Ex U.S. official: Afghan leader shields drug trade, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Ex U.S. official: Afghan leader shields drug trade

Posted 24 July 2008

Karzai, in Kabul at a joint press conference with the visiting NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said Afghanistan should not be blamed for the booming narcotics trade, although his government deemed it a menace to the future of Afghanistan.

"As I had said two years ago, Afghanistan never takes the blame (for the drugs threat). The Afghan nation due to desperation, war... has been forced to (resort to) this issue," Karzai replied when asked to comment about Schweich's comments.

He said his government had put behind bars hundreds of drugs traffickers and pressed for a substantive solution of the drugs threat.

"Without doubt, some Afghans are drugs smugglers, but majority of them are the international mafia who do not live in Afghanistan," he said.

Schweich also criticized the Pentagon for refusing U.S. military support for drug eradication efforts and arguing that it was someone else's job to clean up the drug business after the war is over.

http://newageislam.com/ex-u.s.-official--afghan-leader-shields-drug-trade/war-on-terror/d/367

Afghan's natural environment a victim of war, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Afghan's natural environment a victim of war

‘The environmental loss was second to the human loss,’ said Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, founder of Save the Environment Afghanistan, of the decades of war that started with the Soviet invasion of the late 1970s.

Before the conflict, three percent of the country was covered in natural forest, Malikyar said. This has been cut back to 1.5 percent through illegal logging and degradation including from people fleeing war.

‘When there was fighting, people migrated to hidden places,’ he said. ‘Smugglers and mafia cut trees and took them to neighbouring countries.’

The unlawful timber trade is continuing, with some reports of police involvement.

So is the smuggling of falcons with about 1,000 of the birds trapped in the country's deserts every year and smuggled into Pakistan en route to the United Arab Emirates where they can fetch 500 to 30,000 dollars each, Malikyar said.

http://newageislam.com/afghan-s-natural-environment-a-victim-of-war/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/80