In a continued attack against the education of women in Afghanistan, 160 female students were poisoned Tuesday at a school in the north-eastern province of Takhar. The second wave of violence in only a week’s time, the incident follows a similar pattern as the first, with police suspecting the classroom had been sprayed with a toxic material before the girls arrived to take their lessons.

Aged 10 to 20, the students reportedly smelled a strange odor upon entering the room, before experiencing symptoms such as headaches and dizziness, with many vomiting before losing consciousness. All were immediately taken to the hospital; most were discharged after only a few hours.

While none of the victims are in critical condition from the poisoning, there remains the obvious potential for emotional trauma after the incident – which is undoubtedly the true goal of this vicious assault. Extremists in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, have long opposed the many attempts to educate women in the country.

From throwing acid in the faces of girls on their way to school, to setting off bombs near institutions that allow education for both sexes, it has never been a secret how these groups feel about the women of their country garnering knowledge.  One of the major goals of their campaign is to keep women ignorant, and what better way is there to do so than to emotionally scar girls from attempting to go to school again? From making these children fear the concept of it?

While no one has formally claimed responsibility for the poisoning of the schools, many have already pronounced the Taliban as the guilty party due to their history of violence and threats against schools and women. The militant group, however, denies any culpability in the incident, instead going so far as to claim that NATO and the United States are attempting to frame them for the heinous act.

Whether the Taliban was involved or not, the poisonings only serve to further increase concern about a potential comeback for the insurgents in the government, after the Western states agreed to pull their military forces out of the country by the year 2014.

The Taliban held a strong reign on Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when U.S troops invaded to try and foster democracy within the nation.  Prior to U.S intervention, there was a ban on education for women, which many believe will come back into effect if the Taliban find themselves in a position to return to power.

Image Courtesy of   Lizette Potgieter / Shutterstock.com

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Washington, U.S.A. - As the first anniversary of bin Laden’s death approaches, Robert Weiner, a former Clinton White House spokesman and former communications director for the House Government Operations Committee, and Senior Analyst at Robert Weiner Associates Richard Mann, prove wrong the statements by Mitt Romney, Carl Rove, and other critics that “any president” would have given the order that launched the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year.

They contrast Bush’s 2001 outsourcing a raid on Bin Laden’s 2001 Tora Bora location to the Afghanis who failed — on purpose or through ineptness — to Obama’s U.S. solo action in Abbottabad, Pakistan that succeeded when Obama did not reveal or leak the strategy.

Weiner and Mann document their claim with information from a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report, “Tora Bora Revisited: How we Failed to Get Bin Laden.”

Weiner and Mann say, “When placed in a similar situation with parallel choices, George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, failed to succeed because he made the opposite decision. In December 2001, Bush had the chance to capture Bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, was faced with the choice of doing it ourselves or involving a foreign government, and asked the Afghanis to do it. Whether by ineptness or intent, the Afghani troops allowed bin Laden to escape.”

Weiner and Mann show how Obama’s approach was totally different: “When Obama was questioned as why he did not inform the Pakistanis in advance about Abbottabad, he said, ‘I didn’t tell most people here in the White House. I didn’t tell my own family. It was that important for us to maintain operational security.’

When asked during the 2006 presidential campaign debates what he would do with ‘actionable intelligence’, he said he would have the United States ‘act unilaterally’ rather than in consort with foreign intelligence if necessary to capture bin Laden. That’s precisely what he did, as the President restated at a White House news conference.”

Weiner and Mann cite the 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: “The Committee says its review ‘removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.” The Committee Chair expressed the “hope that we can learn from the mistakes of the past.” “Obama did,” say Weiner and Mann.

“Obama recognized that bin Laden’s compound could not exist without local and likely some kind of government cooperation.

“During the years after the Tora Bora debacle, the Bush administration went even further in the opposite direction from Obama’s later actions. Bush closed the CIA’s unit on bin Laden. In contrast, Obama reprioritized the search for bin Laden. Bush said, ‘I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq. I really don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.’ Likewise, Governor Romney said he ‘would not move heaven and earth’ to get bin Laden.

“The notion recently raised by Carl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, and Dick Cheney that Bush deserves a share of the credit for Obama’s bin Laden operation is ridiculous and should be recognized as sour grapes.

“Obama’s team had as key players Vice President Joe Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former Senate Armed Services Committee member, and their emphasis on using intelligence and special operations over a large military footprint ultimately proved successful. Despite 100,000 troops and another 100,000 contractors, the Taliban actually grew stronger.

It was the surgical raid by a small team that defeated the man behind the 9/11 attacks. “It is time to ask the Republicans and other critics if they have any real alternative that would have succeeded as Obama did in taking down Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi or for that matter, on domestic policy, where Obama reversed the Bush bleeding of 750,000 jobs per month, rescued the auto industry and the nation’s financial institutions, and put the country back to 26 straight months of increased jobs and GDP.”

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Early Sunday, a lone soldier walked out of his base and into the nearby village in the Panjway district of the Kandahar province in Afghanistan. This U.S. soldier then opened fire on civilians. Sixteen Afghan villagers, mostly women and children, were killed.

The soldier returned to the base and turned himself in to authorities following the killings. He remains in U.S. custody but his identity has not been disclosed. At this time his motive is also unknown. Initial reports from witnesses stated a group of possible drunk U.S. soldiers were responsible for the killings. U.S. officials maintain that there was simply one shooter.

Washington moved quick to put distance between the lone gunman and the 90,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan. According to reports, President Obama phoned the Afghan President Hamid Karzai and expressed his shock and sadness as well as offering condolences to the victims’ families and the Afghan people.

In a statement released by the White House, Obama said, “This incident is tragic and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.” Obama also vowed “to get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible.”  To accomplish this goal a joint investigation will be carried out by the U.S. and Afghan authorities.

According to the Washington Post, President Karzai has already sent senior government officials to Panjway to investigate the shootings. During their visit they found that 11 of the dead were from one family. The shootings come at a sensitive time in U.S.-Afghan relations. Officials from both sides had signed a deal on Friday, March 9 to transfer a U.S.-run prison at Bagram airbase to Afghan authorities.

This transfer was insisted on by Karzai and was considered progress in reaching a Strategic Partnership Agreement, said the New York Times, allowing long-term American involvement in Afghanistan after 2014. Now officials are worried about retaliatory attacks. Tensions had begun to ease after the accidental burning of copies of the Koran at the main NATO base in Afghanistan just a few weeks earlier. Protests following the Koran burning led to the deaths of 30 people.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued an emergency statement on their website to alert “U.S. citizens in Afghanistan that as a result of a tragic shooting incident in Kandahar province involving a U.S. service member, there is a risk of anit-American feelings and protests in the coming days, especially in the eastern and southern provinces.”

The Taliban wasted no time issuing a statement condemning the killings and possibly adding fuel to the fire. “The so-called American peacekeepers have once again quenched their thirst with the blood of innocent Afghan civilians.” They also pledged to “avenge every single death inflicted by the savage murderer invaders.” It is difficult to predict the extent of the backlash but the officials in Washington seem to be preparing for the worst.

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On January 16, Al-Qaida forces took over Radda, a Yemeni town 100 miles south of the capital, and captured the local prison, setting at least 150 convicts free. According to an Associated Press photographer, the al-Qaida militants who attacked Radda were equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic rifles, and other arms.

Residents said that a black al-Qaida banner was flown at the top of a captured mosque. Around 200 militants invaded Radda from already captured points, according to security officials. These points included an ancient castle, mosque, and school. Some of the freed criminals were given arms and joined in the fighting, according to anonymous officials who were not allowed to speak to the media.

The officials divulged that the leader of the al-Qaida fighters was Tariq Al-Zahab, whose sister was married to Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida cleric and recruiter who was killed in a U.S. airstrike. The fighters maintained a security ring around Radda, so nobody could enter or leave.

Al-Qaida militants are taking advantage of the fact that the Yemeni government has been weakened due to an anti-regime uprising which was influenced by the Arab Spring revolts. This takeover has added to the number of towns that al-Qaida has already conquered in the mostly lawless south. After months of opposing protests, President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally ended his 33-year rule. The capture of Radda gives al-Qaida a foothold close to the capital, which is believed to contain many terrorist sleeper cells.

Thousands protested the security officials’ failure to protect the town in the provincial capital of Bayda. They blamed Saleh for the attack, as did some tribal leaders. “We are surprised by the silence of the security forces,” said one protester, Abdel-Rahman al-Rashid, who lives in Radda. “They have not moved, which only means that this is all arranged to spark chaos.”

Yemen, being the poorest nation in the Arab world, has long been in danger of splitting up along regional lines, with al-Qaida in possession of remote, guarded areas in the country’s mountainous areas. If this happens, Yemen could turn into something similar to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and become a power base for militants to plot terrorist attacks against the US and its allies.

The active al-Qaida branch in Yemen has previously been connected to terror attacks on the United States and Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the most formidable franchises of the international terror organization. The US once viewed Saleh as an ally in the fight against al-Qaida. However, the US stopped its support last summer and encouraged Saleh to resign.

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Officials in Pakistan received a letter stating the Taliban’s plot to kidnap a high-ranking government official with the intention of exchanging him or her for bin Laden’s family. U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden, former terror chief, in May during a helicopter-borne raid in north-western Pakistan. The raid took place in one of bin Laden’s homes where he was hiding.

Focused on killing bin Laden, the U.S. Seals took his dead body from the compound but left at least two of his wives and several children in the home. Soon after the family members were detained by the Pakistani authorities, according to the Associated Press. Pakistan’s interior ministry received the letter, which warned of the kidnapping plot, on August 23.

An AP reporter obtained a copy of the letter, stamped “secret” on Friday. The letter said that the kidnapping warning was reliable. No information on specifically which Pakistani official the Taliban plans to kidnap was given. The letter did say that the kidnapping plot would most likely take place in one of Pakistan’s four provincial capitals – Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.

The letter was received by Pakistan just three days before Shahbaz Taseer, the son of a weathly provincial governor, was killed by Islamist militant on August 26.

The New York Times reported that Shahbaz’s father and former governor of Punjab Province, Salman Taseer, was killed in January in Islamabad. The assassin, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, who was one of Salman’s security guard, later said the killing of Salman was because of the governor’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

The deaths of Taseer father and son are not the only recent high-profile kidnappings that have taken place. Another abduction occurred in Lahore in August. The AP reported that on August 15, gunmen seized 70-year-old American aid expert, Warren Weinstein, from his house. Weinstein remains missing. The police declined to speculate on who may be holding the man.

Minister Rehman Malik said that there is no clear connention between the recent kidnapping of Shahbaz Taseer’s and the plot on to free bin Laden’s family. This is not the first time Pakistan has dealt with serious kidnapping plots by the Taliban. Pakistan has reportedly released Taliban prisoners before in exchange for kidnapped government officials as well as army officers, according to the AP.

Meanwhile, The Huffington Post reported that Pakistani police are preventing foreign journalists and other visitors from getting close to the house of bin Laden ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Danish Ambassador to Pakistan and his wife as well as two French journalists, were among several people detained this week in Abbottabad – the town where bin Laden’s last hideout was located.

They were held briefly before being allowed to leave.  Ambassador Uffe Wolffhechel said he asked security officers at a checkpoint on the road to bin Laden’s house whether he and his wife could get in viewing range of the compound and “they said ‘we are sorry, no,’ and we shook hands and said ‘have a nice day’.”

The Huffington Post reported that Wolffhechel and his wife were held for around two hours while officers checked their papers. Karim Khan, Abbottabad police officer, said the authorities were preventing journalists and foreigners from visiting the compound because it is regarded as evidence in investigations into how bin Laden lived there and how the CIA found him.
Asianet-Pakistan / Shutterstock.com

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Pastor Terry Jones of Florida, one small, self indulgent man, has unleashed a flurry of hate felt all across the globe.  In his own act of hate, his small Florida church burned a copy of the Quran, something he has been threatening to do for months.  As expected, the Taliban used this act to justify their own violence. Protests in Afghanistan broke out following the Quran burning and many are turning violent.

Twenty people have been killed in the demonstrations including seven U.N. workers.  NATO officials re-iterated their condemnation of the Quran burning in an apparent attempt to quell the rising anger.

“We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Quran,” said the statement issued by military commander Gen. David Petraeus and the top NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill.  “We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Quran, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people,” the statement said.

U.S. President Barack Obama extended his condolences to the families of those killed by the protesters and said desecration of the Quran “is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry.” But he said that does not justify attacking and killing innocent people, calling it “outrageous and an affront to human decency and dignity.”

It is sort of ironic that our nation is now being judged by the act of one lunatic in the deep south.  Many Christians will quickly dismiss this instance, as they do with Westboro Baptist Church, claiming these are not “real” Christians or that their entire religion should not be judged based on a few extremists.  Excuse me?  Isn’t that what our nation has been doing to the Muslim faith since 2001?  Maybe we should just call the extremist Muslims not “real” Muslims.  Terry Jones and Westboro, however misguided they are, are still Christians.  They read the Bible and believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  Isn’t that it all takes to be a Christian?  If we expect moderate Muslims to take responsibility for their own extremist members, then Christians need to do the same.

Terry Jones needs to be held accountable for his actions.  Free speech does not apply to him any more than it would to me if I yelled fire in a crowded theater starting a stampede.  The U.S. Supreme Court has made that clear.  Jones had months to think about this and he was fully aware that his actions would have these types of consequences.  His holier-than-thou attitude is really just to get media attention.  He will get lots of media attention if he ends up jail.  Let’s grant Terry his wish.  Throw him in jail and give him the 24 hour attention he craves.

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At the Kabul International Conference 2010, which was the first Conference to be held in Afghanistan at Foreign Minister level and to be run by the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai expressed the Afghan government’s determination to have control of security transferred from foreign to Afghan forces. The Conference set the deadline for 2014, but even at the time, the BBC’s Ian Pannell questioned the feasibility of the, albeit, optimistic goal.

In a report, the British journalist estimated that the security situation across the country would not allow plans to move forward in the near future. Violence was on the rise and June 2010 was the deadliest month in nearly nine years of war. Roadside bombings, assassination and suicide attacks were all increasing exponentially but despite these numbers, military commanders and politicians gathered at the Conference were convinced the process was on the right track. The argument was that the rise in violence was a temporary result of the troops’ effort which sometimes aggressively targeted the Taliban. They believed the security of people in the south and east was improving as a result of areas now being controlled by government and not the insurgents. Additionally, there was broad optimism among officials about the numbers and capabilities of Afghan police and soldiers.

The realities a good seven months after the inspiring commitments of the Afghan government and the International Community, are less optimistic. Despite possessing more capabilities than before, the police force and the Afghan army is not considered at all battle-ready. Both groups have problems with desertion, illiteracy, drug abuse, poor supply and logistics as well as a lack of representation from the majority Pashtun ethnic group, the group from which many Taliban members originate, according to the BBC. Concerns have also been raised about the Taliban’s capacity to infiltrate the security forces and investigations are taking place to figure out what happened in the known instances of insider attacks. Screening procedures may need to be significantly revised.

The biggest obstacle remains the hardline Islamic Taliban movement. The group emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and their early popularity was due to their humanitarian work for local communities – their involvement, however, soon brought international accusations of human rights and cultural abuses. A decade later, the Taliban in Afghanistan was accused of providing sanctuary for the al-Qaeda movement following 9/11 and was driven from power in Afghanistan by the US-led coalition.

The senior Taliban leader Mullah Omar has evaded capture since the invasion and is believed to be guiding the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. Despite being under pressure  from security forces in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban is presumed to be steadily extending their influence and rendering vast tracts of Afghanistan insecure.

The Red Cross said at a rare press conference in December 2010 that the US plan to start withdrawing troops from July this year, in accordance with Afghan desire for security handover by 2014, would be a great mistake. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed their concern by saying they expect fighting to increase in 2011 just as it had the year before – 2010 being the deadliest year of the war since 2001. Reuter’s quoted the head of ICRC in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, for saying that “The proliferation of armed groups threatens the ability of humanitarian organisations to access those in need. Access for the ICRC has over the last 30 years never been as poor”.

This comes in conjunction with the increasingly tense relationship between the Afghan government and its Western backers. The often-uneasy ties have further deteriorated over a bank corruption scandal, a ban on private security contractors, election fraud, the establishment of a US base in the country and more recently, a row over civilian deaths in Kunar province.

The seven-months-old optimism is looking increasingly misplaced if the realities of the situation on the ground do not improve radically in the short term.

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