Afghanistan News March 12, 2003

March 12, 2003

Afghan president tells his country's ambassadors to court international aid
AP News
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai held a meeting with his country's fledgling ambassadors on Monday, calling on them to court international aid to help the nation rebuild. "The reconstruction of our country is the most important job we have," Karzai told about 30 Afghan diplomats called to Kabul from their posts around the world. "And for reconstruction we need the help and cooperation of others."

Before the fall of the former Taliban government in 2001, only three countries — Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — had maintained diplomatic ties with Afghanistan. All three severed them as the United States forged a coalition against terror after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Since then, Afghanistan's new government has attracted a host of foreign embassies in the capital, and reopened dozens of foreign missions abroad.

Karzai said Afghan ambassadors also must take advantage of their posts to attract foreign investment. "It is your duty to encourage foreign traders and investors to invest in our country," he said. He also told the diplomats they must represent Afghanistan "as Afghans, not as representatives of special interests or ethnic groups."

Afghan president to visit Pakistan later this month, Islamabad says
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit Pakistan later this month to observe the National Day military parade scheduled for March 23, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday. Karzai will be a guest of honor, Aziz Ahmad Khan told reporters. He declined to say exactly when Karzai will arrive.

Pakistan's army, navy and air force stage an elaborate parade on March 23 to commemorate a March 23, 1940, resolution demanding a homeland for Muslims on the Indian subcontinent.

Pakistan was created after the subcontinent won independence from Britain in 1947.

Russian foreign minister arrives in Afghanistan for one-day visit
Wed Mar 12, 2:57 AM ET By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov arrived in Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday for a one-day working visit with senior Afghan officials.

Ivanov is expected to hold talks in Kabul with President Hamid Karzai, Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah and Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, according to the Foreign Ministry.

He is also scheduled to visit a former Russian embassy compound in the west of the city which was destroyed during a 1990s civil war. Russia wants to reconstruct the building and move its diplomatic staff there from a smaller house now being used as an embassy.

Ivanov flew to Kabul from Tehran, where he met on Monday with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi.

There, Ivanov gave qualified support to a French call for an emergency United Nations summit to discuss the status of Iraq's disarmament. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has dismissed the call, saying there was no need for such a summit.

Washington has been trying to rally support for a U.N. Security Council resolution that contains a March 17 deadline for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to disarm or face war. Iraq has repeatedly denied possessing any banned weapons of mass destruction.

Six countries that represent the key to a U.S. victory in the Security Council proposed a 45-day reprieve for Iraq. The Bush administration said it was willing to listen but wants a far shorter deadline. It said a vote will come by the end of this week, regardless.

In Tehran on Monday, Ivanov reiterated his country's intentions to vote against any resolution that could lead to a war in Iraq.

Russia has been involved in the reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan, despite years of animosity following a decade-long invasion by Soviet troops in the 1980s that left 1.5 million people dead. Most Afghans remain deeply suspicious of their northern neighbor.

Bush apologizes to Karzai over Senate treatment
Wednesday March 12, 1:19 PM AFP
US President George W. Bush apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for what he considered rough treatment meted out to him by US lawmakers last month, the White House said.

"There is a longstanding tradition of foreign leaders, when they testify before the Senate, of being received with a level of decorum, and the president thought that an apology was warranted in this matter," spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

Bush telephoned Karzai on Saturday for what the White House said at the time were discussions about the US anti-terrorism campaign.

The apology centered on Karzai's highly unusual appearance for a foreign leader at an open hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations committee late last month.

Several senior senators suggested that Karzai presented an overly rosy picture of life in Afghanistan to avoid embarrassing the Bush administration, which is being accused of turning away from the country ahead of possible war with Iraq.

One Republican, Senator Chuck Hagel, later raised the idea that he had been coached by US officials on what to say.

The Washington Post quoted an official in Kabul Tuesday as saying Bush offered to make his apology public, but the gesture was turned down by Karzai.

"Bush called to say he was really sorry about how things had gone in the Senate, and that Karzai should not have been treated like that," the Post quoted the unnamed official as saying.

"We thought these people were our friends, but now we don't really know," a senior Afghan official said, according to the Post.

"This was a protocol blunder and there was real insensitivity on the part of some senators."

Karzai, who has made several visits to Washington as Afghan leader, is more used to highly deferential treatment, and what is seen here as his moderate approach is deemed vital to the stability, and US orientation, of Afghanistan.

At the Senate hearing on February 26, Karzai responded to lawmakers with glowing reports of progress in Afghanistan following the US-led war to oust the Taliban rulers and their "guests," members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

"You know, there aren't many more chances here," Hagel told the Afghan leader, advising Karzai to be more forceful in a meeting the following day with Bush.

"If you leave the impression all is going well, your credibility will be in question," Hagel warned, a recommendation echoed by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd.

But in a press conference after meeting Bush at the White House, Karzai denied he had downplayed security problems in his country to spare the administration's blushes.

"If I was talking about Afghan comparisons to a year ago then my picture was not rosy, it is reality," he said.

"I am sorry that I cannot tell you that everything is wrong there because it is not."

Since October 2001, Washington has granted Kabul some 600 million dollars in aid, and in December, Bush signed the Afghan Freedom Support Act, authorizing another 3.3 billion dollars over the next four years.

The Post report suggested that Karzai's treatment has placed the job of Kabul's ambassador to the United States, Ishaq Shahryar, in jeopardy.

Diplomats at the Afghan embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment.

Afghan tribal leader accuses Taliban of waging guerrilla war
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A wounded tribal leader on Tuesday said an explosion that killed three other tribal leaders and injured five was part of a guerrilla war being waged by Taliban remnants. "Nobody else could be behind this. The Taliban have started their guerrilla war. They have been carrying out such attacks," said tribal councilor Ziaul Haq, 70, from his bed at a hospital in the southern city of Kandahar.

A remote-controlled device exploded late Monday as Haq and three other tribal councilors were traveling in a convoy of eight vehicles near Zhare Dasht district, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Kandahar.

Haq and the three killed were driving in a vehicle with the Afghan army emblem. He said the explosion targeted his vehicle. "It was a remote-controlled bomb. It targeted only the official car," Haq said.

Another wounded tribal elder, Sher Ali Aqa, 55, said he heard a loud explosion and then lost consciousness. "I don't know who did it, but they are terrorists," said Aqa. "It was laid for us." A third victim of the blast was discharged early Tuesday from the hospital. The two others wounded only suffered minor injuries.

There have been a string of small-scale explosions in southern Afghanistan, particularly in Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold. Afghan authorities have blamed the attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida remnants, and troops loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Taliban, al-Qaida and Hekmatyar are believed to have joined forces to destabilize the government in the capital Kabul, following the ouster last year of the Taliban by a U.S.-led coalition.

Afghans Say Al Qaeda Suspects Held at Border
Tue Mar 11, 7:24 AM ET
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition forces have captured two people suspected of links with al Qaeda and the Taliban on Afghanistan's southern border with Pakistan, an Afghan official said on Tuesday.

Separately, U.S. forces in the southeastern Khost region detained a man after finding a cache of anti-personnel mines on Monday, a military spokesman said.

The arrests in Khost and the border town of Spin Boldak came after Pakistani officials said they had detained 10 men since the weekend in the northwestern city of Peshawar for suspected al Qaeda links.

Spin Boldak district administrator Syed Fazal Din Agha did not identify the suspects arrested on Monday.

He told Reuters U.S. and Afghan troops had intensified their search for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members in the border region after a rocket attack on a Pakistani checkpost the same day.

Agha said U.S. aircraft were dropping leaflets in the region and radio messages were being broadcast seeking help in the capture of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and other Islamic militants.

An intelligence source said at least one of the 10 men arrested in Peshawar was believed to have had contact with bin Laden.

On March 1, Pakistani authorities said they had arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States and one of al Qaeda's top members, in a raid in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said on Monday Mohammed's arrest had already yielded information that should bring security forces closer to capturing bin Laden.

Both bin Laden and Mullah Omar have remained elusive since the Taliban were ousted by the U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban members are thought to have taken refuge in rugged territory along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and U.S. officials said last week they believed bin Laden was hiding in the area.

Pakistani officials say Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi with two other suspects, including Saudi Ahmed al-Hawsawi, alleged to be one of the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban are suspected of being behind repeated, but generally ineffective attacks on U.S. bases in recent months.

U.S. spokesman Colonel Roger King told reporters at the U.S. headquarters at Bagram that the man detained at Khost was held after the discovery of about 50 anti-personnel mines. He said U.S. forces had also found 120 107mm rockets near one of their bases outside the southern city of Kandahar, once a power base of the Taliban.

Afghanistan: World Bank to help revitalize highway and aviation networks
Press Release No: 2003/250/SAR Source: World Bank Group 11 Mar 2003
WASHINGTON, March 11, 2003 - The World Bank today approved a US$108 million credit to help remove key transport bottlenecks on an emergency basis, and also support the Government of Afghanistan's efforts to rehabilitate its highway and civil aviation programs. The work will improve physical access to goods, markets, and administrative and social services, all critical to Afghanistan's economic and social recovery.

The Bank also discussed an overall strategy to support Afghanistan's transition over the next two years from an emergency orientation to one focused on longer-term development.

"The Government of Afghanistan has articulated its own development vision, and our strategy has been developed to support and underpin that," said Alastair McKechnie, World Bank Country Director for Afghanistan. "Indeed, it has been exciting to work with a government that has such a clear view of how the international community can serve a truly Afghan vision. Of course, there are huge challenges in building the capacity to deliver on this, but Afghanistan is already a step ahead by virtue of truly driving its own path forward."

More than two decades of conflict combined with a prolonged lack of maintenance has resulted in severe damage to long sections of roads and critical structures such as runways, bridges, tunnels, and retaining walls in Afghanistan. Deterioration of air traffic control equipment and a shortage of qualified operators has reduced the safety and availability of flights, Afghanistan's most practical means for long-range domestic as well as international travel.

The Emergency Transport Rehabilitation Project is designed to help the government meet emergency needs in the short term, while building its capacity to maintain programs in the long term. It will remove key transport bottlenecks, such as collapsed bridges, eroded road sections, disintegrated pavements, damaged tunnels, and unsafe air traffic operation that are seriously hampering Afghanistan's recovery. An element of the project design is to facilitate the employment of local people in the various rehabilitation activities. The project will also provide equipment and technical assistance related to planning, maintenance, and supervision to help build the government's capacity for managing subsequent work. An overarching project goal is to assist the government's efforts in establishing an institutional and policy framework to make Afghanistan's transport sector viable and sustainable into the future.

"Solving Afghanistan's transport problems is absolutely essential to both short-term recovery and long-term development, two areas on which the government has rightly asked international donors to focus equally," said Terje Wolden, a World Bank senior transport specialist and task leader of the project. "Removing the bottlenecks will help the country to promote regional economic integration and facilitate trade, improve delivery of humanitarian aid, and assist reconstruction efforts in all sectors. Providing technical advice will help the government carry on this work after the donors leave."

In the area of land transport, the project will focus on rehabilitation of the Kabul to Pol-e-Khomri-Kunduz highway, including work on the Salang tunnel. The road from Kabul through the Salang pass to Pol-I Khumri covers a critical section of the highway that connects the city of Kabul and provinces to the south, with eight provinces to the north, and connects the country of Afghanistan to both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The project will also cover other main roads in the north such as the road to Faizabad from Kunduz. In aviation, the project will finance reconstruction of the runway at Kabul's international airport, provision of related equipment to support safe air travel, and upgrading of the water and sanitation system of the airport. It will also support mine clearance activities in all project coverage areas.

The Afghan Assistance Coordination Authority (AACA) will coordinate and facilitate procurement for the project, which will be implemented by the Ministry of Public Works and Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism.

Since April 2002, and as Afghanistan's emergence from conflict made way for reconstruction, the World Bank has approved US$100 million in grants for various development projects. Today's credit, which carries no interest, is the first loan to be provided by the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) since 1979, when Afghanistan went into arrears after discontinuing payments on its loans. Afghanistan was able to clear its arrears, in part, with the help of Japan, the UK, Sweden, Norway, and Italy, who contributed to a trust fund for this purpose. Additional funds from the multi-donor Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund helped to clear the remaining arrears, allowing Afghanistan to become eligible for loans for projects which move beyond the emergency situation to help meet its longer-term development needs.

The Bank's plan for assisting Afghanistan to meet these needs is spelled out in a Transitional Support Strategy, discussed today, which covers the period from the next 18 months to two years, until the country adopts a new constitution and establishes a representative government. The strategy was designed to directly support the Government of Afghanistan's National Development Framework and focuses on four key areas: improving livelihoods; assisting the government with its fiscal strategy, institutions, and management; supporting governance and public administration reform; and helping to enable private sector development in Afghanistan. Priorities were made taking into account the World Bank's comparative advantage and the interest of other international donors in specific areas of reform.

Specifically, the World Bank is preparing projects which would help the government reconstruct and develop Afghanistan's health sector and revive the banking sector, including reforming public and commercial banks and Afghanistan's Central Bank. The World Bank is also preparing follow-on projects in areas in which it is currently working, such as public administration and labor intensive public works.

The strategy follows a previous World Bank transitional support strategy approved in April 2002, which outlined assistance during the early post-conflict months, when the main focus in the country was on providing emergency relief, securing peace, and working for political normalization.

Note: The IDA credit for the Emergency Transport Rehabilitation Project carries a 0.75 % service charge and has a 40-year maturity, with a 10-year grace period.

Scenarios for making the world safe: an Afghan present HL:
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 4:47 PM EST
WILTON, CONN., Mar 12, 2003 (The Christian Science Monitor via COMTEX) As a gung-ho administration moves toward major commitment to war and peace in Iraq, it should study the cautionary tales of previous experience. None is more pointed than Afghanistan. Today, nearly a year and a half and billions of dollars after military victory, Afghanistan is on the razor's edge. Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN's extraordinary chief political construction engineer, says that improvements made so far are "not irreversible."

At first, progress came easily. The war was won quickly and at small cost. A respected figure, Hamid Karzai was an authentic rallying point for transforming a torn, weary people, a mosaic of tribal entities, into a democratic state.

The world community was of one mind, applauding the process and rushing to help, guilt-ridden at having abandoned Afghanistan when the Soviet invader withdrew. A loya jirga, grand council, resurrected from Afghanistan's past, gave legitimacy to a blueprint of democratic government.

But lawlessness and insecurity are on the rise again. Local warlords and their militias fight it out. One of the biggest, Ismail Khan of Herat, simply doesn't recognize the national government. An old extremist mujahideen, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has declared war on Kabul. The vanished Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, calls for holy war against "America, the crusaders, and their allies." Afghanistan's border with the strongly Islamist tribal areas of western Pakistan is porous to Al Qaeda.

In February, the UN suspended its aid operation in the north because of factional skirmishes. Roads are unsafe in much of the country. The voluntary program to disarm militias has not even begun. Only a small step has been taken to create a national army. Police, such as they are, can't handle the upsurge in crime. A penal and judiciary system doesn't exist. Kabul is the one area under central control, thanks to an international military force of 5,000. Covering the rest of the country is out of the question because contributing governments will not risk soldiers. As for aid money, donor fatigue grows as this commitment wears on and others tug at the sleeve of a world in economic straits.

The effort bravely continues to aim at a national election next year. A constitution is being written. But heroic work will be needed to cope with the expected return of more than a million refugees this year. And, although Mr. Karzai banned the opium trade more than a year ago, it remains enormous, linked to warlords and provincial governors as protectors and profiteers.

The place of the US in this troubled scenario is uncertain. Washington has donated food and mainly security- oriented funds. Overcoming its original phobia of nation-building, the administration has assigned soldiers to help with reconstruction. But most of the 8,000 troops in Afghanistan have their separate agenda, pursuing what remnants of Taliban and Al Qaeda they can track. Inevitably, they work with warlords who have little use for Kabul.

The ghosts of other campaigns hold their own messages. Vietnam saw irresolute use of power in the service of confused policy end in tragic failure. While World War II had titanic battles and bright victories, its aftermath persisted for half a century. Now the world faces a new great war - asymmetrical, the experts call it - where shadowy groups and suicide bombers attack large nations.

Today, as the US pushes toward Iraq and invasion, the US Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, estimates that several hundred thousand soldiers must stay in Iraq even if the war goes extremely well. Pentagon hawks call this a wild exaggeration. Afghanistan suggests it is not. Resolve is needed, certainly, but also a goal bigger than "defeating the enemy." Ideals, such as those that animated the grand coalition in the 1940s, must lead, championing human values in a better world and summoning global help to build it.

* Richard C. Hottelet was a correspondent for CBS.
By Richard C. Hottelet

Afghanistan offers rebuilding lessons
By Jane Macartney, Asian Diplomatic Correspondent Wednesday March 12, 5:33 PM
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - More than a year after the U.S. military triumph in Afghanistan, power still comes from the barrel of a gun and government control barely reaches beyond Kabul into the mountains that ring the capital.

That campaign offers many lessons for the United States to apply even in so different a land as Iraq with its centralised administration and experienced, nationwide civil service.

"They (the United States) just left Afghanistan to the wolves," said Michael McKinley of the department of political science at the Australian National University in Canberra. "In Iraq, they have very different aims."

In Afghanistan, warlords with armies several times bigger than Afghan President Hamid Karzai's official forces command vast rural fiefdoms, ignored by U.S. army troops and special forces whose job is to track down Osama bin Laden and not to keep order.

"The U.S. has no interest in Afghanistan apart from putting a pipeline through it," said McKinley.

"They have very little interest in reform of civil society in Afghanistan whereas they have long-term objectives for the Gulf and the Middle East that are going to begin with the war on Iraq."

The reconstruction of a land such as Afghanistan, where near-medieval traditions hold sway, few are literate and a man measures his importance by possession of a Kalashnikov, requires a hefty commitment of both money and manpower.

And the price tag for putting Afghanistan back together pales beside the likely bill for Iraq, which could cost U.S. taxpayers $20 billion a year for several years, according to an independent task force formed by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

That assumes the deployment of a 75,000-strong post-war stabilisation force at a cost of $16.8 billion, $2.5 billion for reconstruction and $500 million for humanitarian assistance in the first year.

MAJOR HEADACHES
"It's going to be a major headache for the United States in the same way that Afghanistan is proving to be more of a headache than the U.S. might have anticipated originally," said Francois Boo of San Francisco military think tank GlobalSecurity.org.

Still, Boo said Afghanistan was much more troublesome for Washington than Iraq would be.

"Iraq has had a centralised government. Afghanistan is much more tribal and has been that way forever. Iraq is easier to bring under centralised control despite ethnic groups urging independence."

Critics complain about what they see as a lack of commitment by the United States to Afghanistan since the overthrow of the austerely Islamic Taliban militia in November 2001.

"The weakness of American foreign policy is that they tend to devote less attention to picking up the pieces than conducting military campaigns," said Alan Dupont of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.

"There is an impressive degree of willingness to contribute forces... but on nation-building, on long-term commitments, they tend to be weak on that front," he said.

Despite the vastly different U.S. goals in Iraq, Dupont saw a parallel with Afghanistan that could yield valuable lessons for Washington if it were willing to learn them.

"They had the big bang, they had success, they set up a new regime but now it has fallen off the policy agenda. The United States hasn't walked away, they just haven't demonstrated the commitment they needed to make," Dupont said. "That makes me very pessimistic they can get it right in Iraq."

THREAT MANAGEMENT
Like Somalia, Afghanistan falls into a category of failed states that Washington regards as beyond reform and where it decides to engage only in threat management, analysts say.

By contrast, Iraq offers more strategic opportunities and hence may command long-term commitment to a new administration.

The United States has clearly demonstrated a far greater interest in Iraq, committing nearly a quarter of a million troops to a region where experts say it believes it can establish a base from which to exert long-term influence over the Middle East.

"Part of the problem with nation-building is that it's difficult," said Boo.

That means that while Washington may show greater commitment in Iraq than it has in Afghanistan, democracy may not be the result.

"You can't just bring together a bunch of guys who all have diverging interests and aspirations to power, greatness and wealth and say to them that building a nation overrides their priorities," said Boo. "That is naive."

The quickest and easiest way to avoid chaos in Iraq would be to install a centralised government with lots of authority.

"In the short term I'm not sure that is compatible with democratic ideals," said Boo.

But the United States needs such government if it is to ensure a stable environment for the permanent troop bases in Iraq that many analysts see as a major goal of war.

"What one would expect absolutely would be the establishment of three very large, permanent bases in Iraq," said Paul Rogers, head of peace studies at Bradford University in Britain.

Rogers, echoing several other analysts, said that would have at least two significant consequences.

"The very big increase in a U.S. presence in the region will be a gift to al Qaeda in terms of recruiting," he said, luring adherents to bin Laden's cause to oust Americans from the region.

A second outcome would be to jangle Iran's nerves given the proximity of U.S. troops to its western border.

"There are so many complexities," said Dupont. "The administration may not have fully comprehended the enormity of the task, both military and financial, to make Iraq a functioning democracy."

Afghans Train Pakistanis in Art of Carpet Weaving
Wednesday March 12, 8:14 AM Asia Pulse
KARACHI, March 12 Asia Pulse - Pakistani carpet weavers have started learning the art of Afghan weaving techniques in order to offset the impact of a massive exodus of Afghan refugees to their homeland, which has already caused a serious setback to Pakistan's carpet exports.

Carpet exporters have started utilizing the expertise of Afghan refugees, considered masters in weaving, to impart training to local workers so that dependence on Afghan weavers could be eliminated in the long run.

"Around 50-60 leading exporters individually have arranged this kind of facility. I think it will take one and a half years to switch over fully to local carpet weavers and to achieve the old production levels," vice chairman, Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters Association [PCMEA], Nisar A. Meer said.

The return of Afghan refugees, since some peace returned to war-torn Afghanistan last year, has adversely affected the local production and carpet exports and even today exporters still feel the pinch of the Afghans' return due to a continuous decline in exports.

Afghan refugees, mostly settled in the Peshawar and Attock areas and some in Sohrab Goth, were involved in over 50 per cent of carpet production accounting for roughly 60 per cent of carpet exports.

Carpet exports stood at US$233 million (4.75 million square metres) in 2001/02 as compared to US$289 million (6.4 million square metres) in 2000/01.

After 9/11, Pakistan's share of US carpet exports had plunged to 25-30 per cent from 55-60 per cent due to a recession in the market and the war in Afghanistan.

A decline in carpet exports still persists as revenue earnings in July-February 2002/03 has fallen by eight per cent to US$139 million (2.67 million square metres) as compared to US$153 million (3.17 million square metres).

There is still a shortfall in production of about one million square metres.

Rockets hit houses near governor's house in southwest Afghanistan
Tue Mar 11,12:16 PM ET AP
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Two rockets fired early Tuesday by unknown attackers hit homes near the house of the governor of one of the southwestern Afghan provinces where U.S. forces have been searching for Osama bin Laden, an official said. No one was injured.

"These terrorists were trying to hit the governor's house, but they missed their target," said Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the government of Helmand province.

He said the rockets were fired at 2:15 a.m. from a wooded area 2 kilometers (1 1/4 miles) southwest of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, the desert province west of Kandahar.

They hit two houses near the governor's house, but in an area away from the sleeping occupants, Wali said.

"We are trying to find the people who did this terrorist act," he said. "These terrorists don't want peace in Afghanistan."

He declined to blame any group.

"The investigation is going on," he said.

U.S. forces searching for bin Laden and other al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives have been operating in Helmand and farther to the west in Nimroz province, as well as along the rugged mountainous border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

US federal court rules Guantanamo Bay prisoners have no constitutional rights
WASHINGTON (AFX) - Prisoners held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not protected by the US Constitution, a federal court ruled yesterday.
Some of the prisoners, captured in Afghanistan as part of the US war on terrorism, had requested trial before a civilian court and the right to consult with a lawyer.

This ruling effectively denies them any representation.

The US Court of Appeals in Washington upheld the decision of a lower federal court, which had rejected the requests of 12 Kuwaitis, two UK nationals and two Australians.

"They cannot seek release based on violations of the Constitution or treaties or federal law. The courts are not open to them," the appeals court ruled.

The court further justified its decision by stating that the prisoners are not being held on territory over which the US exercises sovereignty.

The US has always recognised "the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba," the court noted.

The US leases the territory from Cuba, although Guantanamo Bay has been a US base since 1903.

Michael Ratner, the head of the Centre for Constitutional Rights in Washington said he is shocked by court's ruling.

"The right to test the lawfulness of one's detention is a foundation of liberty. The US is not only denying the detainees fundamental rights, but is jeopardising any claim that it is a country ruled by law," he said.

Lawyers speaking on behalf of Kuwaiti prisoners being held at the base also expressed their concern: "This is a sad day for American principles of justice and fairness. This decision ... gives a green light to United States officials to to imprison foreigners outside the rule of law," lawyers Thomas Wilner and Kristine Huskey said in a statement.

Following this ruling, the 650 people detained at Gauntanamo Bay have been stripped of their status as prisoners of war presently, a number are kept in isolation, except for interaction during interrogation sessions.

A number have been held for up to 14 months.

Pakistan: Land dispute threatening refugee camps over
ISLAMABAD, 11 March (IRIN) - A dispute with land owners that brought about the suspension of humanitarian supplies to some 72,000 Afghan refugees living in four refugee camps in the border town of Chaman in south-central Pakistan has been resolved, IRIN learnt on Tuesday.
"It was a local dispute that disrupted the provision of humanitarian aid for weeks last month, and was settled after an agreement that increased the number of local people to be employed there as chowkidars [guards]," a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jack Redden, told IRIN in Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The landowners blocked access to the Landi Karez, Roghani, Dara 1 and Dara 2 camps last month after the government's Commissioner of Afghan Refugees (CAR) in the southwestern Balochistan Province cut the number of guards from 20 to five in each camp due to financial constraints. Although their protest was suspended after a week, the landowners threatened to reimpose the blockade after six weeks if there was no agreement.

Afghans who fled in the wake of the US-led war against the former Taliban rulers live in the camps, all of which were affected by the last month's closure. "Even water was cut off at one point. Food distribution was halted, medical staff couldn't get into the health centres, and education was also disrupted," Redden said.

Under an agreement facilitated by Chaman's local administration between the representatives of the landowners, UNHCR and CAR last Thursday, landlords in the area gave their assurances that they would not block future humanitarian assistance to the refugees in the camps. In response, the CAR would employ eight guards per camp, which would be increased to 10 in the near future.

In addition, a tube-well in the Landi Karez camp would be installed subject to the availability of water, with tube-wells to be bored in the Dara 1 and Dara 2 camps as well.

Muhibullah, a logistics officer with the French NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) told IRIN from Chaman that health centres in the camps were completely closed for a few days in February, and protesting local people did not allow MSF medical staff to enter the camps. "We are happy that the dispute has been resolved. Now everything will be normal," he asserted.

"This is a step in the right direction for UNHCR, because it's recognition of the fact that there has to be a compromise with the owners of the land," Matthew Cogen, an aid worker with the international NGO, Concern, told IRIN from the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

Cogen added that their major concern were the thousands of stranded asylum seekers in the waiting area on the border, as well as the displaced in Spin Buldak across the border in Afghanistan. "In the refugee camps the conditions are not too bad, but they are appalling in the waiting area," he said.

U.S. Court Rejects Appeals by Afghan War Detainees
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kuwaiti, Australian and British citizens captured in the Afghanistan war and held at a U.S. military base in Cuba cannot use U.S. courts to contest the lawfulness and the conditions of their confinement, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The unanimous, three-judge panel's decision, denounced by civil rights groups, held U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to hear challenges by 12 Kuwaitis, two Britons and two Australians, who are being held without access to their families or to lawyers.

The 16 are among the approximately 600 Taliban and al Qaeda members at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay. They were captured in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led war that began right after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked plane attacks.

``They cannot seek release based on violations of the U.S. Constitution or treaties or federal law; the courts are not open to them,'' Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said.

Randolph said in the 18-page ruling that no court in the United States has jurisdiction to grant federal habeas relief to the detainees, even if they had not been declared enemies of the United States.

``We cannot see why, or how, the writ (of habeas corpus) may be made available to aliens abroad when basic constitutional protections are not,'' he wrote.

``If the Constitution does not entitle the detainees to due process, and it does not, they cannot invoke the jurisdiction of our courts to test the constitutionality or the legality of restraints on their liberty,'' Randolph concluded.

The appeals court upheld a ruling that dismissed the three lawsuits on the grounds that writs of habeas corpus were unavailable to aliens held outside U.S. territory.

Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the attorneys for the detainees, denounced the ruling.

RIGHT TO DAY IN COURT

``The right to test the lawfulness of one's detention is a foundation of liberty that has roots going back to the Magna Carta,'' he said. ``Every detained person has a right to his day in court.''

Amnesty International USA said continued denial of access to legal counsel violated U.S. obligations under international law.

``To hold people without charge and without access to legal counsel risks the creation of an 'American gulag' for those detained in the course of the war on terror,'' the human rights group said in a statement.

Lawyers for the detainees could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in the next few months.

The decision was a victory for the Bush administration's Justice Department, which said those being held at Guantanamo Bay have no rights under the U.S. legal system.

Attorney General John Ashcroft called the decision ``an important victory in the war on terrorism'' and added, ``In times of war, the president must be able to protect our nation from enemies who seek to harm innocent Americans.''

Lawyers for the foreign nationals argued the U.S. Constitution and international law forbade indefinite detention without providing them certain protections.

The ruling relied extensively on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1950, which held U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction to consider challenges by German prisoners captured during World War II while fighting with Japanese forces in China.

The prisoners, held at a U.S. Army prison in Germany, claimed violations of the U.S. Constitution, other U.S. laws and the 1929 Geneva Convention.

``The Guantanamo detainees have much in common with the German prisoners,'' Randolph wrote.

``They too are aliens, they too were captured during military operations, they were in a foreign country when captured, they are now in the custody of the American military and they have never had any presence in the United States,'' he said.

Afghan Pro - Democracy Coalition Formed
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) In a bid to combat the power of armed factions that still hold power in most of Afghanistan, dozens of political groups have formed a new coalition they hope will help introduce Western-style democracy and act as a counterweight to Islamic fundamentalism.

The National Democratic Front, which has been gathering strength for months, was officially launched during a ceremony Monday at a Kabul hotel, said Abul Ahrar Ramezpoor, a senior member of the coalition.

``Right now there are seven to eight major factions in Afghanistan. They all have arms and they are all very powerful,'' Ramezpoor said. ``The only way to compete with them is for us to join together and fight them together.''

Ramezpoor, who serves on the coalition's coordinating committee, said 45 groups including local unions and 15 political parties had joined. In total, members numbered over 40,000, he said.

The new coalition stands in the shadow of much larger, ethnically based factions like the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e-Islami, led by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a fundamentalist Muslim, and Jimbush-e-Milli, led by Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former communist.

Typically led by warlords with huge private armies at their disposal, such factions have ruled patches of territory in Afghanistan for years.

Their ranks are largely drawn from the Afghan mujahedeen guerrillas who fought the former Soviet Union during a 1979-1989 war that left 1.5 million people dead.

Between 1992 to 1996, however, those factions turned their guns on one another, destroying much of Kabul.

Today, five of them comprise the Northern Alliance, which captured the capital in late 2001 after a U.S.-led air assault helped oust the Taliban.

``They fought the Soviets in the 1980s and they fought each other in the 1990s,'' Ramezpoor said. ``Now they have offices in Kabul and control everything.''

Ramezpoor said Islamic fundamentalists including many from the Northern Alliance were flexing their muscles in government. He cited a recent decision by authorities to ban cable television.

The coalition hopes to serve as a counterweight to such extremist ideas, Ramezpoor said.

Instead of espousing religious views, still popular in this Muslim country, the Front's political platform focuses on Western ideas like human rights and women's rights, social justice and democracy.

But the coalition has a long way to go before it will be able to play any significant part in politics in Afghanistan.

For starters, no political parties are officially even registered in the country, which is still struggling to rewrite its justice codes and reform its legal system.

Ramezpoor said the National Democratic Front would push the government to establish new political laws to allow parties to register and, eventually, compete in presidential elections scheduled for June 2004.

Most important of all, though, the country's armed factions who now double as political parties would have to be disarmed to create a level playing field, Ramezpoor said.

A new nationwide program to disarm militias is due to get underway this spring. Few believe it will be an easy task.

A new national army is in the works to replace them, but so far it is only a few thousand strong. The authority of President Hamid Karzai's administration, which was formed during a loya jirga, or grand council in June 2002, is largely limited to the capital.

Ramezpoor, who served in the loya jirga as a delegate from Kabul, said the National Democratic Front had yet to elect a leader but expected to do so in the next few weeks.

The coalition has received no financial support from foreign governments. But Ramezpoor said the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit government-supported organization based in Washington that works to strengthen democracy worldwide, had provided stationery and helped arrange some meetings.

Amnesty International accuses Afghan police force of human rights violations, calls for reform
By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Human Rights watchdog Amnesty International called Wednesday for exhaustive reform of the Afghan police force, saying it was not only unable to protect people's rights but also guilty of violating them. Amnesty said in a report that Afghanistan's criminal justice system had gravely deteriorated over the last 23 years of war.

"After more than two decades of armed conflict during which human rights were routinely abused, the police force, prison system, and courts in Afghanistan have been almost completely destroyed. They offer virtually no protection to the Afghan people," the report said.

"Not only are police unable to guarantee the protection of human rights in Afghanistan, some members of the police are themselves involved in committing human rights violations."

The London-based rights group said detainees had been tortured with electric shocks and suffered "severe and prolonged beatings."

Police corruption was "becoming increasingly widespread" and many detainees across the country had been offered their freedom in return for large sums of money. The report cited the example of one man police offered to release for US$10,000 dollars; five months later, the figure was reduced to US$4,000.

In northern Balkh province, police were "visibly extorting 'donations' at checkpoints along the road." As a result, "stacks of (extorted) goods are piled alongside the checkpoints." Amnesty estimated there were about 50,000 police in Afghanistan, but said they "do not function as a united, civilian police force."

Many were former guerrilla fighters with "extensive military experience but little or no professional police training," the report said, adding their loyalties often rest with regional warlords rather than the government of President Hamid Karzai — whose authority is largely limited to the capital.

Amnesty said police officers often were unpaid or received wages so low they could barely support their families. Police stations lack basic resources — in some cases even pens and paper. "The combination of problems facing the police leaves officers ill-equipped to deal with their everyday policing role in a way that respects human rights," the report said.

Amnesty said no civilian oversight existed to impartially review police performance and investigate complaints. "This leaves the public with no recourse to justice if they are victim of human rights violations at the hands of the police."

The German government has helped rebuild the police academy in Kabul, trained Afghan officers and donated dozens of vehicles. But Amnesty said the Afghan government needs more help. "The reconstruction of a professional police force to uphold the rule of law across the country needs urgent attention," Amnesty said.