Thirteen years ago today, the United States launched airstrikes on Afghanistan. It has been America's longest war.
Good afternoon. On my orders the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.
We are joined in this operation by our staunch friend, Great Britain. Other close friends, including Canada, Australia, Germany and France, have pledged forces as the operation unfolds.
More than 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and across Asia have granted air transit or landing rights. Many more have shared intelligence. We are supported by the collective will of the world.
More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps; hand over leaders of the al Qaeda network; and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay a price.
By destroying camps and disrupting communication, we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places. Our military action is also designed to clear the way for sustained, comprehensive and relentless operations to drive them out and bring them to justice.
Presidential Address to the Nation, George W. Bush, October 7, 2001
The day before, Human Rights Watch had warned against United States support of Afghan commanders with poor records on human rights.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that unqualified support--military, political, diplomatic, financial--for this new coalition, which may come to constitute the basis for a future government of Afghanistan, will encourage further abuses. In responding to the crimes against humanity of September 11, the United States should not resort to means that themselves violate basic human rights and humanitarian law standards, or provide assistance to forces that do.
Military Assistance to the Afghan Opposition, Human Rights Watch, October 6, 2001
They singled out by name
Abdul Rashid Dostum,
Muhammad Muhaqqiq, and
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.
Human Rights Watch urged in particular that no cooperation be extended to Abdul Rashid Dostum, the head of the Junbish militia; Haji Muhammad Muhaqqiq, a senior commander of Hizb-i Wahdat; Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, leader of the erstwhile Ittihad-i Islami; and Abdul Malik Pahlawan, a former senior Junbish commander.
Afghanistan: Poor Rights Record of Opposition Commanders, Human Rights Watch, October 7, 2001
Jafar Haand, a Pashto-language broadcaster for Voice of America, highlights a photo of the current Afghan government establishment.
Among the commanders seen in the photo are Abdul Rashid Dostum, Muhammad Muhaqqiq, and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.
Afghanistan lacks money to pay government salaries, and has requested an emergency bailout.
Afghanistan will delay paying salaries to hundreds of thousands of civil servants next month because it does not have enough money, a finance ministry official said on Saturday.
The acknowledgment that it is now impossible to pay October salaries on time highlights the huge challenges facing new leader Asraf Ghani, who is to be sworn in as president of the violence-torn country on Monday after months of turmoil following a disputed election result.
Cash-poor Afghanistan will delay paying civil servants: finance ministry official
In the 13-year relation between the bribers and the bribed, the Special Inspector General for Reconstruction in Afghanistan is
shocked, shocked, to find that the United States lacks a unified anti-corruption strategy.
The costs of the government and army we have created, for a poor country, are now recognized to be unsustainable.
[Special Inspector General] Sopko says in the next few years, the Afghan National Security Forces are going to require a force of 374,000 - at a cost of roughly $5 billion a year. “At these levels, if the Afghan government were to dedicate all of its domestic revenue toward sustaining the Afghan army and police, it still could only pay for about a third of the cost. Moreover, all other costs from paying civil servants to maintaining all roads, schools, hospitals and other non-military infrastructure would also have to come from international donors,” Sopko said. “The bottom line is, it appears we’ve created a government that the Afghans simply cannot afford.”
With Eyes on ISIS, America’s $104B in Afghanistan Is Failing, Fiscal Times
To solve the election crisis, the United States negotiated a power-sharing arrangement in the Afghan government, with a new Chief Executive position for Abdullah Abdullah. The backroom dealing has been called, by the United States, "democracy".
To placate Abdullah, the U.S. dreamt up the position of CEO for him to fill. When this idea was first floated a few weeks ago, Abdullah noted that under the newly drafted job description, the president could terminate the CEO position at any time. Being a wily survivor, Abdullah said “no dice” to the Americans and threatened again to pull out of the process and plunge Afghanistan into civil war.
After more backroom wheeling and dealing — called “statesmanship and compromise” by Kerry — Abdullah now feels that the CEO post will grant him enough security and authority to assuage his ego. The decision was also taken not to release the actual election results.
Just to recap then: What Kerry described as a “democratic transfer of power” and a “peaceful leadership transition” was, in fact, a process in which the actual votes didn’t matter and the constitution was altered to create a CEO post under threat that a candidate would start a war. That is one hell of a spin, even for an American secretary of state.
Afghanistan still ruled by bickering warlords while Taliban eludes defeat, RAWA
Four Afghan Army officers being trained in Italy, have sought refuge in France.
According to reports, at least four Afghan National Army (ANA) officers have vanished from a warfare course in Italy.
The missing officers were among the 20 Afghan army officers attending the course in Val d’Aosta regions and it is believed that the officers have fled to France.
4 Afghan army officers go missing from warfare school in Italy, Khaama Press
Three Afghan Army officers being trained in the United States, had sought refuge in Canada.
The three Afghan soldiers who fled a training exercise on Camp Edwards last month never made it past the famed Rainbow Bridge to Canada. Instead, they are fighting deportation from a US immigration jail in this town surrounded by cornfields and cabbage patches — and on Tuesday, explained for the first time why they disappeared.
To send them back to the Afghan army, they say, would be to give them a death sentence. Family members of two soldiers have reported recent death threats. The men fear that if they return, they could be the victim of a Taliban assassin’s bullet.
Afghan soldiers who fled Cape feared death at home, Boston Globe
Two Afghan police officers being trained in the United States, had sought refuge here.
Two Afghan policemen who were in the United States for drug trafficking training and vanished over the weekend have been found, says the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
AWOL Afghan police officers recovered, CBS
An Australian citizen has been tortured and killed in Afghanistan.
An Australian citizen has been tortured and killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to his family.
Sayed Habib, a 56-year-old who lived in Sydney, was reported as captured by Taliban militants on 20 September as he travelled from Jaghori to Ghazni province in southern Afghanistan.
Negotiations between the Taliban and elders from the local Hazara population led to hopes that Habib would be released.
However, his body was discovered on Tuesday. Local people who found his body said he had been shot three times, once through his neck and twice in the chest, with signs that he had been tortured before he was killed.
Australian man tortured and killed by Taliban in Afghanistan, family says, Guardian
The Australian Government warns against travel in Afghanistan, because of the extremely dangerous situation.
We strongly advise you not to travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack.
If you are in Afghanistan, you should consider leaving.
Afghanistan overall
The Australian government will forcibly deport seven refugees to Afghanistan.
At least seven Afghan Hazara asylum seekers are set to be forcibly deported from Australia, despite increasing violence against the ethnic minority in Afghanistan, and targeted attacks against those who have been in Australia.
The Hazaras, all men who were living in the community, have been “re-detained” by Australian authorities over the last four weeks, and have been moved to Wickham Point, outside of Darwin, ahead of their removal from Australia. It is not known when they will be deported.
Refugee campaign groups have called on immigration minister Scott Morrison to halt their deportation.
Afghan Hazara asylum seekers to be forcibly deported from Australia, Guardian
The first refugee to be deported by Australia to Afghanistan was captured and beaten.
Zainullah Naseri has been in Afghanistan three weeks when the Taliban find him. They stop the car in which he is travelling and find in his pockets his Australian driver’s licence – a memento of the country that on the night of August 26 made him the first Hazara to be forcibly deported back to the country he was fleeing.
The six Taliban also find Zainullah’s iPhone, but he pretends it is not working. They do not believe him. Zainullah is punched and kicked. “They told me they would kill me if I didn’t open it.”
The Taliban bundle him into a car and after 20 minutes’ driving, take him to a mud house ringed by high walls. They beat him with wet rods cut fresh from a tree, demanding he open his phone. Again they threaten to kill him.
Taliban tortures Abbott government deportee, The Saturday Paper
After escaping, he had then nearly been killed by the police.
A video captured by Afghan police shows officers firing on him, suspecting him to be a suicide bomber. A voice calling “help” is heard in the darkness. Moments later, three police speaking in Hazaragi are shown in the video, saying in angry voices, “Who are you?” and “Raise your hands”.
You can hear the chain clanking on one of Zainullah’s feet as he staggers on a gravel surface, his arms raised and his shirt ripped at the shoulder.
Taliban tortures Abbott government deportee, The Saturday Paper
The Guardian has a photo essay on a woman's prison in Herat.
Children often stay in the prison with their mothers, the Guardian says.
Many fellow inmates said they had fled abuse and been accused of "zina", or sex between unmarried people, by angry husbands or family. Upon arrest, they faced intrusive virginity tests and imprisonment for attempted adultery even if the test results were negative, Pakzad said.
Rape victims are also routinely jailed for "zina" and left to give birth in prison. Ten babies were born at Herat's jail this year and more than 70 are growing up behind bars.
Alarm rises for Afghan women prisoners after Western troops leave, Reuters
Classes aim to help the women after they are released.
A number of women imprisoned in Herat jail have gone on hunger strike for what they say; the government is not considering their cases.
The women prisoners, who went on hunger strike on Sunday, have said their cases were pending for several years with no judicial proceedings at all.
Women prisoners go on hunger strike in Herat, 1TV
The United States is trying to deal with foreign prisoners held at Bagram. They have been held without charge, some for nearly the entire 13 year course of the war.
Among the two dozen articles and 24 pages of the BSA, which was signed by newly appointed National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar and the US ambassador, James Cunningham on 30 September, (AAN analysis of the whole agreement will follow in a future dispatch) lies a half sentence related to Bagram:
United States forces shall not… maintain or operate detention facilities in Afghanistan. (Article 3.3)
The statement appears categorical. The US detention facility on the Bagram airbase, which has been in operation since late 2001, a place of at least two deaths early on because of torture and ill-treatment, where detainees have been kept without trial or even the disclosure of their names should, it appears, soon be closing. Afghan detainees had already been handed over on 25 March 2013 (since then, the Karzai administration has sought to chip away at any remaining US involvement in detentions (see here and here), but the US kept hold of the foreign detainees at Bagram (see lists of current detainees and those recently released at the end of this dispatch).
Among those held at Bagram are men captured fighting in Afghanistan who have clear links to al-Qaeda or Pakistani extremist groups. Others were rendered to Afghanistan by the CIA under the Bush presidency. Many appear to have been wrongly accused – framed because of bounties offered for al-Qaeda fighters, or mistakenly identified as combatants. Indeed, many of those held at Bagram or recently released have or had been there for more than a decade.
Bagram prison to close with BSA: 13 foreign detainees left – what to do with the rest?, Afghanistan Analysts Network