The New York Times: The most powerful man in this arid stretch of southern Afghanistan is not the provincial governor, nor the police chief, nor even the commander of the Afghan Army. It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces. Full story ...
VOA: Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday Afghan drug trafficking should be classified as a threat to international peace and security. The Russian Deputy Prime Minster made his remarks at an Asia security conference in Singapore. “Large part of the population of Afghanistan is involved in the cultivation and production of opium and opium products such as heroin,” he said. Full story ...
Al Jazeera: The Taliban has waged a violent campaign against girls who go to schools in their Afghan strongholds. A series of attacks against schools and female students have driven many girls to go underground to receive an education. In 2008 around 15 schoolgirls and teachers were sprayed with acid by men on motorbikes. Full story ...
AFP: The Afghan government has suspended two Christian aid groups after a TV show reported they were proselytising, which is illegal in the devoutly Islamic country. Converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by death under Afghan law. The Afghan constitution is based on traditional sharia law, which strictly bans religious conversion. In parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, a deputy of the lower house, called for Muslim converts to Christianity to be executed. Full story ...
The Telegraph: Lt Col Roly Walker, who lost five of his soldiers when they were shot dead by a rogue policeman in a compound in Helmand in November, said that the force was still one of the "biggest obstacles to progress." He said that the local force was "the reason for the insurgency" in the Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand and that the corruption meant the local population was more distrustful of coalition troops and less likely to be loyal to the Afghan government. Full story ...
PAN: Iranian authorities executed seven Afghan refugees two days ago, their relatives in western Herat province claimed on Wednesday. The families asked the provincial government to help return the bodies of their relatives to their country of origin. Shir Gul, 40, said Iranian officials in a jail known as Taibad called him and said his nephew was hanged on charges of drug-trafficking. Full story ...
National Post: Eighteen years ago, as manager of a family-run Afghan restaurant on North Halsted Street in the Chicago’s Wrigleyville district, Ahmed Wali Karzai spent his days serving aushak and lamb dwopiaza ... Today, the chubby 49-year-old half-brother of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, is the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan. The “King of Kandahar” has built up a shadowy political and commercial empire that touches virtually every institution and individual of influence. Full story ...
The New York Times: The two Afghan girls had every reason to expect the law would be on their side when a policeman at a checkpoint stopped the bus they were in. Disguised in boys’ clothes, the girls, ages 13 and 14, had been fleeing for two days along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men, and now they had made it to relatively lib Full story ...
The Huffington Post: On May 30, 2010, at 10:06 a.m, the direct cost of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan will hit $1 trillion. And in a few weeks, the House of Representatives will be asked to vote for $33 billion of additional “emergency” supplemental spending to continue the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. There will be the pretense of debate -- speeches on the floor of both chambers, stern requests for timetables or metrics or benchmarks -- but this war money will get tossed in the wood chipper without difficulty, requested by a president who ran on an anti-war platform. Full story ...
The Guardian: It’s near-impossible to find anyone in Afghanistan who doesn’t believe the US are funding the Taliban: and it’s the highly educated Afghan professionals, those employed by ISAF, USAID, international media organisations – and even advising US diplomats – who seem the most convinced.... The continuing violence between coalition forces and the Taliban is simple proof in itself. Full story ...
Amnesty International: Afghan people continued to suffer widespread human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law more than seven years after the USA and its allies ousted the Taliban. Access to health care, education and humanitarian aid deteriorated, particularly in the south and south-east of the country, due to escalating armed conflict between Afghan and internation Full story ...
PAN: A council of Afghan clerics has issued a fatwa, banning women from traveling without a father, brother or other approved escort, even during the Hajj. The ruling by the Herat Religious Council also said Islam prohibited women, engaged in activities out of home, from wearing makeup. Announcing the fatwa, tens of religious scholars asked the government to implement their advice. The clerics sai Full story ...
PAN: Hundreds of families, fearing the resumption of clashes between Taliban and security forces, have fled troubled districts of Marja and Nad Ali in southern Helmand province. The fresh exodus of 400 families from the towns comes nearly three months after a massive counterinsurgency operation, involving thousands of Afghan and foreign troops. Full story ...
The Washington Post: Speaking to graduating cadets at West Point on Saturday, President Obama noted the "ultimate sacrifice" of 78 of their predecessors who gave up their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he did not mention that just days before, five U.S. soldiers were killed in Kabul, bringing the toll of American dead in Afghanistan to over 1,000. Full story ...
philobiblon.co.uk: When I was running for the Green Party in the recent British general election, there was one issue on which I had no doubt how audiences at hustings and meetings would react positively – our call to withdraw British (and NATO) troops from Afghanistan. Surveys show around 70% of the public back that stance, and it was close to 100% of the audiences at hustings. Full story ...
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: A major reason for the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was the building of a pipeline through the country that would take natural gas from Turkmenistan to India and Pakistan. Canada and the other 44 Western countries occupying Afghanistan are supporting this U.S. objective by bolstering Washington’s military position in the country. Full story ...
Radio Zamaneh: Hundreds of Afghan citizens staged a protest in Herat against the execution of political prisoners by the Islamic Republic burning posters of Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The demonstration was organized by Solidarity Party of Afghanistan and protesters chanted slogans against Iranian officials. They also carried images of political executions in Iran, and the death of Neda Agha-Soltan as well as pictures of numerous political prisoners in Iran. Full story ...
PAN: High unemployment and deteriorating security is forcing hundreds of Afghan youths to risk an often perilous journey with ruthless smugglers in the search of a better life. Some pay with their lives. Others, such as Sher Rahman, spend thousands of dollars for the journey only to find themselves right back in Afghanistan. Full story ...
The Christian Science Monitor: Afghan military investigators have accused Ahmed Wali Karzai, U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai’s controversial half-brother, of intervening to protect powerful allies who are squatting illegally on government property in southern Afghanistan... Investigators concluded that Ahmed Wali Karzai’s friends, allies and relatives were building offices, housing projects illegally on more than 1,000 acres of government land in and around Kandahar city. Full story ...
The New York Times: Farmers from the district of Marja, which since February has been the focus of the largest American-led military operation in Afghanistan, are fleeing the area, saying that the Taliban are terrorizing the population and that American troops cannot protect the civilians.... Over 150 families have fled Marja in the last two weeks, according to the Afghan Red Crescent Society in t Full story ...
TIME: Local witnesses interviewed by TIME say the nighttime raid by U.S. forces killed eight residents of this sun-baked farming village in eastern Afghanistan. The U.S. military insists that the operation in Koshkaky targeted insurgents active in the area, including a Taliban sub-commander who was killed. But ordinary Afghans are more inclined to believe the worst. As word of the incident spread Full story ...
PAN: Afghans are calling for the removal of some candidates from a list of those standing in September’s parliamentary elections for being “violators of human rights”. Several people have come forward to say that allowing criminals or those who violate human rights to stand for parliament undermines the legitimacy of a democratic election. Full story ...
Daily Mail Times: Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary Rodham-Clinton has once again lied to Afghan women. She said that America will not abandon Afghan women. It already has. America has not kept its promises to the women of Afghanistan. The youngest woman in the Afghan parliament has used International Women’s Day to slam the “disastrous conditions” for women in her country and ask Australians to help bring change. Full story ...
AFP: As President Hamid Karzai prepares to host a peace conference later this month to discuss how to tackle the brutal Taliban insurgency, victims of the violence blighting Afghanistan complain their voice is not being heard. “I want peace in my country, but peace will only be possible if those who have brought death to our country are tried,” said Attayii, one of dozens of people who Full story ...
AFP: Hundreds of angry protesters staged a protest Friday in eastern Afghanistan, accusing NATO forces of killing a dozen civilians during an overnight raid. Around 300 protesters in the Surkh Rod district of Nangahar province chanted “Death to Shairzai (the provincial governor), (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai and the Americans” as they threw stones at the district administrati Full story ...
DailyCensored.com: America’s insatiable addiction to war not only destroys countless innocent lives abroad; it robs its own citizens from basic human needs at home. It robs them from envisioning a better world and an auspicious tomorrow. Since its amoral inception the so-called United States of America has steadily built a reputation antithetical to peace, justice, freedom and equality. Unfo Full story ...
BBC News: Thousands of Afghans have protested in the eastern city of Jalalabad against the alleged executions of a number of Afghan refugees in Iran. Demonstrators rallied in front of the Iranian consulate, shouting slogans and throwing eggs. This is the fifth and largest anti-Iran protest in Afghanistan in a fortnight. Full story ...
AFP: US actors and liberal intellectuals joined a list to be published Friday of nearly 2,000 people accusing President Barack Obama of allowing human rights violations and war crimes. The statement, published as a paid advertisement, accuses Obama, who was elected in 2008 with the enthusiastic support of US liberals, of continuing Bush's controversial approach to human rights in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in domestic security. Full story ...
Stars and Stripes: While many government jobs in Afghanistan are handed out as prizes, no one is fighting over the post of Kharwar district sub-governor. Given the dingy shipping container that serves as both the sub-governor’s home and the district center for this rugged, volatile area high in the Hindu Kush mountains in eastern Afghanistan’s Logar province, it’s no surprise tha Full story ...
BBC News: The US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan contains a facility for detainees that is distinct from its main prison, the Red Cross has confirmed to the BBC. Nine former prisoners have told the BBC that they were held in a separate building, and subjected to abuse. The US military says the main prison, now called the Detention Facility in Parwan, is the only detention facility on the base. Full story ...
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