Afghanistan — Security

• Attacks on Khost Bases: The reported attack Saturday on Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province was matched by a parallel assault on Forward Operating Base Salerno in the same area, military officials say; at least twenty-one attackers were killed in the two engagements, and five captured. Some of the attackers were wearing U.S. army uniforms, the AP reports, and were spotted cutting wire fencing at Salerno. Four U.S. soldiers were wounded and two Afghan soldiers killed. In separate attacks elsewhere, seven U.S. troops were killed in southern and eastern Afghanistan over the weekend. [NYT] [AP] [AP] [AP] [Reuters] [AJE] [TOLO]
• Election Violence: Two gunmen in a car shot and killed Abdul Manan Hashimi Noorzayee, a tribal elder and parliamentary candidate in Herat province, on Saturday evening. There was no claim of responsibility. Five of the ten kidnapped campaign workers for candidate Fauzia Gilani were released and the other five found dead; the Taliban had claimed to carry out the initial abductions but did not issue a claim of responsibility for the killings. [TOLO] [Reuters] [BBC] [TOLO] [Guardian]

Afghanistan — Politics and Diplomacy

• Corruption and Relations with Karzai: Afghanistan’s deputy attorney general, Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, and another top prosecutor who had worked closely with him, Amrodin Wafa, were fired by Afghanistan’s attorney general last week, they say, after pushing to continue with investigations of high-level Karzai administration officials on corruption cases. The attorney general’s office said Faqiryar, who is 74, had been dismissed because had reached mandatory retirement age and his allegations were untrue. Among other investigations, the NYT reports Faqiryar had evidence ready to prosecute Kapisa governor Khoja Gulam Ghaws for collusion with insurgents and receiving kickbacks from US and Afghan prosecutors; Karzai and the attorney general are said to have blocked his prosecution. Karzai’s chief of staff, Umer Daudzai, said that “unfortunately we see some of these cases as politicized” and that “we need to review our strategy, our code of conduct, so that Afghans believe that this is a sovereign state and President Karzai is the ultimate decision maker in this country.” "What he was doing was very important," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said of Mr. Faqiryar. "Those charged with pursuing corruption need to continue their work without political interference. It’s something we are watching to make sure the Afghan government lives up to the pledges it has made in battling corruption." Separately, Karzai’s office issued a statement Friday condemning media reports that many officials within his administration were on the CIA payroll; “Afghanistan believes that making such allegations will not strengthen the alliance against terrorism and will not strengthen an Afghanistan based on the law and rules, but will have negative effects in those areas”, the statement said. [NYT] [WSJ] [WSJ] [WAPO] [LAT] [AJE] [AP] [AP]

Afghanistan — Remainders

• More Schoolgirl Poisonings Reported in Kabul [TOLO]
• Commentary: On the Loya Paktia Campaign Trail – “With a long history of low degree of state control and an equally long border shared with Pakistan’s FATA, the region does not look like the perfect ground for a democratic election in these hard times. Why are people running as candidates, then?” [Fabrizio Foschini, AAN Part 1,Part 2]

CNN and others have confirmed that the bodies of five kidnapped parliamentary campaign workers have been found in a remote district of Herat province in western Afghanistan, quoting Naqibullah Arwin, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Arwin said a group of insurgents kidnapped the workers when they drove to the area, and later shot them dead.

The fate of the other five, campaign workers for Fawzia Gelani, a female candidate in the Wolesi Jirga election, is not clear.

Clarifying earlier uncertainty about the identity of a man killed in Herat, TOLOnews has confirmed he was 55-year-old Abdul Manan Hashimi Noorzayee, “an influential tribal elder and a candidate for the upcoming Afghan parliamentary election in Shindand”, a district in Herat province, and was was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Saturday night.

Local/offline news

Local radio news reported this morning (Sunday) that a candidate was shot dead in western Herat province on Saturday night. However, TOLO TV news reported that the person shot dead was actually a military officer. We’ll add more details as we receive them.

Obstacles in the way of elections. (editorial)
Payam e Mujahid, Dari weekly. August 29, 2010.

Payam e Mujahid in its editorials delves into the difficulties in the way of the parliamentary elections. The paper identifies security problems and undemocratic government policies as the main problems facing the elections.

An interview with Hafiz Mansur, a prominent candidate in the upcoming elections
Payam e Mujahid, Dari weekly. August 29, 2010.

Mansur: The fact that my proposals and ideas have turned into the dominant discourse in our country’s politics has encouraged me to run in elections.

Women Candidates campaign is getting momentum in northern Qunduz province
8 am, Dari daily. August 29, 2010.

Despite security and many other problems in the way of women candidates’ campaign in the country, in Qunduz women candidates’ campaign is getting unprecedented momentum.  

Afghanistan — Elections

• Election Security: Anonymous U.S. defense officials tell Reuters they expect Taliban intimidation efforts to rise in advance of the parliamentary vote, particularly in the north where they have put in "extra effort" since the presidential elections last year. In Herat, ten campaign workers for Fauzia Gilani, a female candidate and current sitting MP, were abducted by unidentified gunmen. [Reuters] [NYT] [AJE]
• Candidate Profiles: The AFP interviews some of the younger first-time candidates in the upcoming election; "Afghanistan can only solve its own problems if young people go into politics to do things for their country," candidate Farkhunda Naderi says. [AFP]

Afghanistan — Security

• Security Force Training: The Afghan Ministry of Defense said that remarks from Gen. William Caldwell, the chief of the joint NATO/US training effort, on the low level of literacy and high attrition rate among Afghan security forces were "totally incorrect". Accord to the Ministry of Defense, 68,000 of the 136,000 Afghan troops can read and write. Gen. Caldwell is interviewed separately by the LAT, which focuses on the challenges of driving training; more than half of Afghan army injuries result from vehicular accidents. [TOLO] [LAT]
• Taliban Attacks: Taliban fighters killed eight police officers in an attack on a checkpoint outside Kunduz yesterday morning; only one Afghan soldier survived the attack, but was able to force a withdrawal by the Taliban. In a separate checkpoint attack in Ghazni Wednesday night, 8 police were wounded. [BBC] [WSJ] [TOLO]

Afghanistan — Politics and Diplomacy

• Karzai and the US: Pres. Karzai’s office issued a series of statements yesterday after meetings with the new head of CENTCOM, Gen. James Mattis and a visiting group of U.S. Congressmen, in which he said that while "outstanding progress" that has been made in reconstruction, "we haven’t progressed in the war against terrorism." Karzai also said Pres. Obama’s July 2011 date to begin withdrawal of some U.S. forces from the country "has given courage to the enemies of Afghanistan".  In an interview with the Post, national security advisor and former foreign minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said that the "central issue is international jihadis", and that while "we will fight corruption," "to put this problem and challenge at the top of all the others in Afghanistan, that’s a joke. A bad joke. It’s avoiding responsibility." Spanta suggested that the U.S. needed to intensify drone strikes against Afghan Taliban commanders living in Pakistan and called for sanctions against Pakistan and denial of visas to Pakistani generals. Spanta also said that aide Mohammad Zia Salehi "absolutely rejected" reports that he was on the CIA payroll. [WAPO] [AJE]

Afghanistan — Remainders

• Taliban Believed to Have Recovered Crashed Drone’s Camera [AFP]
• 17 Killed in Nangahar Flooding [TOLO]
• Afghanistan Drills for Oil for the First Time in Sar-i-Pul [Reuters]
• Video: Embedded with the Taliban [WIRED]
• Report: IEC Press Conference Notes Aug 26 – "Manawi said that polling centers had been closed in 25 provinces; of those, the minimum number of centers closed was six and the maximum 107, in Ghazni province." [Democracy International]
• Commentary: The Helmand Flood Zone Fiasco - "As with many past efforts in Helmand, this wasn’t in itself an “alternative livelihoods” project; creating livelihoods that would be sustainable after the withdrawal of donor funding was not a primary concern." [Joel Hafvenstein, Registan]
• Commentary: The Civilian Cost of Armed Conflict in Afghanistan: Overview of Recent Reports – "AAN Senior Analyst Sari Kouvo takes a closer look at patterns identified on violations against – and protection of – civilians in the war in Afghanistan and brings in other, lesser known data." [AAN]

Collated by Colin Cookman

Foreign/online media

Afghanistan – Election

• Commentary: A Pre-Election Visit to Paktika – “Out of 22 candidates (one of lowest numbers in the country), six were in the province during my visit, the rest staying in Kabul mainly due to security concerns.” [Tina Blohm, AfPak Channel]

Afghanistan — Security

• Taliban Reconciliation and Reintegration: Speaking to Fox News, Gen. Petraeus said yesterday that Afghan provincial and district governors have begun distributing funding intended to sway local Taliban fighters over to the government’s side over the past few days. Petraeus said that the U.S. "is very much in the information loop” on higher-level political negotiations with senior Taliban and “in a couple of cases has helped in a sense, but is not doing the negotiation." [FOX]
• Trainee Kills Two Spanish Officers: An Afghan police trainee shot and killed two Spanish national guard officers and their interpreter before being killed himself in Qalay-i-Naw, Baghdis yesterday, where the Spanish lead the provincial reconstruction team. A spokesman for the Baghdis governor said that the dispute started when the trainee refused to surrender his weapon on entering the base; NATO said it was still investigating the cause. The Taliban’s spokesman claimed that the shooter had "special contacts" with the insurgents, according to the LAT. Following the shooting hundreds of protestors surrounded the Spanish base, setting fire to parts of it before being partially dispersed by Afghan police. At least 18 people were admitted for gunshot wounds according to local health officials. [NYT] [WSJ] [LAT] [Reuters] [BBC] [Guardian] [AJE] [TOLO]

Afghanistan — Politics and Diplomacy

• Karzai Aide Under Investigation Linked to CIA: Mohammad Zia Salehi, the Afghan national security council aide at the center of recent conflicts between Pres. Karzai and the internationally-backed Major Crimes Task Force after his arrest in July for alleged solicitation of bribes, has been on the CIA’s payroll for “many years”, U.S. and Afghan officials tell the NYT. The piece focuses on the internal contradictions in U.S. strategy towards the country; while some administration officials describe public corruption as the “single greatest threat to the Afghan government and the American mission”, others argue that “fighting corruption is the very definition of mission creep,” in the words of one anonymous official who worries that going after Afghan officials is destabilizing the Karzai government. One Afghan politician predicts that no matter how strong the U.S. pressure against Salehi, Karzai will not allow his prosecution, “because by going after him, you are opening the gates.” [NYT]
• India and Afghanistan: Afghanistan’s foreign minister reciprocated a visit from the Indian national security advisor earlier this week with a trip to New Dehli yesterday, where he met PM Singh and held talks with his counterpart S.M. Krishna. The two countries “agreed that terrorism is the main threat undermining peace and stability in the region and reiterated their resolve to effectively combating and defeating it," according to an official statement, and also discussed trade relations; the Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement agreed to earlier this summer appears to have been held up by continued Pakistani suspicions about direct Indian trade access to Afghanistan. [AFP]

Afghanistan — Remainders

• Five U.S. Soldiers Charged in Premeditated Killing of Afghan Civilians [AP]
• 22 School Girls Reportedly ‘Poisoned’ in Kabul [TOLO] [AJE]
• US Troops Fire Shots to Disperse Protestors in Parwan; Local Police Say One Killed [AP]
• Ministry of Information and Culture Attempts to Keep Female Flesh Off Afghan TV [Reuters]

Summary collated by Colin Cookman

Local offline media

More detail to come.

8/26/10

Which youth can be a suitable candidate?
Mandegar, Dari daily. Thursday August 26, 2010.

A columnist with Mandegar Dari daily delves into the claims of candidates who are posing as representatives of youth in the country. The columnist doubts their claims.

300 people have trained to be election observers
8 am, Dari daily. Thursday August 26, 2010.

8 am reports that IEC, ECC, FEFA and Counter Part had organized a workshop for training 300 people as election observers for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Counter campaign against candidates in Herat
8 am, Dari daily. Thursday August 26, 2010.

The campaign of some candidates in Herat province has faced a systematic counter campaign. Their posters have been defaced, painted over and graffiti-ed with insulting language. 

Summary collated and translated by Hamayon Rastagar