US TV talk show host Larry King was told by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview that his government is holding “unofficial” talks with the Taliban in order to advance peace talks. He cited a new High Peace Council, led by former President Buhanuddin Rabbani, with the goal of bringing the Taliban into the family fold of Afghans.
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
A report by a US Senate committee reveals that US Defense Department funds are going to private Afghan security contractors who often are criminals or have connections to the Taliban.
The report, published 7 October, says that much money is wasted for lack of appropriate oversight and in some cases goes to fund Taliban activities. “There is significant evidence that some security contractors even worked against our coalition forces, creating the very threat they are hired to combat,” said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
There are 25,000 private security contractors in Afghanistan. Their numbers and their pay is also seen to be undermining the government’s efforts to build a viable Afghan army, whose recruits are paid much less.
Links to other sites: BBC, Reuters, Wall Street Journal,
Related cartoon: GenevaLunch’s Chappatte cartoon
Masked gunmen torched between 25 and 30 tanker trucks supplying fuel and other essential military materiel to Nato forces in Afghanistan, reports said 1 October. About 80 percent of Nato’s supplies for Afghanistan are sourced through Pakistan. It is the first time that an attack of this kind has taken place in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province.
The gunmen used small arms to scare off the drivers of the vehicles, then set fire to the tankers, according to the Telegraph and Al-Jazeera. AFP, citing Shikarpur district police chief Abdul Hameed Khoso, reports that heavily armed gunmen used rocket launchers and assault rifles in their atttack.
The attack comes a day after Pakistan closed the border to Afghanistan to all tanker traffic in protest at a Nato raid on a Pakistani military checkpoint that killed three Pakistani soldiers. It was the fourth such cross-border attack on suspected Islamist militants in one week.
Links to other sites: AFP, Al-Jazeera, Daily Telegraph
A British aid worker kidnapped alongside three Afghan co-workers in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan 26 September is being held by the Taliban. A Taliban commander, Mohammed Osman, speaking to the Afghan Islamic Press 27 September, said he would release the aid worker in exchange for Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist sentenced to 86 years in prison in the USA for attacking US soldiers and agents.
The British woman was working for a US-based development group, Development Alternatives, when the convoy she was travelling in was ambushed. Afghan national police gave chase, but the kidnappers escaped into nearby mountains. British officials have confirmed the kidnapping but have not commented on the Taliban demands.
Links to other sites: AP, Daily Telegraph
Five US soldiers stand accused of murdering three Afghan civilians in different incidents last year in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. Seven others are accused of helping to cover up the crimes. The ringleader, Staff Sgt Calvin Gibbs, is said to have kept a finger, a leg bone and a tooth from the victims.The accused are alleged to have intimidated others in their platoon to maintain secrecy.
The father of one of the accused, Christopher Winfield, a retired Marine, told the AP that his son Adam had warned him in a Facebook message after the first killing took place , and called Fort Lewis, Washington state, in February 2010 and spoke to authorities there. He was told that unless his son was willing to step forward himself, there was nothing they could do.
The case raises fears that the US militarsy’s new Afghan policy of winning peoples’ trust will be compromised. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrel, said “it does not help the perceptions of our forces around the world”.
Links to other sites: AFP, AP, Seattle Times
The only survivor of the massacre that took the lives of ten humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan has pieced together the last moments of the group working for the Geneva-registered, faith-based organization International Assistance Mission (IAM).
The man has described to investigators how six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a Briton were killed on August 5 in remote northern Afghanistan.
According to his account the victims were executed one by one.
Meanwhile the bodies of four of the six Americans killed have been repatriated back to the US. The two remaining victims will be buried in Afghanistan.
Related story / background story in GenevaLunch News, and Associated Press exclusive.
The youngest Guantanamo detainee is to go on trial today 10 August. Omar Khadr was arrested when he was fifteen years-old in an Afghanistan battlefield.
Khadr is a Canadian citizen, now 23, who according to his defense attorneys, was forced into war by a family with close ties to Osama bin Laden.
According to reports, his father, an Egyptian-born Canadian is an alleged terrorist financier.
Also in: The Vancouver Sun, Al Jazeera English
Tom Little (R), optometrist and team leader with the International Assistance Mission (IAM), watches as an unidentified doctor examines a patient in an Afghan clinic - photograph released by David L. Evans
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The Geneva-registered, faith-based organization International Assistance Mission (IAM), is working with authorities in Afghanistan to shed light on the attack that took the lives of 10 of its members in Badakhshan last week.
The victims, six American doctors including three women, one Briton, a German and two Afghans, had been working in Nuristan province and were returning to Kabul when they were murdered.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility saying the victims were “spies,” were proselytizing and were killed only after they tried to escape. Two Afghans survived the carnage, no word yet on their whereabouts.
The IAM is a Geneva-registered, non-profit Christian organization that does not proselytize, and that was not proselytizing as Taliban has claimed, said IAM Director Dirk Frans in Kabul.
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton also dismissed the claim that the workers were spreading Christianity. “The Taliban stopped them on a remote road on their journey from Nuristan, led them into a forest, robbed them, and killed them,” she said.
US combat forces will be leaving Iraq, “on time, as promised” President Barack Obama told a veterans’ group Monday 2 August.
Tens of thousands of troops still in Iraq are being pulled out and will be gone by 31 August. The end of the war that cost $800 billion coincides with the arrival in Afghanistan of 30,000 additional US troops, and the insistence by Obama on the timing of the end of the war in Iraq is being widely perceived in the media as an effort to calm fears that the US role in Afghanistan will drag on longer than promised.
Links to other sites: The Globe & Mail, Canada, New York Times, National Public Radio, Xinhua
“A huge cache of secret US military documents” is how the Guardian describes the “war logs” released to it, the New York Times and Der Spiegel by WikiLeaks.
The British newspaper details much of the material in the 90,000 documents obtained by the whistleblowers’ web site, six years of unpublished archives, citing previously unreported civilian deaths and generally damning the war in Afghanistan, calling it a “failing” effort.
The New York Times, however, while making it front page news, does not run it as the lead story and has a less sensational headline of “View is more bleak than official story”, writing that “Some 92,000 reports from 2004 through 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks.org, illustrate why, after nine years of war, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.”
The US newspaper states that “Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.”
The White House reacted strongly to the publication of the material: “We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. WikiLeaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who cooperate with us.”
The Guardian, however, says that “the reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war. Most of the material, though classified “secret” at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets.”
WikiLeaks has led a cat and mouse game with authorities in various countries over its leaked materials, and it has struggled to raise funds despite winning several new media awards.
Wikipedia describes the organization behind it: “Wikileaks is an amorphous, international organization, originally based in Sweden,[1] that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of their sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.[2] The organization has stated it was founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[3] Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director.[4]
The newly appointed commander of the war in Afghanistan, US General David Petraeus, is in Brussels briefing Nato officials on the escalating conflict.
His visit comes a day after the US Senate confirmed his appointment as the new leader in Afghanistan.
Petraeus’ visit may also include talks on ways to keeping allies in Afghanistan. The Dutch have announced that they will begin withdrawing troops in August, while another ally, Canada, says its 2,800 soldiers will leave Afghanistan in 2011.
Other sources: Al Jazeera English, Nato headquarters
US Army General Stanley McChrystal met for 30 miniutes with US President Barack Obama Wednesday morning 23 June, and the future leadership of foreign troops in Afghanistan hangs in the balance while Obama debates whether to allow McChrystal to keep his job. The general heads 145,000 US troops and those from 45 other nations who are fighting alongside Afghan troops against the Taliban. McChrystal and unnamed aides made critical remarks about the civilian leadership of the war, published in Rolling Stone magazine, and Obama is reported to have been angry over the remarks but has said he will decide the general’s fate only after talking to him.
The general is leading what many consider the most important offensive of the war, in Kandahar Province.
US General Stanley McChrystal is likely to resign today 23 June under pressure for making “a significant mistake” and having “exercised poor judgment,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
America’s top military commander in Afghanistan is unlikely to survive the fallout from remarks he made to Rolling Stone magazine about how he and his staff imagined ways of dismissing Vice President Joe Biden, reports CNN.
US officials have told the New York Times that Afghanistan contains huge reserves of several minerals, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and “critical industrial metals like lithium”. The US Geological Survey began carrying out studies in 2006, working with the US military and using old Russian maps and have found evidence of enough veins to make Afghanistan, which now has an annual GDP of $12 billion, a wealthy nation, potentially one of the world’s largest mining centres. The lengthy article reviews the good that could come from the economy getting a boost, but also the potential problems that could arise from the discoveries, such as worse corruption in a country already troubled by it and increased tension if “resources-hungry” China makes a bid to obtain the minerals.
Forty people died and more than 70 were injured when a suicide bomb was set off at a wedding in the southern Afghanistan province of Kandahar.
The suicide bomber walked into a large area crowded with men who were just sitting down to eat the wedding dinner, then set off the bomb. Nato blames the Taliban, who blame Nato for the explosion.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, The Globe & Mail, Canada
Title: Lecture: NATO’s Comprehensive Approach: A Discussion With the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: A first-hand guide to the latest developments in the Alliance’s Comprehensive Approach, currently being tested in Afghanistan.
Date: 2010-06-04
Searchers have reportedly spotted part of a Pamir Airways passenger plane that disappeared Monday, carrying 43 people to Kabul from Kunduz in the north of the country. Six of the passengers were foreign nationals, including one American and three British citizens. Bad weather with poor visibility over the Hindu Kush is suspected to have caused the crash, but it now appears that the plane crashed closer to Kabul than originally thought.
Links to other sites: Independent, Sky
Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia (GenevaLunch) – India beat newcomers Afghanistan by seven wickets in their first match of the Twenty20 World Cup. In the next game, against South Africa, they set up a huge total of 186 for five with a century by Suresh Raina. The South Africans could never keep up with the run rate with a slow outfield, and they eventually lost by 14 runs. New Zealand beat Sri Lanka with Jesse Ryder scoring 42 from 27 balls for the Black Caps.
Australia did even better when they batted against Pakistan, scoring 191 thanks to 81 by opening batsman Shane Watson. Pakistan could only manage 157 all out in reply.
Links to other sites: Cricket Twenty20, Guardian, Yahoo Cricket
President Kurmanbek Bakiev of Kyrgystan is reported to have left office and fled the capital following clashes between protestors and government forces that left at least 40 people dead and hundreds injured. A former foreign minister who is a member of the opposition, Roza Otunbayeva, claims to be the interim leader, but reports are still sketchy and unconfirmed. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged calm in the region. Kyrgystan is home to a Russian military base, and it hosts a US base that supports American troops in Afghanistan.
Links to other sites: BBC, CNN, Moscow Times
Geneva, Switzerland tram
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The federal government has extended TPG’s (Geneva Public Transport) concession to cover two additional tram lines, Bernex to Meyrin via the Cornavin train station and from Bernex to the SNCF Eaux-Vives train station. The move allows federal funds to be used to build the additional 2.3km of line that is part of the Cornavin-Onex-Bernex (TCOB) project to extend Geneva’s transport system to the greater urban area.
Afghan authorities say 17 people died early Friday 26 February in a spate of attacks in Kabul that were aimed at foreigners. Suicide bombers struck in several areas, starting with one at 06:30 next to the city’s largest shopping centre. Indian and Pakistan nationals were among those who died. Other bombs went off in areas near United Nations and humanitarian groups’ offices. The blasts come just a day after the Afghan flag was raised at Marja, a longtime insurgent stronghold. Responsibility for the blasts was taken by the Taliban, according to Reuters.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Telegraph, UK
Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, has announced that he now has the power to appoint all five members of the country’s Electoral Complaints Commission, a body that has had until now three foreigners appointed by the United Nations. Western governments are expressing their dismay at the move. The commission played a key role in 2009 in exposing electoral fraud, forcing a second round of presidential voting.
The number of deaths is rising from a Nato bombing mission that killed at least 33 civilians. The air strike was against a suspected “insurgent” convoy but many women and children were found among the dead.
The Taliban in Afghanistan are denying it, but a senior US official says that American military forces captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, considered the number two man in the Taliban. US and Pakistani military personnel are reportedly taking turns interrogating him. His arrest, if confirmed, comes at a time when 15,000 Afghan and Nato troops are in heavy battles with the Taliban in an offensive in the country’s south.
The death toll has now risen to 160 persons killed by a series of avalanches that swept over a busy road in the north of Afghanistan Monday. Officials say they have now dug 160 bodies out of the snow. Nearly 90 people are reported to be injured, and rescuers have freed more than 2,600 people stranded when the road was blocked by the heavy snow. Rescue operations continue along the Salang Pass, with military helicopters dropping food packages to people who are still unable to get out.
A massive avalanche in Salang, a nearly 4,000 metre pass connecting Kabul and the north of Afghanistan, has killed at least 15 and possibly up to 30, with some 70 people reported by the Defense Ministry to be injured. Official and local reports vary widely. The road along the pass is heavily traveled and 1,500 people stranded by the avalanche have been rescued despite additional smaller avalanches and heavy snow, which have hampered rescue operations.
Links to other sites: News.com.au, Australia, MSNBC
Rupert Hamer, who worked for the Sunday Mirror in Britain, was killed in Afghanistan when the US patrol he was working with was hit by a bomb. The explosion also killed an American soldier and seriously injured the Mirror photographer working with Hamer. Two weeks earlier a Canadian journalist was killed while she was out on a patrol with troops.
Two former US officials have confirmed to National Public Radio that the seven CIA agents and one Jordanian agent killed in Afghanistan the last week of December 2009 were the victims of an Al-Qaeda double agent. NBC News had earlier identified him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence a year ago and who was considered by his government and the US secret service to have been turned into their own agent. The identity of the killer is prompting numerous questions in the media about undercover operations and their effectiveness, just as a report published by the Washington think tank, Center for a New American Security, questions the work of the CIA in Afghanistan.
Links to other sites: Center for a New American Security report, BBC, NPR
An award-winning journalist from Calgary and four soldiers died in a blast in Afghanistan, in Canada’s third worst day in Afghanistan. Five others, including one Canadian civilian, were injured by the explosion on the edges of the city of Kandahar. “The attack came during a community security patrol to gather information on the pattern of life and maintain security in the area,” reports the CBC. Journalist Michelle Lang had been in Afghanistan only two weeks and was gathering material for a series of articles on the work of Canadian soldiers.
Links to other sites: CBC, Vancouver Sun
