Afghan Cabinet Minister, Zarar Ahmed Muqbel, Exposed! (PICTURES)

Afghanistan embassy in Oslo, Norway has done something unusual on their website. Introducing Afghan cabinet ministers, the website calls Zarar Ahmed Moqbel, Minister of Counter Narcotics, "His Excellency", "incompetent" and "Corrupt" in the same biographic article. 

Children taught to hate the U.S.

CNN's Stan Grant takes a rare look into a closed world when he visits a madrassa -- an Islamic religious school -- in a poor Kabul neighborhood. Here, children as young as six are taught to dislike the United States.

The Deep Roots Of Pakistan’s Extremism

by Bashir Ahmad Gwakh

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer’s murder by his security guard was an obvious act of religious extremism and a clear sign that Pakistan has changed little in the more than 80 years since a carpenter killed a Hindu for allegedly publishing a book that insulted the Prophet Muhammad. A country that was founded on the basis of religion remains in a dark morass presided over by insidious, violent ideologies.

Locals: Taliban flogged a young girl and forcibly married her to the local boy (Updated)

by Bashir Gwakh
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A coarse video shows a 16-year-old girl receives 37 lashes by the hands of a Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat, where the government reached a truce with the Taliban in February.

Residents told BBC that the Taliban has forced the girl to marry her so-called lover and the boy has warned not to divorce her. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan defended his “right” to flog the girl in public. However, he claimed the girl is married and has been "living with her father in-law without her husband's permission". Although pro-Taliban media has spread the rumors that the girls had had an affair with her father in-law, Khan did not clarify the girl's living status with her father in-law.

When asked if full investigation has taken place and enough evidence was available to lash the girl, Khan was quick to say, "This video is an old one. At the time, we were at war and scholars (Taliban scholars) were unable to set at one place and gather evidence. However, the girl and her father in-law confessed [?] and that's enough." (Watch the 2nd video. It's in Urdu language.)

Today, April 4, Muslim Khan appeared in a press conference and told a different story, contradicting his initial statement (as quoted above and shown in the video below). He said that it's a 7 month old video and has not happened in Swat but somewhere else. He also claimed that the video is bogus and the people in Taliban dresses are not Taliban.

Contrary to Taliban spokesman, the local reporters say this shocking incident had taken place in Swat within the 20 days, following the signing of a peace deal between the provincial government and militants which gave them a partial but influential control over the valley's judicial system. Taliban have rapidly strengthened their hold on Swat and surrounding areas, the main hub of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity.

The Video (watch it below)

“Please! Enough! Enough!” the girl is heard crying. “I am repenting, my father is repenting what I have done, my grandmother is repenting what I have done...” The man flogging her is also heard abusing his as he struggles to hold her down and stop her covering her backside with her hands. “Hold her tightly so she doesn’t move.” The girl is released after receiving 37 lashes on her hips. While the reprimanded girl cries and seems futile, a Taliban member could be heard saying to a man who is believed to be the girl’s brother: “Take care of her, pimp!”

The Story (What Really Happened)

According to a BBC Urdu report, local residents said the girl was from a poor family of Kala Kalay village and was flogged after a ‘Taliban secret agent’ reported she had had an affair with a local electrician.

The girl and the electrician were neighbors. It was not a good day for the recent graduate of Swat Polytechnic College when he was called by the girl’s father to fix their electricity failure. Eventually, a Taliban spy saw him entering the house and reported to his superiors. Taliban immediately responded and apprehended the guy.

According to eye witnesses, the Taliban brought both the boy and the girl to a busy street and lashed each of them 37 times respectively. However, flogging the boy is either not recorded or the video has not made public yet. The radicals did not stop there and married the tormented girl to the boy without their wish. “Neither had he [the boy] had any sort of connection with the girl nor was he willing to marry her… He is so embarrassed by what had happened to him and the girl. He is in a total shock and has locked himself in the house,” a relative of the boy told BBC. The source added that the boy has repeatedly asked for sleeping pills.

Aftermath

Pakistan’s Chief Justice has ordered the Secretary Interior to bring the girl along with him on April 6. He has also ordered to arrest the responsible individuals. However, I do not think the Pakistani government will be able to even touch the ‘responsible individuals’ (Mawalana Fazlullah, the Taliban leader in Swat, his spokesperson Muslim Khan and leaders of the infamous movement). Even if the dare to, it means breaking the peace treaty which will bring more violence to the region and slip the valley further from Pakistan’s hand. And I do not think Pakistan is going to take that risk.

Peace truce was/is not a bad thing and that is why lots of people supported it at first place. But it does not mean that the governments should let the insurgents whatever they want to. I am just thinking that Pakistan has plainly handed over Swat to the Taliban so they could not only admonish the local people but provide safe havens and training centers for those who fight against Afghan and Coalition forces on the other side of the border in Afghanistan.

"They have committed so many atrocities since the peace deal. They have taken entire control of the district. There is nobody to control them; they decide disputes according to their whims,” Sher Muhammad Khan, an official in Swat with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told The Guardian.






Taliban Spokesperson Justification

Afghan Presidential Contenders

Malali Bashir
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Following is the list of those who formally announced to compete in the race for President in the Afghan Presidential Elections 2009.

1. Dr. Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi (Afghan Millat)
2. Abdul Qader Imami Ghori (Hezb-e-Islami then Jamiat-e-Islami and now Independent)
3. Ramazan Bashardos (Independent)
4. Fawzia Kofi (Jamiat-e-Islami and now Independent)
5. Abdul Jabbar Sabet (Hezb-e-Islami and now Independent)
6. Daud Sultanzoi (Hezb-e-Islami)
7. Ali Seraaj (Royal Family, Independent)
8. Sayed Jalal Karim (NAABEGHA/The Genius) (Independent)
9. Shahlah Atta (Independent)

Following is the list of those who have showed their strong interest in the post, but yet to formally announce their candidacy.

1. Abdullah Abdullah (Shura-e-Nezar)
2. Burhanuddin Rabbani (Jamiat-e-Islami)
3. Halim Tanveer (Independent)
4. Bashir Beezhan (National Congress)
5. Ali Ahmad Jalali (Independent)
6. Hedayat Amin Arsala (Independent)
7. Sayed Ahmad Gillani (National Islamic Front)
8. Hanif Atmar (Independent)
9. Younus Qanooni (Shura-e-Nezaar)
10. Farooq Hamidi (Independent)
11. Shahnawaz Tannay (PDP)
12. Gul Agha Sherzai (Independent)
13. Ahmad Zia Massoud (Shura-e-Nezaar)
14. Mustafa Zaher ( Royal Family and Independent)
15. Dr. Ashraf Ghani (Independent)
16. Mirwais Yasini (Independent)
17. Hamid Karzai (Independent)

I will keep posting on potential candidates, and their affiliations, ability of the job and the possibility of becoming our next president. Keep visiting AfghCorner.

__________________________

Karzai is loving it!

Afghan president Hamid Karzai is loving it. No, not the McDonalds but his post. After his “according to Afghan constitution” decision to hold the presidential election in April, he now accepts that Afghan presidential election should be postponed from to August. However, he won’t step down at the end of his term-May 21st.

BBC quoted him saying, “As long as there is no election, the president will stay in office.” His opponents think otherwise. They believe there should be an interim government.

Afghanistan’s history shows that most Afghan presidents never wanted to leave their post. In fact, Afghan presidents rarely transmit the power. I do not understand why they fall in love with the presidential palace that they never want to exit. Is it fun to rule a country full of mess? Or is there glue on that chair that no one wanted to leave it once they held?

The funniest was when Burahnuddin Rabbani, head of Northern Alliance’s warlords, was famous for taking his presidential chair to wherever he went. He held on to it even after Taliban took over Kabul and 95% of Afghan land.

I do not know why Karzai’s rivals not letting him rule for another five months. I have doubts about their rivalry to our president because if they are really anti-Karzai, they should let him stay in the mess for as long as he wants. I remember of a crazy old woman in our village who would curse people saying, “Be the king of Kabul!”

Talks Between Afghan Officials and Gulbaddin Hikmatyar

“As the Afghan foreign minister meets his US counterpart in Washington, Al-Jazeera has learnt of secret talks between Taliban-linked mediators and Afghan officials, which could lead to wider negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The deal involves the return to Afghanistan of Gulbadin Hekmatyar, the former prime minister, whose forces fight alongside the Taliban. It involves a complex and delicate round of meetings from the heart of Afghanistan to Dubai, London and Saudi Arabia.” Watch the whole story at the buttom of the page.

I think Taliban, Gulbadin Hikmatyar and all the neglected trouble making groups should be given a chance to participate in political procedures. Hikmatyar’s Hizbe-Islami, one of the dominant Jihadi groups during Afghan-Soviet war, has an immense amount of support among Afghan population. There are no Taliban in Kapisa, Konar, Herat, Farah, Nuristan and Nimroz provinces but these are the Hizbe-Islami fighters who are emerging threat to Afghan, NATO/ISAF and Coalition forces. If Hikmatyar joins the political process it will not only have long term benefits but will put an end to this.

Currently, warlords are majority in Afghan parliament and enjoy brawny power in the government. The questions is if these warlords, who has the same views as Taliban and were the counterparts of Hikmatyar and Mullah Omar-Taliban supreme leader, can be a part of the government why not the Taliban?

An old Afghan proverb says; “Only dialogues (not weapons) solve problems.” I am sure these insurgents will lay down their weapons and join the political process if dealt with care. We have a good experience of having Taliban’s high ranking officials in parliament. They are not sabotaging any democratic process, US agenda or Afghan government. I believe the rest of the Taliban and other factions also deserve a chance for the greater good of our beloved country.

Here is Al-Jazeera's report: