http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040726_405.html

Afghan President Karzai Announces Candidacy for October Election, Drops Warlord From Ticket

KABUL, Afghanistan July 26, 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced his candidacy Monday for landmark October elections after several days of heated political wrangling.
In a surprise move, he dropped Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, arguably the nation's most powerful warlord, from his ticket, replacing him with Ahmad Zia Massood, the brother of Afghanistan's greatest resistance hero.

.......

Probably a good move. But dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

Tours

I so want to thank you for keeping info here coming about Afghanistan. I know I shouldnt pay attention to the news but I just cant help myself. Not hearing from your loved one after hearing about all the bombings and fighting just gives ya a little scared feeling.

Any time.

They are pretty much FYIs, but nevertheless.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23467


KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Many Marines of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit will barely get a chance to clean off the dust from Afghanistan before they find themselves chewing on Iraqi sand.

Even with their six-month Afghanistan deployment extended by a month so they could continue their push through southern Afghanistan, many Marines said they have to prepare now for their next tour.

“It’s a sign of the times,” said Col. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., commander of the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 22nd MEU. “This has all happened since Iraq’s last flare-up,” McKenzie said. “Everything is in a state of flux.”

Each of the Marine Corps’ seven MEUs are task forces that bring together infantry, artillery, aviation, logistics and other units into one 2,300-strong package.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17797-2004Jul27.html


By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 27, 2004; 10:37 AM


KABUL, Afghanistan - The United States on Tuesday issued a veiled warning to Afghanistan's jilted defense minister not to undermine the country's fragile security.

The comments came a day after President Hamid Karzai dropped Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim from his election team, saying his running mate in Oct. 9 president elections would be a brother of late resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massood.

On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad restated Washington's support for Karzai. But he acknowledged that his surprise decision to ditch Fahim had sown mistrust among leaders whose armies helped America rout the Taliban 2 1/2 years ago.

Asked if the United States would intervene if the militias caused trouble, Khalilzad said the defense minister had a "direct responsibility" for preventing violence that has marred every change of Afghan president in living memory.

"We expect everyone to do everything they can not to undermine stability here," Khalilzad said. "Political competition is good, it's fine. That's the way of the future in Afghanistan. But the use of force to resolve political disputes is a thing of the past."

The U.S. military leads about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan and has total control of its skies.

This year, American warplanes have circled over cities, including Herat and Chagcharan, in an attempt to calm battles between militias who Karzai says are now a bigger threat than the militants that the U.S. forces came to combat.

But the U.S. military has never taken on a powerful faction such as the Tajik forces controlled largely by Fahim, who marched victoriously into Kabul in late 2001 in defiance of U.S. orders and has resisted attempts to disarm them.

Fahim was conspicuously absent from a news conference Monday in which Karzai presented his team, including his candidate for first vice president, Ahmad Zia Massood.

Fahim has made no public comment.

Massood, currently ambassador to Russia, is a brother of Ahmad Shah Massood, who led the resistance to the Taliban regime until he was killed by al-Qaida terrorists on Sept. 9, 2001. Karzai named Hazara leader Karim Khalili his choice for second vice president.

NATO troops have mounted extra patrols because of the rising political temperature, but both they and a U.S. military spokesman said there were no signs of unusual military activity.


© 2004 The Associated Press

....

Possible trouble.

Maybe they want more money?

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040727_1134.html

Afghan Firefight After Ambush Leaves Four Militants Dead, Wounds Two Troops From U.S.-Led Forces

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan July 27, 2004 — Insurgents mounted two attacks on coalition vehicles Tuesday in southeastern Afghanistan, leaving four militants dead and wounding two soldiers from American-led forces, the military said.
Suspected Taliban also killed two Afghans because they had registered to vote in upcoming elections, police said.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23468


By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, July 27, 2004

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Top military leaders in Afghanistan are hailing a Marine offensive deep inside southern Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province as the most successful operation here since the 2001 invasion.

Tucked away in southern Afghanistan’s rugged mountains, the province has provided a sanctuary for Taliban holdouts and their al-Qaida supporters, say officials. But not anymore.

The Marine offensive, which began in March and is just now wrapping up, was the first incursion into the area by conventional forces.

The Marines are credited with killing more than 100 Taliban and al-Qaida fighters during weeks of running gunbattles in an area completely avoided by conventional U.S. forces until their arrival.

“You’re the best this place has ever seen,” Army Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, the top field commander in Afghanistan, told a gathering Marines at Kandahar Airfield this weekend.

The Marines' offensive, he said, put the Taliban on the run in their own back yard.

“Never again can they use that place as a sanctuary,” said Olson. “You proved to the world the United States of America is going to take this fight to the most dangerous part of Afghanistan unafraid and absolutely determined.”

Olson said the Marine offensive also caught the Taliban off guard.

“You rocked him back on his heels. You knocked him on his ***.

“You went places that has never seen an American.

“You went to find him on his turf, on his terms, on his ground and kicked him in the ***.

“And that surprised him.”

Olson said the MEU’s performance had also “made an impression on the most senior leaders.”

Quoting Lt. Gen. David Barno, the overall commander of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, Olson said,

“Never in the history of Operation Enduring Freedom has there been an offensive operation like the one the 22nd MEU conducted. Never have we been this successful. You have made history here.”

......

Outstanding, Marines!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20312-2004Jul28.html


Reuters
Wednesday, July 28, 2004; 5:33 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - An ammunition depot blew up near the Afghan capital after it was hit by a rocket, a spokesman for foreign peacekeepers said Wednesday.

The rocket attack, the third in less than two weeks in or around Kabul, happened hours before a missile landed just outside the Chinese embassy and not far from the presidential palace.

No one was hurt in Tuesday night's strikes, said commander Chris Henderson from the 6,500-strong International Security Assistance Force led by NATO.

Rocket attacks on Kabul appear to be becoming more frequent as Afghanistan approaches a presidential election in October that Islamic militants have vowed to disrupt.

Afghan officials usually blame remnants of the ousted Taliban and guerrilla allies for such attacks.

But Tuesday's strikes also coincided with political tension in President Hamid Karzai's government heightened by his decision to drop powerful Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim Qasim as his running mate in the October 9 poll.

Henderson said he saw no definite link between the attacks and the tensions.

Separately, two soldiers from the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force hunting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda were wounded Tuesday when their convoy was attacked by small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades in the southern province of Zabul, a U.S. military statement said.

The soldiers were flown for treatment to Kandahar airfield, a key U.S. base in southern Afghanistan, it said, adding that they were in a stable condition.

The Zabul ambush came a day after three American soldiers and their Afghan translator were wounded in a blast in another part of the restive province where militants are active.

Another U.S. soldier was wounded Friday outside Kandahar city when his car was hit in explosion from a parked car triggered by a remote controlled device.

The attacks are part of a surge of violence ahead of a landmark presidential election and parliamentary polls due in April. More than 900 people have been killed in the violence, mostly across southern and eastern Afghanistan, in the last year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21883-2004Jul28.html


By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 28, 2004; 8:57 PM


KABUL, Afghanistan - Medecins Sans Frontieres became the first major aid agency to quit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, saying Wednesday that the government failed to act on evidence that local warlords were behind the murder of five of its staff.

The Nobel prize-winning medical relief group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, denounced the U.S. military's use of aid to persuade Afghans to snitch on insurgents, saying it risked turning all relief workers into targets. It was also dismayed that Taliban rebels tried to claim responsibility for the June 2 attack on its staff.

"We feel that the framework for independent humanitarian action in Afghanistan at present has simply evaporated," said Kenny Gluck, MSF's director of operations. There is a "lack of respect for the safety of aid workers."

The withdrawal of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which had 80 international volunteers and 1,400 Afghan staff in the country before the June attack, is the most dramatic example yet of how poor security more than two years after the fall of the Taliban is hampering the delivery of badly needed aid.

More than 30 aid workers have been killed here since March 2003, rendering much of the south and east off-limits.

On Wednesday, a bomb exploded in a mosque where Afghans were registering for coming elections, killing at least two people, officials said. Three rockets fired into Kabul overnight blew up an arms dump at an Afghan military base and narrowly missed the Chinese Embassy. No one was hurt.

President Hamid Karzai said he regretted MSF's decision and insisted authorities were investigating the June attack.

The government is "fully committed to bringing to justice those responsible for murdering the MSF employees" and making the country safe for aid workers, a statement from his office said.

The assault on the MSF workers in northwestern Badghis, the deadliest yet on an international relief agency, raised fears that the north was also becoming too dangerous.

Badghis police say two men on a motorcycle stopped an MSF vehicle as it returned to the provincial capital Qala-e-Naw from a rural clinic. The three Europeans and two Afghans inside were shot dead.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, and accused the victims of working for American interests - a shock to MSF, which relies on neutrality to protect staff who venture into war zones.

But MSF officials said Wednesday that the Afghan interior minister had told them there was "credible evidence" that a former local security chief in Badghis had ordered the killing to protest his ouster.

That the official, who wasn't identified, has been neither arrested nor denounced "sends a message that it is acceptable to kill aid workers," Gluck told reporters. A spokesman for Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali had no comment.

The aid group also called on the U.S. military to halt its expanding use of humanitarian work to win over skeptical Afghans.

U.S. and NATO troops are running a string of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams across the country, setting up clinics, digging wells and doing other work normally carried out by civilians.

The military apologized in May for distributing leaflets telling Afghans that they had to provide information on militants if they wanted assistance to continue.

Blurring the distinction "puts all aid workers in danger," MSF secretary-general Marine Buissonniere said.

The U.S. military said the protests were misguided.

"We don't put anyone in danger," spokesman Maj. Jon Siepmann said. Many aid groups were working effectively alongside American troops, he said. Others "need to direct their concern towards the Taliban, towards al-Qaida. We do nothing here but help."

MSF, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, has been working in Afghanistan for 24 years - through a decade of Soviet occupation, a brutal civil war and the rise and fall of the repressive Taliban. A French staffer was killed in 1990, but they have never withdrawn until now.

Gluck said staff providing health care and support to hospitals in 13 of the country's 34 provinces wept and begged them not to pull out this time either. He said action by the government, the U.S. military - and even assurances from the Taliban - could help them to come back.

"There are still massive unmet medical needs," he said. "We would be very anxious to return."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/29/uk.afghan.iraq/index.html

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British parliamentary committee has warned that Afghanistan is likely to "implode, with terrible consequences" unless more troops and resources are sent to calm the country.

The all-party Foreign Affairs Select Committee, in a report released Thursday, said warlord violence and the struggle between U.S.-led troops and insurgents continues to be a threat to security in Afghanistan.

The wide-ranging report on the war against terrorism also said raised concerns over the failure of the UK government and its allies to limit the production of opium in Afghanistan.

"There is a real danger if these resources are not provided soon that Afghanistan -- a fragile state in one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world -- could implode, with terrible consequences," the committee says in its report.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0729/p06s01-wosc.html



Since taking command of US forces here, Lt. Gen. David Barno has focused US forces on nation building.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – When President Hamid Karzai chose to stand up this week to Afghanistan's most powerful warlord, Defense Minister Marshal Mohammed Fahim, he did so with the confidence that the US-led coalition here would keep the general's sizable militia in check.
As NATO forces stepped up patrols in Kabul, the peaceful announcement of Mr. Karzai's bold decision to bypass the defense chief as a vice presidential candidate was welcomed by one man in particular: top American officer Lt. Gen. David Barno.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p11s01-usmi.html


GI Joe dolls, heavy-metal music, and jokes help soldiers at a remote US Army base in Afghanistan cope with the strange bedfellows of war - danger and boredom. This is what day-to-day life was like for the 10th Mountain Division, which just now is returning home.

ORGUN, AFGHANISTAN – "Incoming!" a soldier shouts when the first rocket explodes outside a dusty US military outpost near the Pakistan border.
It's dusk - the guerrillas' favorite time to strike and then slip away.

Moments later, the shrill, descending whistle of another rocket ends with a boom and dark cloud several hundred yards to our right.

Soldiers pull on their helmets and flak vests and bound toward a concrete bunker reinforced with sandbags. After they're crammed inside, nervous energy fuels black humor. "You're a lousy aim!" one GI yells toward the adjacent mountainside.

That British "report" on Afghanistan was so politically motivated and propagandistic as to be criminal. Forget Afghanistan, which is doing fine, here's what they said about Iraq:

quote:

---

On Iraq, the committee concluded that Al Qaeda had turned Iraq into a "battleground" with appalling consequences for the country's people.

The committee said the coalition's failure to establish law and order in parts of the country had, in addition, created a "vacuum" into which criminals and militias had poured.

---

Do we see in this report mention of the fact that 50% of polled Iraqis said they had a family member that was either murdered or tortured by Hussein's forces or knew of someone who did? No. Did they mention the mass graves, the tens of thousands of Kurds slaughtered, their women raped, their never having rights, etc? No. Did they mention that 25 million people are humming along democratically despite a car bombing here, a car bombing there? No.

Spare me.

Which article was that?

Well, they have a profound need to turn all our successes into "failures". Apparently that makes them feel better somehow.

Ameirca has done a damn fine job in Afghaninstan and Iraq and in such a short time.

Well, "they" are the anti-American Left, and there are plenty to be found here but unfortunately "they" are more prevalent than not in England. The Brits I've met and worked with in New York City over the last ten years are woefully anti-American and overwhelmingly socialist.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-07-29-afghan-clashes_x.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Three U.S. and two Afghan soldiers were wounded Thursday when a regional militia attacked their convoy in a remote province wracked by factional tension, the American military said.
U.S. and Afghan National Army soldiers in the convoy called in warplanes to help ward of attackers who rained fire on them on Thursday afternoon in central Ghor province, spokesman Maj. Rick Peat said. It was unclear if the planes inflicted any casualties.

"Attacks like this will not be tolerated," Peat said.

The wounded Americans were trainers embedded in a unit of the new U.S.-trained national army which is supposed to eventually replace the unruly warlord militias who still control much of the country.

All five wounded were listed as stable, including one American who was seriously injured, Peat said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25105-2004Jul29.html

Reuters
Thursday, July 29, 2004; 3:30 PM

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. military adviser to Afghanistan's fledgling army and two Afghan soldiers were killed Thursday in clashes with renegade factions in the central province of Ghor, a senior local official said.

The U.S. military in Kabul could not immediately confirm the report of the U.S. fatality.

In the latest sign of tensions between the U.S.-backed central government and factional commanders who oppose its drive to disarm them, fighting erupted in Ghalmin, near the provincial capital of Chaghcharan, Ghor police chief Amar Khuda said.

According to Khuda, the fighting erupted when Afghan National Army forces went to Ghalmin to convince General Zaman Khan and General Ahmad Khan to hand over their weapons.

Both generals had been involved in clashes in June when another commander forced them to flee Chaghcharan. They were then removed from their positions by the central government to appease local opposition, but have yet to lay down their arms.

Khuda said his forces there were now under "siege."

"We have informed the authorities in Kabul to come and rescue us from this siege," he told Reuters from Chaghcharan, adding that generals Ahmad and Zaman had around 3,000 fighters.

President Hamid Karzai sent ANA forces to Chaghcharan in June to defuse tensions after a renegade commander briefly took over control of the town.

The U.S. military has appointed advisers to the ANA to help train the fledgling force which now numbers around 12,000 troops.

Karzai has said factional commanders running private armies pose a greater threat to Afghan security than Islamic militants fighting an insurgency to disrupt preparations for landmark elections in October and April.

A nationwide disarmament drive has largely failed to disband these forces, many of which are led by senior government officials including the defense minister and the governor of the Western province of Herat.

The international community is concerned that factions opposed to Karzai and his reforms will seek to coerce voters or resort to violence in the runup to the polls.

More than 900 people have been killed in attacks in the last year, most of them related to remnants of the ousted Taliban and their militant allies.

According to the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force, a suspected militant was shot and wounded by Afghan police Thursday while attempting to lay explosives northwest of Qalat, capital of the southern Zabul province where Taliban are active.

The militant was flown to the U.S. airbase near the southern city of Kandahar. His condition is unknown, a statement said.

Separately, an Afghan was wounded by an explosive device in the central province of Uruzgan. He was evacuated to Kandahar.

(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White in Kabul)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-01-afghan-vote_x.htm


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — About 90% of the Afghan electorate has registered to vote in October's landmark presidential election, the United Nations said Sunday, as it began winding down a registration effort marred by bloody attacks on election staff and voters.
According to the latest U.N. figures, 8.7 million of an estimated 9.8 million eligible voters have collected ID cards that will allow them to cast a ballot when polling begins Oct. 9 in Afghanistan's first-ever direct national vote.

The enthusiastic turnout is a relief for the world body, which has overcome misgivings about Afghanistan's readiness for elections under strong pressure from the United States. The vote had been delayed from June because of slow progress disarming warlords. A vote for Parliament was put off until next spring.

It is also a welcome surprise for President Hamid Karzai, who is widely expected to defeat 22 rivals to secure a new five-year term. The U.S.-backed interim leader was still saying in June that registering 6 million people would have been sufficient.

"The participation is amazing," U.N. spokesman David Singh said. "There was a lot of skepticism about this process at the beginning, but the targets have been fulfilled."

.......

This is great.

What pisses me off, though, is how the damn UN isw trying to take credit for it all. I expected it, but nevertheless, it is disgusting.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-02-afghan-fighting_x.htm


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — More than 100 Afghan and American troops supported by U.S. warplanes clashed with 50 militants near the Pakistani frontier Monday, inflicting "heavy losses" on the rebels in the fiercest border skirmish in months, the U.S. military said.
One Afghan soldier was reported killed and at least five injured in the fighting in Khost province, a former al-Qaeda stronghold in southeastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military maintains an important air base.

An Afghan commander said the fight began when the militants attacked a border post near Zhawara, 40 miles south of Khost city, early on Monday morning.

Maj. Rick Peat, an American spokesman, said U.S.-led troops and more than 100 Afghan militia soldiers engaged the militants at about 2 a.m. A B1 bomber, two A-10 ground-attack aircraft and four Cobra helicopter gunships provided support.

"The militants retreated in panic and were pursued by the attack aircraft," Peat said.

Gen. Khial Baz, the provincial military commander, said four Afghan soldiers were wounded. However, Peat said only two were hurt and that they were evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

Four hours later, U.S. and Afghan forces, supported A-10s, fought about 20 of the militants in a renewed battle.

"Again, the militants retreated after incurring heavy losses," Peat said.

.......

Outstanding!

Get some!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-03-afghan-us-fight_x.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan troops backed by American warplanes killed as many as 70 militants in a daylong battle near the Pakistani border, in one of the bloodiest clashes since the fall of the Taliban, military officials said Tuesday.
Only two Afghan soldiers were reported dead in the fighting, indicating the militants vulnerability to American air power while raising fresh suspicions that they are using Pakistan as a base for operations.

An Afghan commander claimed government forces heard militant radio messages in Arabic and the Chechen language, suggesting al-Qaeda fighters were involved.

"We could hear the enemy," said Gen. Nawab, an Afghan commander who uses just one name. "I'm sure there were foreigners involved."

The battle began at about 2 a.m. Monday, when dozens of militants armed with rockets, mortars and machine-guns hit a border post in Khost province, a former al-Qaeda stronghold about 120 miles south of the capital, Kabul.

The U.S. military said it sent a B-1 bomber, A-10 ground-attack aircraft and helicopter gunships and flew in Afghan reinforcements, eventually forcing the assailants to flee "in panic."

Outstanding!

Get some!

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/aug2004/a080304a.html

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 3, 2004 — Afghan forces backed by coalition ground and air forces fought side-by-side for several hours Aug. 2 to repel a force of about 50 anti-coalition militants in Khost Province, according to Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan officials.

Allied forces staved off rockets, mortars, rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire throughout the day and into the night. The exact number of enemy casualties is unknown, but pilots flying overhead estimated that approximately 40-50 insurgents were killed and a number of vehicles either damaged or destroyed.

The fighting erupted around 2 a.m. near the Pakistani border but subsided some time later when the militants retreated at the sight of the attack aircraft, which included a B-1 bomber, A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft, AH-1 Cobra and UH-1 helicopters.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-11-rumsfeld-afghanistan_x.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Halfway through the deadliest year yet for American soldiers in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointed optimistically Wednesday to a revival in commerce and rising registration for October's election as proof the country is making progress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10371-2004Aug18.html

By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 18, 2004; 4:58 AM


KABUL, Afghanistan - A cease-fire between warring militias in western Afghanistan held on Wednesday, officials said, easing a conflict that has sounded alarm bells from Kabul to the United Nations about the need to improve security ahead of landmark elections.

Dozens of people were reported killed or wounded in fighting which broke out last week between Herat Gov. Ismail Khan, a powerful regional leader, and a local rival.

With U.S. warplanes circling overhead, Afghan and American officials mediated a truce on Tuesday, and leaders on both sides said Wednesday that their guns remained silent.

Amanullah, the rebel commander who agreed to abandon a push toward the provincial capital under the cease-fire, said he didn't know how long it would hold.

"We're waiting for the decision of the central government and for a delegation from Kabul to arrive here," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Shindand, in the south of the province.

Abdul Wahed Tawakali, a senior intelligence official who acts as a spokesman for Khan, said the governor's troops were in Adraskan, about 30 miles to the north, also awaiting word from the delegation led by Afghan Interior Ministry officials.

In the meantime, hundreds of government troops dispatched from Kabul along with a group of U.S. military advisers were acting as a buffer force to keep them apart.

"The Afghan National Army is not involved in the fighting," Tawakali told AP. "They are here to safeguard the cease-fire."

American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters on Tuesday that there could be "significant" additional casualties to the 25 previously reported killed. But officials declined to discuss the death toll Wednesday.

Factional violence has flared across Afghanistan this year, undermining Afghan and American claims of growing security and stability more than two years after the fall of the Taliban.

The latest violence could also stir ethnic tension ahead of the Oct. 9 presidential vote, and is an unwelcome distraction for the U.S. military still battling insurgents in the south and east.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Tuesday for an urgent increase in international forces in Afghanistan to address the deteriorating security situation.

Annan welcomed a recent NATO decision to increase its troop strength in time for the vote and that they would remain beyond parliamentary elections delayed until April.

On Tuesday, Amanullah's ethnic Pashtun fighters had pushed back Khan's Tajik-dominated forces to within 30 kilometers (20 miles) of Herat city, raising the specter of urban warfare.

Amanullah swears allegiance to the central government, and Karzai has clashed repeatedly with Khan over issues including disarmament and the remission of tax returns to Kabul.

But Karzai, also a Pashtun, has condemned Amanullah's action.

A presidential spokesman on Tuesday described Amanullah as a warlord - a term which deeply offends Afghan militia leaders - and noted that Khan was the legitimate governor of Herat.


© 2004 The Associated Press

http://www.dod.gov/news/Aug2004/n08192004_2004081905.html

By Sgt. 1st Class Darren D. Heusel, USA
Special to American Forces Press Service

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2004 -- Afghan citizens want added security leading up to the Oct. 9 presidential elections. That's exactly what the Afghan National Police, backed by the U.S.-led coalition and the International Security Assistance Force, intends to provide with the emergence of a new Rapid Action Division.

The division is the Afghan equivalent of a quick-reaction force. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made mention of the group's potential during a recent visit, saying that it is vital to the security and stability of the region.

"This RAD is going to be a very important organization because they're going to respond to serious election-related contingencies," said Col. Jon Lopey, chief of the Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan and Civil Military Operations Law Enforcement Cell.

"These police officers recognize the importance of their mission and I'm confident that with the training they've received they will be able to provide much-needed security for the upcoming elections and beyond," said New Zealand Maj. Bede Fahey, who was sent to Afghanistan to oversee the RAD training.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17823-2004Aug20.html

By NOOR KHAN
The Associated Press
Friday, August 20, 2004; 5:33 AM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A series of bombs went off at a U.N. voter registration office in western Afghanistan, injuring six policemen, setting vehicles ablaze and shattering windows, police and the United Nations said Friday. It was the latest in a string of attacks targeting election workers.

The blasts occurred late Thursday at a voter registration site in Farah City, near the border with Iran and about 465 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, said Mohammed Rasool Khan, the deputy police chief for the province.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said there were six explosions in all. He said there were three international U.N. staffers at the site at the time, and none were injured.

The U.N. staffers had finished most voter registration work in the province and were to be moved to Herat, the province directly north of Farah.

"This confirms the concerns we have regarding security for the electoral process," de Almeida e Silva said, adding that the United Nations welcomed a decision by NATO to beef up its peacekeeping force ahead of the Oct. 9 vote.

"The sooner they get here the better," de Almeida e Silva said.

Khan said one bomb went off at the perimeter of the site, near a group of Afghan police who were standing guard.

Six injured police were being treated at a hospital in the city, some with serious injuries. The other blast went off inside the compound, damaging five vehicles and blowing out several windows.

Police have detained four security guards, two Afghans working for the United Nations, and a U.N. security guard for questioning.

It was not clear who was behind the attack.

Taliban militants have been blamed for a series of attacks on workers preparing the country for its first presidential vote. Scores of election workers and civilians have been killed in the attacks.

---

Associated Press correspondent Paul Haven in Kabul, Afghanistan contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18665-2004Aug20.html

Reuters
Friday, August 20, 2004; 12:20 PM

By Abdul Saboor

SHAHBET, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Plans for Afghanistan's first democratic election in October mean little to Ismail Khan as he strides across a hill top, satellite phone in hand, flanked by commanders and a battle tank at his back.

The governor of the western province of Herat is bristling with anger that the Afghan National Army supported by U.S. airpower is playing peacemaker rather than destroying an enemy whose forces, Khan says, are drawn from remnants of the Taliban.

President Hamid Karzai's new army and 18,000 U.S. led troops are hunting Taliban and members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in the south and east. But the crisis in the west, has come right before an election in which security will be a central issue.

"Three weeks ago I went to Kabul ... and at that time I told President Karzai that our enemies were making plans to do something," Ismail Khan told Reuters in a roadside interview, as his troops passed through the village of Shahbet in Adraskan district, 75 km (47 miles) south of Herat city.

"I also told Karzai some of his cabinet members were involved," says the self-styled "Amir of Herat," his white robes and turban flecked with dust kicked up by tanks and trucks laden with ammunition.

His fears were well placed. Last week, a renegade militia commander, Amanullah Khan, launched an offensive that swept toward Herat, Afghanistan's second largest city and capital of the province bordering Iran.

The governor says fifty people were killed in the fighting and he fears his enemy will kill fifty more held captive.

Karzai responded by rushing two battalions to restore order.

Dread that the conflict could stir ethnic tensions -- Ismail Khan is a Tajik and ethnic Pashtuns and Hazaras in Herat complain they are discriminated against -- finally made Karzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul, act.

BELATED RELIEF

After a U.S.-brokered cease-fire on Tuesday, Amanullah Khan, a Pashtun, pulled his militia back to Shindand, a sprawling disused former Soviet airbase 125 km (78 miles) south of Herat.

On Friday, U.S. Black Hawk helicopter gunships were patrolling the area while the Afghan army has put itself between the two opposing forces.

But Ismail Khan doubts whether the 800,000 people in Herat who registered to vote in the October 9 presidential election, will bother after seeing Kabul's failure to strike hard or act sooner.

"We are all disappointed. We will not go to vote."

Fiercely independent, regarded as sympathetic to Iran and suspicious of U.S. backing for Karzai, Ismail Khan, a small man with a heavy beard, is a war veteran with a nose for a trap.

Twenty-five years ago as a major in the Afghan army he led a mutiny in Herat that set off a chain of events leading to the Soviet invasion in late 1979.

Years later Ismail Khan was jailed during the Taliban's rule after an ally sold him out, but escaped to become one of the warlords, or mujahideen leaders, in the Northern Alliance that helped drive the Taliban from power in late 2001.

Earlier this year there was an assassination attempt on him, and his son Mirwais Sadiq, the aviation minister, was killed. It led to fierce clashes in March between his own militia and central government forces garrisoned in Herat.

Now, he says Amanullah Khan is in cahoots with drug runners from southern and western provinces as well as having backing from treacherous government ministers.

Roads Promote Stronger Infrastructure

By Sgt. Stephanie L. Carl, 17th Public Affairs Detachment
August 20, 2004


GHAZNI PROVINCE, Afghanistan –– Members of the Ghazni Provincial Reconstruction Team and the local government are looking at long-term improvements to be made in their region, adding to the redevelopment taking place throughout Afghanistan.

One of those projects with long-term benefits is improvements to roads in the area. By improving the roads of Ghazni, they have tackled two issues – the landscape and the economy.

“We’ve been able to pave about five kilometers of road,” said Lt. Col. Steven J. Ford, Ghazni PRT commander.

Included in these five kilometers are Kandahar Bus Station Road, which had its official opening July 29, and Hospital Road. Both of these streets run along bustling business districts, and provide convenient passage to market areas.

“We spent around $300,000 on Hospital Road,” said Allen Nugent, Ghazni PRT’s U.S. Agency for International Development representative.

The funding for each of the roads came from USAID, which allocates money to certain types of development projects.

“Both Hospital Road and Kandahar Bus Station Road connect to Ring Road,” said Nugent. This makes them an economic asset to Ghazni city, which is one of the largest cities in Afghanistan. Ring Road links major hubs of Afghanistan, like Kabul and Khandahar, providing a developed route for economic growth.

Already, business establishments are starting to sprout up along the new roads, from fabric stands to fresh produce, as entrepreneurs are looking to profit from the influx of passersby.

“We really hope these projects assist with economic development,” said Nugent.

But the improvements don’t stop with downtown Ghazni city. Bazaars and other establishments have begun to open in areas anticipating future projects.

“We’re also looking at ways to link the outlying areas of Ghazni to Ring Road,” said Nugent. Another project in the design phase is a road from Ghazni to Gardez, an important trade route for the merchants of both areas.

“This project is going to be planned and completed by several contractors,” he said. “This will help bring even more money to the Afghan people.”

While the PRT and agencies like USAID are providing the funding for the roads themselves, Ghazni’s provincial government is making other improvements right along with them.

“These roads have curbs, sidewalks and covered drains,” said Nugent. These improvements were made by the provincial government itself, hoping to further improve the living conditions and infrastructure in Ghazni.

“They’ve even installed streetlights along the roads,” said Maj. Scott C. Ford, Ghazni Civil Military Operations Center commander. “When you drive through here at night, it looks almost like an American city.”

With the combined efforts of the PRT and the Afghan government, it’s only a matter of time before Ghazni finds itself classified as a center of commerce for Afghanistan, said the PRT commander.

“These roads are presenting an immediate ripple effect,” he said. “As soon as we have the ground-breaking for a road, there is an immediate economic impact.”

Good article and good pic.

http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_ELECTION_ATTACK?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The bombing of a U.N. election office in Afghanistan that injuring six policemen drew calls from a U.N. union Friday that the world body consider withdrawing staffers from the embattled nation.

The Staff Union urged for a security review and revamped safety measures for Afghanistan-based U.N. personnel, saying "the safety of staff remains the highest priority."

"As we approach the election time, more than likely attacks will intensify," said Guy Candusso, the union's vice-president. "We think the U.N. should consider suspending operations and rethink security before moving into the next critical phase of the election process."

The union noted that other recent attacks on election workers have highlighted the danger. U.N. chief Kofi Annan said this week that violence has increasingly been aimed at U.N. staff and offices in Afghanistan.

Afghan voters are scheduled to elect a president on Oct. 9 and a parliament in April.

U.N. associate spokesman Stephane Dujarric, asked about a possible staff withdrawal from Afghanistan, said a U.N. security assessment mission recently returned from the country with specific recommendations which have been approved and are in the process of being implemented.

.......

Yet again the UN proves itself to be completely worthless