Afghanistan's Garmsir is a success for Nato – but its future remains uncertain

Saturday, 22 December 2012

Hazarjoft, Dec 23 : The villages and fields of Garmsir lie like a snake across the deserts of southern Afghanistan, the head a cluster of mud houses, irrigation canals and bazaars around the district capital, the body a narrow strip of cotton, opium poppy and wheat twisting down beside the Helmand river towards Pakistan and Iran.

It was mostly Taliban territory until US marines poured hundreds of troops and hundreds of millions of dollars into reclaiming this impoverished corner of an already poor province. Crammed bazaars, reoccupied homes and busy roads are testament to their efforts.

"Compared with two years ago it's night and day," said Captain Devin Blowse, commanding officer of the company of US marines fighting in Garmsir. "Then if you were from here, you either stayed in your compound, left to go to a more stable area, or you worked with the Taliban."

There are probably just a few dozen insurgent fighters left in Garmsir, he added, and the main Nato base where soldiers once lived off ration packs and bunkered down during regular rocket attacks has become a relatively comfortable complex with internet, full-service laundry and two cooked meals a day.

The only deaths on the marines' summer combat tour were at the hands of a rogue police employee who gunned down three men at a gym inside their main base, Forward Operating Base Delhi. Outside, they have barely come under fire.

Afghan security forces, who mostly vanished as violence increased, have returned to take over a string of marine outposts along the 45 miles of river and cotton and poppy fields that make up Garmsir. Civilian officials are in charge of health, education and justice.

As Nato prepares to pull most combat troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Garmsir could be presented as a model for what it wants to leave behind: violence is sharply down, security forces are actively taking on insurgents, and the government is organising basic services such as schools and clinics.

But the US marines who were the main architects of the current stability are leaving soon, and it is not yet clear whether the patchy branches of the central government and its security forces that are meant to take over are up to the task yet.

The people with perhaps most at stake in Garmsir's future – families who eke out a living from its poppy and cotton – have yet to make up their minds, a reminder of how fragile the changes seem to those living through them. While some have thrown in their lot with the government against the Taliban, officials acknowledge many are staying on the sidelines of a bitter conflict with no clear end.

"They are not opposed to the government but they don't have a good relationship either: they are just farmers, they are waiting to see the result, who is the winner – the government or the Taliban," said the acting Garmsir district governor, Ayoub Omar, in an office decorated with a map of Afghanistan, plastic flowers and several velveteen sofas. "Whoever wins, they will work with him." Few answers

Many resent a government they feel provides little help, and security forces seen as transient at best, predatory outsiders at worst. Dull and dangerous rural backwaters such as Garmsir rarely attract the best civil servants, police and army officers and when it does, it struggles to hold on to them. What little development the area has seen, in the form of new schools and roads, has largely come from foreigners, not the government in Kabul.

A few dozen miles from Omar's office is a village of former nomads, settled on land illegally carved out of the desert and largely ignored by army, police and officials, even though it is exactly the kind of place that could hold the seeds of their undoing.

Sand dunes nudged the outskirts of the settlement, camels grazed on thorny shrubs, and everywhere we received the same neutral stares and polite, shut-down answers. No one had seen the Taliban and security was excellent, although the Afghan army and police had not visited for months.

"I would recognise anyone with a weapon, but I haven't seen anybody," said Maulavi Ghulam Khan, one of the elders of the village, gesturing across the empty space in front of his home. "Can you ask the government to give us identity cards?" he pleaded when the marines asked if they could help. "They say we shouldn't be here even though we pay tax."

Marines suspected Haji Ghaffour had seen the Taliban. His mud and corrugated iron shack, festooned with plastic beads and tinsel and stacked with everything from washing powder to canned food, was one of the few places villagers could spend what little cash they might scratch from their salt-plagued fields. But not in afghanis, the national currency. Ghaffour was away and a son manning the shop demanded payment for chewing gum in Pakistani rupees, cash from across the nearby border where insurgents find sanctuary when not fighting on home turf.

The marines scanned the young man's fingerprints and irises for entry in a biometric database, where they found he was registered under four different names, with possible links to Taliban attacks.

But there was nothing firm enough for an arrest, so he walked away with just a warning. "We're watching you," one marine shouted after him, as he turned his back and rejoined a group of wary friends gathered outside the shop. Rampant corruption

Mistrust has grown from years of watching rampant corruption corrode government and security forces, the cynical manipulation and accidental triggering of ethnic and tribal tensions, and the difficulty of finding decent officials.

Garmsir is no exception, and this autumn the police, the army and the civilian government were all grappling with serious problems of capacity, competence or community relations.

Omar himself is the smart and affable son of an influential local elder who went into politics over his family's objections about the dangers, knows the district intimately and came second nationwide in a national civil service exam for district governors.

But he is officially only deputy to a 26-year old who disappeared to Kabul, embroiled in legal problems related to a team of "private bodyguards" he employed. The missing governor is just the most senior in a group of largely invisible district officials who Afghan and US sources said are keen to cash their pay cheques but unwilling to live in Garmsir.

"Improving governance in Helmand remains a challenge," a US government watchdog said in a recent report that warned the central government was not providing enough support in rural areas. "Corrupt hiring practices have allowed for many incompetent directors to remain in charge of the provincial and district officials."

The Afghan army, normally the most respected arm of government, is at loggerheads with Garmsir's elders because a sergeant attempted to elope with a 15-year-old girl whose father had promised her to a much older man.

Blowse said the incident was a temporary storm that overshadowed the army's impressive competence and independence. But it was a reminder of the language and cultural tensions that can hamper Afghan soldiers.

"They are not too happy about being stationed down here for the most part, and they view these people as inferior to them, culturally speaking," said Captain Andrew Yager, an adviser to Garmsir's commander, Lieutenant colonel Ghulam Mustaba. He praised the army's handling of a case that could easily have sparked violence.

Without doubt the biggest long-term security risk in Garmsir is the police. "I'd say we focus 90% of our effort on the police at this point, because I think the army has gotten to a point where they can sustain themselves, they can operate, they have depth to their leadership," said Blowse.

Just over a year ago, the district commander was taken out by a Taliban bomb, possibly with insider help. After two short-term replacements, a permanent commander arrived with a reputation for graft and within weeks his teenage "teaboy" had shot dead three marines.

That came as insider attacks by Afghan police and soldiers were rising nationwide. This year more than 60 foreigners have been killed by men they were trying to train or support, smashing the trust that is so critical to efforts to build up the Afghan security forces.

Mutual confidence in Garmsir has not been helped by the arrival of the latest district chief with a recoilless rifle, an armour-piercing weapon. The only armoured vehicles in Garmsir are the hulking MRAPs – mine resistant ambush protected trucks – driven by US marines, but the commander shrugged off all marine questions about the weapon's origin or purpose.

Nato and US influence over the police and army is also ebbing as they cut back on generous funds that for years paid for everything from 24-hour electricity to sunshades, in a bid to force an improvement in Afghan logistics systems.

"The last unit that was how they got things done, they were like, 'Hey, we'll give you this, and I need you to do this, this and this for me,'" said Lieutenant David Daugherty, commander of the team advising the police in Garmsir. "When we got here we didn't have the authority or money, or resources to give them anything; all we came with was experience and intangible stuff which wasn't good enough for them, so it was harder to influence them to do things."

The problems of Garmsir are not isolated or local. The police in many areas are corrupt and ineffective – so much so that in a recent poll about half of Afghans said they would be afraid to encounter a policeman. Dozens of district governor posts across the country sit empty. Tactical decision

Even the hard-won security improvements in Garmsir may not be entirely what they seem. There have been huge sacrifices by marines and their Afghan partners that have seriously diminished Taliban influence there, but the insurgent group may also have made a strategic decision to limit fighting in the district to keep up pressure in other areas.

They appear to be using Garmsir as a supply route to more volatile areas such as Sangin, where they initiate more fighting – kinetics in military jargon – said Lieutenant Carter Harris. Some districts in northern Helmand are among the most violent in Afghanistan, accounting for a high proportion of fighting, deaths and injuries nationwide.

"The Taliban seems willing to limit kinetics in Garmsir [because] there are lots of ratlines up north," Harris explained in company headquarters, set up in the shell of an agricultural college built by US engineers several decades ago, when they had more ambitious dreams for Afghanistan.

"The south is desert, so this to all extents and purposes is the border with Pakistan for them. They are able to move men and material north to more kinetic AOs [areas of operation], like Kajaki and Kandahar."

The insurgents may also just have taken a tactical pause to let enemies with more equipment and firepower than the Afghan police and army leave the battlefield.

Where once there were more than 60 marine bases, some with just a handful of men, that formed a chain of security dotted through Garmsir, now there are just two foreign camps, and those will probably be gone within a year as Nato countries rush to get their troops home.

The Taliban already make homemade bombs in sizes that will leave a US vehicle (mine-resistant, ambush-protected) largely unharmed but can rip apart a police ranger. And there are still Taliban threats and assassinations on prominent civilians, bombs in the roads and assaults at night.

Data from the Nato-led coalition shows "enemy-initiated attacks" – the main statistic they use publicly to assess violence – are down from 2011, but still higher than in 2009.

Senior commanders in Kabul last year were still talking about "reversing the momentum of the insurgency". On the ground troops are much more sanguine about what has been bought with foreign lives and money – a chance for the Afghan government, people and security forces to fight the Taliban themselves, without overwhelming odds against them, if they want to.

"They have the ability at this point to choose their future, that has been given to them," said Blowse. "It's their choice from there, but at least they have that choice."

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Afghanistan: An army prepares

Washington, Dec 23 : The US military has an expression – no man gets left behind. But with the withdrawal of coalition combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014 drawing closer, the men of the Afghan National Army (ANA) could be forgiven for feeling that they are indeed being abandoned.

In order to be able to leave and not have Afghanistan collapse immediately on their departure, the Americans announced at the end of 2009 that the size of the ANA would be increased to almost 200,000 soldiers.

A huge recruitment and training drive began, with new military training centres being set up around the country to facilitate the explosion in numbers.

In June 2012, slightly ahead of schedule, the ANA reached its quota. With great fanfare this was announced to the world as a sign that the army was ready to fulfill its obligations in protecting Afghanistan.

But the hard reality is that the ANA still depends on the US-led coalition for logistics, maintenance, intelligence-gathering and analysis, artillery and air support, medical evacuation (Medevac) and much, much more.

In fact, talk to any coalition troops on the ground and they will tell you the Afghans can fight, but only after they have been fed, clothed, armed and delivered to the battlefield by NATO.

Chief Warrant Officer Klaus Augustinus is a Danish mentor/advisor to the ANA and is on his third tour in Afghanistan. He openly admits that he was unimpressed with the ANA in the past, but now he feels they are making real progress. However, he says, it is the insistence on viewing the ANA through the prism of a Western army that leads to many problems.

“Always keep in mind that the Afghan way is the right way,” Klaus says. “We’re not going to do it any faster than they can cope with it. Otherwise we’re going to lose.”

There is no doubt that this huge new army is plagued with problems, but by far the biggest is the sheer turnover of men - currently running at about 30 per cent a year. In other words, the ANA has to find replacements for around 60,000 men every year.

There are many reasons for this attrition. The casualty rate is high, with more than 850 soldiers confirmed killed in 2012 alone, and a great many more wounded. As the ANA takes over the lead role in providing security throughout Afghanistan in 2013, both figures are expected to increase dramatically.

Part of this will doubtless be due to more fighting, but only barely adequate medical support and the likely withdrawal of full airborne Medevac services will not help either.

Currently the ANA relies on the coalition helicopters to take its wounded to hospital quickly. If not available, the ANA will have to use ground transportation to move badly injured men, increasing the time it takes to get them to a place of proper care and significantly reducing survival rates.

Failure to re-enlist is also a big problem. Right now about one-quarter of all recruits decline to sign up for a further tour of duty contract after their initial three-year commitment is completed.

Then there is desertion – a concern to all army commanders of a volunteer army during a war, but something to which the ANA currently seems especially vulnerable. The Afghan defence ministry admits to losing between 7-10 per cent of its troops every year in this way.

When we spoke to General Karimi, the ANA chief of staff, he told us that desertion is much reduced and that measures are in place to reduce it further. That may be true, but no one knows exactly what will happen when the ANA begins bearing the brunt of the fight against the Taliban in a little over a year’s time.

So why are desertion rates so high? We managed to find some deserters (it is not hard to track them down) and they cited three main reasons: corruption and abuse of power by officers, lack of care for troops and probably most significantly, Taliban intimidation and threats.

Naim was in the ANA for two-and-a-half years. His family had not wanted him to join the military, but they were poor, and so in order to help out he signed up. He says he actually enjoyed his time in the army and he saw a lot of action in the turbulent east of the country. But one day he was wounded in a firefight, shot in the knee, and everything changed. He says it was an American soldier who rushed to his aid, and gave him immediate treatment. Within 10 minutes he was on a US Medevac helicopter, and spent the next month being treated by US medical staff – for which he is grateful.

But from the time he was injured, he says, he was abandoned by his own army. No one, not even his platoon NCOs (non-commissioned officers) or commander, came to check on him, to see how he was doing or to ask whether he was receiving appropriate care. Worse still, nobody from the ANA bothered to tell his family where he was.

After a month, he was transferred to another facility and was able to call home. But by this time, having repeatedly asked for information on their missing son, his parents had been told that he was dead and had held funeral rites. Though delighted and relieved to hear he was safe, they were understandably furious about ANA’s callous disregard. When Naim was released from hospital two months later, his father forbade him from returning to his unit. It is a story in line with an often-heard complaint from former recruits, who say the value that the coalition armies place on the health and general wellbeing of their troops is rarely, if ever, replicated in the Afghan force.

But in truth, Taliban threats against individual ANA soldiers - and more insidiously against their families - are probably a much bigger cause for desertion than their own side’s institutional indifference. We spoke to one deserter, identified in our film as ‘Amir’, who had gone absent from his unit only a few weeks earlier. He told us that the Taliban had visited his family home several times and told them that if he did not leave the army, they would cut off his head. When that did not work, they extended the threat to the whole family and he had no choice but to do as they ordered. He is still furious about it, but said he had to put his relatives first.

Of course, it is not the only way the Taliban have sought to disrupt the buildup of the ANA. It is now generally accepted that in the rush to accrue the huge numbers needed, the ANA was far from effective in vetting volunteers – and that is a failing that the insurgents have done their best to exploit.

Although it is by no means the only cause, it may well have contributed to a rise in so-called 'green on blue' attacks over the last 12 months. So far, more than 50 coalition soldiers have been killed in 2012 in these insider incidents, when a member of the Afghan security forces, or an infiltrator dressed in a uniform, turns his weapon on his unsuspecting Western allies. The problem is, it is something that is almost impossible for coalition troops to guard against when working alongside Afghans, and worse, every safeguard that is put in place erodes trust between the two groups.

Of course, the perception in the West that the Taliban is behind all of these attacks is somewhat misplaced. Insurgents routinely claim each and every 'green on blue' attack as a planned operation, but the reality is that many are the result of a real or perceived slight, or an argument that just went too far. After extensive questioning of the attackers (or at least those that are not gunned down immediately) the Afghan authorities say approximately 25 percent of the perpetrators have provable links to the Taliban, but the rest of the incidents are down to other factors.

Whether this is true or not, the fact that some attacks are orchestrated by the Taliban is enough to add to the general Western clamour to get out of an ungrateful Afghanistan as soon as possible – which means they have fulfilled their purpose.

There is no doubt that this huge new army is plagued with problems, but by far the biggest is the sheer turnover of men - currently running at about 30 per cent a year. In other words, the ANA has to find replacements for around 60,000 men every year.

There are many reasons for this attrition. The casualty rate is high, with more than 850 soldiers confirmed killed in 2012 alone, and a great many more wounded. As the ANA takes over the lead role in providing security throughout Afghanistan in 2013, both figures are expected to increase dramatically.

Part of this will doubtless be due to more fighting, but only barely adequate medical support and the likely withdrawal of full airborne Medevac services will not help either.

Currently the ANA relies on the coalition helicopters to take its wounded to hospital quickly. If not available, the ANA will have to use ground transportation to move badly injured men, increasing the time it takes to get them to a place of proper care and significantly reducing survival rates.

Failure to re-enlist is also a big problem. Right now about one-quarter of all recruits decline to sign up for a further tour of duty contract after their initial three-year commitment is completed.

Then there is desertion – a concern to all army commanders of a volunteer army during a war, but something to which the ANA currently seems especially vulnerable. The Afghan defence ministry admits to losing between 7-10 per cent of its troops every year in this way.

When we spoke to General Karimi, the ANA chief of staff, he told us that desertion is much reduced and that measures are in place to reduce it further. That may be true, but no one knows exactly what will happen when the ANA begins bearing the brunt of the fight against the Taliban in a little over a year’s time.

So why are desertion rates so high? We managed to find some deserters (it is not hard to track them down) and they cited three main reasons: corruption and abuse of power by officers, lack of care for troops and probably most significantly, Taliban intimidation and threats.

Naim was in the ANA for two-and-a-half years. His family had not wanted him to join the military, but they were poor, and so in order to help out he signed up. He says he actually enjoyed his time in the army and he saw a lot of action in the turbulent east of the country. But one day he was wounded in a firefight, shot in the knee, and everything changed. He says it was an American soldier who rushed to his aid, and gave him immediate treatment. Within 10 minutes he was on a US Medevac helicopter, and spent the next month being treated by US medical staff – for which he is grateful.

But from the time he was injured, he says, he was abandoned by his own army. No one, not even his platoon NCOs (non-commissioned officers) or commander, came to check on him, to see how he was doing or to ask whether he was receiving appropriate care. Worse still, nobody from the ANA bothered to tell his family where he was.

After a month, he was transferred to another facility and was able to call home. But by this time, having repeatedly asked for information on their missing son, his parents had been told that he was dead and had held funeral rites. Though delighted and relieved to hear he was safe, they were understandably furious about ANA’s callous disregard. When Naim was released from hospital two months later, his father forbade him from returning to his unit. It is a story in line with an often-heard complaint from former recruits, who say the value that the coalition armies place on the health and general wellbeing of their troops is rarely, if ever, replicated in the Afghan force.

But in truth, Taliban threats against individual ANA soldiers - and more insidiously against their families - are probably a much bigger cause for desertion than their own side’s institutional indifference. We spoke to one deserter, identified in our film as ‘Amir’, who had gone absent from his unit only a few weeks earlier. He told us that the Taliban had visited his family home several times and told them that if he did not leave the army, they would cut off his head. When that did not work, they extended the threat to the whole family and he had no choice but to do as they ordered. He is still furious about it, but said he had to put his relatives first.

Of course, it is not the only way the Taliban have sought to disrupt the buildup of the ANA. It is now generally accepted that in the rush to accrue the huge numbers needed, the ANA was far from effective in vetting volunteers – and that is a failing that the insurgents have done their best to exploit.

Although it is by no means the only cause, it may well have contributed to a rise in so-called 'green on blue' attacks over the last 12 months. So far, more than 50 coalition soldiers have been killed in 2012 in these insider incidents, when a member of the Afghan security forces, or an infiltrator dressed in a uniform, turns his weapon on his unsuspecting Western allies. The problem is, it is something that is almost impossible for coalition troops to guard against when working alongside Afghans, and worse, every safeguard that is put in place erodes trust between the two groups.

Of course, the perception in the West that the Taliban is behind all of these attacks is somewhat misplaced. Insurgents routinely claim each and every 'green on blue' attack as a planned operation, but the reality is that many are the result of a real or perceived slight, or an argument that just went too far. After extensive questioning of the attackers (or at least those that are not gunned down immediately) the Afghan authorities say approximately 25 percent of the perpetrators have provable links to the Taliban, but the rest of the incidents are down to other factors.

Whether this is true or not, the fact that some attacks are orchestrated by the Taliban is enough to add to the general Western clamour to get out of an ungrateful Afghanistan as soon as possible – which means they have fulfilled their purpose.

In Chicago in early 2012, Barack Obama, the US president, described the plans to withdraw from Afghanistan as “irreversible”.

But the fortunes of the ANA are very much reversible, and if the army collapses, or fractures along ethnic lines, Afghanistan’s last line of defence will crumble and chaos will engulf the country once again.

From what we witnessed in the making of this film, it is hard to see how the Afghan army, however dedicated, can achieve what the far greater resourced “Coalition of the Willing” has failed to do over the past 11 years.

And yet, despite this, morale among ANA troops - or at least among many of those we spoke to - is higher than it might be expected to be.

Although they have been playing a support role in the coalition’s fight against the Taliban up until now, Afghan units have had their successes and on occasion ANA troops have displayed notable courage and determination in the field. This kind of commitment may not be enough to prevail against the Taliban in any long drawn-out fight, but once US troops leave and the dynamics of the war change (as they must), it may just be sufficient to hold the line for a time, and allow Afghanistan to find a way to peace through other means.


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State: Big surge in Calif. smokeless tobacco sales

Sacramento, Dec 23 : While cigarette sales have plunged, sales of smokeless tobacco products have surged in the past decade in California, with use among high school students especially leaving state public health officials concerned, according to a state report.

The report released by the Department of Public Health says the amount spent on smokeless tobacco products has nearly tripled in 10 years, from $77 million in 2001 to about $211 million in 2011.

Among high school students, smokeless tobacco use has increased from 3.1 percent of students in 2004 to 3.9 percent in 2010, the report said.

Chewing tobacco and snuff remain the main smokeless products sold in the state, but newer products like the small, dissolvable packets known as snus have seen an increase in popularity, promotion and availability. Even smaller and more discreet dissolvable products like orbs and strips are becoming popular in other states and are likely to arrive in California soon.

Colleen Stevens, branch chief of the tobacco control program for the Department of Public Health, said the newer products can go unnoticed and even be used in classrooms because they closely resemble breath mints and strips.

"Some of these products are really flying under the radar," Stevens told the Los Angeles Times.

Stevens said there is far less research on the newer smokeless tobacco products than on chewing tobacco and cigarettes, and there are fewer restrictions on their marketing and advertising.

Illegal sales of all forms of tobacco to minors increased in the past year, reversing a downward trend since the mid-1990s, according to the report.

The highest share of illegal sales to minors came in unusual outlets like discount stores, delis and discount shops where the owners may not be entirely aware of the laws and penalties and can escape the notice of law enforcement.

"Kids are smart," Stevens told the Times. "All it takes is one place that is selling tobacco and it goes through the grapevine and kids know where that store is."

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News Analysis: Harsh winter adds to Afghans' economic woes

Kabul, Dec 23 : The worsening economy and the continuing threat by militant groups have dampened the Afghan spirit to fight back and rebuild their country, particularly now that they are experiencing one of their worst winters.

"Another harsh winter is coming and I don't have enough money to buy even firewood after buying foodstuff at skyrocketing prices, " said Matiullah, 35, who, like many Afghans, goes only by one name.

"The free market economy has frustrated the people. It is not working in Afghanistan. The sellers have increased the price of basic items such as firewood and natural gas due to the recent devaluation of Afghanis against foreign currencies. The government has failed to check prices especially during this harsh winter," Matiullah, father of five, said.

The economy of the war-torn country has improved significantly since the fall of Taliban regime in late 2001, mainly as a result of the multi-billion dollars fund donated to the embattled country by the international community.

However, Afghanistan still remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world and has remained dependent on foreign aid.

"It is really a burden for all Afghans particularly people living in suburban areas to buy materials for making their houses warm in the harsh winter. At the same time we have to buy foodstuffs and keep some money for medicines and hospital expanses, " Matiullah said, adding that the dusty weather and pollution have caused his children and wife to suffer from respiratory diseases throughout the winter.

"Business is bad. The high dollar is hurting firewood business this year. Winter is the only season for us to sell wood. The costumers frequently come here in the market. They negotiate the price but leave without buying wood or just buying a small amount, " a wood seller, Mohammad Usman, said.

According to the figures released by Da Afghanistan Bank, the Afghan central bank, one U.S. dollar was traded for 52.15 Afghanis, while one U.S. dollar equaled 48.71 Afghanis in Dec. 12 last year.

The lowest exchange rate for Afghanis since the beginning of the year was about 55.50 late last month.

The price of one metric ton of firewood is about 12,900 Afghanis, or about 247 U.S. dollars, in Kabul markets.

Although Taliban regime had been driven out of power in late 2001 and open fighting is finished, the restoration of a durable peace is still a dream for many Afghans as anti-government militants continue to carry out suicide attacks and roadside bombings that kill innocent civilians.

In Kabul, some 80 percent of the population lives in unplanned settlements where poor sanitation and lack of access to potable water is common and nearly all of the buildings have no central heating system.

Winter temperatures particularly in central and northern parts in Afghanistan could fall to around -26C.

"There is advancement in heating system around the world. We are still using the metallic stoves producing too much smoke. We know that they cause weather pollution and we are losing greeneries by cutting trees but we cannot afford to buy natural gas," Matiullah said.

The price of one kilogram of natural gas is 75 Afghanis against 45 nearly one month ago, he said.

Although there are no official statistics, it is believed that some nine million Afghans live under poverty line and rely on only one U.S. dollar income daily.

On top of this, there has been a 60 percent increase in the prices of food items in Afghanistan since 2007, according to officials.

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Newtown massacre: Teacher kept kids calm

New York, Dec 23 : There was so much gunfire rocking the Sandy Hook Elementary school that one teacher doubted that she and her young students, locked in a bathroom, were going to survive.

A third grade student said the kids were so scared she thought she was going to throw up. Another said he hid in a closet.

The gunfire erupted during first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig's morning meeting with her 14 students, what she called "a happy, amazing part of the day."

That day quickly turned into a nightmare.

"Suddenly, I heard rapid fire... like an assault weapon. I knew something was wrong," Roig, 29, told "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer.

"It was horrific," she said. "I didn't think we were going to live."

Alexis Wasik, an 8-year-old third grader, was startled when she heard someone rapidly firing off rounds inside another classroom. At first, she didn't know what was going on, but then she began to hear the sirens wail.

"We heard an ambulance and police officer come and everyone was a little scared crying and I felt actually a little sick and like I was going to throw up," she said. "Kids were crying, not really like screaming, but they were all huddling together. They felt so sick."

It was 9:41 a.m. when the first 911 call came into Connecticut State Police that multiple students at Sandy Hook Elementary School were locked in a classroom with a gunman. Adam Lanza killed 20 students and six adults at the school.

When the shooting began, Roig said she quickly got up and closed her classroom door and ushered the children, all aged 6 and 7, into the class bathroom. She helped some climb onto the toilet so they could all fit. Roig said she then pushed a wheeled storage unit in front of the door.

"We all got in there. I locked us in," she said. "I don't know if [the gunman] came in the room... I just told them we have to be absolutely quiet."

"If they started crying, I would take their face and tell them, 'It's going to be OK,'" Roig continued. "I wanted that to be the last thing they heard, not the gunfire in the hall."

Roig said she just tried to stay strong for her students, but she didn't think they would make it out of the classroom alive.

"I thought we were all going to die," she said through tears. "I told the kids I love them and I was so happy they were my students... I said anyone who believed in the power of the prayer, we need to pray and those who don't believe in prayer" think happy thoughts.

Throughout the ordeal, Roig said her students were being very good and she tried to remain positive for them.

"They asked, 'Can we go see if anyone is out there... I just want Christmas... I don't want to die, I just want to have Christmas," she said.

The gunfire didn't last very long, Roig said, but even when it stopped, she refused to take the kids out of the bathroom. When she heard knocking on the door a little while later, she said heard voices saying they were police officers, but she refused to open the door. Scared it was the gunman trying to lure them out, Roig told them to slide their badges under the bathroom door to prove their identities.

"I didn't believe them," she said. "I told them if they were cops, they could get the key... They did and then unlocked the bathroom."

Students who spoke to ABC News Radio told more stories of teachers who protected them during the shooting rampage. One 9-year-old boy said his class heard "a lot of bangs" and at first they thought a custodian had "knocked stuff down." Then they heard screaming.

"Police came in, said like 'Is he in here?' Then he ran out and then our teacher, somebody, yelled, 'get to a safe place.' So we went to the closet in the gym," the boy said. "The police were like knocking on the door and they're like 'we're evacuating people, we're evacuating people,' so we ran out."

After the police got Roig and her class out of their room, she said she and the children were taken to the nearby fire station, which had been set up as a staging area for parents to come pick up their kids.

That fire house, where Christmas wreaths and poinsettias are for sale, has been turned into a place of grief where frantic parents were either reuniting with their children or learning that their children are dead, or were still waiting for word.

Children stared wide-eyed as they watched state police troopers in body armor, holding raised rifles, quickly rush to secure the scene at their school. Parents said they had never been so panicked. One father, hoping to preserve a semblance of innocence, shielded his son's eyes with his forearm.

Wasik's mother said she found out about a shooting through the school's alert system, which sent her a message about a lockdown, and is still in disbelief.

"It just doesn't seem real," she said. "It feels like a nightmare. You drop your kids at school, hugs and kisses, have a good day, I'll see you later and see you at the end of the day and you never know.. in 20 minutes from now what's going to happen. And you count your blessing everyday for what you have."

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The longest war: The shooting at a Connecticut school shows, once again, that there’s no end in sight to our lethal way of life

New York, Dec 23  : Sometime between the shootings in Columbine in 1999 and at a Tucson supermarket with Gabby Giffords in early 2011, Americans stopped uttering the pieties about “Never again.”

Now we are heartsick, but somehow never completely surprised, when we hear the latest gruesome news bulletins from a movie theater in Aurora or a quiet elementary school in Newtown.

We are a nation of 311 million people and roughly a similar number of guns. (Since there is no central federal registry of firearms and a 100-year-old unlicensed weapon can be lethal, estimates are far from precise.) What we do know for certain is that there are almost as many legal places to buy guns (130,000 registered dealers) as gasoline stations (144,000). Through the end of November, the FBI conducted nearly 17 million background checks of prospective gun owners this year.

This is the Faustian bargain that comes with being a 21st-century American. We are a nation of stubborn individualism and lethal gun violence. These two characteristics are entwined in our national psyche. And—as much as I weep over the dead children at Sandy Hook Elementary School—I sadly know that nothing will change in my lifetime.

The last glimmer of hope for effective gun control in America died in 2008 when the Supreme Court (District of Columbia v. Heller) endorsed an expansive view of the right to bear arms. As Justice Antonin Scalia declared in the majority opinion, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.”

It is hard to pin down exactly when Americans made the collective decision that periodic massacres of the innocent are the price that we supposedly pay for our liberties.

Maybe it dates back to the late19th century when Americans in peaceful communities embraced the myth of the Wild West and the gunslinger. Maybe it partially reflects the tabloid fascination that accompanied the gangster era of the 1920s and 1930s. Maybe it has something to do with the way that movies—that most American of art forms—have successfully turned mass violence into a mass commodity.

Politics also played a role as well. As Jill Lepore pointed out in a New Yorker article earlier this year, the National Rifle Association (NRA) only embarked on its modern crusade against virtually all gun legislation around 1970. Fully entering the political arena with its endorsement of Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, the NRA emerged as a key player in the conservative coalition that came to dominate the Republican Party.

It’s hard to remember that for a while in the 1980s and 1990s, a limited form of gun control seemed politically possible. Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, badly wounded in the John Hinckley assassination attempt on Reagan, became a courageous Republican symbol for sensible regulation of the most lethal weaponry.

But then too many on Capitol Hill (Democrats as well as Republicans) grew fearful in the face of the frenzied opposition from the NRA. And following the 2008 Heller decision, it seemed the height of folly for legislators to take on gun control since the Supreme Court had so narrowed the framework for permissible regulation. As a result, even though the Aurora shootings took place in a swing state (Colorado) in an election year, Obama and the Democrats at the time never even raised the possibility of new federal legislation.

This should not be portrayed in cartoonish terms as a story of the white hats (liberals with a visceral hatred of guns) versus the black hats (hunters and other Americans who enjoy owning firearms). There was an element of cultural superiority to the urban liberal disdain for gun ownership, just as there was a self-destructive stubbornness to conservative opposition to all forms of regulation.

The result is an America that no sane person of any political persuasion could have possibly wished for. Who in his right mind wants to live in a country where maybe twice a year a crazed individual guns down dozens of people in schools and theaters? There is no plausible remedy since we are neither going to disarm Americans nor are we going to pass out guns to elementary school teachers as a just-in-case precaution.

All we can do is mourn and mourn again. And think of the young children who died only because they went to school giggling over silly things and dreaming of recess. Such is the American way of life and, sadly, death.

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Principal among victims in Conn. shooting rampage

Newtown, Dec 23 : The principal at the Connecticut elementary school where a gunman opened fire in a rampage, killing 26 people including 20 children and then himself, was identified as one of the victims.

A well-liked and experienced administrator, Dawn Hochsprung was among those gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary where she had been principal since 2010, said Gerald Stomski, the first selectman of nearby Woodbury. He said police told him of her death.

Hochsprung was a principal in Woodbury schools before taking the job in Newtown, Stomski said. He said people throughout town were mourning her death.

"She had an extremely likable style about her," Stomski said. "She was an extremely charismatic principal while she was here."

She frequently tweeted photos from her job and wrote upbeat tweets about what was going on at the school. Four days before she died, she posted a photo of two kindergarten girls paying for groceries over a toy cash register in a classroom. She called them "kinders" and saw them as "74 new opportunities to inspire lifelong learning!"

More hauntingly, she wrote a letter before the school year outlining new safety measures including locked doors during school hours, several publications reported, and tweeted a photo of students who'd been evacuated from the building during a safety drill earlier in the school year.

"I don't think you could find a more positive place to bring students to every day," she told The Newtown Bee newspaper in 2010 in a story about the hiring of new administrators in the district. She had worked for 12 years as an administrator before coming to Sandy Hook, including six years in nearby Danbury, the newspaper reported.

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20 children died in Newtown, Conn., school massacre

Washington, Dec 23 : Twenty children died when a heavily armed man invaded a Newtown, Conn., elementary school and sprayed staff and students with bullets.

The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead in the school.

Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died later in a hospital. Six adults were also slain, bringing the total to 26.

In addition to the casualties at the school, Lanza's mother Nancy Lanza was killed in her home, federal and state sources told ABC News.

According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left his house armed with at least two semi automatic handguns, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, and a semi automatic rifle. He was also wearing a bullet proof vest.

Lanza drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and continued his rampage, killing 26 people, authorities said. He was found dead at the school. It appears that he died from what is believed to be a self inflicted gunshot wound. The rifle was found in his car.

In the early confusion surrounding the investigation, federal sources initially identified the suspect as Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24. He is being questioned by police.

"Evil visited this community today," Gov. Dan Malloy said at a news conference this evening.

First grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to "tons of shooting" until police came to help.

"It was horrific," Roig said. "I thought we were going to die."

She said that the terrified kids were saying, "I just want Christmas…I don't want to die. I just want to have Christmas."

A tearful President Obama said there's "not a parent in America who doesn't feel the overwhelming grief that I do."

The president had to pause to compose himself after saying these were "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10." As he continued with his statement, Obama wiped away tears from each eye.

The alert at the school ended when Vance announced, "The shooter is deceased inside the building. The public is not in danger."

The massacre prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. Authorities initially believed that there were two gunmen and were searching cars around the school, but authorities do not appear to be looking for another gunman.

It is the second worst mass shooting in U.S. history, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when 32 were killed before the shooter turned the gun on himself. Today's carnage exceeds the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.

The Newtown shooting comes three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Oregon mall, killing two before turning the gun on himself.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which includes 450 students in grades K-4. The town is located about 12 miles east of Danbury.

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41 a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source.

Lt. Paul Vance said that on-duty and off-duty officers swarmed to the school and quickly checked "every door, every crack, every crevice" in the building looking for the gunman and evacuating children.

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us simply to focus on the important work at hand."

Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's schools were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff," she said.

"We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton tweeted.

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.

A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no midday bus runs.

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Substitute teacher becomes heir to gold fortune

Carson City, Dec 23 : A substitute teacher from California was found to be the only heir to a fortune of gold coins discovered by a cleaning crew in the home of a reclusive cousin who quietly stashed away a treasure of more than $7 million before he died this year.

A court hearing in Carson City is scheduled, when a judge is expected to certify first cousin Arlene Magdon as the lone heir to the treasure valued at $7.4 million found in the home of Walter Samaszko Jr., Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover told the Nevada Appeal.

Samaszko, 69, lived a quiet life in Nevada's capital city since the late 1960s and no one apparently knew of his wealth. Records show he withdrew just $500 a month from his stock accounts to pay modest bills, Glover said, who was handling Samaszko's affairs as public administrator.

Samaszko apparently had no living family in Carson City, so genealogical researchers went to work to find relatives elsewhere. They found Arlene Magdon is the only living heir to what appraisers say is an estate worth more than $7.4 million. Magdon could not immediately be reached for comment.

A crew hired by Glover to clean up the man's house discovered the eye-popping stash: boxes of gold coins and bullion in the garage. More boxes were later found, and Glover said the gold coins, some neatly wrapped in foil and plastic cases, were enough to fill two wheelbarrows.

"You name it, (he) had it," Glover said.

Since Samaszko was found in his home, Glover said he and experts brought in to help with the case have made progress in appraising the fortune and disposing of some of the other property, including the house, which sold for $112,500.

He said he is taking Samaszko's 1968 Ford Mustang California Special in for servicing this week or next to get it ready for sale. The classic is appraised at about $17,000.

Samaszko also had money market, stock and bank accounts totaling $165,570 and $5,330 in other property in the home. But the vast majority of the fortune was in gold coins. Appraiser Howard Herz filed his report several weeks ago listing a total of 2,695 coins appraised at more than $7.4 million.

"What some individuals have called a hoard of gold is, in fact, a quite well-thought-out investment in gold," he wrote.

Once the gold and other property is sold off and the taxes and expenses paid, the proceeds will become the sole property of Magdon. Those expenses include the appraisals, storage of the gold and other property, legal fees and 2 percent of the eventual proceeds that, by law, go to the public administrator who handled everything.

Glover said there have been a few callers trying to claim some or all of the gold is theirs — one of them annoying enough that Glover got a court order blocking him from further communications. None of the callers presented any evidence to support their claims, he said.

"If they have a true claim, they've got to file court papers," he said.

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Microsoft, Motorola file to keep patent case details private

Seattle, Dec 23 : Microsoft Corp and Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit have requested a federal judge in Seattle to keep secret from the public various details from their recent trial concerning the value of technology patents and the two companies' attempts at a settlement.

Microsoft and Motorola, acquired by Google earlier this year, are preparing post-trial briefs to present to a judge as he decides the outcome of a week-long trial last month to establish what rates Microsoft should pay Motorola for use of standard, essential wireless technology used in its Xbox game console and other products.

The case is just one strand of litigation in an industry-wide dispute over ownership of the underlying technology and the design of smartphones, which has drawn in Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Nokia and others.

In a filing with the Western District of Washington federal court in Seattle, Microsoft and Motorola asked the judge to allow them to file certain parts of their post-trial submissions under seal and redact those details in the public record.

The details concern terms of Motorola's licenses with third parties and Microsoft's business and marketing plans for future products. During the trial, which ran from November 13-20, U.S. District Judge James Robart cleared the court when such sensitive or trade secret details were discussed.

"For the same compelling reasons that the court sealed this evidence for purposes of trial, it would be consistent and appropriate to take the same approach in connection with the parties' post-trial submissions," the two companies argued in the court filing.

The judge has so far been understanding of the companies' desire to keep private details of their patent royalties and future plans, although that has perplexed some spectators who believe trials in public courts should be fully open to the public.

In addition, Motorola asked the judge to seal some documents relating to settlement negotiations between the two companies, arguing that keeping those details secret would encourage openness in future talks and make a settlement more likely.

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What future for Afghan woman jailed for being raped?

Kabul, Dec 22 : Two high profile cases of violence have sparked domestic and international outcry over the treatment of Afghan women, but campaigners fear a winding down of the military campaign will mean the international community will no longer be interested.

Outside it was a gloriously sunny winter's day. The mountains that loom above the city silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky. But inside the house was dark and the curtains drawn, so that the neighbours could not see in.

This was the safe house in Kabul where Gulnaz and her child had found refuge. The women there asked not to be identified in case their house was burnt down.

Just 21, Gulnaz had been released that week from prison, where she had given birth to her daughter Moska. Gulnaz seemed younger than her years, but she held my gaze almost defiantly as she told her story.

She had been imprisoned in a Kabul women's jail after her cousin's husband raped her.

The crime came to light when the unmarried Gulnaz became pregnant.

The police came and arrested both Gulnaz and her attacker. Under Afghan law she too was found guilty of a crime known as "adultery by force", with her sentence increased on appeal to 12 years.

When the case aroused condemnation abroad, President Hamid Karzai intervened and Gulnaz was pardoned.

Looking bewildered at her sudden freedom, she told me all she wanted was to go home to her family. In order to do that, she was prepared to marry the man who raped her - otherwise their families would be enemies.

The problem for Gulnaz is that if her attacker will not marry her - or cannot come up with a substantial dowry - the "stain" on her family's honour will remain, perhaps with lethal consequences for Gulnaz and her child. That may mean she can never go home.

For a single mother, unskilled and unqualified, there are few ways for a woman to survive in Afghanistan without family support.

An American lawyer in Kabul, Kim Motley, has taken up Gulnaz's case. She is trying to raise money for her to fund a new life, somehow, somewhere, if Gulnaz cannot go home.

I was still wondering what would happen to her when we went to meet 15-year-old Sahar Gul, as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from her injuries, too traumatised to talk.

Married off to a 30-year-old man for a dowry of about $4,500 (£3,000), Sahar had been kept locked in a cellar for several months, starved and tortured by her husband and his family. It is still not really clear why.

Sahar may not have been able to speak, but her injuries did.

Burns to her arm and her fragile body, a swollen black eye, clumps of hair torn out. One small hand was scarred, where her fingernail had been pulled out.

The abuse aroused public indignation in Afghanistan, as well as horror abroad.

But Sahar was perhaps, in a strange way, lucky.

She did not run away from a violent marriage, as some Afghan brides have, but was instead rescued from it by police. So she cannot be found guilty of what might otherwise be deemed a "moral crime", as other young Afghan women have been.

Both Sahar and Gulnaz's stories are extreme. But they made me wonder how many other women in Afghanistan still suffer in silence, 10 years after the fall of the Taliban.

There are laws banning violence against women, but enforcing them is hard. Tradition and family or community honour is often seen as more important than an individual's misery or misfortune.

Poverty and lack of education also mean under-age marriage remains common.

When Sahar did try to escape her torturers, it was apparently the neighbours who brought her back to them, before the police intervened.

In a quiet, book-lined office in Kabul - a world away from the controlled chaos of the hospital and the dimly-lit safe house - I asked the head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission what she thought.

A no-nonsense woman with steely grey hair, Dr Sima Samar has long risked her own life to speak out for the principles she believes in, equality and justice.

Her answer was clear: She and her colleagues in Afghanistan will carry on fighting to improve the lives of women like Gulnaz and Sahar.

But Dr Samar, like many others, fears the international community is no longer quite so interested in keeping up the pressure on women's rights, as the West seeks to wind down its military campaign.

When Western soldiers no longer patrol the streets of Afghanistan, it will be easier to ignore what goes on behind locked doors and closed curtains in a faraway place.

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New details emerge regarding death of Afghan health worker

Kabul, Dec 22 : When a young Afghan health worker was shot dead last week by armed men in eastern Afghanistan, suspicion immediately fell on the Taliban.

After all, the hard-line Islamist group has a history of violence against women. And is it no secret that some within the Taliban strongly oppose the type of polio immunization the health worker, identified only as Anisa, was working on when she was slain.

An ongoing investigation into the December 1 killing in the eastern Kapisa Province, however, has uncovered new details that offer a broader range of motives and possible suspects.

After Afghan President Hamid Karzai dispatched a commission of five high-ranking government officials from Kabul on December 7 to probe her death, investigators now say Taliban involvement is just one of several leads they are pursuing.

Kapisa Province Governor Mehrabuddin Safi has said investigations have yet to determine any Taliban involvement in the killing of Anisa, who died when two armed men on motorcycles shot her at least six times in the abdomen. She was rushed to the hospital in her hometown of Kohistan, but died several hours later from excessive bleeding.

Safi believes that Anisa may have been caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between the two unidentified men. Safi also rejects reports by local officials and comments from her family that say the 20-year-old was a health worker for a polio-vaccination program. He says Anisa, who had only recently completed the 10th grade, aspired to join the campaign but had not yet done so.

"So far our investigation has shown that the incident was a criminal action and not a politically motivated incident [carried out by the Taliban]," Safi says. "But our investigation into this is still ongoing."

Safi says security forces have arrested three people in connection with Anisa's death, but did not reveal the names or the affiliations of the individuals.

No organization or individual has yet claimed responsibility for her death, and the newest information does not discard the possibility that the Taliban was responsible or that her death was no accident.

The day before her death, Anisa survived another attempt on her life when unidentified gunmen opened fire on her as she returned home from school.

According to Afghan media reports Anisa, who survived the attack by hiding in a neighbor's house, received several threatening phone calls in the days prior to her death warning her to cease her work.

Abdul Ahmad, Anisa's brother, says investigators are currently looking into whether Anisa's death stemmed from a domestic dispute related to her decision to go to school and work outside the home, which is still rare in many parts of Afghanistan. Ahmad says police, who did not say if he was a suspect, have already questioned him several times.

Ahmad rejects the possibility, insisting that the family strongly supported Anisa's decision to go to school and to work for the local health department's polio-eradication program, which saw her travel to distant villages to oversee vaccinations.

"Because our family was poor, Anisa took work as a polio-vaccination worker. She was carrying out vaccinations while studying at the same time," Ahmad says, noting that when she was killed "she was going to the office to get vaccines to do her work. She had just finished her school exams."

Anisa was reportedly working on a polio-immunization program funded by the United Nations, which along with the World Health Organization takes a leading role in working to eliminate the crippling and deadly disease.

Polio is spread when people eat food or drink water contaminated by feces. Afghanistan is one of just three countries (Pakistan and Nigeria are the others) where polio is endemic, according to the United Nations.

Taliban factions, particularly inside Pakistan, have condemned the UN immunization drive and their threats of violence have stopped programs in Taliban-controlled areas in Pakistan's northwest and even some border areas inside Afghanistan.

Anisa's death comes after the Women's Affairs Ministry announced last month that cases of "extreme or brutal violence" against women increased this year. The ministry reported some 3,500 cases of violence against women in the first six months of this year.

The growing number of cases of violence against women prompted a demonstration in Kabul on December 10, the International Day of Human Rights. Dozens of female activists demanded an end to violence against women and called on the authorities to apprehend those responsible for Anisa's killing.

According to a statement from President Karzai's office, the commission is expected to report to him within the coming days on the circumstances of Anisa's death.


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A changed way of war in Afghanistan’s skies

Kabul, Dec 22: Cmdr. Layne McDowell glanced over his left shoulder, through the canopy of a Navy F/A-18, to an Afghan canyon 9,000 feet below. An American infantry company was down there.

The soldiers had been inserted by helicopter. Now a ground controller wanted the three strike fighters circling overhead to send a sign — both to the grunts and to any Taliban fighters shadowing them as they walked.

Commander McDowell banked and aligned his jet’s nose with the canyon’s northeastern end. Then he followed his wingmen’s lead. He dived, pulled level at 5,000 feet and accelerated down the canyon’s axis at 620 miles per hour, broadcasting his proximity with an extended engine roar.

In the lexicon of close air support, his maneuver was a “show of presence” — a mid-altitude, nonlethal display intended to reassure ground troops and signal to the Taliban that the soldiers were not alone. It reflected a sharp shift in the application of American air power, de-emphasizing overpowering violence in favor of sorties that often end without munitions being dropped.

The use of air power has changed markedly during the long Afghan conflict, reflecting the political costs and sensitivities of civilian casualties caused by errant or indiscriminate strikes and the increasing use of aerial drones, which can watch over potential targets for extended periods with no risk to pilots or more expensive aircraft.

Fighter jets with pilots, however, remain an essential component of the war, in part because little else in the allied arsenal is considered as versatile or imposing, and because of improvements in the aircraft’s sensors.

Commander McDowell’s career has followed the arc of this changing role. At the outset of the war in 2001, American aircraft often attacked in ways that maximized violence, including carpet bombing, dropping cluster munitions and conducting weeks of strikes with precision-guided munitions.

Flying in an F-14 squadron from the aircraft carrier Enterprise, then-Lieutenant McDowell dropped 6,000 pounds of munitions in the war’s first week, destroying Taliban aircraft and vehicles at Herat airfield and striking training camps and barracks in Kandahar Province.

He had already flown the past two years in Kosovo and Iraq, where in 32 combat sorties he dropped 35,000 pounds of guided munitions, including on Serbian barracks that were struck when the largest number of soldiers were believed to be inside.

“Our culture is a fangs-out, kill-kill-kill culture,” he said. “That’s how we train. And back then, the mind-set was: maximum number of enemy killed, maximum number of bombs on deck, to achieve a maximum psychological effect.”

That was then. A little more than a decade on, his most common mission is what is called an “overwatch,” scanning the ground via infrared sensors and radioing what he sees to troops below.

In 953 close-air support sorties by the 44 F/A-18 Super Hornets aboard the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, from where Commander McDowell flies now, aircraft struck only 17 times. They flew low- or mid-elevation passes 115 times.

The shifts in missions and tactics partly reflect adaptations by the Taliban. But guided by complex rules of engagement and by doctrine emphasizing proportionality and restraint, they also reflect what Commander McDowell calls “a different mentality.”

These days, striving for certitude in target selection and minimizing civilian casualties have become standard practice. Projecting power nonlethally is routine. Dropping bombs is not.

“So much has changed from when I was here the first time,” he said, looking down at Afghanistan on a six-hour flight early last week. “Now I prefer not dropping — if I can accomplish the mission other ways.”

Commander McDowell’s workday began at 4:30 a.m., when he woke in a small stateroom and readied for a long sortie. At 5:30 a.m., he gathered for his preflight briefing.

Lt. Cmdr. Fran Catalina, a pilot who would be one of his wingmen, offered a reminder that the Afghan war, in its 11th winter, was grinding on, and that the reach of the Navy’s carrier aircraft was welcome — even far inland. “There were 43 enemy-initiated attacks in the last reporting period,” he said, showing a map. “Lots of kinetics yesterday.”

Each pilot and weapons-systems officer, who flies in the rear seat of an F/A-18F, was assigned a mission supporting a different ground unit.

At 7:15 a.m., after donning ejection-seat torso harnesses and survival vests and collecting their pistols, they climbed into their aircraft, which waited, armed and fueled, on the flight deck. The carrier was steaming into the wind in the North Arabian Sea.

The aircraft carried a mix of laser- and G.P.S.-guided bombs, heat-seeking air-to-air missiles and ammunition for 20-millimeter cannon.

Shortly before 8 a.m., after preflight checks, Commander McDowell taxied to one of the ship’s four catapults, where sailors attached a hold-back bar to the jet’s nose wheel. He pushed Vengeance 13’s dual engines to full power. The engines roared. The aircraft shook.

He saluted a sailor on the flight deck. The sailor saluted back. “Five seconds,” Commander McDowell said.

He raised his chin, pressed the back of his helmet against the seat and flexed his muscles as he braced for the rush.

The bar released. The steam-driven catapult slammed forward. Vengeance 13 accelerated to 180 miles an hour in about 200 feet. It vaulted off the carrier’s bow. Perhaps two seconds had passed. He had just experienced 3.5 Gs, and he was flying, just above the waves.

“And we’re airborne,” he said.

Commander McDowell is scheduled to assume command of an F/A-18 squadron in May. He is 38, a graduate of the Naval Academy and a former test pilot. His call-sign — Keebler — reflects what he calls his elfin stature (he is 5 feet 7 inches tall) and insatiable sweet tooth.

The nickname also suggests a compliment. Shorter pilots can typically withstand greater gravitational forces when in fast minimum-radius turns or the dives, rolls and climbs involved in dogfighting and strafing. Commander McDowell, who has withstood seven Gs without losing consciousness, is known, in his trade, as “a G-monster.”

On a previous flight from the carrier he had demonstrated for a reporter in the back seat some of what an F/A-18F can do, making the reporter disoriented — and airsick — at 6.5 Gs, chatting calmly as he put the aircraft into a supersonic dive and a series of maneuvers over the Gulf of Oman.

For a combat flight into Afghanistan, however, he would conserve energy and fuel. He flew level at 500 feet for seven miles, banked left and climbed to 25,000 feet, where he was joined by two other Super Hornets.

The trio headed north for their first mission, to support the company freshly landed in the valley in Kandahar.

To get there, they flew toward a designated slot of airspace in western Pakistan. Known as “the Boulevard,” the corridor is a busy air bridge — the route through which Pakistan allows NATO aircraft access to Afghanistan. For planes from air bases in the Persian Gulf, this is the way around Iran.

Commander McDowell’s flight, commanded by Capt. Dell Bull in Vengeance 11, overtook slower aircraft heading to the war. Around 9:15 a.m., the flight crossed over the Afghan border.

An Air Force KC-10 tanker waited ahead, flying a wide circle over a Central Asian desert. It dragged a hose ending in a basket surrounding a small valve. It was time to refuel.

Vengeance 13 went first. After Vengeance 11 had refueled, too, the two aircraft broke off and headed to their mission; Vengeance 12 would join them later. Captain Dell checked in with the ground controller, who said the company had taken fire earlier in the morning.

For about an hour, the aircraft used infrared sensors to watch buildings and the canyon, covering the soldiers’ movement. The Taliban did not show themselves.

After refueling a second time, the jets checked in with a ground controller near the Arghandab River, the area that in late 2010 was a high-profile part of the offensive to displace the Taliban.

Before that offensive, the American presence along the river had been light. Now, from the air, the military footprint was clear. The river was a network of outposts and bases with high walls, many watched over by cameras mounted on tethered blimp-like balloons.

If one place might suggest the way Commander McDowell’s role on the battlefield had changed over his career, this was it. He flew a slow left turn, pointing to an area where several days before an infantry patrol had skirmished with Afghan gunmen.

The gunmen had fired from a field not far from Forward Operating Base Wilson and then dashed into a cluster of mud-walled buildings, he said. Commander McDowell had arrived overhead within minutes.

What happened next framed the contrast between the old practices and the new.

The infantrymen talked him toward the building. Then they marked it by firing a smoke grenade at its walls. Above the river, Commander McDowell fixed his infrared sensor on the compound, sharing the video feed with a ground controller, who confirmed he was looking at the right place. What to do?

In 1999, late in the war in Kosovo, Commander McDowell said pilots routinely killed. On one sortie, in the rush to stop Serbs from killing ethnic Albanians, Commander McDowell dropped a 1,000-pound, laser-guided bomb at the mouth of a tunnel that five trucks carrying Serbian soldiers had just entered. The shrapnel and pressure wave from the blast probably killed every man.

Back then, the rules of engagement allowed pilots to track suspected military vehicles.

“And if a military vehicle stopped at a house, we would get a reading of where the driver went,” he said. “If we were able to identify that the truck was Serbian military, and it stopped for a long period of time at the house, we made the assumption that they were stopping for resupply and within a couple days that house was taken out.”

A little more than a dozen years later, he was above a home in which at least two Taliban fighters had taken shelter after firing on an American patrol. But he did not know who else might be inside. Neither he nor the soldiers requested clearance for an airstrike.

“What if we hit that house and two guys inside had guns and we get eight kids, too?” he said.

High over the Arghandab River, he banked over the home that he and the rules had spared.

Referring to the targeting display in the cockpit, he pointed out its proximity to other homes, and described the limits of what he knew about so-called “patterns of life” — the rhythm of the human activity at the compound where Taliban fighters hid.

“I didn’t think about these things at all in Kosovo,” he said.

The reach of a nuclear carrier, augmented with aerial tankers, made it possible for strike aircraft to penetrate 800 miles from the ship. But what was the point of projecting power if it was not projected responsibly? The changes, he said, have been good.

“I would say that in my younger days I would have been frustrated, because we have ordnance and we know where the enemy is, and I would have wanted permission to strike that building,” he said. “Did I feel frustrated this time? Not in the slightest. It is a different mission. It calls for a different mentality.”

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A mother fought to end a destructive path and reunite her family

New York, Dec 22: Julie Rodriguez, at home with her daughter, Elissa, 8, and her son Brandon, 11, says she wants to counsel troubled youths.

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“A lot of these kids, all they’re looking for is love,” she said. Caring for her own family again, after neglecting them for years, Ms. Rodriguez said, has also become a priority. In 2011, after years of effort, she won custody of her son Brandon, who was separated from her a decade ago when she was in jail.

Had support been more abundant when Ms. Rodriguez, 41, was growing up in crime-ridden Bushwick in the 1970s, she said, she might not have felt lonely and adrift.

After Ms. Rodriguez’s parents divorced when she was 6, her mother, Milagros Verdejos, was forced to work many double shifts at her factory job. Her sister Carmen essentially raised her, she said.

When her mother was present, she was stern, when a more affectionate approach might have been appreciated, Ms. Rodriguez recalled. “It was either overly strict or there was nobody there,” she said of her childhood.

Rebellion and low self-esteem, she said, led her to become pregnant with her first son, Jonathan, while she was in eighth grade. After becoming pregnant, she dropped out of school. Nights at dance clubs introduced Ms. Rodriguez to cocaine, and by 17, she had added heroin to the mix. That year also saw the birth of another son, Joshua.

Her teenage years also marked the start of a string of abusive relationships, including one with a boyfriend who sliced her face with a knife so badly that the wound required 70 stitches. “All I felt was heat at first,” Ms. Rodriguez said of the attack. “I didn’t even know he cut my face until I got to the hospital.” She told doctors, however, that she said had gotten cut in a fight on the street.

She moved away for a few years, to Massachusetts, where she had another son, Richard, in 1997. But her boyfriend’s family disapproved of the relationship, she said, and so she and Richard were soon back in Brooklyn.

One night in 2001, while pregnant with her fourth child, Brandon, Ms. Rodriguez was in a boyfriend’s car while he robbed a Long Island gas station, but cameras captured the whole episode, and they were both arrested.

Ms. Rodriguez gave birth while behind bars awaiting trial, and Brandon was taken from her by the city after drugs showed up in his system. Most of the charges against her from the robbery were dropped, but Ms. Rodriguez served seven months in prison.

In the meantime, Ms. Verdejos had adopted Brandon, after the city’s Administration for Children’s Services decided Ms. Rodriguez was incapable of being a parent. “A judge said I could go nowhere near him,” she said.

But Ms. Verdejos could not care for him for long. In 2007, she was found to have dementia, and he was removed from her home.

And Ms. Rodriguez, who was living then in a shelter in East New York with a boyfriend and two of her children, Richard, and a daughter, Elissa, was found to be unqualified, too, after testing positive for crack cocaine. “That was the end of that,” she said.

Brandon was placed with foster families, and officials threatened to take Elissa and Richard away as well, unless Ms. Rodriguez stopped using drugs. Despite her promises to get sober, Ms. Rodriguez relapsed.

“I didn’t know about therapists and all that before,” she said. “What made me feel better was using.”

Finally, in February 2009, a judge gave her one last chance, and Ms. Rodriguez entered United Bronx Parents, a rehabilitation program. She has been clean for almost four years, she said.

Sobriety could not keep all tragedy at bay. In 2009, Jonathan, her first son, who had moved out of New York City to escape gangs, was shot to death in Allentown, Pa. The case remains unsolved. Joshua is a student at Lehman College.

Ms. Rodriguez now lives in the South Bronx with Richard, now 15, Elissa, 8, and her mother. Their three-bedroom apartment costs $1,600 a month.

Last year, Brandon, now 11, returned to the family on a trial basis, after years of court dates to prove Ms. Rodriguez could be trusted as a mother. In September, officials decided he could stay permanently.

“It feels good” to be back home, Brandon said on a recent evening. Wrestling is his new favorite sport in school, he said.

United Bronx Parents now offers Ms. Rodriguez a new start of a different sort, a job, employing her for 20 to 40 hours a week, for $15 an hour, as a house manager. But she was making only about half that rate last year when preparing for Brandon’s arrival, and could not afford to buy him new clothes and other supplies.

A children’s services case worker suggested that she contact the Jewish Child Care Association of New York, a beneficiary of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The J.C.C.A. drew $885 from the fund, which paid for clothes and a bed.

Now, almost three decades after she dropped out of school, Ms. Rodriguez is working to complete her G.E.D. She also plans to become certified as a drug counselor, so she can work with vulnerable adolescents. But she recognizes that drug use is often a symptom of deeper problems. “It’s about all that you went through before that,” she said.

And if she can meaningfully connect with young people, she said, “I can give them what I never had.”

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Florida won't restore rights to famed jewel thief

Tallahassee, Dec 22  : Jack Roland Murphy, the famed jewel thief and surfer known as "Murph the Surf," has spent the last quarter-century going into prisons and telling inmates that they could still turn their lives around.

Murphy, now 75 and living in Crystal River, said he thought it was time he tried to get his own bit of redemption. He asked the state of Florida to restore his civil rights despite the fact he spent nearly 20 years in prison for murder.

"I'd like to be able to go to these guys I talk with and say 'Listen I just came back from the governor's office and received favor' because I have been working with the system and trying to do the right thing," Murphy told Gov. Rick Scott and members of the Florida Cabinet.

Scott was willing to restore Murphy's rights, but not the other three Cabinet members, including Attorney General Pam Bondi. Under Florida law the governor cannot grant clemency without the yes votes of two additional Cabinet members.

Bondi told Murphy he was fortunate just to have avoided execution for his role in the slayings of two women.

"Under today's death penalty scheme I firmly believe he would be on Death Row or executed by this time," Bondi told reporters. "His blessing is he is out there walking the street."

Murphy was a national surfing champion, a concert violinist and a tennis pro. But he is probably most famous for a jewel heist.

On the night of Oct. 29, 1964, Murphy and two accomplices broke into New York's American Museum of Natural History and stole the J.P. Morgan Collection including the Eagle diamond, the Midnight sapphire, the DeLong ruby and the world's biggest sapphire, the Star of India, a 563-carat gem about the size of a racquetball.

Within 48 hours, Murphy and his cohorts were in police custody thanks in part to a bellhop at the Cambridge Hotel, where the three had been planning the break-in and throwing lavish, all-night parties for weeks. The jewels were recovered from a locker at a Miami bus station, except for nine diamonds that had already been fenced.

The jewel heist was the subject of a 1975 movie, "Murph the Surf," starring Don Stroud and Robert Conrad.

In 1968 he was the driver and lookout man in a scheme to rob Olive Wofford, a Miami Beach socialite. He was also charged with first-degree murder in the "Whiskey Creek murders," the 1967 case of two California secretaries who were found shot, bludgeoned and dumped in a creek north of Miami, concrete weights lashed to their necks.

Murphy denied the murder. But in 1969, he was convicted of killing Terry Rae Frank, 24, and sentenced to life in prison. In 1970, he received a second life sentence, plus 20 years, for conspiracy and assault to commit robbery against Wofford.

Murphy again asserted that he did not kill anyone, saying instead that he was driving a boat when an argument broke out and the women were shot after they threatened to go to the FBI.

"I hear bang-bang," Murphy said. "It was an absolute train wreck, a nightmare."

Scott said after the meeting that he did not know about Murphy until the clemency case came up. But he said he "felt positive" about granting Murphy's restoration of rights, which would have allowed him to vote and serve on a jury.

Murphy's bid to win his rights was backed by former Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Louie Wainwright and others who spoke about his years of prison ministry work since he was released from jail in 1986.

Murphy has gone to prisons across the country and abroad while working for Champions for Life, a prison ministry founded 35 years ago by the former Cleveland Browns football star, Bill Glass.

After the vote, Murphy said he had hoped to get his clemency request granted but he had expected the outcome.

"It's the nature of the times," he said, adding that he was surprised that Scott sided with him. "It is what it is."

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Inquest: Nurse in British royal hoax found hanging

London, Dec 22 : A nurse was found hanging in her room three days after she had been duped by a hoax call from Australian DJs about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, a U.K. inquest was told. The case is being treated as an apparent suicide.

Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was discovered hanging by a scarf from a wardrobe in her nurses' quarters Dec. 7 by a colleague and a member of security staff at London's King Edward VII Hospital, coroner's officer Lynda Martindill said.

Martindill said an attempt to revive Saldanha failed.

Police detective chief inspector James Harman said Saldanha, 46, also had injuries to her wrists.

He told the inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court that two notes were found at the scene and another was found among Saldanha's belongings. He said there were no suspicious circumstances, meaning nobody else was involved in Saldanha's death.

Harman said police were examining the notes, interviewing the nurse's friends, family and colleagues and looking at emails and phone calls to establish what led to her death.

He also said detectives would be contacting police in the Australian state of New South Wales to collect "relevant evidence."

Saldanha answered the phone last week when two Australian disc jockeys called seeking information about the former Kate Middleton, who was being treated for severe morning sickness. The DJs impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, and Saldanha was tricked into transferring the call to another nurse, who revealed private details about the duchess' condition.

The DJs, 2DayFM's Mel Greig and Michael Christian, apologized for the prank in emotional interviews on Australian television, saying they never expected their call would be put through. The show was taken off the air and the DJs have been suspended.

New South Wales state police said that they were investigating a letter sent to the station that made several threats against the DJs. Police declined to release details of the letter.

"The safety of our employees is an absolute priority," 2DayFM's parent company Southern Cross Austereo said in a statement. "We have sensible measures in place, as we always do, to ensure our people are safe. This is now a matter for the police, and we trust they will investigate any specific threats that emerge."

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is investigating whether radio station 2DayFM breached its broadcasting license conditions and the industry code of practice.

In London, coroner Fiona Wilcox opened and adjourned Saldanha's inquest until March 26.

Wilcox expressed "my sympathies to her family and everybody who has been touched by this tragic death."

In Britain, inquests are held to determine the facts whenever someone dies unexpectedly, violently or in disputed circumstances. Inquests do not determine criminal liability or apportion blame.

The local authority, Westminster Council, said Saldanha's body was released to her family after the hearing.

Saldanha, who was born in India, lived in Bristol in southwestern England with her husband and two teenage children. Her husband, Benedict Barboza, has said she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India.

The family was not in court. Lawmaker Keith Vaz, who has spoken on their behalf, said the nurse's loved ones "need time to grieve."

Vaz said a memorial Mass would be held at London's Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral.

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How did right-to-work law pass in union-friendly Michigan?

New York, Dec 22 : How did a right-to-work law pass in the union stronghold of Michigan?

Media credits a rookie Republican state legislator, who began his uphill battle nearly two years ago to pass the bill—signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder—that is expected to dramatically curtail the power of unions in the state. The law makes it illegal to compel nonunion employees who benefit from a union contract to pay dues to the union.

State Rep. Patrick Colbeck, an engineer who took his seat in the Statehouse in early 2011, quickly attracted big-name Republican donors like the billionaire Koch brothers to his cause. Eventually, Colbeck persuaded some of his more union-friendly Republican colleagues to vote for the legislation. Snyder, who ran as a moderate Republican in 2010, said he would sign the bill if it passed, even though he didn't personally join the right-to-work campaign.

The law easily passed the Republican-controlled legislature earlier this week, as an estimated 10,000 people surrounded the Capitol in protest.

Right-to-work supporters also say the unions shot themselves in the foot when they tried to amend the constitution by ballot initiative in November to say the legislature cannot limit collective bargaining rights. The initiative failed and gave right-to-work supporters the impression that Michigan would be ready for the law, despite its deep union roots. The state is now the 24th in the union to have a right-to-work law on its books.

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Charges upgraded to first degree murder in shooting of Florida teen

Jacksonville, Dec 22: A grand jury indicted a Florida man for first degree murder in the shooting death of an unarmed, black high school student last month after an argument over loud rap music.

Software developer Michael Dunn, 46, shot high school junior Jordan Davis, 17, through the window of a sport utility vehicle at a Jacksonville convenience store gas station on November 23, before driving away, authorities say.

Dunn, who is white, faces charges of attempted first degree murder for firing at the car which contained three other passengers, all friends of Davis.

Dunn was arrested the day after the shooting for second degree murder and pleaded not guilty. He was being held in Duval County without bond awaiting arraignment.

The state attorney's office later decided to upgrade the charge to first degree murder, which in Florida requires a grand jury decision.

Dunn's arraignment on the new charges is scheduled for December 17.

Davis's father, Ron Davis, has pledged to turn his son's shooting death into a crusade against guns and Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law which allows people to defend themselves if they "reasonably believe" someone will hurt them.

Widespread opposition to the law has emerged after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, also an unarmed, black 17-year-old, in February by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in central Florida. Zimmerman, whom police initially declined to arrest, will stand trial next June for murder.

Dunn's lawyer says he fired out of fear for his life when someone in the SUV brandished a shotgun and threatened him.

Dunn and his fiancé Rhonda Rouer were in Jacksonville on the night of the shooting to attend a wedding when they stopped at the store to buy a bottle of wine before returning to their hotel, authorities say. They parked next to the SUV containing Davis and his three friends who were listening to rap music on their way home after shopping at Black Friday sales at a mall.

Dunn asked the teens to turn down the volume of the music, but, his attorney said, the teens turned up the volume, threatened Dunn and brandished a shotgun. Dunn grabbed a pistol from the glove compartment of his car and opened fire, before driving away, authorities say. Police said no weapon was found on the teens.

Dunn was taken into custody at his oceanfront townhome about 170 miles south of Jacksonville the day after the shooting.

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Texas boy with pentagram carved back discharged

Richland Hills, Dec 22  : A 6-year-old Texas boy whose father allegedly carved a pentagram on the child's back is out of the hospital and doing well given the circumstances, police said.

The boy seems to be doing OK, while his mother is in "a very emotional state" and has asked for privacy for their family, Richland Hills police detective Tye Bell said. The child's wounds didn't require stitches and he was released from a Fort Worth hospital, police said.

Some medical experts say the boy may need counseling to overcome the traumatic incident.

Brent Troy Bartel, 39, remained jailed on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in lieu of $500,000 bond. Police say they plan to seek a mental evaluation.

Bartel called 911 and said he had shed "innocent blood" and inscribed a pentagram on his son because it was "a holy day," according to a recording of the brief call. It is not clear to which faith he was referring. The date was 12-12-12, a once-in-a-century event.

The case has been turned over to the district attorney, and investigators cannot reveal what, if anything, Bartel has told them — such as explaining his actions or why he used the pentagram symbol, police Sgt. Nathan Stringer said.

Dr. Peter Stavinoha, manager of psychiatric services at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, said children who endure such an injury are more than likely to need support, whether from professional counseling or family, friends and church.

"Deliberate abuse or harm breaks trust and the bond between a child and adult," said Stavinoha, who was not involved with the boy's case.

In cases where the parent or other adult who caused the injury is sent to jail, the child still may not feel assured that he or she won't be hurt again, Stavinoha said. Also, when an injury leaves a scar, it becomes a permanent reminder of the traumatic event and can attract attention and questions, he said.

"Trauma is going to stay with a person, but you want to get to a point where you acknowledge it and set it aside," he said.

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