Afghanistan getting twitchy now

[Oceans11]

Violence has increased in Afghanistan in recent months with Islamic militants vowing to disrupt September elections.

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Twin explosions rock Afghan city

Two bombs have exploded in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad killing one man and injuring more than 25 others.
Five children and three police were among the injured. Reports say the bombs were aimed at police checkpoints.

Elsewhere, 12 people were abducted in an attack on a convoy near Kandahar and an Australian journalist was said to be missing near the southern city.

Violence has increased in Afghanistan in recent months with Islamic militants vowing to disrupt September elections.



Shattered


A spokesman for the Taleban, Hamid Agha, denied the hardline former ruling group had taken the journalist, Carmela Baranowska of SBS Television.

Another Taleban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, told the BBC it was not Taleban policy to harm journalists.


It's a very crowded area, and they were mainly shopkeepers and people just walking by

Faizan, provincial government spokesman


The Jalalabad bombs went off shortly after 1300 local time (0830 GMT) in the centre of the city, which is 125km (80 miles) east of the capital, Kabul.

Police official, Abdur Rahman, said the blasts took place in the busy Talashi Chowk district where the police posts were sited.

The blasts shattered the windows of nearby homes and shops.

Spokesman for the Nangarhar provincial government, Faizan, told the Associated Press news agency that 27 people were wounded - five police officers and 22 civilians.

Hospital authorities later said one of the wounded, a man, had died.

Mr Rahman blamed "enemies of Afghanistan" for the explosions and singled out the Taleban and al-Qaeda.


The Taleban denied carrying out the attacks.


Convoy ambush


On Tuesday afternoon just north of Kandahar, suspected Taleban fighters ambushed and burned four trucks carrying supplies to an American base.


The attacked convoy was ferrying food to a US base

Twelve people in the vehicles were abducted, an Afghan military official said on Wednesday.

And Nato forces in Kabul are working with Afghan officials to try to locate the 35-year-old journalist, Ms Baranowska, following an appeal by SBS Television.


A spokeswoman for the Australian foreign ministry in Canberra also said it was trying to find the reporter.

The latest violence comes after Nato agreed on Monday to increase its forces in Afghanistan from 6,500 to 10,000 to bolster security for the September elections.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Nato leaders at a summit in Istanbul that the forces were needed as soon as possible.


Three women were killed last Saturday in a bomb attack on a minibus carrying female election workers just outside Jalalabad.

A Taleban spokesman told the BBC it had committed the killings in order to sabotage the electoral process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3852955.stm

 

[Oceans11]

Afghan aid workers live in fear


By Charles Haviland
BBC correspondent in Kabul



Aid workers once felt safe in Afghanistan but are now uneasy
The murder of 11 Chinese construction workers and the killing of five Medecins sans Frontieres employees have stunned Afghanistan's aid community.
"We are deeply shocked and appalled by both these incidents," said Barbara Stapleton of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief.

"The Chinese incident highlights the government's failure to protect people or to expand its authority," she said.

"The international community hasn't taken adequate measures to support it."

According to Nick Downie of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office, "people cannot believe what has happened. What's clear is that some actors can carry out murder with impunity on the softest targets".

Shock

The disbelief is all the greater given that Thursday's killings - of workers for a Chinese company rebuilding a road - and those of the medical aid workers happened in northern Afghanistan, previously considered much safer than the south and east, where an insurgency blamed on Taleban and al-Qaeda guerrillas is growing.

The most immediate effect has been a stunned withdrawal of NGO activity.

For Dr Maya Volles of the German NGO, Malteser, which builds schools and runs clinics and a hospital, the reaction is one of "deep, deep shock", and it is an especially personal one.

Until last week, she was based in Badghis province, where the MSF workers were killed.

They were her close friends and colleagues.

"There had never been any problems on that road," she told the BBC from the main western city of Herat.

Leaving

All NGOs and all expatriate workers have now left Badghis, most of them at the weekend, when an Italian NGO compound was attacked with grenades in the provincial capital.

"We've closed all 14 health centres and withdrawn for a minimum of four weeks," she said. "It's very bad news, but it's too dangerous now."


Five MSF staff were killed in Afghanistan by Taleban militants
Another NGO worker in Herat, who did not want to be named, affirmed that "there's none of us left in Badghis except the people guarding our compounds".

"We're concentrating on our projects in the city, but the greatest need is in the countryside."

Even the agencies not working near Badghis or Kunduz - scene of the Chinese deaths - are reviewing their situation.

"We are constantly monitoring and re-evaluating operations," said Paul O'Brien of Care International, which works mainly in eastern Afghanistan.

"This is the largest loss of life of civilian expatriates in recent memory, and our staff are increasingly at risk."

Uncertain future

Aid agencies cannot plan ahead.

Dr Volles says they have written to the governor of Badghis, demanding that a programme to disarm militias be stepped up, but they need time to consider what will come next.

Would NGOs have to adopt armed guards, as some have in Chechnya and Somalia?

"The NGO community is pretty strongly against that," says the unnamed source in Herat.

Barbara Stapleton agrees - it is against their philosophy, she says.

But Paul O'Brien is blunt. "If current security trends continue, it will be all but impossible to continue the reconstruction of Afghanistan," he says.

Nick Downie echoes this view. "They'll move away from regions where they don't feel safe," he warns.

Where, then, would they remain?

"There's no sanctuary," he admitted. "They felt safe, and now they're in fear."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3794973.stm

 

[Shotgun]

I'm just glad the French stepped up to the plate and is helping Al-Queda continue its terrorism against the Afghan people.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20040630-120807-9389r.htm

 

[jimbutorac]

Maybe if we wouldn't have pursued this unnecessary war in Iraq we:

1. Would have been able to stabilize Afghanistan by now

2. Would have been able to dedicate necessary resources to capture Bin Laden and dismantle al qaeda

3. Wouldn't have stretched military thin to point of breaking point

4. Could have saved ourselves some 800 plus dead and 5,000 plus wounded (these totals will grow)

5. Could have saved our federal budget some 120 plus billion dollars (this total will grow)

6. Would not have alienated world opinion and traditional alliances

But we blew it in a big way. The country, its Armed Forces and our budget will bear a heavy price to pay for this ill-conceived misguided adventure.