AFP: A NATO air strike against suspected militants in troubled southern Afghanistan killed three civilians and wounded one other, local government and hospital officials said Friday. "Three male civilians have been killed and a woman has been wounded as a result of this attack," a statement read. Full story ...
The Washington Post: Federal auditors have identified more than $950 million in "questioned and unsupported" costs submitted by Defense Department contractors. The figure excludes potential waste from contracts with other departments or agencies, such as USAID. The following are some of the cases of waste, fraud and abuse: Full story ...
IWPR: Baz Mohammad, a shopkeeper in the Charbolak district of Balkh province, is a worried man. Security in this formerly stable province is becoming increasingly fragile, and he is concerned that fighting could break out.... Balkh has become more and more unstable since the results of the elections were announced in October. Karzai was declared the winner, and Atta’s position has come under question. Full story ...
The Associated Press: A U.S. government watchdog says the organization created to spearhead Afghanistan's battle against corruption has too little authority, independence and personnel to be effective. In an audit released Wednesday, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction says the leaders of the country's High Office of Oversight have conflicts of interest because they also serve as advisers to President Hamid Karzai. Full story ...
Reuters: The President spoke at length about the bribes ordinary Afghans are forced to pay and rebuked officials who "after one or two years work for the government, get rich and buy houses in Dubai." However, he also cast doubt on the biggest anti-corruption conviction his prosecutors have achieved in years. Full story ...
The Telegraph: Karl Eikenberry, a former commanding general in Afghanistan, said parts of the regime had transcended sectarian divisions within Islam to provide support for fundamentalist groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan. "Iran or elements within Iran have provided training assistance and some weapons to the Taliban," said Mr Eikenberry. Full story ...
AFP: A suicide bomber struck an upmarket district of the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday near a hotel and guest house frequented by foreigners, killing eight people and wounding another 40, officials said. The attacker blew himself up outside the gate of the Heetal hotel in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, near a guest house and the home of Afghanistan's former first vice president Ahmad Zia Massoud. Full story ...
RFE/RL: When Kabul's mayor was sentenced to four years in prison on corruption charges this week, officials were quick to paint the sentencing as evidence of the "serious steps" being taken to eliminate graft and bribery in Afghanistan. Deputy Attorney General Fazal Ahmad Faqiryar, speaking to RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan after the December 7 verdict, said that the case of Mayor Abdul Ahad Full story ...
Toronto Star: A former governor of Kandahar who is accused of personally torturing Afghans might have been removed from office as far back as 2006 if Canadian officials hadn't defended him, according to diplomatic memos that have never been made public by the Canadian government. The revelation about Asadullah Khalid opens up another embarrassing avenue of inquiry over Afghan prisoner abuse. Full story ...
CounterPunch: So Mr. Obama is getting ready to surge-again-in Afghanistan partly to fight opium trafficking. But an important report just released by the World Health Organization entitled The Global Tobacco Epidemic shows that Obama cannot possibly be waging a “war on drugs”-or else he would direct his attention towards tobacco executives and away from the Taliban. Full story ...
PAN: NATO forces have allegedly killed two civilians after arresting them in Alisher district of restive southeastern Khost province, relatives and officials said on Saturday. A relative of the victims named Ismail told PAN Nadeem and Noor Wazir were riding a motorcycle when NATO forces intercepted them near capital city late Friday afternoon. Full story ...
Global Research: These military forces will not be going to Afghanistan to set up vaccination programs or conduct literacy classes for Afghan girls. They are going there as part of the most destructive military machine on the planet, to wreak violence. The military machine that has bombed wedding parties, that has held thousands of young Afghan men in Bagram prison without charges, that kicks down doors in the middle of the night—this machine is being strengthened and further unleashed. Full story ...
IRIN: Rabia, 14, is expecting her first child almost a year after getting married to Haji Obaidullah, aged 49, as his second wife. “She is supposed to deliver in a few days, but this is her first visit to a health centre,” said Nazia Hemat, an obstetrician at Mia Abdul Hakim Hospital in the southern province of Kandahar. Rabia is fortunate in being able to visit the hospital: “Men often don’t allow their pregnant women to go to hospitals and doctors,” Full story ...
RAWA News: Based on UNICEF survey more than half of all children under age five suffer from malnutrition... average per capita monthly expenditure of nine million Afghans is less than 66 US cents a day ... but the mafia and puppet regime of such poor and devastated country, purchases a $4.2 million luxury apartment for residence of Zahir Tanin, and also a 5.4 million commercial space for the Consulate and the Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Full story ...
MSF: Afghanistan has some of the worst health indicators in the world. In a province like Helmand, the noise of war is heard around the clock as helicopters take off in the night, and gunfire and rockets are audible in the distance. In this context, ordinary health problems become medical emergencies because movement from villages to towns is very dangerous, and in many places simply impossible. Full story ...
The Los Angeles Times: Several hundred women, many holding aloft pictures of relatives killed by drug lords or Taliban militants, held a loud but nonviolent street protest today, demanding that President Hamid Karzai purge from his government anyone connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban. Full story ...
PAN: Thousands of university students protesting against US forces in eastern nangarhar province blocked the Kabul-Jalalabad Highway for hours on Wednesday. The demonstration was staged by nangarhar University students in Daronta district to denounce the US forces' operation in Laghman province, where 15 civilians were allegedly killed. Full story ...
Reuters: Afghan women are among the worst off in the world, violence against them is “endemic” and Afghanistan’s government fails to protect them from crimes such as rape and murder, a rights group said on Monday. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report the situation for women in Afghanistan is “dismal in every area”. Full story ...
... claimed US forces killed 15 ordinary people including women and children during an overnight operation in the Armal village on the outskirts of the provincial capital. Hundreds of protesters from nearby villages brought the bodies to the city and placed them in front of the governor's house at 9am. Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers fired into the air as the demonstrators neared the entrance to... Full story ...
The Guardian: The already dire plight of women in Afghanistan risks deteriorating further as the US and its allies take steps to turn around the war against the Taliban, according to a report by Human Rights Watch today. Eight years after the Taliban were ousted from power, rapists are often protected from prosecution, women can still be arrested for running away from home, and girls have far less access to schools than boys, the report says. Full story ...
Al-Jazeera: Two-years after she was beaten and raped by eight men, fourteen-year-old Samiya has yet to see justice. Her story stands in contrast to Western claims that the lot of women in Afghanistan has improved since the US-led invasion. Seven of the eight men who attacked Samiya were arrested, but her family believes their daughter's rapists have powerful connections and are looking for revenge. Full story ...
PAN: The National Participation Front (NPF) chairman has accused the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) head of corruption and demanded her immediate removal. Kabuli alleged Samar received bribes from warlords, removed their names from the list of war criminals and converted AIHRC into a safe haven for outlaws and human rights violators, besides embezzling international funds. Full story ...
Global Research: The Bush administration never had any intention of liberating Afghanistan or establishing democracy. The real aim was to remove the politically-intractable Taliban and replace them with a puppet regime run by a former-CIA asset. The rest of Afghanistan would be parceled-off to the warlords.... Full story ...
ABC News via Global Research: As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama's description Tuesday of the al Qaeda "cancer" in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country. Full story ...
The government won this round. 30,000 more troops is a clear loss for us and more importantly the people of Afghanistan. .... Obama is a war president and we are a peace movement. As long as we’re moving, Obama, and you refuse to be governed, we’ll refuse to be governed. Your racist wars will end and this world will know peace in our lifetimes. Until that day, rest assured that WE WILL BE YOUR INSURGENCY! Full story ...
IRIN: Dozens of families who lost their homes after earthquakes in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar in April 2009 have moved to an informal settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and called for urgent assistance. Two earthquakes measuring 5.5 and 5.1 on the Richter scale rocked Sherzad and Hesarak districts in Nangarhar Province on 16-17 April, killing 22 people, injuring 59 and destroying 290 houses; 300-600 livestock were also lost and 650 families made homeless, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Full story ...
The Associated Press: A senior British military commander says roads in Afghanistan were safer when the Taliban ran the country. Maj. Gen. Nick Carter told the BBC on Thursday that before the 2001 invasion, women could travel alone in the southern part of Afghanistan. He says "you could put your daughter on a bus in Kabul sure in the knowledge that she would get in one piece to Kandahar." Full story ...
The Progressive: If you closed your eyes during much of the President’s speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night and just listened to the words, you easily could have concluded that George W. Bush was still in the Oval Office. Or, at the very least, that Obama had stolen his speechwriters. Because, like Bush, Obama had barely cleared his throat when out came the first mention of September 11, along with the Bushian line: “We did not ask for this fight.” Full story ...
IRIN: Eight years after the formal end of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, women are facing growing challenges in public life and have limited access to justice, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). "The space for women in public life is shrinking," warned Norah Niland, head of UNAMA's human rights unit and a representative of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Full story ...
Xinhua: Afghan Minister of Public Health Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatime warned Tuesday that AIDS transmission among illegal drug users remains the main factor of spreading the disease in the post-Taliban country. "Addiction, especially using heroin through injection, continues to be the main channel of transmission of AIDS in Afghanistan," the minister said in a notice for Tuesday's World AIDS Day. Full story ...
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