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500,000 Afghan Refugees Back Home, Marines Under Attack
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An Afghani welcomes home a relative
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ISLAMABAD,
May 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - More than 500,000 Afghan
refugees returned to their homeland from neighboring Pakistan since
the beginning of March, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said Monday, May
13.
UNHCR
Pakistan representative Hasim Utkan said the movement represented a
"historical groundswell" and called on the international
community to honor its pledges of aid after the collapse of the
Taliban regime last year.
"If
the refugees believe in their country's future, we expect the donors
to financially support this impressive vote of confidence," he
said in a statement.
"What
we need now is funds both to continue the repatriation operation
smoothly and to start reintegration and rehabilitation in Afghanistan,
so the returnees can start to rebuild their lives immediately and do
not lose faith."
International
donors and financial institutions pledged 4.5 billion dollars to help
rebuild Afghanistan at a landmark conference in Tokyo in December,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
But
so far only a tiny fraction of the pledges have been converted into
cash for the interim authority and the United Nations which is leading
efforts to put Afghanistan back on its feet.
Utkan
said Islamabad deserved credit for absorbing so many refugees from its
troubled neighbor, which has been in a state of war for more than 20
years.
"Pakistan
has hosted millions of Afghan refugees over more than two decades.
This is an act of humanitarianism and hospitality that is an example
to many a richer asylum country," he said.
Forty-thousand
Afghans have been returning from Pakistan each week ever since a
voluntary repatriation program was launched March 2002.
On
April, Ruud Lubbers, head of the UNHCR, said that he was surprised and
pleased by the movement of refugees, but the increasing numbers meant
they needed donor countries to move quickly from pledges to handing
over funds.
"There's
no way back, we have to build up Afghanistan and motivate the
international community to go for a very practical reconstruction
project."
A
total of about three million refugees have been living in Pakistan,
about half of them in refugee camps.
The
UNHCR needs $25 million a month for the repatriation program if it is
going to meet its target of returning 1.2 million people - including
400,000 displaced inside Afghanistan - by the end of 2002.
Meanwhile,
two rockets have been found aimed at a camp of British-led coalition
soldiers in southeastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the group said
Monday, according to AFP.
"Yesterday
[Sunday], a local warlord told us two 107 mm rockets were discovered
by his men seven kilometers [four miles] southeast of the base,"
Colonel Ben Curry, from Britain, said.
"The
rockets were aimed at the direction of the operational base with a
timer," he told a briefing at the Bagram Air Base, about 50
kilometers [30 miles] north of Kabul.
"The
system was dismantled by the local warlord," he said.
"It
is a serious incident. It is the first time we've been aware of
ammunitions directed at us."
In
the past two weeks, around 1,000 British-led troops accompanied by
their Afghan allies have been carrying out an operation in the
southeastern Paktia province to destroy the remaining infrastructure
of the Al-Qaeda terror network and prevent the group from reforming,
reported BBC’s online news service.
Since
the start of Operation Snipe, several caches of arms have been
discovered in the mountains of Paktika, which borders Pakistan, and
destroyed. However, the force has not met with any armed resistance.
The
operation, under British command, started on April 29 and ended
Monday, May 13, Curry said.
In
another development, Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai is to visit
troops and meet the head of the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) Tuesday, a spokesman for the multinational force said.
"I
can confirm that Karzai will be coming tomorrow to visit HQ
ISAF," Major Jol Fall told reporters Monday. "He is here to
visit HQ ISAF, see what we are doing here and meet people as well and
see what processes we are doing."
Fall
said his visit would also feature talks with General John McColl, the
head of the 4,600-strong force whose remit has been restricted to
Kabul.
Karzai
has been lobbying for ISAF forces to be deployed outside the Afghan
capital where the interim authority's influence is limited, but his
demands have been rebuffed by the international community.
German
leader Gerhard Schroeder said last week that he supported an extension
of the time limit on ISAF's presence in Afghanistan, but added a final
decision would rest with the United Nations.
Turkey
is due to take over the leadership of ISAF from Britain next month in
the lead-up to the Loya Jirga, the traditional Afghan grand assembly
that will select a transitional government for the country, but no
decision has yet been made on how long the force will continue its
duties beyond that.
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