Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior Affairs and the National Directorate of Security (NDS) on Oct. 11 denied prisoner torture allegations made earlier this week in a UN report. A spokesperson for the Ministry said at a press conference that there was no basis for the report's findings and that publicizing such information could hurt the people's trust in the police. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) one day earlier released a report alleging that prisoners in some Afghan-run detention facilities have been beaten and tortured. The prisoners interviewed for the study had been detained by the NDS or Afghan National Police (ANP) forces for national security crimes. Nearly half of the 273 detainees interviewed reported that they had undergone interrogation that amounted to torture. UNAMA also alleged that NDS and ANP officials committed due process violations and arbitrarily detained arrestees but did acknowledge that the abuse was not the result of official government policy.

Hundreds of Afghans marched through Kabul on Oct. 6—eve of the 10-year anniversary of the US military campaign in their country—to condemn United States forces as occupiers and demand the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops. About 300 men and women gathered early in the morning near a shrine in the city's center, holding placards and banners accusing the US of "massacring" civilians while denouncing President Hamid Karzai as a puppet of Washington. "Occupation—atrocities—brutality," read one sign, held by two women with scarves covering their head and face. (Reuters, Oct. 6)

Warlords are using threats to pressure municipal officials to fraudulently prepare ownership documents for the lands that they have already grabbed in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province, a local mayor said this week. Dozens of acres of land had been grabbed in Pul-i-Khumri by the strongmen, who are forcing municipal officials to give them ownership documents, Sahib Nazar Sangin told the local Pajhwok Afghan News. Employees of the land records department have been beaten up several times on order of the warlords, who have fighters and weapons at their disposal, the mayor complained. He added a retired general of the interior ministry, known as Habib, was among those who had seized the municipality's land in the Silo area, and is now using his influence and force to get documents. "Recently, the commander insulted me in my office for refusing to prepare documents for him," Sangin said.

In an interview with the BBC's Pashto service, a key leader of the Haqqani network denied that the group is responsible for killing Burhanuddin Rabbani, or that it is receiving aid from Pakistan's ISI. But Siraj Haqqani asserted that he's been approached by the US to join the Afghan government as part of a peace deal with the Taliban. "Right from the first day of American arrival till this day not only Pakistani but other Islamic and other non-Islamic countries including America, contacted us and they [are] still doing so. They are asking us to leave the ranks of Islamic Emirates," he said referring to the Taliban leadership. He said that the outsiders have promised an "important role in the government of Afghanistan." (BBC News, AP, Oct. 3

In the wake of Burhanuddin Rabbani's assassination, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says trying to talk peace with the Taliban is futile, that the real power behind the insurgents is Pakistan, and that Afghanistan's best option is to negotiate with Islamabad. Hundreds of Rabbani's supporters marched in Kabul on Sept. 25 to protest his killing, chanting "Death to Pakistan, death to the Taliban!" They demanded the government scrap plans to hold dialogue with the insurgents. Preliminary investigations into Rabbani's killing, presented to Karzai by his intelligence chiefs that day, said the attack was plotted outside Afghanistan and named the Taliban’s Pakistan-based Quetta Shura as key suspects.

A soldier with the US Army was sentenced on Sept. 23 for his role in murdering an unarmed teenage Afghan civilian. Pvt. Andrew Holmes was sentenced to seven years in prison as part of a plea deal that he agreed to the day before. Holmes pleaded guilty to shooting the civilian, but pleaded not guilty to previous charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Holmes also pleaded guilty to one count each of possessing a finger bone of the victim and using marijuana. As part of the deal, Holmes will receive 499 days of time served and will be dishonorably discharged from the Army. Holmes is the third soldier to strike a plea deal of the five charged with murder as part of a plot contrived with fellow soldiers to kill Afghan civilians, which took place between January and May of last year in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Holmes has alleged that his co-defendant, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, ordered soldiers to fire at villagers. Morlock pleaded guilty n March to three counts of murder, as well as one count each of assault, conspiracy, obstructing justice and illegal drug use in exchange for a maximum sentence of 24 years in prison.

Gunmen in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan attacked a bus carrying Shi'ite pilgrims to Iran on Sept. 20, killing at least 25. The driver of the bus told police that some 10 assailants ordered the pilgrims off the bus and then opened fire on them. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an extremist Sunni group believed to be responsible for previous attacks on Shi'ites in Baluchistan, claimed responsibility. The Shi'ites of Baluchistan are mostly members of the Hazara ethnic minority (which was the target of a campaign of genocide by the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan in the 1990s).

It is nonetheless sickening for being de rigueur to hear Barack Obama mourning the death of the war criminal Burhanuddin Rabbani as a "tragic loss." Rabbani had recently been appointed to lead a "High Peace Council" to start negotiations with the Taliban. He was killed at his home in Kabul by a visitor with explosives hidden in his turban. President Hamid Karzai, at the start of talks with Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, said Rabbani's death "will not deter us" from continuing the quest for peace. (Reuters, LAT, Sept. 20) Rabbani ruled Afghanistan from 1992 until the Taliban take-over of '96, and then led the Northern Alliance insurgency. He has been perceived as the real power behind President Karzai. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) decried Rabbani as leader of the "Northern Alliance mafia" made up of "millionaire rapists busy in the opium trade under the very nose of the US troops."