Pakistan police raid US-contracted security firm

By MUNIR AHMAD and NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writers

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani police raided a local security firm contracted by the U.S. Embassy on Saturday, officials said, seizing dozens of allegedly unlicensed weapons at a time when American use of private contractors is under unusual scrutiny here.

Two employees of the Inter-Risk company were arrested, Islamabad police official Rana Akram told a news conference. Reporters were shown the disputed weapons — 61 assault rifles and nine pistols.

He said police were searching for the owner of the firm, which has been mentioned recently in local media reports that have been trying to establish the types of private security firms that American diplomats use in Pakistan.

In particular, Pakistani reporters, bloggers and others have suggested that the U.S. may be using the American firm formerly known as Blackwater, which was refused an operating license by Iraq's government early this year amid continued outrage over a lethal 2007 firefight involving some of its employees in Baghdad.

The U.S. Embassy denies it uses Blackwater — now known as Xe Services — in Pakistan, but the accusations have been part of a deepening sense of anti-Americanism in a country where that feeling is already pervasive.

Much of it hinges on U.S. plans to expand its embassy, adding hundreds more staff and more land in what it says is a move to allow it to disburse billions of dollars more in humanitarian aid to Pakistan.

Akram said police are investigating whether any other private security firms are using illegal weapons.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire confirmed that the embassy signed a contract with Inter-Risk last year and that it took effect at the start of 2009. It is believed to be the first contract the local firm has signed with the U.S., said Snelsire, who did not have a figure for the contract's worth.

"Our understanding is they obtained licenses with whatever they brought into the country to meet the contractual needs," Snelsire said. "We told the government that we had a contract with Inter-Risk, that Inter-Risk would be providing security at the embassy and our consulates."

Hezbollah leader vows never to recognize Israel

BEIRUT — The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah vowed on Friday that his Shiite militant group will never recognize Israel and that no Arab state has the right to do so either.

Hassan Nasrallah spoke in a televised address to ceremonies marking Quds Day, an annual occasion created by Hezbollah’s ally Iran to show support for the Palestinians. Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.

“No one has the right to recognize this entity (Israel) or approve its legitimacy,” the black-turbaned Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast through a giant screen from a secret location to thousands of supporters who gathered in the group’s stronghold south of Beirut.

Nasrallah’s comments came hours after President Barack Obama’s special Mideast envoy was unable to bridge wide gaps between Israelis and Palestinians on the terms of renewing peace talks. Mitchell had urged the Arab world to take steps toward normalizing relations with Israel as he pressed Israel to halt construction of settlements in the West Bank.

The Hezbollah leader called Israel an “illegitimate cancerous entity” that should be “eliminated.” He added that “we will not recognize, deal or normalize with Israel even if the whole world recognize it.”

Nasrallah repeated his warning to Israel not to launch a war against his group saying the Israeli military will be “crushed” by his guerrillas. Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in the summer of 2006 that devastated much of south Lebanon. Since then, Hezbollah has refrained from firing rockets into northern Israel.

In neighboring Syria, some 5,000 people marked “Jerusalem Day” at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in the capital Damascus.

The head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command Ahmed Jibril told the gathering that the participation in the rally is a call “for liberating Jerusalem.”

Family calls Afghan war 'useless'

MONTREAL -- Heart-wrenching comments from relatives of a soldier killed in Afghanistan -- saying his death was pointless -- tossed the grieving family into the midst of a national debate on the war.

As his 23-year-old body was being airlifted home yesterday, the brother and sister-in-law of Pte. Jonathan Couturier lambasted the mission and said the young soldier lost his life for a cause he considered hopeless.

"That war over there, he found it a bit useless -- that they were wasting their time over there," Nicolas Couturier was quoted as saying in Le Soleil.

The comments from the Couturier family produced a chorus of sympathy -- but discordant opinions about whether they were correct.

Even within the family there were divergent opinions. Couturier's brother said the soldier considered the mission "useless," his sister-in-law said he expressed being "fed up," but his mother said he enjoyed his career choice to become a soldier.

Amongst politicians, the Bloc Quebecois agreed with family members' skepticism.

As for supporters of the mission, one prominent military booster downplayed the family's negative reaction as marginal.

"The fact is that it's totally and absolutely unique to date in the mission," retired major general Lewis MacKenzie said.

Ramadan brings out Egypt's split personality

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO – The holy month of Ramadan has brought out Egypt's raging case of cultural schizophrenia, twisting Egyptians into knots over whether their society is secular, Muslim or a muddled mix.

Two furious debates have been raging through the season in the Arab world's most populous nation. On one hand, rumors that police arrested Egyptians violating the daily Ramadan fast raised dire warnings from secularists that a Taliban-like rule by Islamic law is taking over.

On the other, Ramadan TV talk shows on state-sponsored television featuring racily dressed female hosts discussing intimate sex secrets with celebrities have sparked outrage from conservatives, denouncing what they call the decadence that is sweeping the nation.

So is Egypt being taken over by sinners or saints? Egyptians have always been a boisterous combination — priding themselves on their piety, while determined to have a good time.

Ramadan, the final day of which is Saturday in most of the Islamic world, shows the contradictions. Egyptians widely adhere to the dawn-to-dusk fast, in which the faithful abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex from dawn until dusk. After sunset, while some pray into the night, many Egyptians party with large meals and a heavy dose of TV entertainment produced specially for the month.

But the confusion comes from the government as well. It has often promoted strict Islamic principles in an attempt to co-opt conservatives and undercut extremists whom the state has been battling for decades. But it also increasingly dominated by businessmen who this year are more heavily than ever promoting Western-style secular culture.

There is no explicit law in Egypt to punish those not abiding by the fast, nor are there religious police to enforce Islamic rules as in Saudi Arabia. Many restaurants still serve during the day, and coffee shops can be seen with their doors cracked open, patrons hidden inside sipping tea or smoking water pipes.

But independent newspapers reported this month that police arrested more than 150 people for openly violating the fast.

Most of the reports have been unconfirmed. But Ahmed, a 27-year old fruit vendor, told The Associated Press he and 15 other people were arrested in a market in the southern town of Aswan on Sept. 5, for smoking in public.

"I was slapped, kicked around," Ahmed said, refusing to give his last name fearing further police harassment. "They asked me why I am not fasting ... They insulted me and used foul language."

Ahmed said he was kept in the police station for nearly six hours, then let go. "Now I am fasting, I swear," he said.

Police officials refused to confirm if Ahmed and others were arrested for not fasting, saying only they were rounded up for investigation.

The reports sparked criticism from Egyptian human rights activists, who called the crackdown unconstitutional. Activists said it appeared some police were acting individually to enforce the fast, a sign of increasing conservatism in the Interior Ministry. Some critics argued that adherence to the fast is traditionally a matter between each individual Muslim and God.

The Interior Ministry didn't deny or confirm the reports, but a ministry spokesman was quoted in the press last week insisting the security forces have a right to crack down on violators of the fast.

Bilal Fadl, a popular satirical columnist, said the ministry is mimicking "big sister Saudi Arabia," adding, "can we be so demanding from the sheiks in the Interior Ministry and ask them to postpone their campaign to defend (Islam) ... and start with implementing religious laws that fight corruption?"

An Egyptian blogger who goes by the pseudonym "Kalb Baladi" (Stray Dog) warned, "once we start going down the slippery slope of religious fascism, Egypt will become another Afghanistan in no time."

But the campaign appeared to have backers among the public. One woman who called into a popular talk show, Al-Qahira Al-Yom (Cairo Today), said fast-breakers were "looking for trouble" and should be jailed.

Television talk shows and soap operas produced especially for Ramadan have sparked their own debates.

State television and private channels owned by businessmen close to the government flooded the airwaves with new programs that liberally discussed taboo subjects like extramarital relationships, polygamy, divorce and sex education. Most featured stylish female hosts and often veered into titillation.

Ramadan is supposed to be a time of piety and religious reflection. Open talk of sex on TV is frowned upon throughout the year — but it's outright shocking during the holy month, when Muslims believe Islam's holy book the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Gehad Auda, a political analyst and member of the ruling party, said the government was intentionally trying to challenge religious extremists by opening the doors to more daring topics on TV.

"There is a new television logic, not only with images, but also through dialogue, without fear by breaking taboos surrounding many issues" to raise social awareness, Auda said.

In one espoused of a talk show called "The Daring One," the host — a famous female film director with a penchant for short skirts — kept pressing her actress guest about what she and her boyfriend liked to do when they're alone.

On the same show, another actress confessed she once had an abortion — which is illegal in Egypt and strictly forbidden by Islamic law. A male guest admitted to extramarital affairs.

The barrage of provocative shows has unleashed heavy criticism.

"We should boycott all this absurdity and obscenity and read the Quran," Mahmoud Ashour, an official with al-Azhar, the highest institution of Sunni learning in the Muslim world, told a gathering.

Columnist Ahmed Gamal Badawi wrote in the liberal opposition daily Al-Wafd that the government policy to "besiege" Islamists with "obscenity" would backfire and only add "millions to their ranks."

Wael Abdel Fattah, a producer of one of the new talk shows but also a government critic, said the conflicting messages of arresting fast-breakers while challenging religious sensitivities just show the state's determination to impose its power on all sides.

The state "is now dressing up in fashion, wearing a suit and tie, talking elegantly, showing pretty pictures but it is still very much in control ... it all fits the traditional tools of oppression," he said.

Yemen offers cease-fire to Shiite insurgents

By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen offered a conditional cease-fire on Saturday to the Shiite rebels it is battling in the north, following international concern over a deadly airstrike against civilians displaced from the war zones.

The government decision comes after both the U.N. and the U.S. urged a cease-fire to allow food supplies and medical aid to reach the tens of thousands of civilians that have fled weeks of fighting between the rebels and the army.

Rebels responded cautiously to the offer, which comes right before the Eid al-Fitr holiday ending the fasting month of Ramadan, and told the Associated Press they would monitor the situation on the ground first.

On Wednesday government jets bombed a makeshift camp packed with displaced people near the front-line town of Harf Sufyan, witnesses put the death toll at 87, most of them women and children.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the U.S. embassy in San'a expressed concern over the strikes Friday and called for an end to the fighting.

In their statement on the cease-fire, the government said the move was in response to the international calls. This is second cease-fire in two weeks, the last one fell apart in a matter of hours.

While the rebels have said they would welcome any unconditional cease-fire, the government has set down five conditions for the end of hostilities, including removing road blocks and barricades, withdrawal of rebel forces, release of detained military personnel and property, and abiding by the constitution and law.

The Shiite tribesmen, led by Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi, have so far refused to hand over their weapons or release any war prisoners. They accuse the government of not fulfilling its obligations under previous cease-fire agreements, including freeing rebel detainees, paying compensation to victims and rebuilding villages ravaged by fighting.

AFGHANISTAN: Overstretched health services in Kandahar Province

KANDAHAR, 17 September 2009 (IRIN) - As the van passed along the bumpy road, groans could be heard coming from the three wounded passengers, but once on asphalt near Kandahar city, southern Afghanistan, only one person was still murmuring; the two others (teenagers) had passed away.

The three were injured in an air strike on their village in Shah Wali Kot District, Kandahar Province, earlier this month, according to Abdul Aleem, the surviving injured man.

"There is no clinic or doctor in our district so they brought me here," he told IRIN from his bed in a hospital in Kandahar. "I was in terrible pain on the road here."

Next to Aleem's bed is Juma Gol, 13, who said he was wounded in a roadside explosion in Kandahar's Panjwaye District. Gol endured three hours tied to the back of a motorcycle driven by his elder brother until they found a car to take him to the city for treatment.

"When I got wounded I did not feel much pain but I felt terrible pain when I was on the motorcycle," Gol said.

Bringing a patient from rural areas to Kandahar is not only difficult and risky but very expensive. Several patients and their relatives complained about improvised roadside explosions, demands for cash from insurgents and apparently indiscriminate shooting by international forces.

"In an emergency private drivers demand several times more money than usual," said Shir Mohammad, from Maiwand District.

Constant fighting and threats to health workers have forced the closure of at least 11 of the 38 health facilities across the province, the population of which is estimated at over one million, according to provincial health officials.

Women at greatest risk

The absence of health providers in rural areas makes things especially difficult for women who already have limited access to work and education.

Bibi Nanye, an elderly woman from Khakriz District in Kandahar, said: "Many women die during pregnancy and child delivery and from other diseases because men cannot, and do not, take them to hospital in the city."

Her concerns were acknowledged by Abdul Qayum Pokhla, the director of Kandahar's health department. "Women and children suffer more than anyone else from the lack of access to health care."

Afghanistan has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world: 1,600 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UN agencies.

Influx of patients

Rapid population growth and lack of access to health services particularly in insecure rural areas have contributed to an influx of patients to the provincial capital, health officials said.

"We receive patients not only from all over Kandahar but also from [neighbouring] Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces," Daud Farhad, director of Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, told IRIN, adding that from March to August 2009 over 67,000 patients had been treated at the hospital.

Established in 1978 initially with 250 beds, the hospital's capacity has now been increased to 354 beds in order to meet increasing demand.

"Sometimes we give one bed to three patients with minor ailments because of space limits," Farhad said.

Lack of medical personnel

The shortage of qualified medical personnel and equipment is also affecting the hospital's response capacity.

"For the 180-bed surgery unit we should have 36 surgeons but currently we only have 18," said Farhad. "Although it's a main regional hospital we don't have equipment such as CT [computerized tomography] and MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] scans."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) supports Mirwais Hospital with medical supplies, equipment, training and maintenance because it is a major health facility in the volatile south.

"Mirwais regional hospital is admitting more and more children with ailments that could easily be treated locally if only health posts and clinics were functioning. Patients with severe trauma are also on the rise. The number of civilians injured by improvised explosive devices is a cause for alarm," ICRC said in an operational update in July.

Security the key

Provincial health officials say there is an urgent need for the expansion of rural healthcare facilities and the establishment of a new hospital in Kandahar Province.

"We need a new 500-bed hospital in order to be able to respond to growing needs here," said Pokhla.

More qualified health workers are also critically needed in the province, he added.

However, officials concede that everything hinges on one important issue - security. "We can re-open the closed clinics and build new ones if only we had security," Pokhla said.

Taliban insurgents are believed to be present throughout the province, according to a report by the International Council on Security and Development.

Blackwater Offers Training to 'Faith Based Organizations'

Jeremy Scahill

September 17, 2009

This is not a story from The Onion.

In its ever-evolving re-branding campaign, Blackwater has created a new alter-ego for part of the company’s business. Meet the "Personal Security Awareness" program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince’s Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados. On its website, which was registered on February 20, 2009 and went live recently, the "program" is described as "a multi-phase course which is designed to assist Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and Commercial Businesses by providing individual personal awareness and driver training for their personnel when deployed to unfamiliar environments." It adds: "Greystone recognizes the importance of "preparation by doing" and looks forward to you joining us for this exciting training!"

Blackwater, of course, works for such organizations as the International Republican Institute, but "Faith Based Organizations?" Are they serious? I’m sure there are just scores of Islamic aid groups just lining up to take courses from Blackwater, Xe, US Training Center, Greystone, Personal Security Awareness. Moreover, any legitimate "faith based organization" that wants harmony with other faiths would be insane to work with this company. One of the courses offered is described as teaching "persons traveling to foreign environments how to remain safe during their travels in a vehicle." This truly is surreal. What would seem more appropriate would be a company offering courses on how to "remain safe" in a vehicle when going anywhere near Blackwater forces. Remember how those unarmed Iraqi civilians were blown up in their car by Blackwater operatives at Nisour Square? Or the Afghan civilians allegedly killed in their car by Blackwater operatives in Afghanistan in May?

Also, lets remember that Blackwater—headed by a man described in a sworn statement by a former employee as "view[ing] himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe"— is itself a twisted faith-based organization—and a very violent one at that.

Then there is this course in Session III: "Teaches rules of the road and includes specific driving techniques for a specific region." I can just imagine what goes on during this course: If you are trying to convert Muslims in a Muslim country and some Muslims happen to come near you, "'lay [the] Hajiis out on cardboard’ as 'payback for 9/11.’"

In Session I there is a course that purportedly "Describes the criminal mindset." Well, that’s something Blackwater knows a lot about. I hope they assign, as part of the curriculum, the US Justice Department’s 34-count indictment of Blackwater forces for the Nisour Square massacre.