November 2009
19 posts
1 tag
Police chief let smugglers pass lawyer tells 'new... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
A police colonel accused of running a drug smuggling network went on trial in Kabul yesterday in a landmark prosecution by Afghanistan’s new anti-corruption taskforce. Diplomats hope that it marks the beginning of a new era in the fight against government corruption.
Hidden behind blast walls, watchtowers and miles of razor wire, the 45-year-old police commander...
Anger at corruption arrest →
WHEN Afghan intelligence officials swooped on a corrupt police colonel accused of running a sophisticated drug smuggling ring, they expected high praise from their political masters.
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Hamid Karzai ‘angry’ at taskforce for arrest of... →
The Times By Jerome Starkey and Richard Beeston in Kabul
Afghan intelligence officials expected high praise from their political masters after they arrested a police colonel accused of running a sophisticated drug-smuggling ring.
It was, after all, the first operation of the country’s new Major Crimes Taskforce; a “textbook” mission praised by Western mentors for taking a top scalp in the war on...
Karzai refusing to sign ministers' arrest warrants →
Afghanistan’s chief prosecutor has enough evidence to charge at least five government ministers with crimes including embezzlement and fraud, officials said today.
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Afghanistan's grievances and tribal splits: ripe... →
The Times Analysis: Jerome Starkey
To some it will be seen as Afghanistan’s magic bullet. To others, supporting the country’s hotch-potch of tribal militias is a sure-fire way of recreating the violence and anarchy that brought the Taleban to power in the first place.
The Community Defence Initiative is the latest euphemism for a controversial plan to enrol armed tribesmen in the fight against...
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Afghans say President Karzai's five-year handover... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Shinwar
“People hate the Americans from the bottom of their hearts,” Haji Akhtar Mohammed Shinwari said as he recalled how the US military had brought death to his homeland.
For residents of Shinwar, a district in distant Nangahar province, the message from President Karzai’s address yesterday that the Americans would hand over security over the next five years was...
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Comment: The lens shook as Karzai spoke - perhaps... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Jalalabad
The eyes of the world were on Kabul this morning but most were forced to watch through the shaky lens of Afghanistan’s national broadcaster.
Grainy pictures of President Karzai were accompanied by the occasional sound of pop music and mobile ring tones — mysteriously added in at the studio — as staff at Radio Television Afghanistan muddled through a...
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This time we'll crack it, says Afghan regime →
Scotsman By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
WITH less than 72 hours until President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration, his government did its best yesterday to convince the world it really can crack down on corruption.
Flanked by the British and American ambassadors, a raft of leading ministers cursed the “cancer” in their ranks and promised to root out its perpetrators, no matter how high...
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Head of the French army in Afghanistan narrowly... →
The Times Jeorme Starkey in Kabul
The head of the French Army in Afghanistan survived a Taleban rocket attack on a crowded market yesterday that killed 12 people and wounded 38.
Brigadier-General Marcel Druart was meeting tribal elders in Kapisa, 30 miles (50km) outside Kabul, when rockets hit a bazaar nearby. Witnesses said that the rockets landed within 200 metres (655ft) of the government...
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Warlord says don't send more US troops 'get... →
The Scotsman By Jerome Starkey in Herat
ONE of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords has urged America not to send more troops, insisting there are enough to beat the Taleban already – if the rest of Nato simply pulled its weight.
Ismail Khan, the self-styled Emir of western Afghanistan, and three-decade veteran of fighting the Taleban and the Russians, was particularly scathing about the...
US convoy attacked in Kabul suicide bomb →
A suicide car bomber attacked an American convoy in Kabul this morning, wounding at least four US troops and four civilian contractors, despite heightened security ahead of President Hamid Karzai’s…
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Nato’s voice is stifled as propaganda newspaper... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
It is used to wrap kebabs, chips and glistening jalebi sweets, but rarely is Nato’s flagship propaganda newspaper read in Afghanistan.
Bundles of Sada-e Azadi — The Voice of Freedom — are sold by the kilogram as scrap in Kabul’s black market bazaars.
The fortnightly free sheet is packed full of pro-Nato stories about school openings and new wells, printed in...
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The bodyguard who gave his life saving sleeping... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
A civilian bodyguard armed with just an assault rifle and a walkie-talkie gave his life after fighting the Taleban for more than 90 minutes when they stormed his guesthouse in Kabul in an attack which left at least a dozen people dead last week.
More than 30 UN staff had been asleep in the compound and if it had not been for Louis Maxwell’s bravery, security...
Video: inside the burnt-out UN massacre hostel in... →
The charred remains of the UN’s Bakhtar guesthouse bear testimony to the gruesome events that unfolded here last week.
Back at the base, they took off their armour. Then... →
Relaxing after their patrol, with their armour and helmets off, the troops were drinking tea only a few metres from their killer, a man they had been risking their lives to train.
US gives Karzai six-month ultimatum to stem... →
President Karzai has six months to sideline his brother and reduce corruption or risk losing American support, Afghan officials have told The Times.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai vows inclusive... →
Hamid Karzai vowed to crack down on corruption and reach out to his political rivals, a day after he was declared the winner of Afghanistan’s fraud-ridden presidential elections.
UN chief flies in to broker power-sharing deal in... →
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, flew into Kabul this morning to discuss security for his staff and help broker a power-sharing deal between President Karzai and Dr Abdullah Abullah following…