US Koran burning ignites explosive Afghan cocktail

KABUL: Afghan fury over the burning of a Koran in the US has been fuelled by disillusion with the West over the war, public outrage by President Hamid Karzai, and the rising voice of radicalism, experts say.

While there has been little violent reaction in the rest of the Islamic world to the stunt by an obscure Florida pastor, at least 24 people have been killed in Afghanistan in recent days, including seven United Nations employees.

The wave of bloody demonstrations started with last week’s UN attack in the relatively peaceful northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, eight days after Karzai condemned as “disrespectful and abhorrent” the burning of the Koran.

There had been scant coverage of the burning of the holy book in Afghanistan before Karzai, who has a history of anti-Western outbursts, launched his fresh salvo against the United States.

Some experts suggest he drew attention to the incident in a bid to boost his own popularity in his country, which has declined during nearly 10 years of a US-led war.

Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer has defended his boss by saying that people in Afghanistan would have found out about the Koran burning even if Karzai had not spoken about it.

But political analyst Haroun Mir said: “Suddenly after the Afghan president… talked about it, then there was a wind in Afghanistan.”

Mir added that since Karzai’s re-election in 2009, the president’s criticism of Western institutions had increased, while the voices of radical elements at work in Afghanistan have become louder.

It is these ultra-conservatives who have been at the forefront of the protests, while moderates have not dared to venture out to make public statements against the mob anger.

“A number of groups are using this event, I mean the burning of the holy Koran, in order to incite violence,” Mir added.

“And unfortunately, there is a total absence of moderate voices in the country right now that could counter this.”

That is also linked to rising anti-Western feeling in Afghanistan, where 130,000 international troops, around two-thirds from the United States, are stationed fighting the Taliban insurgency, other experts say.

Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said there was a “general frustration about what the international community has achieved and not achieved in this country.”

He highlighted little improvement in the lives of most ordinary Afghans, who still live in grinding poverty, in the past decade.

In addition, mistaken killings of Afghan civilians in military operations by NATO-led forces have been high on the news agenda recently, along with reports of an alleged rogue US army unit “kill team” targeting civilians.

Both have been sharply and publicly condemned by Karzai.

Ruttig added that the intense sensitivity of religious issues in Afghanistan should not be overlooked as a factor in why the protests have snowballed.

“Afghanistan is not a secularised society,” he said. “This kind of provocation and attacks on the holy book are taken very seriously and are very sensitive.”

The attacks have been widely condemned, while the White House has criticised the Koran burning as “un-American” and Karzai has ordered an investigation into violence in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar, where the worst incidents happened.

More demonstrations are feared — several hundred people gathered in Kabul Tuesday although that passed off peacefully.

However, Mir sounded a note of warning, saying: “It doesn’t mean that if until now there’s nothing going on in Kabul, nothing will happen.” AGENCIES

Aim is to Keep Enemy Engaged in Arduous War: Mullah Omar

KABUL: Fugitive leader of Afghan Taliban Mullah Omar in a message to Taliban said that the US is facing defeat and siege in each part of Afghanistan, ‘in line with our aim to keep the enemy engaged in the arduous war.’

In a written message spreading on four pages, Mullah Omar said the increase in number of troops in Afghanistan has only resulted in more deaths of these soldiers. “The US is losing lives in Afghanistan every other day,” he added.

He said ground realities have forced the US to become to open to peace talks.

In the message, Mullah Omar has called himself ‘Khadim-e-Islam’ and ‘Amir-ul-Maomineen’. His full name appears in the message as Mullah Muhammad Umar Mujahid.

Strongly criticising the Karzai government, the one-eyed Taliban leader said in the present regime the condition of Afghan people has only gone from bad to worse and their difficulties have only risen.

Karzai Admits Bugti’s Presence in Afghanistan: Leaks

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has finally admitted the presence of Baloch leader Brahmdagh Bugti in his country, according to WikiLeaks cables.

Karzai revealed this during a meeting with a UN official in February 2009.

The Afghan government has been reluctant to publicly admit the Baloch rebel’s presence in the country despite Islamabad’s repeated requests for his extradition to Pakistan where the authorities blame him for instigating an uprising in the restive Balochistan province.

According to WikiLeaks, during a meeting in 2007 with the then US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, Karzai had expressed his unawareness about Brahmdagh’s presence in Afghanistan. When Boucher asked him if he knew anything about the Baloch leader, he said he was aware that around 200 Bugtis, “with their sons and money”, had entered his country to seek shelter. According to Karzai, he had advised them to go to the United Nations for asylum but they were frightened. Besides, Karzai added that the UN had declined to deal with the issue considering it “too sensitive.”

Although Karzai told Boucher that he was not interested to allow Baloch rebels in Afghanistan, he argued that Bugtis would blame the United States if Afghanistan turned them in. He declined to call Brahmdagh a terrorist. “Fomenting uprising doesn’t make one terrorist,” he said when Boucher told him that Pakistan had been blaming Brahmdagh for stirring unrest in Balochistan. For Karzai, the matter was so “sensitive” that he asked US officials to stop taking notes during the meeting.

The Afghan president went on to add that the elder Bugti was highly respected in the United States. “Karzai explained that Bugti had once tried to call Karzai but he had refused for the sake of good relations with Pakistan. Now he cannot forgive himself for refusing,” says a cable released by WikiLeaks.

Afghanistan drops charges against Karzai aide

KABUL: The Afghan government has dropped corruption charges against a top aide to President Hamid Karzai who was indicted by a US-backed task force for taking a bribe, an official said Tuesday.

Mohammad Zia Salehi, a senior official in Karzai’s National Security Council, was arrested by the Major Crimes Task Force, a US-funded anti-graft body, in July after he was caught on a wiretap soliciting a bribe.

In return, Salehi reportedly held up an investigation into a company suspected of moving money for Afghan leaders, drug traffickers and insurgents.

At the time, Karzai ordered Salehi to be released, saying that his arrest was unconstitutional and violated human rights.

Rahmatullah Nazari, Afghanistan’s deputy attorney general, told AFP that Salehi had been cleared of the charges, seemingly on a technicality.

“Under Afghanistan’s laws,

Karzai admits receiving ‘bags of money’ from Iran

KABUL; Afghan president Hamid Karzai admitted Monday that his chief of staff had received “bags of money” from Iran but insisted the payment was transparent and a form of aid from a friendly country.

Cash payments “are done by various friendly countries to help the presidential office and to help the expenses…” said Karzai at a press conference in Kabul.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Karzai’s chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, has been receiving regular cash payments from Iran, which is trying to expand its influence in the presidential palace in Kabul.

“The government of Iran has been assisting us with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros once or twice every year, that is an official aid,” said Karzai.

“He (Daudzai) is receiving the money on my instructions,” he added.

The newspaper, citing unnamed Afghan officials, said the

Karzai admits receiving ‘bags of money’ from Iran

KABUL; Afghan president Hamid Karzai admitted Monday that his chief of staff had received “bags of money” from Iran but insisted the payment was transparent and a form of aid from a friendly country.

Cash payments “are done by various friendly countries to help the presidential office and to help the expenses…” said Karzai at a press conference in Kabul.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Karzai’s chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, has been receiving regular cash payments from Iran, which is trying to expand its influence in the presidential palace in Kabul.

“The government of Iran has been assisting us with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros once or twice every year, that is an official aid,” said Karzai.

“He (Daudzai) is receiving the money on my instructions,” he added.

The newspaper, citing unnamed Afghan officials, said the

Iran bankrolling Karzai govt: NYT

Afghan President Hamid Karzais chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, has been receiving regular cash payment from Iran, which is trying to expand its interests in the Afghan presidential palace, The New York Times reported.
Citing unnamed Afghan and Western officials in Kabul, the newspaper said Iran had been using its influence to help drive a wedge between the Afghans and their US and NATO allies. The payments, which officials say total millions of dollars, go into a secret fund that Daudzai and Karzai have used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and even Taliban commanders to secure their loyalty, the report said. The Times cites unnamed officials as saying that the Iranian payments are intended to secure the allegiance of Daudzai, a former ambassador to Iran who consistently advocates an anti-Western line to Karzai and briefs Karzai every morning. Last August, when President Karzai wrapped up an official visit to Iran, Maliki brought to the presidential plane a large plastic bag filled with wads of euro bills and handed it to Daudzai, according to the report.

Hamid Karzai Confirms Holding Talks With Taliban

Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed in a US television interview that his administration has been holding unofficial talks with the Taliban “for quite some time” to try to end the nine-year war.

“We have been talking to the Taliban as countryman to countryman, talk in that manner,” Karzai told CNN’s Larry King when asked about a Washington Post report on secret high-level talks between the two sides.

“Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time,” he said in excerpts of the CNN interview to air in full on Monday.

Last week the Washington Post said the secret talks were believed to involve the Afghan government and representatives authorised by the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban group based in Pakistan, and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

The Karzai interview is being aired a day after Afghanistan’s former president Burhanuddin Rabbani was elected chairman of a new peace council, a Karzai brainchild set up to broker an end to the war with the Taliban.

“Now that the peace council has come into existence, these talks will go on and will go on officially and more rigorously I hope,” Karzai told King.

The Taliban have said publicly they will not enter into dialogue with the government until all 152,000 US-led foreign troops based in the country leave.

Karzai invites Mullah Omar to peace talks

Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed his call to Mullah Omar to lay down arms and join the peace talks to end nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan.
We hope they will join the peace process, gives up fratricide, gives up bombings and blasts, stops causing casualties to Afghanistan’s children, women and men, Karzai said at a meeting of ministers and senior government representatives at the end of prayers on the first day of Eid-ul Fitr, the feast at the end of Ramazan.
Since 2005 repeated overtures to the Chief of the Taliban have always been ignored by the rebels, who continue to gain ground with their propaganda against the West and the new regime in office in Kabul. On the run since 2001, Mullah Omar, of whom there is very little information or photos, is the fundamentalist guerrilla leader who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to the end of 2001. He has not been seen in public since the Taliban regime was toppled following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The U.S. authorities claim is hiding in Pakistan, a charge Islamabad rejects.
Since he has been on the run he has refused any negotiations until foreign troops supporting Karzai leave the country Also this week warned the Americans against continuing the war, promising that the victory of the Islamic nation is now imminent .
In an email attributed to Mullah, published on jihadist websites at the end of Ramadan and published by Site Intelligence Group, the Taliban leader urged his followers to avoid targeting civilians, an order that according to the U.S. commanders the Taliban frequently ignore.

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