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First I've heard of anything like this - ziss really so?
Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081801441.html
Afghan City's Rebound Cut Short: Battles Between NATO Forces, Resurgent Taliban Make Ghost Town of Kandahar
Pamela Constable, Washington Post Foreign Service, August 19, 2006
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Less than a year ago, this was a city on the rebound after years of conflict, drought and political isolation. Business was booming with an influx of international development aid, shops stayed open late, markets burst with locally grown fruit and traffic snarled hopelessly much of the time.
Today Kandahar is a ghost town, braced for the next suicide bomb and full of refugees from rural districts where Taliban insurgents are battling Afghan and NATO forces. Streets are all but empty of vehicles, foreign aid offices are reduced to skeleton crews and shoppers hurry home before dark instead of lingering at tea shops.
As 10,000 NATO troops fan across southern Afghanistan seeking to contain and quash the rapidly growing insurgency, Kandahar -- both the religious birthplace of the Taliban militia and the homeland of President Hamid Karzai -- seems to symbolize the dashed hopes and angry confusion that have gripped much of Afghanistan's Pashtun tribal belt.
Many residents say they hate and fear the Taliban fighters, who occupy villages, demand food and vehicles, sabotage summer grape harvests, burn down girls' schools and execute district administrators as spies. On the highway through town, drivers rush past the spot where suicide bombers blew up a van of translators bound for a U.S. military base several months ago, killing 13 people.
But people here also express deep disappointment in the Karzai government, saying it has failed to bring security or services to a region that expected much of its president and native son. They also resent the foreign military forces that have raided their homes and bombed their villages and yet have been unable to stop the insurgents. Last month, the region's military command passed from the United States to NATO, but residents of Kandahar are skeptical that the new troops can do any better.
"The Taliban keep appearing from nowhere, and we are not sure if NATO will be strong enough to defeat them," said Fariba Ahmad, 32, a member of parliament from Kandahar, who said she must cover with a veil now to protect herself on the street. "People feel so hopeless and frustrated with the government that some support the Taliban, because they have nowhere else to turn."
The danger is much greater outside this provincial capital, especially in districts such as Panjwai, a grape-growing area about 30 miles west, which has been the scene of near-constant fighting all summer. Many families fled the district in May after a fierce battle between Taliban and pro-government forces led to a U.S. airstrike that killed 16 civilians as well as numerous insurgents.
"The Taliban told us to leave or we would be killed, and then the American bombs destroyed everything. I am angry at both of them," said Shah Bibi, 55, whose family escaped Panjwai on tractors and now occupies a ruined mud compound in the city, without water or electricity. The family brought its guard dog and a crib for the youngest child but had to leave behind its sheep and cows.
"I don't know what became of them," she said with a worried frown.
A different kind of refugee from the fighting is Zahir Akhund, 48, a former longtime Taliban member from Panjwai who recently entered the Afghan government's reconciliation program. He said he had joined the Taliban during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s, resigned during a short-lived general amnesty in 2002 but rejoined the militia last year after he and other former fighters were harassed by Afghan security agencies.
Akhund's story could not be independently verified, but it seemed consistent with other accounts explaining the Taliban militia's recent revival, including its sources of support in neighboring Pakistan, its tactical alliance with opium traffickers and its punitive pressure on members who seek to return to civilian life.
Akhund said he had spent the past year in the border regions of Pakistan, where he described senior Taliban figures as operating freely and working with Pakistani intelligence agencies. He said he and his men were given money and weapons and sent into Afghanistan to fight, sometimes acting as guides for Pakistani suicide bombers.
"I didn't want to do these things, but the Pakistanis told us if we did not come back here and fight, we would be arrested and turned over to the Americans," said Akhund, who lives with his family in a rented room in Kandahar. "Now I can't go back to Pakistan. But I can't go back to my village either, because the Taliban there would kill me."
Officials of the reconciliation program said there were several hundred other local Taliban members who would be willing to quit fighting, if only the government could find the resources to provide them with shelter, jobs and protection.
Akhund and the officials said Taliban leaders constantly pressured wavering fighters to return to the fray, alternately offering money and threatening death. They also said that while still motivated by Islamic beliefs, the insurgents had moderated their strict policies to win local support, no longer punishing men for wearing short beards, listening to music or holding popular bird fights.
Village elders from Panjwai said that it might be possible to negotiate a truce with local Taliban members but that attempts would be thwarted by their hard-line leaders or backers in Pakistan.
Karzai and other Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of supporting and promoting cross-border infiltration by Taliban insurgents. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has strongly denied the allegations and pointed out that he has deployed more than 70,000 troops to patrol the volatile border areas. But few in Kandahar believe that Pakistan is sincere.
"We are tribal people, and a meeting is always the best way to solve things, but it can only work among Afghans," said one elder, Din Mohammed. "Those in control are not from here, and they don't want to sit down and talk. It is up to the foreign forces to deal with them. But now all the people are asking, if the foreigners were able to defeat the Taliban in one month in 2001, why can't they do it now?"
Officials of the NATO military mission, based in Kabul, said their troops have been scattered across the south, with intense fighting in Helmand province. They said that although an ambitious, final U.S.-led operation this summer killed nearly 800 Taliban fighters, it also revealed how large and committed the insurgency has become.
"The Taliban used to be mostly hit and run, but now they have certain areas they want to fight for and keep," said one NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that Kandahar city was still considered relatively safe and that NATO forces in the province were focusing on certain rural areas, which they hope to secure and spread out from -- as the Taliban is trying to do.
Today, the Panjwai district is at the heart of that struggle. A suicide bomber killed 21 people there two weeks ago while approaching a NATO patrol in the central market, and refugees in Kandahar said Taliban fighters were moving freely among its villages, preventing grapes from being harvested, while about 1,000 families have fled the area.
The city has suffered, too. Businessmen, who invested in hotels, restaurants or appliance stores as the city began springing back to life after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, said they have incurred heavy losses as foreign visitors and aid workers have been evacuated, the rebuilt highway to Kabul has become too dangerous to travel and Kandahar's feisty spirit has succumbed to fear.
"A year ago, I had a waiting list and was taking in $50,000 a month. Now I am lucky if I have 10 rooms occupied, and my income is $5,000 a month," said Nasir Ahmad, who invested $2 million to build a luxury guesthouse in 2002. "Business from A to Z is zero, the government is zero, security is zero. The Taliban are everywhere, and we are just waiting in the hope that NATO will push them back."
Provincial officials said it was crucial to move forcefully against the insurgency now, before the region comes to a complete economic standstill and the flow of development aid and investment, already reduced to a trickle, dries up. In addition to NATO, they said, the Afghan police and army need to be strengthened and expanded.
"We need more soldiers, more ammunition, a powerful punch to finish them off," said Daud Ahmedi, a media official for the province. "The line is very clear now. This fight is between the democrats and the fundamentalists. If we do not kill the fundamentalists, they will kill us."
But for some people in this region of conservative tribal ways and religious values, the distinction may not seem so simple. Many residents of Kandahar knew and supported the Taliban in the 1990s and may still come closer to its views than to those of the Karzai government, which includes Westernized technocrats and promotes women's rights.
"The Taliban were good Muslims, and when they were here our business was good," said Abdul Ahad, 50, who was selling grapes on the sidewalk. "Since the infidels came to power, what have we gotten besides television? What we need is security and an improved religion so we can build our society according to Islam."
As a reporter was speaking with Ahad next to his basket of grapes, a man in a dark suit approached her driver and whispered urgently that she should get back in the car. "The security situation is too dangerous now," the plainclothes officer said, turning to her with an apologetic smile. "On the street, we cannot be responsible for your life."
Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081801441.html
Afghan City's Rebound Cut Short: Battles Between NATO Forces, Resurgent Taliban Make Ghost Town of Kandahar
Pamela Constable, Washington Post Foreign Service, August 19, 2006
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Less than a year ago, this was a city on the rebound after years of conflict, drought and political isolation. Business was booming with an influx of international development aid, shops stayed open late, markets burst with locally grown fruit and traffic snarled hopelessly much of the time.
Today Kandahar is a ghost town, braced for the next suicide bomb and full of refugees from rural districts where Taliban insurgents are battling Afghan and NATO forces. Streets are all but empty of vehicles, foreign aid offices are reduced to skeleton crews and shoppers hurry home before dark instead of lingering at tea shops.
As 10,000 NATO troops fan across southern Afghanistan seeking to contain and quash the rapidly growing insurgency, Kandahar -- both the religious birthplace of the Taliban militia and the homeland of President Hamid Karzai -- seems to symbolize the dashed hopes and angry confusion that have gripped much of Afghanistan's Pashtun tribal belt.
Many residents say they hate and fear the Taliban fighters, who occupy villages, demand food and vehicles, sabotage summer grape harvests, burn down girls' schools and execute district administrators as spies. On the highway through town, drivers rush past the spot where suicide bombers blew up a van of translators bound for a U.S. military base several months ago, killing 13 people.
But people here also express deep disappointment in the Karzai government, saying it has failed to bring security or services to a region that expected much of its president and native son. They also resent the foreign military forces that have raided their homes and bombed their villages and yet have been unable to stop the insurgents. Last month, the region's military command passed from the United States to NATO, but residents of Kandahar are skeptical that the new troops can do any better.
"The Taliban keep appearing from nowhere, and we are not sure if NATO will be strong enough to defeat them," said Fariba Ahmad, 32, a member of parliament from Kandahar, who said she must cover with a veil now to protect herself on the street. "People feel so hopeless and frustrated with the government that some support the Taliban, because they have nowhere else to turn."
The danger is much greater outside this provincial capital, especially in districts such as Panjwai, a grape-growing area about 30 miles west, which has been the scene of near-constant fighting all summer. Many families fled the district in May after a fierce battle between Taliban and pro-government forces led to a U.S. airstrike that killed 16 civilians as well as numerous insurgents.
"The Taliban told us to leave or we would be killed, and then the American bombs destroyed everything. I am angry at both of them," said Shah Bibi, 55, whose family escaped Panjwai on tractors and now occupies a ruined mud compound in the city, without water or electricity. The family brought its guard dog and a crib for the youngest child but had to leave behind its sheep and cows.
"I don't know what became of them," she said with a worried frown.
A different kind of refugee from the fighting is Zahir Akhund, 48, a former longtime Taliban member from Panjwai who recently entered the Afghan government's reconciliation program. He said he had joined the Taliban during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s, resigned during a short-lived general amnesty in 2002 but rejoined the militia last year after he and other former fighters were harassed by Afghan security agencies.
Akhund's story could not be independently verified, but it seemed consistent with other accounts explaining the Taliban militia's recent revival, including its sources of support in neighboring Pakistan, its tactical alliance with opium traffickers and its punitive pressure on members who seek to return to civilian life.
Akhund said he had spent the past year in the border regions of Pakistan, where he described senior Taliban figures as operating freely and working with Pakistani intelligence agencies. He said he and his men were given money and weapons and sent into Afghanistan to fight, sometimes acting as guides for Pakistani suicide bombers.
"I didn't want to do these things, but the Pakistanis told us if we did not come back here and fight, we would be arrested and turned over to the Americans," said Akhund, who lives with his family in a rented room in Kandahar. "Now I can't go back to Pakistan. But I can't go back to my village either, because the Taliban there would kill me."
Officials of the reconciliation program said there were several hundred other local Taliban members who would be willing to quit fighting, if only the government could find the resources to provide them with shelter, jobs and protection.
Akhund and the officials said Taliban leaders constantly pressured wavering fighters to return to the fray, alternately offering money and threatening death. They also said that while still motivated by Islamic beliefs, the insurgents had moderated their strict policies to win local support, no longer punishing men for wearing short beards, listening to music or holding popular bird fights.
Village elders from Panjwai said that it might be possible to negotiate a truce with local Taliban members but that attempts would be thwarted by their hard-line leaders or backers in Pakistan.
Karzai and other Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of supporting and promoting cross-border infiltration by Taliban insurgents. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has strongly denied the allegations and pointed out that he has deployed more than 70,000 troops to patrol the volatile border areas. But few in Kandahar believe that Pakistan is sincere.
"We are tribal people, and a meeting is always the best way to solve things, but it can only work among Afghans," said one elder, Din Mohammed. "Those in control are not from here, and they don't want to sit down and talk. It is up to the foreign forces to deal with them. But now all the people are asking, if the foreigners were able to defeat the Taliban in one month in 2001, why can't they do it now?"
Officials of the NATO military mission, based in Kabul, said their troops have been scattered across the south, with intense fighting in Helmand province. They said that although an ambitious, final U.S.-led operation this summer killed nearly 800 Taliban fighters, it also revealed how large and committed the insurgency has become.
"The Taliban used to be mostly hit and run, but now they have certain areas they want to fight for and keep," said one NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that Kandahar city was still considered relatively safe and that NATO forces in the province were focusing on certain rural areas, which they hope to secure and spread out from -- as the Taliban is trying to do.
Today, the Panjwai district is at the heart of that struggle. A suicide bomber killed 21 people there two weeks ago while approaching a NATO patrol in the central market, and refugees in Kandahar said Taliban fighters were moving freely among its villages, preventing grapes from being harvested, while about 1,000 families have fled the area.
The city has suffered, too. Businessmen, who invested in hotels, restaurants or appliance stores as the city began springing back to life after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, said they have incurred heavy losses as foreign visitors and aid workers have been evacuated, the rebuilt highway to Kabul has become too dangerous to travel and Kandahar's feisty spirit has succumbed to fear.
"A year ago, I had a waiting list and was taking in $50,000 a month. Now I am lucky if I have 10 rooms occupied, and my income is $5,000 a month," said Nasir Ahmad, who invested $2 million to build a luxury guesthouse in 2002. "Business from A to Z is zero, the government is zero, security is zero. The Taliban are everywhere, and we are just waiting in the hope that NATO will push them back."
Provincial officials said it was crucial to move forcefully against the insurgency now, before the region comes to a complete economic standstill and the flow of development aid and investment, already reduced to a trickle, dries up. In addition to NATO, they said, the Afghan police and army need to be strengthened and expanded.
"We need more soldiers, more ammunition, a powerful punch to finish them off," said Daud Ahmedi, a media official for the province. "The line is very clear now. This fight is between the democrats and the fundamentalists. If we do not kill the fundamentalists, they will kill us."
But for some people in this region of conservative tribal ways and religious values, the distinction may not seem so simple. Many residents of Kandahar knew and supported the Taliban in the 1990s and may still come closer to its views than to those of the Karzai government, which includes Westernized technocrats and promotes women's rights.
"The Taliban were good Muslims, and when they were here our business was good," said Abdul Ahad, 50, who was selling grapes on the sidewalk. "Since the infidels came to power, what have we gotten besides television? What we need is security and an improved religion so we can build our society according to Islam."
As a reporter was speaking with Ahad next to his basket of grapes, a man in a dark suit approached her driver and whispered urgently that she should get back in the car. "The security situation is too dangerous now," the plainclothes officer said, turning to her with an apologetic smile. "On the street, we cannot be responsible for your life."
