By The Huffington Post News Editors
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai is denouncing the seizure of a university student by armed Afghans that his spokesman says work for the CIA.
Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi told The Associated Press on Sunday that the CIA freed the student after Karzai’s staff intervened. But Faizi says Karzai wants the armed Afghans arrested and will ban foreign forces from universities.
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President Hamid Karzai is demanding control of clandestine Afghan armed groups that are linked to U.S.-led forces amid complaints of abuses by the units.
Thursday’s statement from Karzai’s office orders a delegation to identify all armed units that work with coalition forces and operate independently from the government. It gives international forces three months to hand them over.
Presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi says the order does not refer to the Afghan Local Police, which are village defense units overseen by the Interior Ministry. Faizi says Karzai is referring to “parallel structures” created by U.S. special operations forces, the CIA and other military branches.
Afghans in the restive Wardak province have complained of torture, illegal detentions and other abuses at the hands of such units.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Afghanistan‘s president on Sunday ordered all U.S. special forces to leave a strategically important eastern province within two weeks because of allegations that Afghans working with them are torturing and abusing other Afghans.
The decision seems to have caught the coalition and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, a separate command, by surprise. Americans have frequently drawn anger from the Afghan public over issues ranging from Qurans burned at a U.S. base to allegations of civilian killings.
“We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and go to great lengths to determine the facts surrounding them,” the U.S. forces said in a statement.
Also Sunday, a series of attacks in eastern Afghanistan showed insurgents remain on the offensive even as U.S. and other international forces prepare to end their combat mission by the end of 2014.
Suicide bombers targeted Afghanistan‘s intelligence agency and other security forces in four coordinated attacks in the heart of Kabul and outlying areas in a bloody reminder of the insurgency’s reach nearly 12 years into the war.
Presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said the decision to order the American special forces to leave Wardak province was taken during a meeting of the National Security Council because of the alleged actions of Afghans who are considered linked to the U.S. special forces.
He said all special forces operations were to cease immediately in the restive province next to Kabul, which is viewed as a gateway to the capital and has been the focus of counterinsurgency efforts in recent years.
The Taliban have staged numerous attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces in the province. In August 2011, insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter, killing 30 American troops, mostly elite Navy SEALs, in Wardak. The crash was the single deadliest loss for U.S. forces in the war.
Afghan forces have taken the lead in many such special operations, especially so-called night raids.
“Those Afghans in these armed groups who are working with the U.S. special forces, the defense minister asked for an explanation of who they are,” Faizi said. “Those individuals should be handed over to the Afghan side so that we can further investigate.”
A statement the security council issued in English said the armed individuals have allegedly been “harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.”
Ceasing all such operations could have a negative impact on the coalition’s campaign to go after Taliban leaders and commanders, who are usually the target of such operations.
Faizi said the issue had already been brought up with the coalition.
The U.S. statement said only that the announcement was “an important issue that we intend to fully discuss with our Afghan counterparts. But until we have had a chance to speak with senior Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan officials about this issue, we are not in a position to comment further.”
The brazen assaults, which occurred within a three-hour timespan, were the latest to strike Afghan forces, who have suffered higher casualties this year as U.S. and other foreign troops gradually take a back seat and shift responsibility for security to the government.
The deadliest attack occurred just after …read more
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The Afghan peace effort is floundering, fraught with mistrust and confusion among key players even though the hard-line Taliban militants show signs of softening and their reclusive, one-eyed leader made a surprise offer to share power in a post-war Afghanistan.
The U.S. and its allies hope the peace process, which began nearly two years ago, will gain traction before most international forces withdraw from the country in fewer than 23 months. But although the Taliban appear more ready to talk than ever before, peace talks remain elusive because of infighting among a rising number of interlocutors — all trying to get some kind of negotiations started.
Members of the Taliban are in contact with representatives from 30 to 40 different countries, according to senior U.S., Afghan and other officials The Associated Press interviewed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the relationship among the key players — the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan — is marked by distrust that keeps tugging momentum away from the peace process.
Many of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive contacts with the Taliban.
Finding a path to the negotiating table will be a topic when Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Zardari hold a series of meetings beginning Monday with British Prime Minister David Cameron. The meetings in London come amid fresh tensions between Kabul and its western allies.
Karzai recently warned the West not to use peace talks as a lever against his government. As well, both Kabul and Washington are frustrated that Pakistan is not monitoring the whereabouts and activities of Taliban prisoners it released in recent months. Miffed by the criticism, Pakistan says it freed the prisoners at the request of the Afghan government and doesn’t have the resources to keep tabs on them.
No one in either Pakistan or Afghanistan seems to know where the dozens of released prisoners have gone. Last week, the Taliban issued a statement by freed former Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi on behalf of all the prisoners — an indication that at least some might have rejoined the ranks of the insurgency.
“There were no preconditions to their release and we are getting criticism from our own people inside Afghanistan about that and it is valid criticism,” said Ismail Qasemyar, a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council.
The peace council, which Karzai set up to carry out peace negotiations, handed Pakistan the list of prisoners, including Turabi, that it wanted freed. They have also asked for the release of the Taliban’s former second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, but Washington has urged Pakistan not to release him, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
For its part, the United States has tried to accelerate the peace process by working with Britain, Norway and Germany to reach out to the Taliban, said a senior Western diplomat familiar with the negotiations. Both France and Tokyo have hosted meetings that have been attended by Afghan officials, opposition leaders and the Taliban, although the Taliban insist their participation should not be misinterpreted as negotiations.
One senior U.S. official said the process is so nascent and egos so fragile that it’s like negotiating a minefield. A European diplomat told the AP that there are so many backdoor talks going on that it’s hard to keep track of who is talking to whom.
This week, Karzai said he wanted an end to all these talks. Speaking at a water management conference in the Afghan capital, Karzai expressed suspicion that the peace process was being hijacked by the West to strengthen his opponents and undermine his government.
Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, told The AP in an interview on the sprawling palace grounds in Kabul that the president was frustrated by what he perceives are attempts by his political opponents and the West, including the United States, to use the peace process to lay the groundwork for a post-2014 Afghanistan led by those hand-picked by them.
This latest flap between Karzai and the West could halt or at least delay the official opening of a Taliban office in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar. The office is intended to give the Taliban an address from which they can conduct peace talks. Faizi said Karzai supports the office “in principle,” with some conditions.
“This office should be used only as an address for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban,” Faizi said. “This office should not be used for any other purpose.”
Faizi also said the president wants the Taliban to publicly announce that they will negotiate peace only with the Afghan High Peace Council. So far, the Taliban have resisted, although officials close to the president say privately that they appear to be softening their hard-line stance.
Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, seemed uncompromising when he spoke to The AP.
“There is no change in the policy of the Islamic Emirate of not talking to the Karzai government,” he said “The Karzai regime is powerless and installed by others. Real parties to the conflict are those who have committed aggression.”
But still the Taliban have shown signs of moderating their positions in recent months.
According to several Western officials, who are involved or knowledgeable about the process, the most telling sign of flexibility came in a statement issued late last year by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. In the statement marking the Islamic holy holiday of Eid al-Adha, Omar for the first time offered to share power. He also said he had no interest in starting a civil war.
“As to the future political destiny of the country, I would like to repeat that we are neither thinking of monopolizing power nor intend to spark off domestic war,” he said.
While still firm on his demand for Sharia or Islamic law, in Afghanistan, the Taliban leader, who rarely speaks and has a $10 million bounty on his head, did seem to take a few steps back from the harsh and regressive edicts and interpretations of Islamic law that characterized the Taliban’s five-year rule. Many of those edicts were directed at women, denying them education and the right to work. He also seemed to extend an olive branch to Afghanistan‘s other ethnic groups.
“We will guarantee rights of both male and female of the country, build economic structures and strengthen social foundations and facilities of education for all people of the country,” he said.
But Omar’s flexibility only went so far. He still insisted on an Islamic education system. While the West has been pressing for secular education, many of Afghanistan‘s current leaders support a Quran-based education system.
A senior member of the High Peace Council, who met with Taliban on the sidelines of the two conferences in France and Tokyo, said they also vowed to make child marriages illegal and outlaw a common practice among ethnic Pashtuns to use their daughters as barter to settle disputes.
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Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The United Nations said Sunday that Afghan authorities were still torturing prisoners, such as hanging them by their wrists and beating them with cables, a year after the U.N. first documented the abuse and the Afghan government promised detention reform.
The report shows little progress in curbing abuse in Afghan prisons despite a year of effort by the U.N. and international military forces in Afghanistan. The report also cites instances where Afghan authorities have tried to hide mistreatment from U.N. monitors.
The slow progress on prison reform has prompted NATO forces to once again stop many transfers of detainees to Afghan authorities out of concern that they would be tortured.
In multiple detention centers, Afghan authorities leave detainees hanging from the ceiling by their wrists, beat them with cables and wooden sticks, administer electric shocks, twist their genitals and threaten to shove bottles up their anuses or to kill them, the report said.
In a letter responding to the latest report, the Afghan government said that its internal monitoring committee found that “the allegations of torture of detainees were untrue and thus disproved.” The Afghan government said that it would not completely rule out the possibility of torture at its detention facilities, but that it was nowhere near the levels described in the report and that it was checking on reports of abuse.
The findings, however, highlight the type of human rights abuses that many activists worry could become more prevalent in Afghanistan as international forces draw down and the country’s Western allies become less watchful over a government that so far has taken few concrete actions to reform the system.
As one detainee in the western province of Farah told the U.N. team: “They laid me on the ground. One of them sat on my feet and another one sat on my head, and the third one took a pipe and started beating me with it. They were beating me for some time like one hour and were frequently telling me that, ‘You are with Taliban and this is what you deserve.'”
More than half of the 635 detainees interviewed had been tortured, according to the report titled Treatment of Conflict-Related Detainees in Afghan Custody: One Year On. That is about the same ratio the U.N. found in its first report in 2011.
It’s a troubling finding given the amount of international attention and pledges of reform that came after the first report. At that time, the NATO military alliance temporarily stopped transferring Afghans it had picked up to national authorities until they could set up a system free of abuse. Though it said the findings were exaggerated, the Afghan government promised after the first report to increase monitoring.
But little appears to have changed. Once NATO forces resumed the transfers and decreased inspections, torture quickly returned to earlier levels, the report said. And even though the international military force was making a serious effort to delay transfers if there was risk of torture, about 30 percent of 79 detainees who had been transferred to Afghan custody by foreign governments ended up being tortured, the report said. That’s higher than in 2011, when the U.N. found that 24 percent of transferred detainees were tortured.
“Torture cannot be addressed by training, inspections and directives alone,” said Georgette Gagnon, the head of human rights for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, explaining that there has been little follow-through by the Afghan government.
In particular, the U.N. report found that the Afghan government appeared to be trying to hide the mistreatment and refusing to prosecute those accused of torturing prisoners.
The U.N. team received “multiple credible reports” that in some places detainees were hidden from international observers in secret locations underground or separate from the main facility being inspected. Also, the observers said they saw what appeared to be a suspicious increase in detainees held at police facilities when an intelligence service facility nearby was being monitored.
And particularly in the southern province of Kandahar, the U.N. received reports that authorities were using unofficial sites to torture detainees before transporting them to the regular prison.
In a letter responding to the U.N. report, Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said that his staff had written letters to Afghan ministers urging them to investigate more than 80 separate allegations of detainee abuse during the past 18 months.
“To date, Afghan officials have acted in only one instance,” Allen said in the letter. In that case Afghan authorities did not fire the official in question, but transferred him from Kandahar province to Sar-e-Pul in the north.
The report documents what it called a “persistent lack of accountability for perpetrators of torture,” noting that no one has been prosecuted for prisoner abuse since the first report was released.
Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for the Afghan president, said torture and abuse of prisoners was not Afghan policy.
“However, there may be certain cases of abuse and we have begun to investigate these cases mentioned in the U.N. report,” he said. “We will take actions accordingly.”
But he said that while the Afghan government takes the allegations in the report very seriously, “we also question the motivations behind this report and the way it was conducted.” He did not elaborate.
The NATO military alliance responded to the most recent report by stopping transfers of detainees to seven facilities in Kabul, Laghman, Herat, Khost and Kunduz provinces — most of them the same facilities that were flagged a year ago. The transfers were halted in October, when the U.N. shared its preliminary findings with the military coalition.
“This action is a result of concerns over detainee treatment at certain Afghan detention facilities,” said Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international military alliance in Kabul.
He said there has been no suspension of transfers to the massive detention center next to Bagram Air Field outside of Kabul. That facility has been particularly contentious because the U.S. has held back from transferring all the detainees it holds there to Afghan custody.
But as international troops draw down in Afghanistan, there will be fewer people to monitor the Afghan detention centers. Allen said in his letter that the NATO military alliance planned to focus on monitoring only a subset of Afghan facilities in the future.
And even the manner in which the U.N. report was compiled and released shows the waning influence of Western allies over the Afghan government. Both last year and again on Sunday, the report was released without a news conference. Instead, it was quietly posted on the U.N. website in what appeared to be an effort to avoid publicly antagonizing the Afghan government that it criticizes in the report.
“I think it’s being dealt with in the appropriate way. Maybe we don’t need to do it publicly,” Gagnon said, noting that there have been plenty of discussions with the Afghan government about how to improve the prison system.
Asked what progress had been made toward improving the prison system since 2011, Gagnon was at a loss to give an example. But, she stressed: “There has been quite a lot of effort.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The United Nations says Afghan authorities are still torturing prisoners, such as hanging them by their wrists and beating them with cables, a year after the U.N. first documented the abuse and the Afghan government promised detention reform.
In a report issued on Sunday, the U.N. says there has been little progress in curbing abuse in Afghan prisons despite a year of effort by the U.N. and international military forces in Afghanistan. The report also cites instances where Afghan authorities have tried to hide mistreatment from U.N. monitors.
Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for the Afghan president, says it was not Afghan policy to torture or abuse prisoners.
He says the government has started investigating and will take action regarding cases of abuse mentioned in the U.N. report.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News