US military holding Afghan journalist for 'Taliban contacts'

 

The US military has been holding an Afghan journalist working with Canadian Television (CTV) for three months because of his professional contacts with Taliban militants, media watchdogs alleged Tuesday.

A US military officer at the largest military base at Bagram, north of Kabul, confirmed that the reporter, identified as Jawad Ahmad, was in detention.

However, "He is not being detained because he is a journalist," Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta told AFP, refusing to give details of charges.

Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders said Ahmad, 22, had been held at Bagram since November 2007.

"The US soldiers accused him of having the numbers of Taliban leaders in his mobile phone and of interviewing them," it said in a statement that called on US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to intervene.

"The lack of legal procedures and material evidence confirms that his detention is unjustified," it said.

The US military was also holding at least two other journalists -- Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj at its Guantanamo Bay facility and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein in Iraq, the watchdog said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York, said separately it was "deeply troubled" by the Ahmad case.

His brother, Siddique Ahmad, had said the reporter was arrested apparently because "the US military believed he had contacts with local Taliban leaders and was in possession of a video of Taliban materials," the CPJ said in a statement.

"The United States military must explain the reason for his detention and accord him due process. If he is not charged with any crime then he must be released immediately," it said.

Taliban defeat will take years: US general

Major General David Rodriguez, head of the US-led coalition force, said the US military would stay in the country "as long as they are needed."

"We definitely think it will take a few years for the Afghan people and the Afghan leaders supported by the coalition forces to defeat them," he said in a response to a question from a journalist.

An insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, has been growing in the past two years with a spike in suicide attacks and roadside bombings.

The deadliest blast struck outside the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday, leaving more than 100 people dead. The Taliban denied involvement but officials said they were to blame.

On Monday another suicide blast -- this time claimed by the Taliban -- killed nearly 40 people in Kandahar province's border town of Spin Boldak.

Deputy US ambassador Christopher Dell, who accompanied Rodriguez on a trip to meet officials in the town of Maidan Shahr, west of Kabul, said that Taliban used terror tactics because they had little support among people.

"They are simply trying to terrorise them to play with fear in order to achieve their objectives," he said.

The coalition works alongside a larger NATO-led force and the Afghan military.

Afghanistan (AFP) - It will take "a few years" to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, the top US general in the country said Tuesday, reiterating US support for the fight.