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There have been 118 registered cases of violence against women in Ghor in the past year, and those are only cases that have been reported, said Fawzia Koofi, head of the womens rights commission in the Afghan Parliament, who recently visited Ghor to raise awareness about the lack of justice. And not a single suspect in these 118 cases has been arrested.

There is no value for women there, Ms. Koofi added. It is as if she deserves to die.

With a population of over 700,000 and located in west-central Afghanistan, Ghor is considered one of the most deprived provinces of the country. It has received little government attention over the years, and the rule of law is almost nonexistent in certain parts of the territory. Ghor also shares borders with some of the most violent provinces with strong Taliban presence, making it vulnerable to the insurgency.

Some of the cases in Ghor briefly shock the nation before fading into its long history of abuse.

A teenage girl, Rukhshana, who was forced into an arranged marriage, was later caught fleeing with a lover. She was buried waist deep in dirt and stoned to death in October 2015 by a gang of men the government said were Taliban. The male lover was flogged and set free.

From her waist up, the rocks had ripped her body and some piece of stones had made it inside her ribs, said Hanifa, Rukhshanas mother. The blood would not stop. There were 12 other women in the room helping me wash her in preparation for burial, she said.

Aziz Gul, 19, was shot at night and buried before her parents could even see her body.

Police records said she was also fleeing with a man, reportedly a lover, to avoid a forced marriage, when she was caught by a mob and killed on the spot last June. But her parents said she was abducted from her uncles house, and after she was recovered villagers accused her of adultery and then shot her.

They killed her around night prayer, and I heard the news at dawn prayer, her mother, Belqis, said. By that time they had buried the body already.

In the most recent case, a woman named Suraya was trying to flee what she said was an abusive forced marriage of four years. She left in March with her lover and an elderly aunt, who accompanied them to help them avoid suspicion. All three were chased by heavily armed villagers and killed. Their charred bodies remained in the open for days; villagers threatened anyone who would come to pick them up.

Ms. Koofi, the lawmaker, said the violence had its roots in tribal feuds and the pervasive practice of marrying off girls at a very young age for large dowries. By the time the husband-to-be comes up with the money, often after years of labor in Iran, the girl has grown up and developed feelings for someone else.

Also playing a crucial role in the violence, Ms. Koofi said, is the absence of the rule of law and a complete sense of impunity.

When security officials are pressed on the situation in Ghor, Ms. Koofi said, they say they have to balance justice with security and that if they go after the perpetrators, they will side with the Taliban who are already gaining ground in the province.

This sense that the provinces misogyny and injustice would be tolerated as a compromise for stability was underscored when President Ashraf Ghani decided not to support a female governor he sent to the province after she faced resistance. The governor, Seema Joyenda, was ousted at the end of 2015, within six months of her arrival, and that move may have further cemented a feeling of impunity among fundamentalists.

There are other episodes that raise questions about the governments commitment to trying to stop, or at least punish, the killing of women in the province.

Mullah Saadyar, one of the militant leaders listed on police documents as ordering the stoning of Rukhshana, recently came for treatment for an illness in Ghors provincial capital, Chaghcharan, but the government did not arrest him.

No one has yet been prosecuted for the death of Tabaruk, either.

In the months before she died, Tabaruk, who, like many Afghans used only one name, was focused on protecting her daughter from her own almost certain death.

The daughter, Mah Yamsar, says she was at home last year when a neighbor, Sayed Ahmad, raped her. She hid the episode from everyone, until her body started changing, and she realized she was pregnant. Her mother become her secret-bearer and helper. In rural Afghanistan, it is common for such pregnancies to end in honor killings.

Mr. Ahmad had pills delivered to Mah Yamsar that would help her have an abortion, which occurred in the seventh month of her pregnancy.

Mah Yamsar went to the hospital and stayed there for eight nights, needing two blood transfusions.

When she was discharged and returned to her village in the Dawlat Yar district of Ghor, elders gathered for a council to decide the familys fate. Tabaruk and her husband were in attendance, as was Mr. Ahmad, the accused rapist, but Mah Yamsar was not.

He said, I wont swear on the Quran, but I did not rape her, Mah Yamsar said her mother told her about Mr. Ahmads words at the meeting.

The village council, swayed by Mr. Ahmads powerful relatives, said Mah Yamsars family had brought dishonor on the village. Load up, and leave this place, the family was told.

Mah Yamsar, still recovering from the abortion, was put on a motorcycle. Her mother rode a horse, while her father, her brother and two village elders, both men, followed behind.

Mah Yamsar arrived ahead of her family in Kharsang, also in Ghor, where the family planned to start a new life. Her mother never made it.

At first, her father said Tabaruk would come. Then he said she had fallen off the horse and died.

But her brother said their father was lying. His father and the two village elders took Tabaruk off into the distance, telling him to stay behind. When they returned, his father said Tabaruk had fallen off the horse.

But the child told Mah Yamsar he heard gunshots.

A version of this article appears in print on July 9, 2017, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In Lawless Afghan Province, No Value and No Justice for Women.

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No Justice, 'No Value' for Women in a Lawless Afghan Province - New York Times

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Afghanistan national cricket team would strive to win its first-ever match against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) atLords in London on Tuesday.

The MCCteam would be captained by Brendon McCullum, former New Zealand skipper in the 50 over game, said a statement from the Afghan Connection Group.

Other MCC players would be include two other former international captains, Kumar Sangakkara, of Sri Lanka, and Misbah ul-Haq of Pakistan. The Afghan team would include the highly respected all-rounder, Mohammad Nabi, and the 18-year-old prodigy, Rashid Khan.

The rise of the Afghan national cricket team has been phenomenal over recent years. Most notably, as the match at Lords approached, Afghanistan has been confirmed as a full member of the elite group of ICC (International Cricket Council) Test Match nations.

President of MCCMatthew Fleminghas had close connections with Afghan cricket, and was a very keen supporter of the game there. I have visited Afghanistan and seen the enthusiasm and skill of so many players there, both of senior teams, and of boys and girls too, he said.

MCC has supported Afghan cricket since 2009. MCC supports the game there by funding cricket pitches and helping with coaching, not least of children all around the country. We do this through working with Afghan Connection, a charity which had already become successfully involved with supporting Afghan cricket, says Matthew Fleming.

Afghans love cricket so much, says Dr Sarah Fane, Founder and CEO of Afghan Connection.But they hardly haveany equipment.So Afghan Connection made a delivery to the national team and began supporting grassroots cricket around the country for the young.

"Within a year MCCbegan backing Afghan cricket through Afghan Connections projects. Since 2009 this has led to 100 cricket pitches being built, serving well over 100,000 Afghan children, as well as provision of equipment and coaching for them.

Since 2002, the Afghan Connection has funded the construction of nearly 50 schools in remote areas of northern Afghanistan, serving about 75,000 boys and girls in almost equal numbers, along with training programmes for over 900 teachers.

Afghan kids love going to school.And cricket has become such a large part in the lives of so many, said Dr Fane.

nh/mud

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Afghanistan all set for Tuesday's encounter against MCC - Pajhwok Afghan News (subscription) (blog)

The United States is the worlds largest source of terrorism, not the Islamic Republic of Iran, an American writer says.

The United States is the worlds largest source of terrorism, not the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Robert Fantina, an American writer and political analyst who is based in Ontario, Canada.

Fantina, the author of Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of US Foreign Policy, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday when asked why does the US want to convince the world that Iran is exporting terrorism, when it itself is doing so.

The United States for generations has proclaimed, against all evidence, that it is a beacon of liberty and freedom, respecting human rights and assisting the downtrodden around the world. In that context, it accuses Iran of what it itself does, to convince the world that Iran is a terrorist regime, in order to gain widespread support for an invasion, Fantina said.

Such an invasion of Iran would serve many purposes for the United States, he stated.

First, the US is the worlds largest exporter of weaponry; the more wars it wages, the more use there is for its products. Weapons manufacturers in the US make significant donations to elected officials for their election and re-election campaigns. It has been reported that, in Syria, different factions, both supplied by the US, are actually fighting each other.

Second, and more importantly for the US, is the Israeli lobby, which donates far more to elected officials than weapons manufacturers. Israel has nuclear weapons, and with $4 billion annually from the US, has become a very powerful force in the Middle East and the world. The US will not allow Iran, a large and powerful country, to challenge sacred Israel in any way.

In addition, US government officials and the corporate-owned media, which can be seen as a branch of the government, have long tried, with some success, to convince the populace to fear Islam. By accusing Iran, an Islamic country, of exporting terrorism, this fear can be enflamed. This will enable the US to more strongly support Israel, thus pleasing Israeli lobbies and continuing the flow of money to officials running for re-election.

Also, if the US can convince the world that Iran is exporting terrorism, it moves the focus away from its own terrorist activities, and points them elsewhere. This allows the US to continue terrorizing the world.

The US citizenry always seems ready to go to war; once the wars start, and disillusionment sets in, they learn that starting wars is much easier than ending them. But as the US has destroyed Libya and Iraq, and is trying desperately, with only a modicum of success, fortunately, to do the same thing to Syria, the citizenry doesnt seem to notice; once the US goes to war, they will wave the flag, support the troops, and climb on the murderous US bandwagon.

But what they dont realize is that an invasion of Iran will not be the same as the invasion of Iraq; the names of the countries are similar, but that is about the only thing they have in common. With a population of over 72 million, Iran is twice the size of Iraq. The Iranian military is far stronger than the Iraqi military ever was. Additionally, Iran is allied with Russia, which is unlikely to sit back and watch the US destroy Iran.

US officials can say what they will about Iran, but the facts are clear: it is the US that is the worlds largest source of terrorism.

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US is world's largest source of terrorism, not Iran: American writer - Press TV

An Iranian-made catamaran is launched into the Karun river in January 2016. (Photo by Mehr)

Iran has completed its first export of a catamaran ship built in the country to Turkey, media reports said on Saturday.

The delivery puts Iran in the elite club of the manufacturers of catamaran, a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size.

Hossein Qorbani, managing director of Iran's Arvandan Shipbuilding Company which built the sailing boat, said the vessel sold at around 10 million USdollars.

One of the key features of the Iranian-made catamaran is that it is able to sail into shallow waters about two meters deep, he said. At a speed of 30 knots (55 km/h), the vessel is also able to travelin bad weather, Qorbani added.

Each catamaran takes about 12 to 18 months to build, but Iranian builders are able to bring the perioddown to eight months, the official said.

According to Qorbani, France's Bureau Veritas has certified the quality of the vessels hull.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) unveiled a catamaran-type ship capable of carrying a helicopter and up to 100 people in September 2016.

Iran has a sprawling shipbuilding industry, chiefly devoted to constructing oil tankers and container ships as well as offshore structures.

The country owns the worlds largest fleet of oil supertankers consisting of 42 VLCCs, each able to carry 2 million barrels of oil.

With the removal of US-ledsanctions on Iran in January 2016, the Islamic Republic plans to expand its container fleet in order to extend its forward coverage beyond all frontiers.

After the sanctions were lifted, officials said the country was in talks with major world shipbuilders, including South Koreas Hyundai and Germanys Nordic Yards Wismar, to carry out a series of grand projects.

Irans biggest operator, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), wasputting out orders for Triple E vessels capable of carrying more than 18,000 containers, its chairman Mohammad Saeidi said.

IRISLs current fleet includes 158 container vessels, dry bulk carriers and tankers which are expected to return to international traffic in early 2016.

Another official said preliminary agreements had been signed with Korean, German and Chinese shipbuilders to construct high-tech LNG tankers as the country pushes to join the club of liquefied natural gas exporters.

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First Iran-made catamaran delivered to Turkey - Press TV

A woman holds an injured girl as Iraqi forces continue their advance against ISIS in Mosul. Felipe Dana / AP

The U.S. military said its priority was to stop people suffering by defeating ISIS as quickly as possible.

"The longer this takes, the more the people will suffer under ISIS," it said.

However, humanitarian workers in Mosul said this sense of urgency trumped their efforts to make coalition forces more mindful of the civilian population packed into a city that had some 1.5 million residents before the conflict started.

Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch, told NBC News that in the final push to take Mosul there was a "massive uptick in ground fire" and the use of large 500-1,000-pound crater bombs that cause huge destruction and many deaths.

Human Rights Watch made recommendations to the warring parties to take some of those powerful weapons off the table, Wille said.

But there was a "general feeling among the military forces, 'We need to keep the momentum up. Its better for the civilians of Mosul if we can get ISIS out,'" she said.

For the Iraqi military, ISIS' use of civilians as human shields made some casualties inevitable.

"It is a battle inside towns and cities, so there must be some casualties among civilians when you target ISIS terrorists who are hiding among civilians," Brig. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operation Command, told NBC News in a phone interview.

Rasool said the Iraqi forces' "main concern is to prevent civilian deaths." He defended the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, saying they were "very precise" and rely on "precise intelligence information."

For the people caught in the crossfire in Mosul over the last few months, it's been a living hell.

"That place, it was absolute death," a man fleeing Mosul's Old City told the AP on Wednesday. "We will never be the same. Once the fear has been planted in your heart, you can't get rid of it."

Meantime, coalition forces have also been closing in on

The city of approximately 220,000 is considerably smaller than Mosul, but it is of immense strategic importance to ISIS militants because they have used it as a base to launch attacks on the West.

In June, the U.N. Human Rights Council denounced the

"Violence continues to be directed against civilians, with complete disrespect for civilian protection," Paulo Srgio Pinheiro, the head of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said in a statement.

The fighting has involved the "unrestrained use of airstrikes against residential neighborhoods, attacks against doctors and hospitals, [and] the use of suicide bombers that deliberately target civilians," he added. "Fighting remains brutal in purpose and reprehensible in method."

He also warned against tactics that involved civilian deaths as collateral damage.

"The imperative to fight terrorism must not, however, be undertaken at the expense of civilians who unwillingly find themselves living in areas where ISIL is present," Pinheiro said.

Kinda Haddad, the head of Syria research at Airwars, has been monitoring U.S.-led coalition air strikes, as well as Russian and Assad regime-led strikes, for the last two and half years. She said she used to see an average of three to ten alleged coalition airstrikes per week but now she regularly sees about 50 per week.

A graph from Airwars tracking the number of U.S. and allied airstrikes on Syria from December 2014-June 2017.

"Earlier the [local] monitors said they knew when the airstrikes were coalition strikes because they were so precise," said Haddad. "But that has changed."

"The trend is telling us something," said Hadid. "The fighting is too intense. Choices can still be made. The preservation of human life should be at the forefront, not an afterthought."

For the aid organizations trying to help civilians fleeing the violence, it has been an extremely challenging experience to say the least.

"This is a very sophisticated conflict," Jonathan Henry, of Doctors Without Borders, told NBC News by phone from Iraq last week. "It is an urban conflict akin to World War II. It is very challenging to work in."

Henry is the outgoing emergency coordinator for the organization, which is also known as Mdecins Sans Frontires, in West Mosul. He said that even for MSF, which specializes in sending medical teams to conflict zones, trying to provide medical care to civilians when doctors are in range of artillery and sniper fire has not been easy.

"The horrific theme of the conflict, where women and children are among the victims, is extremely traumatic," said Henry, who has worked for MSF for the past 12 years in places like Darfur, Ethiopia and Syria.

On one positive note, he said that within days of opening their most recent medical treatment center close to the front line in West Mosul, they had their first baby delivery.

"So life goes on, even in a war zone," he said.

Continued here:
In Battle Against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Civilians Suffer Most - NBCNews.com