Terrorism on increase in region: Karzai Corruption reaches highest levels: Report PULI ALAM, Afghanistan: A huge car bomb at an Afghan hospital left at least 35 people dead, Saturday as the leaders of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agreed to join forces in combating militancy as they attended a counterterrorism summit in Tehran. The brazen suicide attack in Logar province, about 75 km south of the capital Kabul, also wounded over 53 people and flattened the hospital building. An eyewitness described horrific scenes of victims on fire and body parts scattered in all directions following the blast in the remote district of Azra, close to the border with Pakistan. The Taliban denied they were behind the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying: “We condemn this attack on a hospital... whoever has done this wants to defame the Taliban.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as “savage and ignorant” in a statement released by his office. It came as Karzai told a counterterrorism summit in Tehran that militancy was on the rise in both his country and the region. “Not only has Afghanistan yet achieved peace and security but terrorism is expanding and threatening more than ever in the region,” he told the opening session. The two-day summit is being attended by the heads of state of six regional countries, including Afghan neighbors Iran and Pakistan. A joint statement by the three neighboring presidents followed an announcement by US President Barack Obama that Washington will withdraw 33,000 of its 99,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer. “All sides stressed their commitment to efforts aimed at eliminating extremism, militancy, terrorism, as well as rejecting foreign interference, which is in blatant opposition to the spirit of Islam, the peaceful cultural traditions of the region and its peoples' interests,” the statement said. Meanwhile, a report to be released next week says that corruption is soaring in Afghanistan and that the country's resemblance to a mafia state that cannot serve its citizens may only be getting worse. The 46-page study, by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, looks specifically at Afghanistan's heartland: the rural areas of Ghazni, Wardak, Logar and other provinces just beyond the periphery of Kabul and concludes that unemployment is high, government presence is low and the insurgency operates with impunity. “Nearly a decade after the US-led military intervention little has been done to challenge the perverse incentives of continued conflict in Afghanistan,” the research group says. Rather, violence and the billions of dollars in international aid have brought wealthy officials and insurgents together. And “the economy as a result is increasingly dominated by a criminal oligarchy of politically connected businessmen,” the report concludes.
