Baz Mohammad, a reputed Afghan drug kingpin who allegedly condoned selling heroin in the US in the name of jihad, has become the first person to be extradited from Afghanistan for prosecution. Upon his arraignment in Manhattan Oct. 24, Mohammad told US District Judge Denny Chin, "I am innocent." He was ordered held without bail.

Freedom's on the march in Afghanistan—the freedom of fundamentalist fanatics to protect their faith from such blasphemous assaults as newspapers that condemn public stoning. From Reporters Without Borders, Oct. 24:

Reporters Without Borders today called on President Hamid Karzai to intercede after a Kabul court sentenced Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the editor of the monthly publication Haqoq-e-Zan (Women's Rights), to two years in prison at the end of a summary trial on blasphemy charges on 22 October.

The US Army is probing claims that its troops in Afghanistan burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters they had killed and used the smoldering corpses to taunt insurgents. An Australian TV show broadcast images Oct. 19 of US soldiers incinerating the corpses outside Gonbaz in southern Afghanistan (Faryab provicne) with the bodies facing west toward Mecca, the direction of Muslim daily prayers—in an apparent deliberate denigration of Islamic belief. Islam prohibits cremation and considers desecration of bodies to be blasphemous.

Freedom's on the march in Afghanistan—freedom of opium kingpins to exploit the peasantry and make a killing. The opium economy has exploded since the country's "liberation" from the Taliban, and efforts by the Anglo-American-led occupation forces to crack down on it have only forced suffering peasants to sell their daughters to the drug lords to settle their debts. Reports have emerged (denied by the US) of aerial herbicide spraying to wipe out the crops—the same counter-productive method widespread in Colombia. A proposal by a European NGO to undercut the criminal networks by turning Afghanistan into a legal opium producer for the medical market, predictably, is dismissed by the US. From The Independent, Oct. 3:

From the UK's New Statesman, Sept. 19, via the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA):

As the country wakes up from 25 years of conflict and despair, a young female politician is taking on the warlords and winning. F Brinley Bruton reports from Farah Province
August temperatures in Farah Province, on the border with Iran, can hit 50 C, beating residents into a submissive slouch. But on a Friday in Farah's capital, the offices of Malalai Joya, who is running for parliament, crackle with life. All activity focuses on a woman who is slumped in a chair, her head bowed and the side of her face swollen. Her mouth hangs slack and her tongue worries at her crooked teeth.

While 11 candidates (out of some 3,000) were barred from Afghanistan's parliamentary elections for ties to warlordism, many veteran Mujahedeen commanders with pasts tained by human rights abuses—or even ethnic cleansing—seem to have slipped through the cracks. Reported Newsday Sept. 19:

The polling stations closed last night in what was hailed as Afghanistan's first free parliamentary elections since 1969. Overseeing the security of the elections in the capital was the special Kabul Multi-National Brigade (KMNB VIII), composed of units from 24 countries, together with the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Kabul City Police (KCP). KMNB VIII patrols of Kabul's streets started at daybreak, with the police and Afghan army supervising the polling stations. Three days before the vote a large number of 107-mm rockets were found along with some surface-to-air missiles and other explosives in a joint Italo-French operation on the outskirts of Kabul, on the road to Bagram. A few hours before the vote, Kabul's chief of police and four officers were killed in the city center. Yesterday morning the Counting Center, where ballot boxed are due to be opened and counted was hit by two rocket attacks, which both failed to cause significant damage. According to initial estimates by the multi-national Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), turnout was as high as 55%. For the transportation of ballot boxes a variety of vehicles are being used, from four-wheel drive trucks to a fleet of 1,250 donkeys, 300 horses and 20 camels, allowing even the most remote villages to be reached. The KMNB operation will continue until the counting of the votes ends on October 9, with a declaration of results due on October 22. (AGI, Sept. 19)

A military jury at Fort Bliss, TX, spared an Army reservist prison time but reduced his rank Aug. 18 for abuse of a detainee who later died at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Prosecutors had asked that Pfc. Willie V. Brand, 27, be sent to a military prison for 10 years with a dishonorable discharge for the December 2002 beating. Instead, the panel reduced his rank to private, the lowest pay grade in the Army, and set him free.