Articles found May 22, 2007
Harper in Afghanistan on unannounced visit
Updated Tue. May. 22 2007 6:31 AM ET Canadian Press
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has responded to criticism of his government's handling of the mission in Afghanistan by making an unannounced visit to the war-ravaged country.
The surprise two-day trip comes after weeks of opposition attacks on his government's allegedly incompetent handling of the Afghan detainee controversy.
Harper arrived on a military flight Tuesday in the Afghan capital, where he visited a school for underprivileged children and met with President Hamid Karzai.
This is Harper's second visit to the war-torn country.
Barely one month after taking office last year, Harper made Afghanistan his destination for his first foreign trip as prime minister.
Unlike that last trip, this one is designed to emphasize Canada's non-military contribution to rebuilding of the country.
The prime minister handed out pencil cases to students at a local school for underprivileged children. He dropped in on painting, acting, woodworking, and music classes at the Aschiana School in a tightly guarded compound in the capital's downtown core.
The school received $39,500 in annual funding from the Canadian government and provides education to more than 10,000 Afghan children.
He also visited diplomats at the Canadian Embassy for a briefing on progress made in that country since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.
In 2006, Harper spent almost the entirety of his three days in Afghanistan visiting military installations and camping out with soldiers. His current trip comes with public opinion polls suggesting support for his government has fallen amid opposition attacks of the last few weeks.
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Afghanistan suspends outspoken lawmaker
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)
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Afghanistan's lower parliamentary house voted Monday to suspend an outspoken female lawmaker, who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
The lawmaker, Malalai Joya, 29, said in a recent interview with private Afghan station Tolo TV that the country's parliament was like a "stable or zoo."
"This is a word that fits -- a cattle house is full of animals, like a cow giving milk, a donkey carrying something, a dog that's loyal," Joya said.
The video was shown in the legislature Monday, and angry lawmakers voted to suspend her, said parliamentary spokesman Haseb Noori.
No formal vote count was held, but a clear majority of lawmakers voted to suspend her for the rest of her five-year term by raising colored cards, Noori said.
Parliament's Article 70 forbids lawmakers from insulting one another, Noori said.
Joya, elected in 2005, said the vote was a "political conspiracy" and that she had been told Article 70 was written specifically for her. She did not say who told her.
"Since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga," she said, referring to the constitution-drafting constitution held several years ago.
Lower house speaker Yunus Qanooni told lawmakers that Joya's case would be introduced to "the court," without elaborating. When lawmakers asked why, Qanooni said, "If there is any issue, the court will explain it."
It was not immediately clear if a court could overturn Joya's suspension.
Joya, a women's rights campaigner from Farah province, rose to prominence in 2003 when she branded powerful Afghan warlords as criminals during the Loya Jirga.
Many commanders who fought occupying Soviet troops in the 1980s still control provincial fiefdoms, and have been accused of human-rights abuses and corruption.
After ousting the Soviets, the militias turned on each other in a brutal civil war that destroyed most of the capital, Kabul.
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Suicide bomber attacks S.C. Guard convoy in Afghanistan
Blast injures five soldiers, none seriously; 14 civilians killed
By CHUCK CRUMBO Posted on Tue, May. 22, 2007 ccrumbo@thestate.com
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Seconds after the last truck cleared a checkpoint, 2nd Lt. William Hillis heard a blast from behind his Humvee.
The S.C. National Guard soldier looked in his rearview mirror and saw only dust and smoke. Then, his radio crackled with reports of injuries. A suicide bomber had attacked Hillis’ convoy.
Five soldiers, all members of the Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team, were injured in the blast Sunday. The civilian toll totaled 14 dead and 31 injured.
None of the S.C. soldiers’ injuries was serious. However, two were evacuated to a military hospital at Kabul’s Bagram Air Base for treatment. Three others returned to duty after they were treated for injuries. None of the injured was identified.
The bombing was the first serious incident involving the 218th since it arrived in Afghanistan earlier this month to take over Task Force Phoenix.
The blast happened on a crowded street in Gardez, Afghanistan, a city of about 10,000 about 60 miles south of here.
“There were a lot of people out. Nobody was really paying attention to us,” Hillis said Monday. “We were talking in the truck that this is good.”
Hillis, of Charlotte, said the narrow, two-lane street lined with shops was crowded.
“There were donkey carts. Women and children. It was the normal hustle and bustle of Afghanistan.”
The convoy was taking soldiers to a base at Gardez, capital of the Paktia province, Hillis said.
Some reports said the bomber jumped onto the hood of one of the Humvees and then detonated his bomb. Hillis, who was not injured in the attack, said that did not happen.
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Polish soldiers ready in Afghanistan
Tuesday May 22, 2007 (0208 PST)
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KABUL: 1300 Polish soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are getting ready to officially commence their mission.
Their aim is to achieve full combat readiness at the end of May/ beginning of June which means that they will then be ready to patrol their region and face the Taliban forces if such a need arises.
According to analysts, Polish troops in Afghanistan will have to face not only risky military operations but also an increasing dislike for foreign troops manifested by local communities.
However, general Mieczyslaw Bieniek, an adviser to Afghani minister of defense in Kabul is confident their job will be done properly. Speaking for Polish Radio he reiterated that only the best and most experienced soldiers were sent to that country.
Polish troops are stationed in four bases in the southern and eastern part of Afghanistan.
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Nearly 70 rebels killed in attack: Afghan commander
Sunday May 20, 2007 (0432 PST)
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KHOST: Nearly 70 Taliban militants were killed in an ambush by US-led forces and Afghan soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, a military commander said.
The rebels were killed late Friday in Paktia province near the border with Pakistan, Afghan army general Sami-Ul Haq Badar said.
"We set an ambush, attacked them and killed 67 Taliban. Their bodies were lying on the ground," he said on Saturday.
The general said the soldiers had been tipped off that there were Taliban in the area. No Afghan or foreign soldiers were hurt in the gunfight, which lasted several hours, he said.
The attack took place in Jaji district, where Pakistan and Afghan forces traded fire over two days last week. The Taliban, ousted from power more than five years ago, are still active in the south and east of the country.
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Amid cowboys and Tory blue, Muslims thrive
Calgary's Islamic community, in the spotlight as the home of a Canadian detained in Afghanistan, is a surprisingly large and united group
COLIN FREEZE From Tuesday's Globe and Mail May 22, 2007 at 4:29 AM EDT
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CALGARY — The Muslim youth conference held in Calgary was a big hit. Scores turned out this month to hear the keynote speaker talk about the 11 days she was held captive by the Taliban.
Not only did Yvonne Ridley live to tell her tale, but it turned out to have a twist: The former journalist from the U.K. found her captors to be so courteous that she decided to convert to Islam and spread the word.
"People actually really liked everything she said," said organizer Dana Dabash. The hijab-wearing 21-year-old estimates more than 250 young Muslims attended the event.
In many Western cities, Ms. Ridley has been described as an apparent victim of Stockholm Syndrome. Yet her message about the Taliban went over way better - in Calgary - than one might suspect.
The city remains a haven for oilmen and cowboys, and is the political heartland of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatism. But Muslims here say their community now comprises about 65,000 Calgarians, most arriving within the span of two generations.
As they've grown, Calgary Muslims have prided themselves on their unity. Other Islamic communities cleave by race, language and sect, but here, people from all corners of the globe pray together at a Sunni mosque in the city's southwest.
The city's main mosque was surrounded by farmland when built 30 years ago.
Today, its minaret looks out over a residential neighbourhood that has built up around it.
Most Muslims actually live in the opposite corner of Calgary, in the northeast. Like most immigrants, they have been drawn to newly built subdivisions on cheaper land. To pray at the established mosque in the southwest, they make a lengthy commute, forgoing the relatively sparse prayer centres in the northeast.
There are some signs of a generation gap emerging. Several young Muslims say they are growing their beards and wearing Islamic dress, fighting the wishes of parents who urge them to conform.
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H
urry up and wait
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 | 09:35 AM ET By Derek Stoffel
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There are certainly all kinds of differences between the media and the military – but in the last three weeks embedded with Canada's troops in Afghanistan – I've found we soldiers and reporters have one thing in common: waiting.
I'm used to almost every press conference that I attend back home in Canada being delayed by 15 minutes or half an hour. Or longer. Reporters wait for strike deadlines and for late interviewees. And for those of us who thrive on deadline pressure, we wait till the last minute to file our stories.
But all that waiting is nothing compared to what the men and women in uniform have to put up with.
Canadian soldiers hang out in LAV IIIs to escape the heat, waiting for a meeting that was cancelled. (Derek Stoffel/CBC)CBC cameraman Dave Rae and I spent some time "out of the wire" as they say – meaning we were away from NATO's main base in southern Afghanistan, Kandahar Air Field. We went up to one of Canada's Forward Operating Bases in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province.
Of course, we had to wait to get there. We were told to report to the airfield at 07:00 for our brief helicopter ride to the base. When we arrived, the firm-but-polite soldier from the U.S. Army informed us that our flight would be delayed for about an hour. Dave and I were taking the helicopter out with a Canadian soldier who had just returned from his three-weeks of holiday, back home spending time with his wife in Toronto.
So, there we were, the three of us sitting on a wooden bench at seven in the morning, waiting. Sure, we had some Tim Horton's coffee to make things a little easier, but at that point in the day, it's already hot. In the end, we waited three and a half hours for a 10 minute helicopter ride.
The contrast between the two impatient journalists and the army captain was like night and day. We fidgeted around, reading our books, huffing as we checked our watches every few minutes. But for the military man, this was nothing. He summed it up pretty well when he told me a career in the army means getting used to 'hurry up and wait.'
That's something you hear quite often on base here. The night before, as Dave and I were waiting for the first helicopter that was supposed to take us to our destination (canceled because the U.S. pilots forgot about us), we met a team of Canadian snipers. These four really should win the grand prize for waiting, if there was one.
They told us about one recent mission that kept them out in the field (no comfy cots and mattresses like the ones we sleep on back on base) for more than forty days. And remember, during the day the temperature is pushing 40 degrees Celsius. Most of their time is spent lying on the ground, waiting to do some surveillance or take part in an operation. These men exemplified patience.
Sometimes the waiting takes on a more serious tone. When out last week, we met up with two Canadian soldiers assigned to a small defensive position above a village in Kandahar province. Their job is to help mentor and train a group of Afghan National Army soldiers who staff the outpost. Lush green fields surround the position. One of the soldiers says a few weeks before it looked quite different – beautiful red and white flowers lined the fields. They're the poppy crops that make Afghanistan the world's largest heroin producer.
The soldier leaned forward and had a look at the poppy fields. Most of them have now been harvested. "Wait a week or so," he tells me. "And the guys who harvested these crops will have no more work. That's when the Taliban will step in, offer them a little money, and then things are going to heat up out here."
For the Canadian soldiers on the ground, it's a tense waiting game. So far the so-called spring offensive promised by the Taliban hasn't materialized. But the soldiers on the ground know it's too soon to write the militants off.
"We'll just to wait and see," the soldier says.
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Visiting Kandahar's amusement park
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 | 10:44 AM ET By Chris Brown
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The other day, an Afghan journalist we work with from time to time called me and said that the amusement park was finally open. An amusement park? In Kandahar? Where it seems every day there's an explosion or a bombing or an attack of some kind or another?
And yet, there it was.
On the city's outskirts, there is indeed an amusement park, with rides, a ferris wheel, popcorn and families having fun, just like in Canada. Well, almost like you'd see in Canada. There were no women at this amusement park. Only fathers with their kids. Though pretty much all Afghan women in Kandahar wear the familiar blue burka, I didn't see any at the park.
But back to the main point — how on earth can people relax and go to an amusement park in the middle of an insurgency? I was told it was an initiative of a former provincial governor. The park has yet to officially open but the manager told us staff opened it early because there is so much pent-up demand from Kandahar's population to go somewhere fun.
That's not to say there aren't problems. The electricity doesn't come on during the day, when the park operators need it — only at night. And because there isn't enough money in the civic budget, it may be months before any of the staff get a paycheque.
Is Kandahar safer?
So, does this mean the Canadian military is right — and that the city of Kandahar really is a safer place now than it was, say, a year ago? It seems a cop-out, but perhaps the best answer is yes, and no.
Statistically, the Canadian military confirms that suicide bombings and attacks with improvised explosive device (IED) have remained at the same level as last year.
A recent report from Human Rights Watch suggested some 669 Afghan civilians were killed in 2006 and the first part of 2007 by Taliban attacks. Many of those attacks targeted NATO forces in the south yet took the lives of civilians instead.
Very few private aid groups feel it's safe to work in Kandahar. Only a few dozen Westerners live permanently in the city and most of those brave souls reside in heavily guarded compounds. When they leave, they usually drive straight from one point to another, as fast as they can
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