Old rivalries hinder Afghanistan
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Afghans protest in Kabul this week over the slow rebuilding process.
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UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Efforts to rebuild Afghanistan are being undermined by traditional rivalries between tribal leaders and renewed activity by supporters of the former Taliban regime, according to the United Nations.
The U.N.'s special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, told the Security Council Tuesday that work in Afghanistan was "challenged by the deterioration of the security environment which stems from daily harassment and intimidation, inter-ethnic and inter-factional strife, (and) increase in the activity of elements linked to the Taliban."
Much of the country remains "unstable and insufficient," he said, rattling off a list of problems causing hitches in the national building process.
Among those hurdles facing the country were "rivalries between factions and local commanders, impunity for human rights violations, and the daily harassment of ordinary Afghan citizens by both commanders and local security forces."
He called for tribal leaders in the fractured country to give up their old ways of private armies and factional fighting and cooperate with a national Afghan security force.
Two Afghan mine clearers were wounded late Monday when guerrillas fired on their convoy in southern Afghanistan on the highway to the capital, Kabul, northeast of Kandahar, The Associated Press reported
Just four days earlier on the same highway, other mine clearers were attacked by suspected Taliban rebels. One person was killed and another was injured.
Brahimi said such attacks were putting pressure on nongovernmental and international organizations to suspend or withdraw operations, and he called for a better exchange of information among the U.N., the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan government authorities.
