SNAP SHOT

[muse]

Russian military move PHC for release

By Akhtar Amin

PESHAWAR: Three Russian top military officers arrested 11 ago in South Waziristan Agency for suspected links with Al-Qaeda, have moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) for their release and deportation to their homeland.

The officers Major General Abdur Rasheed, Brigadier Rustam and Colonel Murat - filed a writ petition for their release in the PHC through World Prisoners Relief Commission of Pakistan Chairman Ibrahim Paracha.

All the three officers had embraced Islam during Russian war in Afghanistan and fought against their own army, the US and allied forces in Afghanistan under the command of Al-Qaeda Chief Osama Bin Laden. Later, they left Afghanistan after fall of Taliban regime there and illegally entered into Pakistani tribal area South Waziristan.

The Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies arrested them some 11 years ago in Makeen area of the agency and later charged them under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act and they were imprisoned in Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi.

On Wednesday, when a division bench of PHC consisting of Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Syed Yahya Zahid Gilani took up their writ petition for hearing, their lawyer Fida Gul advocate contended that their imprisonment period would end on September 27, 2008 and thus they be released and handed over to Ibrahim Paracha who have got no objection certificate form the home department for arranging their visas and other traveling documents so as to deport them to their homeland. NWFP Additional Advocate General Ishtiaq Ibrahim, however, objected to their earlier release, saying they should not be released before September 27 as each of them has to pay a fine of Rs 5000. On this, Paracha told the court that he was going to pay the fine on Thursday (today).

The foreigners should be released as he had to make visas and other traveling documents for their deportation to Russia. The PHC bench, however, adjourned the writ petition till today (Thursday) and directed Paracha to deposit the fine. The court also asked Home Department Section Officer Ali Zada to produce the available record about the foreigners in the court. Later, talking to reporters Paracha, who is also former Member National Assembly (MNA) of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said that the government of Pakistan kept the Russian officers for about 11 years in prison under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act. He got them shifted from Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi to Peshawar Central Prison.

 

[muse]

Afghan civilian death toll undermines U.S. support
Afghan civilian deaths rise 39 percent. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pledges to do more to solve problem.
By Anand Gopal | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 18, 2008 edition

Kabul, Afghanistan - In a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pledged to do more to prevent civilian deaths from military operations. Mr. Gates's vow comes on the heels of a new UN report saying that the number of civilian casualties jumped by 39 percent in 2008, fueling controversy about the West's role in the country.

"While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is also clear that we have to work even harder," Gates told reporters.

Nearly 1,500 civilians have been killed by either the Taliban or NATO and US forces so far this year, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday. More than half of those deaths are attributed to the Taliban. And US Air Force data suggests that its bombing accuracy is actually improving.

But the UN findings come at a time of rising public criticism after a series of US and NATO aerial bombing raids killed large numbers of Afghan civilians. "Civilian casualties is becoming the main issue in the relationship between the West and Afghanistan," says Nasrullah Stanikzai, lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Kabul University. If the trend of high levels of casualties continues, he says, it could drive a permanent wedge between Afghans and the US.

Combatants killed at least 330 civilians in August alone, UN Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville said. "That's the highest number of civilian deaths to occur in a single month since the end of major hostilities and the ousting of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001."

While the Taliban is responsible for more civilian deaths (55 percent of the total) than NATO, according to the UN, the actions of international forces and allies have sparked the most intense criticism from Afghans. The number of civilians killed by pro-government forces jumped by 21 percent this year, and air strikes were responsible for two-thirds of these, the UN reported. Last month up to 96 civilians were killed in the western province of Herat, sparking protests around the country. Earlier in the summer, American ordnance hit a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan, killing 47 civilians. In both cases US officials denied that such a large number of civilians were killed.

These two high-profile attacks are bringing anti-American sentiment to an all-time high, says Professor Stanikzai. "Afghans by and large still support the troops, but after these recent incidents more people are starting to change their minds."

While there has been no recent poll, a November 2007 study by Environics found that 52 percent of Afghans want the troops out within the next three to five years, and only 40 percent say that the West and the Afghan government will win the war. The approval rating of the US role in Afghanistan dipped from 68 percent in 2005 to 42 percent in 2007, according to data collected by Charney Research.

Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, says that "Afghans are losing hope that the US or any other part of the international community has either the intention or capacity to rescue them" from their difficult situation.

The issue is also causing tension between Western forces and the Afghan government. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called for closer cooperation between the US, NATO, and Afghan forces. Afghan lawmakers are pushing for an agreement between international militaries and the Afghan government. "We want all international forces to be under Afghan government control and submit to Afghan law," says Hussein Sancharaki, spokesman of the National Front of Afghanistan, the main political opposition group.

But Stanikzai says this is unrealistic. "I don't think the US will submit to the authority of the Afghan government," he says. "They are concerned that if they do so, their ability to operate will be diminished and terrorism will flourish."

In the wake of last month's Herat Province attack, NATO announced that it was renewing its rules of engagement by reemphasizing existing protocols for house searches, use of aerial force, and cooperation with Afghan forces. NATO's top commander, Gen. David McKiernan, said that all house raids will be conducted with Afghan troops in the lead and only with the permission of the homeowners. NATO forces will also limit the size and weight of ordnance and bolster the communications between aerial crews and Afghan commanders on the ground.

After civilian casualties skyrocketed last year – foreign air strikes killed three times as many civilians in 2007 than in 2006 – NATO instituted the new rules of engagement and the rate of civilian deaths slowed considerably. However, the US, which mostly operates under a separate command structure from NATO, has looser rules of engagement and is responsible for a larger share of the civilian killings, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. An official with the US military's Public Affairs Office in Afghanistan said that he has not heard of any plans to revise the rules of engagement as NATO has done.

Human Rights Watch also said that higher numbers of civilian casualties resulted from increased use of American air power as opposed to ground troops. The deadliest aerial assaults are the result of unplanned "strikes of opportunity," the report states. "We found that civilian casualties rarely occur during planned airstrikes on suspected Taliban targets." Rather, most casualties occurred during unplanned "strikes ... carried out in support of ground troops ... after they came under insurgent attack."

In tonnage terms, the amount of bombs US forces are dropping is at an all-time high, and data suggest that American firepower is also becoming more accurate. In June and July, the US dropped roughly as much ordnance as in all of 2006, according to the US Air Force, but with fewer civilian casualties.

During Gates's visit, his spokesman announced that the US and the Afghan government will be creating a permanent joint investigative group to probe any incidents involving civilian casualties.

Some say the growing anger over civilian casualties is misplaced. The Taliban targets civilians and is responsible for more deaths than international forces. Yet tragic mistakes by Western militaries receive most of the attention, says a senior NATO official who asks not to be named when speaking about security issues. "This is a problem of perception – people should also understand the tremendous progress that is being made," he says.

But others say that the high civilian casualty rate helps the Taliban. "We are poor farmers. We had absolutely no opinion about America five years ago," says Sherafadeen Sadozay, who lost three children and his wife to an aerial attack in the Urozgan Province. "But now we don't think America is here to help us. If the Taliban will bring peace, we will support them."

 

[muse]

District chief, NATO soldier among several killed in Afghanistan
Updated at: 1550 PST, Thursday, September 18, 2008

KANDAHAR: Afghan police alleged Thursday that international troops shot dead a district governor thinking he was Taliban, while five policemen and a NATO soldier were slain in various attacks.

The NATO-led multinational force said it was investigating the claim that its troops had killed the district governor and two of his men in the southern province of Uruzgan late Wednesday.

The alleged incident comes amid growing concern about civilian deaths in military action against insurgents, a sore point touched on by US Defence Secretary Roberts Gates during a visit to Kabul on Wednesday.

The governor of Chora district, Rozi Khan, and two of his men were shot dead as they were going to help a friend who believed that Taliban fighters had surrounded his home, Uruzgan police commander Gulab Khan said.

The men outside the man's home were international forces, who in turn mistook Khan and his associates for Taliban attackers, Gulab Khan said. The police commander also said that three of his policemen were killed and one badly wounded when a bomb hit their patrol on Thursday

 

[muse]

After spending more $100 Billion primarily on US forces in Afghanistan, as if being targetted by NATO troops warlords and drug mafia was not enough for ordinary Afghans, now they are left to fear and the wolves:Once again poor ordinary Afghans may have to take shelter in most despised and evil but hospitable, charitable of places, Pakistan, not US. US must act immediately to shoulder it's rsponsibility as the occupying power

Afghans fear a harsh, hungry winter
By Carlotta Gall

Friday, September 19, 2008
YAKOWLANG, Afghanistan: A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.

The crisis has been generated by the harshest winter in memory, followed by a drought across much of the country, which come on top of the broader problems of deteriorating security, the accumulated pressure of returning refugees and the effects of rising world food prices.

The failure of the Afghan government and foreign donors to develop the country's main economic sector, agriculture, has compounded the problems, the officials say. They warn that the food crisis could make an already bad security situation worse.

The British charity Oxfam, which conducted a provisional assessment of conditions in the province of Daykondi, one of the most remote areas of central Afghanistan, has appealed for international assistance before winter sets in. "Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis," it said.

That assessment is echoed by villagers across the broader region, including in Bamian Province. "In all these 30 years of war, we have not had it as bad as this," said Said Muhammad, a 60-year-old farmer who lives in Yakowlang, in Bamian. "We don't have enough food for the winter. We will have to go to the towns to look for work."

Underlying the warnings are growing fears of civil unrest. The mood in the country is darkening amid increasing economic hardship, worsening disorder and a growing disaffection with the government and its foreign backers, particularly over the issue of government corruption.

Returning refugees are already converging on the cities because they cannot manage in the countryside, and they make easy recruits for the Taliban or other groups that want to create instability, said Ashmat Ghani, an opposition politician and tribal leader from Logar Province, south of Kabul, the nation's capital.

"The lower part of society, when facing hunger, will not wait," he said. "We could have riots."

The Afghan government, together with United Nations organizations, was quick to mount an appeal at the beginning of the year to prevent a food shortage as world food prices soared and neighboring countries stopped wheat exports.

The World Food Program, which was assisting 4.5 million of the most vulnerable Afghans with food aid in recent years, widened its program to include an additional 1.5 million Afghans and extended it further because of the drought to reach a total of nine million people until the end of next year's harvest.

Several weeks ago, Oxfam warned in a letter to ministers responsible for development in some countries assisting Afghanistan that the $404 million appeal by the government and the United Nations was substantially underfinanced.

"If the response is slow or insufficient, there could be serious public health implications, including higher rates of mortality and morbidity, which are already some of the highest in the world," the letter said.

It also warned of internal displacement of families who had no work or food, and even of civil disturbances. "The impact as a whole could further undermine the security situation," Oxfam said.

The United States government announced this week that it would supply nearly half the emergency food aid requested in the appeal.

Susana Rico, the director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said last-minute contributions had come in to cover the immediate emergency. But there is still a rush to get supplies to the countryside before the first winter snows arrive next month, she said.

Development officials say that deteriorating security has made it harder to do that job in the countryside. Aid workers have become the targets of an increasing number of attacks from insurgents and criminals.

The dangers have restricted the scale and scope of aid operations, said the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group of nongovernmental organizations.

Those dangers, the agency says, have even spread to areas previously considered relatively secure. In the first seven months of the year, it reported, 19 workers for nongovernmental organizations were killed, more than the number in all of 2007.

The agency appealed for governments to take a broad range of measures, beyond the military, to combat the escalating insurgency.

"The conflict will not be brought to an end through military means," the agency said in a statement. "A range of measures is required to achieve a sustainable peace, including strong and effective support for rural development."

Neglecting a lifeline as vital as agriculture has been dangerous for stability in Afghanistan, as people are unable to feed themselves, several provincial governors said in interviews.

The governor of Bamian, Habiba Sarabi, has repeatedly complained that because her province has been one of the most law-abiding and trouble-free, it has been forgotten in the big distribution of resources from international donors.

Donors, and in particular the United States government, have spent far larger amounts in the provinces in the south and southeast to help combat the dual problems of the insurgency and narcotics, she said.

Hasan Samadi, 23, the deputy administrator of Yakowlang District in Bamian Province, said, "The economic situation of the people here is very bad and the government is not focused to help.

"They focus on other provinces and unfortunately not on Bamian, and not on remote districts of Bamian," he said.

Daykondi, adjacent to Bamian, is one of the most underfinanced provinces in the country. It receives half the budget of its neighbor to the south, Oruzgan, which has two-thirds the population and a poor record on combating insurgency and the cultivation of the opium poppy, said Matt Waldman, a spokesman for Oxfam in Kabul.

In Daykondi, 90 percent of the population relies on subsistence farming, yet the provincial Department of Agriculture has a budget of only $2,400 for the whole year, he added.

The imbalance in aid to the provinces is being corrected now, Governor Sarabi said, but in the meantime it has put great strain on the people in her province.

She estimated that a quarter of Bamian's population would need food aid this winter because of the drought. There have already been local conflicts over water supplies in two regions, she said.

Development officials warn that neglecting the poorest provinces can add to instability by pushing people to commit crimes or even to join the insurgency, which often pays its recruits.

While the severe drought contributed to the decline of poppy cultivation in the central and northern provinces, it also pushed farmers into debt. If they do not get help now, they could turn back to poppy-growing and lose their faith in the government, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Costa called for urgent assistance for farmers and regions that have abandoned poppy cultivation. He and others have also criticized the inefficiency of international aid.




Of $15 billion of reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan since 2001, "a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries," the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said in a March report.

"Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world," Costa said during a recent visit to Kabul. "I insist on the importance of increasing development assistance, making it more effective. Too much of it is eaten up by various bureaucracies and contractors."

 

[muse]

Pakistan's contradictory faces
In a country rife with extremism I saw civilized culture and a triumphant human spirit.
By Teri Rizvi
from the September 22, 2008 edition

Lahore, Pakistan - Pakistan is a country where militants in the idyllic Swat Valley have torched more than 130 girls' schools. Where dozens of suicide bombings (including a major one in the capital Saturday) – and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto – have rocked civilian life. Where suspected spies are publicly executed and women have very little freedom near the Taliban-infested border with Afghanistan.

It's also a country where my niece and I can don sweat pants and T-shirts and hit the treadmill at the gym. It's an upscale coed health club where men wear shorts, treadmills are outfitted with TV screens, and the trainer brings you ice water – a custom so civilized that it should be adopted worldwide.

In my first journey back to my husband's homeland in three summers, I was struck by these contradictory faces of Pakistan. An armed security guard stoically stood watch inside the gate of our family's home in Lahore, a bustling city near the border of India.

Under his watchful eye, our boys played a boisterous game of cricket with their cousins in the front yard. In the past two years, he's only shot at a crow, but his somber presence is unsettling.

"Whatever you see is the real Pakistan," says Hassan-Askari Rizvi, a relative and a political analyst who's writing a book, "Pakistan After 9/11." "Pakistan used to be a moderate, liberal country. In major urban areas, the situation is more or less like that. Women wear jeans and drive cars. In other parts of the country, you'll see schools for girls being burned. There are still people in this country who don't realize the Taliban are a threat to the existence of this state."

Emboldened, the Taliban are slowly moving from the lawless tribal region, where the militants have found a sanctuary, into the heart of the country.

Just days after we left, a suicide bomber in Lahore killed at least eight during an Independence Day celebration, and twin suicide bombings at a weapons manufacturing plant near the capital of Islamabad took another eight lives. "They're like a Frankenstein monster," notes Mr. Rizvi, "They've changed the direction of their guns from Afghanistan to Pakistan."

In numerous conversations with Pakistanis during our 10-day trip to Lahore for our nephew's wedding in August, most didn't talk about the rising tide of violence.

There's little outcry against the Taliban – as though atrocities are being committed in some faraway land instead of a mere 300 miles away in a region where armed religious extremists have set up a parallel government and imposed the strictest form of Islamic law.

Some see the war on terror as someone else's war, a war America has waged on Islam. Some believe the Taliban should be placated in case the country needs these warriors for its on-again, off-again conflict with India.

Much as in America, the economy and political future weigh on people's minds. Annual inflation tops an alarming 25 percent. Electricity outages have become so frequent that families buy generators. A fragile democracy appears to be in disarray following the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew the elected government in a bloodless coup nearly a decade ago.

Yet it's remarkable how the human spirit triumphs in the face of such uncertainty.

In nightly rehearsal sessions leading up to three days of elaborate wedding festivities, our nieces and nephews gathered around their cousin, Sarah, as she played the dholki, a traditional barrel-shaped drum, and led them in joyous wedding songs. They dressed our sons in sherwanis, long, embroidered coats, and khussas, Aladdin-style shoes. As part of one offbeat ritual, they stole the groom's shoes and demanded he pay them or go barefoot.

This face of Pakistan – ordinary people finding joy in everyday moments – remains invisible to most of the world in the face of the militant extremism that now dominates the headlines.

As we bade emotional farewells to our family, our youngest son, Ali, impulsively gave an enormous bear hug to Tassaduq, the security guard quietly standing in the distance. We erupted in laughter. Caught off guard, Tassaduq broke into a wide smile.

That's one face of Pakistan I'll never forget.

• Teri Rizvi has written about life and politics in Pakistan since 1982. She's associate vice president for university communications at the University of Dayton.

 

[fatman17]

Pakistan's contradictory faces
In a country rife with extremism I saw civilized culture and a triumphant human spirit.
By Teri Rizvi
from the September 22, 2008 edition

Lahore, Pakistan - Pakistan is a country where militants in the idyllic Swat Valley have torched more than 130 girls' schools. Where dozens of suicide bombings (including a major one in the capital Saturday) – and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto – have rocked civilian life. Where suspected spies are publicly executed and women have very little freedom near the Taliban-infested border with Afghanistan.

It's also a country where my niece and I can don sweat pants and T-shirts and hit the treadmill at the gym. It's an upscale coed health club where men wear shorts, treadmills are outfitted with TV screens, and the trainer brings you ice water – a custom so civilized that it should be adopted worldwide.

In my first journey back to my husband's homeland in three summers, I was struck by these contradictory faces of Pakistan. An armed security guard stoically stood watch inside the gate of our family's home in Lahore, a bustling city near the border of India.

Under his watchful eye, our boys played a boisterous game of cricket with their cousins in the front yard. In the past two years, he's only shot at a crow, but his somber presence is unsettling.

"Whatever you see is the real Pakistan," says Hassan-Askari Rizvi, a relative and a political analyst who's writing a book, "Pakistan After 9/11." "Pakistan used to be a moderate, liberal country. In major urban areas, the situation is more or less like that. Women wear jeans and drive cars. In other parts of the country, you'll see schools for girls being burned. There are still people in this country who don't realize the Taliban are a threat to the existence of this state."

Emboldened, the Taliban are slowly moving from the lawless tribal region, where the militants have found a sanctuary, into the heart of the country.

Just days after we left, a suicide bomber in Lahore killed at least eight during an Independence Day celebration, and twin suicide bombings at a weapons manufacturing plant near the capital of Islamabad took another eight lives. "They're like a Frankenstein monster," notes Mr. Rizvi, "They've changed the direction of their guns from Afghanistan to Pakistan."

In numerous conversations with Pakistanis during our 10-day trip to Lahore for our nephew's wedding in August, most didn't talk about the rising tide of violence.

There's little outcry against the Taliban – as though atrocities are being committed in some faraway land instead of a mere 300 miles away in a region where armed religious extremists have set up a parallel government and imposed the strictest form of Islamic law.

Some see the war on terror as someone else's war, a war America has waged on Islam. Some believe the Taliban should be placated in case the country needs these warriors for its on-again, off-again conflict with India.

Much as in America, the economy and political future weigh on people's minds. Annual inflation tops an alarming 25 percent. Electricity outages have become so frequent that families buy generators. A fragile democracy appears to be in disarray following the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew the elected government in a bloodless coup nearly a decade ago.

Yet it's remarkable how the human spirit triumphs in the face of such uncertainty.

In nightly rehearsal sessions leading up to three days of elaborate wedding festivities, our nieces and nephews gathered around their cousin, Sarah, as she played the dholki, a traditional barrel-shaped drum, and led them in joyous wedding songs. They dressed our sons in sherwanis, long, embroidered coats, and khussas, Aladdin-style shoes. As part of one offbeat ritual, they stole the groom's shoes and demanded he pay them or go barefoot.

This face of Pakistan – ordinary people finding joy in everyday moments – remains invisible to most of the world in the face of the militant extremism that now dominates the headlines.

As we bade emotional farewells to our family, our youngest son, Ali, impulsively gave an enormous bear hug to Tassaduq, the security guard quietly standing in the distance. We erupted in laughter. Caught off guard, Tassaduq broke into a wide smile.

That's one face of Pakistan I'll never forget.

• Teri Rizvi has written about life and politics in Pakistan since 1982. She's associate vice president for university communications at the University of Dayton.

the resilience of the pakistani is ever-enduring!
God Bless Pakistan!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

the resilience of the pakistani is ever-enduring!
God Bless Pakistan!

Spoke to my relatives in Isloo and Lahore in the aftermath - life goes on as normal, with the usual criticism of US 'interference and occupation' in Afghanistan.