Afghanistan News October 29, 2003

October 29, 2003

Air Raid Kills 22 Taliban, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan
Tue Oct 28, 4:20 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - At least 22 guerrillas from the ousted Taliban regime and al Qaeda network were killed in an aerial attack by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan's southeastern Paktika province, the region's governor said on Tuesday.

Air support was called in after a group of Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives fired rockets and heavy machine-guns on a base used by U.S.-led troops and their Afghan allies in Shkin, near the Pakistan border, on Saturday, said Mohammad Ali Jalali.

Jalali told Reuters that he had heard unconfirmed reports that two U.S. soldiers may also have died, but the U.S. military in Afghanistan was not immediately available for comment.

"The 22 bodies for sure were Taliban and al Qaeda who got killed in the bombing," Jalali said.

The clash was separate from fighting in the Gomal district of Paktika on Friday in which 20 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban militants, including Arabs and Chechens, died, according to Paktika police chief Dawlat Khan.

More than 350 people, including civilians, foreign and government soldiers, aid workers and many rebels have been killed since August across Afghanistan.

The south and southeast have been worst affected by a wave of attacks blamed on remnants of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime which has declared a jihad, or holy war, against foreign troops in Afghanistan and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

The violence is the worst since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban from power late in 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

The U.S. military leads some 11,500 troops in the hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. The fate of bin Laden and Taliban supreme commander Mullah Omar remains unknown.

Two From CIA Killed in Afghanistan Ambush
By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two Americans working for the CIA have been killed in an ambush while tracking terrorists in Afghanistan, the agency said Tuesday.

The ambush Saturday happened on the same day and in the same region as a six-hour firefight in which U.S.-led coalition aircraft and Afghan militia killed 18 rebel fighters, the U.S. military reported from its headquarters in Afghanistan Tuesday.

Six Afghan militia soldiers were wounded in the fighting, but there were no coalition casualties, the military said. It was unclear whether the two incidents were linked, but the military did not explain why its account of the fighting was delayed by three days.

In Washington, the CIA identified the two men as William Carlson, 43, of Southern Pines, N.C., and Christopher Glenn Mueller, 32, of San Diego. Both were veterans of military special operations forces, the CIA said.

The fighting comes as Human Rights Watch warned in a report to be released Wednesday of a wave of violence and intimidation against candidates for a convention to help draft a new constitution.

The New York-based human rights group urged President Hamid Karzai to speak out against the violence, which it blamed on troops loyal to regional warlords, and to reduce the number of warlords at a December meeting to debate the constitution.

The Americans who were killed were "tracking terrorists operating in the region" of Shkin, a village in eastern Afghanistan, when they were killed Saturday, the CIA said in a statement.

The men worked for the CIA's Directorate of Operations, which conducts clandestine intelligence-gathering and covert operations.

The agency did not provide details of the ambush or the two operatives' mission.

The area they were operating in is part of the remote mountainous region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding. It also is a stronghold for al-Qaida, Taliban and other anti-U.S. fighters.

A statement in Afghanistan said U.S.-backed Afghan militia encountered as many as 25 anti-coalition forces Saturday while patrolling 27 miles south of a base in Shkin in the volatile Paktika province.

A rapid reaction force from Shkin base, 135 miles south of Kabul, was called in to reinforce the Afghan soldiers, the statement said.

A-10 Thunderbolt airplanes and Apache helicopters conducted air strikes while ground forces exchanged small-arms fire with the attackers, it said. One vehicle was destroyed, and the surviving rebels retreated. It said "approximately 18 enemy personnel" were killed.

The clash was reported Monday by Afghan officials, but they gave conflicting accounts. Tuesday's statement was the first by the coalition on the incident.

Mohammed Ali Jalali, governor of Paktika province, said Tuesday a separate battle Saturday in the province's Gomal district, about two miles from the Pakistan border, left 10 rebels dead — including four Arabs.

The coalition statement didn't specify if the attackers were former Taliban or al-Qaida terrorists. Remnants of those forces — ousted from power in late 2001 by the coalition — have mounted increasing attacks on coalition forces and their Afghan allies.

Carlson and Mueller are the third and fourth CIA operatives that the agency has acknowledged have been killed in Afghanistan in the line of duty since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"William Carlson and Christopher Mueller were defined by dedication and courage," CIA Director George J. Tenet said in a statement. "Their sacrifice for the peoples of the United States and Afghanistan must never be forgotten."

The CIA statement said the agency consulted with the dead officers' families and decided their names could be released without compromising ongoing operations.

The first CIA casualty, paramilitary officer Johnny Micheal Spann, was killed during an uprising of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners in northern Afghanistan on Nov. 25, 2001.

The second, Helge Boes, died in a training accident in eastern Afghanistan, on Feb. 5, 2003.

The remote regions on Afghanistan's frontier have poor communication and transport links, a possible reason for the delay and confusion about the battles.

Last week, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno told the U.N. Security Council that deteriorating security in Afghanistan was a significant obstacle to reconstruction. He claimed that the Taliban have established "de-facto control" in certain border areas, including in Paktika province, site of Saturday's fighting.

The Afghan government strongly rejected the U.N. official's claims the Taliban have taken control of border regions, and said threats to stability in the country shouldn't be exaggerated.

US will not be intimidated in Iraq, Afghanistan: Bush
Tue Oct 28,12:54 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States will not be intimidated by attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and is committed to making those countries "stable, independent nations," US President George W. Bush said.

"Desperate attacks on innocent civilians will not intimidate us," Bush told a press conference at the White House which followed a spate of suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital Baghdad which left dozens dead.

"We're now working with many nations to make sure Afghanistan and Iraq are never again a source of terror and danger for the rest of the world," he said.

"Our coalition is growing in numbers and growing in strength. Our purpose is clear and certain," the president said. "Iraq and Afghanistan will be stable, independent nations and their people will live in freedom."

Bush said he believes former members of Iraq's ruling Baath and foreign terrorists are behind the recent wave of bombings that have struck Iraq.

"I would assume that they are either, or and probably both Baathists and foreign terrorists," he said.

It is dangerous in Iraq," Bush said. "It's dangerous in Iraq because there are people who can't stand the thought of a free and peaceful Iraq."

"Reconstruction is difficult and freedom still has its enemies in both of those countries (Iraq and Afghanistan)," he said.

"These terrorists are targeting the very success and freedom we're providing to the Iraqi people. Their desperate attacks will not intimidate us or the brave Iraqis and Afghans who are joining in their own defense and removing toward self-government.

"They're not going to intimidate America and they're not going to intimidate the brave Iraqis who are actively participating in securing the freedom of their country," he said.

Bush also said the United States was "working closely" with Syria and Iran to try to prevent foreign militants from crossing into Iraq.

"We're working closely with those countries to let them know that we expect them to enforce borders, prevent people from coming across borders if, in fact, we catch them doing that," he said.

World Bank:Afghanistan Progressing But Still Impoverished
The Associated Press 10/28/2003
KABUL - A top World Bank official Tuesday praised Afghanistan's progress in the two years since the fall of the Taliban, noting the bustle of economic life on the capital's streets, but said more reforms are needed to lift the country from poverty.

Shengman Zhang, World Bank managing director, met with President Hamid Karzai and other top Afghan officials during his visit. He said they all called for greater World Bank involvement in the country's reconstruction.

"Despite the progress, the country is incredibly impoverished," Zhang told reporters after meeting with Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani. "Reforms are needed to tap the potential."

The World Bank is expected to contribute up to US$600 million to Afghan reconstruction in the period from January 2002 to June 2004.

During his visit, Zhang visited a village north of Kabul involved in a World Bank-funded infrastructure project. He also went to the Salang Tunnel - being rebuilt with World Bank financing - which traverses the key mountain pass between the north and south.

Iran Won't Hand Over al - Qaida Detainees
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS October 28, 2003
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran on Tuesday rejected a U.S. demand to hand over senior al-Qaida operatives, saying the terror suspects would stand trial in Iranian courts, state-run radio reported. The United States called the rejection an indication Iran is ``supporting terrorism.''

A day earlier, Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted senior al-Qaida operatives held by Iran should be turned over to their countries of origin or to the United States for interrogation and trial.

``Al-Qaida operatives currently in (our) custody have committed crimes in Iran,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted by the radio as saying. ``They will be tried in Iranian courts and will be punished on the basis of the laws of the country.''

Asefi said Powell's demand was ``irrelevant.''

Responding Tuesday in Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: ``We remain deeply concerned about these kind of objectionable and damaging policies that Iran has pursued with regard to supporting terrorism .... And we remain particularly concerned by the presence of senior al-Qaida figures in Iran.''

The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons and harboring al-Qaida fugitives. President Bush included Iran in his ``axis of evil'' along with North Korea and prewar Iraq.

The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since Americans were taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held for 444 days. Iranian revolutionaries toppled the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran in 1979 and replaced his government with one controlled by Muslim religious leaders.

Asefi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Sunday that Iran had given the U.N. Security Council the names of 225 suspected al-Qaida operatives it detained and returned to their countries.

When asked how many al-Qaida operatives were in Iranian custody, Asefi would only say they had ``a number of them.'' He said Iran would not reveal the number and names of al-Qaida suspects in custody for security reasons.

Asefi also said Iran told the United Nations about 2,300 people who sneaked across the border from Pakistan between October 2002 and July 2003 and were deported back to Pakistan.

Powell said Monday the U.S. administration was seeking ``clarification'' of the information Iran had provided to the United Nations. On Tuesday, Boucher said the United States still wants answers.

Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi confirmed in July that Iran was holding ``a large number of small and big-time elements of al-Qaida.''

American counterterrorism officials said last week that a handful of senior al-Qaida operatives who fled to Iran after the war in Afghanistan two years ago may have developed a working relationship with a secretive military unit linked to Iran's religious hard-liners.

The U.S. government is not certain of the extent of any contacts with the Iranian unit, called the Qods Force, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. intelligence suggests that al-Qaida figures in Iran include Saif al-Adl, a top al-Qaida agent possibly connected to May bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Abu Mohammed al-Masri, wanted in connection with the bombings of two U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom some U.S. officials describe as the key link between al-Qaida and toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein; and Osama bin Laden's eldest son, Saad.

The al-Qaida operatives are believed to have fled to Iran from neighboring Afghanistan during the Taliban's fall in 2001 or 2002

Don't forget Afghanistan: U.N. official
(Japan Times) - Internal divisions and the slow pace of development mean Afghanistan needs continued international assistance, a UNHCR official said Monday in Tokyo.

Although the world's attention has shifted to the reconstruction of Iraq, the international community needs to "refocus on the Afghan crisis," Filippo Grandi, Afghanistan Chief of Mission for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

"The issue is not Iraq or Afghanistan," he said, "it's Iraq and Afghanistan."

Grandi said relentless interfactional fighting is hampering the return of refugees and threatening the political process in the leadup to a vote on a new constitution by the year's end, as mapped out at an international conference in Bonn in late 2001.

He said that to ensure security, the U.N. needs money and a "small but visible presence of foreign troops" for patrols.

On Oct. 13, the U.N. Security Council authorized the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to expand the dispatch of troops beyond Kabul. But Grandi said only Germany has so far expressed its willingness to respond.

Appointed to his current post in August 2001, the UNHCR official said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and the subsequent strikes on Afghanistan "put the forgotten country back on the map" and enabled "the return of the largest number of refugees in centuries."

He added, however, that there are still 4 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran and a large number of displaced people within the country.

NATO can do more in Iraq, but Afghanistan priority
Reuters 10/28/2003
''Are we prepared to do more in Iraq? Yes, if we're asked,'' NATO spokesman Jamie Shea told a meeting in Madrid, saying the alliance had offered to provide logistical support to Turkish troops should they enter Iraq.

NATO already provides behind-the-scenes support to a Polish-led division of peacekeepers in Iraq.

''But the challenge for NATO is not Iraq, the challenge for NATO is making a success of Afghanistan,'' Shea said.

He said NATO was likely to take a decision in November about how much to expand its 5,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, before general elections planned for next year.

Earlier this month, NATO agreed to deploy the ISAF force outside the capital Kabul for the first time.

Shea said NATO hoped to increase the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) -- groups of aid workers under military protection -- in Afghanistan to between eight and 10, from the current four.

Of the four PRTs operating in Afghanistan right now, two are led by the United States with one each led by Britain and New Zealand.

The first ISAF troops in the Afghan provinces were expected to come from the Germany, which has expressed interest in sending up to 450 soldiers to the northern district of Kunduz to form a PRT.

''Obviously, we need to take on more missions in the south of the country,'' Shea said.

Kabul's beleaguered leader to risk all by sacking warlords
Sunday Times, UK 10/28/2003 By Christina Lamb
THE president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is planning to sack all warlords from his administration in a high-risk strategy aimed at stamping his authority on the country before elections next year.

Following Nato's decision to send peacekeeping troops throughout the country, a secret plan has been drawn up by Ali Ahmad Jalali, the interior minister and one of Karzai's few allies in the cabinet. The plan will see warlords stripped of their posts as military commanders, advisers or regional governors.

"There are basically two problems in this country: external terrorism and internal warlordism," Karzai said last week. "We can't tackle one without tackling the other."

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001 the warlords were made part of the western-backed government in recognition of their role in the fighting -and to prevent them taking up arms again. But they have retained private militias, spreading fear as they drive around at high speed in black Toyota Land Cruisers with tinted windows and mounted machineguns.

Earlier this month about 60 civilians were killed or injured in clashes in northern Afghanistan between two warlords, General Rashid Dostum and his army of Uzbeks, known as the galamjam or carpet thieves, and the Tajik commander Atta Mohammed.

Allies in the fight against the Taliban, the two men are vying for control of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Such power struggles are undermining the president, who is repeatedly described as the mayor of Kabul. With no army of his own, he is protected by American bodyguards funded by the US State Department.

A report published in July by Human Rights Watch, entitled Killing You is a Very Easy Thing for Us, documents how army and police officers under the command of warlords have raped women and kidnapped Afghans for ransom.

"Human rights abuses are being committed by warlords and gunmen propelled into power by the US and its coalition partners," said Brad Adams, executive director of the group's Asia division. "These men and others have essentially hijacked the country outside Kabul."

The president's patience has long been wearing thin. He was so incensed by a land-grab scandal in which ministers and warlords bulldozed houses with women and children inside that he stormed out of a cabinet meeting, calling the ministers "criminals and murderers".

He was also furious when his rivals took advantage of his recent visit to Britain by holding a meeting to decide who would stand against him in the elections. They failed to agree a candidate.

But taking on the warlords is a dangerous move that some fear could provoke a new civil war. Perhaps the most powerful warlord of all is Marshal Mohammed Fahim, the defence minister. Fahim has his own compound of tanks and heavy artillery only an hour outside Kabul, though he insists his army of Tajiks is not a private militia but is loyal to the central government.

Fahim's refusal to disarm his own men resulted in a year's delay to a United Nations-sponsored disarmament and demilitarisation programme. It was finally launched on Friday after Karzai shuffled 22 posts in the defence ministry to bring in more non-Tajiks.

However, many believe the plan to convince people to hand over guns in return for money and vouchers worth about £120 is pointless when there are militias with heavy artillery in Kabul, and is simply resulting in more guns being imported from Pakistan where an AK-47 can be bought for £80.

Afghan Militias Cling To Power in North
Officials Fear Reforms' Effects Are Limited
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, October 28, 2003; Page A18
MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan -- The Balkh Gate looks like any other traffic post along a busy rural highway. Bored police run an eye over crammed minibuses, poke their rifles among wheat sacks piled atop farm trucks, and then wave the vehicles on into this provincial capital.

But the gate is a valuable, hotly contested piece of political and military turf that has just been liberated, under considerable national and foreign pressure, from the clutches of local militia forces who squeezed hefty fees from drivers and protected the movement of their allies' men and weapons through the area.

"It's much better now," said Nasrullah, 25, a driver whose wheezing truck full of wheat, beans and farmhands was being inspected at the gate Sunday. "The old police forced me to pay about 50 Afghanis [$1] every time I came into the city. The new ones treat us much better, and they say I don't have to pay anything at all."

As part of an Oct. 9 cease-fire agreement between northern Afghanistan's two long-feuding militia bosses, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum and Gen. Attah Mohammad, a force of 300 newly trained national police officers were brought from Kabul two weeks ago to take over security in Mazar-e Sharif -- especially the checkpoints that served as militia chokeholds.

On Sunday, the government of President Hamid Karzai followed with a second, more dramatic move to curb the power of the two regional bosses. Officials announced they would replace the governors and police chiefs of four northern provinces and remove Dostum and Mohammad, giving both men jobs in Kabul, the capital, and joining their armed forces under a new, neutral commander.

"It is time for the north to be governed by the pen, not the gun," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told BBC Afghan-language radio Sunday night from this historic city of 1.5 million. Early this month, escalating tensions and scattered clashes between thousands of rival militia troops left at least 50 fighters dead or wounded and sent panic through the city, the capital of Balkh province.

Although both militia chiefs have reportedly agreed to the deal, many Afghans and foreign observers expressed doubt that even a high-level shuffle would bring enduring change to a region that has long been hostage to the brutal whims of ethnic commanders and the turf battles that frequently erupt among them.

For one thing, Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek who heads the left-leaning Jumbish-i-Milli party, and Mohammad, an ethnic Tajik from the Islamic Jamiat-i-Islami party, have been adversaries for well over a decade. Mohammad essentially controls Mazar-e Sharif, while Dostum has more forces in the countryside. Truces have been negotiated a dozen times, and the two men once signed a pact in Mecca, to no avail.

People agree it is not Dostum or Mohammad, but dozens of lower-level commanders from both sides, who truly wreak mayhem in the north -- fighting for control of villages, looting and extorting with impunity, and carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings and assassinations.

"This kind of thing goes on all the time. These commanders control a lot of resources, and they only answer to Dostum and Attah when it is convenient," said Michele Lipner, a U.N. adviser in Mazar-e Sharif.

Lipner suggested removing Dostum and Mohammad might actually make things worse. "There is a very fragile balance of power here," she said. "If you move them out, things may become unbalanced. The tumor is gone but the cancer spreads."

Independent civilian authority here has been weak to nonexistent, which has also led people here to doubt that change is imminent. Until Sunday, most senior administrative posts in the region, including prosecutors and police chiefs, were held by loyalists from one of the armed factions. And although the forces under Dostum and Mohammad are officially part of the Afghan Defense Ministry, they continue to function almost entirely as personal militias.

A contingent of British troops and civilians has been based here since early this year to reinforce Afghan government efforts to rein in the militias, yet their presence has done little to prevent the raw exercise of militia power.

The struggle for the Mazar-e Sharif checkpoints illustrates this problem. The police who arrived two weeks ago, under orders to begin patrolling the city, encountered such stiff resistance from Mohammad's commanders that they have been able to take control of only a few checkpoints.

"We're supposed to be a force for peace. We're not here to fight anyone," said Col. Ahmaduddin, a police official. "The government and the United Nations are behind us, but the [local commanders] are not ready to give up their posts, and they are still moving their militias around the city. Until the problem is solved, there is nothing we can do."

Dostum and Mohammad have each said they are eager for peace and willing to disarm -- as long as the other takes the first step. They express deep mistrust and contempt for each other. After the recent clashes, in which Dostum's forces made considerable territorial gains, his aides accused Mohammad's forces of behaving like criminal gangs, while Mohammad's lieutenants dismissed Dostum as an arrogant, bloodthirsty tyrant.

The armed showdown outside Mazar-e Sharif and smaller clashes in scattered rural areas were precipitated in part by the alleged kidnapping of one of Dostum's commanders, known as Gen. Habib, by two of Mohammad's commanders. The suspects were arrested, and the truce negotiated by Afghan and foreign officials called for an investigation into such crimes. But Mohammad's men have since been released, leaving Habib's allies eager for vengeance.

"Hundreds of people in the bazaar saw what these men did, yet they are free and my brother is still missing," said Faisullah, 52, a burly older brother of Habib, standing outside the family compound in a village west of Mazar-e Sharif. "The government asked us to wait, but we can't wait forever. If there is no response, we will all be ready to fight. As they kidnap, we will kidnap. As they kill, we will kill."

Many local residents said the only way to wrest the region from the warlords is to disarm their forces. That is precisely what the Karzai government hopes to do in the coming months, by extending a program that was launched last week in Kunduz, another northern province, to disarm and retrain thousands of militia fighters.

But the cycles of violence and turf warfare have made many people cynical about the prospects for change and worried that their region, cut off from the rest of Afghanistan by a mountain range, will stagnate while other major cities such as Kabul and Herat begin to recover after 23 years of conflict.

In Mazar-e Sharif, home to a respected university and a majestic blue-tiled Muslim shrine, several people said that no matter what the Karzai government does, only the arrival of foreign troops can neutralize the warlords' power. "These men have been fighting each other for so long, it has become a habit. They need to be replaced and disarmed from outside," said Yama Sharaf, a law professor at Balkh University.

In the countryside, people familiar with both militias cast equal blame on Dostum and Mohammad. In Cod-e-Barq, a village long controlled by Dostum, some residents said both armies should be disbanded, but others said the militiamen would never put down their guns unless forced to do so.

"We have a shaky stability here right now, but only because the foreigners got involved," said Jan Mohammad, 41, an engineer. "Every time there is a truce, the fighting starts again. We can have 10 truces and 10 oaths, but neither of these forces is ready to give up its weapons. The whole structure has to be destroyed from top to bottom. Otherwise, sooner or later they will start killing people again."

Afghanistan Weighs Use of Islamic Law
Tue Oct 28, 2:10 AM ET By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Judge Khoja Ahmad Saddiqi could order a thief's hand amputated as punishment, as the former Taliban regime did under their extremist interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah.

But in the two years since the Taliban were forced from power, Saddiqi, head of the Afghan Supreme Court's judicial and criminal division, hasn't yet ordered the knife to be used on any crooks.

"If we implement Shariah correctly, there's no need to cut off a hand," and rarely would an execution be handed down by the courts, said Saddiqi, whose thick black beard and swirling turban indicate his status as a mullah, a Muslim cleric who also leads prayers at a Kabul mosque.

As Afghans mark the start Monday of Ramadan — the holiest time of year for Muslims, when they believe God began to reveal the holy book Quran to the Prophet Muhammad — the framers of the country's post-Taliban constitution are debating just how much of those 1,400-year-old lessons to include.

A constitutional commission has been laboring over a draft for months, and its much-delayed release is expected in the coming days. An assembly of representatives from across the country is to consider the draft in December, paving the way for nationwide elections in June 2004.

The implementation of Shariah is especially sensitive here, given its harsh imposition by the Taliban who forced men to grow beards and pray, banned women from schools and most jobs, and toppled walls onto homosexuals to crush them to death.

While recognizing the fundamental fact that Afghanistan (news - web sites) is an Islamic nation — with a nearly 100 percent Muslim population — the latest version of the constitution shies away from mentioning Shariah.

The spirit of the current draft is of "a society that's moderately Islamic but also lives in peace and understanding with the rest of the world," said Jawid Luddin, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman.

Early drafts of the document included Shariah, and conservatives have continued to push for making it the basis of all laws, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. The group has lobbied the constitution's drafters to remove Shariah and include freedom of religion in the draft law.

"It's very easy to misuse Shariah against the basic rights of people," Nadery said.

Instead of Shariah, the constitution is set to include an article stating that "no laws shall run counter to the sacred principles of Islam," as written in an earlier draft copy obtained by The Associated Press. The country will be officially known as "the Islamic republic of Afghanistan."

It will be left to lawmakers later to iron out how that translates into the specifics of the criminal and civil code. They also will decide whether to legislate other tenets of the Islamic faith, including whether to prohibit alcohol, make adultery a crime and how to sentence thieves.

Especially critical will be how far the laws go to protect women's rights, recalling the harsh discrimination they suffered under the Taliban who forced their virtual disappearance from all public life.

Judge Saddiqi thumbed a white paperback copy of the criminal code from 1976, when Afghanistan was ruled by King Mohammad Zaher Shah, that he still uses today — although he said Shariah law remains his first reference in tricky cases.

He said the Taliban's lightning-speed trials — sentencing a thief one week and having a doctor using anesthesia cut off his hand the next — bore no resemblance to real Shariah law.

Instead, Saddiqi said courts observing Shariah must look at the circumstances surrounding the crime.

"If this thief is stealing out of poverty, if his children are crying for bread, then we should consider this" in the verdict and consider more lenient measures, he said. Saddiqi said women should wear veils according to the Muslim faith, but that doesn't mean they must be cloistered at home as the Taliban required.

"There's a big difference between Taliban law and Shariah law," he said.

While most Arab states define themselves as Muslim nations in their constitution, some call Shariah the basis of their laws and some do not mention Shariah at all. Saudi Arabia enforces a version of Islamic law that is somewhat less strict than the Taliban's.

At Kabul's dilapidated Daral-e-Hafuz madrassah, or religious school, students huddle in windowless classrooms in the half of the building left untouched by rockets and bombs. They were emphatic they don't want anything that comes from the Taliban — but still said Shariah must be part of Afghan law.

For example, Abdul Karim, 17, said banning only the public consumption of alcohol wouldn't be sufficient to comply with Shariah. "At that time we will raise our hands" in protest, he said.

"We do want Islamic law, we want Shariah in our constitution," said the school's deputy director, Mohammadullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name. "We want democracy too, but not like in Western countries, democracy that can respect Islamic laws."

Afghan farmers turn to opium poppy to survive
Reuters 10/28/2003 By Simon Denyer
JURUM, Afghanistan - They are already sowing next year's poppy crop in the fields of Afghanistan's remote and mountainous north, openly farming the opium that will one day end up as heroin on the streets of Europe.

But it is impossible not to sympathise with the farmers of Badakshan, a rustic and achingly beautiful land of snow-capped peaks and grinding poverty that is also one of Afghanistan's main opium producing regions.

"During the civil war people lost everything, and it is only through poppy farming that they are able to provide for their families and build a decent home," said Haq Abdur Rahim, standing among his fields as his workers ploughed and sowed.

Rahim says he earns $3,000 for the 10 kg (22 lb) of opium he can produce from a single, tiny field, compared with just $10 for growing the 60 kg (132 lb) of wheat the same plot would yield "which isn't even enough to pay the wages of the workers".

"Unless the government provides us jobs and solves our problems, they should let us continue growing poppies. But when they fulfil their promises, we ourselves will stop," he said.

On Wednesday the United Nations will release its 2003 Afghan opium survey, showing a small rise in production in a country already accounting for 75 percent of global supply.

Worryingly, the U.N. survey shows poppy cultivation expanding to regions it has never been seen in before.

But the biggest rise has come in the northeastern province of Badakshan, offsetting progress in eradicating poppy fields in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

"Badakshan is really a problem province," said Adam Bouloukos of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Kabul.

"This is largely because the province was almost entirely cut off from central government, both politically and physically."

WAR, POVERTY, OFFICIAL COLLUSION
Opium poppies have been grown in Badakshan for centuries, but cultivation took off during the upheavals of Afghanistan's two decades of war and occupation.

Government officials have often done little to prevent it, and have even been accused of running small laboratories to process the opium into heroin.

Bouloukos said two senior provincial officials suspected of involvement in the drugs trade were recently replaced.

Just before last year's harvest government officials offered to pay farmers $300 a field to destroy their crops. Rahim's poppies were mown down, but the money never came.

"The officials just escaped with the money," Rahim said. "That left everyone in debt, and it meant we had no choice but to grow more."

The opium trade is thought to be worth $2.5 billion a year to Afghanistan; roughly twice as much as international aid and between 40 and 50 percent of the country's total economy.

Around the isolated village of Jurum in Badakshan, every field is turned over to poppy cultivation.

Shiny red motorbikes parked alongside a big street market, full of imported clothes and goods, betray the wealth the trade has brought, in a province where the donkey or foot are more usual modes of transport.

DRUGS FILL THE VACUUM
Three years ago the fundamentalist Taliban regime had some success in forcing farmers to stop growing opium, especially in their southern heartland.

But the trade has mushroomed since they were ousted from power, and these days the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai is not strong enough, politically or militarily, to force farmers to give up the trade.

In Badakshan the terrain is not on their side.

"We have always grown opium here," said Rahim. "Look around at these mountains. There are places you cannot reach except by foot, and villagers will not show officials their fields."

Officials recognise the stick must come with a carrot to encourage farmers to give up. But Afghanistan is no longer top of the world's priority list, and aid is not coming in fast enough to make a difference in Badakshan or other opium regions.

"What the drug trade has proved is that it will fill the vacuum," said Paul O'Brien of aid agency Care. "Unless we fill the gaps in security and reconstruction, the trade will continue growing."

Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai warns his country risks turning into a narco-mafia state unless the outside world dramatically steps up aid.

Rahim, an affable white-beared farmer, is certainly no drugs lord. Last year he says he earned more than he could count but says it all goes on his two wives and 13 children.

His nine-year-old daughter Mahi Munir earns $20 a day for lancing poppies during the harvest. "I spend the money on schoolbooks, pens and clothes," she said. "And sometimes, if I am hungry, I buy myself something to eat."

Afghans begin fasting under military shadow
AFP 10/28/2003
KABUL - Tens of millions of Afghans began fasting yesterday in observance of the holy month of Ramadan, heading out to pray in pre-dawn darkness through streets patrolled by tanks, foreign peacekeepers and local militiamen.

The heavy militarisation is a constant reminder of the insecurity pervading Afghanistan as it marks its second Ramadan since the ultra-conservative Taliban rulers were ousted by US-led forces in late 2001.

After rising early to eat before fasting, rows of 400 men and boys kneeled in rows in Kabul's blue-domed Pul-e-Khishti mosque for the first of the five daily prayers at 5 am (0030 GMT) as tanks prowled by outside, manned by heavily-armed peacekeepers from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).

The mountain-ringed capital is a maze of barbed wired, barricaded, high-walled compounds, a sign of the lurking dangers from attackers who fire rockets on Western targets including Isaf compounds.

The US embassy recently extended its outer wall barricades, taking up nearly a third of a main boulevarde known as Radio Street, amid predictions of rising terrorist threats.

Ramadan, a time for dawn-till-dusk abstention, introspection, charity and family gatherings, is being celebrated by Afghanistan's 28m Muslims under a raft of grim security assessments.

But the mood in Kabul's bazaars was buoyant as shoppers prepared to break their fast in warm autumn sunshine.

UN rejects Karzai criticism
AFP 10/28/2003
United Nations: The United Nations said it stood by a report on the detriorating security situation in Afghanistan that President Hamid Karzai called exaggerated and "essentially mistaken."

The report, delivered by top UN peacekeeping official Jean-Marie Guehenno, said the ousted Taliban were resurgent and had taken control of some border areas, and that fundamental security issues remained unresolved.

"The report encompasses activities in Afghanistan over the past several months and we stand by it," a political affairs and press officer in Guehenno's office, David Wimhurst, told AFP.

"We look forward to discussing the president's views but we do stand by the report as it was presented," he said.

On Sunday, Karzai in a statement "strongly rejected" Guehenno's claim that his fledgling Afghan government had lost control of several border regions to the Taliban.

"There is not a single district in the areas referred to in the report where the central government does not exercise full control," Karzai said.

"The extent and impact of the threats in the country as a whole must not be exaggerated."

In his report to the UN Security Council on Friday, Guehenno said UN work had been suspended in four provinces and that rebuilding costs were likely to be more than five times higher than previously predicted.

Guehenno, the UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, said there were "worrying signs" that political support for Karzai's government was weakening, adding: "Many of the fundamental, structural causes of insecurity remain unresolved."

Earlier this month the Security Council authorised NATO-led peacekeepers to work outside the capital Kabul in a bid to help stem the lawlessness that continues to plague the country nearly two years after the Taliban's ouster.

Iran says it warned of al Qaeda's 'fanatic nature'
By Evelyn Leopold Tuesday October 28, 10:20 AM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Defending its handling of terror networks, Iran told the United Nations it had warned the world of the "fanatic nature" of the Taliban and al Qaeda networks long before anyone else, according to a report released on Monday.

Iran submitted the report to a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee on Afghanistan about a month ago. But an extensive list of suspected Taliban or al Qaeda associates accompanying the document was only delivered several days ago, said Chilean Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, chairman of the panel.

The committee's task is to enforce an embargo on travel and arms deals and a freeze on the financial assets of the Taliban, al Qaeda and its associates by compiling a list of suspects.

The Iranian list includes 78 names of people detained or deported from Iran to their countries of origin and about 2,300 names of people who crossed the border from Pakistan, including refugees, and were sent back.

Another 147 names have been submitted to the committee by Iran and will circulate among the 15 council members to see if they will be put on the Security Council's consolidated list, Munoz said.

As Afghanistan's neighbor, Iran had for years opposed the former Taliban rulers, which harbored Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Still, U.S. counterterrorism officials say a handful of senior al Qaeda operatives fled to Iran after the Afghan war and may have a relationship with a military unit linked to Tehran's religious hard-liners.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran did not authorize any sort of activity by the Taliban, Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda in its territory from the early days of their domination over Afghanistan due to their sectarian, reactionary and fanatic nature," the Tehran government said in the report.

"Moreover, proper warnings were issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the international community regarding the threat they posed against regional and international peace and security," the report said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Iran should turn over members of al Qaeda to the United States and not just publicize a list of them.

"Iran has in the past turned over some al Qaeda to third countries. However, frankly, we're not aware of any particular progress with regards to the al Qaeda who are currently in detention," Boucher said.

"And the Iranians have previously stated that that includes senior al Qaeda officials," he added.

So far, the U.N. committee's list includes about 123 people and 98 groups or businesses associated with al Qaeda and another 151 people linked to the Taliban. Most of the names have been submitted by the United States, which has to agree before anyone can remove a suspect from the roster.

An independent U.N. panel has criticized the list, saying it contains many misspellings and was compiled with little due process. At the moment, any Security Council member can put anyone on the list, with recourse for the accused difficult.

UNEP project to integrate environment into Afghanistan's development strategy
United Nations Environment Programme 28 Oct 2003 UNEP Press Release 2003/58
Kabul/Nairobi, 28 October 2003 - At the request of the Transitional Islamic Government of Afghanistan, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) together with the European Commission and the Ministry of Irrigation, Water Resources and Environment (MIWRE) today announced a EUR 4.27 million programme to promote good environmental governance and to support the rehabilitation of the country's environment.

The two phased project, largely funded with EUR 3.75 million from the European Commission, will address the key environmental intervention priorities inscribed in the 1382 National Development Budget of the Government of Afghanistan. These interventions aim to address many of the institutional recommendations contained in UNEP's January 2003 "Afghanistan Post-conflict Environmental Assessment" report.

With an initial funding of EUR 973.000, phase one of the project was launched in Kabul today as a part of the European Commissionâ€™s Public Administration Programme. The first phase will organize and build the capacity of a specialized environmental Afghan public administration.

The second phase of the programme, beginning in 2004, supported with another EUR 3,3 million, will further strengthen the capacity of the Ministry's Department of Environment. This phase will also address other pressing environmental needs such as the development of a protected areas network and related management plans, and the development of environmental education at the university, secondary, primary, and community level.

The combined 30 month programme will strengthen the government's on-going commitment to incorporate environmental and sustainable development priorities into Afghanistan's National Development Framework.

The UNEP Post Conflict Environmental Assessment found that much of the countryâ€™s environment has been degraded to an alarming extent, with potentially serious implications for human health. The report highlighted the pressures that conflict, poverty and population growth have placed on freshwater, soils, forests, wildlife and other natural resources. Poor environmental management of wastes has further contributed to health risks.

"Afghanistan's natural environment is a critical asset for the future development of the country," said Minister of Environment Dr. Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani. "By strengthening the government's ability to manage these environmental and natural resources, this project will make an invaluable contribution to Afghanistanâ€™s future."

A healthy natural environment and the adoption of sustainable development as a guiding principle are vital to any long-term strategy for economic and social development," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Topfer.

"UNEP is committed to supporting efforts by the Afghan authorities to rehabilitate the country's environment - which has been devastated by over 30 years of conflict - and to promote the sustainable management of its natural resources," he said.

"During the last decade, the Commission struggled to support efforts to protect the environment under near impossible conditions and with no functioning government partner. So today it is clear that we have reason to be optimistic as we can finally address the need to protect Afghanistan's environment. And we are proud to be able to support our government partners and welcome the continuing efforts of the UN", noted The European Commission's Head of Operations in Kabul, Jean-Francois Cautain.

The "Capacity and Institution Building for Environmental Management in Afghanistan" project will support a team of six Afghan and international experts, together with a pool of short-term experts. Located within the Department of Environment, they will train up to 45 Ministry staff and conduct training workshops for environmental stakeholders and inter-ministerial task forces.

The project will provide training and technical support in order to:

1. Facilitate consultation, coordination, cooperation and the mainstreaming of environmental issues and projects within the National Development Framework.

2. Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Department of Environment in accordance with the national restructuring process.

3. Contribute to institutionalizing environmental impact assessment through the development of Environmental Impact Assessment policies, procedures and legislation.

4. Contribute to developing national environmental policy and a national environmental action plan and mechanisms for inter-ministerial coordination.

5. Contribute to institutionalizing environmental laws and regulations by developing an environmental legal and regulatory framework.

6. Facilitate state-of-the-environment reporting by developing environmental quality monitoring, information management, analyses and reporting.

7. Increase public awareness of environmental issues by developing awareness campaigns, public reporting, environmental education and participation in decision making.

8. Contribute to re-establishing linkages between national, provincial and local levels of government by developing pilot projects on provincial and local-level environmental management.

9. Assist in implementing multilateral and regional environmental agreements by developing project proposals and strengthening legal harmonization and reporting.

Note to journalists: For more information, please contact in Nairobi Eric Falt at +254-2-62-3292, +254-733-682656 (cell) or eric.falt@unep.org; Nick Nuttall at +254-2-62-3084, +254-733-632755 (cell) or nick.nuttall@unep.org; or in Geneva Michael Williams at +41-22-917-8242/8196/8244, +41-79-409-1528 (cell) or michael.williams@unep.ch.

More than 2.5 million Afghans have returned home
(UN - Press Release) - The United Nations refugee agency announced today that more than 2.5 million Afghans have returned to their homeland since a repatriation programme began in March last year.

At a press briefing in Geneva, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the number of people returning from Iran has just passed 600,000. The agency said the number returning from Pakistan topped 1.9 million today.

Spokesman Kris Janowski said most refugees returned to central and northern Afghanistan, but that about a quarter remained in the country's west, which borders Iran. UNHCR estimates about 1.1 million refugees remain in camps inside Pakistan, and another 1 million live in Iran.

UNHCR's representative in Pakistan, Hasim Utkan, described the current period as "especially rewarding" given the volume of refugees who left Afghanistan for Pakistan since 1979. "This has been a tremendously exciting time to be here," he said.

The pace of returning refugees has slowed down, as UNHCR expected, with the imminent arrival of winter in Afghanistan. The agency supplies returning refugees with transport, a travel grant, food, relief items and the opportunity to take part in a shelter programme.

UNHCR organized the repatriation scheme in concert with the Governments of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, and ends in 2005.

United States Prepared to Resume Contacts with Iran
Tue Oct 28, 7:04 PM ET By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was prepared to resume limited contacts with the Iranian government but relations would not improve until the Iranians share intelligence about al Qaeda members in Iran.

"We are prepared to engage in limited discussions with the government of Iran about areas of mutual interest as appropriate," said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

"We have not, however, entered into any broad dialogue with the aim of normalizing relations," he added, in testimony prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We are prepared to meet again in the future, but only if that would serve U.S. interests," he said.

After a series of meetings with Iranian officials in Geneva earlier this year, U.S. officials held their last such talks in early May.

Washington canceled a further round after the May 12 bombings in Riyadh because it believed Iran was sheltering members of al Qaeda, the group blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States as well as the Riyadh bombings.

Armitage repeated the U.S. view that it must "keep all available options on the table" -- code for the possibility of using U.S. military force -- but he placed far greater emphasis on the possibility of resuming talks with Iran.

In his prepared statement, Armitage did not explicitly link resuming contacts with progress on the al Qaeda dispute and he later told reporters that the two were not necessarily linked.

But he did link Iran's cooperation on al Qaeda with the future of relations between the two countries, which have not had diplomatic ties since soon after the revolution of 1979.

"NO PRE-CONDITIONS" FOR TALKS
"Despite public statements that they would cooperate with other countries, the Iranians have refused repeated requests to turn over or share intelligence about all al Qaeda members and leaders they claim to have in custody," Armitage said.

"As the president (George W. Bush) made clear last week, Iran must change its course on this front: resolution of this issue would be an important step in U.S.-Iranian relations and we cannot move forward without this step," he added.

Armitage later told reporters: "I didn't put any preconditions (for contacts), nor did I say we would do it if they asked. I said that we'll do it when we think it's in our interest on discrete (issues)."

On Sunday Iran said it had given the names of extradited al Qaeda suspects to the U.N. Security Council but declined to give any details of detainees remaining within the country.

Washington dismissed the Iranian move, saying Iran should turn over all al Qaeda members to the United States, their country of origin or third countries.

Washington also voiced concerns about reports of senior al Qaeda members in Iran. The country borders Afghanistan, which U.S. forces invaded nearly two years ago to destroy al Qaeda bases and oust the Taliban leadership that supported them.

Iran, which Bush has described as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea, has ruled out handing over any al Qaeda members to the United States but said it will extradite some of those it has arrested to unspecified "friendly countries."

Despite saying the United States must keep all options on the table, when asked by one senator if regime change was the U.S. policy toward Iran, Armitage crisply replied: "No sir."

He summarized Washington's policy as seeking to eliminate what he called Tehran's "disruptive" activities such as the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, repression of human rights and state sponsorship of terrorism.