Afghanistan News January 22, 2003

January 22, 2003

Afghanistan 'needs more funds'
Dubai |By Saifur Rahman | 22-01-2003 Gulf News
Afghanistan is passing through a critical time and needs more funds to overcome interim hurdles and for reconstruction, Afghan Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah said while transiting through Dubai on his way to Davos last night.

He visited the Afghan pavilion at the Global Village, which was set up for the first time in Dubai Shopping Festival.

"We are in talks with members of the international community, including some Arab countries for fresh aid to carry out the reconstruction work," he said.

"The problems in Afghanistan are huge. Though there have been good and generous support and assistance from the international community, it is not sufficient. Aid is coming, but we still need more and we are in touch with donors for additional support."

Referring to a recent report which said Osama bin Laden has crossed the Afghan border to hide in Pakistan, Dr. Abdullah said, his government doesn't know the whereabouts of the Al Qaida leader or his top aides. "But I think he is still alive," he said.

He said, his interim government is on course to fulfil its obligation and hand over power to an elected government by June 2004. He said, his government is working on a constitution which should be ready before the end of the year.

"If everything goes according to plans, we will formally place the constitution before the Loya Jirga for its ratification in December. Talks are held to bring it forward by a few months due to cold weather in December.

"We will soon form an electoral commission based on the constitution to carry out the polls. Then, based on the recommendation, we will hold countrywide elections by June 2004 to elect a new government. So, we are on course, though there are hurdles to overcome."

He said, one of the biggest challenges faced by his government is the power and hold of the tribal warlords who virtually rule Afghanistan's interior. "We are not yet thinking of a federal state structure. It is too early to say anything on that.

"However, the process of reducing the influence of the warlords and empowering the common man has started. The last Loya Jirga is a very good example. However, the focus right now is to give the local authorities more administrative powers and make them responsible to their electorate."

"Political process has led to emergence of some political parties during the last few months. Before the elections, I'm sure nation-wide political parties will become a viable option for people to choose their representatives from."

"The process of building up a national army is also taking place. Some battalions have already been trained and others will follow in due course. We are in a situation where some other armies are also active in the country. But eventually, we are going to build up a single national army."

Dr. Abdullah said terrorism has not been uprooted from the Afghan society and some of terrorists might still be on the run in his country.

"Terrorism, as part of an international network has been defeated in Afghanistan, though terrorists as individuals are still there. It will take some time before we eliminate it from the society," he said.

Reconstruction is going on in full but there have been allegations of slowdown in some areas, "We need to speed up our efforts, keeping in mind that these will have to be done in accordance with the ground realities."

Afghanistan Holding Talks With Pakistan Over Indian Aid
Tuesday January 21, 2:55 PM (Asia Pulse)
HYDERABAD, Jan 21 Asia Pulse - Afghanistan is holding talks with Pakistan to allow passage of wheat and fertilisers from India as part of international help to rebuild the war-ravaged country.
"Unfortunately, Pakistan is raising objections over Indian food aid passing through its territory. It has, however, said it can allow wheat from India only in the form of flour or cakes. It is of no use to us," Afghanistan's First Deputy Minister of Agriculture Mohammed Sharif told reporters here Monday.

New Delhi, he said, had promised to provide 100,000 tonnes of wheat and 15,000 tonnes of fertilisers to Kabul and hoped to sort out the impediments to the smooth passage of aid.

Sharif, who is here on a 3-day India tour, earlier visited International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) at Patancheru near here and held discussions with officials to explore the possibility of collaboration to reconstruct agricultural management systems in his country.

Sharif, who will stop at New Delhi before returning to Kabul will hold discussions with officials of the Indian Agriculture Ministry. He said his country was seeking assistance from India in areas of development of agricultural co-operatives, food processing, agricultural research management and live stock breeding.

Afghan, French ministers discuss reconstruction
PARIS, Jan 20 (AFP) - French Industry Minister Nicole Fontaine on Tuesday met with visiting Afghan Minister of Communications, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai to discuss Afghan reconstruction, the French ministry said in a statement.
Stanekzai is in Paris to "make contacts within the French telecommunications industry and administration and to consider French participation in rebuilding the Afghan telecommunications infrastructure," the text said.

The ministers agreed during their meeting on "the importance of rapid reconstruction... both for Afghan economic development and for territorial unity, which is a major political issue," the statement added.

Fontaine plegded during the meeting to promote French investments in the war-ravaged country, and said French government experts would join the work of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) team for Afghanistan.

Two French companies, Alcatel and Cegetel, are part of the PEGASE consortium of companies, which has been awarded a license to provide mobile telephony services to Afghanistan.

Thai troops trusted to keep reputation on Kabul mission
Tuesday, January 21, 2003 10:52 PM EST
BANGKOK, Jan 22, 2003 (Xinhua via COMTEX) Thai troops, which will join the UN-led rebuilding mission in Afghanistan this March, are trusted to keep their reputation, the Bangkok Post reported Wednesday.

Thai soldiers had been told to avoid alcohol, gambling, sex and internet porn while in Afghanistan, the report said, adding that the armed forces imposed the first three bans and the last was set by the United Nations.

Thailand, which will send 90 engineering troops, 12 medical staff and 18 security troops to Afghanistan, is the only country in Asia asked to send engineers to join the UN-led mission to repair the war-torn country. South Korea and Japan sent only medical staff.

Tanadet Pratumrat, director-general of the Army Engineer Department, said troops must abide by the rules to protect the army's reputation.

Siriphob Ungsupavanich, one of the group leaders, said Thai soldiers would have no problem adhering to those rules, because they lived their lives the same way.

He was quoted as saying that it would be no problem for Thai army to be there for work, Thai soldiers would make friends with people there and colleagues from other countries, further more, they would not think about sex.

Thai troops will spend six months in Afghanistan, based in Bagram, 50 kilometers north of Kabul.

Before starting on Mar. 15, the troops will take a one-month training course at the Army Engineer Regiment. The course includes familiarization with English and Arabic, culture and weather conditions.

Herat teachers meet to discuss education
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
A three-day seminar was held at the education department in Herat to discuss "financial management and logistics," Iranian Radio reported on 19 January. In attendance were "dozens of teachers from Herat, Farah, Ghowr, and Badghis provinces." In addition to administrative tasks, the meeting was also to discuss "how to deal with the inaccessibility of education and to put schools back in operation, especially those for girls," according to Iranian Radio. The meeting came in the wake of the recent international criticism of Herat's new educational regulations segregating males and females (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 13 and 16 January 2003). Representatives from both the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) were present and reportedly pledged their cooperation. KM

Governors in southeastern Afghanistan meet to improve security
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
The Ghazni Province governor has met with his counterparts from Khost, Loghar, Paktiya, Paktika, and Vardak provinces to discuss the southeastern region, Radio Free Afghanistan reported on 20 January. The topics ranged from reconstruction to improving security and fighting terrorist elements in the region. In an exclusive interview with Radio Free Afghanistan, the governor of Ghazni said the purpose of the meeting was to establish cooperation in the region in order to improve security and to foster a better environment for reconstruction efforts. The five governors agreed to secure the roads in the region by establishing security checkpoints to monitor travelers. In addition, the governor said the private sector is contributing by providing supplies, such as cement, to facilitate the reconstruction of roads and other infrastructure. KM

Afghan ministry to begin registering foreign expatriates for security reasons
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
The Afghan government plans to start requiring foreigners living in Afghanistan to register with the Interior Ministry, the Hindukosh news agency reported on 19 January. "The Interior Ministry has taken the measure after a number of NGO personnel were attacked and injured by gunmen in Zabul [Province] and in Mazar-e Sharif [in Balkh Province]. According to the pronouncement by the Interior Ministry, details of all foreign expatriates working in various capacities will be registered with the Interior Ministry and will be utilized when necessary," the news agency reported. KM

Afghanistan: Whooping cough outbreak under control
ISLAMABAD, 21 January (IRIN) - Following emergency efforts by aid agencies and the Afghan government, a whooping cough outbreak that threatened the lives of some 40,000 children in two remote districts of Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan. The province borders Tajikistan.
"Our intervention was quite successful in containing the epidemic and preventing any complication that might occur," Yon Fleerackers, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN from the Khvahan District of Badakhshan on Tuesday. The outbreak had been reported in the region earlier this month, prompting aid agencies to deploy there.

Seventy-eight local volunteers, 15 medical professionals from WHO and health workers from the Afghan government, distributed a two-week course of erythromycin to an estimated 40,000 children under the age of 15 in 189 villages of Kufab, Shekay, Nusay, Maymey and Jamarj subdistricts of Darvaz and Khvahan districts.

Although WHO confirmed 17 deaths from an earlier outbreak in November, Fleerackers maintained that the mortality rates might be reasonably lower than the estimated 15 percent. "The first reports from a limited number of villages say that it is probably lower. It could be less than 10 percent," he said, adding that he saw only one death in 342 cases in Maymey, which was well under one percent mortality. "We will have the full picture in a few weeks' time," he said.

As some of the teams walked for kilometres to reach the remote mountain villages, logistics remained a daunting challenge. "This is the most difficult place in Afghanistan in terms of getting supplies," Fleerackers said, adding that supplies were either airlifted by helicopter or brought on horses and donkeys after crossing the Omu river from neighbouring Tajikistan.

While making available the only access to some remote mountainous communities in Badakhshan, Tajikistan is providing the emergency assistance efforts with the key logistical support. The World Food Programme, the UN Joint Logistics Centre for Afghanistan and the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) are also extending assistance by providing air and road transport for supplies and team members. The Afghan military and the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) have also been providing logistical support.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a highly communicable disease of the throat and is caused by a bacterium known as Bordetella pertussis. At its onset, the disease causes mild problems, which then tend to progress to severe coughing lasting up to 10 weeks.

The disease particularly threatens infants under the age of six months. Before the worldwide introduction of the pertussis vaccine, it was of considerable public health concern in developed as well as developing countries.

Bin Laden 'used guard as a decoy to escape'
Gulf Daily News
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden escaped Afghanistan by giving his satellite phone to his Moroccan bodyguard, who served as decoy for US forces tracking the signal.

The Washington Post newspaper reported yesterday that Abdallah Tabarak was captured at Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in November 2001 and sent to the US base at Guantana-mo Bay, Cuba, where he is now a leader among fellow Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, quoting Moroccan officials.

Tabarak, 43, used Bin Laden's phone while moving around the cave complex at Tora Bora that was besieged by US and pro-US Afghan forces.

"It wasn't a lot of time, but it was enough. There is a saying: 'Where there is a frog, the serpent is not far away'," said the Moroccan officials who have interviewed Tabarak and other Moroccan prisoners in Cuba.

Bin Laden is believed to have fled to Pakistan. Despite several messages attributed to him since his presumed escape, there is no definitive proof to suggest whether he is alive or dead.

A US reward of $5 million (BD1.89m) for his capture still stands.

Tabarak's mug shot, sent around the world, was identified by Moroccan officials. They said they had since established his role by examining the satellite telephone he had and through other captives. They said the ploy that allowed Bin Laden to escape was widely known and celebrated among the prisoners in Cuba.

Tabarak has the respect of fellow prisoners and has ordered them to hold day-long fasts to maintain some semblance of a command structure in defiance of US attempts to break and isolate them.

Pakistani party wants FBI agents expelled
New Straits/Business Times
LAHORE, Jan 21: Pakistan’s main Islamic party has renewed calls for the expulsion of United States Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and troops amid a swelling tide of anti-US sentiment.

Pakistan should "get rid of FBI agents, and air and military bases under the control of American forces should be taken back," the Jamaat-iIslami (JI) party declared at an executive meeting late yesterday.

JI, a key member of the six-party hardline Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), also demanded the Government submit US visitors to stringent checks and registration requirements, in reciprocation of new US requirements of Pakistani visitors.

Pakistani males over 16, except those with permanent residency, must register with the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) and provide fingerprints and proof of address by Feb 21 under the new National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS).

The new system has infuriated Pakistanis at home and in the US. Officials in Islamabad estimate some 50,000 Pakistanis living illegally in the US will be deported.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has asked Washington to exempt Pakistan as a reward for its critical role in the US-led war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The MMA hardliners scored dramatic gains in Oct 10 elections, the first since a 1999 army coup, campaigning on an anti-US platform and promises of Islamic syariah law.

They control the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan, and are the loudest voice on opposition benches in the federal parliament where they hold 62 seats, an almost 18 per cent increase from 1997 polls.

Resentment is running high among religious and nationalist group over FBI involvement in the hunt for al-Qaeda fugitives, especially in alleged raids on some Islamic seminaries suspected of harbouring extremists and the detention of several doctors.

US troops are also using at least three bases in Pakistan for the 15month old campaign against alQaeda and top Taliban extremists in Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities admit that around a dozen FBI intelligence and communications experts are assisting local security forces, but have said the FBI agents do not join the raids. — AFP

Two U.S. Patrols Attacked in Afghanistan
Tue Jan 21,11:59 AM ET AP
BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Assailants fired on two U.S. Army patrols in central Afghanistan, a U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday. No injuries were reported.

Both attacks took place Monday in the central province of Uruzgan.

One special forces patrol came under small-arms fire near the town of Deh Rawood. The other patrol was attacked a few miles east of the hills above Tarin Kot. In both cases, the assailants fled, according to Army spokesman Col. Roger King.

Deh Rawood was the site of a July 1 attack by U.S. aircraft on an Afghan wedding party that killed about 30 people. The U.S. military said it had come under fire from the ground, but no anti-aircraft weapons were found. Afterward, the United States stationed soldiers in the area, where high-ranking Taliban are believed to be hiding.

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on poppy eradication
JALALABAD, 21 January (IRIN) - In a basement snooker hall in eastern Afghanistan, smoke from Halim's hashish cigarette curled around his teenage face as he took leisurely puffs. "You can get any drug here - opium, charas [hashish] and even heroin if you want," the cement seller told IRIN in Jalalabad.

The ease of getting drugs and the open nature of their use is a direct result of the boom in drug production, particularly of opium poppies, which the Afghan government is struggling to stamp out.

Despite the new government's ban on the cultivation of poppies imposed a year ago, the annual opium crop has rocketed from 185 mt in 2001 when the Taliban cracked down on it, to 3,400 mt last year, according to United Nations figures. While lower than the record of 4,600 mt in 1999, it is still more than enough to prompt the government into adopting strong measures to prevent opium and the heroin processed from it, from flooding world markets.

Over recent weeks, armed officials have been visiting growers in Nangarhar Province and its provincial capital, Jalalabad, ordering farmers to uproot the crops they planted in November last year or face heavy fines. But angry poppy growers are refusing, saying they will suffer terribly if they have to grow other crops.

In Biyar village, a fertile bowl in the shadow of the Tora Bora Mountains, the villagers are standing firm against the orders. Squatting by a field of sprouting poppies, grower Dilagha told IRIN the drought and low prices for other crops meant he had no option but to continue growing poppies. "Poppy is our only crop and without this we would starve." Last year he made about US $6,500 from the 14 kg of opium sap he extracted from the plants on his land.

If he had grown wheat, Dilagha estimates he would have made just US $100 - not even enough to cover his fertiliser and seed costs. He said the villagers had so far blocked tractors of the drug officials from coming into the village, but was not sure they could hold out until the crop was ready in April/May.

"Maybe they will come back with helicopters and bombs." When the Taliban got tough on drugs, some families were brought to the brink of starvation, Dilagha said. "Many people suffered badly. There were hardly any weddings. But when we started to grow poppies again there were a thousand weddings," he said, adding that people simply couldn't afford to hold the celebrations before.

He said if the farmers had a real alternative crop to grow they would happily stop poppy cultivation. But even compensation for not growing the crop had plummeted from US $350 to US $50 per jirib (about one-fifth of a hectare.)

The deputy representative in Afghanistan of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, Adam Bouloukos, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, that even the government acknowledged that the compensation scheme had been a logistical nightmare to administer and had failed.

"Basically it has fallen flat on its face," Bouloukos said, adding that the government was now having to consider a range of other strategies, such as small loans to growers or subsidising other crops to try and encourage the farmers to stop planting poppies.

Another tactic was to appeal to people's religious conscience by pointing out how drug production violated the principles of Islam. "All this is still to be decided - nobody is sure about the best way to go about things," he added.

Bouloukos pointed out that one of the reasons that poppies appealed to farmers was that they were easy to grow and store. With the country's road and transport infrastructure bombed to pieces, other crops were simply not viable at the moment because of the difficulties of getting them to market.

Efforts to actively counter poppy production were hampered by a lack of resources. The country's main anti-drug unit, the counter-narcotics department, had only just got a building for a base in Kabul, Bouloukos said.

While President Hamid Karzai wanted the problem eradicated within five years, Bouloukos said poppy production was going to be a long-term issue for the country.

However, some farmers have stopped growing the lucrative poppy. At Fathabad, an hour's drive from Jalalabad, Abdul Qayum said his land would remain unplanted this year because the government wouldn't let him grow poppies, and it was too dry for anything else. Even if they could grow another crop, they would not even earn 10 percent of what they could get for poppies, he told IRIN. "Life is very, very difficult, but we have no choice."

One of his sons had already joined a village exodus to find work in Pakistan. Across the border, where Abdul Qayum's son has gone, traders in Peshawar's "Smuggler's Bazaar" say the opium trade is booming again. "We can order it by the ton now, or by the truckload," Ghulam Rasul told IRIN, his beringed fingers a testament to his trading success.

Back in the Jalalabad snooker hall, Halim said farmers were very poor and he could not blame them for growing poppies. "Planting wheat or other crops will not feed their families and there are no other industries or jobs in factories." For many, growing or using drugs was the only way to make life a little more bearable, he said.

COMMENTARY : Pakistan's paranoid panjandrum
The Washington Times Arnaud de Borchgrave, THE WASHINGTON TIMES 20 January 2003

The premier geopolitical thinker and writer of Pakistan, Gen. Aslam Beg, the former chief of army staff after President Zia-ul- Haq was killed in a suspicious air crash in 1988, has apparently taken leave of his critical faculties.

Gen. Beg, always regarded as a voice of moderation in the hothouse ofPakistani politics, runs a think tank called "FRIENDS." Its charter is to "foster a culture of peace, security and economic cooperation in the South Asia region and beyond." His latest geopolitical ruminations - a 5,000-word essay e-mailed this week to his worldwide contacts - portray President Bush as a latter-day "Dr. Goebbels" who has "reduced Afghanistan to a wasteland as a consequence of the so-called War on Terror."

"The futility of outrageous war against Afghanistan is increasingly being felt, and the implicit irony comes to light that despite more than $20 billion spent on the savagery, termed war on terror, no gain has been achieved, except the ruthless massacre of innocent people - men, women and children. The al Qaeda fighters have not been apprehended in any appreciable number. They either have melted into the crowd or have found safe havens elsewhere to regroup for fresh encounters against the Coalition Forces."

Gen. Beg argues that the U.S. offensive against Osama Bin Laden and Taliban was merely a pretext for long-planned U.S. strategic objectives "to consolidate its prestigious global unipolarity." He also describes – in someone else's words - how a Pakistani intelligence officer got angry about being ordered around by an American who reminded him there was "enough space for Pakistan on the [U.S.] hit list."

Pakistan is one of Washington's most important allies in the war on terrorism. But when a prestigious national figure of Pakistani reasonableness like Gen. Beg quotes Ramsey Clark, America's chief self-hating American, as an authority on Washington's ulterior strategic objectives - i.e., world domination - one can measure how artificial the Pakistani-U.S. alliance really is.

Ariel Sharon, writes Gen. Beg, "bubbling with rage and venom, has even programmed the invasion of Iran, the day after Iraq is crushed." "Killing several birds with one stone," Gen. Beg continues, "may be the ostensible purpose of strategic sport that USA is playing in the post September 11 era, and targeting terrorists may only be a replay of Greek tragedy, depicting pathological passion - 'as flies to wanton boys they kill us for sport.' Under the Bush Doctrine, and its auxiliary notion of pre-emptive strike, the world is transformed into Hobsonian jungle, making any country vulnerable and legitimizing war as weapon of national policy."

Gen. Beg's diatribe was just warming up when he compared president Bush's "pre-emptive passions" to Joseph Goebbels' Nazi propaganda rantings. "Protecting their own civilization, by hurling bombs and missiles on other nations, labeled axis of evil or rogue states, is based on conceits and delusions of grandeur," Pakistan's pre-eminent geopolitical sage said. He also accused the U.S. of providing "a model to emulate to Israel, India and Russia to suppress the sacrosanct freedom struggle of people in Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya by labeling it 'terrorism.' "

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Pakistan will be the first to Make the list of unintended consequences when and if the U.S. invades Iraq. War on Iraq, Gen. Beg says, "is motivated by Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the U.S." Pakistan's answer, he urges, must be "the urgent necessity" of an immediate alliance with Iran "to brave the storm gathering around us." Iranian President Mohammed Khatami paid a three-day state visit to Pakistan over Christmas.

Pakistan's principal terrorist leaders have long since been released From detention where President Pervez Musharraf, a former disciple of Gen. Beg, had pledged to keep them. Taliban, which Gen. Beg now praises as the instrument that "brought peace and stability to Afghanistan," no longer has to hide in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. These are the two Pakistani provinces that border with Afghanistan and that are now governed by a coalition of six politico-religious parties that see the U.S. as the fount of all evil and al Qaeda as "freedom fighters."

"Minimum cooperation with the Americans" is the word that has gone out to Pakistani military units still going through the motions of assisting U.S. Special Forces fin al Qaeda survivors in the unmarked, snowcapped sawtooth mountains that straddle the border. Anyone who's anyone in al Qaeda left the border area months ago and has found shelter in Pakistan's major cities or gone on to other countries.

The recent incident of a U.S. air strike on an abandoned border village mosque where a Pakistani border patrolman has sought refuge after shooting and wounding a U.S. soldier has further soured Pakistani-U.S. relations. And in New York where Pakistan joined the U.N. Security Council this month, its U.N. ambassador, Munir Akram, hit the front page of the tabloids by beating up his live-in girl friend. While the Secretary Colin Powell's seventh floor of the State Department was working hard to persuade Pakistan to support Washington's tough line on Iraq, another part of the building was Asking Pakistan to lift the envoy's diplomatic immunity. In the blink of log on, Pakistani media reported back from New York that Ambassador Akram had been set up.

This month, too, India's defense minister stoked the embers of last year's near military showdown between the Subcontinent's two nuclear powers. "We can take a [nuclear] bomb or two or more, but when we respond there will be no Pakistan," said George Fernandes. Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed fired back, "India will be taught an unforgettable historic lesson if they ever launch a nuclear attack on Pakistan." President Musharraf kicked off the latest round of nuclear threats in a Karachi speech last month when he said he had personally warned the Indian prime minister during last year's hostilities to "not expect a conventional war from Pakistan." Next to that, the exchanges between North Korea's Kim Jong-il and President Bush seemed pretty tame.

The American and British intelligence communities believe that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the 66-year-old father of the Pakistan's "Islamic nuclear bomb" and premier national hero, is the evil genius who has passed on his knowledge to the three powers in Mr. Bush's "axis of evil" - North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Mr. Khan has journeyed to North Korea at least 13 times. In return for a dozen North Korean Nodong missiles in 1993, Pakistan is believed to have supplied Pyongyang with blueprints for nuclear know-how. To maintain the fiction of non- proliferation, and to prevent relations from capsizing, Washington has chosen to accept Islamabad's strong denial.

But Mr. Khan's name also appeared in an intercepted letter to Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein offering to "manufacture a nuclear weapon." The International Atomic Energy Agency has a copy of a memo, dated Oct. 6, 1990, from Section B-15 of Iraqi intelligence to Section S-15 of the Nuclear Weapons Directorate that describes "a proposal from Pakistani scientist Abdel Qadeer Khan" to help Iraq "establish a project to enrich uranium and manufacture a nuclear weapon."

Mr. Khan has told interviewers his nuclear team purchased key bomb-making components from Western companies that were in it for the money. "They begged us to buy their goods," he said. So Western non-proliferators were foiled "by the greed of their own companies."

Looking for last-minute ways to scuttle American war plans, Saddam could be tempted to emulate Kim Il-sung and declare that he, too, now has a couple of nukes stashed away. He could also stage his own coup to overthrow himself. One of his crony generals would then announce "the tyrant is dead" and produce the body of one of Saddam's many pinch hitters trotted out to fire a rifle in the air from a balcony overlooking the cheering multitudes.
Stay tuned.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

Pakistan's Islamists renew calls to dump pro-US policy
Agence France Presse LAHORE, Pakistan, January 21, 2003 Tuesday 3:06 AM Eastern Time
Pakistan's main fundamentalist Islamic party has renewed calls for the expulsion of United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and troops amid a swelling tide of anti-US sentiment. Pakistan should "get rid of FBI agents, and air and military bases under the control of American forces should be taken back," the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) party declared at an executive meeting late Monday.

JI, a key member of the six-party hardline Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), also demanded the government submit US visitors to stringent checks and registration requirements, in reciprocation of new US requirements of Pakistani visitors. Pakistani males over 16, except those with permanent residency, must register with the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) and provide fingerprints and proof of address by February 21 under the new National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS).

The new system has infuriated Pakistanis at home and in the US. Officials in Islamabad estimate some 50,000 Pakistanis living illegally in the US will be deported.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has asked Washington to exempt Pakistan as a reward for its critical role in the US-led war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. JI said the Pakistani government should "reassess" its policy towards America. The MMA hardliners scored dramatic gains in October 10 lections, the first since a 1999 army coup, campaigning on an anti-US platform and promises of Islamic sharia law.

They control the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan, and are the loudest voiceon opposition benches in the federal parliament where they hold 62 seats, an almost 18 percent increase from 1997 polls.

Resentment is running high among religious and nationalist group over FBI involvement in the hunt for al-Qaeda fugitives, especially in alleged raids on some Islamic seminaries suspected of harbouring extremists and the detention of several doctors.

US troops are also using at least three bases in Pakistan for the 15-month old campaign against al-Qaeda and top Taliban extremists in
Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities admit that around a dozen FBI intelligence and communications experts are assisting local security forces, but have said the FBI agents do not join the raids.

More than 422 al-Qaeda suspects have been captured in major Pakistani Cities and rugged western border regions including Abu Zubaydah, a key lieutenant of Osama bin Laden.

Afghanistan's new war on drugs
More than two decades of war and poverty have left a generation of drug addicted women
PARWEEN TULWASA Toronto Star Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan — An increasing number of Afghan women are turning to drugs to help them cope with bereavement and displacement caused by 23 years of savage war, a recent survey has shown.

Afghanistan has long been known as one of the world's major producers of opium. A recent U.N. study reports that opium production had reached 3,400 tonnes last year. But until relatively recently, it was not thought to have a serious drug problem of its own among its own deeply religious and conservative population.

However, a recent survey conducted by the Nejat Centre in Kabul, the only organization treating drug addiction in the country, showed there were more than 300 women addicts in the capital of Kabul alone. Most used opium, although some were found to be addicted to hashish.

"We have already treated 100 addicted women, and are currently handling 20 other cases," said Shah Begum, who works at the centre. ``We are also treating some children born to addicted mothers."

Many of the women say they became addicted while living in the overcrowded refugee camps across the border in Pakistan, where hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled as war against the occupying Soviet army gave way to bitter fighting among Islamic groups and finally to the five-year rule of the hard-line Taliban.

"These women have not become addicted for pleasure," said Setaara, a worker at the centre. "The main cause of their addiction is 23 years of war. Most of them start using opium to help them cope with their problems, but over time it becomes a habit."

For Sarwa, 50, the decision to seek treatment for her opium addiction was not an easy one. "It will be very difficult for me to give it up," she says. "I lost two sons and a young daughter during the various wars. My home was destroyed by a rocket, forcing me to flee abroad with what remained of my family. As a refugee I faced a lot of new problems, and in order to forget them I started smoking opium."

Rona, 45, who recently returned from a refugee camp in Pakistan, also blamed the wars for her addiction. "First, my 16-year-old nephew was killed. Then, a year later, his mother and young sisters also died, and my husband was seriously injured. To cope with all this I started smoking opium at night. Now I eat it during the day as well," she says.

One woman at the centre who declined to give her name says she had been a regular hashish user but decided to try opium on the advice of friends.

"After a while the effect of the drug wore off, and I needed more," she says. "As a result I started suffering from insomnia. I took tablets for that, but it didn't help, so I took up hashish again as well." She acknowledges using what little money her sons could earn to support her habit. When that proved insufficient, she started to sell off her household belongings.

According to drug workers, the situation is much worse in Afghanistan's conservative northern provinces, where many women support their families by weaving carpets, and regularly give opium to their children to keep them quiet while they work. The children quickly become as addicted as their mothers. In the northern province of Badakhshan, a remote and mountainous region close to the border with Tajikistan, there are an estimated 5,000 opium addicts.

There is only one 100-bed hospital located in Kabul that treats drug addiction in all of Afghanistan. The facility is so badly overcrowded that many patients are forced to sleep in the hospital's corridors. There are no beds set aside to treat women.

For Afghan women seeking an end to their reliance on drugs and regain control of their lives, the Nejat Center may be their only hope.