“The latest sad news is that the Christian Crusaders (Americans) have burned a copy of the Holy Quran in Wardak province and have thus shown their enmity with Islam and the Muslims… The saddest aspect of this incident is that the American invaders have committed this heinous crime in a province (Wardak) that has been known for long as home to mujahedeen (the holy warriors). The people of this province have taken active part in past and current jihadi movements. The people of this province have always defended their country bravely and heroically. The people of this province had played a historical role in the war against British occupiers…”

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We, Afghans, love Kabul, and we are hurt when this city is hurt. The terrorists have hurt it again. I am sick today and can’t write more. We just feel hurt!
Kabul attack in pictures.
5 dead, 38 wounded.
Updates on twitter
Video of the attack.

The Dec. 22 suicide attack on Peshawar Press Club that brutally killed at least three people was not the first heinous act of terrorism that targeted journalists in the conflict-hit AfPak region, many talented and brave reporters have lost their lives during the past several-year long wave of the ruthless insurgency, but it was unique in many ways: it was the first attack that directly targeted the profession of journalism as a whole instead of the target killing of an individual and was unique because the target was a group that can be described as the long-time eloquent ‘admirers’ of the terrorism and insurgency in the region, at least in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

The targeted Peshawar Press Club had been the place where a majority of reporters, columnists and feature writers (except its current president Shamim Shahid and few others) of the jingoist Urdu and English media of Peshawar, the capital of Pashtunkhwa or North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, and correspondents of the media outfits in the rest of the country, sat on comfortable tables and wrote lengthy propaganda news stories and eulogizing feature articles in which the terrorists were being described as freedom fighters and the true sons of their motherland. These heavily romanticized and extremely exaggerated stories encouraged the ignorant youths from Peshawar to the tribal areas to take up arms and volunteer to be used as fodder by the ISI-backed terrorist campaign.

The terrorist campaign was then limited only to Afghanistan and Kashmir. But when the terrorists increased in number and grew in strength, thanks to the all-out support of Pakistan or some powerful elements within the Pakistani government and intelligence, they had to expand their presence and authority beyond Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Pakistani media, however, still did not realize the magnitude of the threat and continued to support terrorism with attractive words and terms like ‘freedom fighters,’ ‘reformers of the society’ etc. Unfortunately, it is still the case though thousands of innocent people have lost their lives in the most condemnable and despicable suicide attacks and bomb blasts that take place every other day across Pakistan. But Pakistani media, like Pakistani officials and politicians, is still in the state of denial. Just recently, when a Canada-based Pakistani mullah, Tahir-ul-Qaderi, issued a 150-page fatwa in which he condemned the terrorist attacks in Pakistan while justified them in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kashmir, I had a discussion with a journalist who was member of the Peshawar Press Club. This journalist defended the fatwa and argued that there was a big difference between the Pakistani and Afghan militants.

‘What is that difference?’ I asked.

‘The Pakistani militants are very cruel, they don’t believe in any religion, they get support from foreign countries and they kill innocent people. While the Afghan militants are very good people, they want to free Afghanistan and they don’t kill innocent people.’

I told him that both the militants have safe havens in the same tribal areas, both operate under the same name, both follow the same ideology, both have the same shuras, both use the same tactics, both support one another, and both have the same goal. He had this curt reply: ‘whatever they do, I will condemn the Pakistani militants and support the Afghan militants.’ Before him, I got the same answer to one of my questions from a former Pakistani official during a conference. (Also, the Pakistani government had immediately welcomed Tahir-ul-Qaderi’s fatwa). With having that mentality from the top ranks to the common people, from the intellectuals to the reporters, I don’t think if Pakistan will ever be able to get rid of the menace of terrorism.

Now the question is that why will the terrorists want to kill their admirers. The answer is a verse from the popular classic Pashtun poet, Hamid Baba:

Mahroyan kala khpalegi tol da cha?

Tar spogmey chapera kegi shpol da cha?

It means that you cannot keep all your lovers happy all the time.

The same with the terrorists! As long as you keep them happy, they are okay, but the moment you did something that went against their mood, they will turn against you and target you. Pakistan has yet not learned from the example of its army and state institutions which are being targeted by the same people who were trained and equipped by it. The United States is also a good example: the 9/11 was planned by the people who were trained and equipped by the CIA 20 years ago.

By Abdulhadi Hairan

‘Have not you ever seen a woman casting vote?’ asked an angry BB Jamila who was surrounded by an army of reporters and cameramen the moment she stepped inside Zarghoona High School at Shahr-e-Naw, Kabul. The reporters inundated her with questions she had never heard and had never expected that she would face such a situation in the polling center. Leaving home for the polling center, she had some hidden fears that the Taliban militants might attack, but here she was in a completely different situation: cameras flushed at her, reporters asked questions about the election, Afghanistan’s future and about the importance of women’s role. ‘Where do you think the country is heading?’ a reporter asked in Dari. She answered in a tired and uncaring voice that she was heading to cast her vote and then wanted to go to her home.

Inside the compound of the school, where the number of female voters seemed equal to the male voters, correspondents of the local and international media waited for voters to interview but the turnout was lower than they expected, so they had to wait for half of the whole day to get enough information to dispatch to their organizations.

My first visit was to the Habibia High School at Karta-e-3. The time was exactly 08:13 AM. The polling had been started about one hour earlier amid tight security. Empty roads and closed markets was a clear sign that the turnout will be low. At Habibia, this was the real case. Reporters and cameramen followed every voter to have an interview with or get some information from. Some people were willing to show their faces, others quietly left the schools leaving cameramen and reporters behind. The outspoken presidential candidate, Ramazan Bashardost cast his vote at this polling center and then started giving statements and interviews to the media. I saw no female voter entering this polling center.

Later, Dr. Ashraf Ghani also arrived at this polling center and cast his vote here. He was surrounded by a large number of campaigners who were highly optimistic about his victory despite the low turnout they could see. He also gave many statements and interviews to the media and met lot of people at the center. To my surprise, an old Kuchi man, whom I had interviewed few minutes ago and who proudly told me that he had cast his vote for Hamid Karzai, hugged him and told him that he liked him very much. After Mr. Ghani left, I asked the man if he was so fond of him and liked him so much why he voted for Karzai. He simply replied, ‘I like Ghani, he is a good man, but I voted for Karzai because I know he can lead this country better than anyone else.’

I interviewed few more people and went to another polling center: a high school at Chehal Satoon (district 7). And then to five more polling centers, including Zarghoona High School at Shahr-e-Naw. The voters were excited everywhere, but rush was nowhere. At a high school at Karta-e-9, there was a firing from somewhere close to the area, but there was no panic and the voters continued to vote. At Ghulam Haider Khan High School at Khairkhana, someone spread news that there was a blast at a polling center somewhere at the city. Yet no one left their place or looked worried. They just continued to vote and made exaggerating claims about the victory of their candidates.

At the polling centers, I interviewed 66 people and asked them whom they had voted for in order to have an idea about the popularity of the candidates. The result was that the majority of the people said they had voted for President Karzai. Following are the details of the respondents’ answers:

Habibia High School

President Hamid Karzai            9

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                         1

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah            1

Chehal Satoon

President Hamid Karzai            1

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      1

Karta-e-9

President Hamid Karzai            2

Isteqlal High School, Park Zarnigar

President Hamid Karzai            2

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      2

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah        1

Zarghoona High School, Shahr-e-Naw

President Hamid Karzai            7

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      1

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah         2

Ghulam Haider Khan High School, Khairkhana

President Hamid Karzai            17

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      3

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah         7

Ramazan Bashardost                1

Nadria High School, Karta-e-Parwan

President Hamid Karzai            4

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah             4

Total

President Hamid Karzai            42

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                          8

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah            15

Ramazan Bashardost                1

Among the people I interviewed 5 were women and the rest men. Among the men were Pashtoons, Tajik, and others. One said he was a traffic police officer. Majority of those who had voted for Karzai said they were happy with his leadership because their life conditions were improved during his presidency. A shopkeeper said he voted for Karzai because he had united the Afghans and provided better opportunities for them. He said he liked Karzai because he did not like wars and always acted wisely.

I also interviewed 10 people who were not registered voters. I asked why. 6 of them said they simply did not spare time to go to a voter registration center and register their names. 1 said they were not interested in the elections and did not care where the country was going. 1 said he was not sure whom to vote for, hence he did not try to get a voter card. 1 said he believed that democracy was against Islam.

Among the six who did not spare time for registering their names, 3 said they would have liked to vote for Karzai; one said for Dr. Ashraf Ghani; one said for Dr. Abdullah; and one said for Mirwais Yasini.

The voting is still underway and will continue until late. There is a strong possibility that a runoff will be needed.

 It was Afghanistan’s 90^th Independence Day today, the first that no one celebrated due to the complicated nature of the country’s second-ever landmark election, just hours away now. The Taliban-launched terror campaign forced the people to stay at homes and the security forces to take stricter measures for protection and safety. Even the Nato-led international peacekeeping force halted its offensive operations to protect voters around polling centers.

 Reports from different parts of the country say the election process is under attack everywhere in many shapes: attacks on polling centers, attacks on candidates, and threats to the voters. As a last attempt to change the situation in their favor, the Taliban claimed to have sent 20 suicide bombers and attackers to Kabul while the government asked media organizations to limit their reporting of violent acts of terror. It is true that the media coverage of terror acts encourages the perpetrators of violence and promotes their ambitions.

Finally, the election day arrived but amid two kinds of fear for the voters: there are voters who will be forced away from polling by the Taliban and their allies (bad fear), yet the voters who will manage to poll will still have fears about the fairness and transparency of the process (good fear). The former is related to the Afghan situation (and was experienced during Pakistan’s last election) while the latter is customary in the regional brand democracies, often based and practiced on dictatorial tendencies, conspiracy and rigging as well as different sorts of lies falsely justified by religious and political pretexts.

 Though this is the second presidential election in the country’s short democratic history, it is a real test for all the parties involved in the situation: the international community; the Afghan government; the Afghan people; and the insurgents.

 For the international community and the United States President Barack Obama, the success, or failure, of a new important strategy for the region depends on the capabilities of a new elected administration in Afghanistan.

 For the Afghan government, the test is important in many aspects: For example, how it maintains the election process, how it reacts to the people’s decision, and how it copes with or manages the situation after the polling is done and the result is out.

 For the Afghan people, it is really an experiment and a historic experience. It is they who will decide and choose the new leader, and the world is impatient to see how they will bear it if the result was not what they have been expecting (many fear for an Iran-like situation).

 And for the insurgents, this is the opportunity to show how much their strength and presence can affect or change the situation. In their case, it will shape the approach about them after the election in terms of negotiations with them or operations against them. In this context, we can say that this election is not just an event, but a series of important events full of suspense.

 Tomorrow I will visit many polling centers and will what I saw will be posted here along with photos.

For the people of this war-ravaged country the coming election on August 20 2009 is viewed with hope as well as apprehension. There are a total of 41 candidates registered with the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan among whom only three have enough support to be considered serious contenders. They are the incumbent Hamid Karzai, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Three lesser-known candidates have already withdrawn from the race in favour of Karzai and Abdullah.

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 Both the commanding powers of the eight-year old War on Terror, the United States and the United Kingdom, recently hinted for talks with the Taliban insurgents after the second presidential election of the country, set for August 20.

 According to Daily Mail, “the suggestion of ‘talks with the Taliban’ came as Gordon Brown revealed the biggest offensive by UK troops in Helmand Province since the conflict began is now over. Ministers said that talking with the insurgents who have killed 191 British soldiers might be the only way to curtail the bloody war.”

 Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed and praised this approach, saying: “starting peace process with the Taliban will ensure peace and stability and such efforts are part of our government’s strategy,” said a statement issued from his spokesman’s office on Tuesday, July 28, 2009.

 Like the Britons, the Americans too seem in need of talks with the Taliban as their soldiers suffered record casualties in the month of July. According to Pajhwok Afghan News, while talking to Afghanistan Ulema Council (AUC) in Kabul on July 25, “US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke promised beginning peace talks with the Taliban and other opposition forces once the upcoming presidential and provincial elections are completed.”

 But the basic question is still unanswered, even not discussed: How are you going to talk with them? Have you developed any strategy for this? The insurgents have always refused to participate in talks and meetings that suggest reconciliation. Withdrawal of the international troops from Afghanistan is their first and foremost demand. For the international troops it is unlikely to accept this demand because it will be their defeat in this bloody war. It is as clear as crystal: the world’s most advanced armies and their governments just can’t afford to be defeated by a force of insurgents.

 For President Hamid Karzai, talks with the Taliban has always been a brilliant idea; but all of his negotiations offers were rejected by the Taliban leadership; the one-eyed insurgent leader has even called on the people to boycott the ‘deceptive election.’ Yet, Mr. Karzai has been using the talks offer as a slogan for his election campaign. During his last visit to Kanahar, he said that he will initiate peace talks with the Taliban if he was re-elected.  But why could not he do so during his eight years in the office? The answer is simple: because the Taliban wanted a complete withdrawal of the international troops and the international troops had an agenda of curbing the menace of terrorism.

 The idea of ‘moderate Taliban’ and reconciliation with them is also a blur perception: if someone is a moderate, they surely would not like to be a part of the ruthlessness that the insurgents have been demonstrating in different forms such as killing civilian people in suicide attacks, burning schools and hospitals and murdering aid workers, engineers, journalists, teachers and doctors. After reading this Newsweek article, one may consider even Mullah Baradar a ‘moderate,’ but, according to the article, it was he who re-organized the force in true meaning and still leads it from unknown places in Quetta.

 And then there is another question: if the international troops and the next Afghan government decide to talk with the insurgents, which group of the insurgents will they talk with? And does each of these groups has enough authority to come to the table of talks? When Pakistan balked at the recent Helmand operation, it was not just that the militants were fleeing to their land, but the real reason was Pakistan’s losing of its strategic assets.  It means that there are many external factors, such as Pakistan, who should be addressed before any talks with the Afghan forces of the insurgents. If the external factors were not addressed and the insurgents were brought to the table of talks, it will be just a waste of time and resources because these insurgents will get the huge share of the benefits of reconciliation while the external forces will still be free to recruit and train other fighters or groups of fighters who will then confront the international forces with a new strategy and different tactics of fighting to achieve their goals.

 The presidential election is now three weeks away. It is premature to say anything about the approaches of the would-be-president of Afghanistan to this issue, but after reading the views of most hopeful candidate, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, one can conclude that the talks option will not work unless the external factors are addressed. He states: “There are four major threats to securing Afghanistan’s futures. First, Al Qaeda is a renewed force moving fluidly between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Second, an expanded, well resourced, and multifaceted insurgency presents a continual threat to Afghan and international actors.” And for addressing these challenges, he writes: “To succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban’s gains and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.”

 The Pakistani government in the restive northwest province on Sunday arrested Maulana Sufi Mohammad, father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, the militant leader in Swat, and head of Tanzim-e-Nifaz-e-Sharia-e-Mohammadi (TNSM).

 “He killed a lot of people. Again he was planning for this. We will not allow anyone to destroy peace at Malakand and Swat,” said Mian Iftekhar Hussain, Information Minister of the province, as quoted by AFP.

 Interestingly, Mr. Hussain is a part of the same government which freed the Maulana in February 2008 and allowed him to go home comfortably. He then brokered a peace deal between his son-in-law and the government. The government then did not consider the fact that he had ‘killed a lot of people.’ How a peace deal can work when it is brokered by a killer? The government ignored this question, the Swat peace deal did never work, and it had to arrest him again.

 It is not just one example of the game that the government of Pakistan, its army and its secret agencies have been playing in the region: it places the blame of the assassination of the country’s most popular leader and two-time Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and wants to kill or capture him, yet it failed to provide protection to a tribal commander, Qari Zainuddin, who rebelled against his network. Similarly, the government is fighting against the militants in many parts of the tribal and settled areas, yet it failed to support the tribal lashkars (armies) that wanted to wipe out the militants from their areas. This is enough evidence of the actual fact: Pakistan wants neither to win nor lose this game.

 As most of the Pakistanis thought the militants as their ‘strategic assets’ because their government was fully supporting them in their campaign against Afghanistan, their uprising against the Pakistani government and people has still not changed the minds and interests of some powerful elements within the government and the army. These elements are the key stakeholders of the power and they want to continue the war against terrorism in just a confusing and complicated way in order to keep both the international community and the insurgents engaged in the region. These elements need the international community for huge aids and the insurgents to use against India. The result: they can neither win nor lose this war.

 The horrendous increase of insurgent attacks across Afghanistan ahead of the upcoming presidential election says what it has behind it: the security situation will deteriorate further which means that the polling will be completed without the international observers watching. This makes it clear that if there is no security, the voting process will not be free and transparent.

 Understandably we can hope that everything will be fine. But concerns have been widely expressed about some government officials’ illegal involvement in campaign activities for certain candidates which will lead the polling to be massively rigged and results manipulated.

 It is sure that neither the international community nor the Afghan people can afford such a situation because, if there was rigging on a massive scale or the results were manipulated, a reaction similar to the aftermath of the Iranian election will come up. Thus, uprisings and countrywide protests will add up to the prevailing tension and this is very likely to paralyze the whole system.

 The idea of deploying more international and Afghan troops on the Election Day is very important in this context because insecurity will result in rigging and rigging will lead the country into chaos. Consequently, the failure and chaos will gravely undermine all the efforts the international community has so far done to stabilize the country and its government.

 So it is very necessary that the international community, particularly the United Nations, take immediate steps and make sound decisions before things reach the irreversible level.