Afghanistan News January 10, 2003

January 10, 2004

Britain training Afghan commandos for heroin raids
LONDON, (AFP) - British special forces are secretly training an elite team of Afghan commandos whose mission is to destroy heroin laboratories and confiscate drug caches and shipments, the Financial Times quoted Afghan and western officials as saying.

The first significant deployment of the force, which numbers about 100, was on January 2 when a US air strike formed part of a raid on a heroin laboratory in the northern province of Badakhshan, the newspaper said.

A team of Afghan commandos raided the laboratory, about 10 miles (16 kilometres) north of the provincial capital Faisabad, and arrested several people working there, officials said according to the newspaper.

Coalition spokesman Matthew Beevers confirmed to the newspaper that 1.5 tonnes of opium were seized and several people arrested by Afghan and coalition special operations forces but declined to comment on whether British agents were involved.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, from which heroin is derived. Some 3,600 tonnes of opium were harvested in Afghanistan last year, a six-percent jump on 2002, according to United Nations figures. The country produces 77 percent of the world's opium, according to a United Nations agency aimed at fighting drug production and trafficking.

Two Pakistani soldiers killed in tribal area rocket attack
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and two seriously injured when a rocket hit an army camp in a tribal area following an operation to capture terror suspects, military officials said. "A rocket hit an army camp in Wana late Thursday, killing two soldiers and critically wounding two others," an officer told AFP on Friday.

He said there was no evidence to suggest that the attack was linked to Thursday's military operation against suspected foreign terrorists in the nearby Kalu Shah village in the tribal South Waziristan area. An investigation is under way, he added.

Thursday's offensive in the remote Kalu Shah village was launched on suspicions that some foreign terrorists were hiding in the rugged tribal terrain near the Afghan border. However, the troops found no foreign terror suspects, military officials said.

During the offensive, the troops combed Kalu Shah village near Wana, which lies around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Afghan border. "The army search which was backed up by helicopter has concluded and no foreign suspects have been found," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP.

Local officials said helicopter gunships had fired at five houses during the operation when troops had come under fire. Three houses were damaged in the action but there were no civilian casualties.

Sultan said a few locals had been taken in for questioning in connection with intelligence reports about the presence of foreign terrorists, after which the search operation was launched. Last year, the military carried out two major operations in South Waziristan, which borders the rebel infested eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province.

In the latest of the two in early October, eight al-Qaeda suspects and two soldiers were killed and 18 suspects arrested. Those killed in military action on October 2 included a Chinese Muslim militant named Hasan Mahsum, who was recently identified by China as its top "terrorist" along with 10 other ethnic Uighur Muslim separatists, all from China's western Xinjiang region. Pakistan has arrested more than 500 al-Qaeda suspects since the fall of hardline Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Pakistan Has No Major Arrests in Raid
Associated Press January 9
Pakistani authorities detained 28 local tribesmen in a raid on suspected terrorists in a remote region near the border with Afghanistan, but did not find any of the suspected al-Qaida members they sought, officials said Friday.

All those detained belonged to the Wazir tribe, the predominant people of South Waziristan, a semiautonomous tribal area and one of the main suspected hideouts for Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida fugitives.

Soldiers and paramilitary rangers raided three compounds Thursday in the village of Kalosha after receiving a tip that 15 to 20 armed foreign fighters were hiding there. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, a spokesman for the Pakistan army, said Friday that the troops were still looking for suspected foreign terrorists in Wana, but he downplayed the significance of the operation.

"It was not a high-profile operation. It was a search operation," Sultan said. He refused to give any other operational details and would not confirm that any arrests had been made.

Sultan said two paramilitary rangers were killed and two wounded when a rocket hit their base camp in Wana on Thursday evening, after the raid was over. Sultan said it was not clear who fired the rocket, but that the attack was not linked to the raid. Fiercely independent tribesmen often target the Pakistani military when soldiers venture into their area.

A local official in Wana, the administrative center of South Waziristan, said 28 tribesmen were taken in and that elders were demanding their release. Under Pakistani law, an entire tribe is responsible for any crime committed by one of its members and can be punished collectively. Tribal elders are expected to work with authorities and turn in any criminals. In return, the tribes have deep autonomy over their affairs.

Another security official in Wana told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the tribesmen were being questioned about who had been at the compounds. He said the search would go on for the foreigners.

"The operation has ended but the search will continue until we find those foreign terrorists who were believed to be hiding at the three homes in Wana," the official said. Some gunfire was exchanged during Thursday's operation, but it was not clear if it came from the foreign suspects or from local people, the official said.

The operations followed a bloody series of attacks this week in Afghanistan suspected of being carried out by Taliban and possibly al-Qaida fighters, amid apparent new calls by bin Laden in a taped message for Muslims to attack U.S. forces and their allies.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said he welcomed word of the operation. "I hope it will succeed in apprehending senior members of al-Qaida and the Taliban," he said.

The closest American base to Wana is at Shkin, just across the border in Afghanistan's Paktika province, one of the main areas of Taliban resistance to the U.S. military presence. Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Kabul, said U.S. solders at firebases like Shkin were carrying out "routine" operations, such as vehicle checks and patrols.

"Our operations in the south and east are always very aggressive," Beevers said. "We watch the border very closely." the ousted Taliban militia has staged several ambushes and frequently fires rockets at U.S. bases in the area, with fighters retreating across the border into Pakistan afterward.

A voice purported to be that of bin Laden urged Muslims in an audiotape message broadcast Sunday by the Al-Jazeera TV network to "liberate the Islamic world from the military occupation of the crusaders," a reference to U.S. troops and their allies.

Taliban renew attacks, and Afghan toll rises
New York Times 01/09/04 Carlotta Gall
The Taliban have returned to the offensive in southern Afghanistan with a series of attacks and bombings, Afghan officials said. After something of a lull during the loya jirga, the recent meeting of the Grand Council, Taliban militants have killed at least 29 people in recent days.

Twelve civilians were executed on a remote mountain road in Helmand Province, west of Kandahar, on Tuesday night, Afghan officials asserted. The attack had all the hallmarks of Taliban militants, police and human rights officials said. On Thursday, two Afghan soldiers were wounded in a bomb blast at a military base in Kandahar.

The latest attacks came after a double bomb blast in Kandahar that killed at least 15 people and wounded 55. Among the dead and wounded in that attack on Tuesday were several children. Officials blamed the Taliban, citing intelligence reports warning that the Taliban was preparing a campaign of urban violence.

The U.S. military said on Thursday that it had evacuated 28 wounded from the double bombing to their field hospital at an air base east of the city. Three of the wounded died, and the others were treated in military hospitals in Bagram and Kandahar. In addition, 30 people were treated at the civilian hospital in Kandahar. The attack on the 12 civilians was a calculated murder, said Colonel Muhammad Ayub, a police official in Helmand Province.

The civilians were villagers among a group of 20 traveling from their home in Kijeran in Oruzgan Province south through Helmand to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, witnesses said. They had stopped for the night at a small hotel when at 10 p.m. gunmen surrounded the building and broke in, tying the hands of the travelers. They took the 12 men outside and executed them, the witnesses said.

The men who were killed were all Shia Hazaras, said Musa Husseini, 30, who said he arrived at the village on Wednesday morning and saw the bodies. Six men were missing and two had managed to escape. One was wounded in the shooting and was now in a hospital, he said.

"Obviously, it is those people who are against national unity and are making problems between the tribes," Ayub said. "We are investigating into it, but I am sure it is those terrorists - Taliban, Al Qaeda and followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar," a renegade militia commander who has called for a jihad against President Hamid Karzai and the United States.

Amir Muhammad Ansari, the local representative of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said, "Unfortunately, the situation is bad in these provinces." He said that some of those behind the violence and instability in the region were allied to the government, in particular commanders who often fight one another. "The Taliban are taking advantage of this situation and making things worse," he said.

In Kabul, Nader Naderi, chief spokesman of the Human Rights Commission, said, "The nature of attacks of the Taliban in the last six to eight months is that they are not choosing targets on specific grounds. They are attacking any accessible target that creates an impact. To attack Afghan nationalities, such as the Hazaras, is easy. It is a soft target and makes a noise." Forces of the coalition led by the U.S. recently established a provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar to try to enhance security and increase reconstruction efforts in the region. The U.S. military and aid officials have picked Kandahar to be the center of regional development to try to improve the general situation before elections next summer.

2 Afghan Troops Hurt in Kandahar Attack
Associated Press January 9
Two Afghan soldiers were wounded by a bomb Thursday just yards from the spot where a double blast killed 15 children earlier this week, officials said. The bomb exploded on the roof of a building at the edge of a sprawling military compound in eastern Kandahar where the men were on guard duty. One of the soldiers had to have his leg amputated. The other was only slightly injured.

Violence has overshadowed Sunday's ratification of a new Afghan constitution that is supposed to act as a bulwark against terrorism and underlined the lack of security that threatens plans for national elections.

On Tuesday, 12 Hazara men were killed on a road in southern Helmand province Tuesday in an apparent act of ethnic violence. "This comes at a time when we are taking some positive steps toward reconstruction," President Hamid Karzai said in a statement condemning the shootings. "The enemies of our country are trying to show that security is not good enough."

Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said there had been ethnic tensions in the area, where most of the population are Pashtuns. "Maybe it is the work of terrorists trying to create problems among the different ethnic groups," he said.

Thursday's blast in Kandahar occurred about 300 feet from the spot where a bomb concealed in an apple cart Tuesday tore through a group of children. The injured soldiers' commanding officer, Faiz Mohammed, blamed Taliban militants. Another bomb was defused in Kandahar on Wednesday evening, deputy police chief Salim Khan said. It was found hidden under straw near a downtown bus station, he said.

Police said they arrested six people Thursday and that they had confessed to planting the bomb at the bus station. Documents found in their possession indicated they had links to the Taliban, Khan said.

In the eastern city of Jalalabad, Afghan and American officials attended a ceremony establishing a so-called provincial reconstruction team of U.S. troops, the eighth of its kind dotted around the country, the U.S. Embassy said. The new teams are part of an effort to stem violence ahead of the elections.

The 11,000 troops in Afghanistan have spent two years battling Taliban holdouts and their al-Qaida allies. The new teams include engineers supposed to rebuild schools and clinics in lawless areas. But the military says they will also focus on providing security needed for civilian aid workers to return.

Areas around Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and Gardez in the east appear calmer since the teams, typically including about 100 soldiers, were installed there. Security concerns have slowed voter registration in Afghanistan, making June elections unlikely, a U.N. spokesman said Thursday. Afghanistan has 10 million eligible voters, but only about 275,000 have registered so far, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Timing Of Afghan Elections Creates Rift
The Wall Street Journal 01/09/2004 By Ahmed Rashid
KABUL - The country finally has a new constitution. But that doesn't mean the way is clear for speedy elections. As rebuilding proceeds precariously in the war-torn nation, at issue is which should come first: elections, or security and livelihoods. Fresh from Sunday's agreement on a constitution, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his allies in Washington are determined to go ahead with presidential elections this year, adhering to a schedule established in Bonn in December 2001. But the United Nations, as well as many European countries, Afghan officials and international aid agencies, favor delaying the elections.

"Elections should come at the end of the political process and stabilization and not at the beginning," said U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, who left Kabul this week after two years in Afghanistan.

The debate echoes a similar one about the pace of nation-building in Iraq. It threatens to put another wedge in relations between the U.S. and Europe, with European diplomats claiming that President Bush simply wants a bit of positive news as he prepares to seek re-election this year, and Washington retorting that the Europeans are restricting Afghan aid. The outcome could help determine whether a country that provided haven for the al Qaeda terrorist group can be transformed into a stable, Western-friendly democracy.

The stabilization process in Afghanistan certainly has far to go, as underscored by a bombing Tuesday that killed 15 people in the southern city of Kandahar. The same day, 12 people were killed after their vehicle was ambushed in a neighboring province. Since August, 400 Afghans have been killed in that region amid a resurgence by Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban militia, which was ousted with U.S. help after al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.

Afghanistan has undergone "a deterioration in security at precisely the point where the peace process demands the opposite," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this week in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

He said the attacks are imperiling efforts to register 10.5 million Afghan voters by June. By late December, the U.N. had registered only 150,000 voters, rather than the half-million that should have been registered by then, said Reginald Austin, the head of the U.N. voter-registration unit in Kabul. The U.N. has pulled out registration teams from southern Afghanistan because of a lack of security.

With no expansion of international peacekeeping forces outside the capital of Kabul, only a trickle of Western aid for large reconstruction projects, and the resurgence of the Taliban in the south, many of the 502 delegates at the constitutional convention said the provision of jobs and security must precede elections.

"From a technical point of view, elections are not possible in June," says Francesc Vendrell, the European Union representative in Kabul. "We have to make sure that elections are held in a secure environment which are credible to the Afghans and advance the political process rather than retard it." He worries that the attacks in the south would mean large numbers of voters in that area -- primarily ethnic Pashtuns -- wouldn't be able to get to the polls.

But President Karzai and his allies say early elections are necessary for change. "We need elections in order to have legitimacy and a mandate for changes the country needs," said Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, citing the failure of past Afghan leaders to step down at their appointed time.

Those pushing for speedy elections have been encouraged by the passage of the country's constitution. The 22 days of bitter debate highlighted continuing ethnic divisions in Afghanistan, but also defied expectations by reflecting most of the demands asked for by Western donors, including a strong presidential system and equal rights for women and minorities.

Now, Western diplomats in Kabul say, the U.S. has started a countdown for presidential elections between June and September, although parliamentary elections may be pushed to a later date. The new constitution, which supersedes the Bonn agreement, says President Karzai must issue a decree before June setting a date for elections.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, told reporters in Washington yesterday that he thought elections could proceed later this year. Voter registration has started slowly, but it's still possible to compensate for the slow start, he said. On his return to Kabul, he said he would meet with the U.N. and others and look at "what we can do to accelerate so that the deadlines can be met."

In a bid to speed Afghanistan's recovery, Washington has already doubled its aid to Afghanistan to $2 billion for 2004. U.S. officials in Kabul say the strength of the new Afghan national army will be 10,000 by June and 20,000 policemen will have been trained.

Washington is also increasing the number of provincial reconstruction teams, from five now to 12 by March. These are military units of up to 80 men, led by the U.S. or its allies, that help with reconstruction and stabilization in the provinces outside Kabul. The U.S. has also completed rebuilding the first major highway in the country, from Kabul to Kandahar.

U.S. officials say that in contrast, Europeans have refused to give additional money for Afghanistan this year. European envoys say their 2002 pledges for aid through 2004 still stand. They also express concern that Afghanistan is increasingly being run according to an agenda made in Washington, rather than a U.N.-led multilateral effort that was worked out among Afghan factions at Bonn. Some say Washington is pushing ahead with elections because President Bush wants a success story when he faces U.S. voters in November.

Mr. Khalilzad, for his part, says one reason for the stepped-up pace of nation-building is to enable the U.S. to reduce troop numbers in Afghanistan sooner rather than later, although troops are likely to stay at current levels for at least the next two years. Tom Hamburger in Washington contributed to this article.

U.S. implements more than 175 programs on behalf of Afghan women US Dept. of State
Political participation, economic opportunity, education, health care
The United States has implemented more than 175 programs for the benefit of Afghan women in the areas of political participation, economic opportunity, education, and health care, according to a fact sheet released January 8 by the State Department's Office of International Women's Issues. U.S. COMMITMENT TO WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN
"There can be no justice in the world unless every woman has equal rights."
-- First Lady Laura Bush -- October 10, 2003
Since overthrowing the Taliban in 2001, the United States has implemented over 175 projects for Afghan women to increase women's political participation, build civil society, create economic opportunities, support the education of girls and women, and increase access to health care. As beneficiaries, Afghan women have achieved notable political milestones:

Constitutional Loya Jirga: An Afghan Constitutional Loya Jirga or Council approved a new Constitution on January 4, 2004 in Kabul. The new constitution affords all "citizens of Afghanistan - men and women - equal rights and duties before the law." The new Constitution also reserves 25 per cent of its seats in the lower house of Parliament for women. More than 200 women participated in the 2002 Constitutional Loya Jirga that establishes the current government. Two of the nine members of the Constitutional Drafting Committee, and seven of the 35 members of the Constitutional Review Commission are women. Afghan women will have the right to vote and run for office in the Summer 2004 elections.

Women Leadership: The Cabinet includes two women ministers - the Minister of Women's Affairs and Minister of Health. A woman heads the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Many more women serve in the public and private sectors.

Programs for Women: The Minister of Foreign Affairs has created an Office of Human Rights, Health and Women's Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to monitor women's programs. The Ministry of Commerce set up a department to help women establish their own businesses.
Political Participation and Civil Society

Women's Resource Centers: The United States has allocated $2.5 million for the construction of Women's Resource Centers in 14 provinces throughout Afghanistan, and is building three other provincial centers. The Centers will provide educational and health programs, job skills training and political participation training to women. Through the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, the United States is providing $1 million in educational training at the centers. The United States supports the establishment of ten neighborhood-based women's centers in Kabul and nearby towns. Women executives of AOL/Time Warner have raised $60,000 for the Council's Gift Fund to support a provincial women's resource center in Afghanistan.

Electoral Assistance: The United States is providing $15 million for voter registration, and $8.86 million for elections in Afghanistan, including civic and voter education, focus group research, and training for political parties and civic activists.

Human Rights, Advocacy, and Leadership Training: The United States provided $750,000 to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and training in political advocacy for women delegates to the 2003 Loya Jirga.

Media Training: The United States has provided more than $500,000 to train women journalists and filmmakers, some of whom produced "Afghanistan Unveiled," a film documentary about abuses against women by the Taliban.

Economic Opportunities
Microcredit projects: Microcredit helps women gain self-sufficiency by starting their own businesses. Through a $10,000 donation to the U.S.-Afghan Council from Daimler-Chrysler, FINCA, a NGO, will establish two village banks in Herat. FINCA expects to assist more than 30,000 clients in Afghanistan over the next five years. Other projects provide skills and literacy training for widows and female heads of household; teach women in animal husbandry; train women in tailoring; and teach women to preserve produce and dairy products for local sale; technical support to women's carpet and textile projects; and funding for bakeries that employ widows and that provide subsidized bread to hundreds of thousands of urban poor.

Afghan Conservation Corps: The United States contributed $1 million to the Afghan Conservation Corps (ACC) to rehabilitate the environment. The ACC employs several hundred women to make nets to protect newly planted tree seedlings.

Education
Back-to-School: Nearly four million Afghan children are enrolled in school, including more than one million girls, many more than at any point in Afghanistan's history. Since 2001, the United States has given approximately $26 million for primary education, with $35 million budgeted for the next two years to construct schools and to provide books and supplies.

Literacy Programs: The United States is supporting a host of literacy programs for women in Dari, Pashto, English and mathematics. Nine public libraries in eight provinces are participating in a campaign for women's literacy.

Teacher Training: The United States has dedicated $60.5 million over three years for primary education. The University of Nebraska will rehabilitate infrastructure and provide 9.7 million textbooks and 4,000 teacher-training kits for primary education; a multi-sector package includes literacy programs, teacher training, and water supply and sanitation benefiting 50,000 women and 56,500 children and youth; 2,600 teachers in four provinces will receive training.

Health Care
The United States has financed health care programs in Afghanistan totaling more than $58 million, with $50 million forthcoming over the next two years. These programs include the construction of women's wings in hospitals and dormitories for women medical students; curriculum development for health care workers; and maternal and child health, family planning, and nutrition. The United States has rebuilt 140 health clinics and facilities, and will rebuild 400 more over the next three years. We have provided basic health services to more than 2.5 million people in 21 provinces; 90 percent of the recipients are women and children.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

UN women's rights expert says new Afghan Constitution heralds era of progress
UN News Centre 01/08/2004
Hailing the recent adoption of a Constitution for Afghanistan, the head of a United Nations women's rights committee today said the charter marks the beginning of a new era of gender equality in the country.

The Afghan Constitution, adopted on Sunday, explicitly guarantees that men and women have equal rights and duties before the law. "This is a significant victory for women and girls in Afghanistan who barely three years ago were completely excluded from all spheres of life and faced systematic violations of their human rights on a daily basis," said Feride Acar, the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

By promoting gender equality, the Constitution will serve as a "vital starting point" for the country's transformation, she said, because it "legitimizes the important role played by women and girls in Afghanistan in reshaping their future and in rebuilding their country."

Afghanistan is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Ms. Acar, whose committee monitors compliance with that treaty, pledged today to work for its "full and effective implementation" in Afghanistan.

"As we celebrate the dawn of a new era for Afghanistan, I congratulate the Afghan people, and especially its women, for this incredible achievement," she said. Until the Taliban regime was toppled, Afghan women faced a number of severe restrictions, including prohibitions on schooling and employment.

Nauru asylum protest suspended
BBC 01/08/2003
Asylum-seekers on the Pacific island of Nauru have reportedly suspended a nearly month-long hunger strike. The 33 protesters broke their fast after they were told Australia would review some of their cases, according to refugee advocates. The asylum seekers started the strike on 10 December after Australia refused to give them refugee status.

Nauru had earlier accused Australia of neglecting the protesters, who are predominantly from Afghanistan. Howard Glenn of refugee rights group A Just Australia said the protesters had suspended their protest while they await the outcome of the government review.

"The language the hunger strikers are using is that they have suspended it for a limited number of weeks to allow the government to make good on its commitments to reprocess based on new country information," he said.

The refugees were also encouraged by the promise of an Australian medical team, said another refugee advocate, Geoff Smith. "Various refugee advocates were assuring them that things are looking brighter and I think the fact that the medical team is going in has tipped the balance," Mr Smith said.

Some of the refugees were reported to be seriously ill. "Right now our doctors are removing the stitches from those who had their mouths sewn up," an official from the International Organisation for Migration Dennis Nihill said. "The cooks have got a soup on the boil and they should be eating soup within the hour."

Nearly 300 people, mostly from Afghanistan, are being held on Nauru while their claims for asylum are processed under a plan to keep unwanted boat people out of mainland Australia.

Nauru had agreed to have them there in return for Australian aid. Doctors at the island's only hospital have said the hunger strikers were stretching resources, although Australia had disputed this.

The would-be refugees say they fear they will be persecuted or killed if they return to Afghanistan. There are also Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians and Pakistanis among the asylum seekers.

Serb ethnic cleansing brigade in training for Afghan mission
The Scottish Herald 01/09/2004 By Ian Bruce
SERB paramilitary troops who last saw action in the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo in 1999 are being trained for anti-terrorist duties in Afghanistan beside some of the US forces who helped expel them from the Yugoslav province.

The 1000-strong force comprises some former members of the "red berets", a feared military police unit which helped lead the campaign to drive the Albanian majority out of Kosovo and wipe out Kosovo Liberation Army resistance fighters.

The US has provisionally accepted the offer of the battalion to help relieve the strain on its overstretched garrison in Kandahar and to help hunt al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in the mountains east of the city.

General Goran Radosavljevic, its proposed commander, led anti-guerrilla teams during the conflict alleged by Human Rights Watch to have committed atrocities against civilians, including the massacre of 41 villagers at Cuska in May, 1999. A New York court is also considering charging the Serb officer, alleging that he and other officials were responsible for the execution of three Albanian-Americans.

The Serbs forced more than 800,000 Muslim Kosovars from their homes before Nato intervened in a 73-day bombing campaign and ground invasion. About 10,000 Kosovars, mainly civilians, are estimated to have been killed.

Nato approval is not needed for the planned Afghan deployment, since the Serb contingent would be under US command. Nato's peacekeeping remit is only for Kabul, the capital.

SERB paramilitary troops who last saw action in the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo in 1999 are being trained for anti-terrorist duties in Afghanistan beside some of the US forces who helped expel them from the Yugoslav province.

The 1000-strong force comprises some former members of the "red berets", a feared military police unit which helped lead the campaign to drive the Albanian majority out of Kosovo and wipe out Kosovo Liberation Army resistance fighters. The US has provisionally accepted the offer of the battalion to help relieve the strain on its overstretched garrison in Kandahar and to help hunt al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in the mountains east of the city.

General Goran Radosavljevic, its proposed commander, led anti-guerrilla teams during the conflict alleged by Human Rights Watch to have committed atrocities against civilians, including the massacre of 41 villagers at Cuska in May, 1999. A New York court is also considering charging the Serb officer, alleging that he and other officials were responsible for the execution of three Albanian-Americans.

The Serbs forced more than 800,000 Muslim Kosovars from their homes before Nato intervened in a 73-day bombing campaign and ground invasion.
About 10,000 Kosovars, mainly civilians, are estimated to have been killed.

Nato approval is not needed for the planned Afghan deployment, since the Serb contingent would be under US command. Nato's peacekeeping remit is only for Kabul, the capital.

SERB paramilitary troops who last saw action in the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo in 1999 are being trained for anti-terrorist duties in Afghanistan beside some of the US forces who helped expel them from the Yugoslav province.

The 1000-strong force comprises some former members of the "red berets", a feared military police unit which helped lead the campaign to drive the Albanian majority out of Kosovo and wipe out Kosovo Liberation Army resistance fighters.

The US has provisionally accepted the offer of the battalion to help relieve the strain on its overstretched garrison in Kandahar and to help hunt al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in the mountains east of the city.

General Goran Radosavljevic, its proposed commander, led anti-guerrilla teams during the conflict alleged by Human Rights Watch to have committed atrocities against civilians, including the massacre of 41 villagers at Cuska in May, 1999. A New York court is also considering charging the Serb officer, alleging that he and other officials were responsible for the execution of three Albanian-Americans.

The Serbs forced more than 800,000 Muslim Kosovars from their homes before Nato intervened in a 73-day bombing campaign and ground invasion. About 10,000 Kosovars, mainly civilians, are estimated to have been killed.

Nato approval is not needed for the planned Afghan deployment, since the Serb contingent would be under US command. Nato's peacekeeping remit is only for Kabul, the capital.

AFGHANISTAN: Interview with US-led coalition civil military coordination centre
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
KABUL, 8 Jan 2004 (IRIN) - Following a series of attacks on UN and NGO aid workers in the south and east of the country, the US-led coalition in Kabul said it planned to set up more bases to provide security, reconstruction and aid in different parts of the country - particularly in the southern and eastern provinces, which are plagued by Taliban attacks.

Such attacks have forced the UN and other aid groups to withdraw from some regions, thereby undermining aid delivery and confidence in the reconstruction efforts of the US-backed government ahead of elections slated for June. In an interview with IRIN, Colonel Darrel Branhagen, director of the US-led coalition civil military coordination centre in Kabul, said more civil military forces in the shape of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) were to be deployed in the troubled provinces of the country by June 2004.

QUESTION: How would you foresee PRT operations in 2004 given that there are still insecure areas where aid organisations cannot go because of the threat of attacks?

ANSWER: Very clearly with the new command [PRTs' new headquarters was established in early December in Kabul] here, there has been a change of focus. The new command here is very clearly emphasising the role of reconstruction over and above military operations that we have been conducting in the past. And that is different in different parts of the country. Some parts of the country are a lot more secure than others. Some parts need more reconstruction activities, while some parts of the country need more security activities. Afghanistan is not just one homogenous state. It differs from place to place. A new emphasis and accelerated emphasis on reconstruction and security is the basis for increased reconstructive activities of the main actors who are involved in reconstruction of the Afghan economy and the Afghan government.

Q: Why didn't you start with the most insecure areas where aid agencies had pulled out or had suspended operations and where the need is greatest?

A: If you look where PRTs are being set up they are being set up in the east and south like Khowst, Asadabad, Ghazni. All those are new PRTs that have been set up for the future. There is an emphasis on certain areas of the country and there is also an emphasis that there is a balance within the country as well.

Because there are different problems in different parts of the country, we are trying to do a balance and not go to just the south and east or just go to north. There is going to be some balance as the country cannot be pulled forward just one region at a time, but the whole country should be pulled forward. All PRTs are going to see increases of funding no matter where they are. You will see more efforts perhaps in the east and south but we will not pull out of the north.

There are, in the planning now, at least three or four more PRTs by June [2004]. There is further planning for an extension of PRTs throughout Afghanistan. Our Ambassador stated we would like to see PRTs in every province of Afghanistan. Now, if that were going to happen, we would have a lot of resource constraints. Troops and the amount of logistics and support we can bring to an area is dependent on our resources. But at this time, movement towards security and reconstruction, there is clearly going to be more emphasis on more PRTs.

Q: It's been a year since the PRTs have been deployed to some provinces of Afghanistan but still insecurity remains a major source of concern outside Kabul. What has been the major impact of the PRTs in the last twelve months?

A: The most useful thing that the PRTs have done is establish very close contact with the government in those areas where the PRTs are. That isn't really shown by the reports in the media as much because it is a very quiet kind of thing.

The projects that have been done by PRTs are not there for the main reconstruction of Afghanistan. [We try] to accomplish projects that will maximise our contact with the local government and the local people so that we can have increased interaction with the local population. We believe that it will create security to a large extent because how we interact with the people shows that we are extenuating the reach of the government, not just a particular project that a PRT does. The projects that we do are primarily to enhance the government's reach and to bring the government more closely to the people in more competent ways.

The PRTs are really a temporary vehicle for security because in the near future, that will have to be the responsibility of the Afghan government. Eventually, PRTs are going to be passed along to the Afghan government to operate.

Q: How many PRT teams have been deployed outside Kabul so far?

A: There are eight PRTs that are officially running [Mazar-e-Sharif, Konduz, Parwan, Gardez, Bamyan, Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad] and another three planned to be deployed in Khowst, Ghazni and Asadabad [Konar province] in the near future. Konduz is run by Germans; New Zealand runs the Bamyan PRT, and the British run the Mazar-e-Sharif operation. The rest are all US-led PRTs with numerous coalition personnel.

Q: How do you deal with the challenges on the ground with regard to the limited number of forces in PRT teams?

A: Each PRT is tailored to the area where it is located. If it is a particularly hazardous area, we expect to have more force protection teams. If it is an area where we need more reconstruction, we will probably have more civilians to help in the reconstruction. They vary from a low range of perhaps fifty person-PRT teams to as many as two hundred to three hundred people as in Konduz [under the Germans]. The mission is the same and the same mission parameters exist for all.
There are a lot of different ways to approach insecurity. In some of the same ways, we get pushed out to do certain projects in areas where the local reconstruction community cannot go.

Q: How do you coordinate with the aid agencies on the field?

A: There is an integral part for every PRT: the Civil Military Operation Centre or CMOC. That CMOC serves specific functions for the coordination of aid agencies and PRTs in the area. And one of the functions of the CMOC is to make sure that our projects don't interfere or can build upon the projects of other agencies. Specifically we go to places that they cannot go, and that is an ideal situation for us.

It is also good to have very good relations with the international community in any PRT area because if we know what they are doing and how they are doing it, we can at least provide some degree of presence patrolling and kind of general security over the projects that they are doing. It is in our interest that the reconstruction of Afghanistan occurs, and that is mainly done by the outside coalition agencies.

Q: Some NGOs have not been happy with the PRT concept saying it was mixing military with aid activities and questioned their neutrality.

A: The NGOs have made their choice already in terms of what they want to do in this country. They have chosen to help the reconstruction of not just the economy, but the government itself and that choice is going to be made by each organisation by themselves and those choices result in the same objective. Our ultimate objective is a stable, peaceful and hopefully more prosperous people of Afghanistan.

The NGOs and international organisations and military, coalition, ISAF, seem to me all [having] the same objective. Because we have the same objectives - whether we work together or not - we are going to be working for the same objective irregardless of what coordination happens between those groups.

No one here wants to work in an insecure environment. No one here wants to see the Afghan population with the kind of economy that it has now. Everyone wants to see an increase in stability, an increase in prosperity, and just because we have the same objectives, we are going to be seen as marching together regardless of what the NGOs or the military want or don't want. Both parties are looking at doing the same thing for the same good reasons but they are not conflicting. They add to each other and they combine with each other, and that is good.

Q: What have been the greatest challenge for PRTs on the ground so far?

A: The challenge here is that this is a difficult complex country and there are no easy answers. The answers are much harder than they were in Bosnia in Kosovo. It is very difficult here. And the problems in the south and east are not the problems of north and west - there are different kinds of problems. Political problems are different and there are massive changes happening. The new constitution is a massive thing, a very momentous thing and also very complex.

This is not a very easy country to come in and learn and do something. You have to be here for a while and have to wait and start to understand. It takes a long period of time before one can even operate in this complex country. It has been a joy but it has been a challenge.

Q: How big is the average PRT project?

A: Our projects are small and should remain small, and the projects that we assist other people [aid agencies] do, are very large. But the PRTs are really enablers of other entities. It is not a doer of reconstruction - it is an enabler of reconstruction.

Rebuilding Afghanistan
by AHMED RASHID from the January 26, 2004 issue The Nation
After twenty-one tension-filled days of raucous speeches, poetry readings, threats, bribery and walkouts, Afghanistan's loya jirga, held to endorse a new Constitution for Afghanistan after twenty-six years of war, concluded on January 4. The powerful presidential system demanded by President Hamid Karzai and the Pashtun population was watered down--after strident demands by the country's ethnic minorities--to include greater powers to an elected Parliament and minority language rights.

Not surprisingly, the eventual compromises were pushed through from behind the scenes in marathon all-night sessions by the US ambassador and President Bush's special representative to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the UN Secretary General's special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi.

Two years after the defeat of the Taliban, the loya jirga demonstrated the fact that Afghanistan's acute ethnic divisions--the underlying cause of the 1992-2001 civil war--are still rampant and that a bloc of neo-Taliban Islamic fundamentalists, who helped US forces defeat the Taliban in December 2001, can still exercise enormous influence.

On the positive side, there has been a reassertion of the Pashtuns, who make up 40 percent of the country's population but have been alienated and humiliated since 2001 because the Taliban drew their support from them. The Pashtuns supported a strong presidential system because they saw a strong center as being in their self-interest. Karzai, himself a Pashtun, must now insure that the Pashtuns do not antagonize the minorities and instead help create a truly multiethnic nation-state rather than dominate the minorities, as they have done for hundreds of years. Despite apprehensions, Afghan women fared well. The delegates doubled the number of seats guaranteed to women in the new Parliament to 25 percent of the total, and women's rights were specifically mentioned in the Constitution despite efforts by the fundamentalists to have the item scratched.

The underlying reason ethnic tensions still exist two years on is the utter and irresponsible failure of the international community to live up to the promises made at Bonn in December 2001, which set out the road map for Afghanistan's future. Security in the countryside is abysmal, Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar are still at large, and the 11,500 US-led coalition forces in the country are too few to stop the resurgence of the Taliban, who have killed some 400 Afghan soldiers, policemen, civilians and Western and Afghan aid workers and contractors since July.

The 5,500 NATO-led international peacekeeping troops still cannot deploy outside Kabul, because European countries have failed to find the troops to accompany them. (The Europeans were willing to provide more troops immediately after the defeat of the Taliban, but Washington blocked the move then, fearing that more peacekeepers would interfere with the hunt for bin Laden.) Nor has the international community disbursed adequate funds for the reconstruction of this blighted country.

The United States is insisting that elections be held by June, as set out by Bonn, or September at the latest. This is primarily because President Bush wants a success story to show to American voters for the US elections in November, given that the good news out of Iraq is likely to be sparse. On the other hand, the UN, many European and NATO states, Western and Afghan NGOs, and many prominent Afghans, including at least half the Afghan Cabinet, say elections should be postponed for at least a year.

The Bonn summit stipulated that presidential and parliamentary elections be held at the same time, but the Americans say presidential elections should go ahead this year while parliamentary elections can be delayed. Reginald Austin of the UN's voter-registration unit, which in December started registering 10.5 million voters--two months late because of lack of funding--says his job cannot be done in time. Lack of security in the south, where the Taliban have threatened to kill his registration teams, has slowed down the process. Never mind, say some US officials: We will ink voters' thumbs if ID cards cannot be supplied.

To Washington's credit, it approved an additional $1.2 billion in late 2003, bringing its total aid commitment to $2 billion for 2004. American forces are setting up six more small Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the Pashtun belt to improve security in Taliban areas. By March there will be twelve such teams around the country, but they are too small, and there are too few of them, to provide security to the Afghan population.

Unfortunately, the United States has failed to persuade the European and Muslim nations to increase aid and money. The Europeans in particular, still enraged over US unilateralism in Iraq, now see the American agenda in Afghanistan as being equally unilateral--serving Bush's political needs--and thus see no reason to back it with money. The war in Afghanistan started out as a multilateral effort, while the Bonn agreement, under the auspices of the UN, drew similar international support. The Europeans say the United States has undermined this multilateral approach and is setting the agenda in Afghanistan, as it has done in Iraq. The United States, for its part, is bitter about the lack of European commitment to Afghanistan, while President Karzai is also frustrated.

Only the provision of livelihoods, security and reconstruction will ease ethnic, religious and regional tensions so that elections can be held in a meaningful and peaceful manner. Several important programs have just started and will certainly not reach fruition before June. These include a UN-led effort to disarm and demobilize 100,000 militiamen; a World Bank-led effort to provide money to each of the country's thirty-two provinces to kick-start rural reconstruction; and a US-led effort to build a new national army and police force and create a new civil service and judiciary.

Nobody has yet thought of how to tackle the burgeoning drug problem. While the Taliban had cut opium production virtually to zero by the last year of their rule, by 2003 Afghanistan was producing 3,600 tons annually, which helps maintain the warlords in power.

Afghanistan's elections should be postponed through a new UN/international community/Afghan government agreement. Lakhdar Brahimi has in fact proposed a Bonn II meeting. And the United States must bring the Europeans, the UN and others into the international decision-making process over Afghanistan. The war on terrorism cannot be fought over the skies of Washington and New York--much less in Iraq, where it didn't exist before the US invasion--but must continue by other means in helping to rebuild a nation that was hijacked by Osama bin Laden and still has the potential to become the world's epicenter for an Al Qaeda revival. The Afghans need enormous help, but so far the world has failed to live up to its promises.

Vajpayee says 'positive winds' blowing between India and Pakistan
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has hailed "positive winds" in relations with Pakistan after the rivals agreed to resume dialogue that was stalled for two and a half years.

"Sisters and brothers, as you are aware, positive winds are blowing in India's external environment," Vajpayee told a conference of people of Indian origin on Friday. He added: "The conclusion of a South Asian Free Trade Agreement will herald a new era of trade and economic co-operation in this region."

The free trade pact was sealed at a seven-nation South Asian summit, which included Vajpayee, that closed in Islamabad on Tuesday. On the sidelines, India and Pakistan announced that they would restart dialogue from February.

"India-Pakistan relations show new signs of promise with a categorical assurance from Pakistan that it will not permit any territory under its control to be used by terrorists," Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha told the meet.