Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Afghanistan

Eight Prisoners on Death Row Hanged on Tuesday

2012-11-21

[Tolo News] Eight people were executed by hanging on Tuesday after President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... recently approved 16 people to receive the death penalty for their crimes, according to a source close to the Attorney General's office. Head of the Presidential Justice Board on Tuesday said the 16 people were found guilty of crimes including rape, murder, kidnapping, and betraying national security. Nasrullah Stanikzai said that among those to receive the death penalty is a man who choked a child to death using a shoelace after he had raped the child and a father who killed his children. "According to the decision of all courts -- (primary court, appeal court, and the high court) -- of Afghanistan, 16 men were sentenced to the highest punishment or execution. According to the president's order, the execution will be enforced," Stanikzai said. Stanikzai said the Justice Board had reviewed each case individually and the approval was issued with caution. "Besides all the courts that issued the sentence, the responsible commission at the government level has reviewed the matter as well. After comprehensive and complete information received by the president and by the justice board of the president's office at the end [it was approved]," he said. A source close to the Attorney General's office, who declined to be named, told TOLOnews eight people have already been executed. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) supported the move saying the death penalty serves as an effective way to deter potential criminals in the future. "Enforcing fair punishment in a society has a corrective aspect and has a positive effect in reducing crime," said AIHRC regional director for central Afghanistan Shamsullah Ahmadzai. However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... there are some concerns that the sentence will not be carried out because of corruption in the justice bodies. The well-known escape of Taimoor Shah, sentenced to death earlier this year for kidnapping Italian journalist Clementina Cantoni among other crimes, has raised much criticism against the prison system. His disappearance from top security Pul-e Charkhi prison on the night before his execution led many to question the ability of the judicial organs to protect Afghans. It is said that more than 200 prisoners out of 2,000 at Pul-e Charkhi prison are awaiting their death sentence, based on pronouncements from the Attorney General.

Link

Afghanistan

Prison riot still ongoing

2006-02-27

HUNDREDS of rioting prisoners led by al-Qaeda and Taleban militants were locked in a stand-off with security forces last night after seizing control of a wing of Afghanistan’s main high-security prison. As night fell the prison, on the eastern edge of Kabul, was ringed by soldiers and police, backed by tanks and armoured personnel carriers, to prevent a break-out. Seven people were killed in the uprising at the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, according to one police officer at the scene. Prison officials said that 30 had been wounded in clashes between inmates and police. The huge, run-down, Soviet-style prison was built in the 1970s, and thousands of Afghans who opposed communist rule were killed and tortured there in the 1980s. It now holds 2,000 inmates, including about 350 Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters. Rioting began in the prison’s Block Two on Saturday night. Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai, Afghanistan’s Deputy Justice Minister, said that prisoners led by al-Qaeda and Taleban militants had taken two female guards hostage during a row over a new prison rule forcing inmates to wear blue uniforms. The uniforms were intended to prevent a repeat of a break-out last month, when seven Taleban suspects escaped by disguising themselves as visitors. General Mahboub Amiri, head of Kabul’s Rapid Reaction Police Force, said that the violence began when Taleban members tried to escape. Prison officials said that inmates had been seen trying to climb the walls, but that none had escaped. Hundreds of prisoners armed with makeshift weapons then barricaded themselves inside the block. Gunfire rang out during the day. Smoke rose from windows as inmates burned mattresses and bedding. The block was divided into three sections, with one each for political prisoners, ordinary criminals and women. Mr Hashimzai said that prisoners had broken through the divisions, and that there were fears that some female prisoners could have been raped. Four prisoners were wounded while trying to escape, but other injured prisoners were still being held by rioters, Mr Hashimzai said. “They have control of the wounded prisoners and they are not giving them to us so that we can treat them. We have doctors and ambulances ready here,” he said. Timur Shah, a gang leader who helped to kidnap Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni last year, was involved in starting the riot, according to one of the negotiators, Nader Nadeery, of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Mr Hashimzai said last night that negotiations with the prisoners had foundered. “Unfortunately, the prisoners have no unity and have different demands. There’s no one leader who can talk to us,” he said. He said that prisoners were chanting: “Death to (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai”, “Death to Bush” and “Death to America”. Wotta coincidence. I'm sitting here chanting "Death to the nasty bastards!"

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Taliban regrouping to fight US, Tajiks unruly

2005-09-04

Nearly four years after the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the dispatch of U.S. and NATO forces to Afghanistan, the Taliban have regrouped, turning 2005 into the deadliest year so far for foreign troops, using tactics based on lessons learned by Islamic militants in Iraq. At least 65 American soldiers and Marines have been killed this year in Afghanistan's southern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan -- the most since U.S. military operations began here in late 2001. In addition, criminal gangs and factional infighting in the U.S.-backed government have contributed to violent acts and kidnappings of Westerners here in the capital, where international aid organizations, NATO military units and diplomatic personnel had operated quite freely. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, an alliance between former Taliban fighters and members of a jihadist group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has resisted the Western military presence and the new government led by President Hamid Karzai. Until this year, their efforts were small-scale hit-and-run attacks limited to a few provinces bordering Pakistan, where Afghan and U.S. military officials say they are given sanctuary. But new levels of sophistication in their planning and execution appeared this year, say U.S. military and Afghan officials. This is confirmed by an Afghan source close to the Taliban, who cannot be named for fear of arrest. "The Taliban have divided up into groups of 18 to 20 people," he said, after meeting with a group in late August. "In each unit is a member of al Qaeda from Pakistan or an Arab, who teaches them tactics developed in Iraq." A senior official in the Karzai government's intelligence apparatus, who is also a former Taliban member, confirmed that the Taliban has refined its tactics with help from al Qaeda and rogue elements of Pakistan's intelligence services. The latter also provide sanctuary and training, the intelligence official said. "When the Taliban collapsed, they fled to Pakistan where they were told they could operate and train safely as long as they went back to their own country to fight the Americans," said the intelligence official, who is prohibited from speaking to reporters and asked not to be named. Mullah Kudus, a retired Taliban commander, says his former comrades in arms see the Western military presence as anti-Islamic occupation. He added that much of the fighting is economic in nature. "The new government is a slave to America," he said at his small farm outside Kabul. "Who gets all the aid money the Americans say they spend here? The Afghans are still poor and jobless. The money goes to Westerners [working for nongovernmental organizations and aid groups] and is taken out of this country. When the Afghan people realize this, they will again open a jihad against the foreign occupiers." In several cases, this year's spike in U.S. casualties can be directly tied to tactics developed by insurgents in Iraq. Six American soldiers were killed and three U.S. Embassy personnel were wounded in three bombings last month that penetrated armored vehicles. Western and Afghan officials said the bombs apparently incorporated lessons learned by insurgents in Iraq, where roadside bombs have become larger and more deadly over the past year. U.S. and Afghan government forces have responded to the rising violence with operations of their own that reportedly caused hundreds of Taliban casualties, though their number cannot be independently verified. Besides increasing combat between occupation forces and ethnic Pashtun Taliban fighters in the provinces bordering Pakistan and around Kandahar, the Karzai government has experienced internal tension as it exerts more control over former Northern Alliance commanders who helped the United States fight the Taliban. These warlords, who fought the 10-year Soviet occupation that began in 1979, have been reluctant to cede control of their territory to Kabul or lucrative criminal activities like drug smuggling. The tension between Mr. Karzai and many of his officials has led to increased violence in the previously safe capital, according to Afghan and foreign officials. The unnamed Afghan security official said that a handful of suicide attacks and kidnappings -- including the abduction in May of Clementina Cantoni, an Italian worker with CARE International -- have been linked to Tajik warlords seeking to embarrass Mr. Karzai. "When one former security commander in Kabul was fired from the ministry, he allowed several attacks to take place to show Karzai cannot bring security without the [warlords]. And many of these officials have been allowing criminal activity to take place. "Clementina was taken after several big guys were fired for their connections to criminal gangs. In Kabul, the crime and terrorism is not the Taliban, it's angry Tajik commanders," he said. Tajik commanders -- most of whom fought under revered leader Ahmed Shah Masood, who was assassinated two days before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 -- say elements in the Karzai government are targeting them, fearful of their prowess as militia leaders. On Aug. 19 in Kabul, three gunmen in police uniforms killed Karim Abed Abadi, a famous Tajik combat leader and candidate for parliament. Two days later, dozens of former anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commanders came to pay their respects in the tiny village of Qarabagh. The talk among them quickly turned to whether the Karzai government was having mujahedeen commanders murdered. Abdul Ghader Wahab, the village mullah and a former jihadist himself, said a plot was under way and would have to be dealt with to prevent all-out war between the militias and the government. "The enemies of Islam do not want the mujahedeen to regain power or enter parliament," the rural cleric said. "We do not call the Karzai government the launcher of the attacks or an enemy of Islam, but if they do not pursue the killers, then we will consider the government the assassins in this case, and we will discuss the need for jihad against the government then."

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Eight Arrested in Afghan Kidnapping

2005-06-12

Afghan police have arrested eight people suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of an Italian aid worker, who was freed after three weeks in captivity, the interior minister said Saturday. Ali Ahmad Jalali said the eight have been detained separately since May 16, when Clementina Cantoni, 32, was abducted at gunpoint in the heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul. She was freed Thursday and flew home Friday. On Saturday, Cantoni said she planned to return to Afghanistan at some point. "I will go back to Afghanistan, perhaps in a year or two, to see my friends, but not in the near future," Cantoni told a press conference in Milan, Italy. She added that the situation in Afghanistan remained "unstable and of high risk, not only for international aid workers, but also and especially for the Afghans." At a press conference in Kabul, Jalali gave no details about the eight except to say they were still being questioned. According to Italian media reports, Cantoni told prosecutors the number of her kidnappers varied from four to six. Jalali reiterated a government claim that no concessions were made or ransom paid to free the Italian, who had been working for CARE International on a project helping Afghan widows and their families. Italian papers have reported that Cantoni's freedom was secured thanks to the release of the mother of the leader of the kidnappers. Jalali acknowledged the mother of one kidnapper was released, but he said it was not part of a deal. He said the mother had been detained on suspicion of involvement in an earlier kidnapping of the son of an Afghan businessman, but she was not charged.

Link

Europe

Italian hostage identifies kidnapper

2005-06-11

FREED Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni has identified a picture of her main kidnapper and told Italian authorities that she was never hurt nor threatened during her three weeks in captivity, Italian newspapers reported today. Ms Cantoni, who was released yesterday, said her hostage takers numbered between four and six and their leader introduced himself immediately as Timur Shah. "Tell me what is your brother's name, because from now on I am your brother," the aid worker quoted Shah as saying after her capture on May 16, according to Corriere della Sera. Ms Cantoni, immediately questioned by Italy's anti-terrorism unit upon her arrival in Italy yesterday, was shown a picture of Shah and identified him as the gang leader who led her kidnapping. Apart from being tied by the ankles during the night and never being allowed a change of clothes, Ms Cantoni said she was never mistreated or threatened. "They never touched me," Ms Cantoni told prosecutors, according to La Repubblica, adding that her captors allowed her to watch television and sometimes gave her newspapers in English. "The worst moment was when I was captured," the 32-year-old was quoted as saying. Ms Cantoni, who ran a women's project CARE International in Kabul, said her kidnappers often said she would soon be released. On Friday, they blindfolded her and asked her to get in the boot of a car, but she convinced them to let her stay in the car, arguing that she suffered from claustrophobia. After a 20-minute ride, she was told to get out where she was greeted by Afghan police, Italian papers quoted her as saying. Italian newspapers reported that Ms Cantoni was freed in exchange for the release of Shah's mother. An Afghan official in Kabul confirmed that Shah's mother was released from custody, but said that the authorities wanted to release her anyway as there was no grounds to charge her. They had originally suspected her of participating in a previous kidnapping attributed to Shah's gang.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Italy hostage released in Kabul

2005-06-09

Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni has been freed nearly a month after being taken hostage in Afghanistan, the Afghan interior ministry has said. "She has just been released," said a ministry spokesman. "She is fine." Ms Cantoni, who works for aid agency Care International, was abducted on 16 May by gunmen who forced her out of her car in central Kabul. She has been in Afghanistan since September 2003, supporting more than 10,000 widows and their children. Hours before her release was announced, hundreds of schoolgirls in the Afghan capital, Kabul, handed out nearly 3,000 stickers calling for Ms Cantoni to be freed. A pleasent surprise. Wonder how much the ransom was?

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

AfghanTV shows kidnapped Italian

2005-05-30

A video of a kidnapped Italian aid worker flanked by two men aiming rifles at her head has been broadcast on Afghan television. Clementina Cantoni, 32, a worker for CARE International, responded to prompts from a man not shown on the video, identifying herself and naming her father, mother and an uncle. The tape, broadcast on Sunday by independent Tolo TV, then zoomed in on her face. She wore a blue scarf, spoke quietly and looked nervous. It was not clear when the recording was made. But near the end of the tape, the man who was speaking off-camera asked Cantoni the date. "Today is May 28, Sunday," she said.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghanistan Hits Back at Italy for Interfering in Talks

2005-05-27

Afghanistan hit back at Italy yesterday for meddling in negotiations to free an aid worker kidnapped ten days ago, escalating a war of words between Rome and Kabul. Clementina Cantoni, who works for CARE International, was dragged from her car in Kabul by armed gunmen in an incident which has prompted foreigners to tighten security measures. "The Italian Embassy, without informing us, has set up some contacts with the alleged kidnappers. We believe these kind of contacts are not helpful for the negotiations and the safe release of Clementina," Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP. "We were suggesting that the contacts should be made from one channel, from the Afghan side only," Mashal said.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghan kidnapper says he killed Italian hostage

2005-05-20

KABUL (Reuters) - A man claiming to have kidnapped an Italian aid worker in Afghanistan told Reuters on Friday he had killed her, but a government spokesman said she was still alive. Timoor Shah, who claimed to be holding Clementina Cantoni, said he had killed her after President Hamid Karzai's government refused to accept his demands. "We strangled her with a rope at nine o'clock last night," Shah said by telephone. Karzai's spokesman, Jawed Ludin, said Cantoni, 32, was still alive. Cantoni, who works for the Care International aid agency, was seized by gunmen in Kabul on Monday night. "I will not give her body to anyone," said Shah, who was contacted on Cantoni's mobile phone number. "I killed her because the government didn't listen or accept my demands," he said. He declined to discuss his demands saying: "The matter is over." Ludin dismissed Shah's claim, saying Cantoni was still alive. "He is lying. He makes such comments in order to put pressure on the government," he said. "I have assurances from the interior minister that she is alive. The talks are going on."

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghan gov't in contact with kidnapped aid babe

2005-05-19

The Afghan government said that it was in contact with an abducted Italian aid worker, who was in good health, and her kidnappers and was optimistic she would be released unharmed. "We have spoken with Clementina Cantoni," Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP. "Her health condition and safety is ensured." He added that the government was "in constant contact" with the people claiming to be the kidnappers. "We are very optimistic that Ms. Clementina will be peacefully released," he said. "We are sparing no efforts to get her peaceful release, but there will be no concession to kidnappers."

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Taliban kills 5 Afghans

2005-05-18

Suspected Taliban militants on Wednesday ambushed and shot to death five Afghans working on a U.S.-funded project to help end opium farming in the south of the country, officials said. A man claiming to have kidnapped an Italian aid worker in the Afghan capital threatened Wednesday in an interview on local television to kill her unless his demands were immediately met. Also, a former foreign minister for Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime said he would be a candidate in the country's upcoming parliamentary elections. The workers were ambushed as they drove through Helmand province, about 110 miles northwest of Kandahar, senior provincial official Ghulam Muhiddin said. Two of the victims were engineers working for Washington-based Chemonics International Inc. and one was a government engineer. The other two were the driver and a policeman employed as a security guard, he said. There were no survivors in the car. "Police are investigating the killings and are searching for the Taliban attackers," Muhiddin said. Carol Yee, a senior Chemonics worker in the area, confirmed the killings. She said the men were working on a project to provide alternative livelihoods to farmers growing opium, the raw material for heroin. Yee said no threats had been made against Chemonics, a global consulting firm that works under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other aid donors. Meanwhile, a man who claimed to be holding Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni threatened to kill her unless his demands were met by Wednesday night. "If our demands are not accepted ... we will show our reaction and finish her," the man, who called himself Temur Shah, told private Afghan Tolo television station in a telephone interview. Shah did not give any proof that he was holding her. Cantoni, 32, has been in Afghanistan since 2002 and was working for CARE International on a project helping Afghan widows and their families. CARE's Afghanistan director, Paul Barker, said the aid group has negotiated with the man who claims to be holding Cantoni. "The guy, if he is who we think he is, has blood on his hand from previous incidents," Barker said. The man demanded the government set up more Islamic boarding schools in Afghanistan and provide "alternative livelihoods" for farmers being forced to stop growing opium, and he insisted that independent radio station Arman stop broadcasting a program about young people's social issues. He did not say why he opposed the show. Shah said Cantoni's health was "very critical," adding that she was bleeding internally and vomiting, and had not eaten in three days. He said she hurt her head while being dragged out of her car Monday. Authorities have said they suspect Cantoni was kidnapped by the same criminal gang accused of abducting three U.N. workers last year. They were released a month later. The Italian government said Tuesday that contact had been made with the kidnappers and that Cantoni was unhurt. Her kidnapping was the latest in a string of attacks targeting foreigners in Kabul, reinforcing fears that militants or criminals are copying tactics used in Iraq. The Afghan government recently has reached out to members of the Taliban to lay down their weapons and rejoin civil society. A former member of the Taliban regime announced Wednesday he would run in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who is considered a relative moderate, surrendered to U.S. forces in the southern city of Kandahar in 2003 and was held by the U.S. military at its main base in Bagram, north of Kabul. He was freed recently. "I have the right to be an independent candidate," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "I am doing this for the sake of the people of Afghanistan. If I win, I will work for the peace and development of Afghanistan." Muttawakil said he registered as a candidate in Kandahar and would compete to represent the former Taliban stronghold in the new 249-seat legislature.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Minister: Kidnapped Italian Aid Worker OK

2005-05-18

Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday that an Italian aid worker taken hostage in Afghanistan is all right, as he tried to reassure an anguished nation over its latest abduction drama. "We know that she is well because the kidnappers have initiated a channel of contacts with the Afghan authorities," Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told reporters about efforts to win the freedom of CARE International worker Clementina Cantoni, who was abducted in Kabul on Monday. When reporters asked Fini if the kidnappers had asked for ransom in exchange for the woman's release, he replied: "It's a question on which utmost reserve, discretion and prudence are obligatory to reach the objective." That means "Yes, but we'll deny it." Earlier, a top aide to Fini, Ministry Undersecretary Margherita Boniver, told Sky TG24 that "the most accredited hypothesis about the kidnappers is that of common criminals."

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More