Live From Afghanistan

[blogtalkradio]

David Perlmutter, Journalist, professor from Kanas University, and author of Visions of War among other books, will be interviewing Scott Kesterson Embedded reporter in Afghanistan live from the front lines. This will be Scotts first interview since being embedded in January. This will be a no spin zone and we are very excited to hear what Scott and David discuss.

Show to air live on www.BlogTalkRadio.com October 22, 2006 7 pm est.
The show is being brought to BlogTalkRadio by www.thebluedoodle.com.
Scott is with KGW out of Oregon and also reports his news to www.thebluedoodle.com.

[Martin]

I'll let your promo slide this time.. Please keep the advertising to a minimum though.

Thanks

Looks like al-Qaeda is getting ready for a spring offensive...

Al-Qaeda 'regrouping' on Pakistan boarder
February 19, 2007 LEADERS of al-Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their terrorist network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border.

Citing unnamed US intelligence and counterterrorism officials, the New York Times said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the administration of President George W Bush had described bin Laden and Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of al-Qaeda, the report said.

The United States has also identified several new al-Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan, according to the paper. Recent intelligence showed that the compounds functioned under a loose command structure and were operated by groups of Arab, Pakistani and Afghan militants allied with al-Qaeda, The Times said.

They receive guidance from their commanders and Zawahri, analysts said. Bin Laden, who has long played less of an operational role, appears to have little direct involvement, according to the report. Officials said the training camps had yet to reach the size and level of sophistication of the al-Qaeda camps established in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, the paper reported.

More http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...-23109,00.html

Cheney givin' Musharraf the go-ahead against the Taliban...

Pakistan gets US message to crack down on Taliban
Tuesday February 27, 2007The US vice-president, **** Cheney, was dispatched to Pakistan yesterday to lend force to growing frustration at the country's failure to crack down on a resurgent Taliban operating in its remote border regions.

The unannounced visit by Mr Cheney and the deputy director of the CIA, Steve Kappes, comes on the eve of an expected spring offensive by the Taliban, and follows charges from US and Nato commanders on the ground that the militia is using tribal areas of Pakistan as a haven and a base from which to launch their attacks. Mr Cheney's brief visit was seen as a forceful expression of President George Bush's call this month for a new effort in Afghanistan, with an infusion of funds and US forces in the fight against the Taliban. The US has increased its forces in Afghanistan to 27,000 troops.

However, a planned meeting with the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, was cancelled when bad weather prevented Mr Cheney from travelling beyond the US military base at Bagram. Before travelling on to Afghanistan yesterday, Mr Cheney used two hours of talks with Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, in Islamabad to impress on him the Bush administration's impatience for some evidence that Taliban supply routes are being disrupted, and that the hunt for al-Qaida has not gone cold.

"Cheney expressed US apprehensions of regrouping of al-Qaida in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat," a statement from Gen Musharraf's office said. It said that Gen Musharraf had told Mr Cheney that Pakistan "had done the maximum" to crack down on Islamist extremists.

More http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/S...022053,00.html

Afghans must've had a bumper crop of poppies...

Afghan opium 'hits record output'
Thursday, 1 March 2007, The US says opium production in Afghanistan reached record levels last year, undermining the fight against the Taleban.

The US State Department's annual report on narcotics also said the flourishing drugs trade was undermining the fight against the Taleban. It warned of a possible increase in heroin overdoses in Europe and the Middle East as a result.

Poppy production rose 25% in 2006, a figure US Assistant Secretary of State Ann Patterson described as alarming. Four years after the US and its British allies began combating poppy production, Afghanistan still accounts for 90% of the world's opium trade.

The US has recently given the Afghan government more than $10bn in assistance, but most of that money will be spent in security rather than encouraging alternative sources of income. The report also criticised South America's left-wing leaders such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, for failing to do enough to fight the drugs trade.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/6410263.stm

[waltky]

This should help the gov't. in Afghanistan...

Russia Cancels $10 Billion Of Afghanistan's Soviet-Era Debt
Russia will forgive 90 percent of Afghanistan's debt, at around $10 billion USD, as a sign of good will to the post-Taliban government.

Russia is currently Afghanistan's largest creditor, and the bulk of the Soviet-era debt came from arms deals during the Red Army's occupation from 1979 to 1989. Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Afghan Finance Minister Anwar-ul Haq Ahadi signed the deal in Moscow on Monday.

"This is a historic day for our two countries. Today we have drawn a line under many years of discussion on regulating the debts," Kudrin said. The deal will "support the government of Afghanistan in building a new life and stabilizing the political and economic situation in the country," he added.

"I look forward to greater cooperation with Russia. We would like further economic cooperation with Russia," Ahadi said. "We think Russian companies have the competitive advantage and that they can compete in Afghanistan's market."

AHN | Russia Cancels $10 Billion Of Afghanistan's Soviet-Era Debt | August 7, 2007

[waltky]

Drug interdiction in Afghanistan...

Afghanistan can't stop heroin supply
Monday 3rd September, 2007 - Afghanistan's first vice-president has called for tougher penalties for opium poppy cultivation, including aerial spraying.

Ahmad Zia Masood says British efforts to combat opium production in southern Afghanistan have completely failed, yet the U.K and the United States had spent millions of dollars to stop the trade.

Mr Masood pointed out that Helmand, in southern Afghanistan, where the British are based, has enormous poppy fields, allowing the province to produce half of Afghanistan's opium. United Nations' figures released last week showed opium production rose by 34 per cent this year in Afghanistan.

The UN has revealed Afghanistan's opium crop has risen every year since US-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001. Opium poppies are used to make heroin, which outlawed Taliban forces are able to sell for enormous profits.

Afghanistan can't stop heroin supply

See also:

International community urged to reign in opium production in Afghanistan
Friday 16th November, 2007 - The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has called on the international community to step up its efforts to reign in Afghanistan’s booming opium production.

Opium production, which not only accounts for over half the country’s gross domestic product, but is also funding insurgents in the strife-torn nation. Presenting UNODC’s final report on opium production in Afghanistan, the world’s leading drug producer, Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told a gathering in Brussels that the total export value of opium and heroin being trafficked to neighbouring countries this year is $4 billion, an increase of 29 per cent over 2006. That means that opium now accounts for more than half – 53 per cent – of the country’s licit GDP, according to one of the findings of the Afghan Opium Survey 2007, a provisional version of which was presented in August.

Approximately one quarter of this amount, or $1 billion, is earned by opium farmers, while the rest is made by drug traffickers, the report noted. Since the drug increases in value with ever border it crosses, by the time it hits the streets of major Western countries, it could be worth 50 to 100 times as much as in Kabul. As a result, while opium is profitable to some Afghan farmers, these sums – though significant in relation to the local economy – are only a fraction of the major profits that are being made world-wide by criminals, insurgents and terrorists.

Mr. Costa urged Afghanistan’s international partners, including NATO and the UN Security Council, to boost their counter-narcotics efforts, especially if they wanted to address the insurgency that is threatening the fledgling democracy. He also stressed the need for greater development assistance, noting that the drug problem cannot be tackled solely by counter-narcotics measures. In addition, he urged greater cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours, as well as the countries of Central Asia, emphasizing that drug trafficking is not a threat that States can address solely on their own.

“The threat is real and growing, despite a foreign military presence in the tens of thousands, billions of dollars spent on reconstruction, and the huge political capital invested in stabilizing a country that has been in turmoil for a third of a century,” Mr. Costa wrote in the foreword to the report. “The Afghan opium situation looks grim, but it is not yet hopeless,” he added. “It will take time, money and determination – worthwhile investments to spare Afghanistan and the rest of the world more tragedies.”

International community urged to reign in opium production in Afghanistan

[waltky]

Not much progress in reducing production...

More opium likely in Afghan south
Wednesday, 6 February 2008, The amount of opium poppy cultivated in Afghanistan's volatile southern provinces will increase in 2008, the UN says.

But the UN adds, the overall harvest will be "similar to or lower than" last year's record-breaking level. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) based its findings on interviews in almost 500 villages.

Nimroz province, next to Helmand, is the greatest concern for 2008, with opium cultivation set to rise sharply. Record-breaking Helmand will still produce around half the country's opium, but cultivation is not expected to increase this year, the report says.

Kandahar and other southern provinces are also expected to increase their output. But the eastern province of Nangarhar looks set to show a drop in the number of opium poppies grown - from having been one of the worst offenders last year.

'Not pleased'

See also:

World Bank Wants $2B To Fight Opium Trade
Feb. 5, 2008 - Banks Call For Huge Investment In Afghan Roads, Agriculture To Lure Farms From Drug

The world needs to invest more than $2 billion in irrigation, roads and other rural development in Afghanistan to lure farmers away from booming opium cultivation, a development bank report said Tuesday. The report, by the World Bank and Britain-based Department for International Development, argued that the drug trade - Afghanistan's top business - can only be combated if impoverished farmers have other means of making a living.

"Only as poor Afghan farmers gain other economic opportunities will they be able to be weaned away from dependence on opium production over time," William Byrd of the World Bank told reporters in Tokyo, where the report was released on the sidelines of an annual international conference on the country's reconstruction. The report called for the boosting of community-based development projects, expanded irrigation, increased use of livestock, and help for rural businesses and entrepreneurs.

It recommends investments of $1.2 billion to expand irrigated land, $550 million to boost rural enterprise development, and $400 million for rural road planning, construction and maintenance. The money would be spent over up to 10 years, depending on the program. The report's authors also called for greater coordination among Afghanistan's donors, who they said had failed to use their money in complementary ways.

"Assistance is fragmented with 62 donors, many with their own distinct security, political and development interests," said Alastair McKechnie, Afghanistan country director for the World Bank. Afghanistan is struggling to reconstruct after the rise and fall of the Taliban regime and the U.S.-led military operation against al Qaeda. Afghan Foreign Minister Dadfar Spanta met Monday with Japanese officials to gain support for his country's reconstruction.

MORE

[waltky]

Hash haul busted...

Afghans seize 260 tonnes of drugs
12 Jun 2008, Afghan counternarcotics officials said they uncovered 260 tonnes of hashish hidden in 2-meter-deep trenches in southern Afghanistan in what one official said appears to be the largest-ever drug bust.

The hashish, found in the southern province of Kandahar on Monday, was worth more than USD 400 million and would have netted the Taliban about USD 14 million in profits, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said yesterday. The hashish weighed as much as 30 double-decker London buses, ISAF said. The drugs were burned on site. "The Afghan National Police Special Task Force has made a huge step forward in proving its capability in curbing the tide of illegal drug trade in this country," US Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of ISAF, said in a statement.

"With this single find, they have seriously crippled the Taliban's ability to purchase weapons that threaten the safety and security of the Afghan people and the region." Garrison Courtney, the spokesman for the US Drug Enforcement Agency, said he thought the drug bust was the world's largest in terms of weight. He called the takedown "pretty huge." "I can't think of any other time I've ever heard of that large of an amount in one hit," he said.

Afghanistan's biggest drug problem is not hashish but opium. The country produced 9,000 tonnes last year, enough to make over 880 tonnes of heroin - 93 per cent of the world's supply. But officials have increased warnings that farmers who no longer grow opium poppies because of successful eradication programs have turned their fields to cannabis, the plant used to produce hashish and marijuana, giving the country a second drug problem to contend with.

Source

[waltky]

Taliban using opium to finance terrorism...

Opium Trade Earns Taliban $100 Million
June 24, 2008 - Taliban militants have earned an estimated $100 million from "taxes" generated from farmers growing poppies for the opium trade in Afghanistan, a U.N. official said Tuesday.

Acosta said the earnings do not include money coming from other opium-related activities. He said the extremists may have earned more in protecting laboratories and the transport of the illegal drug. He told the BBC, "One is protection to laboratories and the other is that the insurgents offer protection to cargo, moving opium across the border."

The U.N. estimates the Afghan opium harvest at $1 billion in 2007. This year's harvest is expected to be low due to drought, infestation and a poppy ban in northern and eastern Afghanistan. Although Acosta said this would mean lower revenue for the Taliban, the amount of losses would not be enormous, he said. Last year, Afghanistan produced an estimated 8,000 metric tons of opium, according to U.N. estimates, Acosta said.

He said global consumption of opium amounts only to 4,000 metric tons, leaving a surplus stored somewhere else. "It is stored somewhere and not with the farmers," he added. The stockpiled opium is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and could be in the hands of traffickers, corrupt Afghan officials or the Taliban, the U.N. official said.

Opium Trade Earns Taliban $100 Million | AHN | June 25, 2008