AFP: TWO Afghan women were killed in an operation in eastern Afghanistan that also left 17 insurgents dead, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said today. Local officials had previously said that two women and a child died in the fighting late Tuesday in the Dangam district of Kunar province. “The security forces returned fire, killing the insurgent and what turned out to be two women he was hiding behind,” an ISAF statement said. Full story ...
The Wall Street Journal: Government officials in northern Afghanistan are building up their own ethnic-based militia groups to expand their influence and keep the Taliban at bay. But the spread of mostly Tajik and Uzbek militias is aggravating tensions with local Pashtuns—the country’s largest ethnic group but a minority in the north—some of whom say they are being driven to turn to the Taliban... Full story ...
Xinhua: Air pollution in Afghan big cities particularly the capital city Kabul has reached alarming point as head of National Environment Directorate, Mustafa warned last Sunday of dire consequences if air pollution is not checked. “Living condition would become impossible within the next seven years if the status quo of air pollution continues in Kabul and other major towns,” Zahir said... Full story ...
IRIN: One irony of the current security situation in Afghanistan is that foreign forces, whose ostensible aim is to protect civilians while fighting the Taliban, may be responsible - directly or indirectly - for the bulk of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country, whose number is rising. Full story ...
Media Monitors Network: “The purpose for which Afghanistan was invaded — to secure safe passage for a gas and oil pipeline from Central Asia and lay hands on the rich mineral deposits of Afghanistan — has not been achieved so far. Yet there is growing anxiety among ordinary Americans over the extended military mission that has nearly bankrupted America. Full story ...
FNA: An Afghan lawmaker disclosed on Monday that the foreign forces deployed in Afghanistan are involved in the production and trafficking of illicit drugs in the country, adding that the British troops have even trained a number of experts for opium cultivation. “As long as foreign forces are present in Afghanistan, the cultivation, production and trafficking of drugs will continue in the country,” Nasimeh Niazi told FNA. Full story ...
The Huffington Post: On this Tax Day, many Americans are likely taking a moment to consider the costs associated with funding the public services that, among other things, keep our air and water clean, create educational opportunities for our children, and provide financial security to our most vulnerable fellow citizens. Although no one likes to pay taxes, most Americans understand that our country is stronger because we collectively fund our national priorities and promote the common good. Full story ...
The New York Times: Driven by soaring opium prices, farmers are expected to plant poppies at a sharply higher rate in parts of Afghanistan that were previously poppy free, the United Nations said Monday in its annual winter survey of poppy cultivation patterns in this country, the world’s leading opium purveyor. Full story ...
PAN: With violence against them increasing, 75 women committed self-immolation last year, Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said on Sunday. A total of 2,765 cases of violence against women and girls were reported to the rights watchdog from different parts of the country, AIHRC official Latifa Sultani told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
PAN: At least 140 acres of government-owned land in the Rahman Mina neighbourhood of Kabul, where a township is being built, has been grabbed by the private Onyx Construction Company. The area that has been converted into residential plots by Onyx was surveyed in 1979 and classified as state property meant for a green belt, shows documentary evidence provided to Pajhwok Afghan News by the Kabul Municipality. Full story ...
Reuters: Afghanistan’s government and foreign donors spend barely 10 USD a person on health, despite pointing to it as key to winning back support against a worsening insurgency that has dragged on for nearly a decade, a study said Sunday. The other 31 USD per person that makes up the country’s meager health spend comes from Afghans themselves, many of whom struggle to provide doctors and drug care for their families... Full story ...
PAN (Translated by RAWA): A small girl, present in the administration of the Women’s Affairs of Sar-e-Pul, claimed she was raped by two of her uncles, but health officials say it has not been confirmed yet and further medical examinations are needed to prove the claim. 10-year old Nazanin, claimed that one year back her two step uncles raped her, and her paternal grandparents tortured, beat and poured hot oil on her. Full story ...
Reuters: The United Nations warned on Friday of a looming food aid shortage in Afghanistan that could leave more than 7 million people hungry unless it received urgent cash donations of over 250 million USD to buy more supplies. Most of those who will go short of food are women and children, but overall those at risk make up nearly a quarter of the country's population of around 30 million... Full story ...
Global Post: Just ask Vice President Joe Biden about corruption in Afghanistan. During a now-famous dinner with Hamid Karzai during the 2008 U.S. election year, then-Sen. Biden questioned the Afghan president about corruption in his government. Karzai assured him that reports had been overblown by the Western media. Biden threw down his napkin and walked out. Full story ...
TOLOnews.com: The number of drug addicts in the western Herat city has risen to over 70,000, provincial officials say. Herat addicts mainly include jobless youths most of whom have returned from Iran. They were addicted to drugs while living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Governor of Herat said. Full story ...
PAN: Fifty-eight incidents of violence against journalists have been registered in Afghanistan over the past one year, the Media Watch said on Monday. “Government officials are involved in 26 incidents of violence on journalists, unknown men in 18, NATO-led ISAF soldiers in 9, media people in three and Taliban fighters in two,” Siddqullah Tawhidi, told a press conference in Kabul. Full story ...
Guardian News & Media: When plans to regulate Afghanistan’s booming wedding industry were announced earlier in the year, the government said it merely wanted to curb the country’s mania for lavish weddings that drag people into debt. But according to drafts of the law it is also aiming to introduce various public morality provisions in yet another sign of the casual erosion of the small freedoms women have won since 2001. And in an echo of the Taliban regime, which used to police weddings ... Full story ...
The Harvard International Review: It is an open secret today that the US is the god-father of Islamic fundamentalism in the region. All terrorist fundamentalist groups from Al-Qaeda to the Taliban and our warlords of the Northern Alliance were created, funded, and nourished by the CIA during the cold war. The green belt of extremism and Jihad concept, which was funded and implemented by the CIA through ISI of Pakistan, has caused all of the current problems, and the US still needs these groups to advance its long-term war agenda in the region. Full story ...
The Associated Press: “Black sites,” the secret network of jails that grew up after the Sept. 11 attacks, are gone. But suspected terrorists are still being held under hazy circumstances with uncertain rights in secret, military-run jails across Afghanistan, where they can be interrogated for weeks without charge, according to U.S. officials who revealed details of the top-secret network to The Associated Press. Full story ...
IWPR: After several years of attempting to earn a living by growing crops other than poppies, frustrated farmers in Kapisa province are once again producing the raw material for heroin. They say soaring drug prices, along with the government’s failure to fulfill the promises it made as part of its eradication program, left them no choice. Full story ...
PAN: Iran’s border police killed eight Afghans trying to cross the border into the neighbouring country near the Islam Qala dry port in western Herat province, an official said on Thursday. The Afghans were killed by Iranian border police guards when they attempted to enter Iran last Friday night, a police official, who did not want to be named, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
PAN: The number of women toiling away alongside their husbands in the fields, construction and other hard labour is increasing in central Bamyan province, with many having to give up school to contribute to the family’s finances. Zahra, 36, lives in Surkh, and says she has worked as a farmhand for the past eight years. Full story ...
Afghanistan Today (Translated by RAWA): General Abdul Aziz Ghairat, the police chief of Jowzjan, gave news suicide committed by two women, saying, “The first woman named Gul Bibi, wife of Abdul Ghafar of the Qorm Qila village of Mardian district, hung herself with a rope at seven in the morning at her home.” The second incident, he said, took place in the city of Jowzjan in the Chetgiri area... Full story ...
McClatchy Newspapers: A night raid by NATO-led forces killed six civilians in the relatively peaceful northern Afghan province of Sar-e-Pul, local officials said Tuesday, but a statement from the U.S.-led coalition said the dead were Taliban insurgents armed with AK-47 assault rifles. The disagreement adds to the debate surrounding night raids, which have become a centerpiece of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan... Full story ...
PAN: A woman was killed and another woman and a child were wounded when they were hit by a vehicle of foreign troops in Kabul on Wednesday, police said. The accident happened when a military vehicle belonging to NATO-led soldiers collided with a civilian car on the Darul Aman road in the limits of sixth police district, crime branch police chief, Col. Mohammad Zahir, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
PAN: Almost an average of 52 civilians lost their lives per month last year due to landmine explosions in Afghanistan, an official said on Wednesday. The number of civilian casualties caused by landmines decreased last year, compared to the previous year, Haider Raza, the head of Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan (MACCA), told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
PAN: Residents of a district in central Kabul province on Monday accused foreign troops of killing a shopkeeper and taking away his son during an overnight raid. The incident happened Sunday night in Chaar Asyab district of Kabul when NATO-led troops attacked the house of Yasin, a relative, Ghulam Rassoul, said. Full story ...
PAN: A husband fatally stabbed his pregnant wife on Thursday due to a family dispute in the central province of Parwan, an official said. Hamidullah, 34, killed his 22-year-old pregnant wife on Thursday morning in Deh Maskin area of Bagram district, deputy police chief, Col. Abdul Razaq Quraishi, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
NPR: After watching the protests that led to the downfall of regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, Afghan youth are expressing revolutionary sentiments. “I am counting seconds for the day when 20 of my friends call me and ask me to go out on the streets to protest against the notoriously corrupt government of [Afghan President Hamid Karzai] and the violence of the Taliban,” says 19-year-old university student Ahmad Seyar. Full story ...
PAN: Self-immolations have increased over the past year in western Afghanistan, but fewer people have died from their injuries, doctors say. The main causes of self-immolation are violence in families, poverty, drug addiction and forced and early marriages. A number of women who attempted to kill themselves say they did so because they were unhappy with their lives and families. Full story ...
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