Afghanistan News January 11, 2004

January 11, 2004

Afghan president confirms he will seek election
KABUL, (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai said he will stand as a candidate in Afghanistan's first democratic presidential elections and that he would try to hold them as scheduled in June. "Yes, I am a candidate for the presidential post in the upcoming elections," Karzai told reporters at a regular briefing in Kabul.

Afghanistan is due to hold presidential elections in June, under the peace accord worked out after the ousting of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001, but the UN has warned that elections may not be able to take place as scheduled because of the slow rate of voter registration.

So far 274,000 Afghans, of the 10 million eligible, have been enrolled on electoral lists and of these only 59,000 are women. Previously Karzai has said the polls might be delayed for several months due to logistical reasons. "We are trying to reach the date we have set for ourselves which is the month of June or July so we should try to do that," Karzai said Saturday when asked when the elections would be held.

The elections are one of the final planks of the Bonn peace accords after Afghanistan's loya jirga or grand assembly on Sunday approved the country's first post-Taliban constitution. The document enshrines a strong presidential system of government alongside a bicameral parliament and states that men and women have equal rights and duties.

Karzai said he was happy the loya jirga was a success but that more work needed to be done to implement the document. "Of course we have problems but that doesn't mean we should stop, we should build and reform our government institutions, today we have problems which tomorrow we won't have," he said.

Karzai said two attacks in the southern provinces during the week had been attempts to prevent Afghanistan from celebrating its new constitution. Some 12 members of the Hazara ethnic minority were shot dead in Helmand province by unknown militants while a bomb blast in the main southern city of Kandahar killed 15 and left scores injured, mainly children.

Karzai also said he welcomed Afghans who had been living abroad into the country, a contentious issue at the loya jirga which debated whether those nationals who held dual passports would be able to serve in the government.

"We need every Afghan man and woman wherever they are to come and work in this country so the question of dual citizenship is of no significance to me where the rebuilding of Afghanistan is concerned," he said. "And I am sure the Afghan parliament will feel the same way."

Afghan Violence Kills 4 Suspected Taliban
NOOR KHAN, AP
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Four suspected Taliban fighters died when a bomb they were laying on a road regularly used by Afghan soldiers exploded prematurely, an official said Saturday. Meanwhile, suspected drug smugglers fatally shot five Afghan soldiers, extending a wave of violence in southern Afghanistan since the ratification of the country's first post-Taliban constitution last Sunday. The bodies of four men were found on a road between Musa Qala and Sangin in Helmand province, some 70 miles northwest of the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

Provincial government spokesman Mohammed Wali Alizai told The Associated Press that the men were carrying documents containing satellite phone numbers that showed they had links to the Taliban. He gave no further details. "They were Taliban trying to lay a lay a bomb for the Afghan soldiers that often patrol this area," Alizai said. Four time bombs and two wireless sets were found near the bodies.

The incident came four days after a bomb in Kandahar city killed 15 Afghan civilians, most of them children, and a shooting in northern Helmand left 27 civilians dead. The violence underlines the failure of U.S. and Afghan forces to crush the Taliban two years after their ouster, and threatens the timetable for summer elections under the new constitution.

More violence broke out Saturday when a group of 20-25 armed men attacked a remote army border post near Shorabak, in Kandahar province. Of the ten soldiers stationed there, five were killed and two injured, deputy governor Mohammed Hanas Khan told AP. The outnumbered soldiers "had no chance to fire back," Khan said, adding that the attackers fled before reinforcements could arrive.

.Attacks Raise Fresh Doubts Over Afghan Elections
By Mike Collett-White
KABUL (Reuters) - A spate of deadly attacks has cast fresh doubts over Afghanistan's ambitious plan to hold its first ever free elections in June, fueling fears they will be hijacked by Islamic militants and strongmen.

Political analysts say President Hamid Karzai is under pressure from his backers in Washington to hold the vote as soon as possible, so it can be touted as a foreign policy victory by President Bush as he seeks re-election in November. But the consequences could be seriously damaging for Afghanistan, they warn.

"It is far too soon," said Ahmed Rashid, an Afghan expert based in Pakistan. "I think they should be postponed for at least a year, perhaps until Spring 2005." Karzai vowed on Saturday to contest the presidential election and reiterated that he aimed to hold it as planned in June.

But in a situation with clear lessons for another post-war scenario in Iraq, violence in Afghanistan is already having a negative impact on preparations for the vote.
Only 275,000 out of Afghanistan's estimated 10 million voters have been registered because the United Nations considers much of the country too dangerous to work in. U.N. officials have said June looks an impossible target unless security improves significantly.

Rashid and others also believe more time must be allowed for key initiatives such as a two-year disarmament program to advance and for foreign civilian-military teams to have an impact in the chronically unstable south and east of the country.

Disarming tens of thousands of fighters who form private militias across the war-shattered country will limit the ability of strongmen and faction leaders opposed to Karzai to influence or disrupt the election.

Without better security, a resurgent Taliban and Islamic militant allies such as al Qaeda and renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar could have a field day terrorizing voters. The threat is not idle. The United Nations says there have been more attacks on civilians in the last three months than in the 20 months following the Bonn Agreement in December 2001 that set out the framework for post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Sixteen people, most of them children, were killed by a blast in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday. Hours later 12 members of the Hazara minority were shot dead. A suicide bomber killed five security officials in Kabul on December 28. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that Afghanistan faced "a deterioration in security at precisely the point where the peace process demands the opposite."

Afghanistan adopted a constitution this month, but the euphoria from the milestone in its recovery from a quarter of a century of war was tempered by attacks. Delegates at the grand assembly that passed the charter spoke of the heavy hand of U.S. foreign policy in a debate marred by bickering between rival ethnic groups, bullying, corruption and anger that some were prevented from having a say. "The international community clearly needs markers of success for its investment in Afghanistan," said Paul O'Brien, advocacy officer at aid agency CARE.

"While that is a legitimate concern, it is critical that pressure to achieve those markers of success does not compromise the rights of ordinary Afghans." The sense of alienation at the constitutional debate was not only felt by delegates. European policy makers appear to have a diminishing role in rebuilding Afghanistan, analysts warn.

"The last thing we need right now is more unilateralism by the United States in the war against terrorism in a region where there is already a framework for multilateralism," Rashid said. The constitution states that "every effort shall be made" to hold presidential and legislative elections simultaneously.

To do so within the next few months could strengthen Karzai's opponents from the mainly ethnic Tajik Northern Alliance, who have argued for parliamentary checks on the president's powers and alone can boast some kind of political organization, particularly across the ethnic-minority dominated north.

If, as many expect, the election is only for the president, the opposite may be true -- that a strong president with no parliament will further disenfranchise ethnic minorities and create autocratic rule.

The international community has renewed calls for beefed up security and quicker disarmament, particularly in the majority Pashtun dominated south and east. It is there that militants are most active, and where election preparations have been most seriously disrupted.

"With the deteriorating security situation in the south, one has to be concerned that the election registration process may be compromised and this needs to be monitored to ensure that it does not become farcical in the eyes of Afghans," O'Brien said. Less than a quarter of those registered for the vote are women, highlighting concern that they will have little say in the election in the highly conservative Islamic state.

Pakistan, Afghanistan JMC begins tomorrow
Dawn January 10, 2004 issue
ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: Pakistan and Afghanistan are likely to consider a string of measures for increasing the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries.
An official source in the commerce ministry told Dawn on Friday that these measures would be decided in the two-day third Pakistan- Afghan Joint Ministerial Conference (JMC) beginning from January 11.

A high-level official delegation from Pakistan will leave for Kabul on Saturday to participate in the JMC. During the meeting, the official said the progress on $100 million Pakistan assistance to Afghanistan will be reviewed.

The meeting will also discuss the issue of sugar purchase by Afghan government, establishment of Jinnah Kidney Centre, Information Technology bloc in Kabul University and construction of Jalalabad-Torkham road.

The Afghan government has also requested Islamabad for allowing the cargo of Afghan Transit Trade through NLC. They have also asked for more entry and exit points at borders between the two countries.

UK trains Afghans in anti-drugs drive
The Financial Times By Victoria Burnett and Mark Huband
Published: January 10 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: January 10 2004 4:00
British special forces are secretly training an elite team of Afghan commandos, whose mission is to destroy big heroin laboratories and confiscate drug caches and shipments, Afghan and western officials in Kabul told the Financial Times.

The covert programme, called Operation Headstrong, gives a hard nose to UK anti-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan, which is the world's largest producer of opium and accounts for about 90 per cent of the heroin consumed in the UK.

It constitutes the most aggressive component of anti-drug strategy in the country, where the government and its international allies have struggled to formulate a coherent policy for tackling the problem.

The officials, who have close knowledge of anti-narcotics policy, said a US air strike on a heroin laboratory in the northern province of Badakhshan on January 2 was part of a raid by the elite force, operating with the guidance of British agents. It was the first significant deployment of the force, which numbers about 100, they said.
A team of Afghan commandos raided the lab about 10 miles north of the provincial capital of Faisabad, and arrested several people working there. An A-10 aircraft support aircraft then destroyed the lab.

A senior British official in Kabul said the UK had "a number of projects in interdiction" and was "keen to increase the risks of heroin production and processing", but refused to be drawn on whether British agents were involved either in training a covert interdiction force or in what he said was "an Afghan military operation" on January 2.

Lt Col Matthew Beevers, a coalition spokesman, said 1.5 tons of opium were seized and several people arrested. He said the raid was carried out by Afghan and coalition special operations forces but declined to comment on whether British agents were involved.

The UK government is divided over how to curb production and stop trafficking in a country whose rural economy is in tatters and where local law enforcement is negligible. The UK has a £70m, three-year strategy to beef up Afghan law enforcement and judicial capacity and develop economic alternatives for poppy farmers.
Officials in Kabul familiar with UK drug policy say Downing Street is keen to pursue eradication and interdiction, but the Department for International Development is wary of eradicating poppy fields without first making sure farmers have an alternative source of income - a policy some Afghan and western officials consider unrealistic.

Afghan and foreign anti-narcotics officials were meeting this weekend to try to agree an eradication strategy, said Mirwais Yasini, head of the government's counter-narcotics directorate.

With poppy planting under way in the south, the government will probably opt for using local eradication teams advised by UK and US officials, Mr Yasini said. It hopes a plan for more robust, mobile teams protected by a military force from a third, Muslim, country, may fall into place in time to tackle eradication in the north, where spring arrives later.

The Bush administration has earmarked $175m for Afghan law enforcement over the next two years, compared with $24.6m (£13.4m) in 2003, plus an extra $50m next year for counter-narcotics, according to a US anti-drug official.

But Afghan and western officials say the coalition does not want to cause instability by upsetting provincial warlords and powerful government officials who benefit from the industry.

"Given the mission we have right now, which is to kill and capture terrorists and improve security, our ability to be actively involved is limited," General David Barno, head of the US-led coalition, said last month.

Some western organisations dismiss the argument used by some US and British officials that the drug industry at least generates money in a destitute economy."Too damned bad if it's going to have a negative economic impact," said Adam Bouloukos of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Kabul. "Long term, this country cannot survive on an illegal economy."

US, allies will overcome ‘rogue presence’ says Powell
Daily Times 1/11/04
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that Pakistan is conducting ‘new military operations’ in the tribal belt on Pakistan-Afghan border, and the US and the coalition ‘will be able to deal’ with the threat posed by a ‘kind of rogue presence.’

“I am pleased that President Musharraf has responded to our overtures and is conducting new military operations in that region this week. And he understands that this kind of rogue presence is not in his interest and is dangerous to Pakistan, just as it’s dangerous to Afghanistan,” Mr Powell said in a CBS Radio program with Dan Raviv and Charles Wolfson. Powell said he was confident that “the Afghans and the United States and other coalition partners, working with the Pakistani leadership, will be able to deal with this threat.”

Secretary Powell stated that “it is an international border and there are certain sensitivities with it.” “It is also a very wild area, a very rugged terrain, and it’s not the easiest thing in the world to send Americans across into tribal areas where everybody has known everybody in the area for the last thousand years. So what we are doing is cooperating with the Pakistanis, making it clear to the Pakistanis that we want them to do everything they can to bring that area under control,” he said. “In Afghanistan and on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, you’ve got a good friend in President Musharraf.”

He said the United States wanted to work hard to consolidate its victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We have seen considerable progress in Afghanistan with the constitutional Loya Jirga, and we believe we are on track now to put in place a transitional government in Iraq by the middle of the summer,” he said. At the same time, he said that the coalition has to work hard on security “to make sure that we get these old remnants of the regime swept up.”

He said a major priority of the US in 2004 would be the global war on terrorism to make sure that the American homeland is safe and terrorists around the world are defeated.—APP

Pakistan committed to peace with India: Armitage
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Pakistan is sincere in seeking peace with India after its pledge not to allow "terrorism" from its territory, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in an interview. "It is clear to me that the government of Pakistan is exerting efforts. They want to give this peace initiative a chance," Armitage told the Indian news channel NDTV in an interview broadcast on Saturday.

"I don't ascribe all of the cross-border violence across the Line of Control to the government of Pakistan," Armitage said, referring to the de facto border in troubled Kashmir. He said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf "will not be terrorised into going along another path other than the search for peace on which he is engaged with (Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari) Vajpayee."

India and Pakistan, in a surprise announcement Tuesday on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Islamabad, said they were resuming dialogue stalled since a failed summit between Vajpayee and Musharraf in July 2001.

India said the dialogue would include discussion of Kashmir, while Pakistan said it would not allow its territory to be used by "terrorists". "This is good for India, good for Pakistan and God knows it is good for the people of Kashmir," Armitage said.

India and Pakistan nearly came to their fourth war in 2002 over New Delhi's charges that Pakistan was arming and training rebels in the Indian zone of Kashmir. Armitage said the United States has at "key moments" talked to Pakistan and India to bring down tensions, but dismissed speculation that Washington brokered the breakthrough. ""No, I think that gives us too much credit," Armitage said when asked if Washington acted as a "facilitator" between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Give up wanted men or face operation, tribals told
* Tribal chiefs seek 48 hours for consultation - By Iqbal Khattak – Daily Times
PESHAWAR: The government on Saturday warned chieftains of all Wazir tribes to hand over the persons responsible for an attack on an Army camp on Friday as well as the tribesmen believed to have sheltered Al Qaeda terrorists or face “an unprecedented Army operation”.

South Waziristan Agency Deputy Administrator Rehmatullah Wazir warned tribal elders at a jirga called in Wana, capital of the troubled South Waziristan Agency that they would be responsible for the consequences if the wanted men were not surrendered. “The elders will be responsible if the wanted men are not given up and the government takes action to capture them,” Mr Wazir told the jirga. The jirga was called after four soldiers were killed early on Friday after unidentified militants fired rockets on their camp.

According to a tribal elder of Yargulkhel sub-tribe of the Wazir, the tribal elders sought 48 hours for “consultation” among chieftains of all the tribes. “We will hold another jirga with the deputy administrator on Monday to discuss the situation,” he added.

Mr Wazir signalled out the Zalikhel tribe for not cooperating with the administration and told them to prepare for action if the wanted men were not surrendered. He said the homes destroyed by the Army on Thursday belonged to members of that tribe.

However, a tribal elder said he did not think the Zalikhel would yield to the administration. “I don’t think there will be any positive development when the jirga meets the administration again on Monday,” Malik Zardal Khan of the Karikhel sub-tribe told Daily Times on the phone from Wana.

“The deputy administrator warned us that the Army will launch an operation any time if the wanted men and those responsible for Friday night’s attack on the army base are not handed over,” the tribal elder said.

Sources in Wana said the Zalikhel had asked all Wazir tribes to help them capture the wanted men to bring what a senior government official called “a grave situation” under control. “The Zalikhels have said they cannot capture the wanted men alone and sought the support of the other major tribes,” tribal sources said.

US troops step up efforts in Osama hunt
By Mukarram Khan Daily Times
GHALANAI: The American troops have distributed packed edibles bearing photographs of Osama Bin Laden and his associates and promising reward for assistance in their capture in the Afghan areas along Pakistan’s border in Mohmand Agency, sources in the tribal areas told Daily Times on Saturday.

They said US troops had doled out biscuit packets, matches and other daily items carrying photographs of Bin Laden and his associates Saiful Adil and Ayman Al Zawahari in Goshta district of the Afghan province of Nangarhar and Lal Pura along the border with Pakistan.

Sources said the packets also bear an offer for millions of dollars in reward for anyone helping with the arrest of Al Qaeda leaders or information leading to their arrest.

A tribal businessman returning from Afghanistan told journalists that US forces in a convoy of trucks carrying Indian ghee, biscuits and other edibles were seen distributing the provisions among the people in the border areas along Mohmand Agency.

Jail term for terror financiers raised
By Rana Qaisar Daily Times
ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet on Saturday approved an amendment in the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 to raise the punishment for offences related to the “financing of terrorism”.

“Any individual or entity involved in the financing of terrorism shall be punished with a minimum of four years and a maximum of 10 years rigorous imprisonment,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told journalists at a briefing after the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali.

Earlier, the minimum punishment for financing of terrorism was six months and the maximum was five years rigorous imprisonment. The amendment in the ATA 1997 has been made in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolutions. “Terrorism-financing will be a non-bailable offence and all societies and institutions, which have a potential to act as conduits for such financing, will have to maintain bank accounts and keep information about their employees and clients. If they fail, they will face a fine and revocation of licences,” an official statement said.

Musharraf's Spies Revere Jinnah Not Jihadis
By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Come alone. No names revealed. No tape recorder, no mobile phones and definitely no cameras. After giving the rules, the Pakistani bureaucrat chuckled as he explained how to find the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. "Everyone knows it. It's got high red walls and a black gate that's never open." Like any secret service, the ISI is allergic to too much light. Down the years, coups and clandestine wars have been plotted from within its largely windowless inner sanctum on Islamabad's Zero Point roadway.

But in a rare briefing for a foreign journalist, a senior ISI official sought to set right the agency's appalling image as a former friend of friends of al Qaeda, and enemy of democracy. "People who thought this was a fundamentalist army were very mistaken," said the urbane uniformed officer, recalling a decade of estrangement with the United States.

In the 1980s the ISI was buddies with the CIA, helping the mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden, drive the Soviet Union's Red Army out of Afghanistan.
Then it soured as Pakistan pursued nuclear arms and became more deeply involved with the Taliban and, according to diplomats, shadowy Islamist groups. The ISI officer, an avowedly moderate Muslim, said his agency only kept company with the likes of the Taliban for strategic reasons, never ideological ones.

"This person didn't believe in theocracy," he told Reuters, raising his arm reverentially toward a portrait of the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. "He wanted a progressive Muslim nation and had great faith in adopting democratic traditions."

Jinnah would be disappointed. Generals have ruled for most of Pakistan's 56 years since independence, and each of Pakistan's first three democratically elected prime ministers learned to fear the ISI. "There's no Western intelligence agency like the ISI. The nearest comparison is the KGB," remarked one Islamabad-based Western diplomat, referring to the ruthless Soviet-era agency.

President General Pervez Musharraf is seeking an image make-over for an army saddled with a reputation for religious zealotry since the Islamization of the armed forces by another president general, the late Zia ul-Haq, more than 20 years ago. One army officer, in a career-damning move, dubbed the ISI "the Invisible Soldiers of Islam."

Present and former spymasters say there are no such cabals, stressing military officers can serve a one-time only three-year attachment in the ISI and discipline is rigorous. Any rogue elements, they say, among the ISI's thousands of personnel amount to no more than a handful of individuals.

But two assassination attempts on Musharraf last month raised questions about the depth of loyalty in an army whose motto is "Jihad is the way of Islam." Musharraf dismisses those doubts, saying discipline is more powerful than any dissent engendered by his decision to join the U.S.-led war on terror in 2001. Under pressure from Washington after the September 11 attacks on the United States, Musharraf withdrew support for Afghanistan's Taliban after eight years of backing the ultra-fundamentalist regime that gave refuge to al Qaeda.

As the first U.S. bombs fell on Afghanistan, Musharraf replaced his ISI chief. The new man, Lieutenant-General Ehsan Ul Haq, shares Musharraf's more progressive outlook. Ul Haq purged around 15 ISI officers. "Within six months Ul Haq didn't have anyone who could have had any contacts or linkages with the Taliban," the ISI officer recalled.

Musharraf has made enemies. In the eyes of some militants, he has compounded the sin of selling out the Taliban and al Qaeda by sending peace feelers to India. Retired General Mirza Aslam Beg, the army chief during the 1980s, predicted jihadis will wage war in Kashmir whatever Islamabad and New Delhi decide, just as Palestinians do regardless of Egypt and Jordan's peace with Israel. "These (peace) talks can be sabotaged any time, sure." Musharraf has selectively banned some radical Islamist militant groups.

Diplomats say these same militants, some of whom shared Afghan training camps with al Qaeda, were encouraged for years by the country's political and military establishment as they ran covert operations in both Afghanistan and India.

Such a past is hard to shake off. So too is the ISI's domestic political role. "The ISI is a sort of political facade of the army -- that is why the ISI has been accused also of indulging in political games and getting political parties to merge or to break," remarked retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, who headed the ISI at the end of the 1980s.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first elected premier, gave the ISI powers to meddle in domestic politics in the 1970's. Bhutto was ousted by General Zia in 1977. And Pakistan's international standing hit one of its lowest points two years later when Bhutto was hung.

Originally envisaged by Jinnah as a home for South Asia's Muslims to practice their faith in peace, Western journalists' discoveries of links between the ISI and jihadi groups with ties to al Qaeda have given arch-enemy India a propaganda godsend.

Pakistan denies everything, but mud sticks. "America is still glowering at us," said Gul, who irritates the new ISI chiefs with his outspoken sympathy for jihadi groups. "They doubt us. They think we are supporters of terrorism."

But U.S. officials give Musharraf high marks for hunting al Qaeda, and hundreds of suspects have been captured. While there is a suspicion Pakistan is soft on the Taliban, U.S. officials realize pushing Pakistan too hard is risky.

"It can't be perceived that we are the ones running the show, because we are not," said a U.S. official in Washington. "We accept what they present with a suspicious eye," said another, invoking former President Ronald Reagan's expression: "Trust but verify."

MMA rejects Wana operation
Daily Times
QUETTA: Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Member of the National Assembly Maulvi Noor Muhammad said on Saturday that the alliance had rejected military operations in Wana and would hold a meeting to discus the issue shortly.

Talking to reporters at the Quetta Press Club, Mr Muhammad said innocent people were arrested during the operation because the authorities had admitted that they had not found any terrorist during the operation. “We strongly reject the military operation in Wana. A meeting has been convened at Mansoora to make a policy about the operation,” Mr Muhammad said.

Defending the government-MMA agreement on the Legal Framework Order, Mr Muhammad said that it was made in the interest of Pakistan. There were constitutional crises in the country and we decided to solve them, he said.

The journalists raised various issues including accepting a uniformed president, Article 58(2)b and President Pervez Musharraf’s Afghan policy, but Mr Muhammad said the MMA made the right decision. Mr Muhammad is known as a hard-core leader of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam who supported Taliban against the Musharraf government’s decision of supporting the United States in the Afghan War.

Asked whether the people had voted the MMA into power for its anti-government policies particularly in regards to its Afghan policy, he said, “We have our own policies”. About the loya jirga, he said the MMA supported a broad-based government and the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan. He said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was weak and lacked support even in Kabul.

Foreigners See Backlash at Pakistan Religious School
By Mike Collett-White
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Walk across the marble courtyard of the Abu Bakar Islamic University in the teeming port city of Karachi and you will see as many foreign students as Pakistanis. The looks from young skull-capped, bearded Muslims from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Africa when a Western reporter enters the now infamous madrassah are suspicious and unfriendly, but perhaps that is hardly surprising.

Since 11 students from Malaysia and Indonesia were arrested in September for suspected terror links, the large foreign contingent is feeling under siege and the university is fuming at its growing reputation as a militant breeding ground.

One of those deported by Pakistani authorities was the brother of a man known as Hambali, a top Southeast Asian al Qaeda suspect from Indonesia. Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan is one of four Indonesian students now being held by Indonesian police for suspected links to Hambali's activities and several bombings.

Leaders at the madrassah, located in Karachi's middle-class Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighborhood, say the government is making it hard for foreign students to attend, and some chose to stay home this term. "Since the 1980s, all students at this institution have been here to study and were never involved in anything. There is no case against them," said Vice Chancellor Maulana Ash Mohammad.

With a long beard dyed orange and piercing eyes, the elderly cleric told Reuters Gunawan was guilty by association only. Foreign students interviewed by Reuters said they studied the Koran and Islam, not militancy. But some of the views expressed by the teaching staff could only be described as extreme.

One Indonesian student at Abu Bakar University has been studying there for eight years since completing a mechanical engineering degree at home. "They teach us here according to Islam," the 33-year-old, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. "We do not learn terrorism." But he said the arrests and deportations had caused concern among the 201 foreign students, nearly half the total of 482. "Our parents back in Indonesia are very worried. From the beginning I have learned to support peace. I don't know why this happened to our brothers."

The bearded student in trademark white cap and baggy trousers and shirt said it was his responsibility to return home and pass on the knowledge he acquired at the madrassah. It is Sunni Muslim and holds lessons entirely in Arabic, the language of the Koran.

While officials deny its links to Islamic militants, it is ideologically, and some say more directly, linked to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba group based in Pakistan and fighting Indian rule in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Taiba was one of two Pakistan-based Islamic groups blamed by New Delhi for an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, that almost triggered war between the South Asian rivals.

A 25-year-old Ghanaian, who requested anonymity, also denied "terror" links at the seminary. He can recite the Koran by heart and wants to set up a similar madrassah in Ghana when he completes his studies. The man in charge of the school's student affairs, who gave his name only as Mubashir, said that 28 foreign students had not returned for the new term that began in December because of the arrest scandal.

"We have received many calls from students in Malaysia, Indonesia and Ghana asking for information on what happened," he said. He added that some Indonesian students had been prevented from enrolling, while others had simply failed to return. There are 68 Thais studying at the complex, 62 Afghans, 17 Ugandans, 15 Malaysians, nine Indonesians and seven Somalians.

After the students had left the room, members of the teaching staff expressed strongly anti-Semitic views, even to the point of voicing sympathy with Hitler. "The problem is not the Muslims, the problem is the Jews," said one, adding that he believed the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 were coordinated by Jews.

It is a relatively popular theory in Pakistan, where anti-American and anti-Israeli opinions have hardened since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The Jews are dangerous, and Hitler understood that," the teacher said. Mohammad Younus Siddiqui, director of teaching, said it was not Americans people hated, but their government's policies.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, has called for reform of madrassahs, which offer free schooling, food and accommodation for hundreds of thousands of young boys and men. While Musharraf says they perform a key social function, he wants to see curricula modernized to include more subjects beyond religion to curb extremist views.

French journalists sentenced to six months jail in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - A Pakistani court has convicted two French journalists for violating the country's visa regulations but suspended the six-month jail terms for a week to allow an appeal. Defence lawyer Nafees Siddiqui applied for a suspension immediately after reporter Marc Epstein and photographer Jean-Paul Guilloteau of French weekly L'Express were found guilty and sentenced.

Judge Nuzhat Ara Alvi also fined the journalists 100,000 rupees (1,725 dollars) each. Siddiqui said he would appeal on Monday against the conviction and sentence at the provincial Sind High Court. The French pair pleaded guilty to charges that they visited Quetta, capital of southwestern Baluchistan province near Afghanistan border, without the proper visas.

The two were arrested by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on December 16 in the southern port city of Karachi when they returned from Quetta where they said they went to investigate the possible presence of Taliban fighters.

Judge Alvi had refused their bail application on December 20, but the pair were bailed on December 24 on the orders of the provincial high court. "I was expecting only a fine but not imprisonment as they entered Pakistan on valid visa but committed an irregularity by visiting Quetta. It is not a charge for which they should have been sentenced to prison," Siddiqui said.

Police handcuffed the two journalists in the court room after the guilty verdict. Asked how he felt, Epstein, who was ringed by policemen, said: "I am not in a position to say anything but you can guess it."

The two journalists were allowed to go back to their hotel after they paid the fine, Siddiqui said. State prosecutor Mahmood Alam Rizvi said the maximum punishment for the offence was three years' imprisonment. The court had confiscated the passports of the journalists after their arrest and the documents remain with the authorities despite orders by the provincial high court to return them. Their Pakistani translator Khawar Mehdi Rizwi, who was arrested along with the two French journalists, is being held at an undisclosed location. His case is likely to be heard on January 13.

The two journalists had visited Pakistan several times in the past and arrived on December 7 for their latest trip. They entered the country with valid visas that allowed them to visit the cities of Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. The action against the journalists sparked criticism by several human rights organisations.

India, China set to start new round of talks on border dispute
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian and Chinese negotiators will meet in Beijing for a new round of talks aimed at resolving the ongoing border dispute between the Asian giants, an Indian official said.

India's National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra was to leave for Beijing Sunday for the two days of dialogue, said the official who asked to be unnamed. Mishra, who is the representative of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the border issue, is expected to hold talks with Vice Foreign Minister Dai Binggao on Monday.
The talks follow a round of dialogue in October in New Delhi. Moves to resolve the border dispute gained momentum after Vajpayee visited Beijing in June. The world's most populous countries fought a brief but bitter border war in 1962 and have never demarcated an official border.

India accuses China of occupying 38,000 square kilometres (14,670 square miles) of territory in Kashmir while Beijing lays claim to 90,000 square kilometres (34,750 square miles) -- all of Arunachal Pradesh state, the scene of the war between the two.

During Vajpayee's talks in Beijing, the two sides agreed to reopen the Nathu La Pass between Chinese-ruled Tibet and Sikkim, a former protectorate which New Delhi annexed in 1975. India interprets the agreement on the Nathu La Pass as the first, if tacit, recognition by China of Sikkim as an Indian state.

First commercial flight from India in two years lands in Pakistan
LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) - The first Indian commercial flight to Pakistan in two years arrived in Lahore marking the resumption of full air links between the two countries. The Indian Airline' airbus flight fom New Nelhi carrying nine passengers landed at the Allama Iqbal International Airport at 15:05 (1005 GMT) on Friday.
Earlier this week Pakistan International Airline started operating its flights from Lahore and Karachi to the Indian capital New Delhi and the port city of Bombay. "This is a welcome resumption and now travellers between the two countries will not have to take longer routes via third countries," said one passenger, Dhanesh.
Air links between the two countries were severed after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for a December 2001 attack on its parliament that brought the nuclear-armed neighbours to the brink of war.

Under a series of tie-mending moves since April, the two sides agreed on December 1 to restart air services. Trains across the border are due to restart on January 15 in other peace-building moves between the two countries.