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Molehills in Iran
While checking the satellite pictures of a road between Herat in Afghanistan and Iran yesterday, this chain of ‘molehills’ got my attention. What are those?
detail of google sat picture
The black strip on the left is the two lane road between the Iranian towns Khvaf to the north and and Nishtafun to the south. There are two line of ‘molehills’ from north east to south west. On the bigger sat picture another line can be seen east of them.
Today Joshua Foust has a recommendable post on Afghan opium economics with a picture of similar structures in Afghanistan. It turns out that these are Karez wells first(?) known from Turpan in China:
Vertical wells are dug at various points to tap into the water current flowing down sloping land from the source, the mountain runoff. The water is then channeled through underground canals dug from the bottom of one well to the next well and then to the desired destination, Turfan’s irrigation system. This irrigation system of special connected wells originated during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD).
Some photos of the underground canals are here plus a model of such a system.
‘Driving’ the road in the google sat picture north or south (keep mouse button pressed and shove the picture down or up) one finds several more of these ‘molehill’ canals. The longest one in that area seems to be some three miles with a well holes every 60 yards.
When were these build? Are they still active and maintained?
Maybe I should travel there and take a look.
Surgar Weekly English Edition
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Surgar.net
Pakistan orders deportation of Afghan refugees
AFP Khar (Pakistan), October 8
Pakistan has ordered around 60,000 Afghan refugees to leave a troubled border tribal area where security forces are battling Al-Qaida and
Taliban militants, officials said today.
The deportation order for the displaced Afghans in the lawless northwestern region of Bajaur came after a deadline set for them to go back to their homeland expired on Sunday, security officials said.
Pakistan launched an offensive in Bajaur in August and officials allege that many of the refugees, who fled Afghanistan during the years of conflict following the 1979 Soviet invasion, have links to the militants.
“On the orders of the interior ministry, we have launched a crackdown against Afghan refugees who have not left the area,” senior government official Abdul Haseeb said.
He said most of the Afghans were in Bajaur illegally, having sneaked back in, two years after returning to Afghanistan under a UN-backed repatriation programme.
“But there are reports about Afghan refugees’ involvement in militant and anti-social activities, that is why they were being expelled,” Haseeb said.
Pakistani security forces have arrested 40 Afghans and sealed shops owned by Afghans, he said, adding: “There will be no extension in the deadline.”
An estimated 30,000 Afghans out of 90,000 living in the troubled district have left since last week’s order.
Most hail from the adjoining Afghan province of Kunar, a hotbed of Taliban insurgency.
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Afghan governor hoping to sow seeds of change
THE NEW YORK TIMES
KABUL, Afghanistan — As the new planting season for opium poppy draws near, the governor of Helmand, Afghanistan’s largest poppy
producing province, says that this year he is determined to beat the illicit crop that is a major source of money for drug lords and insurgents alike.
To do that, the governor, Gulab Mangal, says he plans to try something that has worked in more peaceful parts of Afghanistan, but which remains
untested in lawless Helmand. He hopes to persuade farmers not to plant poppy at all, rather than eradicating the crop once it has already been planted, a policy he blames for sowing greater strife in Helmand.
Mangal’s solution may seem easy enough, but the task before him is formidable. He says it will take new seeds for farmers, new roads to get their legal crops to the market, reconstruction money, strict enforcement of laws against poppy growing and, perhaps most difficult of all, the elimination of the official corruption that has fueled the drug trade.
One potential replacement crop is vegetable seeds. American vegetable seed distributors pay as much as US$80 per kg for onion seed, for example. Frike, a Syrian delicacy is made from durum wheat by toasting the already harvested wheat seed heads with fire. Frike is the single biggest source of income for rural families, particularly in the dry north-west. Seed production for domestic use is becoming increasingly important to Afghans. On a long term basis, suitable land for seed production must be identified and developed soon, according to Icarda [icarda.cgiar.org], as there is a regional shortage of available seed to secure next year’s food production.
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Pakistani police harass Afghan travelers
Quetta Sugar:
Afghan laborers have increasingly been traveling into Pakistan in search of work, but accounting to their accounts, and those of other Afghan travelers to the country, the Pakistani police are engaging in extortion with foreigners.
From the moment Afghan travelers pass through the Friendship gates at the Afghanistan – Paksitan frontier, police begin harassment demanding large sums of money. Not only do they demand money, but border police have physically beaten up the visiting workers and travelers, and even imprisoned some at the border prison in Chaman.
Although Afghan visitors have problems with Pakistani police in many areas, the heavy police patrols in Quettat are the one Afghans
complain about the most.
According to traveler reports from the area, if anyone refuses to pay the passage demanded by Pakistani police, they will be arrested and put in jail for days. According to one Afghan, Wali Mohammad, Pakistani police started demanding illegal tolls from the Friendship Gate between the two countries, and then at every check point from there until Queatta.
Qudratullah, another Afghan who spoke to Surgar Weekly, complained about the Pakistani police too. Upon his return to Quetta from work in Afghanistan, Qudratullah was asked for his Pakistani ID card. But after finding out that he didn’t have the Pakistani ID card, the police demanded 500 pakistani rupees. When he refused to give up the bribe, police immediately put him in prison for fifteen days. This was the worst experience of his life, he said. Qudratullah described how the jailers only provided half a loaf of bread each day, then after beating him up the prison officials demanded one thousand five hundred Pakistanni rupees to release him.
Pakistani border police have put more than three thousand Afghans in a prison built for only one thousand inmates, and call the extortion and bribery demands their “daily money needs”.
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Few Afghan carpets sold as country of origin
Kabul Surgar:
Although Afghan carpet exports have risen in the past few years, possibly as few as three or four percent are sold with an Afghanistan brand name as their country of origin in the international markets, resulting in millions of dollars of lost domestic income.
Carpet trade has risen ten times greater than before in international markets, and especially in the EU countries, according to Afghan carpet traders, but only a small percentage are sold with a certificate of origin as Afghan made carpets and using an Afghan trade name.
The remainder of the carpet exports are illegally traded by local and foreign smugglers to Iran and Pakistan and then reshipped to the international markets as of Iranian or Pakistani origin.
Because unemployment in Afghanistan is at one of its highest levels ever, many people have turned to weaving carpets. Even though these hand made carpets have the highest quality, domestic sales within the country has fallen dramatically. While talking to Surgar Weekly, Hajji Qadam Khan, a carpets salesman and trader, said sales volumes have reduced or
even stopped in some areas due to security problems, and due to illegal smuggling.
According to the trader, the imbalance between production of carpets and market demands also affects his trade business. He added that exporting Afghan carpets to international markets costs a huge amount of money which traders cant afford to finance before sales are paid, in complaining about smugglers selling Afghan carpets with other country of origin brands.
Afghan economics experts believe the Afghan business environment isn’t robust enough to provide secure, low-cost export shipping and trade processing in order to export Afghan trade goods conveniently. And taking the advantage, smugglers benefit from this lack of administrative controls in the Afghan national government.
Mohammad Zarif Yadgari, a member of carpet sale and sewing, told Sugar Weekly that Afghanistan exports about two million square meter carpets, but believes only two to three percent of it is sold labeled as made in Afghanistan. Afghanistan suffers a US$70 million loss every year when Afghan carpets are sold with other countries trade marks, Trade ministry of Afghanistan claimed.
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Flawed intel causes civilian deaths
Taand
One of the biggest reasons Afghan civilian deaths are caused by foreign troops air strikes is believed to be incorrect information provided by the Afghan intelligence service, according to a recent poll reported on the Taand website.
A survey of about 360 individuals was taken after the deadly air strikes which killed dozens in Shendand district of Herat provinces. After the poll was completed, the Taanb website said in its report that some 52 Afghans believe that civilian deaths in air strikes of foreign troops are
caused due to false reports and erroneous information of secret services.
A second large percentage of those surveyed believed foreign troops want make the killings as an excuse to stay longer in the country.
The survey was taken based on a foreign press agency reports that some four thousand six hundred Afghans have lost their lives in military operations in the ongoing year, and nearly 1500 of these Afghans were civilians.
Foreign troops commander also accept the fact that Afghan civilian deaths have risen recently. Robert Gates, US Defense minister, while meeting in conference with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, pledged to do his best to avoid civilian deaths.
President Karzia also believes that the rise in civilian deaths have caused unrest among the Afghan people and called on international forces and the Afghan national army for better communication and cooperation in staging military operations.
The UN Independent Commission has urged all three sides, the Afghan government, International Forces and militants to avoid civilian deaths.
Analysts believe that civilian deaths have created escalating distrust and unrest between the ordinary people and the Afghan government,
supporting a growing opposition movement that threatens to disrupt national life.
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Mullah Mohammad Omar: Avoid civilian casualties
Former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has called on his warriors to be cautious during the war and prevent innocent civilian casualties.
Delayed due to Eid Ul Fitr, a published announcement was released believed to be Mullah Mohammad Omar’s, urging Taliban to continue their fight.
In the announcement, Mullah Omar told Taliban followers to avoid deeds that give the Taliban a bad reputation. Suicide bomb blast in mosques,
robbing people and stealing their goods on major highways, cutting off people noses and ears using Taliban identity, setting religious books on fire,
and many other deeds are being performed by others to ruin the Taliban’s reputation, Mohammad Omar said.
He asked all those miscreants to reveal themselves and stop claiming the Taliban name, and also urged those Mujahideen who support the Afghan
government to join Taliban and stop using Taliban’s name for their personal benefits.
The Taliban leader also condemned the allied occupation forces air strikes in that caused tens of civilians’ deaths in Shendand district of Herat and conveyed his condolences to civilian families who lost their loved ones in eastern parts of the country.
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Taliban reject rumor of talks
Militant Taliban have rejected Western reports claiming the Taliban is in negotiation talks with the Afghan government being hosted by Saudi Arabia.
In an announcement after the Eid ul Fitr, Afghan president Hamid Karzia said talks with Taliban have been going for the last two years with the help of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, but there hasn’t been considerable progress.
Taliban spokesmen, on the other hand, say there is no truth to the story and rejects as nonsense that their representatives have held talks with the Afghan government while visiting as guests of the Saudis.
The Taliban claim those who have negotiated with the Afghan government don’t truly represent the Taliban. According to them, they will only talk with the Karzai government when it benefits the country and Islam, and the Taliban will continue their fight till the foreign forces are in Afghanistan.
Both the UN and a British commanding general have made remarks that foreign forces are not winning the war against terrorism in Afghanistan
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Rumors persist around heroin link
Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade
Heroin caches found near Kandahar and Kabul.
New York Times
WASHINGTON — When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.
Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.
Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.
The assertions about the involvement of the president’s brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.
Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes Afghanistan’s second largest city, dismiss the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.
Posted by: Shah Loam | Oct 9 2008 17:50 utc | 10
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