This video from the USA is called Rick Rowley: Recent NATO Attacks on Afghan Civilians Show U.S. Military Surge Strategy Has Failed.
From Jordan News.net:
US Military dealt with killer of Karzai’s brother
Saturday 16th July, 2011
The Washington Post has revealed that the bodyguard who assassinated the Afghan president’s half-brother had dealt closely with US Special Forces, the CIA and British officials.
Ahmad Wali Karzai was shot dead last Tuesday.
According to the Post, Sardar Mohammad, the man who shot Karzai at his home in Kandahar, was later recruited by the Taliban.
Mohammad was reportedly so close to his victim that they met most days.
Contacts have revealed US security operatives would often ask Sardar to make arrests if they could not do it themselves.
And evidence has also emerged that the Taliban recruited Mohammad by infiltrating Afghan government security.
The high-profile killing means the troubled south of the country has lost a powerful leader.
A “powerful lesader” in hard drugs trade and CIA deals. Though the Jordan News item and the Washington Post article do not mention drugs, Sardar Mohammad may also have had a history of helping Ahmad Wali Karzai in drug deals.
Militancy and attacks on American forces in Afghanistan are rife in the area with civilian and foreign casualties at record levels.
The deaths of Karzai’s half-brother, and now Jan Mohammad Khan, are significant blows to the US puppet regime in Kabul: here.
Ahmed Wali Karzai’s recent murder will blow open a powder keg of corruption, writes Conn Hallinan: here.
Afghans now pay double the bribes of two years ago and Hamid Karzai has gone out of his way to curb anti-corruption initiatives: here.
On his way out of Afghanistan, General David Petraeus continues to throw out deceptive spin about the direction of the conflict in that country. The general wants to use cherry-picked numbers and vague characterizations to paint the insurgents as reeling under an assault by his pet counterinsurgency campaign, but big-picture “progress” exists only in his imagination. The truth is that security for Afghans is much, much worse than it was when Petraeus and his protege, General McChrystal, arrived: here.
Dutch mayor tells police not to deport family to Afghanistan: here.
Britain: Prince Harry, third in line to the throne, is to return to Afghanistan later in the year, we are told: here.
Afghan Judges Accuse U.S. of War Crimes. David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org: “Well, what would I do? That’s what they wanted to know: what would I advise Obama? I told them that I would announce that the military occupation was ending soon, that there would be no bases left behind and no weapons left behind, that I would immediately prosecute war crimes, that I would fund educational and civic and aid organizations run and controlled by Afghans… As this was being translated, every one of the six judges began applauding and declaring things like ‘You speak from our hearts”: here.
Afghanistan: How aid ends up financing mansions in Dubai: here.
British Apache helicopter injures children in Afghanistan: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Afghanistan extends deadline for Hajigak iron ore bids
The deadline for bids for Afghanistan’s giant Hajigak iron ore deposit has been extended by a month to September 4 at the request of companies interested in the project.
Mr Wahidullah Shahrani mines minister of Afghanistan said that 17 companies, mainly from India, are interested in developing the deposits and would now have until September 4 to submit their bids.
He said “Because of the complex nature of the operation and the massive size of the deposit, most of the companies have asked for a one month extension, which we have agreed.”
He said he expects to award the contract some time in November.
The Hajigak project, which straddles the central provinces of Bamiyan, Parwan and Wardak, has deposits of 2 billion tonnes of iron oreand is described by the Afghan government as Asia’s largest un mined iron deposit.
(Sourced from gulf-daily-news.com)
http://www.steelguru.com/raw_material_news/Afghanistan_extends_deadline_for_Hajigak_iron_ore_bids/214978.html
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The Irish Times – Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Afghanistan named as second most corrupt country in the world
A culture of malpractice resists official agencies’ attempts to curb it, writes Lianne Gutcher in Kabul
CORRUPTION HAS permeated every layer of Afghan society in the past 10 years, affecting everyday lives and sullying the highest levels of government.
In an Asia Foundation report last year, 55 per cent of Afghan respondents said corruption was a major problem in their daily lives, up from 42 per cent in 2006.
Despite funding to tackle corruption, efforts by Afghan and international officials are thwarted at every turn. Ordinary Afghans now pay on average $158 per bribe, double the level of two years ago, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Transparency International named Afghanistan as the world’s second most corrupt country, along with Burma and after Somalia.
“Corruption is not a technical issue,” said one senior law official in Kabul. “If it were, we would have made some progress. It is a political issue and we have no partner to work with.”
The president, Hamid Karzai, has gone out of his way not only to curb anti-corruption initiatives but also to blame his western backers. He has at various times claimed they are responsible for the collapse of Kabul Bank, for the fraud marring the 2009 presidential elections, and indeed for the vast bulk of corruption.
“Our international partners provided the groundwork for some people in Afghanistan to become unbelievably rich. Some people [have] become an economic mafia in Afghanistan,” presidential spokesman Wahid Omar said in August last year.
International officials started trying to get serious about corruption in late 2007, partly out of concern that graft among the elite was encouraging the insurgency. Mr Karzai duly set up the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption in June 2008.
Eighteen months later, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction issued a damning report highlighting the office’s flaws. It was understaffed, lacked independence and had insufficient power to pursue cases, the report said. It added employees lacked the basic skills to do their job.
Deeming the high office a failure, the international community pressed Mr Karzai to set up a corruption commission. Instead, what emerged was the monitoring and evaluation committee, partly funded by the UK’s department for international development.
Mr Karzai immediately doomed the committee by appointing Prof Mohammed Yasin Osmani as its head. He had been the chairman of the oversight office, which under his tenure had got nowhere. “It was a real kick in the teeth for internationals and signalled Karzai had no intention of going after those who were corrupt,” an official said.
To add insult to injury, Mr Karzai appointed Azizullah Lodin, former head of the international election committee, who had been fired over the 2009 election fraud, as the head of the oversight office.
Mr Karzai is reluctant to go after corrupt warlords and officials close to him because, having become president without a power base, he has had to cut deals to shore up his position.
At the Kabul conference in July last year, Mr Karzai agree to set up an anti-corruption tribunal and a major crimes task force. The Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF), dubbed the Afghan FBI, was intended to tackle serious crimes, focusing on corruption, organised crime and kidnapping. British and US law enforcement agents mentored the taskforce’s staff. The UK helped to fund both organisations.
It was another blow, then, when one of the tribunal’s first cases was the prosecution of Bill Shaw, a former British solider and the commercial manager of G4S, a UK security firm charged with protecting the British embassy in Kabul. He was accused of paying a $25,000 bribe to a government official for the release of bombproof cars that had been impounded. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in a Kabul jail. His defence argued that he thought he was paying a legitimate fine for a licensing irregularity. He was freed after an appeal.
At the same time, internationals applied pressure on MCTF officials to put together a test case. In June last year, the attorney general’s office arrested Mohammad Zia Salehi, another Karzai aide, on bribery charges. Mr Karzai intervened and he was released. Similarly, in March this year, the presidential aide Noorullah Delawari was arrested on corruption changes, and then released after Mr Karzai intervened. “Unfortunately when it comes to high-ranking government officials, we can’t do anything,” an official at the attorney general’s office lamented at the time of Delawari’s release.
The Kabul Bank fiasco remains the country’s most notorious corruption scandal. To date, no one has been arrested over the disappearance of $900 million of depositors’ money. Last month, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the former head of the Afghan central bank, fled to the US, saying he did not want to be a scapegoat.
“We may never know exactly what went on,” said Hamid Khan, a rule of law expert at the United States Institute of Peace in Kabul. “Karzai may not have stepped up to the plate to go after corrupt warlords but it is worse when major banks are teetering on the brink of collapse. The ripples are felt across the entire economy.
“Development is dependent on the banking system and affects the livelihoods of ordinary Afghans who are trying to get loans to start a business.
“It also affects how the rule of law is conducted. If businesses have no confidence in the system in place they won’t invest, and without investment there are less incentives for sustaining the rule of law.” – ( Guardian service)
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The Irish Times – Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Afghanistan named as second most corrupt country in the world
A culture of malpractice resists official agencies’ attempts to curb it, writes Lianne Gutcher in Kabul
CORRUPTION HAS permeated every layer of Afghan society in the past 10 years, affecting everyday lives and sullying the highest levels of government.
In an Asia Foundation report last year, 55 per cent of Afghan respondents said corruption was a major problem in their daily lives, up from 42 per cent in 2006.
Despite funding to tackle corruption, efforts by Afghan and international officials are thwarted at every turn. Ordinary Afghans now pay on average $158 per bribe, double the level of two years ago, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Transparency International named Afghanistan as the world’s second most corrupt country, along with Burma and after Somalia.
“Corruption is not a technical issue,” said one senior law official in Kabul. “If it were, we would have made some progress. It is a political issue and we have no partner to work with.”
The president, Hamid Karzai, has gone out of his way not only to curb anti-corruption initiatives but also to blame his western backers. He has at various times claimed they are responsible for the collapse of Kabul Bank, for the fraud marring the 2009 presidential elections, and indeed for the vast bulk of corruption.
“Our international partners provided the groundwork for some people in Afghanistan to become unbelievably rich. Some people [have] become an economic mafia in Afghanistan,” presidential spokesman Wahid Omar said in August last year.
International officials started trying to get serious about corruption in late 2007, partly out of concern that graft among the elite was encouraging the insurgency. Mr Karzai duly set up the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption in June 2008.
Eighteen months later, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction issued a damning report highlighting the office’s flaws. It was understaffed, lacked independence and had insufficient power to pursue cases, the report said. It added employees lacked the basic skills to do their job.
Deeming the high office a failure, the international community pressed Mr Karzai to set up a corruption commission. Instead, what emerged was the monitoring and evaluation committee, partly funded by the UK’s department for international development.
Mr Karzai immediately doomed the committee by appointing Prof Mohammed Yasin Osmani as its head. He had been the chairman of the oversight office, which under his tenure had got nowhere. “It was a real kick in the teeth for internationals and signalled Karzai had no intention of going after those who were corrupt,” an official said.
To add insult to injury, Mr Karzai appointed Azizullah Lodin, former head of the international election committee, who had been fired over the 2009 election fraud, as the head of the oversight office.
Mr Karzai is reluctant to go after corrupt warlords and officials close to him because, having become president without a power base, he has had to cut deals to shore up his position.
At the Kabul conference in July last year, Mr Karzai agree to set up an anti-corruption tribunal and a major crimes task force. The Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF), dubbed the Afghan FBI, was intended to tackle serious crimes, focusing on corruption, organised crime and kidnapping. British and US law enforcement agents mentored the taskforce’s staff. The UK helped to fund both organisations.
It was another blow, then, when one of the tribunal’s first cases was the prosecution of Bill Shaw, a former British solider and the commercial manager of G4S, a UK security firm charged with protecting the British embassy in Kabul. He was accused of paying a $25,000 bribe to a government official for the release of bombproof cars that had been impounded. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in a Kabul jail. His defence argued that he thought he was paying a legitimate fine for a licensing irregularity. He was freed after an appeal.
At the same time, internationals applied pressure on MCTF officials to put together a test case. In June last year, the attorney general’s office arrested Mohammad Zia Salehi, another Karzai aide, on bribery charges. Mr Karzai intervened and he was released. Similarly, in March this year, the presidential aide Noorullah Delawari was arrested on corruption changes, and then released after Mr Karzai intervened. “Unfortunately when it comes to high-ranking government officials, we can’t do anything,” an official at the attorney general’s office lamented at the time of Delawari’s release.
The Kabul Bank fiasco remains the country’s most notorious corruption scandal. To date, no one has been arrested over the disappearance of $900 million of depositors’ money. Last month, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the former head of the Afghan central bank, fled to the US, saying he did not want to be a scapegoat.
“We may never know exactly what went on,” said Hamid Khan, a rule of law expert at the United States Institute of Peace in Kabul. “Karzai may not have stepped up to the plate to go after corrupt warlords but it is worse when major banks are teetering on the brink of collapse. The ripples are felt across the entire economy.
“Development is dependent on the banking system and affects the livelihoods of ordinary Afghans who are trying to get loans to start a business.
“It also affects how the rule of law is conducted. If businesses have no confidence in the system in place they won’t invest, and without investment there are less incentives for sustaining the rule of law.” – ( Guardian service)
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Afghan official: Kabul Bank scam involved up to 40
DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press, RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press
Updated 12:12 p.m., Sunday, July 31, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — As many as 40 people were allegedly involved in scams to bilk hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kabul Bank, and nearly half the cases will be sent to the Afghan court system next week, a top Afghan prosecutor said Sunday.
The charges are the first to be referred to Afghan courts in connection with the bank’s near collapse last year because of mismanagement and questionable lending. A USAID inspector general report estimated that $850 million in loans were diverted to bank insiders.
The troubled Kabul Bank, which is now partly controlled by the Afghan central bank and the Ministry of Finance, has became a symbol of the country’s deep-rooted corruption. The case is being closely followed by Afghans and international donors because it is a barometer of officials’ pledge to root out patronage, graft and show accountability to world financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund.
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said the charging papers would name Sherkhan Farnood, the former chairman of Kabul Bank and a world-class poker player; Khalilullah Ferozi, the former chief executive officer who has been cooperating with prosecutors; and more than two dozen other current and former employees of Kabul Bank and the Afghan Central Bank.
“It’s a very big case and not a simple case,” Nazari told The Associated Press in an interview in the Afghan Attorney General’s compound, adding that the allegations include corruption, abuse of authority, preparing fake loan documents or receiving illegal loans. He said between 30 to 40 people were involved in the scams.
The names of about 15 individuals, including the two former bank executives who are being held in a Kabul detention center, will be the first submitted to the courts, Nazari said. In addition, a team of prosecutors continues to investigate allegations of impropriety against another 15 or so individuals who have fled the country since the bank crisis unfolded last year.
“All of these people are accused. We have strong evidence against them, and I think they will be sentenced to jail,” Nazari said through a translator. “If a person is involved in the corruption of some $900 million and is not sentenced or given any punishment, what will happen to people who are involved in the corruption of just $1 million.”
During his visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed concern about endemic corruption and cronyism, which he said was rife throughout the nation. He said the Afghan people needed to see prosections as tangible results of work to fight corruption.
“I have been focused on and an advocate for the need to address the corruption issue … from the very beginning,” Mullen told reporters at a news conference in Kabul.
“Issues like the Kabul Bank and the criminal patronage networks are issues that must be addressed.”
Among the individuals whom prosecutors want to see returned to Afghanistan for questioning are Shairn Khan, the brother of the former Kabul Bank chairman, and Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the former governor of the Afghan central bank.
Fitrat, who fled to northern Virginia in late June,has said he left Afghanistan after receiving threats to his life. He complained that he was being scapegoated while the Afghan government had refused to charge politically connected individuals involved in making or receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable loans.
After Fitrat left, Nazari said the former central bank head faced allegations of failing to act on warnings about widespread corruption at Kabul Bank. Nazari said an arrest warrant for Fitrat had been sent to Interpol and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Fitrat, however, said he had permanent resident status in the United States and would not be returning to Afghanistan.
While the prosecutions move forward, Afghan officials are trying to get borrowers to repay loans worth $914 million, including interest, Nazari said. So far, $70 million has been repaid and “we know we are going to get back” another $49 million to $50 million plus interest, he said.
He said prosecutors had identified 413 loans made with fake documents, but did not know how much money those loans represented. Afghanistan’s anti-corruption office reported in May that $468 million in loans were made without appropriate documentation.
Other money is being recouped through the sale of property and companies purchased or set up with loans from Kabul Bank.
Bakhter TV, an Afghan television network, which was owned by a former Kabul Bank executive, has been sold for about $1 million, Nazari said. Authorities also are trying to sell Pamir Airways, a multimillion-dollar Afghan airline established with loans from the bank, he said.
In addition, Afghan authorities are trying to sell property worth an estimated $300 million that the two bank executives own in Afghanistan and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Some of the questionable loans were used to buy luxurious mansions in Dubai and invest in risky prestige projects like the airline and shopping malls in Kabul.
Farnood and Ferozi each had owned 28 percent of the bank’s shares. President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Mahmood Karzai, was the bank’s third largest shareholder with 7 percent. Haseen Fahim, a brother of one of the nation’s two vice presidents, also owned shares of Kabul Bank.
Nazari said Mahmood Karzai and Fahim had repaid most of what they borrowed from the bank.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Afghan-official-Kabul-Bank-scam-involved-up-to-40-1675527.php#ixzz1TiXLxGc2
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