CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Taliban Attacks Hiding Inside Hospital

American Forces Press Service reports Taliban extremists attacked Afghan and coalition security forces with machine-gun fire from inside a hospital, which the terrorists were using for cover:

Despite receiving direct fire, the coalition ground commander held off returning fire until he was able to confirm that neither patients nor staff members were inside the hospital. Afghan National Police helped confirm this information.

After positively confirming that only enemy fighters were in the hospital, the coalition troops launched a single precision-guided munition at the enemy machine-gun position to minimize damage and impact only that position, officials said.

It infuriates me that the main stream media will focus on every alleged transgression by U.S. soldiers, but ignores the enemy's violations of the rules of war.

Another Connection

Fox News has posted a new Harmony Document, one of the millions of documents captured in Iraq and Afghanistan by American forces that are only now being released. The documents are important because they provide a window into the Saddam regime's activities prior to the war and can potentially shed light on Saddam's Human Rights atrocities, connections to terrorism and what happened to Iraq's WMD programs.

The newly released document appears to provide evidence that in 1999 the Taliban welcomed "Islamic relations with Iraq" to mediate among the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and Russia, and that the Taliban invited Iraqi officials to Afghanistan. The document comes from a notebook kept by an Iraqi intelligence agent. It provides evidence of a cooperative, operational relationship agreed to at the highest levels of the Iraqi government and the Taliban. The notebook deals extensively with meetings between Maulana Fazlur Rahman, an Al Qaeda/Taliban supporter, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former vice president of Iraq, and other unnamed Iraqi officials:

According to Fox, Ramadan also was Saddam Hussein's chief enforcer. He is discussed in a 2002 BBC article that stated "Washington showed considerable interest in him well before the Iraq war this spring, after opposition forces claimed he hosted Usama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, in Baghdad in 1998. He currently is under detention and facing trial in Baghdad along with Saddam. Also present at the discussion recorded in the notebook is Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a Pakistani cleric described in another 2002 article from the BBC Profile: Maulana Fazlur Rahman as "A pro-Taliban cleric in Pakistan … one of the two main contenders for the post of the country's prime minister." The BBC also said that "Maulana Fazlur Rahman … is known for his close ties to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime."

You should read the entire document. Here is a teaser:

Fazlur Rahman: Gwadar is the shortest road for them and we spoke with the Afghani government. I met Mullah Omar the leader of Afghanistan and he welcomed the establishment of Islamic relations with Iraq and we foresee to tell them about our needs and they would like to have contacts with Russia but they feel that the Russians (unclear) with Afghanistan, they go to America (RR: probably means that the Russians side with the US against the Taliban). And they (RR: probably the Taliban) say that now we do not feel that Russia is our enemy and we do not know why they support the Northern Alliance (RR: non-Pashtun Afghani militant groups seeking to topple the Taliban). They (RR: probably the Taliban) want Iraq to intervene with Russia.

Fox also provides analysis which reasons that the Taliban (and therefore al Qaeda) was looking to Iraq for help, and was happy to establish "Islamic relations" with Iraq. This connection further refutes the oft repeated mantra that Saddam's secular regime couldn't have cooperated with Islamic extremists like the Taliban and al Qaeda:

This document appears to provide evidence that in 1999 the Taliban welcomed "Islamic relations with Iraq" to mediate between the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and Russia. It seems to provide evidence that the Taliban invited Iraqi officials to Afghanistan. According to this notebook, the Taliban did this via Maulana Fazlur Rahman. The notebook later mentions that another man, Fazlur Rahman Khalil, was visiting Iraq as well, although no transcript of that meeting is provided.

There is another document in the Saddam archive that mentions the relationship of Fazlur Rahman to the Taliban and Saddam. It was captured in Afghanistan and used by the U.S. Army in a report about Al Qaeda. The document is posted under the identifying Harmony number AFGP-2002-601693 at the West Point Combating Terrorism Center. The posted translation is described as a July 26, 2002 four-page typed letter from Abu Mus'ab to Abu Mohammed (apparently Al Qaeda or Taliban operatives) in reply to his inquiry about the status of jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan:

After my release I found that people came from the Sudan and everywhere, and began fighting alongside the Taliban movement, which for Pakistan was a substitute for Hikmatyar. Everyone, even children in the streets knew that they were created and controlled by Pakistan. Their leader Fadhlurahman is a friend of Banazeer, Saddam and Qaddafi. They comprise of the veteran sheikhs (religious scholars) from the schools of Mujaddidi and Mohammed Nabi such as Sheikh Mohammed ‘Omar the movement leader

The U.S. government has recently released a trove of the captured documents on the Pentagon's Foreign Military Studies Office Web site. Unfortunately, the government has left the organization, translation, and analysis of the documents to others.

Ray Robison, currently a military operations research analyst is one of those working to translate and analyze the captured documents. Robison worked as part of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group (ISG) that examined efforts by Saddam Hussein to build and hide weapons of mass destruction, among other objectives.

Robison is now translating and analyzing scores of the unexplored trove of documents from Saddam's regime in a FOXNews.com series: The Saddam Dossier.

A Note From Afghanistan

At Pereiraville, Rachel has posted an e-mail update from Afghanistan.

In his e-mail, Peter writes about the recent Kabul riot:

As many of you have heard there was a riot in Kabul last week, and the media of course is blaming the US Army. I have driven in Kabul, there are no traffic signs or lights, it is a free for all. Imagine all the Arab cab drivers we deal with back home weaving in and out and cutting you off. You think they learned that behavior in the street of NYC, no way they learned it in Kabul. Imagine a city where everyone drives like a cab driver, if you can picture that then you have driven in Kabul.

What really happened, a large tractor trailer that belonged to some engineer unit lost its brakes. They tried to stop by plowing into parked cars, but the last car was an occupied taxi. One person was killed. While the US Army medics were treating the people. Taliban extremist came out of a Mosque and started inciting their worshipers. What the newspapers didn’t tell you was that the riot was small, only two thousand people in a city of 500,000. Also that many Taliban fighters live in Kabul. Additionally, that the riot was pre-planned and they were just waiting for an incident to put their plan into effect. If fact we captured pre-printed maps that said in case we can get a riot started we will go to these places. Also the last thing the paper doesn’t tell you that someone in the crowd started shooting at US forces. When that happened our troops mounted up, shot in the air and fled. The people then started attacking the National Police who were on the scene providing crowd control. It was them that started shooting in the crowd. I wish the media was more even handed.

Peter has some harsh words for the main stream media:

I leave you with the following to ponder: We will eventually fail in Iraq and Afghanistan because the media loves an American loser. It sells much better than good news.

[. . .]

I am on my soap box because all week I have seen the way the media manipulates the truth into lies. I saw the live video feed from Kabul and I saw the rioters shoot at our troops. I saw the national Police shooting back, but that is not what was reported. Once again better to show the ugly American instead of the true American the kind and care. No wonder people hate us in the world, the media tells them we are evil.

Peter also complains about the lack of coverage of the fact his unit built three bridges across the Helmand River. A fete even Alexander the Great, the Romans, the British, and the Russians were unable to successfully complete.

Peter has a good point here. I did a search and found no articles about this achievement in the main stream media. The American Forces Press Service did give the accomplishment some play:

The Helmand River has been a natural barrier cutting off much of northern and western Uruzgan from Kandahar and other avenues of regional commerce and development. Before the bridge was completed May 26, transit across the river was limited mostly to a few ferry services. Future road improvements and possible other bridge projects will make travel into and throughout the Afghanistan interior more manageable for Afghans.

Construction of the actual bridge took only two days, but it took nearly 200 villagers more than a month to build a pair of 30-foot abutments from the river's edge so the bridge could span the swollen river.

The bridge construction presented a challenge to logistics planners, according to a coalition engineer. "We had no real road access here, no equipment," said the coalition engineer. "We had to hire 212 Afghan workers and four tractors to comb the countryside for rocks, cart them here and unload them."

Once the abutments were finished, Afghan soldiers and coalition engineers quickly built the bridge, joining together hundreds of heavy steel parts.

[. . .]

The ANA engineers have built the Tarin Khowt-Kandahar highway, several schools, mosques and health facilities as well as mosques in Kandahar and other southern Afghan provinces.

"For 30 years there was fighting in Afghanistan," said Amirullah, the ANA engineer company commander. "There remained no schools, no hospitals. Now we are doing great things for my country. I feel very good about what my men are doing."

Two Different Wars

The Washington Post's Pamela Constable has an interesting article about how different Afghanistan and Iraq are from the perspective of helicopter crews:

Afghanistan is rugged, poor and sparsely populated.

The Iraq combat theater is for the most part flat, comparatively developed and urban.

In Afghanistan, "our biggest threat is not Taliban or al-Qaeda shooting at us. It's the weather and the terrain," said Army Lt. Col. Mark Patterson, who commands Task Force Knighthawk. "It's a rugged, unpredictable environment that an agile, adaptable enemy can exploit."

[. . .]

There is danger in both theaters, the team members said, but it comes in distinct forms, degrees and disguises. Iraq's developed infrastructure includes power lines that can block low flight paths for helicopters, apartment complexes that can hide snipers, and long, paved highways that can be booby-trapped with remote-control explosives.

[. . .]

Afghanistan's trackless deserts and hillside villages mean troops and supplies must often be delivered to forward bases in Taliban territory by helicopter, exposing crews to rocket attacks as well as mercurial flying conditions. But it is easier to spot insurgent hideouts in the open desert, team members said, and the enemy's weapons here tend to be older, less powerful and far less accurate than those wielded by Iraqi insurgents.

There is more. Reading the whole article is worthwhile.

Top Taliban Commander Captured

The New York Times reports Coalition forces may have captured, Mullah Dadullah, one of the most important and brutal Taliban commanders in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar. Mullah Dadullah was a member of the Taliban's 10-man leadership council before the US-led invasion in 2001:

The governor of Kandahar confirmed that a very senior Taliban commander was among three members of the leadership council of the insurgent movement who had been captured, but said he could not identify him for reasons of security.

The capture of Mullah Dadullah would be a significant success as United States-led coalition and the Afghan government continue to battle the Taleban die-hards across the provinces of southern Afghanistan.

According to the BBC , Mullah Dadullah is very close to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar and has been blamed for much of the recent violence in the southern provinces.

Good news indeed.

UPDATE: U.S. raises doubts about capture.
A U.S. military spokesman said that after checking with coalition officials, it appeared the detained man was not Dadullah:

“The best information I have — and I could be wrong — but the best information I have is that it’s a ’no,”’ he said.

UPDATE II: A man claiming to be Dadullah telephoned Reuters late on Friday and denied he had been caught:

"I am Mullah Dadullah. The reports about my arrest are ... a pack of blatant lies," said the man, who sounded like Dadullah.

Afghanistan Is Open For Business

In today's Wall Street Journal, Ann Marlowe starts off an article by describing a conversation she had with a recent Yale graduate:

"Why did you decide to come to Afghanistan?" I asked. He stared at me. "This is the largest rebuilding and development effort in the history of the world. Who wouldn't want to be here?"

According to Marlowe, Afghanistan is finally open for business.

The signs are everywhere, from Kabul's traffic jams to Mazar-i-Sharif's building boom; from the opening of a Coca-Cola bottling plant to the country's first private university, the American University of Afghanistan, offering programs in business administration and information technology.

Business is not only booming in Kabul, much of the real economic action takes place in the provinces.

Like its coverage of Iraq, when reporting on Afghanistan the main stream media usually focuses on bombs going off and the numbers of combatants killed. Marlowe's article paints a much different picture of Afghanistan:

The security situation is far better than the media and the $500-a-day security companies would have you believe. British-educated Minister of Communications Amirzai Sangin notes that Americans are losing opportunities due to fears about security: "There is potential for five mobile companies here. The fact that Investcom paid $40 million for their license -- and that another company is in negotiations with us now -- should give you the assurance that there is security here. We have 3,700 employees in every one of the 34 provinces and to date no person has been killed or kidnapped."

Since the kidnapping of an Italian woman in May 2005, there have been no attacks on foreigners in Kabul -- no robberies, kidnappings, assaults or murders. In fact, part of the problem is that because Afghans don't see the situation in most of their country as unsafe, they haven't addressed the outsider perception. As a Western-educated Afghan who sees it from both sides told me, "What Afghanistan needs to do right away is to hire a good PR firm to tell people that it's safe to come here!"

Despite concerns about religious freedom, I am optimistic about Afghanistan's future. I much prefer Marlowe's view of Afghanistan as a land of opportunity to the negative stories we see day in and day out. I hope her view is the one most likely to prevail.

Curious Circumstance

Michael Yon is again reporting on the War Against Terror, now from Afghanistan. He has posted his first dispatch from that mysterious land, "Curious Circumstance." Go read it.

Italy Welcomes Rahman

The Associated Press reports Italy granted asylum to Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity. Premier Berlusconi said Rahman is in the care of the Italian Interior Ministry after arriving in Italy:

Abdul Rahman "is already in Italy. I think he arrived overnight," Berlusconi said, declining to release more details.

Earlier today, Afghanistan's parliament demanded that the Rahman be prevented from fleeing the country.

Muslim clerics in Afghanistan condemned Rahman's release, saying it was a "betrayal of Islam," and threatened to incite violent protests.

This should be recorded as another victory over our enemies in the War Against Terror. Had the extremists managed to murder Rahman, Western support for Afghanistan would have crumbled.

Abdul Rahman Released

Abdul Rahman, the Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity has been released.

According to the New York Times, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said Mr. Rahman had asked for asylum outside Afghanistan.

Mr. Rahman's case demonstrates what a rough and narrow road we must travel while trying to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East:

Clerics led hundreds of people in a demonstration in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Monday, demanding that Mr. Rahman be tried under Islamic law and executed.

A witness named Shaahed said people at the demonstration had shouted slogans against President Bush and Zalmay Khalilzad, who is originally from Balkh Province in the north and is now the American ambassador to Iraq.

"They were shouting: "Death to Bush! Death to Khalilzad! Death to America!" said Mr. Shaahed, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

He said the police there had controlled the protest, which was peaceful. "They were also shouting: 'Abdul Rahman must be executed! We don't want any country to interfere in our Islamic affairs,' " Mr. Shaahed said of the protesters.

Afghanistan's Constitution is said to ensure religious freedom, but it states that Islam is the supreme law.

In A November 2003 editorial, “Blueprint for a new Afghanistan,” the Washington Times praises the draft Afghan constitution. The editorial stated the constitution effectively balances “hard-line calls for institutionalized Islamic law and the more secular leanings of its urban people.”

I posted then that the competing interests were, unfortunately, weighted towards institutionalized Islamic law.

I also posted I was disappointed with the Afghan Constitution's declaration that "Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic," combined with the following provisions:

The religion of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam. Followers of other religions are free to perform their religious ceremonies within the limits of the provisions of law.

In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam and the values of this Constitution.

The deference to Islamic law concerned me. The experts said it was unlikely that the sort of brutal punishments imposed by the Taliban, such as stoning adulterers and cutting off the hands of thieves, would ever be meted out under the Afghan constitution. Nevertheless, Afghanistan’s draft constitution should prohibit such fundamentalist extremism.

The Washington Times reports Muslim scholars do not expect a wave of similar apostasy cases in light of the uproar over Mr. Rahman. Mr. Rahman was only charged after he told investigators he was a Christian in the middle of a legal battle with his ex-wife over the custody of their two daughters.

But according to the Washington Times, two other Afghan Christians had been arrested in recent days, while others had been subjected to beatings and police raids.

The Rahman matter, like the cartoon wars has drawn attention the chasm between Muslim world against the West. Last week United Press International's Claude Salhani wrote the Rahman matter "depicts the difference between an accommodating Western culture, and a brand of Islam closed onto itself:"

Muslims who have opted to live in the West were for the most part well-received -- though not always welcomed -- into Western society. Regrettably, the same cannot always be said of the reverse. Many observers note that while multiple mosques were erected across Western Europe and the United States, Saudi Arabia has still to allow a single church to be built in the kingdom.

One of the major differences between the two cultures is that the freedom to choose one's religion in the West is considered to be part of man's basic human rights.

Salhani reported the Milan's Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, suggested that Western nations help Afghanistan launch a movement to reform Islam.

Scholars agree that reform in Islam is needed and that it can be achieved through the practice of ijtihad or the interpretation of Islamic law (sharia) to take into account changing historical circumstances and different points of view.

In 2004, the United States Institute of Peace and the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy produced a special report calling for the revival of the practice of ijtihad. We should encourage ijtihad to enable Muslims "to reinterpret Islam for the 21st century."

Afghanistan To Release Christian Convert

Agence France-Presse reports a senior Afghan official said Abdul Rahman, who is facing a possible death sentence for converting to Christianity would probably be released from jail:

Top government officials will meet on Saturday to discuss Abdul Rahman, 41, who was denounced by his own parents and arrested under Islamic Shariah law on his return to Afghanistan from Germany two weeks ago.

"He is likely to be released soon," the official said.

I hope the AFP report is correct. We have gotten ourselves into a fine pickle by allowing the Afghan and Iraqi constitutions to officially recognize the supremacy of Islamic law. The obvious problem for us is that should Rahman be executed because he converted to Christianity, support for Afghanistan would collapse and al Qaeda would achieve a great victory in the War Against Terror.

The vast majority of Westerners do not realize how deeply most Muslims believe that a Muslim cannot convert to another religion. Regardless of how repugnant the idea of killing a person simply because they want to convert to a different religion seems to those of us who believe in freedom of religion, such killings are a deeply held tenet of the Islamic faith.