Ron Synovitz is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
Prague, 13 September 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Experts on Afghanistan see yesterday's violence in the western city of Herat as the final phase of a long struggle between the central government and deposed Herat Province Governor Mohammad Ismail Khan.
North Korea is accusing the United States of applying "double standards" in its role as one of the mediators in six-party nuclear nonproliferation talks on the Korean peninsula. The criticism by Pyongyang's envoy to the United Nations yesterday was the country's first official reaction to South Korea's recent admission that it had experimented with small amounts of uranium and plutonium. Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons. Conducting such tests without immediately informing the UN's nuclear watchdog -- the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- is a violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Both North and South Korea signed that treaty, but Pyongyang withdrew in January 2003.
The legacy of slain mujahedin commander Ahmad Shah Mas'ud has become an election campaign theme in Afghanistan. Several leading candidates in the 9 October ballot are invoking the name of the ethnic Tajik leader of the former Northern Alliance. Interim leader Hamid Karzai has named one of Mas'ud's brothers -- Ahmad Zia Mas'ud -- as a vice-presidential running mate. Karzai's chief opponent is Yunos Qanuni. He is campaigning as the candidate of Nahzat-e Melli-ye, a mostly ethnic Tajik political group founded on Mas'ud's legacy by another of his brothers. A third candidate -- Islamic hard-liner Abdul Hafiz Mansur -- claims he is the only true representative of Mas'ud's legacy. RFE/RL looks at how the "Lion of Panjsher" is being remembered and revered on the third anniversary of his death on 9 September.
Campaigning in Afghanistan's presidential election officially began today. Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai and his 17 opponents have 30 days to try to win support from more than 10 million registered voters. The ballot is the final step of the post-Taliban democratic reforms known as the Bonn Process. But analysts warn that disputes over the outcome could set back the reform process -- particularly if they lead to fresh violence in the country.
Concerns are growing about the potential for manipulation in Afghanistan's first direct presidential election. Just five weeks before the October ballot, the United Nations and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) have issued a report warning of voter intimidation and a lack security across much of the country. The report says the elections could be seriously undermined.
The Taliban is claiming responsibility for a car bomb in Kabul yesterday that killed at least nine people -- three Afghans, three Americans, and three Nepalese. The bomb was detonated in front of the offices of the U.S.-based private security firm DynCorp -- a company that has contracts to train officers for the Afghan National Police and to provide security for Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai. The attack came just hours after an explosion at a religious school in the country's southeastern Paktiya Province killed eight Afghan children and at least one adult.
Islamabad's recent efforts in the war on terrorism have focused on Al-Qaeda fighters. But now there are growing calls from Western diplomats, the Afghan government and the United Nations for Pakistan to rein in Taliban militants who have fled from Afghanistan into Pakistan since late 2001.
There are important distinctions between the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan until late 2001 and the Al-Qaeda network that carried out the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. RFE/RL spoke with two experts who explain why those differences remain significant nearly three years after the collapse of the Taliban regime.
Prague, 23 August 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Officials in Islamabad say the recent arrest of 10 Al-Qaeda suspects has prevented a series of terrorist attacks in Pakistani cities that could have killed hundreds of people. They say suicide-bomb attacks were planned against President Pervez Musharraf's residence, Pakistani government buildings, and the U.S. Embassy.
Hamid Karzai (file photo) Prague, 19 August 2004 (RFE/RL) -- A group of candidates for the Afghan presidency have been meeting in Kabul to discuss whether they can unite against Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai. The meetings are the first public attempt by the candidates to form a unified opposition.
Some 1,500 Afghan government troops are being sent to the western province of Herat in an attempt to end fighting between Governor Ismail Khan's private militia and rival warlords in the area. An advanced team of several hundred troops from the Afghan National Army already has taken control of an air base south of Herat city that was the scene of bloody fighting on 14 August. Meanwhile, there were conflicting reports about continued fighting to the north of Herat today.
India and Pakistan say two days of talks between their interior ministers have enhanced the peace process by allowing both sides to share their views on terrorism and drug smuggling. Both issues are linked to their wider dispute over the divided region of Kashmir. So far, the peace process launched in January has achieved little concrete progress beyond agreements for further talks. But one prominent U.S. expert on South Asia predicts the nuclear-capable neighbors will achieve a major breakthrough as soon as September that will reduce the risk of a nuclear confrontation.
Qanuni could present a strong challenge to Hamid Karzai in Afghan vote Afghanistan's election board has named 18 candidates who have qualified to run in the 9 October presidential election -- including Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai. But there are allegations that the joint UN-Afghan election board violated the country's election law by allowing private militia commanders to compete.
Hamid Karzai (file photo) Afghan leader Hamid Karzai has signed a decree that threatens tough measures against warlords who resist a nationwide disarmament drive. The decree says militia commanders who do not take part in disarmament will be regarded as renegades and rebels and will be harshly punished. RFE/RL takes a closer look at an issue that is seen as critical to security in Afghanistan ahead of a presidential election scheduled for October.
Each year, scores of women in Pakistan are killed by their male relatives for marrying without the permission of their families. In areas where arranged marriage is a centuries-old tradition, Pakistani women who take husbands without family consent are thought to bring disgrace upon their relatives. In this report, we look at the challenge that "honor killings" present to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as he tries to present his country as a moderate and progressive Muslim country.
Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of Iraq's interim government, says Syria and Iraq will set up a special security force to prevent infiltrations by Islamic militants across their 600-kilometer common border. Salih made the remarks on 11 July during a visit to Damascus -- the first to Syria by an Iraqi official since the United States transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government last month. RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz reports on what appears to be the start of a wider effort by the interim government to gain recognition from its neighbors.
The United States says Sudan must stop atrocities by Arab militias in the country's western region of Darfur within days or it could face UN sanctions. UN Security Council ambassadors are to meet later today to discuss a U.S.-drafted resolution that calls for a weapons and travel ban on militia leaders accused of uprooting more than 1 million black African villagers in Darfur. The draft also includes a threat to expand sanctions after 30 days to include members of the Sudanese government unless Khartoum immediately reigns in the militias, known as "Janjaweed." The pressure follows visits to Darfur last week by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Afghanistan's UN-sponsored election commission reportedly decided today that the country's presidential elections will be during the month of Mizan on the Afghan solar calendar, which lasts from 22 September to 21 October. The decision follows two days of meetings between the commission and the Transitional Administration chaired by Hamid Karzai. There still has been no formal announcement about a date for parliamentary elections. But officials say that the election probably will not be held at the same time as the presidential vote, as originally envisioned.
Sixty Bosnian Serb officials have been sacked by Paddy Ashdown, the chief international envoy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for allegedly helping Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and other indicted war crimes suspects evade capture. Those removed from office yesterday include parliamentary speaker Dragan Kalinic, who heads the Serb Democratic Party founded by Karadzic, and Interior Minister Zoran Djeric. The move follows a decision by NATO leaders in Istanbul this week not to grant Bosnia and Herzegovina membership in the alliance's Partnership for Peace program because of the failure of Bosnian Serb officials to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Karadzic was indicted by the tribunal on charges of genocide but has eluded capture for nine years. RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz reports.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is threatening Sudan with unspecified UN Security Council action unless the government brings an end to Arab militia violence in the Darfur region. Powell told Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in Khartoum yesterday that "horrific" acts by the militias have created a humanitarian catastrophe in western Sudan. The United Nations has described the 15-month Darfur conflict as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Administrators of UN relief groups say up to 2 million people are now in need of food and that a million people have been forced to flee their homes. Washington says between 10,000 and 30,000 people have been killed in fighting between the government-backed Janjaweed militia and black Africans. Sudan's Islamist government denies it supports the Janjaweed. But it also continues to block aid workers, journalists, and independent human rights monitors from getting into Darfur to verify what is happening.
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