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NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN
The incident occurred in Badakhshan province when German soldiers of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] photographed local women without asking for permission.
© Steve McCurry
“To protest unauthorized snap shots, a group of angry women and children who were returning from a wedding party hurled stones at the convoy of German soldiers in Faramughal village of Argo district last week, injuring two troopers,” Daily Cheragh reported.
Similar incidents had been reported in the insurgency-plaguing south and southeast provinces where the US-dominated coalition forces have been conducting anti-Taliban and al-Qaeda operations over the past three years.
Abdul Majid, governor of Badakhshan in talks with a 20-member delegation of the village assured such incident will not be repeated in the future.
The Independent Kabul Daily Cheragh
A fortnight later — an Afghan woman was stoned to death in Badakhshan.
MARLA RUZICKA IN AFGHANISTAN
RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel met Ruzicka when she arrived in Kabul in 2001. Recknagel says that for anyone meeting Ruzicka for the first time, her optimism and youthful idealism belied what would later prove to be a pragmatic ability to mobilize large amounts of U.S. government assistance.
“In conflicts, ordinary citizens see and fear occupying armies. Sometimes their homes and lives are destroyed by fighting. Marla tried to help those civilians. In doing that, she showed the gentle side of her country. She was an American civilian who cared enough about other ordinary people to come thousands of miles to help them, and who successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress for money to directly help them too.”
FBI PROTECTS OSAMA BIN LADEN’S “RIGHT TO PRIVACY” IN DOCUMENT RELEASE
Judicial Watch has obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] in which the FBI has invoked privacy right protections on behalf of al Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden. In a September 24, 2003 declassified Secret FBI report obtained by Judicial Watch, the FBI invoked Exemption 6 under FOIA law on behalf of bin Laden, which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton: “It is dumbfounding that the United States government has placed a higher priority on the supposed privacy rights of Osama bin Laden than the public’s right to know what happened in the days following the September 11 terrorist attacks. It is difficult for me to imagine a greater insult to the American people, especially those whose loved ones were murdered by bin Laden on that day.”
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Feb. 02, 2005 — Afghanistan has rejected proposals by a senior UN drug official that aid given to the war-ravaged country should be linked to the results it showed in fighting opium production.
War-scarred Afghanistan is the
world's largest producer of opium
The newly-created Afghan counter-narcotics ministry in Kabul said on Wednesday it had objected to a recent statement from the world body that created conditions for investment. The ministry statement attributed the UN suggestion to Antonio Maria Costa and ended “Afghanistan will not accept aid conditionality”.
Costa, a senior official from the UN Organisation for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said last week that international aid to Afghanistan should be made conditional on the country showing real results and progress in the fight against opium production.
RECENT DIARY —
Something Stinks About the Arrest of Noorzai
by BooMan Mon Apr 25th, 2005
DUTCH SPECIAL FORCES IN WAR ON TERROR
AMSTERDAM April 18, 2005 — The Netherlands is deploying 165 soldiers to the operation Enduring Freedom, which the US launched after the 11 September terrorist attacks in 2001, alongside US forces tracking terrorist operatives.
Defence Minister Henk Kamp was scheduled to attend the ceremony at the departure from Eindhoven’s airbase and give a short speech to the troops.
The Dutch commando unit will supply the largest number of troops, supplemented by special forces from the marine corps. The unit will be supported by 85 soldiers with the Chinook transport helicopter detachment.
Dutch F-16 at Baghram
AFGHAN DEMONSTRATIONS TEST WARLORDS-TURNED-ADMINISTRATORS
Demonstrations rocked two of Afghanistan’s five largest cities on March 7th — Kandahar in the south and Mazar-e Sharif in the north. According to a statement by the Afghan Interior Ministry on, Kandahar residents took to the streets in protest over “security issues and child kidnapping.” The demonstrations, in which people chanted slogans against the United States and in support of the ousted Taliban regime, must have had a deja vu effect in Kabul’s circles of power. After all, it was popular disgust with insecurity in Kandahar that propelled the Taliban onto the political scene in 1994.
EUROCORPS
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
