The Killd Group: Far from providing shelter for the poor, a housing project bankrolled by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has been appropriated by the government. A Killid investigation. Documents in Killid’s possession, including a letter dated Feb 2, 2014, show 64 percent of the apartments in the 179-million USD Qasabah housing project – also called Amarat Township to honour the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – has been shared among office and domestic staff of the president and two vice-presidents. Full story ...
RT: An Afghan mother, enraged by the Taliban’s fatal shooting of her policeman son, has allegedly helped to kill 25 militants. She rushed to a police outpost near her home upon hearing gunfire, before her adrenalin took over and she “began to shoot back.” The incident happened early in the morning on November 17 in the Balabolok district, in the Farah province of western Afghanistan, near the border with Iran. Full story ...
At least 30 people were injured after a bomb explosion at a mosque in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province on Friday. Those injured included the Mullah of the mosque, as officials said the explosives were planted under his seat and blew up while he was delivering the Friday sermon in Khogyani district’s mosque. Full story ...
IWPR: Participants in recent IWPR-organised debates in Afghanistan identified corruption as the most enduring legacy of ex-president Hamed Karzai and the post-Taleban era. Residents of Badghis, Baghlan and Kapisa provinces accused the government of being unable to fight massive corruption in these three provinces because it was itself mired in graft. Full story ...
American Free Press: The United States has been gradually withdrawing troops from Afghanistan since 2011. According to President Barack Hussein Obama, only 9,800 “peacekeeping” troops will remain by the end of December, and all the troops are supposed to be gone by the end of 2016, ending the longest war in American history. But what exactly are we still doing in Afghanistan after 13 years and why did we really go there in the first place? Full story ...
Busines Insider Australia: Afghanistan’s new president has quietly gotten rid of the country’s ban on controversial night raids that are used to catch Taliban insurgents off-guard, The New York Times reports. The country’s previous president, Hamid Karzai, had mostly banned the raids even though the US government has said they’re key to catching insurgents. Full story ...
PAN: The death toll from Sunday’s suicide bombing during a volleyball match in southeastern Paktika province has risen to 61, with more than 66 wounded, officials said. The suicide bomber detonated his explosives as he mingled with the large crowd watching a volleyball match between the Yahyakhel and Yusufkhel districts as part of an inter-district volleyball tournament in the Yahyakhel district at around 4:30 pm. Full story ...
IWPR: Afghan security officials say Pakistan’s armed forces have fired nearly 6,000 rockets into the eastern Kunar province just in the past six months. Police say 14 civilians have been killed and more than 70 injured over that time, and over 1,000 families displaced from the worst-hit areas in the Dangam, Shaigal, Marawara and Sirkanay districts. Full story ...
RFE/RL: An Afghan independent corruption watchdog says the usurpation of state and private land has been "a significant problem" for Afghanistan over the past decade. The Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee issued a report on November 19, saying nearly a quarter of a million hectares of land have been usurped during the last 10 years. Full story ...
The Huffington Post: It was five years ago today that Richard Colvin delivered his explosive testimony to a House of Commons committee examining Canada’s role in the torture of Afghan detainees. Colvin, a diplomat at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), had served in Afghanistan for 17 months, first as a senior representative at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team run by Canada, and later as the acting ambassador in Kabul. Full story ...
PAN: Two women have been killed in northern Faryab province, increasing the number of females killed in the province this solar year to 18. Faryab crime branch police chief Col. Sarbeland Hasham told Pajhwok Afghan News a 37-year-old woman had been shot to death with a pistol in the Pashtunkot district. Full story ...
The Killid Group: Government fails to pay Breshna bills The new government has promised to solve the country’s chronic power shortage. But state electricity supplier Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat says it is owed millions of Afghanis by government offices. Public entities and offices owe the company 9 million Afs (155,600 USD) of its nearly 12 million Afs (207,500 USD) outstanding receipts. Full story ...
TOLOnews.com: Two young girls, one 12-years-old and one only three, were abducted and raped in Takhar province in just the past week, local officials have confirmed. The parents of the 12-year-old girl, who live in the Yangi Qala district, said their daughter was abducted by armed men late at night six days ago, then taken somewhere and raped. Full story ...
The New York Times: Some call them “the men who sit on golden chairs” — Afghan customs officials who preside over a vast ecosystem of bribery that stretches from dusty border crossings to the capital. They have become fabulously wealthy by depriving their aid-dependent treasury of at least 500 million USD a year, according to the most conservative foreign estimates. Full story ...
IRIN: Abdullah’s wails of pain are punctuated only by his rasping cough. His arms bound to his body, he is five months old but weighs just 3.2kg, lighter than some newborns. In the next bed, three-month old Shukoria looks withered and worn, her face wrinkled and pained. Both are suffering from malnutrition, which affects more than 40 percent of Afghan children, killing thousands every year and leaving millions with permanent disabilities. Full story ...
RT: How does the military lose half a billion dollars worth of equipment in one year? That’s the question Pentagon auditors are asking after it was revealed that US military equipment worth 420 million USD went missing in action in Afghanistan last year. According to a recent Pentagon report, 156,000 pieces of hardware, including sophisticated weapons systems, vehicles and communications gear vanished into thin air in fiscal year 2013. Full story ...
The Killid Group: Acting ministers in corruption net The High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption (HOOAC) has sent 355 dossiers to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) that includes 21 dossiers of high ranking officials including acting ministers in the new government. Rashid Tota Khel, the head of secretariat in HOOAC, says 1,604 complaints were received since 2008 and all were registered. Full story ...
...victim has called on President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to ensure the perpetrators are tried as they face death threats from the armed gang. The woman was gang-raped a group of eight men in northeastern badakhshan province of Afghanistan five years ago, Tolo News reported on Monday.... Full story ...
PAN: The Ministry of Information and Culture on Monday asked all TV channels to avoid running commercial advertisements featuring female models. In a statement, the ministry said women’s position and status was being misused in such ads aimed at enticing costumers. All media outlets were asked to avoid airing commercials that featured women. Full story ...
IWPR: Rights groups in central Afghanistan have raised concerns about a rising tide of violence against women in this part of the country. About 100 people, mainly women, met in the town of Bamyan on September 28 to quiz local officials and rights organisations on what action they were taking against a rising tide of violence against women in this part of Afghanistan. Full story ...
PAN: A spacious ancient stone room has been discovered in the Araban area of Jalrez district in central Maidan Wardak province, officials said on Thursday. Locals initially noticed a small hole in a mountain where they were quarrying stones, Attaullah Khogyani, the governor’s spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
PAN: Increasing rocket and magnetic bomb attacks have worried Kabul residents, who believe lack of deterrence and coordination among security forces allows such assaults. This last week saw six magnetic bombs exploding and as many rockets landing in the heavily-fortified central capital, leaving four people dead and 16 others wounded. Full story ...
The Huffington Post: Anti-war campaigners said the UK’s mission in Afghanistan had failed and had left a legacy of tens of thousands of civilian deaths as well as a series of unanswered questions. British troops today handed Camp Bastion over to Afghan forces - bringing to an end their bloody campaign in Helmand province - by lowering the Union Jack for the last time. Full story ...
Khaama Press: An Afghan woman named Zahra ran away with a young man after her father forced her to marry a 65-year-old villager. She and her lover were caught after almost two years and both were jailed for adultery. Adultery is prohibited in Islam and Afghanistan is a country with 99% people. Full story ...
International Business Times: The Obama Administration has been given a December deadline to explain why it has withheld more than 2,000 graphic images depicting Iraqi and Afghanistan detainees being tortured by the US military. A federal judge has ordered the US government to explain, one photograph at a time, why it blocked the images from being released to the public. Full story ...
Reuters: Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has hit an all-time high despite years of counter-narcotics efforts that have cost the US 7.6bn USD (4.7bn GBP), according to a US government watchdog. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that Afghan farmers grew an “unprecedented” 209,000 hectares (523,000 acres) of opium poppy in 2013, surpassing the previous high of 193,000 hectares in 2007, said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. Full story ...
The Killid Group: While the process of disarming local commanders has stretched over six years little has changed on the ground in Kunduz, Ghazni and Bamyan. Locals complain of harassment and extortion at the hands of armed gunmen - both individuals and members of the Afghan Local Police (ALP). Full story ...
Stars and Stripes: Mohammad Wazir is 12. Or maybe 13. He doesn’t know for sure. One thing is certain: Growing up in rural Helmand province, Mohammad has seen more war than anyone should, let alone a young boy. Full story ...
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Afghanistan is the most drone bombed country in the world. The US has been using its Predator and Reaper drones to kill people in Afghanistan since November 2001. Research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, featured this week in a report by the Remote Control project, has found more than 1,000 drone attacks hit the country from the start of 2008 to t Full story ...
Cicero Magazine: The correspondence between the chief of the US watchdog on Afghanistan reconstruction and the administrator of the UN’s development agency over a trust fund bankrolling the Afghan police force is an entertaining read. In a series of letters, John Sopko, special inspector general, alleged that the UN agency mismanaged the trust fund, known as LOTFA, allowing the Afghan interior ministry to milk 200 million USD in “deductions.” Full story ...
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