Afghan political activist Malalai Joya says that all US and NATO forces must leave her homeland.

"Eight years ago, the US and NATO — under the banner of women's rights, human rights, and democracy — occupied my country and pushed us from the frying pan into the fire," Joya said from San Francisco in a telephone interview that was published on Thursday in The Straight.

Joya is finishing up a US tour where she has pressed the Obama administration to withdraw foreign troops from the country.

"Eight years is enough to know better about the corrupt, mafia system of [President] Hamid Karzai," she told The Straight, which is published in Vancouver and is Canada's largest urban weekly.

"My people are crushed between two powerful enemies," she said. "From the sky, occupation forces bomb and kill civilians ... and on the ground, the Taliban and warlords continue their crimes."

"It is better that they leave my country; my people are that fed up," Joya added.

"Occupation will never bring liberation, and it is impossible to bring democracy by war."

Joya was scheduled to speak in Vancouver on November 14.

Malalai Joya, who is often called the bravest woman in Afghanistan, was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament in 2005.

Two years later, she was expelled from parliament for criticizing the warlords, who she says remain in control of the US-backed Kabul government.

In Afghanistan, she must pay for armed guards to protect her 24 hours a day and must sleep in a different location every night because of the numerous death threats she has received from the warlords.

Despite her difficulties, Malalai Joya refuses to back down.

She is regarded as Afghanistan's leading women's rights activist and has emerged as a symbol of Afghans' desire for freedom from foreign occupation, corruption, and warlords.

JR/SS/HGL