How Afghanistan improved its health in 10 years despite bombs and bullets

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and as a country recovering from conflict, Afghanistan had some of the worst health indicators in the world. More than one-in-two (54%) children under five were stunted and around four-in-ten (39%) children were underweight in Afghanistan in 2004. It ranked 181/182 on the human development index, ranked the worst in stunting prevalence across the world and its under-five mortality was 257 per 1,000 live births.

In just 10 years, despite conflict and widespread poverty, Afghanistan made significant improvements in its health indicators: Under-five mortality reduced 29%, stunting declined from 54% in 2004 to 40% and underweight children declined from 39% to 20% in 2013.

Coverage of several maternal care interventions increased: Antenatal care–care during pregnancy–increased from 16% to 53%, births assisted by a skilled birth attendant from 14% to 46%, and births in a health facility from 13% to 39%. Childhood vaccinations doubled from 40% to 80% during this time.

The reduction in stunting has a lot to do with the health ministry’s focus on early breastfeeding and convergence of various ministries and aid agencies to achieve the goal, according to Homayoun Ludin, director of public nutrition, Ministry of Public Health.

Russia-Pak friendship new, Moscow has no influence in Islamabad: US

Amid increased bonhomie between Russia and Pakistan, the White House believes that Moscow does not have a great influence on Islamabad, a senior Trump Administration official has said.

"I don't particularly believe that there is a great deal of influence that Russia is asserting (over Pakistan) even though I do acknowledge they have a better relationship than they had five years ago," a senior administration official has said.

The official was responding to questions on the recent increase in relationship between Russia and Pakistan and how much influence it has over Islamabad.

"But Russia as of now does not have a great deal of influence over Pakistan, with which its ties is relatively new," the official said who on condition of anonymity.

"I think the Russia-Pakistan relationship is still something relatively new," the senior administration official said noting that Pakistan, being an independent country is making its own assessment and doing what it considers is in its own interests.

However, the official said that the Russian thinking that the Taliban can help fight ISIS is a flawed approach.

Most of the US soldiers who perished last year were in operations against ISIS in Afghanistan.
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US to rope in China in bid to make Pakistan shut down terror safe havens

China shares some of the concerns of the US about the terrorism problem in Pakistan and Washington is seeking to work with Beijing and other regional players to convince Islamabad about the need to crackdown on terror safe havens, a senior White House official has said. 

As the Trump Administration is determined to eliminate terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which is key to bring stability in Afghanistan and in the region, the official hoped that China will play a helpful role in convincing Pakistan that it is in its own national interest to crack down on these sanctuaries.

Pakistan already has deep historical ties going back to many years and they have close military ties, the official said, adding that the economic relationship is also growing with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.

"But, China shares some of the concerns of the US about the terrorism problem. The US is seeking to work with other regional players and China would be one of the main ones to deal with this issue. It won't serve China's interests to have terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan," the senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.

The official was quick to point out that China has been playing a more helpful role in terms of encouraging better relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Redouble efforts against terrorists in your country: US defence secy to Pak

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis on Monday met Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders and urged them “redouble” their efforts to rein in militants accused of using the country as a base to carry out attacks in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Mattis, on a one-day visit to Pakistan, said the South Asian nation had made progress in the fight against militancy inside its borders but needed to make more.

More than 100 days since President Donald Trump announced a South Asia strategy that calls for a firmer line towards Islamabad, US officials and analysts say there has been only limited success and it is not clear how progress will be made.

US officials have long been frustrated by what they see as Pakistan’s reluctance to act against groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network that they believe exploit safe haven on Pakistani soil to launch attacks in Afghanistan.

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Pervez Musharraf: The Pakistani General who wouldn't go away

Along stretches of highway and railway tracks across Pakistan, walls bear a familiar inscription: Mard kabhi boorha nahin hota, a man never grows old. It’s an advert by quacks and herbalists peddling eternal virility to aging Pakistani men. It would appear that Pakistan’s former military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf has taken this roadside assurance too seriously.

Nine years after his ouster from the presidency, and many humiliating attempts to reclaim political relevance later, he is at it again. In a recent interview with Sky News, he said that if he could return to power now he would have more legitimacy than the first time around because back then some people thought he was a dictator. He said this with a straight face.

Musharraf’s dreams are as hopeless as the claims of the roadside quacks, but that doesn’t stop him from coming up with elaborate plans to bring them about. Despite what the aphrodisiac sellers say, men do get old, and they don’t get any wiser with age.

Back in his day, Musharraf sold himself to the world as the last man standing between the Taliban and Western civilization. In the bargain, he achieved everything that a developing country’s military dictator could want: a trip to Camp David, a house in Dubai, a flat in central London, a book deal, his own TV show. You would think that after all that, he would retire, play golf and occasionally show up on the after-dinner lecture circuit. But earlier this month he announced the creation of a 23-party political alliance and appointed himself its chairman.

Many of those parties were previously unheard-of, and some of the ones that were known announced that they had nothing to do with Musharraf or his grand alliance. Still, within days Musharraf was back on TV reminiscing about his glorious rule and pitching himself as a savior-in-waiting — the man who would deliver Pakistan from its current political crisis, caused by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification from office on corruption charges.
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Tillerson, Mattis to visit Pakistan to drill home Trump's message on terror

President Donald Trump will dispatch his top diplomatic and military advisers to Pakistan in the coming weeks, turning up the heat on a nuclear-armed ally accused of harbouring terror groups.

Weeks after Trump angrily accused Islamabad of providing safe haven to "agents of chaos," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to depart for Pakistan late this month.

He will be followed by Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, according to US and Pakistani sources.

The one-two punch is designed to drill home Trump's message that Pakistani state support for jihadist groups has to end, according to officials briefed on the visits.

Washington has long been frustrated by Pakistan's willingness to offer cross-border safe havens to Taliban factions and armed Islamist groups fighting US troops and their Afghan allies.

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Taliban, IS massacre 50 civilians in rare joint operation: Afghan officials

The Taliban and Islamic State group jointly massacred dozens of civilians in an Afghan village, officials said on Monday highlighting rare co-operation between the insurgents that could increase the strain on Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces.

The fighters killed more than 50 men, women and children in the remote Sayad district of northern Sar-e Pul province on Saturday after overrunning the Afghan Local Police (ALP) - a government-backed militia - in a 48-hour battle, according to local officials.

"It was a joint operation by Daesh (IS) and Taliban fighters. They had recruited forces from other provinces of the country and attacked Mirzawalang village," Zabihullah Amani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.

The spokesman alleged that dozens of Taliban and IS group fighters under the command of Sher Mohammad Ghazanfar, a local Taliban commander who Amani claims pledged allegiance to IS, launched a co-ordinated attack on the area on Thursday.

"The fighters overran the area and it led to the massacre of innocent and defenceless civilians," he said.

Most of those killed were shot but some were beheaded, Amani said.

Verifying information from poor, mountainous areas of Afghanistan made inaccessible by fighting and with patchy communications is difficult, and AFP was not able to access the village.
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Suicide blast at mosque kills 20, injures 60 others in Afghanistan's Herat

A suicide bomber and a gunman killed at least 29 people and wounded 63 at a packed Shiite mosque in Afghanistan's main western city of Herat on Tuesday night, the latest attack to highlight the country's deteriorating security situation.

The assault on the Jawadya mosque in Herat, which is close to Afghanistan's border with Iran, came a day after the Islamic State group claimed a deadly attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul.

The Herat attack was the latest in a series of assaults on Afghanistan's minority Shiite population.

"The death toll has risen to 29 killed and 63 wounded. Some wounded are in a critical condition so the toll may go up," hospital spokesman Rafeeq Shirzai told AFP.

Herat police spokesman Abdul Ahad Walizada said the assault happened around 8:00 pm (local time) when "a terrorist attack was carried out on a (Shiite) mosque in the third security district of Herat city".

"Based on our initial information two terrorists were involved, one of them wearing a suicide vest who detonated himself while the second one was armed with a rifle. They are both dead," he added.
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Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai finishes school, joins Twitter

In 2012, a Taliban gunman shot her in the head for advocating education for girls in her native Pakistan. Today, Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai completed her schooling in Britain, calling the achievement "bittersweet".

"Today is my last day of school and my first day on @Twitter," she wrote on her newly opened account, which gained more than 134,000 followers in three hours.

Yousafzai, who will be turning 20 this month, had been attending a school in the city of Birmingham where she was treated after the shooting in October 2012.

After blogging and campaigning for girls' education in her native Swat valley, she was shot as she rode back to her village on a bus after taking an exam.

Yousafzai has since become a global icon for girls' education, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

"Graduating from secondary school (high school) is bittersweet for me," she tweeted, adding: "I know that millions of girls around the world are out of school and may never get the opportunity to complete their education".

But she said she was "excited" about her future and promised to continue "fighting for girls".

Yousafzai has excelled at school and is awaiting the results of her A-level exams next month. She has been offered a place to study at Oxford University.

She has chosen to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics, a prestigious course that has produced many British politicians and world leaders including late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
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Pentagon to send 4,000 additional US forces to Afghanistan: Report

The Pentagon plans to send almost 4,000 additional United States troops to Afghanistan, according to reports.

The decision to deploy additional troops, some for training and advising Afghan forces and other for counter-terrorism missions, could be announced as soon as next week.

The administration has been considering sending additional troops for some time.

About 8,400 US troops are currently in Afghanistan on a dual mission of training, advising and assisting Afghan troops in their fight against the Taliban and conducting counter-terrorism missions against groups such as the al-Qaeda and the ISIS.

Meanwhile, President Trump has given Secretary of Defense James Mattis full authority to set US troop levels in Afghanistan.

Before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, Mattis lauded the decision as a way to make managing the war effort more efficient. "This assures the department can facilitate our missions and nimbly align our commitment to the situation on the ground," he said.

This comes in the backdrop of attacks in Kabul during May this year alone that have killed over 100 people.
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Afghan Air Force kills at least 43 Taliban insurgents in Helmand province

At least 43 Taliban insurgents have reportedly been killed in an Afghan Air Force air strike in Helmand province on Wednesday.

Tolo News quoted a Ministry of Interior (MoI) statement, as saying that the air strike took place during the night in Marja district of the province.

"Key Taliban members are also among the dead," the MoI said, adding that a number of weapons belonging to the insurgents were also destroyed.

The Taliban have not yet commented on the air strike.
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