Today's Afghan News

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Links of the Week

 Afghanistan Online Bookstore | Afghanistan Online Discussion Forums

Afghan Military News | Afghan Environmental News

Afghan Women's History

2009 Afghan Presidential Election Coverage

New Books To Check Out

Biography of the month: Zalmay Khalilzad

Opinion / Commentary

Khadija Ibrahimi: Karzai's Obsession With Power
Abdullah Qazi: About Not Supporting Afghan Cricket Because of Pakistan
Mohammad S. Tahir: Why Karzai Most Likely Will Win In August
Special Reports & Articles
Pakistan’s British-Drawn Borders
PHOTOS: Searching for Afghanistan's Third Giant Buddha
Afghanistan's street photographers fading away

US Marines launch
major offensive in Afghanistan

By Jason Straziuso
Associated Press
July 2, 2009

NAWA, Afghanistan – Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan on Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country.

The offensive was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time (4:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, 2030 GMT Wednesday) in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium poppy-producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.

The Marines have not suffered any serious casualties and have seen only a sporadic resistance, said Lt. Abe Sipe, a spokesman for the unit.

"The enemy has chosen to withdraw rather than engage for the most part," Sipe said. "We had a couple of heat casualties, but not deemed serious in nature at this time."

The operation came as U.S. military announced that one of its soldiers was missing and believed captured by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The missing soldier was not involved in the Helmand operation.

Officials described the offensive — dubbed Khanjar or "Strike of the Sword" — as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase and the biggest Marine offensive since the one in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. It involves nearly 4,000 newly arrived Marines plus 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.

"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

Pakistan's army said it had moved troops from elsewhere on its side of the Afghan border to the stretch opposite Helmand to try to stop any militants from fleeing the offensive. It gave no more details, but U.S. and Pakistani officials have expressed concern that stepped-up operations in southern Afghanistan could push the insurgents across the border.

Transport helicopters carried hundreds of Marines into the village of Nawa, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, in a region where no U.S. or other NATO troops have operated in large numbers.

The troops took many insurgents by surprise, dropping behind Taliban lines, said Capt. Drew Schoenmaker, from Greene, New York.

"We are kind of forging new ground here. We are going to a place nobody has been before," said Schoenmaker, 31, who commands Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Daybreak brought the sporadic crackle of gunfire. Medical helicopters circled overhead and landed, indicating possible early casualties among the Marines.

A Marine unit in Nawa traded gunfire with a group of some 20 insurgents, while Afghan troops exchanged small arms fire with militants after they were attacked with rocket propelled grenades fired from several houses. A Cobra helicopter circling overhead for most of the day fired rockets at a tree line nearby. Other troops walked through fields of corn and past mud-wall homes. Only a handful of villagers dared to venture outside.

A roadside bomb early in the mission wounded one Marine, but he was able to continue, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said.

Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008 but still half as many as are now in Iraq.

The Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and were ousted from power following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a violent comeback, wreaking havoc in much of the country's south and east, forcing the United States to pour in the new troops.

Pelletier said troops in Thursday's operation were sent in by a mixture of aircraft and ground transport under the cover of darkness.

The operation aims to show "the Afghan people that when we come in, we are going to stay long enough to set up their own institutions," Pelletier said.

Once on the ground, the troops will meet with local leaders, hear their needs and act on them, Pelletier said.

"We do not want people of Helmand province to see us as an enemy. We want to protect them from the enemy," Pelletier said.

Thousands of British forces, fighting under NATO command, have been in Helmand since 2006 with broadly the same strategy, but security has deteriorated. They have met with stronger resistance than initially expected against Taliban fighters bankrolled by the vast opium and heroin trade.

Reversing the insurgency's momentum has been a key component of the new U.S. strategy, and thousands of additional troops allow commanders to push and stay into areas where international and Afghan troops had no permanent presence before.

While Marine troops were the bulk of the force, recently arrived U.S. Army helicopters were also taking part in the operation.

In March, Obama unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan, seeking to defeat al-Qaida terrorists there and in Pakistan with a bigger force and a new commander. Taliban and other extremists, including those allied with al-Qaida, routinely cross the two nations' border in Afghanistan's remote south.

Last year, NATO and Pakistani forces cooperated in a series of complementary operations on the border, but the overall commitment of Islamabad to Washington's aims in Afghanistan has long been questioned. Pakistan has frequently been accused in the past of failing to stop — and sometimes aiding — the movement of insurgents into Afghanistan from its side of the border.

The governor of Helmand province predicted Operation Khanjar would be "very effective."

"The security forces will build bases to provide security for the local people so that they can carry out every activity with this favorable background and take their lives forward in peace," Gov. Gulab Mangal said in a Pentagon news release.

Obama aims to boost the Afghan army from 80,000 to 134,000 troops by 2011 — and greatly increase training by U.S. troops accompanying them — so the Afghan military can take control of the war. The White House also is pushing forces to set clear goals for a war gone awry, provide more resources and make a better case for international support.

There is no timetable for withdrawal, and the White House has not estimated how many billions of dollars its plan will cost.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, insurgents captured an American soldier on Tuesday, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman. The missing soldier was not part of the Helmand operation.

"We are using all of our resources to find him and provide for his safe return," Mathias said.

Mathias did not provide details on the soldier, the location where he was captured or the circumstances.

Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in the Mullakheil area of eastern Paktika province, where there is an American base.

Zabiullah Mujaheed, a spokesman for the Taliban, could not confirm that the soldier was with any of their militant forces. A myriad of insurgent groups operate in eastern Afghanistan, and the Taliban is only one of them.

The soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on Tuesday and was first listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown," a U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity because details are still sketchy.

Two U.S. defense sources said the soldier "just walked off" post with three Afghan counterparts after he finished working. They said they had no explanation for why he left the base. He was assigned to a combat outpost, one of a number of smaller bases set up by foreign forces in Afghanistan, the officials said.

The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings.

__

Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul, Nahal Toosi in Islamabad and Lara Jakes and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.


Q&A - How will new assault
change the war in Afghanistan?

Jonathon Burch
Reuters
July 2, 2009

Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed into a river valley in southern Helmand province on Thursday in an operation seeking to break the Taliban's hold on the key opium-growing region and turn the tide of the war in Afghanistan. Skip related content

Following are questions and answers about what impact Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," might have.

WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO ACHIEVE?

The Marines hope by appearing suddenly and in overwhelming numbers, they can capture some of the Taliban's firmest strongholds with little resistance. U.S. commanders say a rapid, decisive victory in the Helmand valley will turn the course of a war some in Washington have said they are not winning.

But launching such a bold operation also carries great risk. A protracted, bloody fight could erode support for the war in the United States, among its NATO allies and, most importantly, among Afghans the U.S. government and military are trying to win over.

"In every counter-insurgency there are times when you have to go in after the insurgents. There are no retired insurgents, but we can't afford to make more enemies along the way," General Stanley McChrystal, who has taken over foreign forces in Afghanistan with a new counter-insurgency strategy, has said.

WILL THEY BE ABLE TO HOLD THE GROUND THEY WIN?

That has been the biggest problem so far for overstretched, British-led NATO troops in Helmand. Without enough manpower, they have been forced to defend scattered outposts and move into areas by day, only to withdraw back to barracks hours later and watch the Taliban flood back in.

Some 10,000 U.S. Marines are now in Helmand, more than double the size of British-led forces.

"One of the biggest problems in the counter-insurgency fight in Afghanistan is that when NATO forces launch an operation and clean up an area, they create a vacuum," said Haroun Mir, political analyst and co-founder of the Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul.

"They cannot stay in that area ... then the Taliban come out from their hideouts and take over the village again," he said.

But commanders now hope the extra troops will allow them to hold ground by setting up small bases, effectively living and fighting among the people, a strategy adopted from the Iraq war.

DOES IT HAVE THE SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE?

A key component of the operation is winning the trust of the local Afghan population.

Company commanders have been ordered to set up shuras, or community councils, with the local populations within 24 hours of arriving in towns and villages.

"I want to make sure you understand ... we're attempting to seize the population. We're going to seize the population from the Taliban and never let them go," said Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Cabaniss, commander of the 2nd battalion, 8th Marines.

Mir said this was crucial.

"This is what McChrystal, I think, has grasped in Afghanistan -- to reach out to Afghan people and try and bring them on board instead of alienating them," said Mir.

Military commanders hope by the end of the summer to provide security for 90 percent of the population in the south, up from about 60 percent now.

WHAT ABOUT RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT?

Poor security has largely kept foreign aid organisations out of the south, particularly in Helmand.

The Afghan government and foreign military commanders hope by securing and holding parts of Helmand, aid organisations will be able to move in and begin reconstruction in an area that has seen little or no development.

"In this district the people have asked the government to help them. This operation will improve things," said Daoud Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of Helmand.

Saleem Zmarial, adviser to Helmand's governor on development and counter narcotics, said: "The people there need to start a new life with access to healthcare and clean water."

WILL IT BE A LONG FIGHT?

While military commanders hope their overwhelming numbers will overpower the insurgents with little resistance, Taliban fighters have had years to reinforce positions among the valley's irrigation ditches and canals, fiercely resisting past advances.

The Taliban say they will oppose the Marines but are unlikely to challenge them in face-to-face combat, which they would almost certainly lose. The insurgents are more likely to dig in and use deadly roadside bombs and similar tactics.


American soldier feared captured in Afghanistan

By Fisnik Abrashi
Associated Press
July 2, 2009

KABUL – Insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan after he walked off post with his three Afghan counterparts, officials said Thursday.

Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier disappeared Tuesday.

"We have all available resources out there looking for him and hopefully providing for his safe return," Mathias said.

Mathias did not provide details on the soldier, the location where he was captured or the circumstances.

The news broke as thousands of U.S. Marines launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan. The missing soldier was not part of that operation.

"We are not providing further details to protect the soldier's well-being," she said.

Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in the Mullakheil area of eastern Paktika province, where there is an American base.

The soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on Tuesday and was first listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown," a U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity.

It wasn't until Thursday that officials said publicly that he was missing and described him as "believed captured." Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.

Initial reports indicated that the soldier was off duty at the time he went missing, having just completed a shift, the official said on condition of anonymity because details are still sketchy.

The missing man is an enlisted soldier, and his family has been notified.

Two U.S. defense sources said the soldier "just walked off" post with three Afghan counterparts after he finished working. They said they had no explanation for why he left the base. He was assigned to a combat outpost, one of a number of smaller bases set up by foreign forces in Afghanistan, the officials said.

Zabiullah Mujaheed, a spokesman for the Taliban, could not confirm that the soldier was with any of their forces. A myriad of insurgent groups operate in eastern Afghanistan, and the Taliban is only one of them.

The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings.

___

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.


Security developments in Afghanistan

July 2 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1400 GMT on Thursday.

HELMAND - About 4,000 U.S. Marines and 650 Afghan troops launched a major offensive in southern Helmand province, a traditional Taliban stronghold, U.S. military commanders said. A U.S. military spokesman said there had been small skirmishes and some minor casualties had been reported. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said one Taliban fighter had been killed and two wounded and claimed that 11 foreign troops had been killed or wounded.

PAKTIKA - A U.S. soldier has been missing since Tuesday and was thought to have been captured by insurgents in southeastern Paktika province, the U.S. military said in a statement.

ZABUL - Afghan police killed nine insurgents in Dai Chopan district in southeastern Zabul, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A tonne of explosives was also uncovered in the operation, it said. HELMAND - Britain's Ministry of Defence identified as British two soldiers from the NATO-led force who were killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. They were killed during an operation near Lashkar Gah, it said in a statement.

(Compiled by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Paul Tait)


ACLU Says Government Used False Confessions

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
Thursday, July 2, 2009

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation.

"The government's continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the government would not comment on the types of evidence it will use in Jawad's case challenging his imprisonment. "We intend to prove our case in court rather than attempt to do so through the media," Boyd said.

In court papers, the Justice Department alleges that Jawad threw a grenade into a vehicle containing two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their Afghan interpreter on Dec. 17, 2002. Jawad was also associated with a group tied to Osama bin Laden, the government alleges.

After the grenade attack, Jawad was picked up by Afghan police, according to military and federal court records.

During U.S. military commission hearings on his case, a judge found that Afghan interrogators threatened to kill Jawad and his family if he did not confess to playing a role in the attack. Jawad then admitted to participating in the attack, wrote the judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley.

Later the same night, he was questioned by U.S. Special Forces and confessed again, Henley wrote.

In November, Henley found that the first set of statements were elicited through "physical intimidation and threats of death" and that Jawad's fears "had not dissipated by the second confession." He ruled that prosecutors could not use either of the confessions during military commission proceedings.

Despite Henley's ruling, Hafetz said the Justice Department wants to use those very confessions to justify Jawad's detention in the detainee's lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle.

Hafetz said he is also asking Huvelle to suppress other statements Jawad made to interrogators at the U.S. military prisons at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay. Those statements were tainted, Hafetz said, because Jawad was beaten, forced into painful "stress positions," and chained to a wall and deprived of sleep in Bagram. At Guantanamo, Jawad was interrogated more than 50 times and subjected to sleep deprivation, Hafetz said.

Jawad's situation received attention last year when a military prosecutor abruptly quit his post, saying that the case was riddled with problems and that the prisoner had suffered physical and psychological mistreatment while in custody.

That former prosecutor, Darrel Vandeveld, later filed a declaration supporting Jawad's challenge to his confinement in a federal lawsuit.

"It is my opinion, based on my extensive knowledge of the case, that there is no credible evidence or legal basis to justify Mr. Jawad's detention," Vandeveld wrote.


Migrant squalor in Calais 'jungle'

By Emma-Jane Kirby
BBC Paris Correspondent
Thursday, 2 July 2009

On a slip road close to the port of Calais in northern France, a group of dusty Afghan men are huddled around a single tap, filling water bottles and washing their feet.

They have only recently got this facility - until some weeks ago, most of the migrants washed in the sea or in waste water next to a chemical plant.

Hamkar, a 17-year-old from Helmand Province, looks weary and hot but he says he is happy to have the tap because at least now he can try to wash once a week.

The only problem is finding a moment of privacy because this one tap is shared with around 800 other members of "the jungle".

"The jungle" is the main illegal makeshift camp that sprang up in the woods around the Calais port shortly after the closure of the Red Cross Reception Centre at Sangatte in November 2002.

It was hoped that shutting down Sangatte, which was a magnet for migrants trying to cross the Channel to Britain, would stem the flow of refugees and asylum seekers, but instead numbers have swelled.

The increase has prompted the UN Refugee Agency to set up a permanent office in the northern port to offer asylum advice and to help migrants make informed decisions.

"Every day the people are increasing here," said Mussa, a shy young Afghan in his early twenties.

Landfill home

"They're trying to go to England but they don't know about the conditions of this jungle. If they knew about the conditions of this jungle, they would not come."

He invited me to take a look for myself and I followed him through the sands into the trees.

One hundred metres into the woods and I am in the heart of the makeshift, insanitary campsite.

It is a sort of shanty town and there is so much rubbish and litter lying about, it looks as if it has been built in the middle of a huge landfill site.

Tents have been made out of metal grilles and chicken wire which have been covered by plastic sheeting and bin liners - in Mussa's tent, which is about 10ft square, the roof has been patched over with a sheet of birthday paper.

Mussa told me that eight people sleep here regularly but sometimes they have to make room for 10.

Inside the tent, it is stiflingly hot and the bits of old carpet and car floor mats that line the floor are giving off a smell like old meat.

There are no beds or mattresses. One of Mussa's friends said they often had skin problems and strange itches.

Twenty-year-old Nassid from Helmand Province has been in the jungle for six months and is determined to make it to Britain.

He tries twice a day to climb aboard lorries and trucks to cross the Channel undetected but each time he has been discovered.

He knows the routine perfectly now - a quick trip to the police station, a written warning, sometimes a court appearance, but then he is just set free to return to the jungle and to make a new attempt.

Ten of his friends he claims have already succeeded in getting to the UK.

"Britain has a good government" he said, "Britain will help me to get a better life."

I asked him if he has paid people traffickers to help him get to Britain but he shook his head and said he had no money. He had to try alone, he explained, which made things very difficult so he had to try twice a day.

Most of the migrants do pay smugglers to help them get across. Last April the Calais police launched a major raid to try to break up the trafficking rings, arresting more than 190 migrants and bulldozing tents.

Starvation fear

But the migrants just came back. In dealing with the problem, the French authorities have a difficult balancing act - they cannot leave the migrants to starve but equally, they cannot offer too much humanitarian aid in case it encourages even more to come here.

But Vincent from the charity group Salaam, which provides a soup kitchen and clothes for the jungle's inhabitants, believes the government has to do much more to help.

He said: "Currently it's only volunteers with the immigrants. And if tomorrow we decided to stop, what would happen?"

"If they needed to eat, what would they do? They would maybe go to the shop and steal what they need to survive. "

Vincent pointed to a dirty cotton sheet in Mussa's tent and asked how he was supposed to keep warm with just that.

Legal fear

He said they used to have more, but the riot police raided the tent and sprayed tear gas all over their clothes and blankets.

He added: "They were forced to throw them out because they couldn't use them again.

"But what do the police think - that with no blankets the people here will be forced to go home and the problem will just go away?"

In fact, Vincent and his organisation have to be very careful with the type of aid they give.

In France, housing and transporting undocumented migrants is a crime which can result in hefty fines or even prison sentences.

A recent hit film here, called Welcome, showed a Calais-based swimming coach helping a Kurdish teenager to train to swim the Channel to Britain - when he invited the desperate young boy home, his neighbours informed the police.

Political dilemma

The film, with its resonances of World War II deportations, caused a political storm.

It managed to portray the huge dilemma of this seaside town. With 14% unemployment, many residents loathe the presence of the refugees while others loathe the fact that in civilised France, men are forced to bathe in waste water from a chemical plant.

The French authorities are under growing pressure from Britain to stem the tide of migrants trying to cross the Channel.

But the French government has also called upon Britain to tighten its controls, warning that migrants still see the British illegal job market as the promised land.

Many of the migrants in the jungle say that with no identity card system, Britain is a much easier place for an illegal immigrant to find work.

The French and British governments are currently discussing the creation of a new immigrant holding centre within the British side of the Calais docks which would allow London and Paris to break through the quagmire of asylum law to send illegal immigrants home more easily.

In Mussa's tent Khab, who has run away from family feuds in his native Kabul, asked why Britain cannot just end the misery and let in the 800 men in the jungle.

He said: "We have come here because we had problems in Afghanistan - we are not here for enjoyment.

"We have problems with water, we have problems with doctors, we have problems with sleep. I just want to say help. Please help."


Italian NGO faces funding crunch

KABUL, 2 July 2009 (IRIN) - An Italian NGO called Emergency, which runs three hospitals and 28 healthcare centres for war victims in Afghanistan, is planning to cut back its activities due to shrinking funds.

With an annual budget of about US$8 million and 1,000 national and 40 international staff in Afghanistan, Emergency's health facilities provided medical services to over 100,000 patients and war wounded in 2008.

The NGO says it has treated over 2.1 million people since 1999. Its three hospitals are in Kabul and the provinces of Helmand and Panjshir.

"It is definitely the impact of the global financial crisis," programme coordinator Marco Garatti told IRIN in Kabul, explaining that Emergency was considering reducing the number of its international staff and cutting some project activities.

"Our funds come from private individuals, not from institutional donors such as the World Bank and USAID [US Agency for International Development]. When people's priorities are not fulfilled they reduce their contributions," Garatti said.

NGOs involved in medical activities say a large number of Afghans are hard pressed to find the health care they need, particularly in the insecure southern and eastern provinces.

"The intensity of the conflict leads to many wounded and displaced and to a disruption of services, adding to the health crisis faced in parts of Afghanistan," the international medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement on 29 June.

In addition to treating victims of war, Emergency's health centres provide obstetric, paediatric and other essential health services. "Our activities are needed more than before," Garatti said.

MSF returns

Meanwhile, MSF has announced the resumption of its activities in Afghanistan after a five-year absence.

MSF suspended operations in the country after five MSF workers were killed by unidentified armed assailants in the northwestern province of Badghis on 2 June 2004.

According to an agreement signed between MSF and the Ministry of Public Health on 30 June, MSF will help deliver health services at two hospitals - in Helmand and Kabul provinces.

"For its work in Afghanistan, MSF will not accept financial support from any government and chooses to rely solely on private donations, thus safeguarding its independence from political and military powers," an MSF statement said.


Ambassador to Japan tells Afghanistan's story

By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press
July 2, 2009

TOKYO – Haron Amin chose theater to tell people about the complex but often misunderstood history of Afghanistan.

"The Crossroads Country," a play he commissioned while he was Afghanistan's ambassador to Japan, opened last month in Tokyo to a packed crowd, including international dignitaries, and is being made into a DVD. Amin is hoping for a U.S. run.

"Ultimately, the future of democracy and the human collective conscience is tied to the victory in Afghanistan," he told The Associated Press from Washington, D.C., where he is awaiting his next diplomatic assignment. He served as ambassador to Japan from April 2004 through May of this year.

The play, written and directed by Alexander Harris, a Welsh-born playwright in Tokyo, is in English. Japanese subtitles were shown on screens near the stage during the two-day, four-show run.

Japan, like other nations, is increasingly concerned about the efforts to stabilize Afghanistan as the Aug. 20 elections there approach.

The two-hour play, peppered with humor, chronicles some 30 years of the country, including the fall of communism, the rise of the Taliban and their ouster following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

A multicultural cast of foreigners living in Japan, called the Tokyo International Players theater group, play Soviet rulers, members of the Taliban, American presidents and many other roles.

The plot centers on a little boy, who is more concerned about his everyday happiness than about larger international issues. He is a confused, innocent victim of the happenings around him.

Amin says the boy was based on his own life, and he acknowledged he had mixed feelings about making his life a driving force of the play. But he and Harris decided it would make the piece more accessible.

"The play is very important because it shows the human side to all the parties involved during the period," said David Mashiko, an Australian actor. "Too often we lose sight of the realities that are faced by people in war because we are fed a lot of spin and propaganda by mainstream sensationalist media."

In the play's moving closing scene, the actors face the audience and ask if they care more about Afghanistan.

"For those who are aware of Afghanistan only in the light of 9/11 or the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, this should be an open door to a world of rich intrigue and interesting history," Harris said. "What we're seeing here is the birth of something original, historic and unique."

___

On the Net:

Official site for "The Crossroads Country": http://crossroadscountry.com/


Afghan drug lord in US for trial

Press TV / July 1, 2009

A reputed Afghan drug lord held over accusations of smuggling heroin to the United States is set to face a pending trial in Washington.

The defendant, identified as Haji Bagcho, appeared before a federal magistrate in Washington on Monday.

He faces an indictment for heroin trafficking conspiracy and for importing heroin into the US and some other countries

Bagcho was arrested during an undercover operation conducted by Afghan law enforcement in eastern Khost province.

He was flown to the US last week to answer an indictment for heroin trafficking.

Sources described Bagcho as 'a big fish' who had made profits of more than $100 million over the several past months.

Afghanistan's opiate output has risen more than 40-fold since the 2001 US-led invasion, according to the United Nations' figures.

Afghanistan's eastern and southern provinces produce much of the heroin that funds the Taliban.

The conflict-torn country supplies more than 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Back to Top


For more of the latest breaking news happening today, go to Allvoices.com

Ocean Hammock Rentals Condos
calling cards / phone card, calling card
Orlando Vacation Homes Rentals and Disney Vacation Orlando Villa Rentals

Venice Florida Vacation Rentals Homes Palm Coast Condos
Dog Friendly Vacation Rentals in Florida
cheap web hosting / credit cards

---------