EROW & Afghanistan
EROW & Afghanistan |
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US and UK Forces Strike at the Taliban.7th October 2001. Thirty targets across Afghanistan were hit by U.S. and British forces in the first anti-terror military action operation against the Taliban. Admiral Michael Boyce, chief of the UK defence staff, said three targets were in Kabul, four were near inhabited areas and the other 23 were in remote, uninhabited areas.It was the first military action since the U.S.-declared war on terror launched in the wake of the suicide hijackings that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged The Pentagon. The targets included terrorist training camps, military airfields, and air defence sites. It is not clear how much damage was inflicted, and how successful the operation was, but battle assessment investigations are under way. The offensive centred on knocking out Taliban anti-aircraft defences and the Central Asian country's tiny air force, Boyce said at a Ministry of Defence meeting in London. Camps and training facilities of the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the hijack attacks, were also hit, he added. Further operations were imminent and British warplanes were being sent to the area to back up U.S. forces, he said. Britain has three nuclear-powered submarines in the area -- HMS Superb, HMS Trafalgar and HMS Triumph, which can fire Tomahawk missiles. The Afghan civilian population, their homes and property had not been targeted, reporters were told. British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said his country's forces were "committed" to a "relentless" and "sustained" campaign. Asked if ground forces would be sent in to Afghanistan, Hoon said that "was clearly an option." But he said it was possible the Taliban would collapse under the pressure of the air strikes and that Western ground troops would not have to be deployed in a hostile environment Country profile: AFGHANISTAN .Afghanistan, a landlocked country in southwest Asia, occupies 647,500 square kilometers north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran, and south of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It has an arid to semiarid climate with cold winters and hot summers and terrain that is mostly rugged mountains with plains in the north and southwest. The country is administratively organized into 32 provinces of 356 districts, with Kabul, the capital, located in the eastern part of the country. Afghanistan is extremely poor and highly dependent on farming and livestock raising; approximately 12 percent of the land is arable. A mid-1997 estimate placed the population at 23,738,085.Landmine Problem.Afghanistan has been besieged by occupation, foreign interference, and civil wars since early 1978. The Soviets and their puppet regimes laid countless landmines in Kabul from 1979 to 1992, and some of the feuding mujahidin factions have laid landmines since 1992. Most recently, the radical Islamist, predominantly Pakhtun movement, the Taliban, has gained control of about two-thirds of the country, having ousted the Rabbani regime from Kabul in September 1996. Sporadic fighting between the Taliban and its opponents; a loose alliance of predominantly Tajik, Uzbek, and Shi'a Hazara factions-- in the northern one-third of the country has made mine clearance difficult in that region.Characterization of the Problem.The current UN figure for the number of landmines in Afghanistan, based on earlier estimates, is 10 million, but the original source of this estimate cannot be verified and the actual number may never be determined. Recently, a UN study reported that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan (UNOCHA) has reduced its estimate to 5-7 million. Some NGOs, based on actual clearance experience in heavily mined areas, claim that official estimates are still too high and should be lowered to less than a million (an estimate by The HALO Trust in 1997 was 620,000). Roughly 50 different types of antipersonnel and antitank mines have been identified during clearance operations.Location of Landmines and UXO.The most heavily mined areas are the provinces bordering Iran and Pakistan (the western, southern, and eastern parts of the country); it has been estimated that 162 of the 356 districts in Afghanistan are mine-affected. Security belts of landmines exist around major cities and at airports, government installations, and power stations. Grazing lands, waterways, schools, paths, villages, and cities are infested with mostly antipersonnel mines. Extensive mining in Kabul took place after residents fled to safe havens outside the capital.Impact.The majority of minefields in Afghanistan have been found in agricultural and grazing lands and in or near irrigation systems. Landmines are responsible for depopulating vast tracts of the countryside, affecting crop harvests, and interfering with the transportation of food supplies into the cities. Roughly 50 percent of Afghan villages and an estimated 25 percent of paved roads have been destroyed or ruined. During the conflict, one-third of the population fled the country, with Pakistan and Iran sheltering a combined peak of more than 6 million refugees. Recent field surveys conducted by the VVAF and the UNHCR reported that landmines were the primary reason for refugees leaving Afghanistan and not returning home. While more than half of the refugees from the war against the Soviets have returned to Afghanistan, other, smaller waves of refugees left Afghanistan-- particularly Kabul-- after the mujahidin came to power in Kabul in 1992 and after the Taliban captured the city in 1996. Approximately 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees remain in Iran and 1 million in Pakistan, with Pakistan claiming an additional half million unregistered Afghan refugees in the country. GDP has fallen substantially since 1982 because of the loss of labor and capital and the disruption of trade and transport. The UNDP now rates Afghanistan as 171 out of 173 countries in terms of greatest poverty and least development.Impact.Casualties. According to ICRC statistics, the most dangerous activities to rural populations are tilling fields, herding livestock, and foraging for wood and food. Overall national figures on the rate of landmine-related injuries and death are not available, but casualty estimates indicate that landmines and UXO cause an estimated 10 to 12 civilian casualties per day. Recent MSF and ICRC surveys suggest that this figure is too low, since many victims never get to treatment centers because of a lack of transportation, significant distances, or impassable roads, and thus are not reported. Victims who do arrive at a hospital often receive inappropriate treatment. Nevertheless, the data have shown an overall decline in accidents since 1994 as a result of the combination of clearance of high priority areas and an increased emphasis on mine awareness education.Country Response.No Afghan government office is specifically responsible for demining activities at the current time. However, the demining program is the oldest and most mature of all UN demining programs, and mine clearance programs in other countries have used the protocols, curricula, and management tools pioneered in Afghanistan. The program has achieved these distinctions in the absence of a national government.Other International Involvement .U.S. and international organizations often provide funding for multiple programs. Between 1994-1998, the UN's VTF for Assistance in Mine Clearance has either disbursed or committed $1 million for programs in Afghanistan. Over time, organizations such as the U.S. Department of State, USAID, World Health Organization (WHO), WFP, and the EU have been instrumental in providing funding for mine awareness, education, and training programs. UNICEF has been particularly involved in providing new educational material for mine awareness programs taught in schools. WFP and USAID are working on mine awareness, as an adjunct to their delivery of provisions and aid to villages and districts, to improve safety and awareness of the dangers of landmines.Outlook for the Future.Afghanistan's demining and UXO programs exists despite the absence of central governmental direction. In fact, the program has been so successful that other countries use its mine clearance, mine awareness, and victim assistance components as models. Casualty rates should continue to decrease in response to effective countrywide mine awareness efforts and as more and more productive land is returned to the inhabitants. Afghanistan needs to focus on establishing a strong national infrastructure to support and extend the substantial international demining and UXO programs now in effect. |
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All material Copyright WHA © 2001. Last updated: 9 October 2001 |
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