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Afghanistan

Afghanistan's Senate endorses reporter's death sentence

2008-01-31

Afghanistan’s senate has endorsed a death sentence handed down by a court to a reporter and journalism student accused of blasphemy, the parliament media office said Wednesday. The senate, called the Meshrano Jirga (House of Elders), issued a statement Tuesday backing last week’s decision by the Balkh province primary court and criticising international pressure over the case, an official told AFP. The court sentenced Perwiz Kambakhsh, 23, to death for distributing articles downloaded from the Internet that were said to question the Holy Quran and the role of women in Islam. “The Meshrano Jirga endorses the Balkh primary court’s verdict on sentencing to death Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh who has been sentenced over insulting Islam and misinterpretation of Quranic verses,” said the statement read to AFP. The house also “strongly criticises those domestic and international organisations which are pressurising Afghanistan’s government and legal authorities when pursuing such people,” it said. Fine. I guess you don't need our help. Sure hope the Talibunnies stay focused on Wazoo. The statement was signed Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the head of the senate who was briefly Afghan president in the early 1990s and is a close ally President Hamid Karzai. The death sentence must pass through various higher courts and be approved by Karzai, who has been called on by international and Afghan media rights organisations to intervene in the case.

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Afghanistan

Afghan Senate chief threatens to resign

2006-10-13

Wheels within wheels and all that. Chairman of Afghanistan Senate and former mujahidin-era president Sibghatullah Mujaddedi warned that he would quit his office in protest if the government failed to control corruption and come hard on corrupt officials. Mujaddidi is widely respected among Afghans for being a spiritual leader. He is also chief of the government-backed Reconciliation Commission assigned with the task to bring anti-government elements and dissidents in the fold of the government. Addressing a ceremony in Kabul to receive the 16 Afghan prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, Mujaddidi said President Hamid Karzai and Attorney-General Jabar Sabit were giving no weight to his advice on ending corruption in Afghanistan. He said undesirable people were present in the government. He had time and again asked the government to purge the administration of those undesirable people but the government did not act. "Now, if they (the government) failed to take concrete steps on this front, I shall quit my job," said Mujaddidi. Sources in the Afghan government told KUNA that the elderly politician, Mujaddidi, was not happy with the new Attorney-General Abdul Jabbar Sabit who is carrying out anti-corruption war in the country. The sources said an official, who was close to Mujaddidi, has recently fallen victim to Sabit's anti-corruption war and the chairman was not happy about that. Sabit was recently appointed by Karzai and got vote of confidence from the Afghan parliament to purge government departments from corruption which is widespread in this war-shattered country. Both the international community and donors have repeatedly expressed reservations about widespread corruption in virtually all government branches.

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Afghanistan

16 Afghans, 1 Iranian arrive in Afghanistan from Gitmo

2006-10-13

KABUL, Afghanistan - Sixteen Afghans and one Iranian released from years in captivity at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, an Afghan official said. The 16 Afghans appeared at a news conference alongside Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, head of Afghanistan’s reconciliation commission, which assists with the release of detainees from Guantanamo and the US prison at the Bagram military base north of Kabul. Mejadedi said many of the detainees had served up to four years in Guantanamo. He said “most” of the Afghan prisoners were innocent and had been turned in to the US military by other Afghans because of personal disputes. The released Iranian prisoner, who also arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, was handed over to the International Committee of the Red Thingy Cross, he said.

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India-Pakistan

Ban On Two Afghan TV Channels

2006-03-17

Pakistani authorities have banned two private Afghan TV channels on charges that they spread anti-Pakistan propaganda. The two channels, Tolo TV and Ariana TV, which are widely watched on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, had accused Pakistani security forces of being behind last week's suicide attack aimed at Afghan Senate leader and former president Sibghatullah Mujaddedi. Mujaddedi had blamed the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, for the attack saying that he had information from various sources that they had planned to kill him because of his efforts to engage the Taliban in the peace process. Pakistan denied any involvement in the attack. Reports say that an official with the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), Abdul Jalal Khan, accused the two TV stations of being involved in baseless propaganda against Pakistan. Another PEMRA official said that the two channels did not have any telecast rights in Pakistan. Reports in the Indian media say that PEMRA has already banned Indian channels in Pakistan on the grounds that they carry propaganda against Pakistan and that they are a threat to local TV channels. "They's poaching on our market share!" The two channels are popular among Afghan refugees and Pashtun people in the Baluchistan province and the North West Frontier Province. Tonights line-up on Tolo TV; "Jihad Idol", "Survivor - Waziristan" and "Law and Order - Sharia Victims Unit". This latest measure by the Pakistani authorities comes just as tensions have increased between the two neighbours over who is responsible for Islamic militants operating in the volatile border region between the two countries.

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India-Pakistan

Pakistanis accused of aiding Taliban with missile parts

2006-03-14

American and Nato forces are following up reports that the Taliban have received vital components for shoulder-fired Stinger missiles from Pakistani officials enabling them to be used against helicopters in Afghanistan. It is claimed that the missiles have been fitted with new battery packs allegedly provided by the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, in the past four months. Western sources say they are not sure whether the supplies, needed to make the US-made missiles operational, were provided by rogue elements within the Pakistani secret service, or approved at a high level. However, the effect of re-arming the Stingers could be to make Nato aircraft vulnerable while Britain is deployingalmost 6,000 soldiers in southern Afghanistan. It is believed that the battery packs had been fitted in between 18 and 20 heat-seeking Stingers which can hit targets at around 12,000 feet. They are reported to have been handed over in the Quetta region in Pakistan known to be used by the Taliban to launch attacks in southern Afghanistan. US and Nato forces have carried out a series of searches along the border areas in the hunt for the missiles, with a large-scale operation a month ago. No British forces were involved. It is not known if Stingers have been recovered. The Pakistan government yesterday denied the accusation as "baseless". An official spokesman said: "Pakistan has lost more security personnel in the fight against terror than any other country. We make no distinction in this fight between al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. No evidence to the contrary has ever been provided; these are just rumours, unsubstantiated allegations and innuendo." The Pakistan government also rejected suggestions of involvement by ISI rogue elements. "Our military and security services are disciplined forces," the spokesman said. Reports that the batteries had been fitted to the missiles surfaced at the end of last year along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It followed efforts by Afghan officials to buy Stingers which had been supplied to the Afghan Mujahedin by the US during the war against the Russians. Taliban fighters have yet to successfully use anti-aircraft missiles against US and Nato forces. However, both US and British pilots, who fly Tornados from a base in Kandahar, report that ground-to-air missiles have been fired at them. Western diplomats and military are extremely sensitive about the Stinger allegations as it comes at a time when Afghanistan and Pakistan are engaged in an escalating feud over insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. The Afghan government claims Pakistan is doing little to stem the flow of a resurgent Taliban who have launched a new offensive in Afghanistan from Pakistan. At the weekend the head of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, accused the Pakistani secret service of being behind a suicide bombing which injured him and killed four other people in Kabul. Pakistan has strenuously denied the charges, accusing elements in the Afghan government of a disinformation campaign. A resurgent Taliban and their Islamist allies have launched waves of attacks in which 1,500 lives, including 100 Americans, have been lost in the past year. The director of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, recently told the Senate's Armed Forces Committee in Washington that the Taliban and their allies were at their most powerful since the official end of the war five years ago. He and other US and British commanders expect a major Taliban offensive starting in the spring. Stingers began to be delivered to the Afghan mujahedin by the Reagan administration in 1986. They proved extremely successful against the Russians' main helicopter-gunship, the Hind-D, and were a significant contributory factor in the full Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan three years later. More than 2,000 Stinger missiles were sent by the US. An effort by the CIA to buy them back after the war was largely a failure. In 2001 Pentagon officials said some of the missiles might have fallen into the hands of the Taliban and al-Qa'ida.

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Afghanistan

4 US soldiers killed in Afghanistan

2006-03-14

A roadside bomb killed four US soldiers traveling in an armored vehicle in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, the deadliest attack on coalition forces in a month. In Kabul, a suicide bombing yesterday killed another four people and narrowly missed the chief of Afghanistan’s upper house of Parliament, who accused Pakistani intelligence of trying to assassinate him. The two bombings were the latest in a drumbeat of militant attacks that appear to be gathering intensity, four years after the ouster of the hard-line Taleban regime by US-led forces. The four US soldiers died when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive in the Pech Valley, Kunar province, as they patrolled to keep a road open to civilian and military traffic, military spokesman Col. Jim Yonts said. Kunar Gov. Asadullah Wafa said the blast went off at 4.15 p.m. as a convoy of six American vehicles was passing. Yonts accused militants of launching “cowardly” attacks, placing bombs and detonating them from a distance. He said it would not deter the US-led coalition forces from their mission of defeating the Taleban and Al-Qaeda and establishing enduring security. Earlier yesterday, a car bombing in the capital targeted Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, a Muslim scholar who briefly served as president in 1992. He is now head of the new Meshrano Jirga, or upper house, and leads a commission that encourages Taleban fighters to reconcile with the government. Mujaddedi escaped with burns to his hands and face, but two attackers who drove the explosive-laden station wagon into his convoy were killed, along with two bystanders — a girl on her way to school and a man on a motorbike. Five others were wounded. Three bodies could be seen either side of the bloodstained road, which was littered with parts of the attackers’ car. “The explosion was very strong. For a while I couldn’t see anything. I was in the front seat of my car. I saw a big fire came toward me,” the white-bearded Mujaddedi told a news conference a few hours later. His hands were wrapped in bandages — burned when he raised them to protect his face from the blast. President Hamid Karzai condemned it as “an attack on the voice of Afghanistan and clerics of Afghanistan.” He did not blame anyone outright, but said that he had received information two months ago of a plot to “attack important personalities in Afghanistan.” Mujaddedi was more forthright, and directly accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency for the bombing. He offered no proof. “We have got information that ISI of Pakistan has launched a plan to kill me,” he said. Islamabad dismissed Mujaddedi’s charges. “Pakistan rejects the baseless allegations,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. The charges will aggravate deteriorating relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, two key allies in the US-led war on terror. Ties have been badly strained since Kabul revealed it had shared intelligence with Islamabad that Taleban leader Mullah Omar and top associates were hiding in Pakistan and terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil were churning out suicide attackers. Pakistan dismissed the intelligence as outdated and strongly criticized Afghanistan for publicizing it. Meanwhile, Haji Asadullah Khalid, governor of the former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar, confirmed that four Albanian and four Afghan employees of a German company, Ecolog, were kidnapped Saturday in neighboring Helmand province. He did not identify the kidnappers. Qari Mohammed Yousaf, who claims to speak for the Taleban, said in an earlier call to The Associated Press that the militia was responsible but had yet to issue any demands. He said the eight men were OK. Jalal, an Ecolog official, said the men went missing as they were returning after doing a survey in Helmand’s Grieshk district for the company, which treats dirty water at US and Afghan Army bases.

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Afghanistan

Suicide bomber kills 3 in Kabul

2006-03-12

A car carrying explosives blew up Sunday near the convoy of a senior politician in the Afghan capital, killing two suspected suicide attackers and a bystander and injuring four other people, police said. Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the head of a commission leading efforts for reconciliation between the Afghan government and Taliban militants, was driving to work when the explosion occurred. Mujaddedi and others in his convoy were not hurt, police official Zalmay Huryakhil said. Two vehicles in Mujaddedi's convoy were damaged, an Associated Press reporter saw. The four-wheel-drive vehicle with tinted windows usually used by Mujaddedi had shattered windows and one side was riddled with shrapnel. "It was a very dangerous conspiracy against Mujaddedi. Mujaddedi is fine. He is in his office," said Syed Sharif Yousafi, a Mujaddedi aide. Mujaddedi is also head of the upper house of the Afghan Parliament. Sibghatullah is also a former president of Afghanistan, from 1992, I believe. He was chosen because he was inoffensive to most people. Even Hek didn't bother trying to bump him off.

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Afghanistan

Last-Ditch Effort Secures Afghan Charter

2004-01-04

Afghanistan's constitutional convention agreed on a historic new charter on Sunday, overcoming weeks of division and mistrust to hammer out a compromise meant to bind together the war-ravaged nation's mosaic of ethnic groups. Just a day after warning that the meeting, or loya jirga, was heading toward a humiliating failure, chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddedi announced that last-ditch diplomacy had secured a deal. After the new draft was circulated, the 502 delegates gathered under a giant tent in the Afghan capital rose from their chairs, standing in silence for about 30 seconds to signal their support for the new charter. "Let's promise before God and our people to implement this constitution," Mujaddedi said. "If we don't, it will bring us no good." The Motorcycles of Doom set will be doing their best to scuttle it... The charter was amended to grant official status to northern minority languages where they are most commonly spoken, an issue which had brought the meeting close to collapse. U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad hailed the accord. "Ave, accord!" President Hamid Karzai was to make a speech to the gathering later Sunday. Sidiq Chakari, a Tajik delegate and spokesman for faction leader and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had taken part in a boycott Thursday, said the deal was a milestone on the way to peace. "It's a very big achievement. I do hope it will bring friendship between our ethnic groups," he said. "Everybody wants to switch to disarmament and reconstruction." The only people stopping you are yourselves... Some Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group, had pressed until the last for the charter to reverse what they say is the domination of Dari names for public institutions such as universities and courts. But they went along in the end. "I mean, just because they learn how to read and write, why's that mean they got to dominate public institutions such as universities and courts?" "It will help demilitarize the capital and inject new freedom into education, the media, normal life," said Khalid Pashtun, a fervent advocate of his kinsmen's rights. The accord gives the U.S.-backed Karzai the presidential system he had insisted on, though only after some notable compromises. Karzai has argued strongly for a dominant chief executive to hold the country together as it rebuilds and reconciles after more than two decades of war, and said he wouldn't run again if he didn't get his way. It'd be better if he didn't run again anyway. John Hancock's job is done; now it's time for Washington. It was also a triumph for the United States and United Nations, whose officials worked tirelessly to broker a backroom agreement to bolster a peace process begun after the ouster of the Taliban two years ago. In three weeks of often rancorous debate, religious conservatives forced through amendments to make the constitution more Islamic — possibly with a ban on alcohol. Yeah, sure. That's important enough to be included in your constitution. We used to have it there, too. No doubt Afghans of future generations will wonder what the hell their ancestors were thinking, too... On the other hand, wording was changed to spell out that men and women should be treated equally — a key demand of human rights groups. There goes the Pashtuns' cultural heritage... In the most bruising tussle, minorities such as the Uzbeks and Turkmen from the north won official status for their languages in the areas where they are strongest, with only grudging acceptance from Pashtuns. Rivals of Karzai, mainly from the Northern Alliance faction which helped U.S. forces drive out the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden, strengthened parliament with amendments giving it veto power over some key appointments and policies. A new commission is to be set up to monitor implementation of the constitution — another potential power base for a rival. But with no provision for a prime minister or strong regional councils, the wide-ranging powers sought by Karzai in a draft released in November appeared to have survived mainly intact. The charter makes the president commander in chief of the armed forces, charges him with determining the nation's fundamental policies and gives him considerable power to press legislation. "The strong presidency was quickly settled," Khalilzad said, although he acknowledged parliament had been bolstered. "It's more balanced in that way."

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Afghanistan

Afghan constitution vote suspended

2003-12-31

Afghan leaders suspended voting on the country’s first post-Taliban constitution Tuesday after failing to close an ethnic split over issues from power-sharing to recognition for minorities. Delegates to the grand council, or loya jirga, were dismissed and told to return Wednesday, leaving a core of powerful leaders to join U.N. and U.S. officials to seek a compromise among the country’s fractious ethnic groups. Before disappearing into the crisis talks, the council’s embattled chairman, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, appealed for calm — and suggested a deal could be reached in overnight talks. "Sometimes our loya jirga gets so hot that the people catch fire, and sometimes it’s so cold you need warmer clothes," he told the council gathered in a huge tent on a city college campus. "God willing, tomorrow we will gather again and won’t even need to vote or debate any more." The 502-member council has spent more than two weeks debating and revising a 160-article draft supported by U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai. Karzai appears to have rallied a clear majority for the strongly centralized presidential system laid out in the draft, mostly among his ethnic Pashtun kinsmen from the south of the country. But representatives of the Northern Alliance faction, which helped U.S. forces throw out the Pashtun-dominated Taliban in late 2001, have put up stubborn resistance. Critics including hardline Islamists who fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the civil war that followed, want a parliament strong enough to keep the president in check. They are also pressing for the recognition of minority languages and stronger regional councils, as well as a state with a stronger Islamic flavor. Officials exasperated at snail-paced discussions and the $50,000-a-day cost handed out voting slips Tuesday morning so that the council could decide on a dozen of 18 last-minute amendments. But delegates close to Burhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik leader and former president, called for a halt, claiming their demands were being ignored amid heavy-handed government lobbying. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a regular presence at the jirga, later met with Mujaddedi, U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi and other Afghan officials. Many Pashtuns are confident they have a majority to turn the constitution back in Karzai’s favor and impatient for a vote. "They just want to disrupt the whole process," said Omar Zakhilwal, a delegate from Kandahar, said of the opposition. "They think they are losing." Others appealed for moderation to heal the wounds left by years of war. "After 24 years of war, different people can have different ideas," said Mahmoud Shah Suleyman Khel, a Pashtun delegate from Paktia who said he decided to attend the loya jirga despite threats in his region by Taliban militants. "Everybody wants security and peace and stability. This is what is important to the people of Afghanistan."

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan Nears Adopting Constitution

2003-12-22

Afghanistan’s grand council made progress Sunday toward adopting a landmark post-Taliban constitution despite an enduring divide over President Hamid Karzai’s wish for a strongly centralized state. Opinion appeared split on issues such as human rights and the powers of the president. But eight days into the council, or loya jirga, its chairman said he was ready to assess proposed amendments to the draft, which would then be put to a vote. ``The brothers and sisters have done a great job,’’ Council Chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddedi said at a news conference. ``I expect and hope that this debate won’t take much longer, because everyone has had ample chance to express their views.’’Karzai has pressed for swift ratification of the charter, which should lead to presidential elections next June and crown a two-year drive to stabilize the country after the fall of the Taliban. Fascinating — Afghans might actually have a working government in the end. When’s the last time that happened? Mujaddedi gave no indication of which way the majority were leaning on critical issues. But U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad met with Karzai and said Saturday that delegates appeared to favor a presidential system. Some delegates who left the closely guarded jirga site on a Kabul college campus to speak to reporters Sunday said they were happy with the deliberations. ``There is a democratic atmosphere. Everyone can say what they want,’’ said Mujaher Anwari, an Uzbek from Jawzjan province who said he supports a presidential system. Should we remind our pals on the left who made this democratic spirit possible? But others said they would protest the concentration of powers desired by Karzai, who has said he wants to stand in the June presidential vote. Farooq Wardak, the director of the country’s constitutional commission acknowledged that opponents of the presidency could make a final push to stop it. ``As you know, the type of regime is an object of discussion,’’ Wardak said. ``If there is a need for voting on one or two issues, there will be voting.’’ Ballots, not bullets. Whoda thunk? I'm not holding my breath...

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