In Kabul’s ‘Saigon moment’, Australia faces the shame of repeating its mistakes exiting the Vietnam war

Rahmat Gul/AP

John Blaxland, Australian National UniversityScenes of mayhem unfolded at Kabul airport overnight, as foreigners and Afghans try to flee Afghanistan following the seizure of the capital by the Taliban.

As many, including myself, observed, this is Kabul’s “Saigon moment”.

What we are seeing — with, for now, the airport remaining open and the Taliban talking in benign terms about the governance of Kabul — echoes what happened in Saigon in 1975, as the United States and its allies exited the Vietnam War. Then, there was a fight north of the city but the North Vietnamese forces didn’t roll directly into town.

In that moment, there was a hiatus — a window of opportunity to leave. A brief moment for extraction of US personnel, their allies, including Australians, and the local people who helped them, before the final takeover of the city occurred.

The way things have unfolded in Kabul, with the airport remaining open for now, speaks to a level of collaboration between the Taliban and the US government in its negotiations about how US and coalition partners would be able to extricate themselves.

Whether Australia can extract its people — particularly the Afghans who helped us and are now in grave danger — remains to be seen. In Saigon, the window of opportunity was open for just a matter of days before it slammed shut.

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Read more:
Afghanistan: Taliban victory inevitable despite the trillions the US poured in

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Australia’s moral responsibility

I think there is considerable moral responsibility for the Australian government to continue to try to get out as many Afghans who helped us, even though their government seems to have collapsed.

In Saigon in 1975, Australia basically turned its back on locally employed staff and refused to repatriate them. Many people feel a bit ashamed about Australia’s attitude back then.

That may have informed the attitude of our government in recent weeks. Bowing to pressure, it has agreed to work toward extricating hundreds of Afghan people who have worked for us.

What is concerning is we haven’t gone hard or quick enough. There is a considerable number of people who remain very vulnerable, who would be worried about being earmarked as collaborators if they stayed.

Eyewitness reports at the airport speak of up to 1,000 people trying to board a plane designed to take 300. It is worth noting that a lot of aircraft can take more people than they are designated for if they don’t fill the cargo bay with luggage. That’s particularly true with big cargo aircraft. It’s not very safe but for some, it’s safer than staying in Kabul.

Australia, a bit late in the piece, has ramped up forces to go in and help extract people who are associated with Australia’s presence there over the past 20 years. I hope that is still on track and those people can still get out.

It is hard to know, because it’s so opaque whether that will materialise. It’s not entirely clear whether Australia’s RAAF flights can get in, or whether we will be able to piggyback off what the British and Americans, and perhaps the Canadians, are doing.

It’s worth noting that Kabul airport is quite vulnerable. It’s surrounded by hills, from which Taliban with ill intent can create havoc. That’s why the US has talked about deploying extra troops to support the extraction.

Turkey, which is still technically a NATO ally but is also a Muslim democracy that is seen as more palatable for the Taliban, has promised to provide security at the airport in Kabul as the Americans and their allies leave.

So there’s an arrangement for a transition out and we will see whether it comes to fruition.

Morale defeats physical force

More broadly, what we have seen in Afghanistan in recent weeks is a vast military power being clearly outfoxed by a Taliban force that, materially, is significantly inferior. Yet in terms of morale, resolve and endurance, the Taliban has clearly outmatched the US and its coalition partners, including Australia.

The saying, “you have the watches but we have the time” speaks to a problem we were not able to address.

The Taliban’s smooth talking has seen city after city give in without a fight, despite having been equipped in a way that shows, on paper, the Afghan security forces on the ground should have been able to defeat the Taliban.

But in battle, morale is three to one to physical force and the morale just wasn’t there.

If you don’t have soldiers and police resolved to defend and hold off the Taliban, it’s worse than useless. Because now the Taliban is replete with American high-tech drones and sophisticated weaponry.

Cauterising the wound

There’s another dimension to this which is important for the future: what all this means for America’s fighting resolve.

In 1975, there was a sense that America’s pullout from Vietnam represented a major catastrophe and a failure of the West’s ability to hold off Communism. But in hindsight it seemed like that was just a low point. The Berlin wall still eventually fell.

There was also a sense in 1975 of the US and its allies being untrustworthy, that they leave people behind and that this will cause would-be allies not to trust them.

So perhaps there’s an argument that this exit from Afghanistan throws up similar issues.

On the other hand, others will argue it is a case of the US and its allies finally seeing reason and cutting their losses in a war that is, according to a hard-nosed realpolitik calculus, of little consequence strategically in the context of Russia modernising and being in cahoots with China.

Regardless of how it unfolded, many pundits saw little long-term prospect of the Taliban being pushed back forever in Afghanistan — particularly given the deep, behind-the-scenes support it got from Pakistan and, increasingly, elsewhere.

The US and its allies had to exit sooner or later. The bottom line is that, at some level, the wound had to be cauterised.

The question is: was there a better way to cauterise the wound?

The scenes unfolding at Kabul airport suggest that perhaps what was done to help those who helped us was a case of too little, too late.

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Read more:
As the Taliban surges across Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is poised for a swift return

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John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Taliban on the Attack in Afghanistan

The Taliban have moved onto the offensive in Afghanistan with a massive co-ordinated attack. Embassies in Kabul have been targeted, including the British, German, Russian and US embassies, as well as the Afghan Parliament and the NATO headquarters. There are also attacks on other sites in the city. The attacks have been going on now for at least two hours and are continuing.

It is not just Kabul that is under attack, there are attacks also in the cities of Jalalabad, Pul-e-Alam and Gardez.

For more, visit:
– http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/taliban-attack-afghan-capital-3-other-cities-1.3661714
– http://www.euronews.com/newswires/1483048-multiple-attacks-on-kabul-taliban-claims-spring-offensive/

Afghan Authorities Block Lawyer from Visiting Jailed Christian

Second suspect accused of ‘blasphemy’ is government informant, accused says.

ISTANBUL, December 9 (CDN) — A Christian in Afghanistan facing “apostasy” charges punishable by death is still without legal representation after authorities blocked a foreign lawyer’s attempt to visit him in prison, sources said.

A Christian lawyer from the region who requested anonymity travelled to Kabul on behalf of Christian legal rights organization Advocates International two weeks ago to represent 45-year-old Said Musa (alternatively spelled Sayed Mossa). Authorities denied him access to Musa and to his indictment file.

“If a man is not entitled to define his own beliefs, and to change those ideas, under the existing constitutional order of Afghanistan, then how is this government more moral than the Taliban’s?” the lawyer said in an e-mail to Compass.

After several court hearing postponements, Musa appeared before a judge on Nov. 27 without prior notice. Rejecting the case file as deficient, the judge sent it to the attorney general’s office for corrections, according to the lawyer. The lawyer said he has deduced that the file was missing a formal indictment and other “incriminating” evidence.

The legal expert said that according to Afghan law, Musa is entitled to see a copy of the indictment and review the evidence against him, but authorities have denied him both rights. If the prosecutor does not present the court with an indictment within 15 days of arrest, the attorney said, an accused person has the right to be released. Musa has been in jail since May 31.

 

Suspicious Second Suspect

The prosecutor in charge of western Kabul, Din Mohammad Quraishi, said two men, Musa and Ahmad Shah, were accused of conversion to another religion, according to Agence France-Presse. But Musa’s letters from prison and other sources indicate that Shah is a government informant posing as a Christian.

Musa and Shah appeared before the judge on Nov. 27 “shackled and chained” to each other, according to a source who was present. Though Shah, who was also arrested six months ago, has denied he is a Christian, the prosecutor said there was “proof” against him.  

Musa and the other sources claim that Shah is an informant posing as a Christian in order to damage him and other Afghan Christians. They claim that Shah allegedly sent images of Christians worshiping to the country’s most popular broadcaster, Noorin TV, which aired them in May.

The broadcast appeared on an Afghan TV show called “Sarzanin-e-man,” or “My Homeland,” hosted by Nasto Nadiri, 27, an outspoken opponent of the government and a parliamentary hopeful. Noorin TV station is opposed to the government and does what it can to “embarrass” it, a source said.

The broadcast put in motion the events that got Musa arrested, sources said. The hour-long TV show sparked protests throughout the country against Christians and a heated debate in parliament. In early June, the deputy secretary of the Afghan Parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, called for the execution of converts from Islam.

Many converts to Christianity left the country, according to sources, and many were arrested, though the exact number is unknown.

Musa was concerned about the public outcry against Christians and went to his employer, the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent (ICRC), to request personal leave the morning of May 31. Authorities arrested him after he left the building, and his family could not locate him for nearly two months.

The Christian suffered sexual abuse, beatings, mockery and sleep deprivation because of his faith in Jesus in the first months of his detention. Last month, after quiet diplomatic efforts, authorities transferred him to the Kabul Detention Center in the Governor’s Compound. There have been no reports of mistreatment since he was transferred.

The lawyer who tried to visit him said that all Afghans in the country are assumed to be Muslims, and this assumption is deeply ingrained in the culture. The result is lack of justice for the “deviants,” he said.

“It is the greatest shame on a family, clan and the nation, that someone would consider to leave Islam,” the lawyer told Compass. “I [saw] the face of the attorney general literally darken in distaste when he realized we came to assist this man who committed such a shameful offense. Therefore there are no ‘rights’ Christians can claim.”

The lawyer said that from the perspective of the court, if Musa continues to stand for his faith in Jesus, he will certainly be found guilty of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam.

Though no one knows when a court hearing will take place, monitors expect it could be any day and, as before, could come without warning. Musa is still looking for an Afghan lawyer that will agree to defend him in court.

In his latest letters from prison, Musa asked Christians to continue to pray for him and Afghanistan and “not give up.”

An amputee with a prosthetic leg, Musa worked for the ICRC for 15 years, fitting patients for prosthetic limbs. He stepped on a landmine when serving in the Afghan Army, and his injury required the amputation of his right leg below the knee, according to World Magazine.

Married and the father of six young children, Musa has been a Christian for eight years.

 

Another Christian in Prison

Another Afghan Christian is in prison for his faith, sources said. Shoib Assadullah, 25, was arrested on Oct. 21 for giving a New Testament to a man who reportedly turned him in to authorities.

Assadullah is in a holding jail in a district of Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan. Sources said his family has been unsuccessful at procuring his release despite paying bribes to officials. As in Musa’s case, because of the sensitivity of the charges, no lawyer has agreed to defend him. Assadullah has not reported any mistreatment while in prison.

He has stood before a judge at least once since his arrest. The judge asked him what faith he followed, and Assadullah told him he was a Christian, said a source who requested anonymity.  

Although Assadullah’s family has tolerated his new faith, they are not pleased with it, the source said, and a few days ago his father disowned him. Assadullah became a Christian about five years ago.

“He wants others to know that he is not frightened, and that his faith is strong,” the source told Compass. “He is desperately missing having a Bible.”

Assadullah asked that people pray that Afghan believers would stay strong in their faith, the source said.

Musa and Assadullah are the only known Christian converts from Islam in prison in Afghanistan, and both face probable apostasy charges punishable by death under sharia (Islamic law), which is still applied in the country.

Last month, in its 2010 International Religious Freedom Report, the U.S. State Department reported that respect for religious freedom in Afghanistan diminished in the last year, “particularly for Christian groups and individuals.”

The constitution states that Islam is the “religion of the state” and that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.” The report stated that conversion from Islam is understood by Islamic clergy, as well as many citizens, to contravene the tenets of Islam.

Nevertheless, the country has signed the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulating religious freedom, including the freedom to change one’s faith. The nation’s constitution also provides a measure of religious liberties under Article 2, but Article 3 limits the application of all laws if they are contrary to the “beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”

Another source who requested anonymity said the proceedings against Musa and Assadullah typify the intolerance and abhorrence inherent in Islam toward open-mindedness and progress. He said that the only sentence possible would be death, and that if Musa were freed his only recourse would be to leave the country or be killed.

The source voiced exasperation toward the international community and defenders of human rights for not speaking up for the Christians in prison.

“We try as much as we can to push things in order to reveal this unfair situation, knowing that Afghanistan is a signatory of the Human Rights Convention,” he said. “But this serious failure of human rights is more or less accepted as a case ‘so sensitive’ that nobody wants to really fight against.”

According to the state department report, estimates of the size of the Christian community in Afghanistan range from 500 to 8,000.

Report from Compass Direct News

Christian Jailed in Afghanistan to Face Judge on Sunday

Imprisoned since May, father of six has yet to learn charges against him.

ISTANBUL, November 16 (CDN) — An Afghani amputee in prison for his Christian faith since May will face a judge this Sunday (Nov. 21) without legal representation or knowledge of the charges against him, according to local sources.

Authorities arrested Said Musa, 45, on May 31, days after the local Noorin TV station broadcast images of Afghan Christians being baptized and worshiping. Though there were other arrests in May and June during the ensuing man-hunt against Christians, Musa is the only known Christian facing a court case.

Turning from Islam is a capital offence under strict Islamic laws still in place in Afghanistan, which was wrested from the Taliban regime’s hard-line Islamist control in 2001.

The subject of Afghans leaving Islam for Christianity became national news following the Noorin TV broadcast and ignited a heated debate in the country’s parliament and senate. In early June, the deputy secretary of the Afghan parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, called for the execution of converts.

“Those Afghans that appeared on this video film should be executed in public,” he said, according to news sources. “The house should order the attorney general and the NDS [National Directorate of Security] to arrest these Afghans and execute them.”

In June authorities forced Musa to renounce Christianity publicly on television but have continued to hold him in prison without revealing accusations against him. In prison, Musa has openly said he is a follower of Jesus.

In a hand-delivered letter penned last month to the church worldwide, U.S. President  Barack Obama and the heads of NATO’s International Security Assistance Forces, Musa wrote that he was physically and verbally abused by his captors and other prisoners at Ouliat Prison in Kabul.

In broken English, he wrote: “I am very and very in a bad condition in the jail,” and elsewhere in the letter, “I am alone between 400 of terrible wolves in the jail, like a sheep.”  

In the two-page letter, a copy of which Compass received in late October, Musa addressed Obama as “brother” and pleaded with the international community: “For [the] sake [of the] Lord Jesus Christ please pray for me and rescue me from this jail otherwise they will kill me because I know they [have] very very very cruel and hard hearts.”

Musa wrote of being sexually abused, beaten, mocked, spat on and deprived of sleep because of his faith in Jesus. He wrote that he would be willing to suffer for his faith in order to encourage and strengthen other Christians in their faith.

Musa also described how he had repented for denying his faith publicly: “I acknowledge my sin before [the] Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Don’t refuse me before your holy angels and before your father because I am a very very weak and [sinful] man.’”

In his letter, Musa alluded to the lack of justice he faced in prison, saying that the prosecutor had given the judge a false report about him and demanded a bribe from the Christian.

Integrity Watch Afghanistan, an anti-corruption monitor, recently reported that corruption in Afghanistan is rampant and has doubled since 2007. Most Afghans polled in its 2010 report said that state corruption was fueling the Taliban’s growth. Bribes are frequently required for everything from health care to dealing with state bureaucracy.

 

Prison Transfer

Days after the letter was circulated, quiet diplomacy resulted in authorities transferring Musa to a different prison, to keep him separate from prisoners who would likely abuse him for his faith. He is now held at the Kabul Detention Center in the Governor’s Compound.

A state-assigned lawyer has refused to represent him because of his faith. No other lawyer has been willing to represent him, though he has sought legal help.

Musa, known as Dr. Musa, has worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul for 15 years fitting people for prosthetic limbs. He also has a prosthetic leg. Married and the father of six young children, he has been a Christian for eight years. His name is also phonetically spelled Sayed Mossa.

For the first two months of his detainment, sources said, Musa’s employer and family could not find out where authorities were holding him. During that time his wife received threats that she must leave Musa. Authorities have so far denied his family access to his file, which includes the charges against him. It is believed that the charges could include apostasy and possibly espionage.

Local Christians and religious freedom monitors have expressed concern that Musa may be made an example.

“The court case against Said Musa is unique,” said one religious freedom advocate, a Christian, under condition of anonymity. “Authorities usually don’t want court cases against Christians. This is high profile, as Musa has been on TV and was put under pressure to deny his faith publicly. This is a kind of a test case to see which law prevails in the country: sharia [Islamic law] or international agreements.”

Afghanistan’s population is estimated at 29 million, with very few Christians among them. Afghan converts from Islam are not accepted or recognized by the predominantly Muslim society. In recent months experts have expressed concern over political threats against local Christians, and many, including those exposed by Noorin TV’s broadcast, have fled the country. Christians who remain are afraid, according to sources.

“Dozens of Afghan Christians left their homes, as the authorities were actively looking for Christians after the television programs,” said the religious freedom monitor.

In the face of societal stigmatization, Christians who dare to meet do so in small groups at homes. Sources report that since the hostilities in May and June, Afghan Christians are very intimidated.

Afghanistan ranks sixth on Christian support oganization Open Doors’ World Watch List of countries where Christians are persecuted.

The country has signed the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulating religious freedom, and the nation’s constitution also provides a measure of religious liberties under Article 2. Article 3 limits the application of all laws if they are contrary to the “beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”

“It seems that this measure of religious freedom does not apply to those who have turned away from Islam,” said the religious freedoms monitor. “They are seen as apostates, traitors of their faith and country.”

Report from Compass Direct News

Motive for Aid Worker Killings in Afghanistan Still Uncertain

Taliban takes responsibility, but medical organization unsure of killers’ identity.

ISTANBUL, August 12 (CDN) — The killing of a team of eye medics, including eight Christian aid workers, in a remote area of Afghanistan last week was likely the work of opportunistic gunmen whose motives are not yet clear, the head of the medical organization said today.

On Friday (Aug. 6), 10 medical workers were found shot dead next to their bullet-ridden Land Rovers. The team of two Afghan helpers and eight Christian foreigners worked for the International Assistance Mission (IAM). They were on their way back to Kabul after having provided medical care to Afghans in one of the country’s remotest areas.

Afghan authorities have not been conclusive about who is responsible for the deaths nor the motivation behind the killings. In initial statements last week the commissioner of Badakhshan, where the killings took place, said it was an act of robbers. In the following days, the Taliban took responsibility for the deaths.

The Associated Press reported that a Taliban spokesman said they had killed them because they were spies and “preaching Christianity.” Another Taliban statement claimed that they were carrying Dari-language Bibles, according to the news agency. Initially the attack was reported as a robbery, which IAM Executive Director Dirk Frans said was not true.

“There are all these conflicting reports, and basically our conclusion is that none of them are true,” Frans told Compass. “This was an opportunistic attack where fighters had been displaced from a neighboring district, and they just happened to know about the team. I think this was an opportunistic chance for them to get some attention.”

A new wave of tribal insurgents seeking territory, mineral wealth and smuggling routes has arisen that, taken together, far outnumber Taliban rebels, according to recent U.S. intelligence reports.

Frans added that he is expecting more clarity as authorities continue their investigations.

He has denied the allegation that the members of their medical team were proselytizing.

“IAM is a Christian organization – we have never hidden this,” Frans told journalists in Kabul on Monday (Aug. 9). “Indeed, we are registered as such with the Afghan government. Our faith motivates and inspires us – but we do not proselytize. We abide by the laws of Afghanistan.”

IAM has been registered as a non-profit Christian organization in Afghanistan since 1966.

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former political candidate, dismissed the Taliban’s claims that team members were proselytizing or spying, according to the BBC.

“These were dedicated people,” Abdullah said according to the BBC report. “Tom Little used to work in Afghanistan with his heart – he dedicated half of his life to service the people of Afghanistan.”

Abdullah had trained as an eye surgeon under Tom Little, 62, an optometrist who led the team that was killed last week. Little and his family had lived in Afghanistan for more than 30 years with IAM providing eye care.

IAM has provided eye care and medical help in Afghanistan since 1966. In the last 44 years, Frans estimates they have provided eye care to more than 5 million Afghans.

Frans said he doesn’t think that Christian aid workers are particularly targeted, since every day there are many Afghan casualties, and the insurgents themselves realize they need the relief efforts.

“We feel that large parts of the population are very much in favor of what we do,” he said. “The people I met were shocked [by the murders]; they knew the members of the eye care team, and they were shocked that selfless individuals who are going out of their way to actually help the Afghan people … they are devastated.”

The team had set up a temporary medical and eye-treatment camp in the area of Nuristan for two and a half weeks, despite heavy rains and flooding affecting the area that borders with Pakistan.

Nuristan communities had invited the IAM medical team. Afghans of the area travelled from the surrounding areas to receive treatment in the pouring rain, said Little’s wife in a CNN interview earlier this week, as she recalled a conversation with her husband days before he was shot.

Little called his wife twice a day and told her that even though it was pouring “sheets of rain,” hundreds of drenched people were gathering from the surrounding areas desperate to get medical treatment.

 

The Long Path Home

The team left Nuristan following a difficult path north into Badakhshan that was considered safer than others for reaching Kabul. Frans said the trek took two days in harsh weather, and the team had to cross a mountain range that was 5,000 meters high.

“South of Nuristan there is a road that leads into the valley where we had been asked to come and treat the eye patients, and a very easy route would have been through the city of Jalalabad and then up north to Parun, where we had planned the eye camp,” Frans told Compass. “However, that area of Nuristan is very unsafe.”

When the team ended their trek and boarded their vehicles, the armed group attacked them and killed all but one Afghan member of the team. Authorities and IAM believe the team members were killed between Aug. 4 and 5. Frans said he last spoke with Little on Aug. 4.

IAM plans eye camps in remote areas every two years due to the difficulty of preparing for the work and putting a team together that is qualified and can endure the harsh travel conditions, he said.

“We have actually lost our capacity to do camps like this in remote areas because we lost two of our veteran people as well as others we were training to take over these kinds of trips,” Frans said.

The team of experts who lost their lives was composed of two Afghan Muslims, Mahram Ali and another identified only as Jawed; British citizen Karen Woo, German Daniela Beyer, and U.S. citizens Little, Cheryl Beckett, Brian Carderelli, Tom Grams, Glenn Lapp and Dan Terry.

“I know that the foreign workers of IAM were all committed Christians, and they felt this was the place where they needed to live out their life in practice by working with and for people who have very little access to anything we would call normal facilities,” said Frans. “The others were motivated by humanitarian motives. All of them in fact were one way or another committed to the Afghan people.”

The two Afghans were buried earlier this week. Little and Terry, who both had lived in the war-torn country for decades, will be buried in Afghanistan.

Despite the brutal murders, Frans said that as long as the Afghans and their government continue to welcome them, IAM will stay.

“We are here for the people, and as long as they want us to be here and the government in power gives us the opportunity to work here, we are their guests and we’ll stay, God willing,” he said.

 

Memorial

On Sunday (Aug. 8), at his home church in Loudonville, New York, Dr. Tom Hale, a medical relief worker himself, praised the courage and sacrifice of the eight Christians who dedicated their lives to helping Afghans.

“Though this loss has been enormous, I want to state my conviction that this loss is not senseless; it is not a waste,” said Hale. “Remember this: those eight martyrs in Afghanistan did not lose their lives, they gave up their lives.”

Days before the team was found dead, Little’s wife wrote about their family’s motivation to stay in Afghanistan through “miserable” times. Libby Little described how in the 1970s during a citizens’ uprising they chose not to take shelter with other foreigners but to remain in their neighborhood.

“As the fighting worsened and streets were abandoned, our neighbors fed us fresh bread and sweet milk,” she wrote. “Some took turns guarding our gate, motioning angry mobs to ‘pass by’ our home. When the fighting ended, they referred to us as ‘the people who stayed.’

“May the fruitful door of opportunity to embrace suffering in service, or at least embrace those who are suffering, remain open for the sake of God’s kingdom,” she concluded.

 

Concern for Afghan Christians

Afghanistan’s population is estimated at 28 million. Among them are very few Christians. Afghan converts are not accepted by the predominantly Muslim society. In recent months experts have expressed concern over political threats against local Christians.

At the end of May, private Afghan TV station Noorin showed images of Afghan Christians being baptized and praying. Within days the subject of Afghans leaving Islam for Christianity became national news and ignited a heated debate in the Parliament and Senate. The government conducted formal investigations into activities of Christian aid agencies. In June IAM successfully passed an inspection by the Afghan Ministry of Economy.

In early June the deputy secretary of the Afghan Parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, called for the execution of converts, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Those Afghans that appeared on this video film should be executed in public,” he said, according to the AFP. “The house should order the attorney general and the NDS (intelligence agency) to arrest these Afghans and execute them.”

Small protests against Christians ensued in Kabul and other towns, and two foreign aid groups were accused of proselytizing and their activities were suspended, news sources reported.

A source working with the Afghan church who requested anonymity said she was concerned that the murders of IAM workers last week might negatively affect Afghan Christians and Christian aid workers.

“The deaths have the potential to shake the local and foreign Christians and deeply intimidate them even further,” said the source. “Let’s pray that it will be an impact that strengthens the church there but that might take awhile.”

Report from Compass Direct News

AFGHANISTAN: AID AGENCY REFLECTS ON FUTURE IN COUNTRY AFTER MURDER

Death of Christian worker leads at least one other group to consider postponing relief work.

ISTANBUL, October 29 (Compass Direct News) – Aid agencies are reviewing the viability of their presence in Afghanistan following the murder of Christian aid worker Gayle Williams, who was killed in Kabul last week in a drive-by shooting.

This latest attack in the heart of Kabul has added to the sense of insecurity already felt by in-country foreign aid workers due to the recent escalation in violence by insurgent groups.

“[There is] gradually encroaching control by the Taliban of the regions outside of the cities and the roads in between, and now it looks like the ability to operate even inside the cities as well,” said Mike Lyth, chairman of Serve Afghanistan, a humanitarian organization that has worked with Afghans since the 1970s. “It’s very difficult – I mean, how do you stop somebody riding in on a motorcycle?”

Dan McNorton, public information officer for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told Compass that despite the worsening situation, the United Nations had a 50-year history with Afghanistan and its commitment to the country and its people remained “absolutely solid.”

“There is no indication from the NGOs or humanitarian and other aid organizations that are here that there is any desire or decision for them not to be here, not to carry out the good work that they are here to do,” he said.

In light of recent events, however, Serve Afghanistan’s Lyth believes that aid agencies will have to reconsider their presence in the country.

“Each time something like this happens they have a review,” he said. “We’re certainly going to be reviewing [our position] this next week.”

A recently issued U.N. report stated that there were more than 120 attacks targeting aid workers in the first seven months of this year alone. These attacks saw 92 abducted and 30 killed.

“Yesterday I was talking to one agency that has decided to postpone their work in the country in response to the attacks,” said Karl Torring of the European Network of NGOs in Afghanistan. Other agencies he represents, however, are not so quick to make a decision.

“So people say, ‘Well, we are committed to the Afghans but how many lives is it worth in terms of foreigners and Afghani staff as well’” said Lyth.

Speaking at a news conference following the death of Williams, Humayun Hamidzada, spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, issued a warning to international aid workers in Kabul.

“The international workers based in Kabul, be it with the aid agencies or in the private sector, should get in touch with the relevant police departments, review their security measures and make sure they take necessary precautions while they commute,” he said according to Voice of America.

Taliban insurgents have claimed responsibility for Williams’ death, and in a telephone interview with Reuters they cited the spreading of Christian “propaganda” as the reason for the attack.

Williams, 34, a dual citizen of Britain and South Africa, had recently been relocated to Kabul from Kandahar due to fears over safety after recent attacks against civilians.

A volunteer with Serve Afghanistan for two years, she was walking to her office when she was shot dead by two men riding a motorcycle.

Serve Afghanistan provides education and support for the poor and disabled and, according to Lyth, has a strict policy against proselytizing.

Doubting a purely religious motive, some have questioned the Taliban’s charge against Williams of proselytizing. Sources have suggested that Williams was targeted more as a Western woman than as a Christian, considering the presence of easily identifiable religious groups in the country, such as various Catholic orders, and in light of the scope of previous attacks.

“A month before, they had killed three women from a secular agency and said they were spies,” said Lyth. “They pick whatever reason, to get them off the hook and give them some valid reason for attacking women. There’s been a major spate of attacks on women rather than anybody else.”

In a meeting of the U.N. Security Council earlier this month, UNAMA head and U.N. Special Representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide suggested that the Taliban attacks were designed to attract media attention as they sought to demoralize and hinder reconstruction efforts.

“I think everyone agrees the Taliban are winning the public relations war in Afghanistan,” said Torring.

A recent report by Voice of America pointed out that many of Afghanistan’s reconstruction projects rely heavily on foreign management and training efforts. The attempts of the Taliban to destabilize foreign presence could greatly undermine these projects and have severely detrimental effects on the nation.

U.N. figures state that violent attacks in the country are up from the 2003 monthly average of 44 to a monthly average of 573.

Report from Compass Direct News