The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread March 2012

[The Bread Guy]

The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread March 2012              

[size=12pt]News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 2, 2012

Taliban wait to take power from a failed Afghan government
  Article Link
As the Afghan-international relationship reaches its lowest ebb, the failure to contain the insurgency becomes clear, writes Nipa Banerjee
By Nipa Banerjee., Ottawa Citizen March 2, 2012

Sitting in the midst of the deadly violence against foreigners spreading across Afghanistan, I have seen many demonstrators who have hardly carried even light arms - they used their fists and sticks, and at most knives. These were civilians, not the Taliban, who were certainly in the background. Against such unarmed civilian demonstrators, it was surprising to see such fear gripping members of the international community, who are protected with hundreds of security guards, their guns and sniffing dogs, sand bags, steel walls and armoured cars.

It's no wonder, mainly Afghan civilians - more than 40 of them - have been killed, the punishment for the audacity to oppose a stronger coalition. But what horrified me most on the first day of the demonstrations were lovely little boys, as young as eight to 10 years old, marching with knives and sticks, in their hands. They hardly looked fierce but marched smiling away. They would make any woman want to pick them up and hug them. Instead, they are recruited as boy soldiers to die as suicide bombers before they reach their teens, while western diplomats and advisers, all making sacrifices in Afghanistan, are pulled out from the Afghan ministries to the safe havens of heavily armed compounds.

What I saw on the ground reflects nothing but the wrong policies and insensitive actions of the international community. Watching the Afghan-international relationship reaching its lowest ebb, I muse over Canada's Afghanistan mission efforts.

The words of wisdom from Globe and Mail journalist Jeffrey Simpson come to my mind. He asked a few months ago in an insightful column, "who have we been kidding in Afghanistan - ourselves it would appear." I would add that we have tried the kidding game in vain with the Afghans as well.

The Afghans smiled at Canadian naiveté when our prime minister, during his visit to Kandahar in 2011, declared Canadian victory in the war on Islamic terror in Afghanistan. He added that because of Canadian troops' efforts, Islamist terror generated in Afghanistan is no longer a source of global terrorism. The smiles of the Afghans must have turned into the heartiest laughter when just the day after this announcement, Afghan insurgents made cross-border attacks in Pakistan territories, marking the first ever attempt of the Afghan Taliban to step into the realm of global terrorism; a series of high-level progovernment Afghan leaders were assassinated; the American embassy and the British Council's compound were attacked, and security assaults were made in the most highly protected and secure diplomatic area of Kabul-Wazir Akbar Khan.

At the cost of being branded unpatriotic, I have to say the statements of Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not reflect reality. Taliban terror has not certainly been contained.
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Paper Victories
March 1, 2012
Article Link

For the last ten days, Afghans have been rioting to protest the burning of Korans (Islamic scriptures) at Bagram air base outside Kabul. The Korans, and hundreds of other religious publications, were removed from a prison library when it was found that Taliban prisoners were writing in the publications (including defacing the Korans) as a way to exchange messages with prisoners they otherwise had no contact with. No one mentioned to the Americans in charge that Korans are disposed of by burying them, or tossing them into flowing waters, not by burning. But during the burning, some Afghan workers noted the Korans were among the items burning and began the protests. Since then, at least 30 people have died and hundreds have been injured in the demonstrations. Nearly all the violence has taken place in areas where the Taliban or drug gangs are active. As with many earlier protests, many of these are staged by the Taliban, and Taliban members, often armed, have been observed running the demonstrations.

It's not hard to hire a mob in Afghanistan, even if there is a risk of injury (from Afghan security personnel, who have inflicted all the injuries.) Afghans just don't like outsiders, and enjoy getting paid to express that. An early example of how the Taliban exploit this occurred six years ago when a traffic accident in Kabul, between U.S. military vehicles and Afghan civilians, turned into a typical outburst of Afghan xenophobia. For thousands of years, Afghans have violently expressed their dislike for foreigners, and several hours of rioting and looting in the wake of the traffic accident, which the typical rumors insisted was deliberate, left 14 dead. For Afghans who have gone abroad, and returned, this kind of behavior is still familiar, and scary. The Afghan embrace of xenophobia, ignorance and violence has left the country the poorest in the region and the most lawless as well. This is a dubious distinction that is only slowly changing.
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Cultural Sensitivity As A Weapon
March 1, 2012
Article Link

As foreign troops reduce their numbers in Afghanistan over the next two years, American Special Operations Forces (commandos and Special Forces) will increase their activity because these troops will advise Afghan soldiers, and be available to carry especially tricky missions.  The U.S. Army Special Forces will be particularly effective because they know the languages and cultures in Afghanistan.

The effort to train the new Afghan soldiers and police required that thousands of troops and civilians (usually former military) be brought in. These have been of limited effectiveness because of language and cultural barriers. Normally, the U.S. Army Special Forces handles training of foreign armies, and they are expert at it. Special Forces troops have the advantage of knowing the language and culture of the foreign troops they train. One lesson that was quickly learned was that, while you can teach these foreign recruits through an interpreter, it helps a lot if you get up to speed on the local culture. The Special Forces provided some of their people to help train the American trainers on that point, but over the past seven years, a body of information and "lessons learned" has been collected, and used to help train the trainers. One of the more important lesson learned was that, even if you don't speak the language, spend as much time as possible with your trainees. That means eating with them, and living very close to their barracks. Be available at all hours, and keep a good translator handy at all times.

The cultural awareness picked up in Iraq has not always proved useful in Afghanistan. For example, in Iraq a knowledge of the history of the Iraqi army, and respect for that, proved very useful. The Iraqis were particularly proud of how they held off the Iranians during the 1980s, and making positive references to that paid off. No mention of the two wars they had with the Americans. They already knew all about that, and don't want to hear any more. The Afghans, on the other hand, have no sense of their army having been defeated by the United States, since everyone looks on the defeat of the Taliban as a group effort by the Afghan people and Americans to chase out some religious fanatics. But at the same time, Afghans have no particular pride in any "Afghan Army." The only military organizations Afghans admire are tribal or warlord militias that won some battles in the past (often against another Afghan tribe).

Where the Special Forces shine in Afghanistan is in the depth of their cultural understanding, and their ability to keep acquiring more of it. Special Forces have been active in the area as far back as the 1980s. Since 2001, thousands of Special Forces operators have passed through Afghanistan, most of them multiple times. The Special Forces guys speak the language and pay attention to the local tribal and ethnic politics. The Special Forces are popular with most Afghans, both for their cultural sensitivity and their reputation as mighty warriors. The Taliban respect the Special Forces combat abilities, and avoid fighting them gun to gun. The Special Forces are trained in intelligence collection, and after 2014, they will be a major source of timely and accurate information about what's really going on.

But the biggest problem the Special Forces have to cope with in Afghanistan is the fact that there are several wars going on simultaneously. There are the wars between various Pushtun tribes, plus the hostility between the Pushtuns (40 percent of the population) and the other tribes (Tajik, Turkic and Hazara). Then there are the drug gangs, who fight to be left alone so they can produce some 90 percent of the world's illegal heroin and opium. Finally, there are the Taliban, a Pushtun faction that briefly controlled most of the country in the late 1990s. They want that power back, and are willing to kill to get it.
end

 

[GAP]

Articles found March 5, 2012

Enemy inside the gates
US refuses to stop the Afghan killers in our troops’ midst
By PAUL SPERRY  March 3, 2012
Article Link

In July 2010, Shir Ahmad, an Afghan security guard at a coalition base, started making threatening comments, saying he wanted to kill US troops.

His employer, Afghan-owned Tundra Security, a subsidiary of Canadian military contractor Tundra Group, fired him and recommended he not be rehired. But according to an investigation by Rep. Howard McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Tundra officials failed to pass that recommendation up the chain of command; nor was Ahmad added to any military watch list.

Tundra rehired Ahmad on March 9, 2011, without a background check. Ten days later, while working security at Forward Operating Base Frontenac in Southern Afghanistan, Ahmad picked up an AK-47 and fired into a group of soldiers who were cleaning their weapons.

e killed two — Cpl. Donald R. Mickler Jr., 29, of Ohio, and Pfc. Rudy A. Acosta, 19, of California.

They were only two of the 75 soldiers killed since 2007 by “green on blue” attacks executed by our supposed Afghan allies, aided and abetted by wishful thinking on the part of the Obama administration and lax security measures in Afghanistan. Despite these murders — including six in the last two weeks — officials plan to do nothing to take guns away from Afghans stationed with our troops.

After the Ahmad attack, the Pentagon told Congress that it had improved the screening process for Afghan forces — requiring all troops undergo a criminal-background check, including fingerprinting, and that they produce two letters from their village elders vouching for their character.

McKeon calls the system “tragically weak.” There’s no central Afghan database to check the fingerprints against, for one, and nothing to determine if the recommendations come from an elder in cahoots with the Taliban. McKeon introduced a bill Thursday that would require US bases to be guarded only by American troops, not foreign nationals or private security firms.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 6, 2012

Afghanistan avalanche kills 39 in Badakhshan
Article Link
6 March 2012 Last updated at 10:44 ET

At least 39 people and many are missing after an avalanche in Afghanistan's north-eastern Badakhshan province.

The provincial governor's office said another six people were injured when the snow hit a village in Shekay district, near the Tajikistan border.

The village had been swept away, said spokesman Abdul Marouf Rasikh, and the death toll is expected to rise.

Badakhshan is one of the country's poorest and most remote regions and is shut off by heavy snow every year.

Afghanistan is suffering one of its harshest winters in many years.

Nasir Hemat, director of the Red Crescent in Badakhsham, said rescue teams had reached the remote site.

"There were 190 people living in the village - 39 people have been killed, 6 injured," he told the BBC.

"Our rescue work is going on. We are hoping we can rescue a lot of people and prevent a human catastrophe."

Mr Hemat said three people had also died in a nearby district.

Mr Rasikh told the BBC that provincial governor Shah Wali Ullah had been visiting at the time the avalanche hit on Monday night.

He was rescued by helicopter and taken to a remote area on the border with Tajikistan, he said.
Map

Mr Hemat said 60 people had been killed by the snow in Badakhshan this year. and homes and cattle had been lost.
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Leadership Rift Emerges in Pakistani Taliban
By DECLAN WALSH  March 5, 2012
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban faced the prospect of a damaging leadership rift on Monday when the abrupt dismissal of a senior commander provoked an angry reaction in the militants’ ranks, offering the Islamabad government a fresh opportunity to weaken a foe that in recent years has killed thousands of Pakistanis and tried to detonate a crude car bomb in Times Square in 2010.

Militant commanders in Bajaur, a small but strategically important tribal district on the Afghan border, spoke out strongly against the news that their leader, the Taliban deputy commander Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, had been fired at a shura, or leadership council, meeting over the weekend.

In a telephone interview with journalists based in Peshawar, the commanders, Maulana Abdul Mutalib, Fazal Khan, Maulvi Abdullah and Liaqat Khan, threatened to set up a rival group. “The decision of the shura has disappointed the Bajaur Taliban,” one of the men said. “This is untimely and can create a rift amongst the mujahedeen.”

Simmering tensions between Mr. Muhammad and the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, spilled into the open in January when it emerged that Mr. Muhammad had unilaterally entered into peace talks with the Pakistani government. A few weeks ago, Mr. Muhammad said the government had released 145 Taliban prisoners as a goodwill gesture, an assertion not confirmed by the government.

“He was removed due to his involvement in talks with the government without the consent of our leadership,” said Ehsanullah Ehsan, the main Taliban spokesman. “His successor will be decided over the coming days.” Mr. Ehsan added that Mr. Muhammad had also been demoted to the rank of fighter.
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[GAP]

Since Skiing Came to Afghanistan, It Has Been Pretty Much All Downhill
Second Annual Championship Includes Climbing Mountain on Foot and Evading Taliban
Article Link
March 5, 2012 By CHARLES LEVINSON

KOH-E-BABA, Afghanistan—Ten Afghan men jumped out front as the second international Afghan Ski Challenge championship began here on Friday.

Well conditioned to the air of central Bamiyan province, they "skinned" 1,500 feet up a mountain on foot, at the front of a zigzagging line of huffing contestants. At the top, they hit the downhill portion well ahead of their far more experienced Western rivals.

As the Afghan racers crossed the finish line one after another, cheers erupted from villagers and government officials. Even the U.S.-led military coalition put out a news release to celebrate the unlikely triumph of the Afghan athletes. "My brothers and sisters see me as a hero," exclaimed the champion, Khalil Reza, an illiterate 19-year-old who lives with his parents and seven siblings in a one-room mud hut.

Though Afghanistan has plenty of snow-covered mountains, skiing is an extreme novelty here. In Bamiyan, best known for its giant Buddha statues blown up by the Taliban a decade ago, mountainous villages with no electricity, kept warm by dung-fueled heaters, saw their first skier in early 2010.

Since then, the effort to implant ski culture in Bamiyan has brought here urban hip-hop slang, donkey-leaping snowboarders, and indiscriminately urinating ski bums who offend local sensibilities. It has also brought a small but welcome trickle of tourist dollars.

The effort faces many of the same challenges as the broader struggle for bitterly fractured Afghanistan. Though the predominantly ethnic Hazara Bamiyan province is one of Afghanistan's safest and attracts some vacationers—mainly foreigners based in Kabul—the Taliban increasingly operate on the access road from Kabul.

There are no commercial flights to Bamiyan, so participants in Friday's Afghan Ski Challenge had to charter a plane—and are still stuck in Bamiyan because snowfall has shut down the local airfield.

"Some people think it's a frivolous idea to support skiing in a war-torn country," says Christoph Zurcher, founder of the Afghan Ski Challenge, which held its second annual race this year with 10 newly trained local Afghan skiers and five foreigners—including this reporter.

The silver medalist—and the widely expected winner—in the race was Ali Shah Farhang. A 19-year-old Afghan peasant just a year ago, he seemed to be destined for a life of subsistence potato farming. Then, last winter, he watched three skiers schuss into his remote village.
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The Siege of September 13
By Matthieu Aikins
March 2012
Article Link

Shortly after President Obama declared a kind of victory in Afghanistan—and days after the tenth anniversary of 9/11— a gray van sped through the streets of Kabul. Its destination: a high-rise overlooking the U.S. embassy. What happened over the next twenty hours sure as hell didn't look like victory. In a GQ exclusive, Matthieu Aikins takes us for the first time behind the embassy walls and into the crossfire

Like most of the American staff, Jayne Howell rarely went outside the walls of the Kabul embassy. Beyond the blast barriers and fences of green anti-sniper netting was a city where "official Americans," as the State Department calls U.S. government employees, couldn't go around on business without an assault-rifle-toting security escort. Outside was a mess of traffic jams and uncontrolled boomtown sprawl where suicide bombers and kidnappers might strike at any moment. Outside was America's ten-year-old war against the Taliban.

On September 13, 2011, two days after a ceremony commemorating the events of 9/11 had been held in front of the main embassy building, Howell took her lunch to a little open-air plaza near the cafeteria. Ahead on work at the office, she permitted herself, for the first time since arriving eight weeks before to head the embassy's consular section, to linger the full hour. She thought to herself what a beautiful day it was turning out to be. Fall was the loveliest time of year in Kabul. The mountain breezes cleared the bowl-like valley of its summertime smog, but the city's inhabitants had not yet begun burning wood, coal, dung, or garbage to keep warm, as they would come winter. On a clear day like this, you could see the dark peaks of the Hindu Kush north of the city, part of the Himalayan mountain range that stretched all the way through Pakistan and India on into Tibet.

After lunch, Howell strolled back across the grounds of the embassy, savoring the sunshine. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, in tandem with a military occupation and nation-building project that no one had quite foreseen, the embassy had grown into a sprawling complex for the 1,200 U.S. citizens who worked and lived there. There were meal halls, a gym, a post office, shops. It was a sort of self-contained universe, an island America.

It's not that Howell didn't want to get out more. Foreign travel was one of the great perks of a State Department job, after all. Her work had taken her to Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Haiti, and Turkey, and she had learned one of Afghanistan's two principal languages, Dari. For a year, in 2004, she had been posted to Kabul as a cultural-affairs officer. Even then, the diplomatic staff could move about the city more freely. Now, along with Baghdad, the Kabul embassy was rated at the State Department's most critical level of security. It was located inside what was known as "the diplomatic quarter," an enclave of embassies, military bases, and Afghan-government facilities, not quite as fortified or hermetically sealed as Baghdad's Green Zone was, but nonetheless monitored and controlled by heavily armed checkpoints.

Unlike many of her colleagues, Howell did have frequent contact with locals by virtue of her position. Each day she and her staff in the old chancery building dealt with Afghan petitioners seeking visas—one of the few trickles of outside life permitted inside.

It was a little after 1 p.m. when Howell punched in a code at the entrance to the consular section. Her office was built on an open plan, with around twenty staffers, an even split of Americans and Afghans, and was separated from the consulate's waiting room by thick-glassed windows behind which visitors would sit patiently, their lives held in small bundles of paperwork in their hands. The consular section had just reopened for visitors following lunch, but Howell noticed that there was already an Afghan family waiting. One of their children, a cherubic little dark-haired girl, was up at the window, charming Howell's staff with her small, winsome voice. Howell smiled; you didn't get to see children in the embassy very often.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 7, 2012

Afghan president endorses clerics’ code that downgrades women’s rights
Published On Wed Mar 07 2012
Article Link
By Olivia Ward Foreign Affairs Reporter

On the eve of International Women’s Day, President Hamid Karzai has given Afghan women an unwelcome present: the message that they are second-class citizens.

In remarks made Tuesday, Karzai backed a “code of conduct” written by the Ulema Council of 150 leading Muslim clerics. It could dramatically restrict women’s daily lives and threaten a return to the dark days of Taliban rule.

“Men are fundamental and women are secondary,” the council said in its statement released last week, and later published on Karzai’s own website.

The move appears aimed at enticing the Taliban into the peace process — but also gives pause to Canada and other countries that have supported efforts to advance women’s rights in the land they fought to take back from the extremists.

“These reports are of serious concern to Canada,” said a statement from Joseph Lavoie, press secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “We call on the Government of Afghanistan to uphold the provisions of Afghanistan’s constitution, which establishes equal rights for men and women, and to respect its obligations under international law.”

Since 2002, 158 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan.

The Ulema Council’s code is part of a general framework for political issues. It was described as “voluntary” for women who are devout, and not legally binding.

It says women should not travel without a male guardian or mingle with men in public places such as schools, offices or markets. It also allows wife-beating in the case of a “sharia-compliant” reason, although it rejects forced marriage and the bartering of women to settle disputes.

In Kabul, Karzai said that the council had not put “any limitations” on women, and that it was only stating “the sharia law of all Muslims and all Afghans.” But some Muslim scholars have disputed the clerics’ strict interpretation.
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Six UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan explosion
Article Link
7 March 2012 Last updated at 10:50 ET

Six UK soldiers have been killed in southern Afghanistan when their vehicle was hit by an explosion on Tuesday.

Five from the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment and one from the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment had been on patrol. Their families have been told.

It is the biggest single loss of UK life at one time in Afghanistan since a Nimrod crash killed 14 in 2006.

The number of British military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 is now 404.

Prime Minister David Cameron said it was a "desperately sad day for our country".

"Every death and every injury reminds us of the human cost paid by our armed forces to keep our country safe," he said, at the start of Prime Minister's Questions.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the six soldiers were on a security patrol in a Warrior armoured fighting vehicle when it was caught in an explosion in Kandahar province.

Brig Patrick Sanders, commander of Task Force Helmand, said it suffered "catastrophic damage".
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[The Bread Guy]

This motion in the Senate was agreed to earlier this week:

That the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence be authorized to examine and report on the status of, and lessons learned, during Canadian Forces operations in Afghanistan; and

That the Committee present its final report to the Senate no later than December 31, 2013 and that the Committee retain, until March 31, 2014, all powers necessary to publicize its findings.

More on the Committee here.

 

[GAP]

Articles found March 9, 2012

Private Firms Score Major Deals, Purchasing Nearly $2 Million Worth of CF Equipment in Kandahar for Less than $100,000, According to Report
Article Link
March 8, 2012

LEE BERTHIAUME, POSTMEDIA NEWS has this story tonight:

OTTAWA — Private companies managed to wring major deals out of the Canadian military in the months leading up to the end of the combat mission in Afghanistan, purchasing nearly $2 million worth of equipment in Kandahar for less than $100,000, internal defence department documents show.

Another $3.8 million worth of baseball gloves, computers, armoured SUVs and other supplies that couldn’t be sold ended up being donated or destroyed.

The documents are part of a briefing package prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay and cover the period from June 1, 2011 to Oct. 15, 2011. The totals do not include items that were sold, donated or destroyed from Oct. 16 to Dec. 12, when the last Canadian troops left Kandahar airfield.

Prior to closing the Canadian camp, about 1,200 soldiers were tasked with determining what vehicles, electronics and other equipment should be returned to Canada, what was too expensive to transport back and should be sold or given away, and what items were to be destroyed.

The documents provide a dollar value and a disposal cost for each item and, if it was sold, how much money was raised from each individual sale.

Nearly $2.7 million worth of equipment ended up being donated, most of it to the Afghan National Army and a U.S. military unit that provides humanitarian assistance to communities and Afghans in Kandahar province.

Among the items the ANA received were $443,000 worth of tents and power generators, two armoured SUVs valued at $184,853 each, a $1,208 bench press, a $700 salad bar, and an $85 barbecue.

The U.S. unit was given water tanks worth several thousand dollars each, a batch of sea containers worth $24,101, more than $1 million in canvas, 40 baseball gloves valued at $1,120, and 1,901 bags of charcoal briquettes that cost $7.49 each, for a total of $14,238.

While the ANA and U.S. military benefitted by receiving large donations of Canadian equipment for free, dozens of contractors and private companies were snapping up bargain-basement deals.

Among the buyers was Maryland-based demining company Ronco Consulting, which got a $21,000 sound system for $105 and more than $114,000 worth of electronics for $567, among other things.

A Danish vehicle modification company, IM Jensen, purchased $50,000 worth of computers for $250, $10,000 worth of medical equipment for $298, and $7,000 in work masks for $20.

Some other deals included $19,866 in treadmills that were sold for $1,092, more than $12,500 worth of safety matches sold for $792, and $33,000 worth of camping equipment given to vehicle manufacturer and service provider Caterpillar for $26.
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Afghan girls put lives at risk to pursue education
dawn walton CALGARY— From Friday's Globe and Mail Thursday, Mar. 08, 2012
Article Link

Afghan teens Maryam and Heena have risked their lives and defied a repressive, conservative culture to do what most young Canadian women take for granted: attend school.

Even as they don caps and gowns to speak to reporters via Skype late at night from a unique Afghan-Canadian school in Kandahar city, these new graduates from SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary are taking a chance.

“For me,” said 18-year-old Heena, who dreams of being a doctor, “every second of going outside is dangerous.”

They live in the Taliban’s birthplace, where women are discouraged from going to school or getting a job, and one of the most violent places on Earth. But, especially on International Women’s Day, they are also fiercely proud. The opportunity to study at the Afghan-Canadian Community Center (ACCC) and receive college diplomas in business management from SAIT means they can support their families and have a future previously unimaginable.

“It is really not easy to get an education for Afghan women, especially in Kandahar city, but still we didn’t give up and we do our best to get an education,” said 19-year-old Maryam, who lives with her mother, brothers and sisters. “I believe education is the only solution for the problems we are facing in Afghanistan.”
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Bin Laden wives charged as new probe describes life with Osama bin Laden
Article Link
Bin Laden's wives and children are being held at an undisclosed house in Islamabad. Pakistan's Interior minister said they would be placed under house arrest for illegally entering and living in the country.

By Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers / March 9, 2012

Pakistani authorities said Thursday that they had filed charges against Osama bin Laden's three widows as an investigation revealed fresh details of the dead Al Qaeda leader's family life in Pakistan, including suspicions by two of the women that the oldest wife would betray him.

The three widows, who have been in Pakistani custody since US forces found and killed Mr. bin Laden last May in the northern town of Abbottabad, had been expected to be freed until Pakistan's interior minister said they would be charged with crimes related to entering the country illegally.

The charges came as Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier who maintains ties to top levels of the Pakistani Army, claims to have pieced together the most comprehensive account yet of bin Laden's life after he fled Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in late 2001.

RELATED Bin laden raid: 4 compound oddities

Mr. Qadir believes that bin Laden likely had undergone a kidney transplant, was living in effective retirement in Abbottabad and may have gone senile. The tranquility of his large household was shattered when it was joined early last year by the oldest of his remaining three wives, Qadir said in an interview.

There were 27 people packed into the house in Abbottabad when US Navy SEALs arrived on the night of May 2, 2011. But until a few months before that, when bin Laden's oldest surviving wife, Khairiah Sabar, joined them, they had all got on well, Qadir found.

"When Khairiah came, everybody else was very suspicious of her. They didn't trust her at all," Qadir said.

"Everything begins to happen with her arrival. Until then, the Americans seem to know nothing."

It was Khairiah who sold out bin Laden, Qadir said, although it wasn't clear whom she would have communicated with once inside. His account also is at odds with the story leaked by American officials, which contends that they found the Abbottabad house by following an Al Qaeda courier known as "al-Kuwaiti" to the home some time in the second half of 2010.
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[GAP]

US deal to hand Bagram and other prisons to Afghans
9 March 2012
Article Link

Afghanistan and the US have reached a deal to transfer US-run prisons in the country to Afghan control.

The largest and most controversial of these is Bagram jail, which holds 3,000 detainees, including terror suspects.

Under the deal the US will cede control of Bagram over six months. Reports say they will retain access and be able to block the release of certain detainees.

Handing over US-run jails has been a key demand of Afghan President Hamid Karzai ahead of Nato's withdrawal.

Analysts say the issue has cast a shadow over negotiations on Nato's withdrawal of all of its combat forces by the end of 2014 and the long-term relationship with Afghanistan.

Bagram prison, officially known as the Parwan Detention Centre, is located in one of the largest military bases for Nato-led forces in Afghanistan. It has been at the centre of a number of prisoner abuse allegations in recent years.

Nato is also under intense pressure after days of protests and targeted killings across Afghanistan - over the inadvertent burning of Korans at Bagram - left at least 30 people dead.

The US repeatedly apologised over the incident but that failed to quell public anger.

Ongoing US support

Correspondents say the deal is the first stage of a mechanism which is still being worked out but will eventually see US-run jails handed over to full Afghan control.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the US and Afghanistan comes after the US missed a deadline Mr Karzai set in January to hand over such jails.

He then gave the US another month to reach an agreement - that deadline was set to expire on 10 March.

On signing the agreement, Gen John Allen, Nato's commander in Afghanistan lauded it as " yet another example of the progress of transition".

Under the terms of the agreement, the US would provide support and advice to the Afghan commander at Bagram for up to a year.

"This MOU illustrates our commitment to Afghan sovereignty, our mutual obligations under international law, and our enduring partnership," a statement released by the US embassy reads.

"We have had our challenges and there will be challenges ahead as we continue negotiation on the framework for our strategic partnership, but this MOU marks an important step forward," it says.

The US has previously handed over responsibility for about 300 detainees at Bagram but said the Afghan government was not ready to fully take control of the prison, the Associated Press news agency reports.
end

 

[Edward Campbell]

Article link, reproduced from the Globe and Mail

U.S. service member opens fire in Afghanistan, as many as 16 dead

HEIDI VOGT AND MIRWAIS KHAN

KABUL, Afghanistan— The Associated Press
Published Sunday, Mar. 11, 2012


A U.S. service member walked out of his base in southern Afghanistan before dawn Sunday and started shooting Afghan civilians, Afghan and NATO officials said. There were widely varying reports of casualties.

People were killed in the shooting spree in Kandahar province, Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said, though he did not provide numbers.

“The incident happened. There are some people killed, some wounded. But I don’t have the details,” Mr. Wesa said in a phone interview.

Helicopters were circling overhead at Alkozai village in Panjwai district as a delegation from the governor’s office arrived to determine exactly what happened, but details were still sketchy.

The Panjwai district is where Canadian troops last operated in Afghanistan.

A resident of Alkozai, where the shootings took place, told an Associated Press reporter that 16 people were killed as the U.S. service member went into three different houses and started shooting. The villager, Abdul Baqi, said he had not seen the bodies himself, but had talked to the family members of the dead.

“When it was happening in the middle of the night we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again,” Mr. Baqi said.

NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a U.S. service member had been detained as the alleged shooter and that the coalition had reports of “multiple wounded” but none killed. The wounded were evacuated to NATO medical facilities, he said.

The service member was being held at a NATO base and U.S. forces are investigating the shooting in co-operation with Afghan authorities, Mr. Brockhoff said. He said it was not clear if the alleged shooter knew the victims.

“This is a deeply regrettable incident and we extend our thoughts and concerns to the families involved,” NATO said in a statement.

There were reports of protests in Panjwai following the shooting and the U.S. embassy warned travellers in Kandahar province to “exercise caution.”

The shooting comes after weeks of tense relations between U.S. forces and their Afghan hosts following the burning of Korans and other religious materials at an American base. Though U.S. officials apologized and said the burning was an accident, the incident sparked violent protests and attacks that killed some 30 people. Six U.S. troops have been killed in attacks by their Afghan colleagues since the Koran burnings came to light.

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[GAP]

Articles found March , 2012

Office of Afghan women's rights activist attacked
March 11, 2012 05:51 GMT
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A prominent Afghan women's rights activist says gunmen have attacked her office in a western province in an apparent assassination attempt.

Malalai Joya is a former Afghan lawmaker and vocal critic of corruption and criminality in the Afghan government, as well as the Taliban. She says the overnight attack on her office in Farah province was the sixth attempt on her life.

Joya says armed men tried to storm the compound late on night on Saturday. The attackers did not get into the building but two of her guards were seriously injured and are currently in the hospital.

Joya says she was in Kabul at the time but had planned a trip to Farah soon and news of that may have leaked out. She believes the attackers thought she was in the building.
end

Taliban threatens attacks if bin Laden widows not freed
  Article Link
Police, judges among targets mentioned
By SAUD MEHSUD, Reuters March 10, 2012

The Pakistan Taliban will attack government, police and military officials if three of the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's widows are not released from Pakistani custody, a spokesperson for the militant group said on Friday.

Pakistan's government has charged bin Laden's three widows with illegally entering and staying in the country, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday.

"If the family of Osama bin Laden is not released as soon as possible, we will attack the judges, the lawyers and the security officials involved in their trial," Ehsanullah Ehsan of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) told Reuters.

Malik did not specify which court was dealing with the case. The three women will have to stand trial, but it was not clear what punishment they face if convicted.

Bin Laden was killed in a secret U.S. raid in the northern Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May last year.

The al-Qaida leader's body was flown out by American special forces, but his three wives and an undisclosed number of children were among the 16 people detained by Pakistani authorities after the raid.

Two of the wives are Saudi nationals, and one is from Yemen, according to the Pakistani foreign ministry.

Pakistan had previously said that it would repatriate the women after a government commission probing the bin Laden raid had completed its questioning.
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Their drill may be out of step, but Afghan army is ready for the fight
The intensive training being given to the Afghan army in preparation for withdrawl of coalition forces from the country in 2014 can be revealed in unprecedented detail.
Article Link

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, in Kabul

7:00AM GMT 11 Mar 2012

Beneath a leaden sky on a bitter morning on the outskirts of Kabul, hundreds of Afghan army recruits are marching to the sound of a drum.

It is the daily drill lesson at the vast Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC), once a former Soviet army base, now the main military academy of the Afghan National Army.

The march of choice is the goose-step, one of the many peculiarities inherited from the Russian occupation — and the parade is an impressive spectacle.

The recruits’ uniforms might not be a perfect fit and many have yet to master the morning shave, but there is no doubting their commitment.

Three years ago, the British Army and other members of the international coalition were right at the heart of the Afghan army training programme, teaching the fundamentals of shooting, map-reading and drills.
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Trevor and Debbie Greene: How an attack on an Afghan village changed my life
Article Link
Special to National Post  Mar 10, 2012

In a new book, excerpted below, Trevor and Debbie Greene recount the day a Canadian military officer’s life was nearly ended by an ambush in an Afghan village:

KANDAHAR — On March 4, 2006, the sun was already high in the sky as I prepared for another day of shuras — meetings with local Afghan leaders, a key part of my job as a Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) officer in the Canadian army. I picked up my notebook, making sure that the picture of my wife Debbie and daughter Grace was still neatly tucked away inside. “Miss you both and can’t wait to see you in two weeks in Hawaii,” I said as I kissed the picture and thought about my upcoming leave time. It was early in the tour, which would leave a long stretch once I returned for the rest of my rotation in Afghanistan, but I couldn’t wait to hold them both. For now, though, I had to keep my mind on the challenges ahead.

“Hey, sir, will you be needing a medic today?” Shaun Marshall, the platoon medic, said as he poked his head into my room. “I don’t think so, Shaun,” I replied.
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Afghanistan: Ten deaths that tell the story of a futile war
Article Link
The killing of six soldiers last week took fatalities among British service personnel to 404. Have they died in vain?
Jonathan Owen , Kunal Dutta Sunday 11 March 2012

Officials were last night preparing to repatriate the bodies of six British soldiers who died on Tuesday, when their Warrior armoured fighting vehicle was caught in an explosion in Helmand in Afghanistan. Thus will Sergeant Nigel Coupe, Corporal Jake Hartley, Private Anthony Frampton, Private Christopher Kershaw, Private Daniel Wade and Private Daniel Wilford be brought back from a conflict which a defence secretary once said he wished could be concluded "without firing one shot".

It was never meant to be like this. Britain's involvement was billed as a straightforward mission to exact revenge on Osama bin Laden, topple the Taliban government and bring democracy. Now, more than 10 years after 9/11, with hundreds dead, thousands injured and billions spent, British forces remain in a protracted battle few believe they can win.
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Pakistan appoints new spy chief
by The Canadian Press - Mar 9, 2012
Article Link

Pakistan appointed a new head of intelligence on Friday, injecting some uncertainty in America's dealings with an agency crucial to its hopes of negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban and keeping pressure on al-Qaida.

Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam replaces Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who had been in the post since 2008 and was due to retire on March 18. The scion of a military family who is currently army commander in the city of Karachi, Islam was considered a likely man for the job.

Islam, who between 2008 and 2010 was the deputy head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, will be a major player in any Pakistani efforts to get the Afghan Taliban to enter peace negotiations to end the war.

ISI agents helped build up the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s, and its leaders are believed to be based in Pakistan. The ISI is considered to have some influence over them.

While there remain doubts over its loyalty, the ISI also works closely with the CIA in tracking and capturing members of al-Qaida, which retains a global command and training centre close to the Afghan border.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 16, 2012

Giving Afghans a chance

An interview with MGen Mike Day
Article Link
By Grant Cree (courtesy of The Western Sentinel)

“The international community's contribution to Afghanistan is fundamentally about two activities: Stop bad guys from doing bad things, and help good guys do good things,” said MGen Mike Day. He is the Deputy Commanding General–Operations of the NATO Training Mission–Afghanistan (NTM-A), and Commander of the Canadian Contribution Training Mission–Afghanistan (CCTM-A).

“One without the other is just not going to get it done. The CF mission in Afghanistan is about helping good guys do good things,” emphasized MGen Day during a telephone interview conducted with The Western Sentinel on 22 February 2012.
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Afghan women learn online from Canada
March 13, 2012 By Tony Bates
Article Link

Walton, D. (2012) ‘Education is the only solution for the problems‘ Globe and Mail, March 12

With so much bad news coming out of Afghanistan, it is a real pleasure to report on some very good news. This article (part of the Globe and Mail’s coverage of International Women’s Day last Friday) reports on 17 women students in Afghanistan who have just graduated from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT Polytechnic), taking their courses online in a unique Afghan-Canadian school in Kandahar. They are part of over 200 students at the Afghan-Canadian Community Centre in Kandahar, funded jointly by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Canadian International Learning Foundation. Altogether, 2,000 Afghan students have graduated from this program.

Although more than 5 million Afghan refugees have been repatriated since 2002 (still leaving over 1.5 million in refugee camps in Pakistan), there are still 500,000 internally displaced persons, i.e. Afghan refugees who have returned but have no land, home or work.
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Canadian Firms Supplying Components to Mobile Strike Force Vehicles
Article Link
16:21 GMT, March 14, 2012 Ottawa, Ontario |

Textron Systems Canada Inc., a Textron Inc. company, today announced new work with seven innovative Canadian companies in support of Textron Marine & Land Systems' armoured vehicle manufacturing program. Textron has entered into contracts with these Canadian suppliers to provide components for the Afghanistan National Army Mobile Strike Force Vehicle (MSFV) program. The total value of these contracts is more than $10 million to date with companies located in Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan.

"We are fortunate to be working with such qualified partners and suppliers in Canada," said Neil Rutter, general manager of Textron Systems Canada. "These contracts show the capability of the Canadian defence and security industry to meet the exacting standards expected by Textron."

Rutter notes that these contracts will help maintain Canadian jobs, and position these supplier companies for future opportunities on Textron programs. The Canadian firms engaged with manufacturing and supplying the following components are:

• Michelin North America (Waterville, N.S.) - Specialized Tires
• EODC (Ottawa, ON) - Armoured Vehicle Belly Plates
• General Dynamics Canada (Ottawa, ON) - Display Units
• General Kinetics (Brampton, ON) - Shock Absorbers
• Mobile Climate Control (Vaughn, ON) - HVAC components
• Ontario Drive & Gear (New Hamburg, ON) - Transfer Cases
• Evraz Steel (Regina, SK) - Armour Steel

Canadian-produced vehicle components for the Afghanistan MSFV are being integrated into more than 300 vehicles being built at Textron Marine & Land Systems' manufacturing facilities in Louisiana. Vehicle assembly is slated to continue into 2013.
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New documents reveal Canada's mission wasn't only about training
Article Link
Used to free U.S. soldiers for combat
By LEE BERTHIAUME, Postmedia News March 15, 2012

Since the Canadian training mission in Afghanistan began last year, the federal government has said the purpose is to help Afghan army and police develop the skills needed to take responsibility for the country's security in 2014.

But shortly before visiting Afghanistan this past Christmas, Governor General David Johnston was told of another reason 950 Canadian troops have been deployed to Kabul and two other central Afghan cities: to free up United States soldiers for combat.

The statement is found in notes that were prepared in advance of Johnston's visit to Afghanistan, Kuwait and HMCS Vancouver in the Mediterranean and obtained by Postmedia News through access to information.

Since the end of the combat mission, Canada has become the second-largest contributor to the NATO training mission in Afghanistan after the U.S.

Shortly before the federal election call in March 2011, Defence Minister Peter MacKay authorized the deployment of Canadian military trainers to about a dozen locations around Kabul as well as to the towns of Mazari-Sharif and Herat.

The goal is to train 352,000 Afghan soldiers by the time Canada and its NATO allies leave in 2014.
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Fisher: Perhaps Canada has done what it can in Afghanistan
Article Link
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News March 15, 2012

MOSCOW — A group of about 910 military trainers led by Col. Greg Smith takes over early Friday morning in Afghanistan from a similar force that has been under the command of Col. Pete Dawe since last spring.

For the army this is a routine rotation of troops — the 16th by my count since Canadians first began regular tours to Kabul in the summer of 2003 and combat tours to Kandahar early in 2006.

However, tensions are higher now than at any time since the Taliban was ousted in 2001. This troop swap takes place after a rogue American army sergeant murdered 16 Afghans last weekend in what had been an area of Canadian responsibility in the Horn of Panjwaii until eight months ago. That atrocity was preceded by the torching of several Holy Qur'ans by a few dim-witted American soldiers at Bagram Air Base who did not understand the importance of these books in the most conservative Islamic country in the world.

In a column earlier this week, I urged the government to review Canada's commitments in Afghanistan and suggested that the time had finally come to consider swiftly winding down the training mission, which is to slated to continue for another 24 months.
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Official: Afghan-US talks on night raids ongoing
March 16, 2012 07:03 GMT
Article Link
byline. AP Video. By HEIDI VOGT Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A U.S. official says talks with the Afghan government about night raids by NATO troops are going ahead despite the killing spree by a U.S. soldier and a combative statement from the Afghan president.

The official says the two negotiating teams are still talking and nothing has interrupted the discussions. The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door talks.

There are worries President Hamid Karzai's call for international troops to withdraw from rural areas following Sunday's killing of 16 Afghan civilians by am American soldier could derail efforts for a long-term pact to govern U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The issue of the night raids is key to getting to that larger deal. Karzai has demanded that no international forces take part in night raids.
end

We'll Hear An Afghan "Thanks!" When Hell Freezes Over
Article Link

I am looking at a heartwarming 1945 photograph of a Canadian-liberated town in the Netherlands, all joyous spontaneity and relief as townspeople (two wearing wooden shoes) celebrate their liberation from Nazi Germany. Nearly 70 years later, this snapshot in time is relevant to events currently swirling around a tragic, aberrational incident in which a U.S. Army staff sergeant apparently walked off base and killed 16 Afghan civilians.

Nazi liberation was a costly liberation. Allied air raids on German-occupied Rotterdam alone killed 884 citizens and wounded 631. Such losses were negligible next to the millions of civilian casualties during World War II caused by Axis and Allies alike.

How, I have long wondered, might Presidents Bush and Obama and all of our top military commanders explain the welcome that Allied forces received across Europe in 1945 despite the massive suffering the Allies, too, inflicted on unarmed citizens? The answer is that the liberated peoples rejected the Nazis and their ideology. So why doesn't the same logic work on 'liberated' Afghans? Maybe they don't reject either the Taliban or their ideology. Maybe there's just way too much overlap on both counts.

Nah, say our counterinsurgency (COIN) strategists. The problem is too many civilian casualties. So goes the COIN mantra of at least the past three years in Afghanistan, since Gen. Stanley McChrystal came on the scene openly promoting 'population protection' over 'force protection.' Indeed, more than anything else, the war in Afghanistan may be seen as a war on civilian casualties in which the ultimate prize is the 'trust' of the Afghan people. Or, as current military commander Gen. John R. Allen likes to say, 'the noble Afghan people.'

A week ago, the website of international forces in Afghanistan (ISAF) ran a report on the third Civilian Casualty Conference, where new figures on civilian casualties were unveiled. 'In the last four months, insurgents have caused 93 percent, or 958 civilian casualties,' Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, ISAF deputy commander, reported, explaining that the majority are inflicted by roadside bombs (IEDs). 'In the same period of time, 7 percent, or 72 civilian casualties, regrettably were caused by ISAF forces,' he said.
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[cupper]

Article link, reproduced from the Globe and Mail

U.S. service member opens fire in Afghanistan, as many as 16 dead
More on link

Here is an update from the Washington Post today.

Soldier accused in Afghan shooting spree identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales

Pentagon officials Friday evening identified the soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan villagers as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a trained sniper who had served three tours in Iraq and suffered multiple wounds.

Bales, a 38-year-old married father of two who enlisted 11 years ago, was being flown Friday to a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to await possible criminal charges, a U.S. official said. He is accused of leaving his base in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province and committing one of the worst atrocities by U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/soldier-accused-in-afghan-shooting-spree-could-return-to-us-friday/2012/03/16/gIQAauMSGS_story.html

 

[GAP]

Articles found March 17, 2012

New Afghan army is marching to a different drum
Slowly but surely, a new Afghan army is taking shape from the ground up
The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2012 March 17, 2012
Article Link

Kabul Beneath a leaden sky on a bitter morning on the outskirts of Kabul, hundreds of Afghan army recruits are marching to the sound of a drum.

It is the daily drill lesson at the vast Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC), once a former Soviet army base, now the main military academy of the Afghan National Army.

The march of choice is the goose-step, one of the many peculiarities inherited from the Russian occupation — and the parade is an impressive spectacle.

The recruits' uniforms might not be a perfect fit and many have yet to master the morning shave, but there is no doubting their commitment. Three years ago, the British Army and other members of the international coalition were right at the heart of the Afghan army training programme, teaching the fundamentals of shooting, map-reading and drills.
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Afghanistan fears becoming `orphan' as international forces withdraw
  Article Link
By Jeff Davis, Postmedia News March 16, 2012

OTTAWA - The Afghan embassy in Ottawa is calling on Canada to continue supporting the war-torn country, amid fears it could become an ``international orphan'' after Western forces withdraw in 2014.

Afghanistan's top diplomat in Canada, charge d'affaires Mirwais Salehi, said he worries that much-needed support from Western countries may be coming to an end.

``We want a kind of assurance that in 2014 not everybody will close their eyes and go back home,'' he said. ``We want Canadian support very, very long beyond 2014.''

Salehi said Afghans are worried Western countries will abandon them, leaving the country in situation similar to the 1990s, when civil war broke out following the departure of Russian military forces.

The lack of international support during this critical period allowed the Taliban to seize power, he said. ``We don't want to repeat history again and again, because it will cost the lives of many innocent people,'' Salehi added.

Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said Afghanistan became an ``international orphan'' in the 1990s. The current situation, he said, is becoming eerily similar.

``I think there's a sense of deja vu in many, many ways,'' he said.

Hampson said many NATO countries appear to have run out of patience with the country, having decided it is ``mission impossible.'' U.S. President Barack Obama, for example, is coming under increased pressure to accelerate plans to withdraw from the country before 2014, he said.

``I think there's a deep sense of pessimism, quite frankly, about Afghanistan's future,'' he said. ``In NATO the British, the French, everyone is pulling back, getting ready to pull out.''
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Afghan mission's end cuts civilian workers
  Article Link
Dismantling of massive bureaucratic network leaves many feeling left in dust by government
By Jeff Davis, Ottawa Citizen March 16, 2012

Canadian civil servants who served alongside soldiers in the Afghanistan heat are feeling left in the dust as the federal government embarks on a massive postwar dismantling of its bureaucracy.

At the centre of the cuts is the Afghanistan Task Force, a massive bureaucratic network formed within the Privy Council Office, CIDA, the RCMP and Foreign Affairs to co-ordinate Canada's non-military logistics.

"The reality is this is no longer a priority for the Conservative government," said Emma Welford, a civilian who completed tours in Kabul and Kandahar while working for Foreign Affairs Canada. "So reducing the size of the bureaucratic support system for it is only natural."

The cuts have been thorough. The Canadian International Development Agency's task force section no longer exists, and the Afghan section at Foreign Affairs has lost its task force status. The Privy Council Office's Afghanistan section will be dismantled at the end of March. And the cabinet committee on Afghanistan and the commons special committee on Afghanistan have both been dissolved.

Budgets have been slashed accordingly. The Privy Council Office once devoted up to $4.7 million per year to its Afghanistan Task Force, but this has been cut to zero for fiscal year 2012-2013. Likewise, CIDA devoted $17.5 million to their departmental task force in 2009-2010, but has cancelled funding for 2012-2013.
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In Afghan killings case, questions over alcohol
Posted:  03/16/2012
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan—The U.S. military bans alcohol for its troops in Afghanistan, but that doesn't stop some soldiers from having a bottle or two stowed away in their gear—a fact highlighted by investigators' probe into whether alcohol played a role when a U.S. sergeant allegedly carried out a killing spree that left 16 Afghans dead.

U.S. investigators have determined that the suspect had been drinking alcohol prior to leaving the base the night of the attack, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday. How much of a role alcohol played in the attack is still under investigation, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because charges have not yet been filed.

Like many rules in a war zone, the U.S. military's General Order No. 1 forbidding alcohol in both Afghanistan and Iraq is not always followed to the letter. Even in these strictly Muslim countries, there are ways to access liquor. Amid the tight-knit camaraderie of a stressful battlefield, officers sometimes turn a blind eye—or even partake themselves.

In Iraq, booze was easy to come by in Baghdad's Green Zone and on some bases. In Afghanistan, soldiers from many other NATO countries are allowed to imbibe. That means there's some "alcohol spillover" to American troops on large multinational bases. In both countries, foreign contractors dealing with the U.S. military—most of whom were not covered by the order—bring in their own supplies and are a source that soldiers can turn to.
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Outcry, veterans’ support make Ottawa fast-track visa for Afghan interpreter
Published On Sat Mar 17 2012
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VANCOUVER—After 19 months trying to reach safety in Canada, Afghan battlefield interpreter Sayed Shah Sharifi is finally being processed for a visa.

Ottawa agreed to quickly approve a visa for Sharifi, praised by Canadian troops as a brave comrade who saved lives during combat in the Taliban heartland, after Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman withdrew a Federal Court case.

For months, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney bucked mounting public pressure and refused to rescue Sharifi from Kandahar after Canadian officials decided his claims that the Taliban would kill him for aiding their enemies weren’t credible.

The breakthrough came after an outcry from Toronto Star readers and Canadian veterans of the Afghan war moved Prime Minister Stephen Harper last month to force Kenney to reconsider Sharifi and scores of other rejected Afghans.

Waldman said Friday he is confident, following assurances from the justice department, that Sharifi has won his long fight with the Harper government.

“He’s going to be getting a visa fairly soon. I would say by the summer,” Waldman said.

“In the case of Sayed, I’m comfortable because we have a written statement from them saying he meets the requirements for processing.”

Sharifi must still pass medical, criminal background and security checks required of all immigrants to Canada, but Waldman doesn’t expect any problems.

In September 2009, Kenney announced a special program to grant visas to Afghans “who face exceptional risk or who have suffered serious injury as a result of their work for the Canadian government in Kandahar province.”
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Military helicopter crashes into house
by The Canadian Press Mar 16, 2012
Article Link

A Turkish military helicopter crashed into a house near the Afghan capital Friday, killing 12 Turkish soldiers on board and two girls on the ground, Turkish and Afghan officials said.

It was by far the deadliest incident involving Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan, where they have a noncombat role.

The helicopter, a Sikorsky, was on a mission for U.S.-led NATO forces when it went down near Kabul, the Turkish military said in a statement.

"Twelve of our military personnel on board were martyred," it said.

There was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash, NATO said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the helicopter was one of two that took off on Friday.

"Unfortunately, the one in front came down for an unknown reason," he said.

He said there were officers and noncommissioned officers on board.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters it appeared that the helicopter crashed while trying to make an emergency landing and that the pilot tried to avoid houses.

"It is a grave accident. Our grief is deep," he said.

The helicopter clipped one house and then crashed into another, said Sayed Qayum, an Afghan resident who witnessed the aircraft go down.

The crash blew several large holes in the three-story brick house that was hit. Parts of the building were scorched black by fire, and wreckage of the helicopter was scattered outside. One piece had a red and white Turkish flag painted on it.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said the two people who were killed on the ground were young girls. A woman and another child were wounded, it said.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 21, 2012

Luke’s Troops: Corporal Tom Jun
Published On Mon Mar 19 2012
Article Link

Defenceman Luke Schenn hosts a member of the Canadian Forces at every Leaf home game: Tuesday: Corporal Tom Jun

Corporal Jun has been a soldier with Toronto’s army reserve unit, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, since March 2005. Jun has completed gunner's and basic mountain operations courses and deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 for seven months as a dismounted infanteer, attached to India Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group. Corporal Jun is now studying political science at Ryerson University.
end

On way home for R&R, some JBLM soldiers get a break at air field
For nearly four months, Spc. William Gibson has been toughing it out on a sparse base in Kandahar province preparing for what his unit expects to be a difficult fighting season. This week, the Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier got to take a break even before he left the war zone.
ADAM ASHTON; STAFF WRITER Published: 03/20/12

KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – For nearly four months, Spc. William Gibson has been toughing it out on a sparse base in Kandahar province preparing for what his unit expects to be a difficult fighting season. This week, the Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier got to take a break even before he left the war zone.

Gibson, 25, is passing through NATO’s largest base in Afghanistan. It’s a city-like complex with a courtyard called the boardwalk ringed by shops, local merchants and restaurants including T.G.I. Fridays, KFC and Nathan’s Hotdogs.

“This is very nice, especially considering what I’m used to,” Gibson said after laying into a pizza on the boardwalk.

He belongs to Lewis-McChord’s 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. Most soldiers from his battalion – the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment – are deployed to a cluster of small forward bases in northern Kandahar province.

They’ve taken some indirect fire on their bases, and they’re preparing for the start of fighting season as the weather warms. A land mine in late January took the life of the battalion’s Lt. David Johnson, 24.

“We’ve been sweating it out,” said Gibson, who usually stays close to his base as a cook. “It’s been quiet, a lot more quiet than it’s going to be.”
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Afghanistan wants private soldiers out
by The Canadian Press Mar 18, 2012
Article Link

The Afghan government is giving companies extensions ranging from a few weeks to 90 days to change from private security guards to a government-run force, officials said Sunday.

The reprieve comes just three days before the March 21 deadline that the Afghan government had set for the majority of companies to start using government-provided security.

Private development companies have said the move is threatening billions in U.S. aid to the country because companies would delay projects or leave altogether because they didn't feel safe using strictly local security over whose training and procedures they have little control.

President Hamid Karzai has railed for years against the large number of guns-for-hire in Afghanistan, saying private security companies skirt the law and risk becoming militias.

It's been part of Karzai's larger push for more control over the way his international allies operate in Afghanistan, as seen most recently in his call for NATO troops to pull back from village outposts and to hand over security responsibilities to Afghans more quickly.

Karzai said in 2009 that he wanted private security firms abolished and eventually set the March deadline for all companies except military or diplomatic facilities to use government guards. The ban would effectively end the wide-scale presence of foreigners acting as security contractors, an industry that boomed after the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The extensions did not appear to represent a change in policy as much as a recognition that the switch to government guards was taking longer than envisioned.
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Two Britons released after Afghanistan arrest
(AFP) – 21 hours ago 
Article Link


MONTREAL — Two British men arrested in Afghanistan with 30 AK-47 assault rifles have been released and cleared after a January arrest for weapons smuggling, their Canadian employer said Tuesday.
Julian Steele and James Davis were detained while driving through Kabul with the rifles, whose serial numbers had been erased. The Afghan government said the men did not have proper documentation for carrying weapons and were charged with illegal weapons smuggling.
"I can confirm that they were freed and declared innocent," GardaWorld security firm spokeswoman Nathalie de Champlain told AFP in Montreal, without providing further details.
The firm, which provides global risk consulting and security services, has long denied the allegations, saying the weapons were "properly licensed" and were being taken to be tested at a shooting range for future purchase by GardaWorld.
Two Afghan nationals traveling with the men were also detained.
De Champlain did not indicate when the British nationals were cleared and whether they had returned to Britain.
"Obviously, we welcome the development and thank the government and the authorities for their valuable cooperation, but I will not comment any further on the incident at this point as a security precaution for the employees," she said.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 23, 2012

Afghanistan avalanche 'kills 22' in Badakhshan
Article Link
22 March 2012

At least 22 people from one extended family have been killed in an avalanche in Afghanistan's north-eastern Badakhshan province, officials say.

They say that the avalanche took place in the Wakhan Corridor, a small, mountainous and remote finger of land which pokes into China.

The area is almost two days' walk from the provincial capital, Faizabad.

Afghanistan is having a harsh winter, with nearly 100 people killed in two previous avalanches earlier this month.

Both took place in the north-east of the country.

"The 22 people [who were killed] were members of one extended family who lived in several houses. We have sent a team to the area. But I can confirm another human tragedy," Badakhshan Disaster and Preparedness department head Sanaullah Amiri told the BBC.
Map

Mr Amiri said that those killed in Wednesday's avalanche included women and children.
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Soldier embraces all things Canadian after nine month Afghanistan tour
By Jodi Lundmark, tbnewswatch.com
Article Link

After a nine-month tour in Afghanistan, Cale McDowell is happy to embrace everything Canadian.

“Being able to go walk outside, being able to drive a car by yourself, being able to not carry a gun on you, to relax – that was the big thing I missed was the freedom here,” McDowell said Wednesday after arriving at the Thunder Bay International Airport to a large group of family, friends and other supporters, including Mayor Keith Hobbs and members of the Thunder Bay Police Service.

Finally coming home felt like a dream for McDowell, who served in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry based out of Edmonton.

“When you first get off the plane, you start to get the shakes and then walk up and it doesn’t even feel real after so long you can come back and see your family,” he said.
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[GAP]

Articles found March  25, 2012

Afghan teen Roya Shams’ first two months in Canada
Published On Sat Mar 24 2012
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With help from the Toronto Star, staff writer Paul Watson and Star readers, along with the Canadian International Learning Foundation, Roya Shams arrived in Canada from Kandahar in January to attend school. Roya, 17, is the youngest of nine children of Afghan police Col. Haji Sayed Gulab Shah, who was fatally shot by the Taliban in an ambush last July. She and the rest of her family became targets as well. Roya hopes to become a politician and advocate for women’s rights in her country.

I have been in Canada two months, and many people have asked me what is the biggest difference in my life since I left Afghanistan.

As an Afghan girl I can say that now I feel independent. Now I can make decisions about my life. I have been able to travel out of my country, I can study, and I can walk on the streets without wearing a burqa. In Afghanistan women are forced to wear a burqa, though it is not required in our religion. Sometimes wearing a burqa makes you feel like a horse wearing blinkers, only seeing what is directly in front of you. It is hard to breathe, and sometimes it gives you a headache.

Once I felt that I was safe, that no one would shoot me or kidnap me, I felt very comfortable. It was so new to see everything so clearly. Now I can feel nature, sunshine and fresh air and I feel I can benefit from every moment of my life.
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Afghan official: US paid $50,000 to families of each victim in shooting spree
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Published March 25, 2012

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan –  The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday.

The families of the dead received the money Saturday at the governor's office, said Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai. Each wounded person received $11,000, Lalai said. Community elder Jan Agha confirmed the same figures.

They were told that the money came from U.S. President Barack Obama, Lalai said.

A U.S. official confirmed that compensation had been paid but declined to discuss exact amounts, saying only that it reflected the devastating nature of the incident. The official spoke anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the subject.

A spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces declined to confirm or deny the payments, saying that while coalition members often make compensation payments, they are usually kept private.

"As the settlement of claims is in most cases a sensitive topic for those who have suffered loss, it is usually a matter of agreement that the terms of the settlement remain confidential," Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings said.
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Edmonton based soldiers return home from Afghanistan
Caley Ramsay, Global News : Friday, March 23, 2012
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A group of about 90 Edmonton based soldiers returned home from Afghanistan Friday morning.

Soldiers were greeted by family, co-workers and a canadian classic, Tim Horton's coffee.

The 11 month deployment was the first rotation of Operation Attention, a mission used to train Afghan national security forces, getting them ready to take the lead in 2014.

"We call them Roto-Zeros, it's the army jargon for the first rotation of a new mission, and although it's a natural extension of what we've been doing down south for the past 10 years, frankly we'd have never have been able to do what we've done without the terrific work by our predecessors," says Colonel Peter Dawe.

He says starting something from scratch, in a new area is always an exciting time.

"It can be very demanding and sometimes a little frustrating, but all in all a terrific experience and very gratifying."
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[GAP]

Articles found March 27, 2012

Afghan arrests after authorities foil 'suicide attack'
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27 March 2012 Last updated at 08:08 ET

The Afghan authorities have arrested 18 people in Kabul after foiling plans for an apparent mass suicide attack, intelligence officials say.

They told the BBC that 11 suicide jackets had been seized inside the ministry of defence.

The officials say the attacks would have caused significant loss of life. Some of those arrested are reported to Afghan National Army soldiers.

The Afghan Ministry of Defence dismissed the report as "rumours".

Dawlat Wazeri, the ministry's deputy spokesman, told the BBC that no would-be bombers had been detained or suicide vests seized inside the ministry.

"These are just rumours and now we are working on finding the men who have provided these rumours to the media," he said.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says it appears that, officially, the Afghan authorities want to play down a major security lapse that is highly embarrassing for the government.

The reliability of Afghan security personnel is in the spotlight after a string of deadly attacks by gunmen wearing Afghan National Army dress on their Nato counterparts in recent weeks.

Rogue soldiers

Intelligence officials told our correspondent that the jackets had been seized on Monday afternoon from three separate rooms around a ministry car park, less than a kilometre from the presidential palace. Several people were arrested inside the ministry's first security belt, they said.

Six soldiers were arrested at the time - initial reports suggested they were armed and prepared to attack.
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We Don't Care What The West Thinks
March 27, 2012
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President Karzai wants U.S. troops to withdraw from their small rural bases, in order to avoid civilian casualties. But rural Afghans like having the troops around, because they keep bandits, and Taliban terrorism away. Karzai is trying to placate his tribal allies who are deep into the drug business. The NATO troops have cost the drug gangs a lot of money in the past two years, and the American strategy of putting troops "in the villages" is one of the most troublesome tactics of all (next to night raids). Karzai and his family have long been on the drug gangs' payroll, as have many Pushtun tribal leaders. It's an easy way to get rich, although you have to put up with Westerners and Afghans complaining about all the drug addicts. Karzai's effort to hold peace talks with the Taliban fell apart when it became apparent that NATO and the United States were not going to free imprisoned senior Taliban leaders as a precursor to the talks.

The NATO campaign against the Taliban continues, concentrating on Taliban leaders and technical experts. This has put the Taliban under a lot of pressure, because the NATO "decapitation" (find and kill the leaders) strategy makes it all very personal for the key people in the Taliban. This is the main motivator for the Taliban to "make peace."

U.S. combat deaths continue their downward trend. Deaths last year were 16 percent less than 2010. So far this year, combat deaths are down 30 percent from the same period last year. Deaths in March are down by more than 50 percent.

While Afghan public opinion still overwhelmingly supports the 2001 American invasion (and expulsion of the Taliban), approval of continued fighting has declined from 83 percent in 2005 to 43 percent today. Most of the drop in support comes from the Pushtun south, where nearly all the drug production takes place and where most of the continued fighting occurs. More importantly, most Afghans do not believe the Taliban can regain control of the country and that if most of the foreign troops leave, the non-Pushtun majority (plus a few Pushtun allies) can deal with the Taliban threat. Most Afghans also want the billions in foreign aid to continue. Although much of that is stolen, a lot does get down to the village level. For most Afghans, life has gotten better in the last decade. But the Taliban terrorism campaign against foreign troops, mainly in the south, has mostly targeted Afghans, and that is not popular. With the foreign troops gone, more traditional Afghan methods (torture, massacre, taking families of wanted men hostage) can be used to deal with the Taliban. This will create outrage in the West, but most Afghans really don't care what the West thinks.

NATO and the U.S. have negotiated agreements with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia to move all sorts of supplies and equipment over the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). Three years ago nearly all land movement of supplies came in via Pakistan. But that changed after Pakistan closed its border to NATO supplies last November 26 because of a friendly fire incident on the Afghan border that left 24 Pakistani troops dead. The NDN consists of three separate routes into Afghanistan. One starts in a Georgian Black Sea port, where cargo is shipped through Azerbaijan, across the Caspian Sea and then by rail through Central Asia to Afghanistan. The second route starts in Latvia, on the Baltic Sea, and then travels by rail through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. The third route also starts in Latvia, but instead proceeds through Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the Afghan border. The plan was always to completely replace Pakistan, but that has happened sooner, rather than later. Now Pakistan has to worry about losing some of the transport business for Afghan civilian goods. That's a major industry in Pakistan, because nearly all (save air freight) cargo enters and leaves Afghanistan by truck. But now Afghanistan is building its first railroad system, connecting it with the Central Asian rail network terminal on the Uzbek border. Even with the longer distances, moving cargo would be competitive coming and going via rail through Central Asia, compared to going via truck through Pakistan. The NDN makes for a fundamental change in Afghan-Pakistan relations. Now Afghanistan can look north for economic, cultural and political alliances, rather than just with Pakistan and Iran, two countries that have not always been kind to Afghanistan.
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Damned Video
March 25, 2012
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Video is not only changing the way wars are fought but the way they are reported. For example, U.S. and Afghan troops recently tracked down and arrested a corrupt government official who had stolen a lot of cash and goods. The guy disappeared into the hills when he became aware that he was being investigated. The culprit was arrested but as soon as he got within earshot of journalists he began claiming that the American and Afghan troops had stolen gold from him and roughed up the women of his household. But the American Special Forces troops had worn small cameras on their helmets during the operation and gladly showed the videos to the journalists.

The hunted man (Nangyalai) had been the number two man in the Alingar district of Laghman Province. Alingar has a population of 85,000 and gets a share of foreign aid and money for running the district government. Nangyalai shut up once the camera videos were revealed, but in similar situations without videos, journalists would report this as yet another atrocity against Afghans.
end

 

[GAP]

Articles found March 28, 2012

Hundreds of Afghan women jailed for 'moral crimes'
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28 March 2012

Hundreds of Afghan women are in jail for "moral crimes", including running away and extra-marital sex, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

In a report, it said that women were punished for fleeing domestic abuse and violence while some rape victims were also imprisoned.

Sex outside marriage - even when the woman is forced - is considered adultery, another "moral crime".

The I Had to Run Away report was released in Kabul on Wednesday.

The report said that the government of President Hamid Karzai had failed to fulfil its obligations under international human rights laws.

"It is shocking that 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, women and girls are still imprisoned for running away from domestic violence or forced marriage," HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth said.

The report called on the government to release about 400 women and girls held in jails or juvenile detention centres.

"Some women and girls have been convicted of mina, sex outside of marriage, after being raped or forced into prostitution," it said.

“Start Quote
    The treatment of women and girls accused of 'moral crimes' is a black eye on the face of the post-Taliban Afghan government and its international backers, all of whom promised that respect for women's rights would distinguish the new government from the Taliban”

HRW I Had To Run Away report

"Judges often convict solely on the basis of 'confessions' given in the absence of lawyers and 'signed' without having been read to women who cannot read or write.
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Afghan woman is killed 'for giving birth to a girl'
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul
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30 January 2012

A woman in north-eastern Afghanistan has been arrested for allegedly strangling her daughter-in-law for giving birth to a third daughter.

The murdered woman's husband, a member of a local militia, is also suspected of involvement but he has since fled.

The murder took place two days ago in Kunduz province. The baby girl, who is now two months old, was not hurt.

The birth of a boy is usually a cause for celebration in Afghanistan but girls are generally seen as a burden.

Some women in Afghanistan are abused if they fail to give birth to boys. And this is just the latest in a series of high-profile crimes against women in the country.

Late last year a horrifying video emerged of the injuries suffered by a 15-year-old child bride who was locked up and tortured by her husband.
'Crime against humanity'

This murder took place in the village of Mahfalay, in the district of Khanabad in Kunduz.
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U.S. will continue with its plans for the Afghanistan war irregardless
Robert Tilford Charlotte City Buzz Examiner  March 27, 2012
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The U.S. will continue with its plans for the Afghanistan war despite plummeting American confidence and approval in the war.

According to a CNN report U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said polls would not change the strategy in Afghanistan, underscoring the fact that he realizes the American people have tired of war.

"We cannot fight wars by polls. If we do that, we're indeed in trouble," Panetta said in Ottawa, where he was attending a trilateral defense meeting with Canadian and Mexican officials.

"There's no question that the American people have tired of war just like the Afghan people have tired of war," he added before stressing that the U.S. government would continue with its strategy in Afghanistan.

Panetta was responding to a new New York Times/CBS poll showing that 69% of Americans want troops out of Afghanistan.

New York Times/CBS News poll found that 69% of those questioned oppose the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and roughly the same say the fighting is going badly. The numbers are up sharply from four months ago, when a bit more than half opposed the war.
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Leon Panetta: Afghanistan War Can't Be Guided By Polls
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By LOLITA BALDOR 03/27/12

OTTAWA, Ontario — The war in Afghanistan can't be determined by polls, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday, asserting that the U.S. must continue with its strategy in the decade-old conflict despite plummeting American confidence in the war.

Panetta said that there is no question that the American people are tired of war. But, he said, the public understands the U.S. is engaged in Afghanistan because of the attacks on Sept. 11, and to prevent al-Qaida from again finding safe havens there to launch attacks.

"We cannot fight wars by polls. If we do that we're in deep trouble," Panetta told reporters at a press conference after a day of meetings with Canadian and Mexican defense ministers here. "We have to operate based on what we believe is the best strategy to achieve the mission that we are embarked on. And the mission here is to safeguard our country by insuring that the Taliban and al-Qaida never again find a safe haven in Afghanistan."

A New York Times/CBS News poll found that 69 percent of those questioned believe the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan, and roughly the same amount say the fighting is going either somewhat or very badly. The numbers are up sharply from four months ago, when a bit more than half said the U.S. should not be at war in Afghanistan.
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Analysis: Why the aid drawdown in Afghanistan could be a good thing
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PASHTUN KOT, 26 March 2012 (IRIN) - One hillside in Pashtun Kot District in the northern Afghan province of Faryab stands out. Dotted with graves, it is the final resting place for the victims of underdevelopment: Villagers travel from far-off mountains by donkey to bury their dead here - people whose demise was hastened by chronic hunger, undernutrition and lack of access to health care.

The most recent addition, according to a village elder and member of the district `shura’ council, Mullah Najibullah, was a 30-year-old mother of two, victim of a chronic cough and probably an illness she never knew she had.

Villagers here face harsh winters without warm clothes or heaters. They have to walk to the city (Maimana, capital of Faryab Province) to collect water. Hit by drought over the last few years, they sometimes eat only one meal a day. Meat is out of reach for many of these farming communities. Mobile phone coverage is patchy.

While donors have poured US$57 billion into Afghanistan since 2001, much of it into the volatile southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand as part of the international forces’ “hearts and minds” strategy in their fight against insurgents, residents of northern Afghanistan complain they have not benefited fairly from development aid.
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Afghan Civilian Deaths Raise ‘Revenge’ Risks for Troops
By Eltaf Najafizada and James Rupert - Mar 26, 2012
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Public anger over the killing of 17 Afghan civilians, allegedly by a U.S. soldier, may yet spark a backlash against American forces, the governor of the south’s most populous province and tribal elders say.

Anger remains intense in southern Afghanistan after the March 11 incident, presenting what the top U.S. and NATO commander for Afghanistan said yesterday is the “potential” for revenge killings. “It is prudent for us to recognize that, as you know, revenge is an important dimension in this culture,” U.S. Marine General John Allen said at a Pentagon briefing.

U.S. officers in Kandahar province sought to forestall such attacks by offering apologies and financial compensation to the affected families. The payments were $50,000 for each person killed and $11,000 for each of the injured, according to Agha Lalai Dastgiri, a village elder.

Still, ethnic Pashtuns of Afghanistan’s south may be motivated to attack U.S. forces and their international allies “if they feel justice is not being restored,” Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wesa said in an interview at his office yesterday.

An Afghan soldier west of Kandahar, in the adjacent Helmand province, yesterday shot dead two British troops of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, Afghan army General Sayed Malook said in a phone interview. The attack was the first by a member of the Afghan security forces on their international partners since the March 11 shootings.
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[GAP]

Articles found March 29, 2012

The Afghan girls who live as boys
By Tahir Qadiry BBC Persian, Kabul 27 March 2012
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For economic and social reasons, many Afghan parents want to have a son. This preference has led to some of them practising the long-standing tradition of Bacha Posh - disguising girls as boys.

When Azita Rafhat, a former member of the Afghan parliament, gets her daughters ready for school, she dresses one of the girls differently.

Three of her daughters are clothed in white garments and their heads covered with white scarves, but a fourth girl, Mehrnoush, is dressed in a suit and tie. When they get outside, Mehrnoush is no longer a girl but a boy named Mehran.

Azita Rafhat didn't have a son, and to fill the gap and avoid people's taunts for not having a son, she opted for this radical decision. It was very simple, thanks to a haircut and some boyish clothes.

There is even a name for this tradition in Afghanistan - Bacha Posh, or disguising girls as boys.

"When you have a good position in Afghanistan and are well off, people look at you differently. They say your life becomes complete only if you have a son," she says.

There has always been a preference for having sons in Afghanistan, for various economic and social reasons.

Ms Rahfhat's husband, Ezatullah Rafhat, thinks having a son is a symbol of prestige and honour.

"Whoever came [to our house] would say: 'Oh, we're sorry for you not having a son.' So we thought it would be a good idea to disguise our daughter, as she wanted this too."

Azita Rafhat is not the only mother who has decided to do this.

Not girlish
Many girls disguised as boys can be found in Afghan markets. Some families disguise their daughters as boys so that they can easily work on the streets to feed their families.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote


If my parents force me to get married, I will compensate for the sorrows of Afghan women and beat my husband so badly ”

Elaha
Girl who lived as a boy
Some of these girls who introduce themselves as boys sell things like water and chewing gum. They appear to be aged anywhere between about five and 12. None of them would talk to me about their lives as boys.

Girls brought up as boys do not stay like this all their lives. When they turn 17 or 18 they live life as a girl once again - but the change is not so simple.

Elaha lives in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan. She lived as a boy for 20 years because her family didn't have a son and reverted only two years ago when she had to go to university.

However, she does not feel fully female: she says her habits are not girlish and she does not want to get married.

"When I was a kid my parents disguised me as a boy because I didn't have a brother. Until very recently, as a boy, I would go out, play with other boys and have more freedom."
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Afghans lampoon clerics over women ruling
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8 March 2012

After a council of Afghan clerics issued restrictive guidelines for women, later embraced by President Hamid Karzai, young Afghans streamed to social media sites to lampoon the rulings, reports BBC Persian's Tahir Qadiry.

"It's outrageous," wrote one young Afghan on his Facebook page.

"The next thing they'll be saying is that Afghanistan needs to be divided up in two - one half for men and the other half for women."

This was just one of thousands of comments posted on social media sites by young Afghans this week, after their country's top religious council said that men and women should not mix at school, work or in other everyday situations.

When President Hamid Karzai endorsed the council's recommendation at a news conference in Kabul, the Afghan blogosphere went into overdrive.

New sites have been set up to campaign against what critics are calling gender segregation.
Reacting through humour

Some people have expressed deep anger at the religious council's call.

"The government's expenditure is going to rise sharply because they'll have to set up a special parliament for women, and separate universities, banks, and shopping malls," wrote Kabul resident on Facebook. "Maybe, they should just divide the city into special sections for men and women."
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

    Girls are only allowed to access Facebook if they are wearing their burkas! ”

Satirical tweet

    Afghan concern over 'guidelines for women'
    Fears over violence against Afghan women

But others have decided that the best way to react is through humour:

"Ladies, you should not surface on Facebook without a male partner," wrote Mahnaz Afzal, an Afghan woman currently working in London.

"We have asked the Facebook administrators to create separate profiles for women. You are not allowed to 'like' or 'poke' someone on Facebook or you will be cursed."

"Could I please ask the Afghan girls not to comment on my posts unless they have permission from their fathers or husbands or the Ulema council?" one man tweeted.

"Girls are only allowed to access Facebook if they are wearing their burkas!" tweeted another.
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New Photographs about the War in Afghanistan
A Canadian sniper unveils a new collection of photographs about the war in Afghanistan.
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Quebec, Canada (PRWEB) March 28, 2012

"Bombs, blood, explosions, violence, battles, helmeted soldiers, armed Taliban. These are the images of the Afghan conflict that we are accustomed to seeing. And yet, there is much more. There is another side to this country, Another Side of the Lens. Along with soldiers and misfortunes, there are human beings and moments of joy." This is what Olivier Lavigne-Ortiz, a soldier who was deployed twice to the Kandahar region reveals.

Although he had the unique experience of seeing bullets pass by at close proximity, this is not what most marked this Canadian sniper. This is not at all what he wants to show.

"Transcending political disputes and personal opinions, the perception of this conflict and especially of this country are transformed." (Olivier Lavigne-Ortiz) Without glorifying war, the author wishes to honor those who live through and endure it.

For example, the author shows a group of Afghan children playing at sunrise and sunset, or soldiers laying down their weapons and having fun on swings and slides. Other pictures reveal the daily life of Afghan nomads in their tents, who in the winter keep warm using plastic bottles left behind by the Coalition.
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