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Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Protect Afghan mineral wealth, NGO says
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Global Witness welcomed a measure to have transparency in the mineral sector in Afghanistan but warned of shortcomings in recent pledges. Delegates at an Afghan conference in Germany last week lauded the mineral wealth in Afghanistan as integral to its economic sovereignty.....Continue Reading....
Kabul starts race for Afghan resources
MONTREAL - Afghanistan last week began a tender process for exploration and development of precious metal and mineral deposits, according to a press release from the country's Ministry of Mines. The tenders will close in March, with licenses for exploration and possible development to be awarded in July.... Continue Reading....
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Canadian Mining Companies Make the Big Move into Afghanistan
On 24 November 2011, the Government of Afghanistan awarded a Canadian mining company, Kilo Goldmines, approximately 25 percent of the stake to develop the massive Hajigak iron deposit in Bamiyan Afghanistan. A consortium of Indian companies won the other 75 percent of the development.
The Hajigak deposit – the largest iron deposit in Asia and possibly the world – is “truly significant on a global scale”.....Continue Reading.........
The Hajigak deposit – the largest iron deposit in Asia and possibly the world – is “truly significant on a global scale”.....Continue Reading.........
Monday, December 12, 2011
Afghanistan: A New Sectarian War?
Ahmed Rashid
Steve McCurry/Magnum Photos
People from the Hazara Shia community, Afghanistan, 2006.
Throughout a decade of terrible conflict in their country, there is one kind of violence Afghans have largely avoided: between Sunni and Shia. Despite the sectarian tensions that have splintered much of the Muslim world since September 11, there were no major sectarian attacks in Afghanistan between 2001 and the fall of 2011. To the contrary, the Taliban, who adhere to the conservative Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam, have taken extra care not to aggravate Afghan Shia, who make up about 10 to 15 percent of the population....Continue Reading....
People from the Hazara Shia community, Afghanistan, 2006.
Throughout a decade of terrible conflict in their country, there is one kind of violence Afghans have largely avoided: between Sunni and Shia. Despite the sectarian tensions that have splintered much of the Muslim world since September 11, there were no major sectarian attacks in Afghanistan between 2001 and the fall of 2011. To the contrary, the Taliban, who adhere to the conservative Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam, have taken extra care not to aggravate Afghan Shia, who make up about 10 to 15 percent of the population....Continue Reading....
Refugee inquiry to tackle backlog
THE former attorney-general Michael Lavarch will conduct an independent review of the refugee and migration tribunals amid a backlog of cases and allegations that the process is being abused....Continue Reading...
Attacks on Afghan Shiites Highlight Pakistan's Policy Failure
BY ARIF RAFIQ | 12 DEC 2011
BRIEFING
Last Tuesday’s deadly attacks on Shiite processions in Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan are further evidence of dangerous instability in neighboring Pakistan and of the Pakistani state’s failure to act coherently to counteract it. A clear understanding of the group responsible is important to understanding the crossborder ramifications of the attacks.
Contrary to reports in prominent news outlets, the Pakistani Sunni sectarian terrorist group Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) was not responsible for the attacks. Rather, an LeJ splinter group known as Lashkar-e Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJ-A) -- not the original LeJ organization -- has claimed responsibility for them. A person claiming to be an LeJ-A spokesman made the announcement in communication with a number of news outlets, including BBC Urdu and Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
LeJ-A has claimed responsibility for a small number of very deadly attacks in Pakistan since 2009. These include attacks on Shiite Muslims in Kohat in 2009 and 2010: a September 2009 attack on a market in a predominantly Shiite area that killed 33 people, and an April 2010 attack on internally displaced Shiites that killed 44 and injured 70. In addition, multiple attacks on a Shiite procession in Lahore in September 2010 killed 29 civilians and injured 243.
The original LeJ was founded in 1996 by dissident members of a third group, Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), who felt that the SSP was not militant enough. Prior to being banned in 2003, the SSP was a registered political party, though in practice it was an anti-Shiite terrorist group. The SSP continues to maintain an unofficial though highly visible role in politics, actively using its swing voters to tilt hotly contested races, while at the same time feeding Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal areas with non-Pashtun militants.
LeJ, on the other hand, rejects involvement in formal politics. It has a long record of terrorist violence against Pakistani Shiites and even the Pakistani government. In recent years, the group has also been involved in attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team. But LeJ-A split from LeJ -- mirroring the LeJ’s previous split from SSP -- on the grounds that LeJ was insufficiently extremist. Despite their common history, LeJ and LeJ-A are now two distinct organizations. In fact, LeJ-A is only one of many LeJ splinter groups -- all of which are more rapacious and less controllable than the original group, and all of which also have short half-lives.
The trend toward fragmentation reflects an increasingly messy jihadist landscape in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The Pakistani Taliban, the major umbrella organization for Pashtun jihadist groups in the tribal areas and the nearby settled areas, is splintering, due in part to efforts by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to stoke divisions within the fragile network.
The ISI is applying a policy of divide and rule toward both LeJ and the Pakistani Taliban, a strategy the spy agency has applied in the past to its political opponents, such as the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The outcome of such an approach in Pakistan tends to be more divisions and greater instability, with quite considerable negative externalities: While splintering reduces militant groups' coherence and unity of command and purpose, the end result is often more deadly violence or the emergence of increasingly nihilistic groups.
Now, LeJ-A has apparently reared its ugly head in Afghanistan for the first time. Though the brutal attacks on Shiite civilians were shocking, it is not clear that they are a harbinger of things to come. The LeJ-A attack could prove to be an isolated phenomenon in Afghanistan. After all, the group is small and lacks the capacity to conduct a sustained campaign even at home in Pakistan.
What’s more, there is no indication of an emerging sectarian war in Afghanistan. After the attack, enraged Afghan Shiites in Kabul chanted slogans denouncing Pakistan and the United States, not their fellow Afghan Sunnis -- that is, they expressed their anger in the form of Afghan nationalism, not sectarianism. Even the Afghan Taliban, which mercilessly killed Hazara Shiites in the 1990s, unequivocally condemned Tuesday’s attacks, although LeJ-A, if its claims of responsibility are true, might have received support from insubordinate or rogue elements of the Afghan Taliban.
Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan does face a clear and present danger from sectarian violence. LeJ and its offshoots are engaged in a systematic campaign of slaughtering Shiites -- particularly ethnic Hazaras -- and other religious minorities in Pakistan. This year, 179 people have been killed in sectarian violence in the country.
Pakistan has no coherent national-level counterradicalization program. Its military-intelligence establishment spearheaded a bold counterradicalization program in the Swat area, home to a bloody but successful counterinsurgency operation launched in 2009. But elsewhere in the country, the Pakistani establishment supports militants who fight in Afghanistan and India, and there remains a risk that these groups will set their sights on Pakistani targets in the future, just as former jihadist assets of the ISI are now doing.
To make matters worse, the Pakistani state lacks the judicial muscle to prosecute terrorists. In 2010, 75 percent of those prosecuted in Pakistani anti-terrorism courts were acquitted. Earlier this fall, Pakistan’s so-called troika -- the prime minister, president and army chief -- resolved to bolster the courts.
But until Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership produce a comprehensive national security policy that provides for a coherent transition away from the use of jihadists as proxies, no number of additional judicial agents will be able to halt the wave of instability and violence that Pakistan’s military has been intent on pushing outward for at least the past four years.
Arif Rafiq is president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, which provides strategic guidance on Middle East and South Asian political and security issues. He writes at the Pakistan Policy Blog and tweets at @pakistanpolicy.
World Politics Review
BRIEFING
Last Tuesday’s deadly attacks on Shiite processions in Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan are further evidence of dangerous instability in neighboring Pakistan and of the Pakistani state’s failure to act coherently to counteract it. A clear understanding of the group responsible is important to understanding the crossborder ramifications of the attacks.
Contrary to reports in prominent news outlets, the Pakistani Sunni sectarian terrorist group Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) was not responsible for the attacks. Rather, an LeJ splinter group known as Lashkar-e Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJ-A) -- not the original LeJ organization -- has claimed responsibility for them. A person claiming to be an LeJ-A spokesman made the announcement in communication with a number of news outlets, including BBC Urdu and Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
LeJ-A has claimed responsibility for a small number of very deadly attacks in Pakistan since 2009. These include attacks on Shiite Muslims in Kohat in 2009 and 2010: a September 2009 attack on a market in a predominantly Shiite area that killed 33 people, and an April 2010 attack on internally displaced Shiites that killed 44 and injured 70. In addition, multiple attacks on a Shiite procession in Lahore in September 2010 killed 29 civilians and injured 243.
The original LeJ was founded in 1996 by dissident members of a third group, Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), who felt that the SSP was not militant enough. Prior to being banned in 2003, the SSP was a registered political party, though in practice it was an anti-Shiite terrorist group. The SSP continues to maintain an unofficial though highly visible role in politics, actively using its swing voters to tilt hotly contested races, while at the same time feeding Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal areas with non-Pashtun militants.
LeJ, on the other hand, rejects involvement in formal politics. It has a long record of terrorist violence against Pakistani Shiites and even the Pakistani government. In recent years, the group has also been involved in attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team. But LeJ-A split from LeJ -- mirroring the LeJ’s previous split from SSP -- on the grounds that LeJ was insufficiently extremist. Despite their common history, LeJ and LeJ-A are now two distinct organizations. In fact, LeJ-A is only one of many LeJ splinter groups -- all of which are more rapacious and less controllable than the original group, and all of which also have short half-lives.
The trend toward fragmentation reflects an increasingly messy jihadist landscape in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The Pakistani Taliban, the major umbrella organization for Pashtun jihadist groups in the tribal areas and the nearby settled areas, is splintering, due in part to efforts by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to stoke divisions within the fragile network.
The ISI is applying a policy of divide and rule toward both LeJ and the Pakistani Taliban, a strategy the spy agency has applied in the past to its political opponents, such as the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The outcome of such an approach in Pakistan tends to be more divisions and greater instability, with quite considerable negative externalities: While splintering reduces militant groups' coherence and unity of command and purpose, the end result is often more deadly violence or the emergence of increasingly nihilistic groups.
Now, LeJ-A has apparently reared its ugly head in Afghanistan for the first time. Though the brutal attacks on Shiite civilians were shocking, it is not clear that they are a harbinger of things to come. The LeJ-A attack could prove to be an isolated phenomenon in Afghanistan. After all, the group is small and lacks the capacity to conduct a sustained campaign even at home in Pakistan.
What’s more, there is no indication of an emerging sectarian war in Afghanistan. After the attack, enraged Afghan Shiites in Kabul chanted slogans denouncing Pakistan and the United States, not their fellow Afghan Sunnis -- that is, they expressed their anger in the form of Afghan nationalism, not sectarianism. Even the Afghan Taliban, which mercilessly killed Hazara Shiites in the 1990s, unequivocally condemned Tuesday’s attacks, although LeJ-A, if its claims of responsibility are true, might have received support from insubordinate or rogue elements of the Afghan Taliban.
Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan does face a clear and present danger from sectarian violence. LeJ and its offshoots are engaged in a systematic campaign of slaughtering Shiites -- particularly ethnic Hazaras -- and other religious minorities in Pakistan. This year, 179 people have been killed in sectarian violence in the country.
Pakistan has no coherent national-level counterradicalization program. Its military-intelligence establishment spearheaded a bold counterradicalization program in the Swat area, home to a bloody but successful counterinsurgency operation launched in 2009. But elsewhere in the country, the Pakistani establishment supports militants who fight in Afghanistan and India, and there remains a risk that these groups will set their sights on Pakistani targets in the future, just as former jihadist assets of the ISI are now doing.
To make matters worse, the Pakistani state lacks the judicial muscle to prosecute terrorists. In 2010, 75 percent of those prosecuted in Pakistani anti-terrorism courts were acquitted. Earlier this fall, Pakistan’s so-called troika -- the prime minister, president and army chief -- resolved to bolster the courts.
But until Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership produce a comprehensive national security policy that provides for a coherent transition away from the use of jihadists as proxies, no number of additional judicial agents will be able to halt the wave of instability and violence that Pakistan’s military has been intent on pushing outward for at least the past four years.
Arif Rafiq is president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, which provides strategic guidance on Middle East and South Asian political and security issues. He writes at the Pakistan Policy Blog and tweets at @pakistanpolicy.
World Politics Review
Sunday, December 11, 2011
SAIL asks Rs 45K cr interest-free loans to develop Hajigak mines
Priyadarshi Siddhanta
Posted: Mon Dec 12 2011, 00:08 hrs
New Delhi:
A consortium led by state-owned steel giant SAIL has suddenly turned around and demanded that the government provide interest-free loans to the tune of Rs 45,000 crore to develop the prized Hajigak mines in Afghanistan and build a steel plant. The Afghan government had recently awarded the seven member consortium B, C and D blocks of the Hajigak mines in the Bamiyan province, located about 130 km west of Kabul. The three blocks together have reserves of 1.28 billion tonne.
Winning the bid has enabled the consortium called AFISCO (Afghan Iron & Steel Consortium) to commence formal negotiations with the Hamid Karzai government following which it would be granted licence for mineral concessions for Hajigak. The syndicate has also offered to set up a 6 MT steel plant adjacent to the mines and build the entire evacuation infrastructure and a 200 km of railroad network till the Iranian border city of Zahedan.
Indian Express
Posted: Mon Dec 12 2011, 00:08 hrs
New Delhi:
A consortium led by state-owned steel giant SAIL has suddenly turned around and demanded that the government provide interest-free loans to the tune of Rs 45,000 crore to develop the prized Hajigak mines in Afghanistan and build a steel plant. The Afghan government had recently awarded the seven member consortium B, C and D blocks of the Hajigak mines in the Bamiyan province, located about 130 km west of Kabul. The three blocks together have reserves of 1.28 billion tonne.
Winning the bid has enabled the consortium called AFISCO (Afghan Iron & Steel Consortium) to commence formal negotiations with the Hamid Karzai government following which it would be granted licence for mineral concessions for Hajigak. The syndicate has also offered to set up a 6 MT steel plant adjacent to the mines and build the entire evacuation infrastructure and a 200 km of railroad network till the Iranian border city of Zahedan.
Indian Express
Further darkening of the horizon
Continued violence in Afghanistan seems to queer the pitch for US-Pakistan relations even as the Bonn conference fails to offer any potent solution
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Special to Gulf News
This was to be the season of hope in and around Afghanistan, but what we have instead is a further darkening of the horizon. Relations between Pakistan and the United States remain severely strained. The long awaited Bonn Conference has not even remotely lived up to its promise. No less ominously, violence in Afghanistan suddenly wore a new garb on the Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram.
It is probably an index of personal shock that I turn to the third factor first. Having lived in Kabul for four years and followed events in Afghanistan professionally for the last three decades, I am all too aware of ethnic and other divisions in the diversely constituted Afghan society, but sectarian violence was never a significant fault line.
In the social hierarchy, perpetuated by the Durrani state created by Ahmad Shah Abd Ali in the mid-18th century, social groups such as the Hazaras, who practice Shiite Islam, got relegated to a lower order only on ethnic and linguistic grounds. The American military intervention in 2001 reversed this trend as it dispossessed the predominantly Pashtun tribes of power and upgraded other ethnic groups. The backlash and resistance from Pashtun Taliban, however, articulated itself in political terrorism and not sectarian violence.
It has been a battle of turf and not of sects during the last decade. Unlike Iraq, where mysterious forces transformed the post-Baathist conflict into deadly sectarian combat, the Taliban fought the US, Nato and the Karzai government in the name of Islam and national sovereignty. They were quick to dissociate themselves from the most extraordinary attacks on Shiite gatherings in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar that left 59 dead this Ashura.
Article continues below
Pakistan has faced a similar phenomenon in recent years though the government mounted a huge security operation this year and ensured total peace for the large, emotionally charged, Muharram processions.
Unsubstantiated claim
Unable to provide any other explanation, President Hamid Karzai made an unsubstantiated claim that the unprecedented sectarian violence in Afghanistan was the work of a banned extremist Sunni organisation rooted in the Punjab province of Pakistan. He offered no explanation how this outfit could operate as far away from Pakistan as Mazar-e-Sharif.
Pakistani analysts stopped taking Karzai's allegations seriously some time ago, but remain deeply preoccupied with the possibility that an invisible hand is stoking a sectarian fire now in Afghanistan. There was the carnage in Iraq. Pakistan itself was rocked by sectarian tensions despite a long history of Shiite-Sunni harmony. Iran produced evidence that a small militant Sunni group, Jundullah, was using Pakistani soil to launch murderous attacks in Iran at the behest of CIA.
Western think tanks regularly underline the supposed fragility of the oil-bearing eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia because of their Shiite population.
Last but not the least, the current Syrian harshness is being increasingly portrayed as rooted in a sectarian Alawite vs Sunni contest for power. It seems the region will hear a lot more of the so-called Shiite-Sunni "contradiction" in the months ahead.
Despite a decade that separated it from the earlier path-breaking Bonn 1, the Bonn Conference of December 5 (Bonn2) ended with an impressive communique, but little measurable progress towards reconciliation and reconstruction.
Not enough progress
Not enough, if any, progress had been made in contacts with the Taliban to seat them amongst the 90 states and 15 international organisations.
Reeling under a lethal Nato Special Forces attack that obliterated a Pakistani check post near the Afghan border, an attack noted for its duration and precise targeting of all the 49 Pakistani soldiers — Pakistan had stayed away from Bonn 2. In its simplest formulation, the conference looked stalemated between the American doctrine of "fight, talk and build" and the rest of the world, including the otherwise absent Pakistan and most of the European powers, veering round to a new approach described as "talk, talk and talk" after a futile 10-year old military campaign. Pakistan is still maintaining a stoppage of Nato supplies imposed after the destruction of its Salala check post.
Efforts are afoot to de-escalate tensions between Islamabad and Washington, but are regularly endangered by Washington peppering up peaceful overtures with gratuitous threats.
Meanwhile, issues between the two so-called allies have unleashed undercurrents that endanger the stability of Pakistan's elected government. An act as natural as President Asif Ali Zardari seeking medical treatment in the tranquillity of Dubai has let loose a storm of rumours, each darker than the other.
But of that, another day, another column.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary and ambassador of Pakistan. He is currently the chairman and director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.
Gulf News
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Special to Gulf News
This was to be the season of hope in and around Afghanistan, but what we have instead is a further darkening of the horizon. Relations between Pakistan and the United States remain severely strained. The long awaited Bonn Conference has not even remotely lived up to its promise. No less ominously, violence in Afghanistan suddenly wore a new garb on the Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram.
It is probably an index of personal shock that I turn to the third factor first. Having lived in Kabul for four years and followed events in Afghanistan professionally for the last three decades, I am all too aware of ethnic and other divisions in the diversely constituted Afghan society, but sectarian violence was never a significant fault line.
In the social hierarchy, perpetuated by the Durrani state created by Ahmad Shah Abd Ali in the mid-18th century, social groups such as the Hazaras, who practice Shiite Islam, got relegated to a lower order only on ethnic and linguistic grounds. The American military intervention in 2001 reversed this trend as it dispossessed the predominantly Pashtun tribes of power and upgraded other ethnic groups. The backlash and resistance from Pashtun Taliban, however, articulated itself in political terrorism and not sectarian violence.
It has been a battle of turf and not of sects during the last decade. Unlike Iraq, where mysterious forces transformed the post-Baathist conflict into deadly sectarian combat, the Taliban fought the US, Nato and the Karzai government in the name of Islam and national sovereignty. They were quick to dissociate themselves from the most extraordinary attacks on Shiite gatherings in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar that left 59 dead this Ashura.
Article continues below
Pakistan has faced a similar phenomenon in recent years though the government mounted a huge security operation this year and ensured total peace for the large, emotionally charged, Muharram processions.
Unsubstantiated claim
Unable to provide any other explanation, President Hamid Karzai made an unsubstantiated claim that the unprecedented sectarian violence in Afghanistan was the work of a banned extremist Sunni organisation rooted in the Punjab province of Pakistan. He offered no explanation how this outfit could operate as far away from Pakistan as Mazar-e-Sharif.
Pakistani analysts stopped taking Karzai's allegations seriously some time ago, but remain deeply preoccupied with the possibility that an invisible hand is stoking a sectarian fire now in Afghanistan. There was the carnage in Iraq. Pakistan itself was rocked by sectarian tensions despite a long history of Shiite-Sunni harmony. Iran produced evidence that a small militant Sunni group, Jundullah, was using Pakistani soil to launch murderous attacks in Iran at the behest of CIA.
Western think tanks regularly underline the supposed fragility of the oil-bearing eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia because of their Shiite population.
Last but not the least, the current Syrian harshness is being increasingly portrayed as rooted in a sectarian Alawite vs Sunni contest for power. It seems the region will hear a lot more of the so-called Shiite-Sunni "contradiction" in the months ahead.
Despite a decade that separated it from the earlier path-breaking Bonn 1, the Bonn Conference of December 5 (Bonn2) ended with an impressive communique, but little measurable progress towards reconciliation and reconstruction.
Not enough progress
Not enough, if any, progress had been made in contacts with the Taliban to seat them amongst the 90 states and 15 international organisations.
Reeling under a lethal Nato Special Forces attack that obliterated a Pakistani check post near the Afghan border, an attack noted for its duration and precise targeting of all the 49 Pakistani soldiers — Pakistan had stayed away from Bonn 2. In its simplest formulation, the conference looked stalemated between the American doctrine of "fight, talk and build" and the rest of the world, including the otherwise absent Pakistan and most of the European powers, veering round to a new approach described as "talk, talk and talk" after a futile 10-year old military campaign. Pakistan is still maintaining a stoppage of Nato supplies imposed after the destruction of its Salala check post.
Efforts are afoot to de-escalate tensions between Islamabad and Washington, but are regularly endangered by Washington peppering up peaceful overtures with gratuitous threats.
Meanwhile, issues between the two so-called allies have unleashed undercurrents that endanger the stability of Pakistan's elected government. An act as natural as President Asif Ali Zardari seeking medical treatment in the tranquillity of Dubai has let loose a storm of rumours, each darker than the other.
But of that, another day, another column.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary and ambassador of Pakistan. He is currently the chairman and director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.
Gulf News
(AFP) Death toll from Afghan holy day bombs reaches 80
KABUL — Afghanistan said Sunday the death toll from bombings targeting the Shiite Muslim holy day of Ashura, which raised fears the nation could face an eruption of sectarian violence, has climbed to 80....Continue Reading......
Sesame Street: Can it save Afghanistan?
Sesame Street brings its message of tolerance and hope to a war-torn nation.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The team that was crowded into a slightly down-at-heel office in central Kabul could not look more ordinary. There was Zubaid, a young man in a sweater with a knitted cap pulled low over his head, Ali, in a suit, tall with cropped hair; Ferishta, in a typical long black coat-dress and blue headscarf. They and the others in the room were a bit shy, smiling politely.
But put them in a sound studio and they are transformed: this is the uniquely talented crew that is now bringing the characters of Sesame Street to life for thousands, perhaps millions, of Afghan children.
Supported by a grant from the US Embassy in Kabul, the Kaboora production house has worked for the past 10 months to make Shahpar and Kachkool — Big Bird and Grover, to most — household names in Afghanistan.
The show premiered just one week ago, and has attracted a lot of attention in a country starved for some good news for a change.
According one Kabul parent, whose 3-year-old is a finicky eater, Sesame Street has already proved a boon.
“Once he saw the characters, our little Hamsa sat right down and ate his cereal,” laughed Inayat.
Others were similarly impressed.
“My 5-year-old nephew was stuck to the television until the end of the show,” said Fazel Oria, a Kabul resident. “I did not feel it was a foreign show at all.”
The style might take some getting used to, though.
“I did not think it was attractive,” said Huzzein Hazara, a Kabul resident who watched the show with his daughters. “While it was on my daughters were asking me to find Tom and Jerry.”
Tania Farzana, the Afghan-American executive producer of the show, is hoping that Sesame Street will do more than make children behave. She has set herself the mission of bringing a new vision to a generation that has known nothing but war.
More from GlobalPost: Spa Kabul: In search of respite in a war zone
“I was the luckiest child in the world,” said Farzana, who was born in Kabul in the 1970s, before leaving for the United States at the age of nine. “There was so much comfort and warmth, a sense of security. Children now cannot even imagine a Kabul like that.”
Coming back after close to 30 years was a shock.
“The first three months broke my heart,” she confessed. “Nothing was the way I remembered it.”
Farzana recalls a Kabul where her mother rode a bike to university, where women were free to do what they liked.
“My mother never even wore one of these,” she said, flicking at the white headscarf that covered her dark hair.
Through Sesame Street, Farzana wants to give children back a sense of wonder.
“I am hoping we can give them the right to use their imaginations,” she said. “This instills empathy, the ability to identify with others.”
This, in turn, could help to reduce some of the religious, ethnic, and regional divides that exist among Afghans.
The project is an ambitious one. While much of the footage is archival stock straight from New York, giving the Sesame Street Muppets their own Afghan identity has been a challenge.
“We interviewed over 600 applicants for 15 characters,” Farzana said. “The voices had to be dead-on. I wanted them to be perfect.”
It is not just a matter of translating the original dialogue into Dari or Pashto, she added. The language has to be pitched just right for the age group — three to seven — and, in addition, has to have the same number of syllables as the English text, so that the famous Sesame Street mouth flaps will match the new words.
“Our actors have become co-creators in making the dialogues work,” she said.
In addition to the familiar character pieces, though, Farzana is making 26 original films about Afghan life and society, to insert into the half-hour show.
These will cover topics as diverse as the first day of school and kite flying.
The first day of school will feature a little Hazara girl. The choice was not accidental.
“Many people call Hazaras, who are mainly Shia, ‘infidels,’” she said. “We wanted to show that this little girl’s mother blessed her with the Quran as she left the house, just as millions of mothers do every day. We want a Pashtun child in the south, a Tajik or Uzbek child in the north, to watch the film and say ‘that girl is just like me.’”
Farzana’s message is particularly important in the wake of a horrific attack on Shiites in Kabul on Dec. 6, as they marked their holy day of Ashura. More than50 people were killed, and many feared a new round of ethnic or sectarian violence in the country.
Sesame Street, or Bagch-e-Simsim, as it is called here, wants to put those fears to rest.
But as Afghan culture rubs up against Sesame Street rules, sparks begin to fly.
“We had some amazing footage of children flying kites on rooftops,” Farzana said. “This happens all over Afghanistan. But Sesame Street said we could not use it because it was against their safety rules.”
Sesame Street sets great store by teaching children how to protect themselves, and did not want young Afghans encouraged to take up such a dangerous activity.
The compromise: Farzana’s team added a graphic fence to the film.
More problematic is the season’s final show, in which Farzana wants to show a father taking his 6-year-old daughter to Friday prayer. But Sesame Street in New York, with its resolutely secular message, balked.
“I told them this is not about religion,” she said. “It is about community. In Afghanistan, social life revolves around the mosque; you go there to meet old friends and make new ones; you go to feel that you are never alone.”
She got a tentative go-ahead from New York, but then ran into trouble on the Afghan side.
“So many people did not want me to show a father taking his daughter to the mosque. ‘She’s a girl!’ they said. But I answered, ‘she’s a child!’”
The issue is still not resolved, but Farzana, a woman of prodigious energy and enthusiasm, vows that the segment will be shown.
“I will have a film on Friday prayer,” she said firmly.
In the meantime, she is content with the progress she is making. Her team, she points out, has forged strong bonds, overcoming all the obstacles that Afghanistan’s post-war society puts in their way.
“Look at these two,” she said, gesturing at Zubaid and Ali. “One is Pashtun, one is Kizlbash. One speaks Pashto, the other Dari. One is from the north, the other from the south. There is so much that divides them, but they are the best of friends. Yesterday they went horseback riding together.”
Asked if Bagch-e-Simsim had helped them to get past their surface differences, Zubaid answered with a wry smile.
“Yes,” he said. “When we were out there riding, it was Zubaid, Ali, Big Bird and Grover, all together.”
Kabul-based journalist Abdul Qayum Suroush contributed to this report.
Global Post
KABUL, Afghanistan — The team that was crowded into a slightly down-at-heel office in central Kabul could not look more ordinary. There was Zubaid, a young man in a sweater with a knitted cap pulled low over his head, Ali, in a suit, tall with cropped hair; Ferishta, in a typical long black coat-dress and blue headscarf. They and the others in the room were a bit shy, smiling politely.
But put them in a sound studio and they are transformed: this is the uniquely talented crew that is now bringing the characters of Sesame Street to life for thousands, perhaps millions, of Afghan children.
Supported by a grant from the US Embassy in Kabul, the Kaboora production house has worked for the past 10 months to make Shahpar and Kachkool — Big Bird and Grover, to most — household names in Afghanistan.
The show premiered just one week ago, and has attracted a lot of attention in a country starved for some good news for a change.
According one Kabul parent, whose 3-year-old is a finicky eater, Sesame Street has already proved a boon.
“Once he saw the characters, our little Hamsa sat right down and ate his cereal,” laughed Inayat.
Others were similarly impressed.
“My 5-year-old nephew was stuck to the television until the end of the show,” said Fazel Oria, a Kabul resident. “I did not feel it was a foreign show at all.”
The style might take some getting used to, though.
“I did not think it was attractive,” said Huzzein Hazara, a Kabul resident who watched the show with his daughters. “While it was on my daughters were asking me to find Tom and Jerry.”
Tania Farzana, the Afghan-American executive producer of the show, is hoping that Sesame Street will do more than make children behave. She has set herself the mission of bringing a new vision to a generation that has known nothing but war.
More from GlobalPost: Spa Kabul: In search of respite in a war zone
“I was the luckiest child in the world,” said Farzana, who was born in Kabul in the 1970s, before leaving for the United States at the age of nine. “There was so much comfort and warmth, a sense of security. Children now cannot even imagine a Kabul like that.”
Coming back after close to 30 years was a shock.
“The first three months broke my heart,” she confessed. “Nothing was the way I remembered it.”
Farzana recalls a Kabul where her mother rode a bike to university, where women were free to do what they liked.
“My mother never even wore one of these,” she said, flicking at the white headscarf that covered her dark hair.
Through Sesame Street, Farzana wants to give children back a sense of wonder.
“I am hoping we can give them the right to use their imaginations,” she said. “This instills empathy, the ability to identify with others.”
This, in turn, could help to reduce some of the religious, ethnic, and regional divides that exist among Afghans.
The project is an ambitious one. While much of the footage is archival stock straight from New York, giving the Sesame Street Muppets their own Afghan identity has been a challenge.
“We interviewed over 600 applicants for 15 characters,” Farzana said. “The voices had to be dead-on. I wanted them to be perfect.”
It is not just a matter of translating the original dialogue into Dari or Pashto, she added. The language has to be pitched just right for the age group — three to seven — and, in addition, has to have the same number of syllables as the English text, so that the famous Sesame Street mouth flaps will match the new words.
“Our actors have become co-creators in making the dialogues work,” she said.
In addition to the familiar character pieces, though, Farzana is making 26 original films about Afghan life and society, to insert into the half-hour show.
These will cover topics as diverse as the first day of school and kite flying.
The first day of school will feature a little Hazara girl. The choice was not accidental.
“Many people call Hazaras, who are mainly Shia, ‘infidels,’” she said. “We wanted to show that this little girl’s mother blessed her with the Quran as she left the house, just as millions of mothers do every day. We want a Pashtun child in the south, a Tajik or Uzbek child in the north, to watch the film and say ‘that girl is just like me.’”
Farzana’s message is particularly important in the wake of a horrific attack on Shiites in Kabul on Dec. 6, as they marked their holy day of Ashura. More than50 people were killed, and many feared a new round of ethnic or sectarian violence in the country.
Sesame Street, or Bagch-e-Simsim, as it is called here, wants to put those fears to rest.
But as Afghan culture rubs up against Sesame Street rules, sparks begin to fly.
“We had some amazing footage of children flying kites on rooftops,” Farzana said. “This happens all over Afghanistan. But Sesame Street said we could not use it because it was against their safety rules.”
Sesame Street sets great store by teaching children how to protect themselves, and did not want young Afghans encouraged to take up such a dangerous activity.
The compromise: Farzana’s team added a graphic fence to the film.
More problematic is the season’s final show, in which Farzana wants to show a father taking his 6-year-old daughter to Friday prayer. But Sesame Street in New York, with its resolutely secular message, balked.
“I told them this is not about religion,” she said. “It is about community. In Afghanistan, social life revolves around the mosque; you go there to meet old friends and make new ones; you go to feel that you are never alone.”
She got a tentative go-ahead from New York, but then ran into trouble on the Afghan side.
“So many people did not want me to show a father taking his daughter to the mosque. ‘She’s a girl!’ they said. But I answered, ‘she’s a child!’”
The issue is still not resolved, but Farzana, a woman of prodigious energy and enthusiasm, vows that the segment will be shown.
“I will have a film on Friday prayer,” she said firmly.
In the meantime, she is content with the progress she is making. Her team, she points out, has forged strong bonds, overcoming all the obstacles that Afghanistan’s post-war society puts in their way.
“Look at these two,” she said, gesturing at Zubaid and Ali. “One is Pashtun, one is Kizlbash. One speaks Pashto, the other Dari. One is from the north, the other from the south. There is so much that divides them, but they are the best of friends. Yesterday they went horseback riding together.”
Asked if Bagch-e-Simsim had helped them to get past their surface differences, Zubaid answered with a wry smile.
“Yes,” he said. “When we were out there riding, it was Zubaid, Ali, Big Bird and Grover, all together.”
Kabul-based journalist Abdul Qayum Suroush contributed to this report.
Global Post
Saturday, December 10, 2011
(BBC) New Afghan group claims shrine attack part of campaign
Tuesday's bombing of a Kabul shrine was part of a campaign to target Shia Muslims in Afghanistan, a man claiming to lead a new Afghan group says.
The man, who gave his name as Ali Sher-e-Khuda, told the BBC his group was inspired by Pakistan's Sunni militant Lashkar-e-Jhangvi organisation.
He said the group had not officially sanctioned the Kabul attack, but did not deny his men carried it out.
It has raised fears of a wave of new sectarian violence in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials say the attack was the work of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, but they have cast doubt there is a new Afghan group active in the country with formal links to it.
The killing of at least 71 Shia worshippers earlier this week was the first significant sectarian attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
Despite suffering years of violence, the country has not seen the attacks between Sunni and Shia Muslims that have been common in Pakistan and Iraq.
'Fighting discrimination'
Ali Sher-e-Khuda spoke to the BBC's Shoaib Hasan at a secret location in the Pakistani border province of Balochistan.
He said his group - which he called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Afghanistan - is relatively new and operated on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border.
He said the organisation was made up of Afghans who are targeting Afghanistan's Shia minority.
I know all about Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. I am totally unaware of any Afghan affiliate. I personally doubt very much that there is such a thing”
Ryan Crocker
US ambassador to Afghanistan
"I was born in Nimroz and am of Afghan Pashtun origin," he said.
"[I] set up the organisation with other like-minded young men from Afghanistan. Most of them hail from the provinces around Bamiyan - especially Wardak and Ghazni provinces," he said.
Mr Sher-e-Khuda said Tuesday's bombing was about fighting discrimination by "Afghanistan's ruling Shia elite".
When challenged on the tactic of murdering dozens of innocent worshippers, the militant leader argued it was the only way to counter what he described as "criminal behaviour" by Shias - such as displaying Shia banners in Sunni areas.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and others believe the attack was mounted by one the established militant groups based inside Pakistan.
"Our information and sources show that the Kabul attack was carried out by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi," Afghan intelligence agency spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.
Our correspondent says Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is one of Pakistan's deadliest militant groups. As well as being blamed for the killing of thousands of Shias, it has also been linked to a string of high-profile attacks, including the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl.
Afghan caution
Mr Mashal said that as far as the National Directorate of Security was concerned, there was no such group as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Afghanistan.
He said the claim was a tactic by Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to create sectarian tensions as the shrine attack had failed in its goal "to create a rift between Sunnis and Shias" in Afghanistan.
The US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said it was not clear who carried out the attack.
"I served in Pakistan for three years, I know all about Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. I am totally unaware of any Afghan affiliate," he said. "I personally doubt very much that there is such a thing."
BBC
Danger in spread of sectarian conflict
The conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria have taken a turn for the worse, with developments that are likely to go far beyond those countries.
Today new Defence Secretary Philip Hammond delivers his first major speech - about how Britain intends to prepare its forces for security at home and abroad. Already there is talk of moving on from success in Libya to other hot spots....Continue Reading.......
Today new Defence Secretary Philip Hammond delivers his first major speech - about how Britain intends to prepare its forces for security at home and abroad. Already there is talk of moving on from success in Libya to other hot spots....Continue Reading.......
U.S. ambassador: Kabul attack won’t spawn sectarian violence in Afghanistan
KABUL — The U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan said Saturday that the United States has virtually no information about the motive or culprit behind a rare suicide bombing that killed scores of Shiite worshipers earlier in the week, but he asserted that it was unlikely to spawn sectarian violence.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker said he was skeptical of reports that a hard-line Pakistani militant group that has claimed it carried out Tuesday’s attack has a nascent Afghan offshoot. The prospect has worried Afghans, who fear it could change the dynamics of the Afghan war by exacerbating ethnic and sectarian tensions....Continue Reading...
Ambassador Ryan Crocker said he was skeptical of reports that a hard-line Pakistani militant group that has claimed it carried out Tuesday’s attack has a nascent Afghan offshoot. The prospect has worried Afghans, who fear it could change the dynamics of the Afghan war by exacerbating ethnic and sectarian tensions....Continue Reading...
Friday, December 9, 2011
(AfPak Channel) Amidst war, an Afghan renaissance
We often see the arts as only fit for museums, galleries, and film festivals, cloistered in halls only for the intellectual elite. But the arts can help build a nation, or in the case of Afghanistan, are rebuilding a nation, employing its people, and recalling a history forgotten in recent decades of continuous conflict. And a small group of social scientists, architects, and entrepreneurs are using culture as a vehicle to restore Afghanistan, challenging the convention that the arts are only for aesthetics....Continue Reading...
(Time Magazine) Three Days in Afghanistan: The Making of a War Reporter
War is strange. It can change your life, for good or bad or both, with the speed and ferocity of little else. In the space of a couple days in October, I ticked off two boxes I had in my head, things I needed to be checked to prove to myself that I was a bona fide war reporter. Then came a third day, just this week, that shook the certainties of the first two profoundly. ...Continue Reading....
Kabul attack: Did ISI exact revenge on Afghanistan in the aftermath of Mohmand?
A number of well coordinated attacks clearly targeting Shia Muslims in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar have killed at least 58 Shias in Afghanistan. A Pakistani anti-Shia group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has accepted the responsibility of the attacks. (Source)
A spokesman for an Pakistani extremist group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al Almi claimed responsibility in a phone call to Radio Mashaal – a Pashto language radio station. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, (LeJ) is a murderous anti-Shia group founded which acts act as surrogate for Taliban and al-Qaida. The Pakistani Taliban has its roots in anti-Shia violence, and LeJ acted as the training ground for its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud. LeJ maintained training camps in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime but has not mounted attacks in Afghanistan in recent years. The group is believed to be supported by Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI. The group also claimed responsibility for the massacre of 29 Shia pilgrims on a bus in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province in September, and an attack on an Ashura procession in Karachi in 2009 which killed 30 people. Earlier this year, the Pakistani courts freed Malik Ishaq, one of LeJ’s founders. Ishaq had faced dozens of murder charges but the courts said there was lack of evidence – his group had allegedly killed numerous witnesses who may have testified against him. (Source)...Continue Reading......
A spokesman for an Pakistani extremist group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al Almi claimed responsibility in a phone call to Radio Mashaal – a Pashto language radio station. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, (LeJ) is a murderous anti-Shia group founded which acts act as surrogate for Taliban and al-Qaida. The Pakistani Taliban has its roots in anti-Shia violence, and LeJ acted as the training ground for its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud. LeJ maintained training camps in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime but has not mounted attacks in Afghanistan in recent years. The group is believed to be supported by Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI. The group also claimed responsibility for the massacre of 29 Shia pilgrims on a bus in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province in September, and an attack on an Ashura procession in Karachi in 2009 which killed 30 people. Earlier this year, the Pakistani courts freed Malik Ishaq, one of LeJ’s founders. Ishaq had faced dozens of murder charges but the courts said there was lack of evidence – his group had allegedly killed numerous witnesses who may have testified against him. (Source)...Continue Reading......
Family mourns its own after day of prayer that turned fatal
EIGHT relatives from an extended family - three women and five children - were buried on a hillside overlooking Kabul yesterday after being killed in a suicide attack. Nine other relatives were seriously injured, including a three-year-old boy who is in a coma. At least 55 people died, including one American, and 134 people needed hospital treatment after an explosion outside a Shia shrine on Tuesday night as crowds gathered for the holy festival of Ashura...Continue Reading....
Refugee reviewer 'biased'
THE Federal Magistrates Court has ruled that a reviewer who rejected the refugee claims of a large number of Afghan boat arrivals appeared to be biased, taking an ''inflexible and mechanical'' approach to the plight of Hazara ethnic minorities fleeing persecution. Refugee approval rates for Afghan asylum seekers fell in the first three months of 2011, despite the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, as the federal government came under pressure to stem boat arrivals.....Continue Reading...
Asylum bids met 'sausage factory'-style rejections
"Inflexible and mechanical" ... Steve Karas. Photo: Mike Bowers
THE Federal Magistrates Court has ruled that a reviewer who rejected the refugee claims of many Afghan boat arrivals appeared to be biased, taking an ''inflexible and mechanical'' approach to the plight of Hazara ethnic minorities fleeing persecution....Continue Reading...
THE Federal Magistrates Court has ruled that a reviewer who rejected the refugee claims of many Afghan boat arrivals appeared to be biased, taking an ''inflexible and mechanical'' approach to the plight of Hazara ethnic minorities fleeing persecution....Continue Reading...
Thursday, December 8, 2011
(AFP) US urges Pakistan to act after Afghan attacks
WASHINGTON — The United States on Wednesday urged greater action by Pakistan against a Sunni Muslim militant group that Afghanistan blamed for an unprecedented massacre against its Shiite minority. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the banned Pakistani extremist movement Lashkar-i-Jhangvi orchestrated the bloodshed Tuesday on the Shiite holy day of Ashura...Continue Reading...
(Aljazeera) Kabul in grief after Ashoura shrine blast
Kabul, Afghanistan - "In the name of the martyrs of Karbala," repeats an elderly woman with each step she takes, moving from one fresh grave to the next. Under her black shawl of grief, she crouches, cups her hands in prayer, and looks to the sky. Then she touches the gravestone and moves on to the next. More than a dozen victims of Tuesday's blast in the Abul ul-Fazl shrine have been buried in the Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery, overlooking the west of Kabul. Red and green flags wave over their graves...Continue Reading....
The Afghans bury their dead
Posted December 08, 2011 13:58:00
Hundreds of people have joined funeral processions for some of the more than 50 people killed in this week's suicide bomb blast at a Shia Muslim shrine in Kabul. The sectarian attack was the deadliest in the Afghan capital for three years, and shocked many across the country. The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has accused members of the Pakistan-based Sunni terrorist group, Lashkar e JHangvi, of carrying out the bombing....Listen Radio Report...
Hundreds of people have joined funeral processions for some of the more than 50 people killed in this week's suicide bomb blast at a Shia Muslim shrine in Kabul. The sectarian attack was the deadliest in the Afghan capital for three years, and shocked many across the country. The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has accused members of the Pakistan-based Sunni terrorist group, Lashkar e JHangvi, of carrying out the bombing....Listen Radio Report...
(BBC) Is Pakistan intelligence implicated in Afghanistan bombings?
One of the main theories being investigated by western forces in Afghanistan is that Tuesday's bombing aimed at Shia targets, which killed 58 people, was carried out by the Haqqani network.
If this is true, it would point the finger at Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, which has nurtured a long relationship with this Afghan group, and has been publicly accused by the US of using it to orchestrate terrorist attacks in Kabul....Continue Reading.....
If this is true, it would point the finger at Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, which has nurtured a long relationship with this Afghan group, and has been publicly accused by the US of using it to orchestrate terrorist attacks in Kabul....Continue Reading.....
Afghan Women Remind World Leaders: Don't Forget Us
Dec 6, 2011 4:45 AM EST
Afghanistan’s president has asked for international aid until 2030—well past the 2014 date on which American troops are scheduled to exit. What does it mean for women?
A decade ago, the Bonn conference in Germany heralded the international community’s entrance into Afghanistan at a time of optimism that much could be done to better the war-scarred country’s fortunes. On Monday, nearly 1,000 delegates from more than 80 nations returned to Bonn to chart a much quieter exit, with U.S. and international troops scheduled to leave in 2014....Continue Reading...
Afghanistan’s president has asked for international aid until 2030—well past the 2014 date on which American troops are scheduled to exit. What does it mean for women?
A decade ago, the Bonn conference in Germany heralded the international community’s entrance into Afghanistan at a time of optimism that much could be done to better the war-scarred country’s fortunes. On Monday, nearly 1,000 delegates from more than 80 nations returned to Bonn to chart a much quieter exit, with U.S. and international troops scheduled to leave in 2014....Continue Reading...
Pakistan's sectarian murderers in Afghan spotlight
Thursday, Dec 08, 2011
ISLAMABAD - Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, the Pakistani terror group blamed for deadly attacks on Shiites in Afghanistan this week, has forged ties to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in a murderous campaign to wage sectarian warfare.
Since its inception in 1996 by a religious fanatic from the Deobandi school of thought, which considers Shiite Muslims apostates, the faction has claimed to have killed thousands of Shiites in bombings and shootings across Pakistan.
It takes its name from Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the founder of terror group Sipah-e-Sahaba from which leader Riaz Basra broke, and preaches indiscriminate violence to make Pakistan a purely Sunni Muslim state.
A suicide attack tore through a crowd of worshippers in Kabul on Tuesday as they marked the holy day of Ashura, killing 55 people, as a second blast in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif left four more dead.
There has been no confirmation of a purported claim from Lashkar-i-Jhangvi splinter al-Alami, but Kabul blamed the group for Tuesday's massacre, unprecedented in targeting such an important religious holiday in Afghanistan.
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is not thought to have struck in Afghanistan before.
"We will pursue this issue with Pakistan and its government very seriously," said Afghan President Hamid Karzai, threatening to ratchet up tensions with Islamabad which are already frayed over accusations of sponsoring violence.
Afghan officials say the motive was to inflame a 10-year Taliban insurgency and drastically increase violence by importing Pakistan and Iraq-style sectarian conflict as NATO combat troops prepare to leave by the end of 2014.
A substantial rise in sectarian unrest could also draw arch US foe Iran deeper into Afghanistan, threatening to whip up proxy wars.
The Taliban denied involvement, but in a cauldron of violence where Islamist terror groups are interlinked and have overlapping allegiances, experts say it would have been impossible for Pakistani killers to have acted alone.
As with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamist groups the world over, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi was born from the ashes of the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviet Union, which was sponsored by the CIA, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The group's leaders were veterans of that conflict and its ranks populated by graduates of Pakistani madrassas packed off to terror training camps in the mountains on the Afghan-Pakistani border or in Pakistan's southern Punjab.
It developed close ties to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which ruled in Kabul from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion.
Although there are reported ties with Pakistani intelligence, the state formally banned the group in 2001 and there have been numerous crackdowns with arrests and killings of known Jhangvi operatives over the last 20 years.
Islamabad has asked Afghanistan to provide proof that Jhangvi militants were responsible for Tuesday's attack, but it is understood that Afghan officials do not have any hard evidence.
One official said the bomber was a Pakistani from Kurram, part of Pakistan's militant-infested lawless border region with Afghanistan, and a specific flashpoint for sectarian unrest.
But as long as doubts persist over the al-Alami claim, it remains unclear how exactly the group could have carried out the attack.
"The question is, how credible is the claim? Some Taliban groups can do the same as they share school of thought with LiJ," said Pakistani-based security analyst Hasan Askari.
Militancy expert Rahimullah Yusufzai also doubted the claim, saying that the splinter group's capacity is very limited even in Pakistan, which has seen a recent decline in attacks linked to its own bloody Taliban insurgency.
"There is one possibility that this group may have support of Al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or some of the rogue elements inside Afghanistan," Yusufzai.
Jhangvi's founder Basra has been dead for a number of years. Reports differ on whether he was killed in an explosion or a shootout with security forces.
A senior Pakistani security official said Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and other extremist groups are "hand in glove with the Taliban".
"But they cannot carry out such an attack on their own. This would have surely been a Taliban-connected operation," he told AFP.
"Al-Alami are basically the Punjabi Taliban, who were involved in the attack on (army) GHQ (general headquarters) two years ago," he added.
Asia One News
Sectarian massacre: Kabul says up to Pakistan to investigate LeJ involvement
By AFP / APP
Published: December 8, 2011
Afghans run from an explosion during a religious ceremony in Kabul city center on December 6, 2011. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
KABUL / ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan on Thursday hit back at Pakistan after a shrine bombing killed at least 55 people in Kabul, saying it was up to Islamabad to act after the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) purportedly took responsibility.
Pakistan on Wednesday urged Afghanistan to provide hard evidence to support claims that the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was behind the devastating attack on Shia Muslims after President Hamid Karzai demanded justice.
But in a developing war of words between the neighbours, whose relations are frequently tense, Kabul said Thursday that it was up to Pakistan to investigate without waiting any longer.
“It was the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which claimed responsibility,” Aimal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman, told AFP.
“It’s up to Pakistan to take action and find out where and how the contact was made by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi from inside Pakistan. They shouldn’t wait for us to provide them with evidence.”
Faizi said an Afghan investigation was under way but it is thought officials do not currently have evidence of the group’s involvement.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed militant group which has links to al Qaeda and the Taliban, has been blamed for killing thousands of Shia Muslims and whipping up sectarian hatred in Pakistan.
But there has been no confirmation of a purported claim of responsibility for the Kabul attacks from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi splinter group al-Alami.
Pakistan condemns Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul bombings
Pakistan has strongly condemned the terrorist incidents in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.
The Foreign Office spokesman in a statement issued on Thursday said, “We strongly condemn the reprehensible terrorist actions in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif resulting in the loss of over 60 innocent lives.”
The foreign office spokesman said the government and the people of Pakistan were grieved and stood by the brotherly people of Afghanistan.
The Express Tribune
Published: December 8, 2011
KABUL / ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan on Thursday hit back at Pakistan after a shrine bombing killed at least 55 people in Kabul, saying it was up to Islamabad to act after the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) purportedly took responsibility.
Pakistan on Wednesday urged Afghanistan to provide hard evidence to support claims that the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was behind the devastating attack on Shia Muslims after President Hamid Karzai demanded justice.
But in a developing war of words between the neighbours, whose relations are frequently tense, Kabul said Thursday that it was up to Pakistan to investigate without waiting any longer.
“It was the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which claimed responsibility,” Aimal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman, told AFP.
“It’s up to Pakistan to take action and find out where and how the contact was made by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi from inside Pakistan. They shouldn’t wait for us to provide them with evidence.”
Faizi said an Afghan investigation was under way but it is thought officials do not currently have evidence of the group’s involvement.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed militant group which has links to al Qaeda and the Taliban, has been blamed for killing thousands of Shia Muslims and whipping up sectarian hatred in Pakistan.
But there has been no confirmation of a purported claim of responsibility for the Kabul attacks from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi splinter group al-Alami.
Pakistan condemns Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul bombings
Pakistan has strongly condemned the terrorist incidents in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.
The Foreign Office spokesman in a statement issued on Thursday said, “We strongly condemn the reprehensible terrorist actions in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif resulting in the loss of over 60 innocent lives.”
The foreign office spokesman said the government and the people of Pakistan were grieved and stood by the brotherly people of Afghanistan.
The Express Tribune
No support to Kabul if blame game continues: FM Hina
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will contribute towards the Afghan peace process but only on the basis of mutual respect and trust and in an environment free from 'recrimination' and 'blame-games.'
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said this while speaking to the Ambassador of the Federal Republic Germany, Dr. Michael Koch, who called on her at the Foreign Office to brief her about the recently held Bonn Conference on Afghanistan and about its conclusions, the spokesman at the Foreign Office said in a statement....Continue Reading....
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said this while speaking to the Ambassador of the Federal Republic Germany, Dr. Michael Koch, who called on her at the Foreign Office to brief her about the recently held Bonn Conference on Afghanistan and about its conclusions, the spokesman at the Foreign Office said in a statement....Continue Reading....
(Voice of America) Pakistan Calls for Cooperative Relationship with Afghanistan
Posted Thursday, December 8th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Pakistan says it is time to put an end to accusations and move forward in a cooperative relationship with neighboring Afghanistan, after Afghan authorities blamed Pakistan-based militants for a massive suicide attack.
Pakistani foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters Thursday that blaming Pakistan for “unfounded events” creates problems, and Islamabad wants a relationship that is free of recrimination...Continue Reading...
Pakistan says it is time to put an end to accusations and move forward in a cooperative relationship with neighboring Afghanistan, after Afghan authorities blamed Pakistan-based militants for a massive suicide attack.
Pakistani foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters Thursday that blaming Pakistan for “unfounded events” creates problems, and Islamabad wants a relationship that is free of recrimination...Continue Reading...
Afghan bomb blast toll rises to 78 in 24 hours
Published: Thursday, Dec 8, 2011, 13:04 IST
Place: Kabul | Agency: ANI
The death toll in bombings in Afghanistan has risen to 78 in just 24 hours, even as the Karzai Government continues to blame Pakistan for the attacks.
Nineteen civilians, including seven women and five children, were killed in a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province on December 7.
Nobody has claimed responsibility so far for the latest blast, which occurred as civilians were travelling from Lashkar Gah to Sangin district in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
The attack came after 59 people were killed in bombings against Shias in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif on December 6.
Afghanistan has accused Pakistani militants of trying to destabilise Afghanistan by perpetrating sectarian violence in a country, which is already torn apart by a conflict between NATO troops and Taliban insurgents.
The Taliban have denied they were responsible for the blast, The Daily Times reports.
An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi blamed the attack on “the Taliban and their associates”.
An Afghan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bomber belonged to Pakistan’s Kurram District, and was connected to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Lashkar-i-Jhangvi offshoot.
Officials anticipated the Afghan Taliban might have helped Pakistani militants to orchestrate the attacks.
The twin blasts have prompted fears that Afghanistan could witness sectarian violence that has pitched Shia against Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan.
Daily News and Analysis
Place: Kabul | Agency: ANI
The death toll in bombings in Afghanistan has risen to 78 in just 24 hours, even as the Karzai Government continues to blame Pakistan for the attacks.
Nineteen civilians, including seven women and five children, were killed in a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province on December 7.
Nobody has claimed responsibility so far for the latest blast, which occurred as civilians were travelling from Lashkar Gah to Sangin district in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
The attack came after 59 people were killed in bombings against Shias in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif on December 6.
Afghanistan has accused Pakistani militants of trying to destabilise Afghanistan by perpetrating sectarian violence in a country, which is already torn apart by a conflict between NATO troops and Taliban insurgents.
The Taliban have denied they were responsible for the blast, The Daily Times reports.
An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi blamed the attack on “the Taliban and their associates”.
An Afghan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bomber belonged to Pakistan’s Kurram District, and was connected to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Lashkar-i-Jhangvi offshoot.
Officials anticipated the Afghan Taliban might have helped Pakistani militants to orchestrate the attacks.
The twin blasts have prompted fears that Afghanistan could witness sectarian violence that has pitched Shia against Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan.
Daily News and Analysis
Afghan-Pakistan war of words on shrine bomb
KABUL — Afghanistan and Pakistan were locked in a war of words on Thursday over a shrine bombing that killed at least 55 people in Kabul and which the Afghan government blamed on a Pakistani terror group.
Islamabad called for an end to the "blame game" after Kabul demanded action against the group, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, whose purported claim of responsibility for Tuesday's attack has not been confirmed independently....Continue Reading.....
Islamabad called for an end to the "blame game" after Kabul demanded action against the group, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, whose purported claim of responsibility for Tuesday's attack has not been confirmed independently....Continue Reading.....
(Dawn) Lashkar-e-Jhangvi: inciting sectarianism in Afghanistan?
ISLAMABAD: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the terror group blamed for deadly attacks on Shias in Afghanistan this week, has forged ties to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in a murderous campaign to wage sectarian warfare.
Since its inception in 1996 by a religious extremist, the faction has claimed to have killed thousands of Shias in bombings and shootings across Pakistan....Continue Reading...
Since its inception in 1996 by a religious extremist, the faction has claimed to have killed thousands of Shias in bombings and shootings across Pakistan....Continue Reading...
(CNN) Rare Kabul attack: Who did it and why?
(CNN) -- Tuesday's deadly suicide attack targeting Afghan Shia just didn't fit the pattern of what had come before in this troubled country.
The police formed the usual cordon at the attack site -- this time a shrine in Kabul. Sirens pierced the odd moment of eerie silence, but the police chief's face was contorted with fury and confusion, like he'd seen so...Continue Reading....
The police formed the usual cordon at the attack site -- this time a shrine in Kabul. Sirens pierced the odd moment of eerie silence, but the police chief's face was contorted with fury and confusion, like he'd seen so...Continue Reading....
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
(Business Recorder) Pakistan asks Kabul to share blast evidence
Pakistan on Wednesday asked Afghanistan to provide evidence to support accusations that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi killed 55 people in an unprecedented attack on Shiite Muslims in Kabul....Continue Reading.....
(New York Times) Three Afghan Cities, and a Town in Germany
Tuesday was a very bad day in three cities in Afghanistan—Kabul, Kandahar, and Mazar-i-Sharif—with attacks on the country’s Shiite minority that killed dozens of people. Sixty-three died in Kabul alone, at what was meant to be a ceremony to mark the holiday of Ashura. A Times report on the violence noted that a Pakistani group had said that the bombing was its work, adding:...Continue Reading...
(Time Magazine) Bombs Explode in Afghanistan, While Seats Go Empty in Bonn
When Afghan President Hamid Karzai, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with some 100 high-level Afghan and International delegations, met in Bonn for a conference on Afghanistan’s future on Dec. 5, the star-studded (at least in the foreign policy firmament) gathering was made more remarkable for who didn’t show up: Pakistan’s foreign minister and a representative from the Taliban. Considering that those two elements hold the keys to Afghanistan’s long term stability, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Bonn II, held exactly 10 years after the first international conference on the country’s future, would be more fizzle than pop. Early U.S. hopes that Bonn II would unveil a political reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban were scotched in September when the insurgent group demonstrated its intentions with a turban bomb that killed a top peace negotiator. And Pakistan pulled out in a huff last week after NATO forces mistakenly killed 24 soldiers in a cross-border conflagration in November.....Continue Reading....
Karzai says Kabul attack was plotted in Pakistan
KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that the suicide bombing that targeted Shiite Muslim worshipers in Kabul and killed dozens of people was plotted in Pakistan.
Speaking at a hospital where victims of Tuesday’s attack outside a shrine in the Afghan capital were being treated, Karzai said he would demand answers from the Pakistani government about the bombing....Continue Reading...
Speaking at a hospital where victims of Tuesday’s attack outside a shrine in the Afghan capital were being treated, Karzai said he would demand answers from the Pakistani government about the bombing....Continue Reading...
(Bloomberg) Karzai Calls Shrine Bomb ‘Declaration of Enmity’ From Pakistani Terrorists
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the bombing at a Shiite Muslim shrine in Kabul a “declaration of enmity” by a Pakistani extremist group, escalating tensions with the nation’s eastern neighbor.
“The responsibility for this attack hostile to mankind and Islam was claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi based in Pakistan,” Karzai said in a e-mailed statement yesterday. “Afghanistan takes this very seriously” and “we will fully follow up with Pakistan.”...Continue Reading...
“The responsibility for this attack hostile to mankind and Islam was claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi based in Pakistan,” Karzai said in a e-mailed statement yesterday. “Afghanistan takes this very seriously” and “we will fully follow up with Pakistan.”...Continue Reading...
Terrorists can also bestow favors
The twin terrorist strikes on Tuesday on Shi'ite worshipers in the Afghan capital Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-i-Shairf, killing 58 people, are an extraordinary event. Even in the darkest days of violence during the past decade, Afghanistan never descended to sectarian violence.....Continue Reading...
Ex-British ambassador criticises 2014 withdrawal as Karzai accuses terrorist group in Pakistan for attack that killed 59
A former British ambassador to Afghanistan today denounced the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of troops from the country as a further bombing in the country claimed the lives of 19 civilians.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, ambassador from 2007 to 2009, said the move was 'worse than questionable, it's disgraceful' if it was not accompanied by a determined peace process...Continue Reading...
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, ambassador from 2007 to 2009, said the move was 'worse than questionable, it's disgraceful' if it was not accompanied by a determined peace process...Continue Reading...
(Radio Free Europe) Pakistani Extremist Group In Focus After Unprecedented Attack On Afghan Shi'a
As Afghanistan recovers from a deadly and unprecedented attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Kabul, the finger of blame is pointing directly at a Sunni extremist group with a long history of carrying out such attacks in neighboring Pakistan.....Continue Reading...
(Abbas Daiyar) Kabul attacks: who is behind the suicide bombing?
The sectarian attack in Kabul on Tuesday was first of its kind in Afghanistan. Though the Taliban quickly disowned the attack, it doesn't mean involvement by elements from different Taliban groups can be ruled out. Previously they have committed sectarian-oriented war crimes, such as the Mazar and Yakawlang massacres during their rule in Afghanistan....Continue Reading....
(Aljazeera) Complicating sectarianism in Afghanistan
In the hours following Tuesday’s Ashoura Day attacks on Shia Afghans in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, online and offline discourse quickly turned to talk of a resurgence of sectarian violence based on religious or ethnic lines in Afghanistan.
The Guardian asked if the Kabul attack was "a sectarian or an ethnic atrocity?" The Financial Times said the bombings "raise sectarian strife fears", The Telegraph drew "parallels with Iraq", Foreign Policy called it "rare Afghan anti-Shia violence" and the BBC simply asked "Why have Afghanistan’s Shias been targeted now?"...Continue Reading....
The Guardian asked if the Kabul attack was "a sectarian or an ethnic atrocity?" The Financial Times said the bombings "raise sectarian strife fears", The Telegraph drew "parallels with Iraq", Foreign Policy called it "rare Afghan anti-Shia violence" and the BBC simply asked "Why have Afghanistan’s Shias been targeted now?"...Continue Reading....
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