Afghanistan Money
American Assistance to the People of Afghanistan
Since President Bush announced America's Fund for Afghan Children one year ago, the fund has raised $10 million. This money purchased 1,750 school chests and 750 teacher kits, 130,000 school bags, and built new playgrounds for schools in Afghanistan. Winter relief items, health kits, and rehabilitation of clinics were also provided with these funds. The American Red Cross processed over 750,000 letters to the fund. For more information, see http://kidsfund.redcross.org. ... [Read More]
Afghanistan
Taxi, truck, and bus drivers complained that militia and police personnel operated illegal checkpoints and extorted them for money and goods; however, the number of such checkpoints decreased during the year. In March, local militants shot and injured a police chief at an illegal checkpoint in Mazar-e-Sharif. ... [Read More]
U.S. Policy Towards Narcoterrorism in Afghanistan
To improve the security environment as quickly as possible, in coordination with Germany, the lead country on policing, and other international partners, we plan to train 50,000 combined Afghanistan National Police (ANP), Border Police (ANBP) and Highway Police by December 2005. More than 2,000 have been trained to date, and we aim to train a total of 25,000 by this June. We are using reprogrammed Emergency Response Funds and FY 2004 supplemental money that INL received to establish seven Regional Training Centers (RTC) near Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Gardez, Mazar-i-Sharif, Konduz, Kandahar, Bamiyan, Jalalabad and Herat. Supplemental funds will also provide equipment, communications and management systems, police physical plant and infrastructure, and salary support. We believe that this program will give the Afghan government, for the first time, the capacity to enforce the law throughout the country – a necessary condition for legitimate, sustai ... [Read More]
Afghanistan
On November 26, in an apparent attempted robbery, armed gunmen broke into a home in Taloqan in northeast Afghanistan in which Swedish journalists were sleeping. The gunmen killed journalist Ulf Stromberg. The intruders demanded money and stole equipment, including cameras, computers, and a satellite phone. ... [Read More]
Signing ceremony at Da Afghanistan Bank
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Day-Care Center in Afghanistan To Reopen
USAID Provides Grant Money To Repair Day-Care Center in Afghanistan ... [Read More]
Southwest Asia
The Road Ahead. Even with the provision of air and ground mobility and communications capacity through the border security program, the GOP will face an immense challenge in the coming year to interdict the increasing supply of drugs from Afghanistan. The GOP will need to work with the U.S. to develop a strategy to utilize new resources wisely, increase the coordination among the agencies that have counternarcotics responsibilities, and put training to best use. In coordination with the border security program, the U.S. will work with the GOP to put greater emphasis on the development of drug intelligence as it directly relates to trans-border trafficking activity and to target kingpin smuggling operations. Continued efforts to streamline and reform law enforcement, to investigate and prosecute corruption, and to speed up the pace of the counternarcotics judicial process will also be key to greater success against the drug trade in the future. The U ... [Read More]
Afghanistan: The Narcotics Situation and Strategy
Mr. Chairman, Committee members, I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you on the subject of “Afghanistan: The Narcotics Situation and Strategy.” The U.S. Government strategy for dealing with narcotics both within Afghanistan and trafficked from it is proactive and coordinated within the interagency. It is intended to reduce measurably heroin poppy cultivation, encourage alternative income streams, destroy drug labs, promote drug interdiction, and develop the justice sector to facilitate the proper prosecution and sentencing of traffickers. This State Department Bureau, the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), is intent on working closely and effectively with both Congress and DEA to implement this strategy. In fact, the DEA Administrator and I have recently returned from a fa ... [Read More]
Afghanistan
In Kanadahar, Chief of Police Akram acknowledged "private prisons" as a significant challenge (see Section 1.c.). AI reported that the Afghan intelligence agency, National Security Directorate, ran at least two prisons and there were unconfirmed reports of private detention facilities around Kabul and in northern regions of the country. Representatives of international agencies were unable to gain access to these prisons during the year. In July, HRW reported numerous cases of soldiers and police arresting, beating, and holding persons for ransom, and the existence of "private prisons" in Kabul city, and in Laghman, Paktia, and Nangarhar Provinces. According to HRW, "residents of Nangarhar, U.N. staff, and even government officials described soldiers and police regularly arresting people, often on the pretext that they were suspected of being members of the Taliban, beating them, and ransoming them to their families for money." U.N. humanitarian officials reported that the ... [Read More]
Afghanistan (04/05)
In the 1930s, Afghanistan embarked on a modest economic development program. The government founded banks; introduced paper money; established a university; expanded primary, secondary, and technical schools; and sent students abroad for education. ... [Read More]
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