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| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Lainey |
Posted - February 10 2003 : 3:51:55 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 10 — Germany and the Netherlands took charge of the 22-nation peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital Monday, with its new commander vowing to maintain security just hours before a rocket slammed into the city's eastern edge.
The rocket landed a few hundred yards from a German peacekeeping base in Kabul, Police Chief Basir Salangi said. It wasn't immediately clear what the target was or who fired the rocket. No one was injured.
Rocket attacks on the war-ruined Afghan capital are not uncommon, highlighting the fragility of the relative calm the International Security Assistance Force has helped bring to the city.
The peacekeepers' new commander, German Lt. Gen. Norbert van Heyst, said the force will continue to work for security.
''Though the name and face of the commander of ISAF may change, ISAF's purpose and commitment will not,'' van Heyst said.
The peacekeeping force, which now numbers about 4,000 soldiers, was first deployed on the streets of Kabul in December 2001. Britain commanded the force until June, when Turkey took over.
With a line of peacekeepers holding flags from contributing countries behind him, outgoing Turkish commander Maj. Gen. Hilmi Akin Zorlu shook hands with van Heyst during the ceremony at a secondary school packed with troops and dignitaries.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai thanked the peacekeepers for their ''major contribution'' to the country.
''Your work is providing the common Afghan man with the security and safety in which he can send his children to school, where women go to work and earn money ... where life begins to function as life does in other parts of the world,'' Karzai said.
Karzai has in the past pressed for the peacekeeping force to be expanded outside the capital, but countries involved in the force have been reluctant. U.S. troops are in several parts of the country hunting for al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives.
Rockets were fired at two U.S. bases in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, but none hit their targets and there were no injuries, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday. The attacks took place Sunday evening in Paktika province, said Col. Roger King.
At Monday's ceremony, German Defense Minister Peter Struck, flanked by counterparts Henk Kamp of the Netherlands, Vecdi Gonul of Turkey and Mohammed Fahim of Afghanistan, said NATO could one day expand its role in Afghanistan and take full control of the multinational force.
''For the first time, NATO capabilities are being employed in Afghanistan — perhaps an initial step to an extended NATO responsibility for this country,'' Struck said. Van Heyst said the NATO help included planning, communications and intelligence.
Struck has proposed that NATO take command in Afghanistan after the joint German-Dutch administration ends in six months, though he has said Spain or Canada could inherit the job if NATO doesn't.
Armed peacekeepers patrol the war-ruined city 24 hours a day in jeeps, armored cars and small tanks.
In December, Germany doubled to 2,500 its contingent in the peacekeeping force and extended its participation by a year. Troops from the Netherlands, serving under Dutch Gen. Robert Bertholee — who is now deputy commander of the force — will number about 700.
The Turkish contingent is to be reduced to about 160 men. Immediately after Monday's handover ceremony, a group of Turkish soldiers boarded a plane out of the country.
Fourteen peacekeepers have died on duty in Afghanistan since the United Nations created the force — seven of them German soldiers killed in helicopter crash in Kabul on Dec. 21.
Eventually, the peacekeepers' duties are to be taken over by a newly created Afghan police and military units, but that is expected to be several years away.
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| 1 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lainey |
Posted - February 10 2003 : 9:59:56 PM
{Perspective from within Afghanistan ...)
RAWA Statement on the anniversary of the September 11 tragedy
Fundamentalism is the Enemy of All Civilized Humanity
RAWA joins with the rest of the civilized world in remembering the innocent lives lost on September 11th, as well as all those others lost to terrorism and oppression throughout the world. It is with great sadness that RAWA sees other people experiencing the pain that the women, children and men of Afghanistan have long suffered at the hands of fundamentalist terrorists.
For ten long years the people of Afghanistan -Afghan women in particular- have been crushed and brutalized, first under the chains and atrocities of the "Northern Alliance" fundamentalists, then under those of the Taliban. During all this period, the governments of the Western powers were bent on finding ways to "work with" these criminals. These Western governments did not lose much sleep over the daily grind of abject misery our people were enduring under the domination of these terrorist bands. To them it did not matter so very much that human rights and democratic principles were being trampled on a daily basis in an inconceivable manner. What was important was to "work with" the religio-fascists to have Central Asian oil pipelines extended to accessible ports of shipment.
Immediately after the September 11 tragedy the US military might moved into action to punish its erstwhile hirelings. A captive, bleeding, devastated, hungry, pauperized, drought-stricken and ill-starred Afghanistan was bombed into oblivion by the most advanced and sophisticated weaponry ever created in human history. Innocent lives, many more than those who lost their lives in the September 11 atrocity, were taken. Even joyous wedding gatherings were not spared. The Taliban regime and its al-Qaeda support were toppled without any significant dent in their human combat resources. What was not done away with was the sinister shadow of terrorist threat over the whole world and its alter ego, fundamentalist terrorism.
Neither opium cultivation nor warlordism have been eradicated in Afghanistan. There is neither peace nor stability in this tormented country, nor has there been any relief from the scourges of extreme pauperization, prostitution, and wanton plunder. Women feel much more insecure than in the past. The bitter fact that even the personal security of the President of the country cannot be maintained without recourse to foreign bodyguards and the recent terrorist acts in our country speak eloquent volumes about the chaotic and terrorist-ridden situation of the country. Why is it so? Why has the thunderous uproar in the aftermath of September 11 resulted in nothing? For the following reasons which RAWA has reiterated time and again:
1. For the people of Afghanistan, it is "out of the frying pan, into the fire". Instead of the Taliban terrorists, Jihadi terrorists of the "Northern Alliance" have been installed in power. The Jihadi and the Taliban fundamentalists share a common ideology; their differences are the usual differences between brethren-in-creed.
2. For the past more or less twenty years, Osama bin Laden has had Afghan fundamentalists on his payroll and has been paying their leaders considerable stipends. He and Mullah Omar, together with a band of followers equipped with the necessary communication resources, can live for many years under the protection of different fundamentalist bands in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continue to plot against the people of Afghanistan and the rest of humankind.
3. The Taliban and the al-Qaeda phenomena, as manifestations of an ideology and a political culture infesting an Islamic country, could only have been uprooted by a popular insurrection and the strengthening and coming to power of secular democratic forces. Such a purge cannot be effected solely with the physical elimination of the likes of Osama and Mullah Omar.
The "No |
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