Photo: A bystander offers a rose to the Taleban. FROM: Images of Musa Qala Pictures giving a unique view of life in a Taleban-controlled town.

Security Incidents on November 27, 2007

A suicide car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy in the Afghan capital Kabul killed two civilians on Tuesday, the latest attack to shake confidence in government efforts to uphold security. The target of Tuesday's attack was a two-car convoy of U.S. troops outside a Defence Ministry building in the centre of Kabul close to embassies, and offices of the United Nations and World Bank.

Three Canadian soldiers were injured Tuesday morning when their light armoured vehicle hit a suspected homemade bomb just outside Kandahar city. The improvised explosive device (IED) went off at about 10 a.m., 40 kilometres west of the provincial capital near the village of Sperwan Ghar in Panjwaii district.

A roadside bombing Tuesday struck a civilian bus in southern Afghan Kandahar province, killing four civilians, injuring five others.

Security Incidents on November 28, 2007

U.S.-led coalition troops killed 14 road construction workers in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan after receiving faulty intelligence, Afghan officials said Wednesday. The coalition said it was looking into the incident in Nuristan province, but did not immediately comment. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it has conducted airstrikes against Taliban fighters in the area, but did not say when. "ISAF was engaged in Nurgaram and Du Ab (districts), and in those places we used airstrikes against (Taliban)," ISAF spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco told a news conference.

The Taliban insurgents in an overnight attack on a police patrol have killed two policemen, injured another and taken away four others in western Afghan province of Farah, provincial governor said Wednesday. "The incident occurred in Bala Buluk district of Farah province Tuesday night as a group of policemen were patrolling in the area," Farah's governor Mohaidin Baloch told Xinhua via phone.

Thanks whisker for many of the links above.

REPORTS

How to Help Afghanistan people

Musa Qala: The Shape of Things to Come?

The Taleban who control this northern district are confident that they will extend their reach to the rest of Helmand over the coming winter. Late afternoon was sliding into evening in a corner of Musa Qala, and I was still watching dozens of military vehicles parade past me. Green, grey and white, they looked exactly like the Afghan government’s police and security vehicles. The major difference was that here it was the Taleban’s footsoldiers with fierce, frightening demeanours who sat behind the wheel. They wore dishevelled turbans, mostly black, and their feet dangled over the sides of the truck beds. In their hands they held Kalashnikovs, machine guns, even rocket launchers. One of the Taleban told me that they had captured most of the vehicles from the government. I saw their commander walking through town, unarmed, as if he did not want to attract attention. In this he was quite unlike the British soldiers in Helmand, whom you never see without weapons. He answered my questions readily, and even told me his name, Enqiadi. He allowed me to take his photograph, although he covered his face with his dark red scarf when he was in front of the camera. “Five districts of Helmand are totally under the Taleban,” he said. “The rest of them, except for Lashkar Gah, are also Taleban territory, except for the district centres, where the British and Afghan forces have small islands of control.”

Taleban Ghost Town

The atmosphere is subdued as many residents have left town and local business has declined. The hospital in central Musa Qala is padlocked, and the district government office has been completely demolished by Taleban militants. The bazaar is quiet, with none of its former bustle. Foreign air strikes have also done a lot of damage – many houses lie in ruins, and there are big holes in surrounding fields. Hajji Nazar Mohammad, an elder in the Musa Qala district, said many people had fled the district in fear. “More than 75 per cent of the residents have gone,” he said. “The only people left are those who couldn’t afford to go. We are in a very bad economic situation.” One shopkeeper, who did not want to be named, said that his business had fallen by 80 per cent. “I am lucky, though,” he said. “Most of the other shops have closed completely.” The shopkeeper seemed nervous, and kept saying he did not want the Taleban to see him talking to me. He was not the only one. A lot of people refused to talk out of fear of the insurgents. I was accompanied by an armed Taleban guard, who I think was recording my interviews. So no one was saying anything against the insurgents.

Winning Hearts and Minds

The Taleban have avoided the worst excesses of the past in a bid to win popular support. “We don’t want foreigners here! We do not want kafir [unbelievers]. Do you hear me?” I was not trying to interview this man, whose name was Abdul Raziq - he simply forced himself in front of the microphone. “All Muslims reject the current government!” he shouted. “But we watch the Taleban closely, too. If they do anything we don’t like, we will stand up to them.” Musa Qala has been a world apart ever since the Taleban took control of it in February. The government does not venture in, while the British troops deployed in Helmand province restrict themselves to air strikes on the perimeter of the district. The area was the scene of intense fighting between NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and the Taleban through the late summer and early autumn of 2006. In October that year, the British-led forces withdrew from the district after reaching an agreement with tribal elders designed to keep the Taleban out of the district centre. But that agreement broke down in early February 2007, after an ISAF air strike killed the brother of a powerful commander. The Taleban swept in and established their own regime, complete with district governor, police chief and Sharia courts. Reporters have stayed clear of the area since then. The Taleban’s attitude towards journalists whose reporting they dislike is too familiar for comfort.

Afghanistan cannabis crop up 40 percent

The fields of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan were free of opium poppies this year, a success touted often by Afghan and international officials. But one look at Mohammad Alam's fields uncovers an emerging drug problem. Ten-foot-tall cannabis plants flourish in Alam's fields. The crop — the source of both marijuana and hashish — can be just as profitable as opium but draws none of the scrutiny from Afghan officials bent on eradicating poppies. Cannabis cultivation rose 40 percent in Afghanistan this year, to 173,000 acres from 123,550 in 2006, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in its 2007 opium survey. The crop is being grown in at least 18 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, according to the survey released last month. The U.N. report singles out Balkh as a "leading example" of an opium-free province, saying other areas should follow "the model of this northern region where leadership, incentives and security have led farmers to turn their backs on opium."

AFGHANISTAN: Children increasingly affected by conflict

Razmi Khan, 12, was once the most outstanding student in his class, but is unable to go to school. He was badly wounded by a missile as he walked to a mosque in Nader Shah Kot District in the southeastern province of Khost on 17 November. He was taken to a local hospital where surgeons amputated his left leg to save his life. “I cannot walk to school with one leg,” Razmi told IRIN. The missile, which also wounded another child and four adults, was fired by Afghan and international forces during a joint military exercise, Gul Qasim Khan, the governor of Nader Shah Kot District, and Col Israr Khan of the Afghan army, said. Razmi Khan’s parents said army officers and provincial officials had sympathised with them, but there had been no compensation. As sympathies fade, Razmi Khan is gradually realising that as a disabled person he has to cope with many new difficulties: He cannot play football with his friends, ride his bicycle or go to mosque. In Baghlan Province where on 6 November a heavy explosion and a subsequent shootout killed 60 children and over 12 adults, many parents are grieving for their lost sons and daughters. “My sons had committed no sin, so why did they kill them,” whined Roqia, a bereaved mother of two schoolchildren killed in the incident. In Helmand Province a widow is mourning her 15-year-old son who was hanged by Taliban insurgents for having US dollars in his pocket. “A child’s first right is the right to life. This is being denied in Afghanistan on an ever-increasing scale,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a Child Alert report in October 2007. Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) estimates that over 1,400 Afghan civilians have lost their lives and hundreds of others have been wounded in armed hostilities, aerial strikes, suicide attacks and improvised explosions in the past 11 months. Children are believed to be among the main victims.

NATO Airstrike Kills 14 Afghans

A NATO airstrike killed 14 laborers working for an Afghan road construction company that had been contracted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build a road in the mountainous province of Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan, officials said. The strike occurred late Monday night in the Norgram district of Nuristan when the Afghan workers of Amerifa Road Construction Company were sleeping in tents after a day’s work. “Fourteen of our mechanics and laborers were killed as they were asleep in their tents,” said Nurullah Jalali, the executive director of the construction company. “We just collected pieces of flesh from our tired workers and put them in 14 coffins.”

ANALYSIS-Helicopter crunch hobbles peace missions

In conflicts from Afghanistan to Africa, international efforts to secure peace are being hobbled by a chronic lack of the tool vital to all modern militaries -- helicopters. A shortage of top-end machines needed for tropical conditions plus a reluctance of countries to bear the costs of deploying them are being exacerbated by a procurement logjam that means a major renewal of Western fleets is years off. Recent appeals for helicopters by the United Nations, NATO and European Union mission commanders have faced a deafening silence, forcing planners to study second-best options such as "rent-a-chopper" deals with the private sector. "We should be better off when the new-generation helicopters arrive, but the procurement gap only starts closing in about two years," complained one NATO official. The shortage is hitting peacekeeping throughout the world.

Negligence led to deaths in big Afghan bomb-inquiry

Official negligence contributed to the death toll in Afghanistan's biggest suicide bombing, which killed 72 people, most of them schoolboys, this month, the interior minister said on Tuesday. A suicide bomber blew himself up on Nov. 6 as local schoolboys lined up to greet a group of opposition parliamentarians visiting a sugar factory in the town of Baghlan in the relatively peaceful north. Fifty-two schoolboys, six parliamentary deputies and five teachers were among the 72 killed. Opposition lawmakers staged a mass walk-out from parliament on Monday, accusing President Hamid Karzai's government of inaction against officials they accused of not doing enough to protect the visiting delegation and civilians in Baghlan. "Enquiries indicate a range of negligence and carelessness occurred in various related governmental levels," Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel told a news conference. "Those involved in negligence or carelessness will be sacked, replaced or prosecuted based on the extent of their guilt," he said. "We are hopeful that we will learn the names of those involved in negligence from judicial authorities soon."

The parliamentary walk-out was led by members of the National United Front, made up of many former warlords who fought the Taliban before U.S.-led forces helped them overthrow the hardline Islamist movement in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The front has grown increasingly vocal in its criticism of Karzai on a range of issues, from his failure to tackle the country's worsening security situation, to official corruption and the alleged involvement of some officials in the drugs trade. A number of conspiracy theories have also emerged since the hardline Islamist Taliban, responsible for more than 140 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year, denied they carried out the Baghlan bombing.

CHRONOLOGY-Attacks in Afghan capital Kabul in 2007

Here are some major attacks in and around the capital Kabul since June this year.

June 17, 2007: A Taliban suicide bomber blows up a police bus killing 24 and wounding dozens.

Aug. 15: A roadside bomb kills three German embassy bodyguards just outside the capital.

Sept. 29: In the worst suicide bombing so far in Kabul, a suicide bomb attack on an army bus kills 28 Afghan troops and two civilians. The Taliban claim responsibility.

Oct. 2: At least 11 civilians and police are killed in a suicide bomb attack on a bus carrying Afghan police.

Oct. 6: A suicide car bomb killed five Afghan civilians and a U.S. soldier on a road near Kabul airport.

Nov 24: Suicide bomber kills nine civilians, six of them children, and an Italian soldier, at the opening of a new bridge on the outskirts of the capital.

Nov 27: Two civilians are killed by a suicide bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy outside a Defence Ministry building.

AFGHANISTAN: Teaching Counterinsurgency - Too Little, Too Late

The Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy is a work in progress -- the clamour of construction, the bulldozing of garbage and the sparse staff are all clear signs. Built on a former Canadian military base near the bullet-ridden palace of Afghanistan's former royal family, the COIN Academy, as it is known, is on the verge of acquiring a dining facility, a lecture hall and other services. "The academy is still in survival mode," U.S. army Maj. Luke Meyers, the academy's operations chief, told IPS. "We're trying to build this as fast as we can but it's taking time. We're six years behind really, to be honest. We're glad we've made this step at least." Following pressure from top American military officials, the COIN Academy opened in April nearly six years after the invasion of Afghanistan while a counterpart school in Iraq was established in 2005. Afghanistan's facility recently shifted to its new location on the outskirts of Kabul. The nature of the fight in Afghanistan is described as a counterinsurgency, the kind of conflict American soldiers have not faced since the war in Vietnam. This brand of warfare is defined as the combined "military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency," according to a manual on the subject issued by the U.S. military last year. Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side wants civilians to accept its governance or authority as legitimate, the manual states. The document goes on to say that counterinsurgency is a complex form of warfare that seeks the population’s support by offering protection and services like water and medical care, among other things. The school aims to teach counterinsurgency practices to newly arrived Western trainers sent to embed with the Afghan security forces, as well as to coalition forces and to senior members of the Afghan military, police and intelligence services.