, according to officers briefed on the findings.
“We’ve corrected the deficiencies in security, but we don’t want to put a stick in the eye of our closest ally,” said a senior U.S. official who served in Afghanistan at the time.
Instead, the Marine Corps has sought to focus attention on the heroic response of Marine aviators during the attack. Mechanics, supply clerks and pilots grabbed rifles and ran onto the flight line to fight the insurgents, who had split into three five-man teams. Raible, a Harrier squadron commander, charged into the combat zone armed with only a handgun.
Had Raible and his fellow Marines not responded so quickly, senior officers said they believe, the human toll and property damage would have been far worse. “Their actions prevented an even greater loss,” one of the officers said. “But they never should have been put in that position in the first place.”
Taliban threat could skew Pakistan election result
By ASIF SHAHZAD | Associated Press
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Moderate politicians from some of Pakistan's most violent areas are risking the threat of Taliban attack to run in upcoming nationwide elections, but they are increasingly being forced to rely on social media, phone calls and even short documentaries that allow them to campaign at a distance.
That could give hard-line Islamic candidates and Taliban supporters an advantage as they're able to stump for votes and hold large public rallies that are a traditional hallmark of elections in the country but are extremely vulnerable to attacks.
One of the most serious attacks occurred Tuesday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a meeting of the secular Awami National Party in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 16 people. The Taliban said the target of the attack was Haroon Ahmad Bilour, whose father, a senior party leader, was killed in a suicide bombing in Peshawar in December. He escaped unscathed, but his uncle, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, suffered minor injuries.
As he was being treated at the hospital, the uncle vowed that he and other party candidates would not withdraw from the election despite the death threats. With his trousers soaked in blood, he walked among the hospital beds to comfort crying victims and told them, "We are fighting a war for Pakistan's survival."
Hours earlier, a candidate from one of the Islamic parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, campaigned freely in his constituency in a different part of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Maulana Jalil Jan's supporters showered him with rose petals as he walked unguarded from shop to shop down narrow, crowded lanes to ask for votes. He bristled at any suggestion that the Taliban were terrorists and blamed attacks in the country on foreign agents seeking to "malign religious leaders, all bearded people." He pointed out that the word Taliban simply means a student in an Islamic school.
"There is a difference between the Taliban and terrorists," said Jan.
Faced with the Taliban threat, parties have had to get more creative in their campaigning for the May 11 vote. Members of the Awami National Party and other secular political parties specifically targeted by the Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their use of Facebook and Twitter as well as phone calls and advertisements.
Analysts and secular party candidates fear that the danger could skew election results in favor of hard-line Islamic parties and others who refuse to speak out strongly against the Taliban. Their candidates are able to campaign with much less fear of being attacked, and the concern is this could lead to national and provincial governments inclined to take a softer position toward the militants.
"If you tie my hands, and you want me to fight, I can't," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a candidate from the Awami National Party, sitting in his heavily guarded office in Peshawar.
Hussain is running for a provincial assembly seat in the town of Pabbi, which is only 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Peshawar, but it is too dangerous for him to campaign there in person. To get around the danger, Hussain produced a short documentary that highlights development work he has brought to Pabbi and chronicles the sad loss of his only son, who was gunned down by Taliban militants in 2010.
The documentary shows Hussain standing in prayer over the freshly dug grave of his son as a heartfelt poem he wrote in the young man's memory is sung out in mournful tones: "I never knew the enemy could reach my home, my heart, my love would disappear in a grave." He distributes it on DVDs to voters in Pabbi and plans to show the short film there using a couple of big projectors.
Hussain was attacked himself by a suicide bomber at his son's funeral in Pabbi. He survived, but seven other people were killed, including two of his close relatives.
The politician's eyes teared up as he watched the images of his son's grave in the documentary. The film asks his constituents to "vote for those who are sacrificing their lives to save you and your children from terrorists."
It's not only the top Islamic parties like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami that seem to have been spared by the Taliban in the run-up to the election, but also mainstream parties perceived to take a softer stance on militancy, such as the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which is favored to come out on top in the election, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is headed by former cricket star Imran Khan. They have all safely held public rallies attended by thousands of people in recent weeks.
These parties have all pushed for peace negotiations with the Taliban instead of military offensives, and the militant group recently said talks should be mediated by the leaders of the top two Islamic parties and the Pakistan Muslim League-N. The parties that have been targeted by the Taliban have also called for peace negotiations, but have demanded the militants put down their weapons and endorse the constitution first and have vowed to continue fighting them until that happens. The Taliban have rejected these conditions.
"This is not a level playing field," Awami National Party leader Afrasiab Khattak said.
The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a bloody insurgency in Pakistan for years to enforce Islamic law in the country and to break the government's alliance with the United States in fighting militants. They have killed thousands of civilians and security personnel in scores of gun and bomb attacks.
The group's main sanctuaries are in the rugged northwest along the Afghan border, including the semiautonomous tribal region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban have also established a significant presence in the southern city of Karachi and have stepped up attacks there.
The militant group issued audio and video messages last month warning people to stay away from rallies held by the Awami National Party and two other secular parties that have supported army offensives against the militants in the northwest: the Pakistan People's Party, which led the most recent government, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which controls Karachi.
The Taliban have carried out at least 10 attacks against candidates and party workers, mainly those in the Awami National Party. The attacks have killed at least 18 people, including a candidate for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Many other candidates have been wounded, including five from the Awami National Party.
"This is a clear attempt by the so-called 'non-state actors' to oust and defeat moderate parties," said Raza Rumi, a political analyst who runs the Jinnah Institute think tank in Islamabad. "This can't be a fair and free election."
The Awami National Party has closed over 50 of its election offices in recent months, mainly in Karachi and Peshawar, because of the threat of attack. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has stopped holding the massive public rallies that it is known for in Karachi. The Pakistan People's Party had to cancel a large event in southern Sindh province at the beginning of April that was meant to mark the start of its campaign because of security reasons.
Khattak, the Awami National Party leader, called on all political parties to come forward and condemn the attacks on candidates. Many have remained silent or have refused to name the Pakistani Taliban, either for ideological reasons or out of fear of being targeted themselves.
"You have to decide whether you are with the terrorists or with the people," Khattak said.
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Associated Press writer Riaz Khan contributed to this report.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By THOMAS WAGNER | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Insurgents killed six police officers at a checkpoint and a suicide bomber killed three civilians at a shopping bazaar in separate attacks Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, while an independent security group warned 2013 is on track to be one of the most violent years of the war.
April already has been the deadliest month this year for security forces and Afghan and foreign civilians as the U.S. and other countries prepare to end their combat mission by the end of next year. According to an Associated Press tally, 222 people have been killed in violence around the nation this month, including Sunday's nine fatalities.
The Taliban ambushed the checkpoint in the Dayak district of Ghazni province, killing six police officers, wounding one and leaving one missing, said Col. Mohammad Hussain, deputy provincial police chief. The checkpoint was manned by Afghan local police, forces recruited at the village level that are nominally under the control of the Afghan Interior Ministry.
On Friday, Taliban insurgents attacked a local police checkpoint in Andar, a district of Ghazni province neighboring Dayak. They killed 13 officers, according to Sidiq Sidiqi, the Interior Ministry spokesman.
The second attack on Sunday hit Paktika province, which borders Ghazni. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a shopping bazaar around midday, killing three people and wounding five civilians and two police officers, said Mokhlis Afghan, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Among the dead was Asanullah Sadat, who stepped down as the district's governor two years ago.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for Taliban, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing. In an email to reporters, he said the Taliban used the bomber to target Sadat because of his close relations with the Afghan government and the U.S.
In other violence, the Taliban cut a hand and foot off each of two villagers they accused of helping escort coalition convoys, a spokesman for the provincial chief in western Herat province said.
Noor Khan Nekzad said the men were admitted to a hospital in Herat city on Sunday, two days after the amputations. The Taliban have long killed government employees and those who help the coalition, considering them enemy collaborators, but rarely have they meted out punishment by cutting off limbs.
Hostilities have surged in Afghanistan as the spring fighting season begins. This year is being closely watched because Afghan forces must operate with less support from the international military coalition. With foreign forces due to hand over combat responsibilities to the local forces next year, the current fighting is a test of their ability to take on the country's insurgency.
Reflecting the rise in bloodshed, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office said Sunday there were 2,331 insurgent-initiated attacks in the first quarter of this year, a 47 percent increase over the same January-March period last year. "We assess that the current re-escalation trend will be preserved throughout the entire season and that 2013 is set to become the second most violent year after 2011," which suffered 2,755 such attacks in the first three months of the year, the report said.
The U.S.-led NATO coalition has stopped releasing statistics on insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said the Afghan army carried out 2,209 military operations during a monthlong period ending Sunday. During that time, 467 insurgents and 107 soldiers were killed, and 362 militants were arrested, the ministry said in a report issued Sunday.
The rise of violence that his organization reported in early 2013 should raise serious concern, especially since a negotiated solution with Taliban "is far from the horizon" and questions remain about whether Afghan forces can fill the gap being left by the reduction in U.S.-led international forces, said Tomas Muzik, the director of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office.
The Taliban broke off formal talks with the Americans last year and have steadfastly rejected negotiations with the Afghan government, which they view as a puppet of foreign powers.
Afghanistan has about 100,000 international troops, including 66,000 from the United States. The U.S. force is to drop to about 32,000 by February 2014, making the No. 1 priority for the American military to do all it can to boost the strength and confidence of Afghan forces.
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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
U.S. special envoy, Pakistan army chief discuss Afghan reconciliation
ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Senior U.S. diplomats and defense officials met Pakistan army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and discussed matters of mutual interest with particular focus on Afghanistan reconciliation process, the military said on Sunday.
The army statement said that both sides discussed "matters of mutual interest" but did not give any more details about the talks.
The U.S. delegation comprised Ambassador David Pearce, Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Dagulas Lute, Special Assistant to the President on Afghanistan and Pakistan Peter Lavoy, Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs and Ambassador Richard Olson.
The visit comes at a time when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are tense over the cross-border tension.
Two top U.S. generals also visited Pakistan this month and discussed mainly about Afghanistan.
Sources said that the talks are also aimed at removing differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan and finding ways to work for the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
The U.S. State Department said ahead of the visit that in Islamabad, Pearce will hold meetings with senior Pakistan officials to discuss ways in which the United States and Pakistan can continue to work together to advance "our bilateral goals and affirm how both our countries can contribute to a secure, stable, and prosperous future for the region."
Afghanistan remains the second largest export market for Pakistan
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 21 Apr 2013, 9:48 pm Khaama Press
Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq on Sunday emphasized on Afghanistan peace as one of the top priority of Islamabad’s foreign policy.
While speaking during a seminar titled “Pak-Afghan relations in the changing world scenario” Mr. Sadiq said reconciliation among all ethnic groups and stakeholders in the war-affected country is the only solution for restoration of peace in the region.
Mohammad Sadiq quoted by Pakistan’s Dawn News said, official trade volume between Pakistan and Afghanistan is about $2 billion while the unofficial trade volume is about $5 billion thus making Afghanistan the second largest importer of Pakistani goods after United States.
Mr. Sadiq also added that thirty thousand Afghan students have graduated from Pakistani universities besides 2000 Afghan students were granted scholarships by the Pakistani universities.
According to Mohammad Sadiq, about 30 per cent of the human resource running the affairs in Afghanistan has graduated from Pakistani universities.
He said the government of Pakistan is considering a number of educational and infrastructural projects for Afghanistan besides the newly-built Liaquat Ali Khan Engineering University built in northern Balkh province of Afghanistan.
Several Killed In Afghan Suicide Bombing
April 21, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say three civilians have been killed and seven others injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up in eastern Afghanistan.
Paktika's provincial governor's office said in a statement that the blast occurred in the Janikhel district of southeast Paktika Province, on the border with Pakistan.
The statement said that Ehsanullah Sadat, former district governor for Janikhel who quit his post two years ago, was among the dead.
Two police officers were among those injured.
The statement blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghans," a term usually used by officials to refer to Taliban militants.
The injured were taken to the main district hospital and their condition is said to be stable.
Police Killed In 'Insider Attack'
Meanwhile, also in Afghanistan, insurgents have attacked a police checkpoint in Ghazni Province, Afghan officials say.
Six police officers were reportedly killed in the incident on April 21, which occurred while the officers were sleeping.
One was wounded and one is missing.
According to the AFP news agency, the militants were aided by one of the police officers, who led them into the post.
The slain officers were part of the Afghan Local Police, a U.S.-funded effort to recruit locals into community policing units.
More than 60 international troops and scores of Afghan security personnel have been killed in insider attacks in recent months, breeding mistrust in the run-up to the withdrawal of international combat forces by the end of 2014.
Taliban Chop Off Limbs Of Two Men
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, officials say Taliban militants have chopped off one hand and one leg of two young Afghan men.
The incident took place on April 20 in western Herat province, said Noor Khan Nekzad, the spokesman for the provincial governor.
He said the two men worked for a private security company providing logistics for NATO convoys.
Nekzad said the men were found in Herat's Rabat-e Sangi district and were receiving treatment in hospital in Herat city.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the amputations.
A statement from the Taliban said that the men had been found guilty of several highway robberies.
During their rule from 1996-2001, the Taliban imposed harsh justice, including flogging, stoning to death, and the amputation of limbs.
Based on reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, Pajhwok, and Khaama
Afghan interpreters could receive asylum
LONDON, April 21 (UPI) -- Britain's prime minister is set to decide whether to relocate hundreds of interpreters who are working with U.K. forces in Afghanistan, officials said.
Prime Minister David Cameron has been given three broad options and is expected to make a decision on Tuesday that could affect up to 1,100 Afghan nationals, including 600 interpreters, The Guardian reported.
Those Afghans could be in grave danger once NATO forces leave Afghanistan in 2014, The Guardian reported.
The Taliban has declared a death sentence on all Afghans working with NATO forces in the country, The Guardian said.
The first option includes offering a relocation package similar to the one given to local interpreters after the Iraq war.
Two cheaper ideas include offering economic incentives to interpreters to stay in Afghanistan, and requiring them to apply for asylum in the normal way without any preferential treatment.
Last week, senior military officials and politicians called for the interpreters to be offered asylum in the United Kingdom.
Afghan girls' school feared hit by poison gas
By Folad Hamdard | Reuters
TALUQAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - As many as 74 schoolgirls in Afghanistan's far north fell sick after smelling gas and were being examined for possible poisoning, local officials said on Sunday.
While instances of poisoning are sometimes later found to be false alarms, there have been numerous substantiated cases of mass poisonings of schoolgirls by elements of Afghanistan's ultra-conservative society that are opposed to female education.
Local officials said the girls became ill after smelling gas at their school, Bibi Maryam, in Takhar province's capital, Taluqan. The city is about 250 kilometers north of the country's capital, Kabul.
The Takhar governor's spokesman, Sulaiman Moradi, blamed "enemies of the government and the country" for the mass illness and said the aim was to stop girls from going to school.
The girls were taken to the provincial hospital and most were released after being treated, though several remained in a critical condition on Sunday evening, the head of the hospital, Dr Jamil Frotan, said.
"We have already sent samples of their blood to the Ministry of Public Health and it will soon become clear what the reason for their illness was," Frotan said.
The apparent poisoning came three days after more than a dozen students fell ill in another girls' high school in Taluqan. No-one has claimed responsibility for either incident.
Between May and June last year there were four poisoning attacks on a girls' school in Takhar, prompting local officials to order principals to stay in school until late and staff to search the grounds for suspicious objects and to test the water for contaminants.
Takhar has been a hotbed of militancy and criminal activity since 2009, with groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan active.
Since the 2001 ousting of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.
But periodic attacks against female students, their teachers and their school buildings, continue.
Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since 2001, but fears are growing that such gains could be traded away as Western forces prepare to leave and the Afghan government seeks peace talks with the Taliban.
(Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Stephen Powell)
MPs Call to Stop Releasing Taliban Prisoners
TOLOnews By Rafi Sediqi 20 April 2013
High Peace Council has been incapable of progressing peace talks with the armed opposition, first vice speaker of Afghan parliament said Saturday while a number of MPs suggested many of the imprisoned Taliban who were released have rejoined the insurgent groups and are fighting against the government.
"The peace process is just a waste of time. What High Peace Council has done so far has had no result and has been a failure," first vice speaker Mirwais Yasini said, marking out that the parliament is to send the government a new policy over the issue.
MP Shukria Barikzai said "So far, there has been no clear policy for peace. High Peace Council is a political project and not a national one."
"This council is kept by circles that seek to remain in power," she added.
Admitting challenges against peace talks, High Peace Council, however, said it has had achievements in some of the provinces across the country.
"As High Peace Council we are ready to continue our activities considering any plan the parliament would send to the council. High Peace Council has had achievements in a number of provinces," said Shahzada Shahid, the council's spokesman.
MPs also suggested that Afghanistan war is plotted by orders from Pakistani intelligence and that the neighbouring country will never aim for a stable Afghanistan. Some of the MPs called for an end to releasing Taliban prisoners as a number of the released are yet again fighting against the government.
"The war in Afghanistan is a war plotted by Pakistan," said MP Dawood Kalakani, "Pakistani military intelligence is making efforts to establish a Pakistan-ruled government in Afghanistan."
MP Zaheer Saadat said "The process of releasing the prisoners should be stopped because those Taliban who are released have rejoined the insurgent groups and are fighting against the government."
It will be too hard to provide security in Afghanistan, MPs added, as far as interferences from neighbouing countries are not pushed back and Pakistan does not assure the Afghan government and the international community of discontinuing its interference.
Afghanistan-US security agreement executable in 2015: Mosazai
By SAYED JAWAD - 21 Apr 2013, 9:12 pmK haama Press
Officials in Afghanistan foreign affairs ministry on Sunday announced that the security agreement between Kabul and Washington will be executable in early 2015 once the two nations agrees on the terms and conditions of the pact.
The officials further added that the two nations have not finalized talks over security agreement so far and the pact will be executable beyond 2014, once the terms and conditions have been agreed.
General director of the Afghan foreign ministry media office, Janan Mosazai on Sunday said satisfactory negotations are going on between Afghan and US officials.
Mr. Mosazai further added that the Afghan government is not in a hurry to take a decision in this regard since the security agreement will become executable after security transition is completed.
He said, “Security agreement between Kabul and Washington will be executable after security transition is completed. The security agreement will not become executable before 2014 despite the two nations agree earlier, and therefore the security pact will be adaptive at the beginning of 2015.”
In the meantime Janan Mosazai insisted that the security agreement should be finalized before 2014 which will be better for Afghanistan, since it will create a legal and bilateral framework between the two nations.
Afghan and US officials are holding talks over security agreement during the past 6 months to clarify the presence of US troops after 2014 and Washington’s long term support towards Afghan security forces.
U.S.-led wars cause massive civilian casualties: report
BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both started by the United States, have caused massive civilian casualties, says a report on the U.S. human rights record released on Sunday.
From 2001 to 2011, the U.S.-led "war on terror" killed between 14,000 and 110,000 per year, the report cites an article on the website of Stop the War Coalition as saying.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) tallied at least 10,292 non-combatants killed from 2007 to July 2011, says the report, titled "the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012," which was released by China's State Council Information Office.
The Iraq Body Count project records approximately 115,000 civilians killed in the cross-fire from 2003 to August 2011, according to the report.
Beyond the two states under occupation, the "War on Terror" has spilled into a number of neighboring countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing a great many civilians there, it says.
In addition, a news report, posted on BBC's website, pointed at recurrent U.S. drone attacks in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the report. "Just one in 50 victims of America's deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists - while the rest are innocent civilians," the report quotes an article on the website of the Daily Mail as saying.
The Last Days of the Americans in Afghanistan
In researching his new history, Return of a King of the 1842 British defeat in Afghanistan, William Dalrymple traced the army’s ill-fated retreat route. Under the protection of a warlord whose ancestors helped throw out Dalrymple’s, he found parallels to the retreat of the latest foreign power to invade the country: America.
The Daily Beast By William Dalrymple Apr 21, 2013
On my extended visits to Afghanistan to research Return of a King, I was keen to see as many of the places and landscapes associated with the First Anglo-Afghan War as was possible. I particularly wanted to retrace the route of the British forces’ catastrophic retreat and get to Gandamak, the site of the British last stand.
The route of the retreat backs on to the mountain range that leads to Tora Bora and the Pakistan border, the Ghilzai heartlands that have always been – along with Quetta – the Taliban’s main recruiting ground. I had been advised not to attempt to visit the area without local protection, so eventually set off in the company of a regional tribal leader who was also a minister in Karzai’s government: a mountain of a man named Anwar Khan Jagdalak, a former village wrestling champion and later captain of the Afghan Olympic wrestling team, who had made his name as a Jami’at-Islami Mujehedin commander in the jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s.
It was Jagdalak’s Ghilzai ancestors who inflicted some of the worst casualties on the British army of 1842, something he proudly repeated several times as we drove through the same passes. “They forced us to pick up guns to defend our honour,” he said. “So we killed every last one of those *******s.” None of this, incidentally, has stopped Jagdalak from sending his family away from Kabul to the greater safety of Northolt in north London.
On the day we were to drive to Gandamak, I had been told to report at seven in the morning to Jagdalak. Threading my way through a slalom of checkpoints and razor wire surrounding his Ministry, I arrived to find Jagdalak being hustled into a convoy of heavily armoured SUVs by his ever-present phalanx of Afghan bodyguards, with their walkie-talkies crackling and assault rifles primed.
Jagdalak drove himself, while pick-ups full of his protection followed behind. As we headed through the capital, evidence of the failure of the current occupation lay all around us. Kabul remains one of the poorest and scrappiest capital cities in the world, despite the US pouring around $80 billion into Afghanistan.
We bumped along potholed roads, past the blast walls of the US Embassy and the NATO barracks that has been built on the very site of the British cantonment of 170 years ago, then headed down the zigzagging road into the line of bleak mountain passes that link Kabul with the Khyber Pass.
It is a suitably dramatic and violent landscape: faultlines of crushed and tortured strata groaned and twisted in the gunpowder-coloured rockwalls rising on either side of us. Above, the jagged mountain tops were veiled in an ominous cloud of mist. As we drove, Jagdalak complained bitterly of the western treatment of his government. “In the 1980s when we were killing Russians for them, the Americans called us freedom fighters,” he muttered as we descended the first pass. “Now they just dismiss us as warlords.”
We left the main road at Sarobi, where the mountains debouch into a high-altitude ochre desert dotted with encampments of Ghilzai nomads, and headed into Taliban territory; a further five pick-up trucks full of Jagdalak’s old Mujehedin fighters, all brandishing rocket-propelled grenades and with faces wrapped in their turbans, appeared from a side road to escort us.
At the village of Jagdalak, on 12 January 1842, the last 200 frostbitten British soldiers found themselves surrounded by several thousand Ghilzai tribesmen; only a handful made it beyond the holly hedge. Our own welcome was, thankfully, somewhat warmer. The proud villagers took their old commander, now a government minister, on a trip through hills smelling of wild thyme and wormwood, and up through mountainsides carpeted with hollyhocks and mulberries and shaded by white poplars. Here, at the top of the surrounding peaks, near the watchtower where freezing sepoys had attempted to find shelter in 1842, lay the remains of Jagdalak’s old Mujehedin bunkers and entrenchments from which he had defied the Soviet army. Once the tour was completed, the villagers feasted us in an apricot orchard at the bottom of the valley: we sat on carpets under a trellis of vine and pomegranate blossom, as course after course of kebabs and raisin pullao were laid in front of us.
“[America’s invasion] is exactly the same,” said Jagdalak. “Both times the foreigners have come for their own interests, not for ours. They say, ‘We are your friends, we want to help.’ But they are lying.’
During lunch, as my hosts casually pointed out the site of the holly barrier and other places in the village where the British had been massacred in 1842, we compared our respective family memories of that war. I talked about my great-great-uncle, Colin Mackenzie, who had been taken hostage nearby, and I asked if they saw any parallels with the current situation. “It is exactly the same,” said Jagdalak. “Both times the foreigners have come for their own interests, not for ours. They say, ‘We are your friends, we want to help.’ But they are lying.’
“Whoever comes to Afghanistan, even now, they will face the fate of Burnes, Macnaghten and Dr Brydon,” agreed Mohammad Khan, our host in the village and the owner of the orchard where we were sitting. Everyone nodded sagely into their rice: the names of the fallen of 1842, long forgotten in their home country, were still common currency here.
“Since the British went we’ve had the Russians,” said one old man to my right. “We saw them off too, but not before they bombed many of the houses in the village.” He pointed at a ridge full of ruined mudbrick houses on the hills behind us.
“We are the roof of the world,” said Khan. “From here you can control and watch everywhere.”
“Afghanistan is like the crossroads for every nation that comes to power,” agreed Jagdalak. “But we do not have the strength to control our own destiny. Our fate is determined by our neighbours.”
It was nearly 5 p.m. before the final flaps of naan bread were cleared away, by which time it became clear that it was now too late to head on to Gandamak. Instead we went that evening by the main highway direct to the relative safety of Jalalabad, where we discovered we’d had a narrow escape. It turned out that there had been a battle at Gandamak that very morning between government forces and a group of villagers supported by the Taliban. Nine policemen had been killed and ten taken hostage over a dispute about opium poppies. The sheer size and length of the feast and our own gluttony had saved us from walking straight into an ambush. The battle had taken place on exactly the site of the British last stand in 1842.
The following morning in Jalalabad we went to a jirga, or assembly, of Ghilzai tribal elders, to which the greybeards of Gandamak had come, under a flag of truce, to discuss what had happened the day before. As Predator Drones took off and landed incessantly at the nearby airfield, we chatted over a pot of green tea. “Last month,” said one tribal elder from Gandamak, “some American officers called us to a hotel in Jalalabad for a meeting. One of them asked me, ‘Why do you hate us?’ I replied, ‘Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair, and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.”’
“What did he say to that?”
“He turned to his friend and said, ‘If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?’ In truth, all the Americans here know their game is over. It is just their politicians who deny this.”
“These are the last days of the Americans,” said the other elder. “Next it will be China.
William Dalrymple is the author of eight acclaimed works of history and travel, including, most recently, Return of the King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42, currently a No.1 bestseller in India, to be published in February in the UK and in April in the US. He divides his time between New Delhi and London, and is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Guardian.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Nangarhar Residents Ask for Governor's Dismissal
TOLOnews By Anisa Shahid 20 April 2013
The residents of eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar protested against the provincial governor Saturday, blocking four main entrances to the province's centre, Jalalabad.
The residents – who claim governor Gul Agha Sherzai has been unresponsive to impeding corruption, illegal land grabbing, and Pakistani military from Afghan soil – said they would continue their protest and the entrances to the city will be kept closed if the central government does not dismiss the governor in the next 24 hours.
"Pakistan will gradually come forward, they have reached Gushta district. We don't accept this," one of the protestors told TOLOnews, "They oppress Afghans, destroy our police and army forces, throw bombs on them."
Meanwhile, provincial spokesman of Nangarhar governor said the central government is informed of the residents' call, and a high-level delegation is to visit the province to investigate the matter.
"The governor has asked the president to send a high-level decision-making delegation to the province and inspect the issue legally," said spokesman of Nangarhar provincial governor, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.
Since 2003, Pakistan – with assistance from the coalition forces – has shifted 11 border posts from pervious locations on Afghan soil to Ghushta district of Nangarhar province alongside Durand Line, an act accompanied by reactions from the government and the people of Afghanistan.
Last week, Afghanistan's senate had also condemned the buildup of Pakistan's military on the border between the two countries, calling for clearer government policies on the neighbouring state, despite some media reports saying the matter was resolved.
The latest incident is Pakistan's construction of a controversial border gate on the Durand Line - the 2,400-kilometer border between the two countries which is recognized by Pakistan but not by Afghanistan.
The senate's condemnation came after Pakistani media reported that the matter had been "amicably resolved" after a meeting between senior military commanders of both countries in Rawalpindi, where Pakistan's army is headquartered.
An official Pakistan statement said that Afghanistan's Director General of Military Operations Maj Gen Afzal Aman had met with his Pakistani counterpart Maj Gen Ashfaq Nadeem Ahmed.
The statement also said that the construction is taking place in Pakistan's tribal district of Mohmand that borders Afghanistan - a clear attempt to clarify claims that the gate is being built in Afghanistan's territory.
Afghan senators repeated such claims last week.
HSK test held in Afghanistan for 1st time
KABUL, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, known as HSK or a proficiency test on Chinese language for non-native speakers, held its maiden test in Afghanistan, attracting 40 participants across the war-hit country.
Starting from Saturday, the test was separated into two days, respectively 5th level and 3rd level on each day, attracting 11 and 29 participants on each test.
The majority of the test participants are from the Confucius Institute of Kabul University, six of them are females.
The examinees were tested listening comprehension, reading comprehension and composition within 85 minutes.
A 3rd level candidate told Xinhua on the condition of anonymity that he is willing to enhance his Chinese proficiency through HSK test and would love to pursue further study in China after that.
According to Zhao Jingwu, the Chinese chief of Confucius Institute, the candidates of HSK 3rd level with a satisfactory score may earn the chance to study in China for one year, while the 5th level candidates may win scholarship to study their master degrees on Chinese language teaching in Chinese universities.
Re-opened in April 2013, Confucius Institute is cooperating with Chinese Department of Kabul University on instructing Chinese language. Around 100 students across Afghanistan are working on their bachelor degrees under the assistance from one Chinese teacher and two local instructors.
MoI Blames Badakhshan Insecurity on Eastern Neighbour
TOLOnews By Mursal Mansoory 20 April 2013
Afghan interior ministry said Saturday that Afghanistan's eastern neighbour is endeavouring to make the north-eastern province of Badakhshan insecure aiming to put obstacles over construction of the Silk Route to China.
Pakistan is believed to have recently had broader role in causing insecurity to the province's Wardooj district after it realised the historical Silk Route will connect Afghanistan to China and other countries in the region leading to less dependency of Afghanistan to its neighbouring countries on the east side.
"This highway which will be directly connected to China and will reduce our dependence on our neighbouring countries," said Sediq Sediqi, spokesman for Ministry of Interior Affairs, "This is not tolerable for some countries as they really want Afghanistan to be dependent on them, I mean [those] on the east side of Afghanistan."
Meanwhile, Ministry of Commerce and Industries considers the highway beneficial to the neighbouring countries and said that one of the challenges against construction of the road is the project plan not being implemented from the Afghan government side.
As believed by Ministry of Commerce and Industries, neighbouring countries are not making any efforts to stop the project.
"I think this is not only beneficial to Afghanistan but it will also be of benefits to Pakistan, Iran, and other countries," said the ministry spokesman Wahidullah Ghazi Khel.
"Those countries are also interested in this road becoming ready to use," he added.
Afghan MPs also believe that the main motive to conflicts in Wardooj district is to hold back the construction of this historical route.
"One of the main factors behind the current conflict in Wardooj – which is plotted by Pakistan and aimed to expand insecurity in the area – is to put off construction of the Silk Route," said Saranwal Abdul Maroof, Badakhshan MP.
MPs' concern comes as in a previous conflict between Afghan security forces and the Taliban in Wardooj district, as many as 16 Afghan army soldiers and about 60 members of the Taliban were killed, an incident following which a joint Afghan security forces operation cleared the district of insurgents.
To Boston From Kabul With Love
NBC News By Ron Mott, Correspondent, NBC News 20/04/2013
KABUL - After more than three decades of war, you would think Afghans would be desensitized to violent attacks like the Boston Marathon explosion. A Boston-based documentary filmmaker found just the opposite.
Instead of disregard, she found empathy among Kabul's residents for the three killed and more than 170 injured in the twin bomb blasts at the center of Boston 6,500 miles away. And she has the images to prove it.
In the wake of the attacks, Beth Murphy awakened Tuesday morning in Afghanistan to a confounding text message from her husband.
"I thought at first I was re-reading my own message to him saying, 'Yes, I'm OK'," said Beth Murphy. She was referring to a text message she had sent her husband about a large-scale Taliban attack in western Afghanistan on April 3 that left more than 40 people dead. "But it said, 'It's OK, we're safe.' So I did a double-take.
"I immediately went online before I even got back to him and saw what was happening in Boston, and [got] that overwhelming feeling of helplessness and sadness and feeling so far away. I thought, 'I'd really like to be home right now.'"
Murphy's husband, Dennis, and 5-year-old daughter were fine. But as a runner who had felt the joy and pain of crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon, she felt compelled to do something.
In an effort to show solidarity with the city she calls home, Murphy set off for her day's work on a documentary project in Kabul armed with a simple sign she made that read: "To Boston From Kabul With Love."
Her initial plan was to photograph herself holding the sign and post it online but reactions from Afghans to the unfolding tragedy in Boston prompted a change of plans.
"As I started to talk with people here about what was happening, I saw the expressions on their faces change," she said. "They experience things like this here all the time. You might expect that they'd be desensitized to it or talk about it with a lack of compassion, but it was the exact opposite. There was this shared experience of pain and suffering, and the way people expressed that to me was really beautiful."
Those expressions led Murphy to ask permission to photograph them holding her sign – a spontaneous idea that quickly spread around the world and went viral on the Internet. Murphy published a series of black and white photos rich with the color of everyday life here: a bookseller crouched before his wares, a chicken vendor with a trio of whole fryer birds hanging over his shoulder, a little girl's largely expressionless face starkly contrasted by those of her shrouded female relatives in the distance.
And the common thread binding the images and the people in them is a collective nod of empathy for the people of Boston.
"I've been really overwhelmed by the response," Murphy said. "It certainly wasn't anything that I anticipated. I'm happy that the pictures resonated because I think they speak to a common humanity that we all share."
Reduced security blamed for Taliban attack
The Washington Post By Rajiv Chandrasekaran April 21, 2013
The Taliban fighters who blew up a half-dozen U.S. Marine fighter jets on a sprawling NATO base last fall were able to walk easily onto the encampment because patrols of the perimeter had been scaled back and watchtowers left unmanned, according to senior military officials.
After the attack, which resulted in the deaths of two Marines and the largest loss of allied materiel in the 11-year-long Afghan war, the top U.S. commander on the base did not order a formal investigation into the security lapses or sanction any personnel responsible for guarding the facility, the officials said.
In the days following the raid, some U.S. and NATO military leaders insisted that the Taliban got lucky by choosing to breach where they did. But several officials with direct knowledge of the assault said in recent interviews that staffing decisions by U.S. and British commanders weakened the base’s defenses, making it easier for the insurgents to reconnoiter the compound and enter without resistance. Once inside, 15 insurgents used grenades to destroy almost an entire squadron of Marine AV-8B Harrier jets, a loss estimated by military officials at about $200 million.
The new account of the attack illustrates the challenge of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the coming months. Unlike Iraq, from which U.S. forces departed largely peacefully, Afghanistan remains perilous. U.S. intelligence officials say Taliban operatives are on the lookout for opportunities to strike if U.S. and NATO commanders reduce security as they send home thousands of troops.
An unmanned tower
The attack occurred on Camp Bastion, a British-run NATO air base in Helmand province that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast U.S. Marine facility that serves as the NATO headquarters for southwestern Afghanistan. Because Leatherneck does not have a runway, the Marines use Bastion as their principal air hub. Several hundred Marines live and work on the British side, and dozens of U.S. helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft park there.
The British are responsible for guarding Bastion, which is ringed by a chain-link fence and triple coils of razor wire. There are numerous tall watchtowers on the perimeter, which allow sentries to scan the horizon for potential attackers. Instead of placing their own soldiers in the towers, British commanders handed the job to troops from the Pacific island of Tonga, which has sent 55 soldiers to Afghanistan.
On the night of the attack — Sept. 14 — the tower closest to the Taliban point of entry was unmanned, according to four U.S. military officials who were at Camp Leatherneck at the time or received briefings about the incident later. Those officials and other military officers interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the attack or security measures at Camp Bastion, key elements of which remain classified.
Several watchtowers at Bastion were manned at the time, but the Tongan soldiers in those posts could not observe the area around the empty tower, the officials said. “There was dead space,” one official said.
A senior U.S. officer with direct knowledge of security on the bases said it was common for Bastion’s watchtowers to be unmanned. Long-standing U.S. military security protocols permit towers to be unoccupied only if other posts can observe the unmanned tower’s entire area of responsibility.
“Security at Camp Bastion is constantly reviewed . . . and is appropriate to the currently assessed threat level,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post.
U.S. Marines responsible for protecting Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion have not relied on watchtowers alone to protect the facilities. Since U.S. troops established Leatherneck in 2009, teams of Marines have patrolled a 230-square-mile swath of desert around the bases in an attempt to identify Taliban activity and persuade residents in makeshift villages there to report on suspicious activity.
In December 2011, 325 Marines were assigned to patrol the area, according to the senior U.S. officer with knowledge of security measures. In the month before the attack, however, the number was cut back to about 100, the officer said.
“We reduced the force to patrol [the area around the base] to the point where it was an unacceptable risk,” the officer said.
The top U.S. commander at Leatherneck at the time, Marine Maj. Gen. Charles Gurganus, who approved of the reduction, said force levels for perimeter patrols were based on U.S. and NATO assessments of possible threats. At the time, other military officials said, Marine intelligence analysts did not issue any specific warnings of a frontal assault by the Taliban.
“You can’t defend everywhere every day,” Gurganus said in response to a question about the attack. “You base your security on the threat you’ve got.” He said the Taliban caught “a lucky break.”
“When you’re fighting a war, the enemy gets a vote,” he said.
Other military officials said security incidents on the bases in the preceding months should have prompted increased vigilance. In March 2012, an Afghan interpreter working for British forces at Camp Bastion drove a flaming vehicle toward a U.S. military aircraft carrying then¬Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta. The vehicle crashed into a ditch and missed Panetta’s plane.
Marine officers also had been concerned about the performance of the Tongan troops, who were sometimes found asleep at their posts.
The senior officer with knowledge of security matters said some officers raised questions about the reduction of Marines to patrol the perimeter with Gurganus and were told that it was an “acceptable risk.”
In the months leading up to the September attack, Gurganus and his predecessor had to withdraw about 10,000 U.S. troops from Helmand, reducing total force levels to about 7,000. That cutback, the senior officer said, increased pressure to trim the patrol.
Despite the troop reduction, several officers stationed at Leatherneck at the time said many Marines with idle time could have been assigned to guard duty. Instead, some of them took online college classes and others worked out in the gym twice a day. And two weeks after the attack, a Texas hold ’em poker tournament was held at one of the recreation centers at Leatherneck.
“There was plenty of manpower to assign to base security,” one of the officers said. “It just wasn’t a priority.”
Detailed reconnaissance
Military officials believe the reduction in patrols allowed the insurgents to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the airfield before the attack, identifying the times during which guard towers were unoccupied and sketching maps of where planes were parked. The insurgents even publicized the maps after the attack.
On the night of the attack, Taliban insurgents dressed in what officials believe were stolen U.S. military uniforms slipped onto the base and destroyed the aircraft. Two Marines, Lt. Col. Christopher Raible, 40, and Sgt. Bradley Atwell, 27, were killed.
In the wake of the attack, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John R. Allen, assigned his deputy, Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw of the British army, to investigate the incident.
Gurganus ordered a colonel on his staff to conduct a review of security procedures on the bases. Gurganus did not order a formal Marines Corps judge advocate general investigation into the attack. He said he could not because Bastion is a NATO facility.
Other senior officers, however, contended that a formal U.S. investigation was warranted because two Marines were killed and so many aircraft were destroyed.
When the House Armed Service Committee asked to see the initial Marine security review earlier this year, senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff deemed it insufficient for release and ordered the Marines to conduct a fuller review, military officials said. But that examination still fell short of an official investigation.
No U.S. or British military personnel have been reprimanded as a result of the attack. The Marine Corps does not plan to release its review. NATO also intends to keep its investigation confidential, in part to avoid embarrassing the British for leaving towers unmanned, according to officers briefed on the findings.
“We’ve corrected the deficiencies in security, but we don’t want to put a stick in the eye of our closest ally,” said a senior U.S. official who served in Afghanistan at the time.
Instead, the Marine Corps has sought to focus attention on the heroic response of Marine aviators during the attack. Mechanics, supply clerks and pilots grabbed rifles and ran onto the flight line to fight the insurgents, who had split into three five-man teams. Raible, a Harrier squadron commander, charged into the combat zone armed with only a handgun.
Had Raible and his fellow Marines not responded so quickly, senior officers said they believe, the human toll and property damage would have been far worse. “Their actions prevented an even greater loss,” one of the officers said. “But they never should have been put in that position in the first place.”
Taliban threat could skew Pakistan election result
By ASIF SHAHZAD | Associated Press
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Moderate politicians from some of Pakistan's most violent areas are risking the threat of Taliban attack to run in upcoming nationwide elections, but they are increasingly being forced to rely on social media, phone calls and even short documentaries that allow them to campaign at a distance.
That could give hard-line Islamic candidates and Taliban supporters an advantage as they're able to stump for votes and hold large public rallies that are a traditional hallmark of elections in the country but are extremely vulnerable to attacks.
One of the most serious attacks occurred Tuesday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a meeting of the secular Awami National Party in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 16 people. The Taliban said the target of the attack was Haroon Ahmad Bilour, whose father, a senior party leader, was killed in a suicide bombing in Peshawar in December. He escaped unscathed, but his uncle, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, suffered minor injuries.
As he was being treated at the hospital, the uncle vowed that he and other party candidates would not withdraw from the election despite the death threats. With his trousers soaked in blood, he walked among the hospital beds to comfort crying victims and told them, "We are fighting a war for Pakistan's survival."
Hours earlier, a candidate from one of the Islamic parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, campaigned freely in his constituency in a different part of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Maulana Jalil Jan's supporters showered him with rose petals as he walked unguarded from shop to shop down narrow, crowded lanes to ask for votes. He bristled at any suggestion that the Taliban were terrorists and blamed attacks in the country on foreign agents seeking to "malign religious leaders, all bearded people." He pointed out that the word Taliban simply means a student in an Islamic school.
"There is a difference between the Taliban and terrorists," said Jan.
Faced with the Taliban threat, parties have had to get more creative in their campaigning for the May 11 vote. Members of the Awami National Party and other secular political parties specifically targeted by the Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their use of Facebook and Twitter as well as phone calls and advertisements.
Analysts and secular party candidates fear that the danger could skew election results in favor of hard-line Islamic parties and others who refuse to speak out strongly against the Taliban. Their candidates are able to campaign with much less fear of being attacked, and the concern is this could lead to national and provincial governments inclined to take a softer position toward the militants.
"If you tie my hands, and you want me to fight, I can't," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a candidate from the Awami National Party, sitting in his heavily guarded office in Peshawar.
Hussain is running for a provincial assembly seat in the town of Pabbi, which is only 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Peshawar, but it is too dangerous for him to campaign there in person. To get around the danger, Hussain produced a short documentary that highlights development work he has brought to Pabbi and chronicles the sad loss of his only son, who was gunned down by Taliban militants in 2010.
The documentary shows Hussain standing in prayer over the freshly dug grave of his son as a heartfelt poem he wrote in the young man's memory is sung out in mournful tones: "I never knew the enemy could reach my home, my heart, my love would disappear in a grave." He distributes it on DVDs to voters in Pabbi and plans to show the short film there using a couple of big projectors.
Hussain was attacked himself by a suicide bomber at his son's funeral in Pabbi. He survived, but seven other people were killed, including two of his close relatives.
The politician's eyes teared up as he watched the images of his son's grave in the documentary. The film asks his constituents to "vote for those who are sacrificing their lives to save you and your children from terrorists."
It's not only the top Islamic parties like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami that seem to have been spared by the Taliban in the run-up to the election, but also mainstream parties perceived to take a softer stance on militancy, such as the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which is favored to come out on top in the election, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is headed by former cricket star Imran Khan. They have all safely held public rallies attended by thousands of people in recent weeks.
These parties have all pushed for peace negotiations with the Taliban instead of military offensives, and the militant group recently said talks should be mediated by the leaders of the top two Islamic parties and the Pakistan Muslim League-N. The parties that have been targeted by the Taliban have also called for peace negotiations, but have demanded the militants put down their weapons and endorse the constitution first and have vowed to continue fighting them until that happens. The Taliban have rejected these conditions.
"This is not a level playing field," Awami National Party leader Afrasiab Khattak said.
The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a bloody insurgency in Pakistan for years to enforce Islamic law in the country and to break the government's alliance with the United States in fighting militants. They have killed thousands of civilians and security personnel in scores of gun and bomb attacks.
The group's main sanctuaries are in the rugged northwest along the Afghan border, including the semiautonomous tribal region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban have also established a significant presence in the southern city of Karachi and have stepped up attacks there.
The militant group issued audio and video messages last month warning people to stay away from rallies held by the Awami National Party and two other secular parties that have supported army offensives against the militants in the northwest: the Pakistan People's Party, which led the most recent government, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which controls Karachi.
The Taliban have carried out at least 10 attacks against candidates and party workers, mainly those in the Awami National Party. The attacks have killed at least 18 people, including a candidate for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Many other candidates have been wounded, including five from the Awami National Party.
"This is a clear attempt by the so-called 'non-state actors' to oust and defeat moderate parties," said Raza Rumi, a political analyst who runs the Jinnah Institute think tank in Islamabad. "This can't be a fair and free election."
The Awami National Party has closed over 50 of its election offices in recent months, mainly in Karachi and Peshawar, because of the threat of attack. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has stopped holding the massive public rallies that it is known for in Karachi. The Pakistan People's Party had to cancel a large event in southern Sindh province at the beginning of April that was meant to mark the start of its campaign because of security reasons.
Khattak, the Awami National Party leader, called on all political parties to come forward and condemn the attacks on candidates. Many have remained silent or have refused to name the Pakistani Taliban, either for ideological reasons or out of fear of being targeted themselves.
"You have to decide whether you are with the terrorists or with the people," Khattak said.
____
Associated Press writer Riaz Khan contributed to this report.
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