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With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG April 28, 2013 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.
All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.
“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”
The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.
Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.
“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”
The United States was not alone in delivering cash to the president. Mr. Karzai acknowledged a few years ago that Iran regularly gave bags of cash to one of his top aides.
At the time, in 2010, American officials jumped on the payments as evidence of an aggressive Iranian campaign to buy influence and poison Afghanistan’s relations with the United States. What they did not say was that the C.I.A. was also plying the presidential palace with cash — and unlike the Iranians, it still is.
American and Afghan officials familiar with the payments said the agency’s main goal in providing the cash has been to maintain access to Mr. Karzai and his inner circle and to guarantee the agency’s influence at the presidential palace, which wields tremendous power in Afghanistan’s highly centralized government. The officials spoke about the money only on the condition of anonymity.
It is not clear that the United States is getting what it pays for. Mr. Karzai’s willingness to defy the United States — and the Iranians, for that matter — on an array of issues seems to have only grown as the cash has piled up. Instead of securing his good graces, the payments may well illustrate the opposite: Mr. Karzai is seemingly unable to be bought.
Over Iran’s objections, he signed a strategic partnership deal with the United States last year, directly leading the Iranians to halt their payments, two senior Afghan officials said. Now, Mr. Karzai is seeking control over the Afghan militias raised by the C.I.A. to target operatives of Al Qaeda and insurgent commanders, potentially upending a critical part of the Obama administration’s plans for fighting militants as conventional military forces pull back this year.
But the C.I.A. has continued to pay, believing it needs Mr. Karzai’s ear to run its clandestine war against Al Qaeda and its allies, according to American and Afghan officials.
Like the Iranian cash, much of the C.I.A.’s money goes to paying off warlords and politicians, many of whom have ties to the drug trade and, in some cases, the Taliban. The result, American and Afghan officials said, is that the agency has greased the wheels of the same patronage networks that American diplomats and law enforcement agents have struggled unsuccessfully to dismantle, leaving the government in the grips of what are basically organized crime syndicates.
The cash does not appear to be subject to the oversight and restrictions placed on official American aid to the country or even the C.I.A.’s formal assistance programs, like financing Afghan intelligence agencies. And while there is no evidence that Mr. Karzai has personally taken any of the money — Afghan officials say the cash is handled by his National Security Council — the payments do in some cases work directly at odds with the aims of other parts of the American government in Afghanistan, even if they do not appear to violate American law.
Handing out cash has been standard procedure for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan since the start of the war. During the 2001 invasion, agency cash bought the services of numerous warlords, including Muhammad Qasim Fahim, the current first vice president.
“We paid them to overthrow the Taliban,” the American official said.
The C.I.A. then kept paying the Afghans to keep fighting. For instance, Mr. Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was paid by the C.I.A. to run the Kandahar Strike Force, a militia used by the agency to combat militants, until his assassination in 2011.
A number of senior officials on the Afghan National Security Council are also individually on the agency’s payroll, Afghan officials said.
While intelligence agencies often pay foreign officials to provide information, dropping off bags of cash at a foreign leader’s office to curry favor is a more unusual arrangement.
Afghan officials said the practice grew out of the unique circumstances in Afghanistan, where the United States built the government that Mr. Karzai runs. To accomplish that task, it had to bring to heel many of the warlords the C.I.A. had paid during and after the 2001 invasion.
By late 2002, Mr. Karzai and his aides were pressing for the payments to be routed through the president’s office, allowing him to buy the warlords’ loyalty, a former adviser to Mr. Karzai said.
Then, in December 2002, Iranians showed up at the palace in a sport utility vehicle packed with cash, the former adviser said.
The C.I.A. began dropping off cash at the palace the following month, and the sums grew from there, Afghan officials said.
Payments ordinarily range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, the officials said, though none could provide exact figures. The money is used to cover a slew of off-the-books expenses, like paying off lawmakers or underwriting delicate diplomatic trips or informal negotiations.
Much of it also still goes to keeping old warlords in line. One is Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek whose militia served as a C.I.A. proxy force in 2001. He receives nearly $100,000 a month from the palace, two Afghan officials said. Other officials said the amount was significantly lower.
Mr. Dostum, who declined requests for comment, had previously said he was given $80,000 a month to serve as Mr. Karzai’s emissary in northern Afghanistan. “I asked for a year up front in cash so that I could build my dream house,” he was quoted as saying in a 2009 interview with Time magazine.
Some of the cash also probably ends up in the pockets of the Karzai aides who handle it, Afghan and Western officials said, though they would not identify any by name.
That is not a significant concern for the C.I.A., said American officials familiar with the agency’s operations. “They’ll work with criminals if they think they have to,” one American former official said.
Interestingly, the cash from Tehran appears to have been handled with greater transparency than the dollars from the C.I.A., Afghan officials said. The Iranian payments were routed through Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff. Some of the money was deposited in an account in the president’s name at a state-run bank, and some was kept at the palace. The sum delivered would then be announced at the next cabinet meeting. The Iranians gave $3 million to well over $10 million a year, Afghan officials said.
When word of the Iranian cash leaked out in October 2010, Mr. Karzai told reporters that he was grateful for it. He then added: “The United States is doing the same thing. They are providing cash to some of our offices.”
At the time, Mr. Karzai’s aides said he was referring to the billions in formal aid the United States gives. But the former adviser said in a recent interview that the president was in fact referring to the C.I.A.’s bags of cash.
No one mentions the agency’s money at cabinet meetings. It is handled by a small clique at the National Security Council, including its administrative chief, Mohammed Zia Salehi, Afghan officials said.
Mr. Salehi, though, is better known for being arrested in 2010 in connection with a sprawling, American-led investigation that tied together Afghan cash smuggling, Taliban finances and the opium trade. Mr. Karzai had him released within hours, and the C.I.A. then helped persuade the Obama administration to back off its anticorruption push, American officials said.
After his release, Mr. Salehi jokingly came up with a motto that succinctly summed up America’s conflicting priorities. He was, he began telling colleagues, “an enemy of the F.B.I., and a hero to the C.I.A.”
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 29, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the job title that Khalil Roman held in Afghanistan from 2002 until 2005. He was President Hamid Karzai’s deputy chief of staff, not his chief of staff.
Plane Crash in Afghanistan Kills 4 International Troops
Associated Press April 27, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - A NATO plane crash in southern Afghanistan killed four international troops on Saturday, the same day the Taliban announced its spring offensive and said it will target military and diplomatic sites with suicide bombers and infiltrate enemy forces to conduct deadly insider attacks.
April already has been the deadliest month so far this year across the country where Afghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead on the battlefield of the more than 11-year-old war.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said its security forces were prepared for the Taliban's new campaign, which was to start on Sunday. "The Afghan National Army is ready to neutralize the offensive," the ministry said.
Insurgents have escalated attacks to gain power and influence ahead of next year's presidential election and the planned withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. And U.S.-backed efforts to try to reconcile the Islamic militant movement with the Afghan government are gaining little traction.
The Taliban did not immediately claim responsibility for the plane crash. NATO said initial reports indicated no enemy activity in the area where the plane went down. Coalition personnel secured the site and were investigating the cause of the crash.
The brief NATO statement did not identify the victims, or say exactly where the crash occurred in Afghanistan. However, Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, deputy governor of the southern province of Zabul, said an aircraft belonging to foreign forces crashed Saturday afternoon in Shah Joy district.
In their announcement on Saturday, the Taliban vowed to step up violent attacks now that winter was over and warmer weather has made travel and fighting easier. The militant group said it would use every possible tactic to "detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors."
Taliban fighters, who seek to replace the elected Afghan government with one promoting a stricter interpretation of Islamic law, named their offensive after a legendary Muslim military commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid. Also known as the "Drawn Sword of God," he was a companion of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The Taliban threatened to infiltrate the Afghan security forces and conduct more attacks on Afghan policemen and soldiers as well as foreign troops.
Such attacks threaten the strength of the Afghan forces as they work to take over responsibility from coalition forces. The latest one occurred in March, when a member of a government-backed village defense unit shot and killed five of his colleagues in Badghis province in northwest Afghanistan.
April has already been the worst month for combat deaths so far this year. According to an Associated Press tally, 261 people — including civilians, Afghan security forces and foreign troops — have been killed in violence around the nation. During that time 217 insurgents have died.
Last year during the month of April, 179 civilians, foreign troops and Afghan security forces were killed and 268 insurgents.
Still, U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday that the security situation had improved across the country, with Afghan forces now leading 80 percent of all conventional operations.
As the traditional fighting season begins, the insurgents will face a combined Afghan force of 350,000 soldiers and police, he said.
"The insurgency can no longer use the justification that it is fighting foreign occupiers — that message rings hollow," Dunford said in a statement.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid disagreed with that assessment.
"The foreign forces will be our primary targets. The second target will be the government of Kabul. The third one will be the other foreign countries who are acting against our mujahedeen," or holy warriors, he said in an interview with AP Television News.
Departing French Envoy Has Frank Words on Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN Diplomatic Memo April 27, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - It is always hard to gauge what diplomats really think unless one of their cables ends up on WikiLeaks, but every once in a while, the barriers fall and a bit of truth slips into public view.
That is especially true in Afghanistan, where diplomats painstakingly weigh every word against political goals back home.
The positive spin from the Americans has been running especially hard the last few weeks, as Congressional committees in Washington focus on spending bills and the Obama administration, trying to secure money for a few more years here, talks up the country’s progress. The same is going on at the European Union, where the tone has been sterner than in the past, but still glosses predictions of Afghanistan’s future with upbeat words like “promise” and “potential.”
Despite that, one of those rare truth-telling moments came at a farewell cocktail party last week hosted by the departing French ambassador to Kabul: Bernard Bajolet, who is leaving to head France’s Direction Génerale de la Sécurité Extérieure, its foreign intelligence service.
After the white-coated staff passed the third round of hors d’oeuvres, Mr. Bajolet took the lectern and laid out a picture of how France — a country plagued by a slow economy, waning public support for the Afghan endeavor and demands from other foreign conflicts, including Syria and North Africa — looked at Afghanistan.
While it is certainly easier for France to be a critic from the sidelines than countries whose troops are still fighting in Afghanistan, the country can claim to have done its part. It lost more troops than all but three other countries before withdrawing its last combat forces in the fall.
The room, filled with diplomats, some senior soldiers and a number of Afghan dignitaries, went deadly quiet. When Mr. Bajolet finished, there was restrained applause — and sober expressions. One diplomat raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly; another said, “No holding back there.”
So what did he say?
That the Afghan project is on thin ice and that, collectively, the West was responsible for a chunk of what went wrong, though much of the rest the Afghans were responsible for. That the West had done a good job of fighting terrorism, but that most of that was done on Pakistani soil, not on the Afghan side of the border. And that without fundamental changes in how Afghanistan did business, the Afghan government, and by extension the West’s investment in it, would come to little.
His tone was neither shrill nor reproachful. It was matter-of-fact.
“I still cannot understand how we, the international community, and the Afghan government have managed to arrive at a situation in which everything is coming together in 2014 — elections, new president, economic transition, military transition and all this — whereas the negotiations for the peace process have not really started,” Mr. Bajolet said in his opening comments.
He was echoing a point shared privately by other diplomats, that 2014 was likely to be “a perfect storm” of political and military upheaval coinciding with the formal close of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan.
As for the success of the fight on the ground, which American leaders routinely describe now as being “Afghan-led,” Mr. Bajolet sounded dubious. “We do not have enough distance to make an objective assessment,” he said, “but in any case, I think it crucial that the Afghan highest leadership take more visible and obvious ownership for their army.”
His tone — the sober, troubled observations of a diplomat closing a chapter — could hardly have been more different from that taken by the new shift of American officials charged with making it work in Afghanistan: in particular, with that of Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the new American commanding general here. This week, General Dunford sent out a news release cheering on Afghanistan’s progress, noting some positive-leaning statistics and praising the Afghan Army’s abilities.
“Very soon, the A.N.S.F. will be responsible for security nationwide” General Dunford said, referring to the Afghan National Security Forces. “They are steadily gaining in confidence, competence, and commitment.”
At his farewell party, Mr. Bajolet wound up his realpolitik with a brisk analysis of what Afghanistan’s government needed to do: cut corruption, which discourages investment, deal with drugs and become fiscally self-reliant. It must increase its revenues instead of letting politicians divert them, he said.
Several diplomats in the room could be seen nodding as he said that drugs caused “more casualties than terrorism” in Russia, Europe and the Balkans and that Western governments would be hard-put to make the case for continued spending on Afghanistan if it remains the world’s largest heroin supplier.
The biggest contrast with the American and British line was Mr. Bajolet’s riff on sovereignty, which has become the political watchword of the moment. The Americans and the international community are giving sovereignty back to Afghanistan. Afghanistan argues frequently that it is a sovereign nation. President Hamid Karzai, in the debate over taking charge of the Bagram prison, repeatedly said that Afghanistan had a sovereign responsibility to its prisoners.
His implicit question was, what does that really mean?
“We should be lucid: a country that depends almost entirely on the international community for the salaries of its soldiers and policemen, for most of its investments and partly on it for its current civil expenditure, cannot be really independent.”
Taliban promises more insider attacks on foreign troops in annual Spring offensive
Associated Press April 27, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - The Taliban on Saturday announced the start of their spring offensive, signaling plans to step up attacks as the weather warms across Afghanistan, making both travel and fighting easier.
The statement comes toward the end of a month that already has been the deadliest of the year.
The militant group's leadership vowed that "every possible tactic will be utilized in order to detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors."
It said that will include more so-called insider attacks by members of the Afghan security forces against their colleagues or foreign troops.
Such attacks threaten the strength of the Afghan forces as they work to take over responsibility from international forces. The latest one occurred in March, when a member of Afghanistan's government-backed militia program shot and killed five of his colleagues in Badghis province in northwest Afghanistan.
In a sign of Taliban's determination to replace Afghanistan's government with one promoting a stricter interpretation of Islamic law, they named their new offensive after a legendary Muslim military commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid. Also known as "the Drawn Sword of God," he was a companion of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
U.S.-backed efforts to try to reconcile the Islamic militant movement with the Afghan government have so far failed.
Insurgents intensified attacks this spring as they try to position themselves for power ahead of national elections and the planned withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
April has already been the worst month for combat deaths so far this year. According to an Associated Press tally, 257 people -- including civilians, Afghan security forces and foreign troops -- have been killed in violence around the nation. During that time 217 insurgents have died.
Last year during the month of April, 179 civilians, foreign troops and Afghan security forces were killed and 268 insurgents.
Still, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, said Wednesday that the security situation has improved across the country.
"As the traditional fighting season begins, the insurgency will confront a combined " Afghan force of 350,000 soldiers and police, he said.
"The insurgency can no longer use the justification that it is fighting foreign occupiers -- that message rings hollow," Dunford said in a statement.
Saur Revolution, Inception of Wars in Afghanistan: MPs
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi 27 April 2013
Saur revolution was the beginning point of wars in Afghanistan, a number of Afghan MPs said Saturday, 35 years after the revolution in which a coup d'état by the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) brought down the government of then Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan in 1978.
MPs remarked as well that besides 7th of Saur (Saur Revolution), 8th of Saur (Mujahidin taking over the communist party on 28 April 1992) caused tragic circumstances, and following both dates millions were killed and injured for the sake of different groups and beliefs.
They marked out that such days should not be experienced in Afghanistan again.
On 7 Saur 1357 (28 April 1978) the PDPA stormed the Presidential Palace in Kabul and overtook the government of Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan following clashes that lasted for 10 hours.
"7th and 8th of Saur were bloody days in the country," said Shukria Barikzai, MP, "Although there were good wills aimed for the country but that was not realised."
"There was even a possibility of dividing the people and the map of Afghanistan," she added.
Another MP, Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada said "7th of Saur was the inception of wars in Afghanistan, and we condemn this day. Those who disregarded Jihad of Afghanistan and sold it within political games can never represent Jihad in Afghanistan."
Second vice speaker of the parliament, on the other hand, said that 8th of Saur was the triumph day of Jihad in Afghanistan and it should be honoured.
Condemning the coup d'état of 7th of Saur, he pointed that incidents following both two dates should not be considered as legitimate.
"35 years ago from this day, Sardar Daud, president of the country, was killed in a coup d'état and we condemn it. 8th of Saur is the day Jihad of Afghanistan succeeded and it's respectable, but incidents related to that should not be legitimised," said Saleh Mohammad Saljuqi, second vice speaker of the parliament.
A number of MPs believe that 7th and 8th of Saur were plotted for reaching national interests, however, the goals were not reached and it was the Afghan people who sufferred the most.
Alongside the parliament, a number of other government officials, at a ceremony to honour the day, said killing of President Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan was a great tragedy to Afghanistan.
"I expected the Afghan flag to be half raised on this day, in all over Afghanistan, and expected a national remembrance announced because besides Sardar Mohammad Daud and his family, more than two million of our citizens were killed as well," said Azizullah Lodin, head of High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC).
Former interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali said "The government of Sardar Mohammad Daud was exceptional and writers should write more about this."
In connection to the comments, Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan's son, Sardar Mohammad Naim said "Misery started in the country on 7th of Saur, 35 years ago."
Twenty three years after the coup d'état, President Hamid Karzai, put together a commission in 1390 (2001) to find remains of Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan and his family members, following which the remains were found and re-buried in a hill that was named after Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan.
Roadside bomb kills 3 Afghan police officers on opening day of Taliban’s spring offensive
Associated Press April 28, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - An official says a remote-controlled roadside bomb has killed three police officers in southern Afghanistan, including a deputy provincial police chief.
The attack occurred at 6 a.m. Sunday, the day the Taliban had said that its spring offensive would begin.
Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy governor of Ghazni province, said the remote-controlled bomb exploded beneath a police convoy traveling to the provincial district of Zana Khan to take part in a military operation against insurgents. He says the blast destroyed the vehicle carrying Col. Mohammad Hussain, the deputy provincial police chief, killing him and two other officers.
Ahmadi says two other officers were also wounded in the attack, which he called a well-planned insurgent operation targeting Hussain.
40 Percent of Insurgency In 10 Afghan Districts: Isaf
TOLOnews.com By Mursal Mansoory 27 April 2013
Releasing a statement Saturday, Isaf said that threats from government's armed oppositions in ten districts of Afghanistan – in southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand – are seen serious, pointing out that these districts are still insecure.
"The security situation in Afghanistan is significantly improving, and the numbers we were using, that 40 percent of the violence is only taking place in 10 districts, shows that...we were able to push the insurgency out of the urban areas," Isaf spokesman Günter Katz told TOLOnews.
Afghan defence ministry, however, said that the number is mentioned higher, adding that there is no insurgency in those areas.
"The Taliban are not capable of fighting with us face-to-face. Security forces are present in the provinces," said Dawlat Waziri, deputy spokesman of the Afghan defence ministry.
Analysts believe that the Taliban are endeavouring to make parts of Afghanistan insecure and that both the Afghan government and the international community need to address the issue.
"Afghanistan is insecure at any situation. Even the capital is insecure and it witnesses attacks," said Atiqullah Amerkhel, political expert.
As seen by the defence ministry, it is yet essential to execute operations for obliterating insurgents in insecure areas.
Ghazni, Badakhshan, Kuanr, and Paktia bear the highest extent of threat from the armed opposition, it said.
Taliban's Anti-Government Promotion in Logar Schools
TOLOnews.com By Jawid Stanikzai 27 April 2013
A number of school students receive anti-government training in Mohammad Agha District of eastern Logar province, local officials said on Saturday.
The District Governor of Mohammad Agha Abdul Hamid Hamed said that a number of religious scholars [Mullahs], who are school teachers as well, are promoting views against the government and international forces in schools and mosques.
The reports state that Taliban followers are endeavouring to use new methods of advertising in some educational and Islamic centres against the government.
"Most of the Mullahs have the job of teaching in schools as well, a number of them comment against foreign forces and saying that Jihad is religiously legal against them," The District Governor Abdul Hamid Hamed told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, provincial police chief says that efforts are being made to solve the problem.
"The situation is not the same in all parts of the province. There are some places where this problem exists, but with the cooperation of the education officials, we are trying to solve the problem," Logar Police Chief Abdul Sabor Nasrati said.
It is said that unknown men have thrown a grenade in a girls school in Moghol Khel village of Mohammad Agha District.
"All girls' schools and teachers received warnings. Last Wednesday night, a bomb was thrown in a girl's school," Abdul Hamid Hamed said.
But the Education Officials in eastern Logar province reject all the reports.
"I reject these reports; there is no school where anti-government views are promoted. We have all the schools under control," Head of Education Department of Logar Mohammad Akbar said.
Annually, Taliban's anti-government activities increase at the beginning of spring season in eastern Logar province but Mohammad Agha District Governor said that security forces have already taken special measures to assure security for the district's residents and Ainak Copper Mine in the province.
Summary amputations: Taliban justice in Afghanistan
BBC News By Humayun Hadid & Johannes Dell 27 April 2013
Two cases of forced amputations in Afghanistan's Herat province have served as a grim reminder of Taliban-style justice almost 12 years since the movement was ousted from power.
Just over a month ago, Fayz Mohammad and his neighbour Zarin were two ordinary young Afghan men.
They held down good jobs as drivers for a local transport company and were happy to be able to feed their families.
Now both are in hospital in Herat, recovering from an ordeal which has left them traumatised and worried for their future.
In mid-March, 25-year-old Fayz and his younger colleague were enjoying time off duty in their home village in Rabat Sangi district while their trucks were being loaded.
On the second night of their stay, Taliban fighters arrived at 03:00 in the morning and abducted them.
The men were taken more than 100 miles away to Torghundi, a town on the border with Turkmenistan.
"They kept us for 27 days," Fayz told the BBC. "On the 28th day, at 10 in the morning, they cut off our hand and foot."
Resting on a simple bed in Herat's regional hospital, his right arm and left leg heavily bandaged, Fayz recounted his harrowing experience.
"They injected us with a fake anaesthetic from an ampoule," he says. "It didn't have any effect at all."
Fayz says he doesn't know what instrument the men used.
"I just saw a guy with white gloves. I don't know if he was a medic or not. I don't think he was because it took a very long time to cut off my hand. I suffered a lot, it was extremely painful."
Fayz says that he and his colleague were blindfolded during the procedure and that several men held their limbs and sat on their chests to keep them still.
Blood transfusion
There is confusion over what the two drivers were actually accused of.
Some reports suggest the two men were suspected of stealing, others say that they were targeted because their company worked for the Western troops in the country.
Fayz says that he and Zarin never did anything wrong and that they were used to set an example and send a warning to others. He says there was no kind of trial.
"There was no mullah, no judge, nobody," he says. "There were only Taliban. They were all laughing and making fun while they did this. They never listened to what we had to say."
Fayz also says that the insurgents offered to set them free if they agreed to plant explosives on one of the company trucks, but they refused.
A spokesman at the hospital told the BBC that the men had been found next to a main road and were brought to the clinic by drivers who spotted them.
The hospital says that Fayz and Zarin arrived around three hours after they lost their limbs and needed blood transfusions.
Their wounds needed surgery to help them heal properly and avoid infection. Doctors say that the amputation appeared to have been conducted by someone with medical knowledge as no bones had been broken.
Fayz says he is worried about how he will work in future and hopes he can be fitted with a prosthetic limb.
Sharia calls
The case is a reminder of the punishments meted out by the Taliban authorities when they ruled much of the country between 1996 and 2001.
Citing Sharia law, Taliban officials carried out lashings, stonings, amputations and executions in public places such as squares, schools or sports grounds.
The sports stadiums in Kabul and Kandahar were notorious for such spectacles with thousands of people attending.
Taliban fighters would ensure a high turnout by driving through neighbourhoods announcing punishments through mounted loudspeakers.
Amputations were usually carried out by trained doctors, who operated with their faces covered for fear of reprisals.
In many cases a local anaesthetic was applied before the limb was removed with simple surgical instruments.
The punishment for theft was the loss of a hand, depending on the severity of the crime.
Amputees would often faint as the severed limb was paraded to the crowd before burial.
But Taliban-style justice has once again been observed in many parts of the country in recent years as the insurgency maintains its momentum.
There have been numerous reports of fighters meting out punishments usually in areas they control or where they have a significant or temporary presence.
In August 2010, the Afghan authorities released a video showing a couple being stoned to death in Northern Kunduz province after a Taliban court found them guilty of adultery.
In the same month Taliban fighters publicly flogged and executed a pregnant Afghan widow in the Baghdis area, after accusing her of an illicit affair.
Last year, insurgents were reported to have shot a woman for alleged adultery in Parwan province.
But beyond such extreme cases, Taliban courts are active in many parts of the country - intervening in local disputes, often at the request of villagers who have lost faith in the notoriously corrupt Afghan justice system.
And with the withdrawal of international troops and the ongoing search for a peace agreement with the Taliban, some favour a revival of strict Islamic law. A gathering of more than 300 Afghan Islamic clerics three years ago called on President Hamid Karzai to enact Sharia, including the kind of punishments the Taliban have become notorious for.
Afghan Policewomen Dismiss HRW Report
TOLONews.com By Karim Amini 27 April 2013
Rejecting the Human Rights Watch report, Afghan policewomen demanded for restoration of honour on Saturday, suggesting that such wrong reports could negatively affect their morale.
Human Rights Watch report released Thursday said that the female police of Afghanistan do not have access to separate facilities at work, suggesting that some of these women were sexually harassed by their colleagues.
Separate bedrooms for sleeping and changing, as well as separate toilets are facilities that are not available to the Afghan policewomen, the report said.
"Whoever released the report wants to dishearten families so that they won't allow their girls to join police. The report is imperfect. We reject it," a policewoman told TOLOnews.
Another said "We have separate toilets, changing rooms. We don't have any problem. We're not harassed."
Afghan interior ministry called the watch to prove the correctness of the report and to hand over documents and evidence to the ministry for further inspections.
"Releasing such reports harms our efforts and investments for increasing the number of women in police ranks and their progress," said Sediq Sediqi, spokesman of Ministry of Interior Affairs, "It harms women's honour as well."
Kabul police chief Ayub Salangi said that "no immorality and harassment to women at Kabul police headquarters are acceptable to us."
The number of Afghan policewomen was to reach 5,000 by 2014, however, there are currently 2,200 of them serving at police forces.
www.afghanistanewscenter.com
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG April 28, 2013 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.
All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.
“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”
The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.
Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.
“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”
The United States was not alone in delivering cash to the president. Mr. Karzai acknowledged a few years ago that Iran regularly gave bags of cash to one of his top aides.
At the time, in 2010, American officials jumped on the payments as evidence of an aggressive Iranian campaign to buy influence and poison Afghanistan’s relations with the United States. What they did not say was that the C.I.A. was also plying the presidential palace with cash — and unlike the Iranians, it still is.
American and Afghan officials familiar with the payments said the agency’s main goal in providing the cash has been to maintain access to Mr. Karzai and his inner circle and to guarantee the agency’s influence at the presidential palace, which wields tremendous power in Afghanistan’s highly centralized government. The officials spoke about the money only on the condition of anonymity.
It is not clear that the United States is getting what it pays for. Mr. Karzai’s willingness to defy the United States — and the Iranians, for that matter — on an array of issues seems to have only grown as the cash has piled up. Instead of securing his good graces, the payments may well illustrate the opposite: Mr. Karzai is seemingly unable to be bought.
Over Iran’s objections, he signed a strategic partnership deal with the United States last year, directly leading the Iranians to halt their payments, two senior Afghan officials said. Now, Mr. Karzai is seeking control over the Afghan militias raised by the C.I.A. to target operatives of Al Qaeda and insurgent commanders, potentially upending a critical part of the Obama administration’s plans for fighting militants as conventional military forces pull back this year.
But the C.I.A. has continued to pay, believing it needs Mr. Karzai’s ear to run its clandestine war against Al Qaeda and its allies, according to American and Afghan officials.
Like the Iranian cash, much of the C.I.A.’s money goes to paying off warlords and politicians, many of whom have ties to the drug trade and, in some cases, the Taliban. The result, American and Afghan officials said, is that the agency has greased the wheels of the same patronage networks that American diplomats and law enforcement agents have struggled unsuccessfully to dismantle, leaving the government in the grips of what are basically organized crime syndicates.
The cash does not appear to be subject to the oversight and restrictions placed on official American aid to the country or even the C.I.A.’s formal assistance programs, like financing Afghan intelligence agencies. And while there is no evidence that Mr. Karzai has personally taken any of the money — Afghan officials say the cash is handled by his National Security Council — the payments do in some cases work directly at odds with the aims of other parts of the American government in Afghanistan, even if they do not appear to violate American law.
Handing out cash has been standard procedure for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan since the start of the war. During the 2001 invasion, agency cash bought the services of numerous warlords, including Muhammad Qasim Fahim, the current first vice president.
“We paid them to overthrow the Taliban,” the American official said.
The C.I.A. then kept paying the Afghans to keep fighting. For instance, Mr. Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was paid by the C.I.A. to run the Kandahar Strike Force, a militia used by the agency to combat militants, until his assassination in 2011.
A number of senior officials on the Afghan National Security Council are also individually on the agency’s payroll, Afghan officials said.
While intelligence agencies often pay foreign officials to provide information, dropping off bags of cash at a foreign leader’s office to curry favor is a more unusual arrangement.
Afghan officials said the practice grew out of the unique circumstances in Afghanistan, where the United States built the government that Mr. Karzai runs. To accomplish that task, it had to bring to heel many of the warlords the C.I.A. had paid during and after the 2001 invasion.
By late 2002, Mr. Karzai and his aides were pressing for the payments to be routed through the president’s office, allowing him to buy the warlords’ loyalty, a former adviser to Mr. Karzai said.
Then, in December 2002, Iranians showed up at the palace in a sport utility vehicle packed with cash, the former adviser said.
The C.I.A. began dropping off cash at the palace the following month, and the sums grew from there, Afghan officials said.
Payments ordinarily range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, the officials said, though none could provide exact figures. The money is used to cover a slew of off-the-books expenses, like paying off lawmakers or underwriting delicate diplomatic trips or informal negotiations.
Much of it also still goes to keeping old warlords in line. One is Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek whose militia served as a C.I.A. proxy force in 2001. He receives nearly $100,000 a month from the palace, two Afghan officials said. Other officials said the amount was significantly lower.
Mr. Dostum, who declined requests for comment, had previously said he was given $80,000 a month to serve as Mr. Karzai’s emissary in northern Afghanistan. “I asked for a year up front in cash so that I could build my dream house,” he was quoted as saying in a 2009 interview with Time magazine.
Some of the cash also probably ends up in the pockets of the Karzai aides who handle it, Afghan and Western officials said, though they would not identify any by name.
That is not a significant concern for the C.I.A., said American officials familiar with the agency’s operations. “They’ll work with criminals if they think they have to,” one American former official said.
Interestingly, the cash from Tehran appears to have been handled with greater transparency than the dollars from the C.I.A., Afghan officials said. The Iranian payments were routed through Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff. Some of the money was deposited in an account in the president’s name at a state-run bank, and some was kept at the palace. The sum delivered would then be announced at the next cabinet meeting. The Iranians gave $3 million to well over $10 million a year, Afghan officials said.
When word of the Iranian cash leaked out in October 2010, Mr. Karzai told reporters that he was grateful for it. He then added: “The United States is doing the same thing. They are providing cash to some of our offices.”
At the time, Mr. Karzai’s aides said he was referring to the billions in formal aid the United States gives. But the former adviser said in a recent interview that the president was in fact referring to the C.I.A.’s bags of cash.
No one mentions the agency’s money at cabinet meetings. It is handled by a small clique at the National Security Council, including its administrative chief, Mohammed Zia Salehi, Afghan officials said.
Mr. Salehi, though, is better known for being arrested in 2010 in connection with a sprawling, American-led investigation that tied together Afghan cash smuggling, Taliban finances and the opium trade. Mr. Karzai had him released within hours, and the C.I.A. then helped persuade the Obama administration to back off its anticorruption push, American officials said.
After his release, Mr. Salehi jokingly came up with a motto that succinctly summed up America’s conflicting priorities. He was, he began telling colleagues, “an enemy of the F.B.I., and a hero to the C.I.A.”
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 29, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the job title that Khalil Roman held in Afghanistan from 2002 until 2005. He was President Hamid Karzai’s deputy chief of staff, not his chief of staff.
Plane Crash in Afghanistan Kills 4 International Troops
Associated Press April 27, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - A NATO plane crash in southern Afghanistan killed four international troops on Saturday, the same day the Taliban announced its spring offensive and said it will target military and diplomatic sites with suicide bombers and infiltrate enemy forces to conduct deadly insider attacks.
April already has been the deadliest month so far this year across the country where Afghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead on the battlefield of the more than 11-year-old war.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said its security forces were prepared for the Taliban's new campaign, which was to start on Sunday. "The Afghan National Army is ready to neutralize the offensive," the ministry said.
Insurgents have escalated attacks to gain power and influence ahead of next year's presidential election and the planned withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. And U.S.-backed efforts to try to reconcile the Islamic militant movement with the Afghan government are gaining little traction.
The Taliban did not immediately claim responsibility for the plane crash. NATO said initial reports indicated no enemy activity in the area where the plane went down. Coalition personnel secured the site and were investigating the cause of the crash.
The brief NATO statement did not identify the victims, or say exactly where the crash occurred in Afghanistan. However, Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, deputy governor of the southern province of Zabul, said an aircraft belonging to foreign forces crashed Saturday afternoon in Shah Joy district.
In their announcement on Saturday, the Taliban vowed to step up violent attacks now that winter was over and warmer weather has made travel and fighting easier. The militant group said it would use every possible tactic to "detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors."
Taliban fighters, who seek to replace the elected Afghan government with one promoting a stricter interpretation of Islamic law, named their offensive after a legendary Muslim military commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid. Also known as the "Drawn Sword of God," he was a companion of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The Taliban threatened to infiltrate the Afghan security forces and conduct more attacks on Afghan policemen and soldiers as well as foreign troops.
Such attacks threaten the strength of the Afghan forces as they work to take over responsibility from coalition forces. The latest one occurred in March, when a member of a government-backed village defense unit shot and killed five of his colleagues in Badghis province in northwest Afghanistan.
April has already been the worst month for combat deaths so far this year. According to an Associated Press tally, 261 people — including civilians, Afghan security forces and foreign troops — have been killed in violence around the nation. During that time 217 insurgents have died.
Last year during the month of April, 179 civilians, foreign troops and Afghan security forces were killed and 268 insurgents.
Still, U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday that the security situation had improved across the country, with Afghan forces now leading 80 percent of all conventional operations.
As the traditional fighting season begins, the insurgents will face a combined Afghan force of 350,000 soldiers and police, he said.
"The insurgency can no longer use the justification that it is fighting foreign occupiers — that message rings hollow," Dunford said in a statement.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid disagreed with that assessment.
"The foreign forces will be our primary targets. The second target will be the government of Kabul. The third one will be the other foreign countries who are acting against our mujahedeen," or holy warriors, he said in an interview with AP Television News.
Departing French Envoy Has Frank Words on Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN Diplomatic Memo April 27, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - It is always hard to gauge what diplomats really think unless one of their cables ends up on WikiLeaks, but every once in a while, the barriers fall and a bit of truth slips into public view.
That is especially true in Afghanistan, where diplomats painstakingly weigh every word against political goals back home.
The positive spin from the Americans has been running especially hard the last few weeks, as Congressional committees in Washington focus on spending bills and the Obama administration, trying to secure money for a few more years here, talks up the country’s progress. The same is going on at the European Union, where the tone has been sterner than in the past, but still glosses predictions of Afghanistan’s future with upbeat words like “promise” and “potential.”
Despite that, one of those rare truth-telling moments came at a farewell cocktail party last week hosted by the departing French ambassador to Kabul: Bernard Bajolet, who is leaving to head France’s Direction Génerale de la Sécurité Extérieure, its foreign intelligence service.
After the white-coated staff passed the third round of hors d’oeuvres, Mr. Bajolet took the lectern and laid out a picture of how France — a country plagued by a slow economy, waning public support for the Afghan endeavor and demands from other foreign conflicts, including Syria and North Africa — looked at Afghanistan.
While it is certainly easier for France to be a critic from the sidelines than countries whose troops are still fighting in Afghanistan, the country can claim to have done its part. It lost more troops than all but three other countries before withdrawing its last combat forces in the fall.
The room, filled with diplomats, some senior soldiers and a number of Afghan dignitaries, went deadly quiet. When Mr. Bajolet finished, there was restrained applause — and sober expressions. One diplomat raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly; another said, “No holding back there.”
So what did he say?
That the Afghan project is on thin ice and that, collectively, the West was responsible for a chunk of what went wrong, though much of the rest the Afghans were responsible for. That the West had done a good job of fighting terrorism, but that most of that was done on Pakistani soil, not on the Afghan side of the border. And that without fundamental changes in how Afghanistan did business, the Afghan government, and by extension the West’s investment in it, would come to little.
His tone was neither shrill nor reproachful. It was matter-of-fact.
“I still cannot understand how we, the international community, and the Afghan government have managed to arrive at a situation in which everything is coming together in 2014 — elections, new president, economic transition, military transition and all this — whereas the negotiations for the peace process have not really started,” Mr. Bajolet said in his opening comments.
He was echoing a point shared privately by other diplomats, that 2014 was likely to be “a perfect storm” of political and military upheaval coinciding with the formal close of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan.
As for the success of the fight on the ground, which American leaders routinely describe now as being “Afghan-led,” Mr. Bajolet sounded dubious. “We do not have enough distance to make an objective assessment,” he said, “but in any case, I think it crucial that the Afghan highest leadership take more visible and obvious ownership for their army.”
His tone — the sober, troubled observations of a diplomat closing a chapter — could hardly have been more different from that taken by the new shift of American officials charged with making it work in Afghanistan: in particular, with that of Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the new American commanding general here. This week, General Dunford sent out a news release cheering on Afghanistan’s progress, noting some positive-leaning statistics and praising the Afghan Army’s abilities.
“Very soon, the A.N.S.F. will be responsible for security nationwide” General Dunford said, referring to the Afghan National Security Forces. “They are steadily gaining in confidence, competence, and commitment.”
At his farewell party, Mr. Bajolet wound up his realpolitik with a brisk analysis of what Afghanistan’s government needed to do: cut corruption, which discourages investment, deal with drugs and become fiscally self-reliant. It must increase its revenues instead of letting politicians divert them, he said.
Several diplomats in the room could be seen nodding as he said that drugs caused “more casualties than terrorism” in Russia, Europe and the Balkans and that Western governments would be hard-put to make the case for continued spending on Afghanistan if it remains the world’s largest heroin supplier.
The biggest contrast with the American and British line was Mr. Bajolet’s riff on sovereignty, which has become the political watchword of the moment. The Americans and the international community are giving sovereignty back to Afghanistan. Afghanistan argues frequently that it is a sovereign nation. President Hamid Karzai, in the debate over taking charge of the Bagram prison, repeatedly said that Afghanistan had a sovereign responsibility to its prisoners.
His implicit question was, what does that really mean?
“We should be lucid: a country that depends almost entirely on the international community for the salaries of its soldiers and policemen, for most of its investments and partly on it for its current civil expenditure, cannot be really independent.”
Taliban promises more insider attacks on foreign troops in annual Spring offensive
Associated Press April 27, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - The Taliban on Saturday announced the start of their spring offensive, signaling plans to step up attacks as the weather warms across Afghanistan, making both travel and fighting easier.
The statement comes toward the end of a month that already has been the deadliest of the year.
The militant group's leadership vowed that "every possible tactic will be utilized in order to detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors."
It said that will include more so-called insider attacks by members of the Afghan security forces against their colleagues or foreign troops.
Such attacks threaten the strength of the Afghan forces as they work to take over responsibility from international forces. The latest one occurred in March, when a member of Afghanistan's government-backed militia program shot and killed five of his colleagues in Badghis province in northwest Afghanistan.
In a sign of Taliban's determination to replace Afghanistan's government with one promoting a stricter interpretation of Islamic law, they named their new offensive after a legendary Muslim military commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid. Also known as "the Drawn Sword of God," he was a companion of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
U.S.-backed efforts to try to reconcile the Islamic militant movement with the Afghan government have so far failed.
Insurgents intensified attacks this spring as they try to position themselves for power ahead of national elections and the planned withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
April has already been the worst month for combat deaths so far this year. According to an Associated Press tally, 257 people -- including civilians, Afghan security forces and foreign troops -- have been killed in violence around the nation. During that time 217 insurgents have died.
Last year during the month of April, 179 civilians, foreign troops and Afghan security forces were killed and 268 insurgents.
Still, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, said Wednesday that the security situation has improved across the country.
"As the traditional fighting season begins, the insurgency will confront a combined " Afghan force of 350,000 soldiers and police, he said.
"The insurgency can no longer use the justification that it is fighting foreign occupiers -- that message rings hollow," Dunford said in a statement.
Saur Revolution, Inception of Wars in Afghanistan: MPs
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi 27 April 2013
Saur revolution was the beginning point of wars in Afghanistan, a number of Afghan MPs said Saturday, 35 years after the revolution in which a coup d'état by the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) brought down the government of then Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan in 1978.
MPs remarked as well that besides 7th of Saur (Saur Revolution), 8th of Saur (Mujahidin taking over the communist party on 28 April 1992) caused tragic circumstances, and following both dates millions were killed and injured for the sake of different groups and beliefs.
They marked out that such days should not be experienced in Afghanistan again.
On 7 Saur 1357 (28 April 1978) the PDPA stormed the Presidential Palace in Kabul and overtook the government of Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan following clashes that lasted for 10 hours.
"7th and 8th of Saur were bloody days in the country," said Shukria Barikzai, MP, "Although there were good wills aimed for the country but that was not realised."
"There was even a possibility of dividing the people and the map of Afghanistan," she added.
Another MP, Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada said "7th of Saur was the inception of wars in Afghanistan, and we condemn this day. Those who disregarded Jihad of Afghanistan and sold it within political games can never represent Jihad in Afghanistan."
Second vice speaker of the parliament, on the other hand, said that 8th of Saur was the triumph day of Jihad in Afghanistan and it should be honoured.
Condemning the coup d'état of 7th of Saur, he pointed that incidents following both two dates should not be considered as legitimate.
"35 years ago from this day, Sardar Daud, president of the country, was killed in a coup d'état and we condemn it. 8th of Saur is the day Jihad of Afghanistan succeeded and it's respectable, but incidents related to that should not be legitimised," said Saleh Mohammad Saljuqi, second vice speaker of the parliament.
A number of MPs believe that 7th and 8th of Saur were plotted for reaching national interests, however, the goals were not reached and it was the Afghan people who sufferred the most.
Alongside the parliament, a number of other government officials, at a ceremony to honour the day, said killing of President Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan was a great tragedy to Afghanistan.
"I expected the Afghan flag to be half raised on this day, in all over Afghanistan, and expected a national remembrance announced because besides Sardar Mohammad Daud and his family, more than two million of our citizens were killed as well," said Azizullah Lodin, head of High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC).
Former interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali said "The government of Sardar Mohammad Daud was exceptional and writers should write more about this."
In connection to the comments, Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan's son, Sardar Mohammad Naim said "Misery started in the country on 7th of Saur, 35 years ago."
Twenty three years after the coup d'état, President Hamid Karzai, put together a commission in 1390 (2001) to find remains of Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan and his family members, following which the remains were found and re-buried in a hill that was named after Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan.
Roadside bomb kills 3 Afghan police officers on opening day of Taliban’s spring offensive
Associated Press April 28, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - An official says a remote-controlled roadside bomb has killed three police officers in southern Afghanistan, including a deputy provincial police chief.
The attack occurred at 6 a.m. Sunday, the day the Taliban had said that its spring offensive would begin.
Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy governor of Ghazni province, said the remote-controlled bomb exploded beneath a police convoy traveling to the provincial district of Zana Khan to take part in a military operation against insurgents. He says the blast destroyed the vehicle carrying Col. Mohammad Hussain, the deputy provincial police chief, killing him and two other officers.
Ahmadi says two other officers were also wounded in the attack, which he called a well-planned insurgent operation targeting Hussain.
40 Percent of Insurgency In 10 Afghan Districts: Isaf
TOLOnews.com By Mursal Mansoory 27 April 2013
Releasing a statement Saturday, Isaf said that threats from government's armed oppositions in ten districts of Afghanistan – in southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand – are seen serious, pointing out that these districts are still insecure.
"The security situation in Afghanistan is significantly improving, and the numbers we were using, that 40 percent of the violence is only taking place in 10 districts, shows that...we were able to push the insurgency out of the urban areas," Isaf spokesman Günter Katz told TOLOnews.
Afghan defence ministry, however, said that the number is mentioned higher, adding that there is no insurgency in those areas.
"The Taliban are not capable of fighting with us face-to-face. Security forces are present in the provinces," said Dawlat Waziri, deputy spokesman of the Afghan defence ministry.
Analysts believe that the Taliban are endeavouring to make parts of Afghanistan insecure and that both the Afghan government and the international community need to address the issue.
"Afghanistan is insecure at any situation. Even the capital is insecure and it witnesses attacks," said Atiqullah Amerkhel, political expert.
As seen by the defence ministry, it is yet essential to execute operations for obliterating insurgents in insecure areas.
Ghazni, Badakhshan, Kuanr, and Paktia bear the highest extent of threat from the armed opposition, it said.
Taliban's Anti-Government Promotion in Logar Schools
TOLOnews.com By Jawid Stanikzai 27 April 2013
A number of school students receive anti-government training in Mohammad Agha District of eastern Logar province, local officials said on Saturday.
The District Governor of Mohammad Agha Abdul Hamid Hamed said that a number of religious scholars [Mullahs], who are school teachers as well, are promoting views against the government and international forces in schools and mosques.
The reports state that Taliban followers are endeavouring to use new methods of advertising in some educational and Islamic centres against the government.
"Most of the Mullahs have the job of teaching in schools as well, a number of them comment against foreign forces and saying that Jihad is religiously legal against them," The District Governor Abdul Hamid Hamed told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, provincial police chief says that efforts are being made to solve the problem.
"The situation is not the same in all parts of the province. There are some places where this problem exists, but with the cooperation of the education officials, we are trying to solve the problem," Logar Police Chief Abdul Sabor Nasrati said.
It is said that unknown men have thrown a grenade in a girls school in Moghol Khel village of Mohammad Agha District.
"All girls' schools and teachers received warnings. Last Wednesday night, a bomb was thrown in a girl's school," Abdul Hamid Hamed said.
But the Education Officials in eastern Logar province reject all the reports.
"I reject these reports; there is no school where anti-government views are promoted. We have all the schools under control," Head of Education Department of Logar Mohammad Akbar said.
Annually, Taliban's anti-government activities increase at the beginning of spring season in eastern Logar province but Mohammad Agha District Governor said that security forces have already taken special measures to assure security for the district's residents and Ainak Copper Mine in the province.
Summary amputations: Taliban justice in Afghanistan
BBC News By Humayun Hadid & Johannes Dell 27 April 2013
Two cases of forced amputations in Afghanistan's Herat province have served as a grim reminder of Taliban-style justice almost 12 years since the movement was ousted from power.
Just over a month ago, Fayz Mohammad and his neighbour Zarin were two ordinary young Afghan men.
They held down good jobs as drivers for a local transport company and were happy to be able to feed their families.
Now both are in hospital in Herat, recovering from an ordeal which has left them traumatised and worried for their future.
In mid-March, 25-year-old Fayz and his younger colleague were enjoying time off duty in their home village in Rabat Sangi district while their trucks were being loaded.
On the second night of their stay, Taliban fighters arrived at 03:00 in the morning and abducted them.
The men were taken more than 100 miles away to Torghundi, a town on the border with Turkmenistan.
"They kept us for 27 days," Fayz told the BBC. "On the 28th day, at 10 in the morning, they cut off our hand and foot."
Resting on a simple bed in Herat's regional hospital, his right arm and left leg heavily bandaged, Fayz recounted his harrowing experience.
"They injected us with a fake anaesthetic from an ampoule," he says. "It didn't have any effect at all."
Fayz says he doesn't know what instrument the men used.
"I just saw a guy with white gloves. I don't know if he was a medic or not. I don't think he was because it took a very long time to cut off my hand. I suffered a lot, it was extremely painful."
Fayz says that he and his colleague were blindfolded during the procedure and that several men held their limbs and sat on their chests to keep them still.
Blood transfusion
There is confusion over what the two drivers were actually accused of.
Some reports suggest the two men were suspected of stealing, others say that they were targeted because their company worked for the Western troops in the country.
Fayz says that he and Zarin never did anything wrong and that they were used to set an example and send a warning to others. He says there was no kind of trial.
"There was no mullah, no judge, nobody," he says. "There were only Taliban. They were all laughing and making fun while they did this. They never listened to what we had to say."
Fayz also says that the insurgents offered to set them free if they agreed to plant explosives on one of the company trucks, but they refused.
A spokesman at the hospital told the BBC that the men had been found next to a main road and were brought to the clinic by drivers who spotted them.
The hospital says that Fayz and Zarin arrived around three hours after they lost their limbs and needed blood transfusions.
Their wounds needed surgery to help them heal properly and avoid infection. Doctors say that the amputation appeared to have been conducted by someone with medical knowledge as no bones had been broken.
Fayz says he is worried about how he will work in future and hopes he can be fitted with a prosthetic limb.
Sharia calls
The case is a reminder of the punishments meted out by the Taliban authorities when they ruled much of the country between 1996 and 2001.
Citing Sharia law, Taliban officials carried out lashings, stonings, amputations and executions in public places such as squares, schools or sports grounds.
The sports stadiums in Kabul and Kandahar were notorious for such spectacles with thousands of people attending.
Taliban fighters would ensure a high turnout by driving through neighbourhoods announcing punishments through mounted loudspeakers.
Amputations were usually carried out by trained doctors, who operated with their faces covered for fear of reprisals.
In many cases a local anaesthetic was applied before the limb was removed with simple surgical instruments.
The punishment for theft was the loss of a hand, depending on the severity of the crime.
Amputees would often faint as the severed limb was paraded to the crowd before burial.
But Taliban-style justice has once again been observed in many parts of the country in recent years as the insurgency maintains its momentum.
There have been numerous reports of fighters meting out punishments usually in areas they control or where they have a significant or temporary presence.
In August 2010, the Afghan authorities released a video showing a couple being stoned to death in Northern Kunduz province after a Taliban court found them guilty of adultery.
In the same month Taliban fighters publicly flogged and executed a pregnant Afghan widow in the Baghdis area, after accusing her of an illicit affair.
Last year, insurgents were reported to have shot a woman for alleged adultery in Parwan province.
But beyond such extreme cases, Taliban courts are active in many parts of the country - intervening in local disputes, often at the request of villagers who have lost faith in the notoriously corrupt Afghan justice system.
And with the withdrawal of international troops and the ongoing search for a peace agreement with the Taliban, some favour a revival of strict Islamic law. A gathering of more than 300 Afghan Islamic clerics three years ago called on President Hamid Karzai to enact Sharia, including the kind of punishments the Taliban have become notorious for.
Afghan Policewomen Dismiss HRW Report
TOLONews.com By Karim Amini 27 April 2013
Rejecting the Human Rights Watch report, Afghan policewomen demanded for restoration of honour on Saturday, suggesting that such wrong reports could negatively affect their morale.
Human Rights Watch report released Thursday said that the female police of Afghanistan do not have access to separate facilities at work, suggesting that some of these women were sexually harassed by their colleagues.
Separate bedrooms for sleeping and changing, as well as separate toilets are facilities that are not available to the Afghan policewomen, the report said.
"Whoever released the report wants to dishearten families so that they won't allow their girls to join police. The report is imperfect. We reject it," a policewoman told TOLOnews.
Another said "We have separate toilets, changing rooms. We don't have any problem. We're not harassed."
Afghan interior ministry called the watch to prove the correctness of the report and to hand over documents and evidence to the ministry for further inspections.
"Releasing such reports harms our efforts and investments for increasing the number of women in police ranks and their progress," said Sediq Sediqi, spokesman of Ministry of Interior Affairs, "It harms women's honour as well."
Kabul police chief Ayub Salangi said that "no immorality and harassment to women at Kabul police headquarters are acceptable to us."
The number of Afghan policewomen was to reach 5,000 by 2014, however, there are currently 2,200 of them serving at police forces.
www.afghanistanewscenter.com