Blast kills Afghan deputy spy chief

At least 23 people, including the deputy head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, have been killed in a suicide attack in the country's east.

Abdullah Laghmani was killed in the attack on Wednesday while visiting tribal elders near his home in Laghman province, sources have told Al Jazeera.

Sayed Ahmad Safi, the provincial governor's spokesman, confirmed that Laghmani, who is the deputy chief of the National Directorate for Security (NDS), was among the dead.

James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kabul, said: "Behind the scenes Laghmani was key ... his death will be a big blow to the Afghan government and their fight against the Taliban."

Several other government officials were also thought to have been killed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had targeted senior officials.

he attack came as a group of government officials were inaugurating a mosque in the city of Mehterlam, 100km east of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.

Lutfullah Mashal, the governor of Laghman, who witnessed the attack, told Al Jazeera: "The deputy chief of the NDS is from Laghman province.

"He came to Laghman this morning to participate in the reconstruction of the central mosque. He wanted to visit the mosque.

"But before entering the mosque the suicide attacker rammed into his vehicle and exploded himself in a big crowd of religious scholars and tribal elders."

An Associated Press photographer at the site said US troops and Afghan officials had surrounded the blast site.

The NDS is headed by an ethnic Tajik, and analysts warn that the killing of Laghmani, a Pashtun, could further exacerbate ethnic tensions in the country.

Source: Al Jazeera (English)

The Real Winner of Afghanistan's Election

BY HILLARY MANN LEVERETT

Meet Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the unsavory Tajik warlord whose grip on Afghanistan just got a whole lot tighter.

The real winner of Afghanistan's presidential election will not be Hamid Karzai or his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.

It's a man named Mohammad Qasim Fahim. He is Afghanistan's senior-most military commander, with the lifetime rank of marshal, and was Karzai's running mate during the campaign.

Whether Karzai or one of his opponents wins, Fahim will hold and exercise extraordinary influence over the country's military and security apparatus -- more so than the elected president.

This means the real loser of Afghanistan's presidential election -- besides the Afghan people -- will be the United States' long-standing ambition to train and equip enough Afghan forces to allow for an eventual withdrawal of the U.S. military.

Building up the Afghan military and police is at the heart of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's latest assessment for Washington of what needs to be done in Afghanistan.

But McChrystal's forces will be training Afghan soldiers and police to work for Fahim: a human-rights-abusing, drug-trafficking warlord who might also have had a role in al Qaeda's assassination of his political godfather, Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud, on Sept. 9, 2001 -- an operation widely viewed in retrospect as a precursor to the terrorist attacks in the United States two days later.

Read more here,,,

Source: Foreign Policy

Three Tajiks sentenced for preparing attacks

Dushanbe. Three Tajiks accused of being members of a militant Islamic group were sentenced on Wednesday to between 10 and 17 years in prison for allegedly preparing attacks, a court official said.

The three had "prepared themselves to carry out attacks but were arrested by the police," the official from the Sogd court in northern Tajikistan said.

Police seized bomb-making materials and arms during a search of their home, he said.
The suspects were allegedly members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (MIO). They were also found guilty of organising an army and calling for the overthrow of the government by force.

The MIO was formed in 1988 by former Soviet paratrooper Juma Namangani and the Islamic ideologue Tohir Yuldashev -- both ethnic Uzbeks who aimed to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state under Sharia law.

Source: AFP
H/T: Jihad Watch