All detainees transferred by Canadians to Afghan prisons were likely tortured by Afghan officials and many of the prisoners were innocent, says a former senior diplomat with Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
Appearing before a House of Commons committee Wednesday, Richard Colvin blasted the detainees policies of Canada and compared them with the policies of the British and the Netherlands.
The detainees were captured by Canadian soldiers then handed over to the Afghan intelligence service, called the NDS.
For most of her life, the young Afghan woman was fleeing war. But everywhere she went it stalked her.
"She was very quiet and shy, and you could barely hear her speak," said Ashley Jackson of Oxfam. "When the civil war began in the early 1990s, she left Kabul and went to the border. But her son was killed by a rocket attack.
"She went to Pakistan and lived in a refugee settlement, and her daughter was taken by a man who wanted her. When the Taliban fell and the family finally got back to Kabul, her husband was killed.
Nato and its allies will order "substantially more forces" into battle in
Afghanistan over the next few weeks, the alliance's secretary general said today.
Speaking in Edinburgh at a Nato parliamentary assembly meeting, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said: "In a few weeks, I expect we will decide, in Nato, on the approach, and troop levels needed, to take our mission forward."
Two leaked classified cables from the US Ambassador in Kabul voicing grave concern about sending more American troops to Afghanistan have exposed open conflict inside President Obama’s national security team over his war strategy.
The contents of the cables, passed to The Washington Post and The New York Times yesterday by three officials, also highlighted growing uncertainty inside the White House about how to prosecute the war, amid deep concerns over the corruption of Hamid Karzai’s Government.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.
KABUL - Warlords helped drive the Russians from Afghanistan, then shelled Kabul into ruins in a bloody civil war after the Soviets left.
Now they are back in positions of power, in part because the U.S. relied on them in 2001 to help oust the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks. President Hamid Karzai later reached out to them to shore up his own power base as America turned its attention to Iraq after the Taliban's rout.
It seems that Hamid Karzai just can't be trusted on his own.
When
he breasted the microphone at the presidential palace on October 20, to
make an oblique admission that he attempted to steal the election and
would go along with the second poll which he had resisted for weeks, he
was flanked by a high-powered international posse - lest he depart from
the agreed script.
On one side was the US senator
John Kerry; on the other, the United Nations special envoy Kai Eide;
and riding shotgun were the British and French ambassadors.
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - Angry Afghan villagers
protested Thursday against what they said was the killing of 11
civilians by foreign troops, but local authorities said only fighters
were killed.
The NATO-led force said it had fired a rocket from the ground at a
group it believed to be planting a roadside bomb in Babaji in Helmand
province. It said it was not aware of any civilians in the area and was
investigating the incident.
KABUL - The United Nations announced on Thursday it will evacuate more than half its international staff based in Afghanistan after a deadly Taliban attack on a guest house for UN workers.
But the UN said it had no intention of abandoning Afghanistan, where 100,000 US-led foreign troops are battling a bloody insurgency eight years after the extremist Taliban regime was driven from power.
About 600 expatriate staff, from a total of 1,100 foreigners, will be temporarily relocated either within Afghanistan or abroad, UN spokesman Dan McNorton told AFP.
WASHINGTON - Top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen expressed serious concern Wednesday over corruption in the Afghan government, warning President Hamid Karzai to crack down on offenders.
"We are extremely concerned about the level of corruption and the legitimacy of this government," Mullen told reporters. "It's far too much endemic."
Newly re-elected Karzai "has got to take significant steps to eliminate corruption," the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff warned.
