Month: October 2019

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary forces have “committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability” — including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and attacks on health-care facilities.

In its report, released on Thursday, HRW called on the Afghan government to immediately disband all pro-government paramilitary groups that operate outside the “ordinary military chain of command.”

It is also calling for the Afghan government to “impartially investigate all allegations of abuse by Afghan security forces” and to “prosecute those responsible for war crimes and serious abuses.”

It says both the United States and the Afghan government should also “cooperate with independent investigations of all allegations of war crimes and other human rights abuses.”

It also says the U.S. government should “investigate any U.S. personnel” involved in abuses, and should “cease supporting Afghan forces that have been responsible for serious violations.”

HRW documented 14 cases from late 2017 to mid-2019 in which it said CIA-backed “strike groups” committed grave abuses during night raids, such as one in the southeastern province of Paktia in which a paramilitary squad killed 11 men, including eight who were home for the Eid holidays.

In some cases, HRW says, troops detained men and didn’t tell families where they were being held.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has disputed the HRW report, saying many of the claims against Afghan special forces were “likely false or exaggerated.”

“In ramping up operations against the Taliban, the CIA has enabled abusive Afghan forces to commit atrocities including extrajudicial executions and disappearances,” said Patricia Gossman, the report’s author and HRW’s associate Asia director.

“In case after case, these forces have simply shot people in their custody and consigned entire communities to the terror of abusive night raids and indiscriminate air strikes,” Grossman said.

Night raids, which combine surprise, overwhelming firepower, and night-vision equipment, are a tactic preferred by special forces.

On several occasions, raids which usually take place in Taliban-controlled areas were backed by airstrikes that “indiscriminately or disproportionately” killed civilians, HRW said.

According to data released this week by NATO, the United States conducted 1,113 air and artillery strikes in September, a large increase on previous months that came as talks between Washington and the Taliban collapsed.

CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said the agency’s operations abroad are conducted in “accordance with law and under a robust system of oversight.”

Barrett accused the Taliban of spreading misinformation and noted that the militants do not operate under any similar rules.

“Unlike the Taliban, the United States is committed to the rule of law,” officials added in a CIA statement.

“We neither condone nor would knowingly participate in illegal activities, and we continually work with our foreign partners to promote adherence to the law.”

Afghanistan’s CIA-backed militias, whose tradition goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, are seen as a critical tool in the fight against Taliban and Islamic State militants.

Such paramilitary groups are officially under Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) but often operate almost independently of Afghan authorities.

Speaking to HRW, one unnamed diplomat referred to them as “death squads.”

The NDS did not immediately comment.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. government monitor, says Afghan special forces conducted 2,531 ground operations from January-September this year, more than the total of 2,365 for all of last year.

A U.N. report earlier this month said 1,174 civilians were killed and 3,139 wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year — a 42 percent increase over the same period last year.

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Indian Kashmir officially became a federally ruled territory Thursday, nearly three months after New Delhi stripped its decades-old special status, but peace remains elusive in the Himalayan region that has been wracked by a violent separatist insurgency and is the flashpoint of its dispute with Pakistan.

The erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state is now split into two territories administered by New Delhi. One consists of the Muslim dominated Kashmir valley and Hindu dominated Jammu. The second is Ladakh, an icy desert bordering China.

However, months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government made the dramatic move, saying it will help stamp out terrorism and spur development in the country’s most restive region, there is widespread disenchantment and little semblance of normalcy in the Himalayan valley that is home to 8 million people.

“New highways, new railway lines, new schools, new hospitals will take the development of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to new heights,” Modi told a public rally in the western state of Gujarat.

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India Ends Statehood for Jammu and Kashmir

Modi has defended the move, saying the special status had impeded the region’s progress

The optimism was not reflected in the Kashmir valley, where shops were shuttered and streets largely deserted as a New Delhi appointee, Girish Chandra Murmu, was sworn in as the top official of Jammu and Kashmir.

“We are very apprehensive that things should not worsen. They are already bad,” according to Noor Ahmad Baba, a political analyst in the Kashmiri capital Srinagar. He describes the mood in the valley as sullen and angry, particularly among young people, and fears that downgrading Kashmir’s status could fuel the anti-India rebellion that New Delhi has struggled to control.

“They can’t go for any active resistance because of very heavy security presence around and there is no leadership,” Baba said.

While a huge security lockdown has kept a lid on popular protests, there has been a spate of militant attacks in the past two weeks. The internet continues to be shut down, although the communication blackout Kashmir faced ahead of the move has been somewhat eased. Businesses are counting losses of $1.4 billion, and apple farmers and traders have struggled to harvest and transport the bountiful crop due to fears of reprisals by militants. Regional political leaders who were placed under arrest to prevent them from fanning unrest remain in detention.

The most conspicuous change is that people from the rest of India can now buy land in Kashmir, previously banned under a constitutional provision known as Article 370 that gave Kashmiris special rights in property, education and jobs to protect the region’s identity.

The government has defended its move, saying it will link Kashmir with mainstream India, lessen its sense of alienation, guarantee its people rights available to other Indians, such as the right to education, and bring investment and jobs.

Home Minister Amit Shah told a public rally in Gujarat that scrapping Article 370 had shut down the “gateway to terrorism” in India, and will integrate Kashmir with the rest of the country.

That may not be easy, observers say. Recent militant attacks targeting migrant workers from outside the state are being interpreted as a signal Kashmir will not be secure for people from other parts of India. In the latest attack, on Tuesday, five construction workers were lined up and shot dead, according to officials. Earlier this month, six truckers who came to transport apples from the lush orchards were killed in separate incidents.

Businesses that have been crippled since the August 5 announcement because of the communication blackout are not optimistic that direct federal rule will make any difference on the ground.

“For every Kashmiri it is one and the same. Nothing is going to change. People are talking of investment now, but what about the present businesses? This is the big challenge,” according to the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad.

 “The nascent IT sector is crippled. When there are no orders, where will our weavers and artisans go? In tourism sector alone 70,000 people are jobless.”

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Kashmiri Journalists Stage Protest Against ‘Media Gag’

Mobile and internet communications in the Kashmir valley are largely blocked, severely impacting the ability of journalists to report from the region

Outside of Kashmir, in the rest of India, Modi has won wide praise for making a bold move to stamp out the separatist insurgency fomented by Islamic militant groups that India says are supported by Pakistan  an allegation denied by Islamabad.

“I don’t have doubts about the need for such a step and I am optimistic that things will improve,” Jayadeva Ranade, a security and intelligence expert in New Delhi, said.

Others underline that to “win the peace” in Kashmir, the government urgently needs to address the political vacuum in the state where virtually all regional leaders and party workers remain under detention.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is under detention tweeted, “GOI (government of India) has left Kashmiris in the lurch & shown disregard for their rights. But if you consider them as your own, reach out & engage with them before it’s too late.” Her Twitter post is being handled by her daughter.

Pointing out that the government has yet to allow people to speak out, The Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial that it should free political leaders and workers and lift curbs on people.

Bringing Kashmir under New Delhi’s rule has worsened India’s fraught relationship with Pakistan, which has strongly opposed the move. Islamabad has downgraded diplomatic ties, and stopped trade, postal and train services with India.

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Dracula, Frankenstein, and other monsters may have literary origins but Hollywood has made them iconic characters that have scared and thrilled audiences around the world. Filmmakers looked to science and archeology as inspiration for the movie monsters. The connection between science and art is shown at an exhibit called the Natural History of Horror at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.

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The medical examiner who ruled Jeffrey Epstein’s death a suicide is immediately pushing back against the suggestion by a longtime forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s family that some of the evidence indicates homicide.
 
New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson says Wednesday she stands “firmly” behind her findings. The autopsy report appeared to put much speculation about the 66-year-old financier’s death to rest.
 
Dr. Michael Baden reignited conspiracy theories Wednesday when he said on Fox News that fractures to Epstein’s larynx and hyoid bone are more consistent with homicidal strangulation.
 
Other experts have said the hyoid bone often breaks in suicidal hangings.
 
Baden was in the room for the autopsy, but he cautioned that his observations weren’t conclusive.
 
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center with a bedsheet around his neck on Aug. 10.

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Go inside the mission by US Special Forces that resulted in the suicide of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren examines how the mission was executed and what the fallout might be. Join Greta and VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb (@CarlaBabbVOA); VOA National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin (@jseldin); VOA Extremist Watch Desk reporter Hasib Alikozai (@Alikozai86); and retired Major General Robert Scales. Aired October 30, 2019.

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Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death will mean nothing to 19-year-old rape victim Jamila unless the Islamic State militants who enslaved her are brought to justice.

Jamila, who asked not to be identified by her last name, is one of thousands of women from the Yazidi minority religion who were kidnapped and raped by IS after it mounted an assault on the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq in August 2014.

“Even if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, it doesn’t mean Islamic State is dead,” Jamila told Reuters outside the tent that is now her temporary home in the Sharya camp for displaced Yazidis in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

“This doesn’t feel like justice yet,” she said. “I want the men who took me, who raped me, to stand trial. And I want to have my voice heard in court. I want to face them in court. … Without proper trials, his death has no meaning.”

Baghdadi, who had led IS since 2010, detonated a suicide vest after being cornered in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday.

Inspired by his edicts to enslave and slaughter Yazidis, whom IS regard as infidels, his followers shot, beheaded and kidnapped thousands in a rampage which the United Nations called a genocidal campaign against them.

Along with thousands of other women and children, Jamila said she was enslaved by the militants and kept in captivity for five months in the city of Mosul along with her sister.

She was just 14 when she was seized. But her problems did not end after she and her sister managed to escape when, she said, their guards were high on drugs.

“When I first came back, I had a nervous breakdown and psychological problems for two years, so I couldn’t go to school,” she said.

No plans to go home

Now instead of working or catching up on her years of lost schooling, she looks after her mother, with whom she shares her cramped tent at the camp.

“My mother can’t walk and has health problems, so I have to stay and take care of her because my older siblings are in Germany,” she said.

The prospect of going home to Sinjar in northern Iraq is not an option for Jamila, and many others. The city still lies in ruin four years after the IS onslaught, and suspicion runs deep in the ethnically mixed area.

“Sinjar is completely destroyed. Even if we could go back, I wouldn’t want to because we’d be surrounded by the same Arab neighbors who all joined IS in the first place, and helped them kill us (Yazidis),” she said.

IS trials

Thousands of men are being tried in Iraqi courts for their ties to IS. Iraq has so far not allowed victims to testify in court, something community leaders and human rights groups say would go a long way in the healing process.

“It is deplorable that not a single victim of Islamic State’s horrific abuses including sexual slavery has gotten their day in court,” said Belkis Wille, Iraq Researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Iraq’s justice system is designed to allow the state to exact mass revenge against suspects, not provide real accountability for victims.”

For some of the nearly 17,000 Yazidis at the Sharya camp, Baghdadi’s death was a first step in that direction, though they fear the IS fighters who are still alive.

Mayan Sinu, 25, can dream of a new life after the camp as she and her three children have been granted asylum by Australia. But she also wants the men who shot her husband in the legs and dragged him off to be brought to justice. He has been missing since the incident five years ago.

“I hope Baghdadi is suffering more than we ever did, and my God we suffered,” said Sinu. “I wish he (Baghdadi) hadn’t blown himself up so I could have slaughtered him myself with my bare hands.”
 

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Hungary is set to reappoint its chief prosecutor to a new 9-year term and will remove its main judicial administrator, in moves that critics say highlight premier Viktor Orban’s mixed success in influencing the judiciary which remains one of the most independent bodies in Hungarian society.

Despite constant clashes with Western partners over the rule of law, the conservative populist Orban has solidified his grip over most walks of Hungarian life.

He rejects allegations that his government has eroded checks and balances and has said his strong mandate received in democratic elections empowers his Fidesz party to change laws.

While the country’s prosecution system has been under the direct control of chief prosecutor Peter Polt, an Orban loyalist, the National Association of Judges has resisted Orban and has been engulfed in a bitter dispute over administrative attempts to rein it in, via appointments or financial pressure.

President Janos Ader, a former head of Fidesz party and Orban’s key ally, proposed reappointing Polt as chief prosecutor for a second nine-year term on Tuesday. He gave no reasoning.

Parliament, where Fidesz holds a large majority, will have to confirm Polt.

The European Union said in 2019 Hungary lacked determined action to prosecute corruption in high-level cases and “the effective functioning of the prosecution service remains a concern.”

Polt has dismissed those claims as “baseless”.

Tunde Hando, the wife of Fidesz stalwart and European Parliament member Jozsef Szajer, will leave her position as chair of the judiciary administration a year early.

As chief administrator she was ultimately responsible for the operation of the court system, with a say over issues like the nomination of new senior judges or budgeting.

Hando said she always acted by the law, adding Hungary’s Constitution makes clear the fundamental division of powers.

Balazs Toth, a legal expert at the rights group Hungarian Helsinki Committee, who has represented clients in cases against the government, said Fidesz wants a country without checks and balances, but judges have withstood the propaganda and pressure.

Fidesz has nominated Hando to the Constitutional Court, once Hungary’s top arbiter of law but greatly weakened after Orban’s party started to appoint its members.

Prosecutors filter criminal cases and decide which cases to investigate and how, choosing which cases to refer to the courts – a power that critics have said it used selectively to block cases detrimental to Fidesz or Orban’s associates.

When investigating a case of suspected fraud in 2014 involving Orban’s son-in-law Istvan Tiborcz, Polt’s prosecutors found no wrongdoing. A later probe by the European anti-fraud body OLAF however, detailed alleged fraud totalling 13 billion forints ($44 million) and recommended Hungary investigate.

Polt reopened the case but again dismissed it.

Tiborcz has not commented on the case, in which he and his business partners were never charged, as matters did not proceed to court.

Polt has rejected allegations of complicity.

($1 = 296.3900 forints)

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Guinea-Bissau President Jose Mario Vaz named a new prime minister on Tuesday but his sacked predecessor refused to step down, intensifying a bitter power struggle between Vaz and the ruling party weeks ahead of a presidential election.

Vaz, who is running for again in the Nov. 24 poll, dissolved the government late on Monday saying the political situation was undermining the normal functioning of state institutions in the West African country.

It has suffered repeated bouts of instability since it became independent from Portugal in 1974, including nine coups or attempted coups and a surge in cocaine trafficking from South America that has been linked to senior military officials.

The country has been largely peaceful since Vaz came to power in a 2014 election that followed a coup two years earlier.

But he has repeatedly clashed over the balance of power in the semi-presidential system with a string of prime ministers put forward by the African Party of the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which controls a majority in parliament.

In a decree on Tuesday, Vaz named as prime minister Faustino Fudut Imbali, who served in the same post from 2000-2003 and represents the small Manifest Party of the People.

Aristides Gomes, who was put forward for the job by PAIGC, told Reuters he was refusing to go: “I am in my office, working.”

Gomes said Vaz’s orders were illegitimate since the president’s term technically expired on June 23. West African regional bloc ECOWAS declared a few days later that Vaz could stay in office through to the November election.

Vaz won the 2014 presidential election as the PAIGC’s candidate but fell out with the party after sacking his prime minister in 2015. He is now running for re-election as an independent candidate.

In a rare political protest, demonstrations from a party opposed to Gomes’s government took to the streets of the capital Bissau at the weekend, demanding the election be postponed so that voter lists could be checked for irregularities.

One protester died on Saturday and several were wounded, according to the government, a hospital source and march organizers.

Instability in Guinea-Bissau has typically taken the form of military coups, led by officers drawn mostly from a narrow military elite who fought for independence in 1963-1974.

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President Donald Trump on Monday outed a military working dog that tracked down the head of the Islamic State.

Trump tweeted a photo of a Belgian Malinois that he said worked with a team of special forces in the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a tunnel beneath a compound in northeastern Syria.

The name and other details about the dog remain a secret.

“We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!” the president tweeted.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters earlier Monday that the animal “performed a tremendous service” in the Saturday night raid.

Al-Baghdadi set off an explosion that killed himself and three children and apparently wounded the dog.

Milley said the dog was “slightly wounded” but is now recovering and has returned to duty with its handler at an undisclosed location. He and Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. is protecting the dog’s identify by keeping any information about the canine classified for now.

“We are not releasing the name of the dog right now,” Milley said. “The dog is still in theater.”

The U.S. military commonly uses the Belgian Malinois to guide and protect troops, search out enemy forces and look for explosives. The breed is prized for its intelligence and ability to be aggressive on command, said Ron Aiello, president of the United States War Dogs Association.

“That’s the kind of dog you want to lead a patrol like this,” said Aiello, a former Marine dog handler whose organization helps active duty and retired military dogs. “They are the first line of defense. They go out front.”

Not releasing the name makes sense as a security precaution for the same reason you wouldn’t identify the troops who take part in the raid, he said. “There could be retaliation.”

A Belgian Malinois service dog named Cairo accompanied U.S. Navy SEALs in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, in Pakistan. President Barack Obama met the canine at a ceremony to honor the commandos.

Trump gave a dramatic account of the raid in Syria, variously saying there was one dog and multiple canines involved in the operation. He said that as U.S. troops and their dogs closed in, the militant went “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to his death.

“He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down,” Trump said.

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