Last Afghan hopes ride on new Government

KABUL, Dec 17: Bursts of tracer bullets and signal flares lit the skies over the Afghan capital at the weekend, marking not renewed conflict but festivities after the Ramadan fast and hopes of lasting peace under the new Government that starts work next Saturday.

If details of November’s UN-brokered powersharing agreement in Bonn among the nation’s main political and ethnic factions escaped most Afghans, the prospect of stability after 22 years of war did not.

"Now we will return home and rebuild our villages with the new Government’s help," cheered one group of refugees among thousands living in a ruined neighbourhood of Kabul.

But the pitfalls facing the incoming 30-member council led by Hamid Karzai are self-evident.

It inherits a country on the brink of starvation, where the infrastructure and industrial base have been largely reduced to rubble, and where the iron rule of the Taliban has in many areas been replaced by banditry and rising internecine tension.

The state coffers are empty, and reliance on outside help is a certainty in the Council’s interim function over the next six months.

"What we are most worried about is the peaceful transition of power and that it be acceptable to the international community," said Mohammad Daoud, Afghanistan’s acting Minister for Foreign Affairs while Dr Abdullah Abdullah visited India.

Now comes the test of the multi-ethnic Government’s ability to cooperate internally and also prevent outbreaks of violence like the recent clashes between armed Shiite Hazaras and Tajiks in the northern town of Pul-i-Khumri.

The Afghan population consists mainly of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and Pashtuns, with the latter accounting for around 40 per cent and previously forming the core of the Taliban’s supporters.

The mix had been a major obstacle in the formation of the new Government, charge of which was eventually entrusted to Karzai, a Pashtun who sided against the Taliban.

"We hope for a brotherly relationship with Mr Karzai," the future trade minister, Mustafa Kazemi, said about the interraction between council members.

Kazemi is one of three Hazara ministers in the new body dominated by Tajiks of the Northern Alliance, which uprooted the Taliban with US and British support.

Another unknown lays in the future actions of figures who still hold great power among alliance forces but were effectively sidelined in the Bonn agreement.

General Abdul Rajid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek who controls much of North Afghanistan, was said to be angered at not receiving the post of Foreign Minister.

But according to the United Nations, Dostum later said he is "100 per cent committed to the Bonn agreement and will work with us to implement it".

Meanwhile, stipulations in the agreement that Kabul should be demilitarized have yet to be met. Armed soldiers of the alliance are everywhere and anti-aircraft guns sit parked by the roadside.

Discussion also continues about the size and manner of deployment of an international peacekeeping force in the city. The signs are that some council members are becoming increasingly unhappy with the prospect.

Kazemi expressed the personal view that "Afghan people should maintain security in Afghanistan".

However, the sides agree that a transitional peacekeeping force is necessary in the capital as the Government begins work, and admit the possibility that its mandate could be enlarged to include other urban centres in the country. (DPA)

Is Iraq next after US campaign in Afghanistan?

WASHINGTON, Dec 17: As the Afghan war winds down, there are growing signs the United States is giving serious thought to expanding its anti-terrorism offensive to Iraq.

However, Baghdad may not be the immediate next target and military action likely will not be the first step, officials and experts say.

After Sept 11, Bush pledged to destroy "terrorist" groups with a global reach. Experts expect US follow-on efforts to include Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, where Al Qaeda and other militants are believed to be operating.

A vigorous Bush administration debate over future moves in the anti-terrorism campaign continues, especially between the state and defense departments.

But with Taliban and Al Qaeda forces defeated in Afghanistan, some officials and experts believe the decision point for US follow-on steps is nearing.

An emerging strategy centers on demands by President George W Bush that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein allow United Nations monitors to resume inspections of Baghdad’s suspected nuclear, biological and chemical weapons facilities.

This may take several months to play out, given opposition from some US allies to possible US military action against Iraq and continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict, experts said.

But a senior US official said he believed military action against Iraq was "inescapable," although it is too soon to know if this would be directed against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities or the regime itself.

Meanwhile, ex-Iraqi military officers met in Washington recently to explore options for overthrowing Saddam, organizer david Mack of the Middle East institute told Reuters.

On "Fox Mews Sunday," Secretary of State Colin Powell restated US support for Saddam’s overthrow.

But how to achieve that goal is something the administration is "constantly reviewing," he said.

Bush is under rising pressure from bipartisan members of Congress and from conservatives in his own Republican Party to make Saddam the next target of the anti-terrorism war.

Iraq has chemical and biological weapons and is trying to reconstitute its nuclear program, a threat that looms larger after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, officials say.

No cookie cutter approach

Powell said the administration is "looking at" whether the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress (INC) and Shi’ite Muslim groups in Southern Iraq could work with US forces toward ousting Saddam as the Northern Alliance and Southern Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan ousted the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

But Powell, who reportedly is skeptical of the inc, stressed Iraq "it’s quite a different situation (and) ... One has to be careful before you take a cookie cutter from other theater and apply it to another theater."

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, on CNN’s "late edition," also cautioned "against assuming one size fits all, that we’re just going to take the strategy that we used in Afghanistan and apply it to ... Place after place after place."

The Afghan war raised the profile of military action but US officials said other options are more likely, including closing financial flows to extremists and arresting them.

Pro-Israel advocates want Bush to pressure Syria to shut down Iran-backed groups by halting World Bank and international monetary fund support for Syria’s strapped economy.

"To me, the most immediate next step in the war on terrorism for the United States is to begin to pressure syria and Iran to cut off support for hamas and Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah" because of their role in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Sen. Joseph Lieberman told "Fox News Sunday."

Still, "the war against terrorism cannot end before Saddam Hussein is out of power in Iraq, because he is the world’s most powerful terrorist," the Connecticut Democrat said.

New strategy

The New Yorker magazine, in its current edition, reports the inc gave the administration plans for waging war against Saddam that would include US bombing and special forces.

But Powell has moved to "stall (the inc) off for four or five months. There’s a lot of ways to squeeze Saddam without using military forces," a senior general told the magazine.

Patrick Clawson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that instead of trying to tie saddam to the sept. 11 attack, as some urged, the administration is now concentrating on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Bush will focus on pressuring Saddam to allow UN experts to investigate Iraq’s weapons facilities, a strategy that would peak no later than late may, when the UN is consider revising sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war, he said.

Meanwhile, Washington temporarily moved an Army headquarters to Kuwait and is aggressively inspecting ships in the Gulf — moves related to the Afghan war but also likely to make Saddam anxious, Clawson said.

"It will take a while before can do something against Iraq still we can position ourselves," he said.

The meetings of ex-Iraqi military officers, first reported by slate.Com, an on-line magazine, grew out of an effort begun more than two years ago to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Held in November and on Dec 7, they drew Iraqi defectors and dealt with such topics as how large an Army and what kind of arms Iraq would need, said mack, a former State Department official. The administration encouraged the meetings.

Mack said it was "desirable to have people back in iraq hear that serious Iraqis are meeting in DC and talking about what a post-Saddam regime would look like" because it might embolden them to act. (REUTERS)

Kandahar spy chief says Omar hiding in mountains

KANDAHAR, (AFGHANISTAN), Dec 17: Afghan forces are preparing to attack a mountainous region northwest of Kandahar where they believe Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is hiding with 500 men, Kandahar’s new intelligence chief said today.

Mullah Omar had retreated to mountains and caves around the village of Baghran in Helmand province, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Kandahar, with diehard Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, Kandahar Director of Intelligence Haji Gullalai told Reuters.

"Mullah Omar has gone to Baghran," said Gullalai, a top anti-Taliban commander who helped to lead the attack on Kandahar and was appointed intelligence chief by a Shura, or Council of tribal elders, last week.

"He went there with a lot of vehicles and weapons and approximately 500 men. They are in the mountains and caves. We believe Al Qaeda has done something there." (REUTERS)

Former Taliban melt back into Kandahar life

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN, Dec 17: Mullah Bismillah used to command 50 men for the Taliban and dole out lashings with a long cane for the slightest violation of their extreme version of Islamic law.

Now he has trimmed his beard, swapped his black turban for a traditional Pashtun cap and wants a job as a driver for the US Army.

"I am jobless, so I would even work for the Americans as long as I could feed my family," says Bismillah, 23, taking a deep drag on a cigarette. "I would not fight for their Army but I would work as a driver."

Bismillah does not fit a preconceived profile of a Taliban Mullah. He is curious, talkative, open to debate. Beside him sits a friend shrouded in a thick cloud of hashish smoke.

But he is typical of the legions of young, uneducated Pashtuns recruited by the Taliban, often by force, to enforce their vision of an Islamic utopia on Afghanistan.

Ten days after the Taliban surrendered the city of Kandahar, their supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is a fugitive, hunted down by US special forces and opposition Pashtun warriors.

Yet thousands of former Taliban such as Bismillah have quietly returned to their villages or melted back into city life.

Some — like Mullah Omar — have gone into hiding, wary of reprisals. Others have even taken positions in the new city Government under new Governor Gul Agha.

"When the Taliban surrendered, they went back to their homes with their weapons and had some negotiations with the new Government," said Bismillah.

"People still know me and recognise me, but I never did anyone any harm so I should have no problems."

Bismillah said he joined the Taliban three years ago, answering a call by the Mullahs for a Jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan.

"When I joined the Taliban, I was 20 years old, I had no education," he said. "I would only write my own name."

"In the beginning, we didn’t have much understanding. We just followed the Mullahs who called for a Jihad," he says. "I still don’t understand if it was the right decision or the wrong decision."

Many ex-Taliban seem confused by the awesome US firepower unleashed by Mullah Omar’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden —the man wanted by the United States for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Others say they feel betrayed by the movement that promised to bring peace and stability to a region plagued by bloody feuding between rival warlords.

"Their first fault was they let Osama bin Laden and those other foreigners come and live in Afghanistan," said Mullah Akhtar Mohammad, another former Taliban commander still living in Kandahar.

"The other problem was they were spending 70 percent of their resources on themselves and 30 percent on the people."

Akhtar too says he answered the Taliban’s call for Jihad with little understanding of its meaning or its consequences.

"All my life, this country has been at war," he says. "I never had a chance to go to school."

"The Taliban provided everything — food, clothes, some personal expenses. It was half a religious duty and half a means to support my family."

Akhtar says he left the Taliban a few months before the September 11 attacks after he was imprisoned for trimming his beard and staying out late at night.

He and his brother Razi Mohammad, also ex-Taliban, say they now have little contact with their former Taliban colleagues.

"They don’t want to speak to us," said Razi. "Many have changed their turbans and cut their beards."

"Some are in their homes, some have gone into the mountains and a few have taken positions in the new Government."

But behind their newly cropped whiskers, many remain wary of the new Government and secretly committed to the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of Shariah law.

"I cannot impose my beliefs on other people, but I will stick to them myself," says Bismillah.

"And if the warlords start to fight again, if history repeats itself, maybe the Taliban will rise again." (REUTERS)

Ethnically cleansed Afghans face dire winter

BAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN, Dec 17: Nine months ago, Namatullah and his family fled to the mountains and watched from above as the Taliban set fire to their home in the village of Bam Saria.

Now Namatullah, his wife and three children again have a roof over their heads, but it is a cave cut into the sandstone cliffs where two giant Buddha statues towered over the town of Bamiyan until the Taliban blew them up in March.

"This is all we have left and some of these things aren’t even mine," said Namatullah, 30, gesturing to a few blankets and pots in the cave’s cramped interior as his children, aged one to six, huddled close to their mother Masuma, 22.

"All we have to eat is half a sack of potatoes."

His story can be heard time and again in the caves, peopled by Buddhist monks when Bamiyan was a thriving resting place on the ancient silk route, and now a shelter of sorts to hundreds of survivors of Taliban ethnic cleansing.

The destruction of the 2,000-year-old Buddhas, among the great wonders of the ancient world, was the first many people outside Afghanistan had heard of the Taliban or Bamiyan.

But a story of human horror also unfolded in the town and the surrounding area as forces of the Sunni Muslim Taliban, fired by a perverse interpretation of Islam, forced tens of thousands of Shi’ite Muslims to flee into the mountains.

Destitute and homeless, the ethnic minority Hazaras, said to descend from the Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan, are slowly trickling down from the heights of the Hindu Kush now the Taliban have been ousted.

Hungry and cold, they number as many as 100,000 in Bamiyan province alone, according to aid workers who have reached the remote Hazarajat region of Central Afghanistan this month.

The Hazaras face a desperate struggle to survive the bitter winter, hoping humanitarian aid will reach them before the snow slams shut the 3,000 metre (10,000 foot) passes that link their homeland to the world beyond.

"It is the poorest place I have seen in Afghanistan," said Jukka Siegberg, a surgeon from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with eight years experience in the country.

"You cannot even make up a prescription for them to go to the bazaar and buy drugs because they don’t have any money."

The Hazara homes, simple mud-brick dwellings, have been destroyed, put to the torch and reduced to rubble under a scorched earth policy aimed against a people the Taliban, predominantly ethnic Pashtuns, regarded as alien heretics.

All along the valley of the Hazarajat, a landscape of desolate beauty, hundreds of men, women and children were executed by the taliban in their drive to cleanse the area and stamp out armed opposition, the Hazaras say.

"The main political idea of the Taliban was that Tajiks should live in Tajikistan, Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and the Hazaras and Shias in the graveyard," said Karim Khalili, leader of the main Hazara Hezb-i-Wehdat Party.

"They regarded our people as a curse."

To live in the mountains, many Hazaras sold their livestock, even their donkeys. What crops they planted have rotted on the stem and heating fuels — mainly leaves, twigs and dung — are in short supply.

The aid route in, at least 12 hours by truck from the capital Kabul, is already treacherous with mud, ice and snow hampering passage along the dirt roads.

Last Friday, one truck loaded with wheat skidded and plunged 30 metres (yards) into the Ghorband river. The four men in the cab survived, but most of the food was lost.

Help, though, is on its way.

The ICRC is sending a medical team and equipment to rehabilitate the local hospital, built for 15 beds but laid virtually bare during the Taliban’s three years of control.

Wheat from the United Nations world food programme and the Shuhada organisation, a Hazara relief agency based in Pakistan, is starting to pile up at the local school, ready for distribution starting later this week.

But a combination of malnutrition, lack of shelter, sickness and sheer penury will claim many lives this winter.

In the hospital, which has no running water, electricity or surgical equipment, the only resident doctor, Ali Khan Sharifi, fights an uphill battle to treat the three patients in the only beds the Taliban left behind.

One, a 20-year-old soldier who shot himself in the head cleaning his weapon, lies semi-conscious, unable to speak.

Sharifi has prescribed 25 shots of a drug to relieve pressure on Sayed Hussein’s brain but his family can afford only one dose. "Without the drugs he will die," said Sharifi.

In another bed, Hakim Abdullah, 25, is recovering from a stomach complaint after he ate a candle he discovered in a package that fell from the sky.

The ground in front of the caves is littered with wrappers from food rations dropped by US planes last month in the biggest such operation in history.

One woman in the caves has been using tabasco sauce from a food drop to treat a lingering gunshot wound in her foot. Other inhabitants have used the yellow plastic wrapping the supplies to seal the windows of their caves.

And beyond Bamiyan, the situation is even grimmer, with up to 90 per cent of homes destroyed in a majority of villages in the area, aid agencies say.

"Bamiyan has been the most neglected area of Afghanistan and also the most affected in terms of atrocities," said Farid Daya, a British-based Programme Manager for the humanitarian agency focus.

"For many years to come they will not be food sufficient," he said. "With better access and better security and if the aid community is serious in what it is doing, then I see hope. But it is long term." (REUTERS)

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