Ten Afghans killed in Taliban ambush on Nato convoy

HEART: At least 10 Afghan security guards were killed Thursday when Taliban militants ambushed a logistics convoy destined for US-led Nato forces in western Afghanistan, a local official said.

The guards were securing the convoy when they came under attack in Bakwa district of Farah province, on the main highway connecting the west to the volatile south, said Naqibullah Farahi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

“Ten security guards have been killed and seven others injured in the Taliban ambush,” Farahi said, adding that the militants also torched nine trucks carrying the supplies for foreign troops.

A spokesman for Afghan police in the west of the country, Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, said police were immediately deployed to the area to hunt down the attackers.

Taliban frequently attack convoys supplying Nato troops in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, as part of their 10-year insurgency against the western-backed Kabul government since US troops toppled their regime in 2001.

There are around 140,000 US-led Nato forces in war-torn Afghanistan with foreign combat troops scheduled to withdraw by the end of 2014.

Between now and then, a gradual handover is due to take place of provinces and districts currently under the control of foreign troops to their Afghan counterparts.

The militants, leaders of the bloody insurgency, were not immediately contactable for comment about the incident by telephone.

But a statement on their website claimed that 24 security personnel were killed and six fuel tankers set on fire in the incident, while a number of weapons were also seized.

The Taliban are known routinely to exaggerate and distort their claims in relation to attacks.

Earlier this week, Afghan elders at a loya jirga in Kabul called for a “revision” of efforts to talk peace with the Taliban after September’s assassination of peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani.

But it said that the door should be kept open to those who wish to turn their backs on violence, whose addresses are known and who have Afghan citizenship.

Western Afghanistan, close to the border with Iran, has traditionally been seen as more stable and more liberal than other parts of the country, such as the volatile southeast and east.

However, it is still plagued by outbursts of violence in pockets where the Taliban are still influential.

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Man angry about food prices slaps Indian minister

NEW DELHI: A man slapped India’s agriculture minister in the face on Thursday, apparently to draw attention to rising food prices and corruption.

Sharad Pawar was talking to reporters at a political function when the man attacked him. TV news reports said the man was shouting slogans about inflated food prices and graft.

Television footage showed the man brandishing a knife as he was dragged away by security officials and Pawar’s aides.

“Don’t you know why I hit him? The common man is distressed. Am I wrong?” he shouted as he was being taken away.
CNN-IBN TV reported that the man was detained by police. Pawar was not seriously hurt.

“You are all corrupt… People are fed up,” the man said, adding that the Indian government must adopt a tough anti-graft law being considered by lawmakers.

Such incidents have become increasingly common in India, where ministers and other officials have had shoes thrown at them and their offices ransacked by angry citizens.

The incidents have usually been over political decisions, corruption, or real or perceived injustices.

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Arab ministers gather to discuss Syria sanctions

CAIRO: Arab foreign ministers gathered in Cairo on Thursday to discuss imposing sanctions on Syria for failing to implement an Arab League plan to end a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

The League, which for decades has spurned ordering action against a member state, has suspended Syria and threatened unspecified sanctions for ignoring the deal it had signed up to.

Syria has turned its tanks and troops on civilian protesters, as well as on armed insurgents challenging Assad’s 11-year rule. The United Nations says more than 3,500 people have been killed.

“Syria has not offered anything to move the situation forward,” said a senior Arab diplomat at the League, adding that it was considering what kind of sanctions to impose.

“The position of the Arab states is almost unified. We all agree…that the situation does not lead to civil war and that no foreign intervention takes place,” he said.

The November 12 agreement to suspend Syria was backed by 18 of the pan-Arab organisation’s 22 members. Lebanon, where Syria for many years had a military presence, and Yemen, battling its own uprising, opposed it. Iraq, whose Shia-led government is wary of offending Syria’s main ally Iran, abstained.

Arab ministers were meeting in a Cairo suburb instead of the League’s headquarters in Tahrir Square, occupied by protesters after days of clashes with police in nearby streets.

Khaled al-Habasi, an adviser to Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby, said the body was “working on uniting the Syrian opposition on a vision regarding the future of Syria during the transitional period” and drawing up sanctions.

Earlier this month, the League asked Syrian opposition groups to submit their ideas for a transition of power ahead of a planned bigger conference on Syria’s future.

“There are many ideas and suggestions for sanctions that can be imposed on the Syrian regime,” said one Arab government representative at the League, who asked not to be identified.

These included imposing a travel ban on Syrian officials, freezing bank transfers or funds in Arab states related to Assad’s government and stopping Arab projects in Syria, he said.

The decision to draft economic sanctions was taken at a meeting on November 16 in Morocco, stepping up pressure on the Arab state. Damascus agreed to the Arab plan on November 2, but the crackdown continued and Syria requested amendments to a plan to send Arab monitors to assess events at first-hand.

France called on Wednesday for a “secured zone to protect civilians” in Syria, the first time a major Western power has suggested international intervention on the ground.

After the uprising erupted in Libya, the League suspended Tripoli and also called for a no-fly zone that paved the way for a UN Security Council resolution and Nato air strikes.

Arabs have shown no appetite so far for following a similar route with Syria, which neighbours Israel and lies on the fault lines of several interlocking conflicts in the Middle East.

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Afghan president names new central bank governor

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has nominated a US-educated banker as the new governor of the country’s central bank, his spokesman said Thursday.

Presidential spokesman Hamid Elmi named the candidate as Noorullah Delawari. His nomination comes after a five month vacancy in the post caused by turmoil in Afghanistan’s banking system due to the near-collapse of the Kabul Bank, once the country’s largest private financial institution.

Parliament is expected to discuss its approval of the appointment on Saturday, said lawmaker Gul Pacha Majeidi.

Delawari is a former central bank governor who now sits on the institution’s governing board. He will replace Abdul Qadir Fitrat, who fled to northern Virginia in late June after claiming to have received threats to his life in connection with Kabul Bank scandal.

Kabul Bank became a symbol of the country’s deep-rooted corruption, and the case was closely followed by Afghans and international donors because it is widely perceived to be a test of the government’s pledge to root out patronage and graft.

Afghanistan’s financial system appears to be slowly recovering from the aftereffects of the near-collapse, which required a massive central bank bailout.

Last week, the IMF approved a three-year $133.6 million loan for Afghanistan because it found the government had taken steps to address governance and accountability issues that surfaced during the Kabul Bank crisis.

The decision reassured international donors, many whom had withheld aid while waiting for the IMF decision.

The Kabul Bank has been split into two parts, a healthy one being run by the Afghan Finance Ministry, and another which is has taken over hundreds of millions of dollars in bad loans. The Afghan government hopes to put the healthy bank up for sale in the middle of next year.

In October, the Afghan Finance Ministry said that of the more than $800 million in fraudulent loans issued by Kabul Bank, more than $70 million has been recovered; $350 million in loans have been restructured for repayment; and $110 million in assets associated with the loans have been seized and transferred to the government.

Delawari, who is in his mid-60s, also heads the Afghan Investment Support Agency.

The Afghan government set up the agency in September 2003 as a one-stop shop for investors. The agency oversees registration, licensing and promotion of new investments in Afghanistan.

Delawari left Afghanistan in the 1960s and studied in the United States and Britain. He worked at several banks in the United States, including 16 years as vice president of the multinational division of Lloyds Bank of California.

Since returning to Afghanistan in 2002, Delawari has also been an adviser to the president. He was governor of Afghanistan’s central bank from November 2004 to December 2007.

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Afghan war success may not be known until 2020: UK military chief

LONDON: Britain will eventually be proud of its role in the Afghanistan war but it could be another decade before its gains are realised, the head of Britain’s armed forces said in an interview published in Thursday’s Times.

General Sir David Richards, the chief of the defence staff, admitted tactical mistakes had been made but that he had “every expectation” history would judge the war positively.

“At the end of the day, we won’t know (if it has succeeded) until 2018, ’19, ’20,” he told the British newspaper.

“I have every expectation that we will all agree in ten years’ time that this was a necessary war and we’ve come out of it with our heads held high,” he added.

Richards admitted last month that public support for the Afghanistan campaign was waning and that proponents of the war were losing “the battle of perceptions” among the British public.

Public enthusiasm has been sapped by a steadily rising death toll among British soldiers, reports of troop and equipment shortages and U-turns in military tactics.

Richards said he was “the first to concede” that mistakes had been made but pointed out that no terrorist attack had been launched out of Afghanistan since the campaign began 10 years ago.

The general conceded that policymakers and military leaders were guilty of neglecting Afghanistan during the parallel campaign launched in Iraq in 2003, but added that strategy had been correct since US President Barack Obama’s 2009 troop surge.

Britain will withdraw 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, leaving 9,000 in the country.

Some 389 British troops have been killed since US-led operations in Afghanistan began in October 2001. Of these, at least 344 were killed in combat.

Prime Minister David Cameron has stressed that Britain’s commitment to Afghanistan would endure after the last Nato combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.

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Egypt military apologises for protest deaths

CAIRO: Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces apologised on Thursday for the deaths of demonstrators during six straight days of anti-military rallies, in a statement on their Facebook page.

“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces presents its regrets and deep apologies for the deaths of martyrs from among Egypt’s loyal sons during the recent events in Tahrir Square,” it said.

The central Cairo plaza was the epicentre of the 18 days of protests that ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak in February and has become an icon of the Arab Spring.

“The council also offers its condolences to the families of the martyrs across Egypt.”

The statement comes after a speech by SCAF head Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi which was aimed at placating protesters in the square but was heavily criticised for not making mention of the deaths at the hands of police.

The health ministry has put the death toll at 35 countrywide since clashes first erupted on Saturday.

In its Facebook statement, the SCAF vowed to investigate and prosecute all those behind the deaths.

It also pledged to offer assistance to the families of the dead and injured, and to set up a military field hospital in Tahrir Square.

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