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September 7, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: The stooped and withdrawn 18-year-old breathed painfully as he relived the day last month when shrapnel from a missile ripped through his lung and bowels. "I was just a few steps outside my front gate when about eight rockets landed," he says, sitting in a hospital in the provincial capital of Helmand, bandages around his chest. "I was hit and ran into the house where women and children were yelling because a rocket had also landed on one of the rooms." Full news...
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September 7, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Xinhua: Unknown armed men shot dead a woman worked outside home in Kandahar province the birthplace of Taliban in south Afghanistan on Monday, police said. "Unidentified armed men opened fire on Ms. Latifa, 21, in Kandahar city this morning, killing her on the spot," police chief of southern region Ghulam Ali Wahdat told Xinhua. Worked as in-charge of tailoring project in Women Affairs Department, the late Latifa, was on her way home when two armed men riding a motorbike opened fire and killed her. Full news...
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September 6, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Mirror.co.uk: A traumatised soldier who saw one of his friends die in Afghanistan says he was told by Army bosses to "get p****d and have a fight" to get over it. Sapper Martin Lindley, 22, says it showed the Army's lack of support as he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. Eventually he was kicked out of the Army after going off the rails. And he has not been able to get a job as he drinks a litre of vodka a night to block out his memories of the war in Afghanistan. Full news...
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September 5, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of Chahar Dara district in northern Kunduz province say more than 150 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded in Friday's air strike by NATO-led forces. The bombing in Haji Aman village came as insurgents and residents emptied oil into jerry canes from tankers hijacked by Taliban militants from the Kunduz-Baghlan Highway. Inhabitants of the area told Pajhwok Afghan News all those killed in the bombardment were civilians and there were no Taliban at the site at the time the attack took place. Full news...
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September 3, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Human rights groups are calling on the Afghan government to adopt a new law which would more clearly differentiate rape, a criminal offence, from consensual adultery, considered a serious crime in the country. "Rape and adultery are two different issues and should be separate in law. Rape is an act of violence and coercion and the inflicting of suffering on a victim, and is not consensual, whereas adultery is consensual, freely chosen," Sonya Merkova, a researcher at London-based Amnesty International, told IRIN. Full news...
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August 27, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: A blast has been reported in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a day after the country's deadliest bombing for a year killed some 43 people there. The explosion was reported close to the site of Tuesday's car bomb attack. There are reports of casualties. A local official told the BBC the injured were being taken to hospital. "This is a terrorist attack but we are trying to find out more details," a senior government official in the city told the BBC. Full news...
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August 26, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Rescue workers Wednesday sifted through the rubble of the deadliest bombing in Afghanistan for a year as signs of poor election turnout pointed to the success of Taliban intimidation. With the Taliban-led insurgency at record levels, the Islamist rebels were blamed for setting off a truck bomb in the heart of southern city Kandahar, killing up to 43 people and injuring 65, almost all civilians. The bomb blew up near a Japanese construction company, a guest house used by foreigners and government offices. Full news...
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August 25, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Aljazeera.net: An Afghan journalist has been killed by gunmen in northwest Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, officals and colleagues have said. Janullah Hashimzada, 40, was returning from Afghanistan on a bus when fighters ambushed the vehicle on Monday near Jamrud in the Khyber tribal district. Taliban fighters are known to operate in the area where he was killed. Rehan Gul Khatok, an assistant administrative agent in Jamrud, told the AFP news agency: "Unidentified gunmen stopped his coach, pulled him out and shot him dead." Full news...
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August 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RAWA News: Buried in the public relations blather of U.S. Marine legions “liberating” Helmand and Afghan (sham) “elections” as democracy-restored is an unspoken trade-off over who disproportionately dies in America’s modern wars in the Third World. Under George W. Bush, U.S politico-military elites chose to fight the Afghan war with minimal regard for so-called collateral casualties. But the soaring toll of killed Afghan civilians swayed world public opinion and stoked the Afghan resistance as grieved Afghan family members sought revenge. Full news...
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August 21, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Foreign Policy: So it finally happened. The election that we've been waiting for and looking forward to at least since last winter took place yesterday all over the country. I'll refrain from writing anything about the rest of the country. I'll just be talking about the things in Kandahar that I saw and was able to confirm from here on the ground. There weren't so many foreign journalists down here and most are unlikely to publish detailed accounts of what happened and the things that they saw; NPR decided not to run a piece on the election down here, judging that "one piece from Kabul was enough." Full news...
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August 21, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: Call it the mystery of the invisible voters. At one polling station in Nad-e-Ali, just over 400 people had voted by 1pm. Three hours later, the figure had apparently surged to some 1,200. This despite the fact the streets were empty, all shops and businesses were shut and an Afghan army officer saying his men standing guard had hardly seen any civilians heading to these particular voting booths. Full news...
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August 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Politics.co.uk: The legitimacy of this week's crucial Afghanistan elections has been called into question, after the full price Britain's soldiers are paying to provide security for the poll was revealed yesterday. It emerged this morning that bribes have been offered to buy votes and that voting cards have been put up for sale. An undercover Afghan journalist working for the BBC discovered he could purchase voting cards at £6 per card. Full news...
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August 15, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Amnesty International: Days before the Afghan presidential elections, journalists from thirteen provinces in Afghanistan have told Amnesty International that they had recently been threatened by Afghan government officials because of their critical reporting. At the same time, the Taliban and other anti-government groups have also stepped up attacks against journalists and blocked nearly all reporting from areas under their control. Full news...
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August 14, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work. Full news...
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August 13, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Los Angeles Times: Mirza Mohammed Dost stood at the foot of his son's grave, near a headstone that read, "Raheb Dost, martyred by Americans." His son was no insurgent, Dost said. He was walking home from prayers on the night of May 5 when he was shot and killed on a busy Kabul street by U.S. security contractors. "The Americans must answer for my son's death," Dost said as a large crowd of young men murmured in approval. Full news...
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August 12, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Inter-Parliamentary Union: In early July 2009, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) published a report on the situation of women in Afghanistan entitled Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan. The report describes and denounces the pervasive violence against women in Afghanistan, which unfortunately has been allowed to continue almost unabated since the demise of the Taliban regime and has crushed hopes for a better life for women in the country. The report focuses on sexual violence and on violence that inhibits the participation of women in public life. Full news...
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August 10, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Three civilians were killed and fourth injured in an air strike by NATO-led troops in Chora district of southern Uruzgan province, officials said on Monday. Deputy police chief Col. Mohammad Nabi Khan told Pajhwok Afghan News the people came under attack in Sanger village soon after they climbed a mound to make a call from their mobile. Full news...
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August 6, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CBC: Five farmers were killed by an air strike from Western forces, Afghan police said Thursday. The farmers were loading cucumbers into a taxi in the rural Zhari district near Kandahar city when a military helicopter fired on them, said district police Chief Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi. Sarhadi alleged the strike was conducted by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Lt.-Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker said the U.S. military believes the air strike hit a group of militants loading munitions into a van. Full news...
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August 5, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Four civilians three of them children - were killed during an attack of foreign troops Tuesday night in Arghandab district of southern Kandahar province, civilians said. Dozens of protesting villagers brought the bodies this morning from their village to the governor's house in Kandahar City, about 12 kilometers away. Full news...
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August 5, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Democracy Now: US Army Specialist Victor Agosto faces up to one month in jail for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. After returning from thirteen months in Iraq, Agosto became a victim of the stop-loss program that has extended the tours of more than 140,000 troops beyond their contracts since 9/11. Just hours before his court-martial, Agosto speaks out from his military base at Fort Hood, Texas. [includes rush transcript] Full news...
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August 4, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Amnesty International: As the Afghan people prepare to go to the polls in elections on 20 August, Amnesty International today published a Ten-Point Agenda for Human Rights in Afghanistan, targeting the 38 presidential candidates, in a bid to improve the country’s desperate human rights situation. “We have spoken to many Afghan citizens who expressed frustration and anger towards the Afghan government’s apparent indifference to human rights,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International Director for Asia-Pacific. Full news...
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July 31, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: More than 1,000 people were killed in the first six months of 2009, according to a UN report. The UN blamed insurgents for using increasingly deadly modes of attack. It also said air strikes by government-allied forces were responsible. There has been widespread concern in Afghanistan about civilian death tolls. In June the US military called for better training in an effort to reduce the numbers of civilian deaths. Full news...
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July 30, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Inter Press Service: Being powerful in Afghanistan does not only mean that you can break the laws of government. It also means that you can abuse your fellow citizens in the most awful ways and never be punished. The rich and powerful in Afghanistan are known to rape women and young girls with impunity. The government's inability to stop these horrors have only encouraged those in positions of authority to continue abusing Afghanistan's most vulnerable. Full news...
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July 29, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Inter Press Service: The strategy of the major U.S. and British military offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province aimed at wresting it from the Taliban is based on bringing back Afghan army and police to maintain permanent control of the population, so the foreign forces can move on to another insurgent stronghold. But that strategy poses an acute problem: The police in the province, who are linked to the local warlord, have committed systematic abuses against the population, including the abduction and rape of pre-teen boys, according to village elders who met with British officers. Full news...
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July 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: I am not sure how many more days I will be alive," Malalai Joya says quietly. The warlords who make up the new "democratic" government in Afghanistan have been sending bullets and bombs to kill this tiny 30-year-old from the refugee camps for years – and they seem to be getting closer with every attempt. The story of Malalai Joya turns everything we have been told about Afghanistan inside out. In the official rhetoric, she is what we have been fighting for. Full news...
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July 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Quqnoos: The sixth-grade schoolchild who has been working part time at a tailoring shop in Baghlan-e Markazi district told Quqnoos that nephew of the district governor, Amir Gul, kidnapped and raped him nearly two weeks ago. “They took me and fasten my mouth, eyes and feet and then did the thing to me,” the boy, Ahmad, (not his real name) described. “I went to governor with my letter, he took me to a private room and said that this [the rape] issue can be resolved in gathering with elders, not the government, so don’t disgrace me,” Ahmad’s father described the behavior of the governor. Full news...
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July 25, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: Afghanistan's people are trapped between powerful enemies, according to Malalai Joya, an outspoken member of the Afghan parliament. Ms Joya named those "enemies" as Nato forces who bomb from the sky, the resurgent Islamists of the Taliban, and the country's "warlords". Speaking to anti-war activists in London she insisted Afghans were capable of governing themselves. Ms Joya technically remains an MP, but has been suspended since 2007, on charges of insulting the parliament after she compared it to a zoo. Full news...
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July 24, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
McClatchy Newspapers: As the United States steps up its civilian presence in Kabul, residents of the ancient capital say they're beginning to feel like a city under siege. Huge intimidating convoys of armored SUVs now are common sights in the city's growing traffic jams. Newly erected concrete barriers block off many buildings from nearby thoroughfares. Nearly every day, there's some incident involving security teams pointing guns out of windows at frightened commuters. Full news...
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July 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: After regular beatings, torture and attempted murder by her husband, 35-year-old Zahra tried to burn herself to death to escape her marriage. Then she learned of a safer option: divorce. Zahra is among a growing number of women in Afghanistan's western Herat province who, with the help of a women's charity, have taken on patriarchal laws to get a divorce, a taboo in the devoutly Muslim, formerly Taliban-led state. Full news...
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July 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: Having survived five assassination attempts, if there is one thing the Afghan woman is, it is brave. Her story is inextricably linked to the recent history of her country. Through her own determination she has become part of its legend; first as a teacher in the refugee camps of Pakistan, then as an activist covertly running schools for girls in Herat during the Taliban years. Politicised beyond her years she was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 as its youngest member. Full news...
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