Here are excerpts from some discussions we had last year on Afghanistan. It seems like a very dreadful state. Shouldn't Bush had seen to it that one job was done before he moved on to another?
News headlines from Afghanistan, in the last few months...
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Mar.22, 2003: Afghanistan: the Taliban's smiling face
Mar.12, 2003: Afghan Police Accused of Rights Abuses
Feb.26, 2003: Afghanistan has been well and truly betrayed
Feb.23, 2003: Afghan poor sell daughters as brides
Feb.1, 2003: Afghan Warlords Killing at Will
Jan.29, 2003: War 'has ruined Afghan environment'
Jan.28, 2003: Film Accuses U.S. of Atrocities at Dasht-i-Leili
Jan.24, 2003: British Parliament: "Afghanistan Could Fall Back Into Anarchy"
Jan.21, 2003: Afghan Chief Justice Bans Cable TV
Jan.14, 2003: Disabled War Vets Accusing the Government of Misusing Aid Donations
Dec.23, 2002: Afghanistan: Rogues on the loose
Dec.18, 2002: US Broke Law in Use Of Cluster Bombs in Afghanistan
Dec.18, 2002: US Troops Blamed in Afghan Kids' Deaths
Dec.17, 2002: Post-Taliban Warlords Oppress Afghan Women
Dec.15, 2002: Severe Cold Kills 41 Afghan Refugee Children
Dec.13, 2002: Afghan refugees freeze to death
Dec.12, 2002: Warlords are Afghanistan's new worry number one
Dec.8, 2002: Old Fears in the New Afghanistan
Nov.18, 2002: Self-Immolations on Rise in Afghanistan
Nov.16, 2002: Book: U.S. Paid Off Afghan Warlords
Nov.13, 2002: Reporters Without Border report on the situation of press in Afghanistan
Nov.12, 2002: Afghan Police Fire on Student Protesters, Killing Four and Wounding 30
Nov.9, 2002: U.S. Used More DU Weapons in Afg. Than in Gulf War: Dracovic
Nov.6, 2002: Afghan Women Die Giving Birth at Staggering Rate
Nov.5, 2002: HRW Reports Rights Abuses by Afghan Governor Ismail Khan
Nov.2, 2002: Afghan Woman Fired for Meeting Bush Uncovered
Nov.2, 2002: Disappointed repatriates likely to re-enter Pakistan
Oct.30, 2002: Afghan Girl's Schools Struck by Attacks
Oct.25, 2002: Afghanistan is again the world's largest opium producer, UN
Oct.23, 2002: UN rights expert: Afghanistan's cycle of violence not over
Oct.19, 2002: Two Killed, 40 Hurt in Attack on Afghan Wedding
Oct.16, 2002: Aghan police beat musicians defying ban
Oct.14, 2002: Widespread abuse, restrictions on freedom continue
Oct.8, 2002: Pashtuns driven from northern Afghan villages
Oct.5, 2002: Teachers and Students Protest Against Warlords in Takhar Province
Oct.4, 2002: Fighting Resumes in North and West of Afghanistan
Sep.23, 2002: Afghan Alliance Says Karzai Treading a Risky Path
Sep.15, 2002: Karzai brothers' fury at US failures
Sep.8, 2002: Afghan Women Remain Victims of Hope Unfulfilled
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And in other news...perhaps we should finish one war before moving on to another
Old warlord threatens Afghan peace
Taliban and al-Qaida rebels link up with fundamentalist
Rory McCarthy in Peshawar
Monday February 10, 2003
The Guardian
Afghan rebel factions loyal to the Taliban and a fundamentalist warlord have launched a new wave of attacks on aid workers and US forces, signalling the emergence of an increasingly confident resistance movement.
At the heart of the violence is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan's most fundamentalist warlords who was once supported by the west. Officials in Kabul say Mr Hekmatyar, the leader of the extreme Sunni Hezb-i-Islami party, is now forging an alliance with the remnants of the Taliban regime and the al-Qaida network.
In the past month rebel factions have targeted US forces, the UN and other aid agencies and Afghan government troops. The UN has been forced to close some of of its operations in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
The US military said Mr Hekmatyar's men were involved in an intense battle with American soldiers in the mountains near the southern town of Spin Boldak last week.
"The resistance is growing every day," said Naseerullah Babar, a retired Pakistani general and former interior minister who was instrumental in the emergence of the Taliban regime nearly a decade ago. "The Americans have mishandled this. They are going to over-extend themselves with this arrogance of power."
Many Pashtun communities in southern Afghanistan feel resentful towards the Kabul government because it is dominated by ethnic minorities. Commanders such as Mr Hekmatyar and others who have been excluded have tried to play on this Pashtun bitterness. Of them all, Mr Hekmatyar has perhaps the most fearsome reputation.
As early as 1973, Gen Babar helped to recruit Mr Hekmatyar, along with other Islamic mojahedin leaders, including Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Afghan opposition leader assassinated two days before the September 11 attacks, and trained them to fight against the Communist government in Kabul. He said Mr Hekmatyar immediately stood out as an imposing military leader.
"He was young, vibrant, committed and he had followers in the Pakhtun [Pashtun] belt," he said.
During the 1980s war against the Soviet occupation he quickly became a favourite of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, which handed him a large slice of the millions of CIA dollars funnelled into the war.
But although Mr Hekmatyar twice served as prime minister in the mojahedin governments which followed the Soviet withdrawal, he also earned an unparalleled reputation for brutality in the factional fighting of the early 1990s. When the Taliban emerged, Mr Hekmatyar turned down Pakistan's attempts to ally him with the new movement and he fled instead into exile in Tehran.
Last year he returned to Afghanistan and is now believed to be moving through the eastern provinces of Kunar, Laghman and Logar, although he has not been seen in public. His face now appears alongside that of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, in wanted leaflets handed out by US troops, and he narrowly missed being hit last year by a missile fired by an unmanned CIA Predator drone.
In an interview in November with the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, Mr Hekmatyar made clear he saw US troops as the enemy.
"They have fallen into a swamp from which it will be difficult for them to get out. They will face intolerable problems," he said. "The battle is with the Americans. The reason for what we are facing is the American presence in Afghanistan. We must end this presence, and then its supporters will collapse."
He also praised the surprisingly strong performance of Pakistan's Islamic parties in elections in October, which may provide him with an ideological support base. Several who fought alongside Mr Hekmatyar in the 1980s have now been elected in Pakistan's conservative provinces on the Afghan border.
Samina Ahmed, a project director in Pakistan with the Brussels-based thinktank, the International Crisis Group, said the new wave of attacks in Afghanistan had come as a "wake-up call" to the western forces and the Kabul government.
A much stronger western peacekeeping presence was needed across Afghanistan, not just in Kabul as at present, to ensure a stable transition to elections next year, she said.
"The past few weeks have been very disturbing with more attacks. A small-scale international presence is not going to be the answer," she said. |
