The News: Illicit drugs production, an issue of global concern in Afghanistan, has set a new record of peak escalation in the war on terror period as compared to previous Taliban-led rule over the land-locked country. “Almost a twenty times additional land has been brought under drugs cultivation in seven years of US-led forces’ control and Karazi administration in Afghanistan,” said official sources while handing over the latest statistics on the neighbouring country. Full story ...
IWPR: War crimes evidence disappearing in northern Afghanistan as perpetrators reportedly try and clear the bones from mass graves. Human rights activists say the perpetrators of these acts are trying to erase the evidence of their crimes by clearing out the mass graves that still dot the Laili desert. They want the government to act to protect the sites, so that those responsible can eventually b Full story ...
Wikinews: January 15, a United States military strike in the Afghan province of Laghman killed 15 people, according to U.S. officials. The U.S claims only militants were killed, but on Saturday, village elders disputed that claim with the allegation that the casualties were all civilians. However, this version of events was contested when a statement from the Afghani president's office declared that 16 civilians were killed, not 15 militants. That statement also claimed that two women and three children were among the dead. Full story ...
Antiwar.com: A "team of rivals" is how the Obama administration is being portrayed by the head-over-heels media, which started out by likening the new president to Lincoln and may end up comparing him – favorably – to God. Yet I'm not optimistic, for two very good reasons: Dennis Ross, whose appointment as plenipotentiary for Middle Eastern affairs seems to undercut what is likely to be the Mitchell approach, and Richard Holbrooke, whose dual domain of Afghanistan and Pakistan will be the focus of U.S. military action in the coming years. Specifically, more than 14 years – at least, that's what Holbrooke told us in a pre-election piece in Foreign Affairs magazine:... Full story ...
AFP: The United Nations said Monday that Afghanistan needs to more than double its midwife numbers to curb one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates despite a huge increase in practitioners. "In 2002 there were only 467 trained midwives in the entire country," World Health Organisation country representative Peter Graaff told a news conference. That number had increased to more than 2,100 by 2008, he said. But in a stark assessment of Afghanistan's needs, he said: "The total estimated requirement for midwives in the country is not 2,100 but 4,500... in order to cover the needs of 90 percent of the population." Full story ...
The New York Times: The outrage over civilian deaths swelled again over the weekend. Hundreds of angry villagers demonstrated here in Mehtarlam, the capital of Laghman Province, on Sunday after an American raid on a village in the province on Friday night. The raid killed at least 16 villagers, including 2 women and 3 children, according to a statement from President Hamid Karzai. They agreed that 13 civilians had been killed and 9 wounded when American commandos broke down doors and unleashed dogs without warning on Jan. 7 in the hunt for a known insurgent in Masamut, in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan. The residents were so enraged that they threatened to march on the American military base here. Full story ...
PAN: Public health officials of southeastern Paktika province informed there was no female doctor in provincial capital and in over 14 districts of the province while all residents of the province were suffering difficulties due to lack of staffs in health section. Dr. Toryali deputy health director of the lawless province addressing a bimonthly meeting of government departments said inhabitants of his province were suffering difficulties due to the lack professional doctors despite improvements in the province. Full story ...
The Times: The BBC said yesterday that it had received a number of complaints from servicemen about the shared wards at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, which was built at a cost of £10 million and opened in February last year. “A lot of people are getting injured out there and the last thing they want to see when they come round is the Taliban on the same ward,” one soldier told the BBC. Full story ...
...stan. However, a provincial lawmaker and local villagers said that 21 Afghan civilians were killed in the operation. Eleven militants were killed in the firefight, while four others were killed in an airstrike, it said, adding that a female fighter was killed 'while maneuvering on coalition forces and was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.' However, Abdul Rahimzai, head of Laghman's provincia... Full story ...
PAN: Locals and tribal elders Tuesday claimed the US-led coalition troops killed 25 civilians including five women; however coalition troops claim eliminating 18 militants during an operation in central Kapisa province. The sweep was conducted in Anzari Village of Tagab district in the central province late Monday night. Bai Jan, a resident of Anzari Village told Pajhwok Afghan News the US-led soldiers blew up five houses of ordinary people at approximately 2:00am. Full story ...
La D?pêche.fr: Fundamentalism and corruption could lead to the collapse of Afghanistan in the very near future – not to the democratic and peaceful country that the world promised to create seven years ago. In the past 11 months, more than 4,000 people, including civilians, Nato troops and aid workers, have been killed. The Afghan Minister of Defence has 65,000 troops but has said that he needs 500,000 to control Afghanistan. Full story ...
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Even as new figures point to gains in the battle against Afghanistan's drug problem, the issue remains deeply contentious for the government in Kabul and NATO-led forces. No one, however, is willing to assume ultimate responsibility or to say whether Afghanistan has turned a corner. It remains unclear how much of the decline in opium poppies is a result of government action and how much is owed to weather conditions like drought or cold. Afghan officials tend to emphasize the constraints under which they operate. The country's counternarcotics minister, Colonel General Khodaidad, complains that the drug trade is an "international problem" fueled by Western demand and that the Afghan government has insufficient resources at its disposal. Full story ...
BBC News: Nato's secretary general has said corrupt and inefficient government in Afghanistan is as much to blame as insurgents for the chronic instability. In the Washington Post newspaper, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the international community had paid enough, in blood and money, to demand government action. He said Afghans needed a government that deserved their loyalty and trust. Full story ...
The Journal: After NATO's invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, most people thought the world had finally remembered and rescued a country drowned in pain and sorrow. But despite the attention paid by the international community, today Afghanistan is one of the poorest, most under-developed countries in the world. RAWA believes that no other nation can liberate Afghan women, and it is their own responsibility to raise and fight for their rights. In this hard fight we need the support and solidarity of peace-loving and democratic-minded people of the world. Full story ...
Human Rights Watch: On October 1, 2008, the Department of Defense published a summary of a report by Brig. Gen. Michael Callan of its investigations into USairstrikes on the village of Azizabad in Herat province on August 21-22, 2008. Since that time, Human Rights Watch has conducted additional research into theevents surrounding the Azizabad airstrikes, reviewed the facts presented in the summary Full story ...
NPR: Air pollution in the Afghan capital of Kabul is so serious that President Hamid Karzai has declared a state of emergency. Many residents burn plastic and tires for warmth. Those lucky enough to own a car use leaded fuel. Plus, thousands of gas-burning generators in shops and homes across the city provide power that the government can't. Kabul has a population of 5 million people; it was desi Full story ...
Tolo T.V. (Translated by RAWA): The relatives of patients admitted in the Jamhooriat Hospital complain about the lack of hygienic equipments, necessary medicines and carelessness of the people in charge in the Ministry of Public Health. They say they even have to buy the important equipments of surgery from the bazaar. The head of the surgery department of the Jamhooriat Hospital confirmed the statements and said they have many problems and no steps have been taken by the Ministry of Public Health to solve the matters. A hospital worker said, “We buy all items, from the thread with which we sew the cuts to the substance with which the cut is washed.” Full story ...
PAN: Takhar police have arrested the husband of a young lady, along with three others, for murdering her in northern Takhar province. Brigadier general Ziauddin Mahmoodi Takhar police chief told pajhwok Afghan News that 18 years old victim was killed three days back by her husband with the help of three other people in Post Khor area of Taloqan city. Sufi Mohammad a neighbor of the victim said the couple used to quarrel, Anwar often used to beat her and we could hear her crying and shouting. He said that the very next morning of the night she died; he got information of her homicide but didnt know who exactly committed the crime. Full story ...
PAN: Four people were arrested in a rape case of a young girl in Baharak district of northeastern badakhshan province, police said. Colonel Abdul Wadood, Baharak district chief told PAN on Sunday that these four men brought 14 year old Aziza to a house, raped her and later the girl was recovered from a barn. He said that two of the rapists were badakhshan border police officials and the case has b Full story ...
The Earth Times: Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday condemned the reported killing of 17 civilians, including women and children, in a US-led coalition operation in eastern Afghanistan, the presidential palace said in a statement. Several demonstration have been staged in Afghan cities and rural areas to condemn the killing of civilians by foreign forces. Unable to seek revenge independentl Full story ...
The Nation: President-elect Barack Obama not only had the good judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, he argued for the need "to end the mindset that took us into" that war. So it's troubling that he ramped up his rhetoric during the campaign about exiting Iraq in order to focus on what he calls the "central front in the war on terror"--Afghanistan. His plan now calls for an escalation of 20,000 Full story ...
IRIN: Maryam, 14, was raped by a man in the Yakawlang District of Bamyan Province, central Afghanistan, five months ago. Her mother and brother used razor blades to cut the girl open, take out the foetus, and bury it alive to hide the disgrace, according to Habiba Surabi, the governor of Bamyan. “The baby was alive when they took it from my body… and buried it as it was crying,” Maryam was quoted in the local media as saying. Full story ...
Sunday Herald: But just 30 miles from Kabul, it is Taliban country. Over the past year, the militants have established a stronghold in Wardak, which borders the capital to the south and west. As it reasserts control over large swathes of countryside, the Taliban has been installing a shadow government to answer civilian needs. In the absence of effective local governance, the militants have been arresting criminals, providing courts, dispensing justice, running prisons and organising public executions - all within an hour's drive of Kabul. Full story ...
PAN: Locals of Sangin district of southern Helmand province Tuesday warned that majority of the residents were compelled to flee the area due to the airstrikes carried out by NATO-led ISAF forces without even informing the local security forces. Locals claimed that over 17 civilians most of them elders and children had been killed by ISAF soldiers during the last fortnight. The locals also critici Full story ...
PAN: Heavy casualties have been reported to locals in clashes between insurgents and ISAF soldiers in central insecure Uruzgan province.... Bari Dad who had barely transferred his injured kins in midnight dark to a hospital in central Uruzgan told this News Agency that due to heavy fighting people were unable to take their injured family members on time to health centers. Full story ...
Quqnoos: This year 173000 students could not go to schools, says Ministry of Education. The number of teachers and students killed in the past 10 months has nearly doubled the total casualties of last year, authorities in the ministry of education said. This year 651 schools were closed in southern provinces; 141 teachers and students were killed since beginning of the year; and 173000 students dropped off schools, spokesman for ministry of education said. Full story ...
IRIN: Azizullah's family left their home in the Sangin District of Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, because of the worsening conflict, drought and food security situation. Their new home is a one-room mud-hut in the western outskirts of Kabul where over 4,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have established a makeshift camp. "We abandoned our home because of aerial strikes [by interna Full story ...
PAN (Translated by RAWA): A 12-year old boy in Faryab province was raped. General Mohammad Sadiq, commander of the Commanding Security of Faryab, told PAN that the boy was named Farhad and had been kidnapped a day back. Two men in a Corolla car had kidnapped him from the city of Maimana to the Shireen Tugab District and raped him there. He added that after that the rapists had intoxicated him and freed him from a Corolla car in the Friday Bazaar in Maimanah (capital city of Faryab) and escaped from there. Full story ...
Associated Press: Two months ago, Mohammad Anwar recalls, the Taliban paraded accused thieves through his village, tarred their faces with oil and threw them in jail. The public punishment was a clear sign to villagers that the Taliban are now in charge. And the province they took over lies just 30 miles from the Afghan capital of Kabul, right on the main highway. The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, but its power is now spreading north to the doorstep of Kabul, according to Associated Press interviews with a dozen government officials, analysts, Taliban commanders and Afghan villagers. Full story ...
Star-News Online: Nowhere is the scent of corruption so strong as in the Kabul neighborhood of Sherpur. Before 2001, it was a vacant patch of hillside that overlooked the stately neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. Today it is the wealthiest enclave in the country, with gaudy, grandiose mansions that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Afghans refer to them as “poppy houses.” Sherpur itself is often jokingly referred to as “Char-pur,” which literally means “City of Loot.” Yet what is perhaps most remarkable about Sherpur is that many of the homeowners are government officials, whose annual salaries would not otherwise enable them to live here for more than a few days. Full story ...
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