It was an early morning in August, 5:50 am to be precise, not the time for children to have fun. But youngsters bold enough to risk it had climbed onto the roofs of their mud houses that dot the hills in Kabul.They were looking at a giant, black cloud rising from the ground not far away. Five minutes ago, a car bomb had exploded and sporadic gunshots ripped through the quiet... Full story ...
PAN: The Independent Human Rights Commission (IHRC) on Tuesday said violence against women has been on the increase in eastern provinces, where 49 cases of violence were registered in last three months. “Main reasons behind the increasing violence against women are non-prosecution of culprits and abject poverty,” IHRC director for eastern provinces, Dr. Rafiullah Bidar, told a news con Full story ...
PAN: A mass grave, containing human bones and skulls, has been discovered in the Dehdadi district of northern Balkh province, an official said on Tuesday. The grave was found on Monday in Arzana desert, where a base of the 209th Shaheen Military Corps existed, public relations officer of the Corps, Lt. Col. Muhammad Naeem, told mediamen. Full story ...
PAN: Residents of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of northern Balkh province, say electricity remains suspended for 22 hours a day in the city, but officials promise solving the problem soon. “We have the light for two hours in 24 hours since last six days,” said a resident of Dasht-i-Shor area on the outskirts of the city. Full story ...
The International News Magazine: “In other words – and let’s say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld’s plan – the United States government is planning to use “cover and deception” and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people... Full story ...
Examiner.com: Afghanistan will likely pay a steep price for its “partnership with a reckless superpower”, according to Afghan journalist Akmal Dawi, especially after NATO exits the region in 2014 and forces the Afghans to explain themselves to a host of unfriendly neighbors. U.S. meddling in Afghan affairs for the past forty years has put Kabul unduly at odds with many regional capitals from Tehran to Islamabad... Full story ...
IWPR: Farmers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province say they are determined to grow as much opium poppy as they can this season, if necessary planting the crop in secluded semi-desert areas if their own fields are being watched by the authorities. Some blame official efforts to encourage them to switch to other crops, which they say have failed to lift them out of poverty. Full story ...
Digital Journal: Afghan girls, forced to marry when they are children or teenagers, are being tortured not only by their older husbands, but often by their family or in-laws. Usually it’s for no reason at all except that they are female. Women throughout Afghanistan are suffering domestic abuse, very often at the hands of their own family or in-laws. Full story ...
PAN: Hundreds of prisoners on Wednesday went on hunger strike against a delay in investigation of their cases and poor living conditions in the central jail in northern Takhar province. The jail superintendent, Brig. Gen. Abdul Rab, confirmed 600 inmates had gone on hunger strike. He said they were trying to convince the prisoners into calling off their strike. Full story ...
PAN: Police rescued a teenage married girl who was kept locked-up in a toilet for six months by her in-laws in northern Baghlan province, officials said. The 15-year-old was found locked up-in the toilet after her parents informed police, the second police district chief, Col. Fazal Rahman, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
PAN: Residents of a remote valley in eastern Kunar province on Monday protested against night-time searches of their homes by international troops and Afghan commandos. In front of the provincial council office in Asadabad, a large number of residents of the Shonkray valley in Sarkano district warned of joining opposition forces if the government failed to address their concerns. Full story ...
The New York Times: The 10-year-old war in Afghanistan remained just a blip on the American news media’s radar in 2011. Of all the news content in newspapers and on the Web, television and radio this year, Afghanistan accounted for about 2 percent of coverage, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center. Full story ...
AFP: An explosion at a coal mine in northern Afghanistan has killed 11 people, an official said Saturday. The miners, who were all working at the site without government permission, died after an explosion triggered a collapse at the mine in Baghlan province on Friday night, said the provincial governor's spokesman Mahmood Haqmal. Full story ...
Greeley Gazette: After 10 years of American blood being shed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two countries are ranked in a top 10 list of countries with religious persecution. Open Doors USA, an organization dedicated to helping Christians stand strong in the face of persecution, is set to release its 2012 World Watch List on Jan. 4. Full story ...
CounterPunch: President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday ordered the release of a prominent presidential aide two hours after his arrest on corruption charges, according to two officials in the office of Afghanistan’s attorney general. The release capped a comedy of errors in which the attorney general’s office first announced the arrest of the official, Noorullah Delawari, on corruption charges... Full story ...
The Christian Science Monitor: Before a bomb blast killed his son and injured three of his daughters, hospitalizing two of them, life was anything but easy for Ahmad Shah. Like many in his poor Kabul neighborhood, he eked out enough to survive by pulling a rickshaw-like cart made of scrap wood. Merchants who either had a small load or couldn’t afford a truck hired Mr. Shah to drag their goods across town on his cart. Full story ...
AAP: Insurgents in Oruzgan Province are under such pressure from coalition forces that some are resorting to using children to assemble and transport improvised explosive devices (IEDs), Australia’s troop commander in Afghanistan says. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Smith, commanding officer of the Mentoring Task Force (MTF-3), said the province was mostly under government control but... Full story ...
Babble: My biggest fear when I go into labor is whether or not I will make it to the hospital in time to receive my epidural. I have absolutely no tolerance for pain and am scared to death of having a natural birth. For many women giving birth in the United States, our fears about giving birth may seem rather minimal to a woman giving birth in a developing country. Full story ...
AntiWar.com: In the most high profile admission so far of what has been repeatedly acknowledged in private, Gen. John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, today conceded that the US was ‘probably’ going to keep troops of some sort in the nation beyond 2014. Officially, of course, President Obama insists that the troops will leave in 2014, a date set at a past NATO conference. Full story ...
Los Angeles Times: Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO officials have clashed once again on the issue of nighttime raids by Western forces, this time over an incident that left a pregnant Afghan woman dead. A spokesman for the NATO force, Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, said Monday that the commander of Western troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen... Full story ...
BBC News: US-trained Afghan village police have committed some human rights abuses, a US military inquiry has found. The investigation followed a report by Human Rights Watch that alleged some Afghan Local Police units had committed abuses including rape and murder. Recommendations made by the US investigation include increased human rights training for the ALP, plus stronger oversight. Full story ...
PAN: Truck drivers have accused highways police of taking money from them illegally in southeastern Paktia province. Police manning checkpoints along highways took money from truck drivers for different reasons, owner of a truck, Jamal, told Pajhwok Afghan News. He alleged police on duty on the Khost-Gardez and Gardez-Ghazni highways were more merciless in this regard. Full story ...
IWPR: Armed men stopping and robbing travellers on the highways are a recurrent theme in Afghanistan. But when the groups involved are being paid to provide security, there is clearly a problem. In the southern province of Helmand, people interviewed by IWPR said they were tired of the men working for commercially-run security firms who were making their lives a misery. Full story ...
PAN: The Pakistan Army and intelligence establishment are aiding 28 insurgents groups that are toeing their line, Afghan officials alleged on Wednesday. The Pakistani security agencies were using the militant outfits to achieve the goals that they could not realise themselves, the officials told a media briefing in Kabul. Full story ...
IWPR: Zahra struggled for four years to conceal the violent truth about her daughter’s marriage. Twenty-year-old Nafisa’s husband would beat her repeatedly and throw her out of the house, while her mother Zahra did everything she could to keep the batterings a secret. It was only when Nafisa arrived at her parents’ home with a large black eye... Full story ...
Reuters: She was 15 years old, heavily pregnant and had travelled eight days on the back of a donkey to reach hospital. Suffering from seizures and high blood pressure, she died soon after at the Herat Maternity Hospital in western Afghanistan, one of the thousands of women who die in the country each year from causes linked to pregnancy and birth. Full story ...
Reuters: A controversial scheme that pays and arms Afghans to defend their villages in areas with a strong insurgent presence is likely to be expanded and extended, a senior officer from the NATO-led coalition fighting in Afghanistan has said. The Afghan Local Police (ALP) were a flagship project of General David Petraeus, who stepped down as commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan earlier this year... Full story ...
PAN: Hundreds of people rallied in Kabul on Saturday, International Human Rights Day, calling for trying war criminals. A large number of women took part in the rally organised by the Social Association of Afghan Justice Seekers (SAAJS). Carrying photos of war victims, the demonstrators asked the government to bring to justice people involved in mass murder over the past three decades. Full story ...
PAN: Officials in the central province of Kapisa on Wednesday said French soldiers had acknowledged killing and wounding civilians in a rocket strike earlier in the week. Six civilians were killed and three others wounded on December 3, when a rocket fired by ISAF soldiers hit a civilian house in the Haibatkhel area of Tagab district. Full story ...
BBC News: At least 19 Afghan civilians have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province, said officials. The incident occurred in the province’s volatile Sangin district - a Taliban stronghold - Helmand spokesman Daud Ahmadi said. The dead are said to include women and children, many from the same family. Full story ...
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