Afghanistan News January 13, 2004

January 13, 2004

Pakistan Vows to Beef Up Security on Afghan Border
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - Pakistan's prime minister vowed Monday to beef up security along the border with Afghanistan, where Islamic militants are active, as part of the neighbors' joint fight against terrorism. Zafarullah Khan Jamali also offered to donate 100 buses and 200 trucks to Pakistan's war-torn neighbor and pledged to build a railway and repair a road in two Afghan border provinces.

"The fight against terrorism -- yes, Afghanistan has been a sufferer, now, unfortunately, it has traveled to Pakistan also, so it has to be a joint effort to fight extremism and terrorism," Jamali told reporters.

Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Islamic rebels including remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda network who cross from Pakistani territory and launch attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan says it is doing what it can to counter the threat.

"There is no looking back, we have to go ahead with it, it is a menace all over the world...and we have to try to eradicate it, so there is no let off, there is no turning back," Jamali said.

But despite such assurances, Afghanistan is still suspicious of Pakistan, once the main backer of the Taliban, the hard-line regime overthrown by U.S.-led forces in late 2001. Tension flared last year when Pakistan and Afghan troops clashed along their border, which is ill-defined and disputed in many places.

During his one day trip, Jamali also visited the Pakistani embassy that angry Afghans have ransacked four times in the last 10 years, most recently in July, when anger flared over the border clashes. Jamali also held talks with President Hamid Karzai.

Afterwards he told reporters Pakistan recently deployed about 65,000 "active troops" along the semi-autonomous tribal belt with Afghanistan to stop infiltration of militants, and would increase efforts to stop illegal movement across the border.

Jamali also said two more border crossings would be opened to boost trade, and Pakistan intended to increase official annual trade with Afghanistan from $620 million to over $1 billion in the future. The prime minister said Pakistan would begin refurbishing the Torkham-Jalalabad highway in eastern Afghanistan and hoped to complete it by the middle of 2005.

There are also plans to build a railway linking the Pakistani town of Chaman with the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. As a gesture of goodwill to coincide with Jamali's visit, Pakistan released 149 Afghan prisoners Monday who were being held for violating immigration laws, Pakistan state television reported.

Pakistan's PM Makes Visit to Afghanistan
STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistan's prime minister promised on Monday to step up efforts to stop al-Qaida militants and their Taliban allies from using Pakistan as a base for attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali did not say what measures Pakistan would take, but officials from a key Pakistani tribal region along the semiautonomous border announced a new militia to help the government capture suspected terrorists.

Making his first official visit to Afghanistan, Jamali held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and said later that his country was determined to fight extremism. "We want to ensure, and do our double best, that there is no crisscross from Afghanistan into Pakistan, or from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Jamali said at a joint news conference in a courtyard of Karzai's palace in the Afghan capital.

Afghan officials have urged Pakistan to take a tougher line against al-Qaida and Taliban militants who are launching attacks in Afghan territory and then retreating into Pakistan. At least 36 people, most civilians, have been killed in such cross-border attacks in the last week.

Jamali defended Pakistan's efforts to date, saying it has deployed 65,000 troops to the border's tribal belt and is manning 800 border posts. Islamabad has also rounded up hundreds of al-Qaida suspects in the area, thought to be a possible hiding place of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

However, the success of the crackdown depends largely on the cooperation of the border belt's deeply conservative people, many of whom sympathize with the Taliban and have a long tradition of independence from the central government.

Last week, Pakistani troops could not capture 15-20 al-Qaida suspects who had taken refuge in South Waziristan, one of several tribal regions along the border. Authorities gave tribal leaders a two-day ultimatum Saturday to hand over three tribesmen suspected of sheltering the foreigners. The deadline expired Monday, but there appeared to be no handover or penalties.

Instead, South Waziristan elders announced they were creating a militia to hunt down suspects, said Rahmatullah Khan Wazir, a senior government official in Wana, the region's administrative center. "We have received a positive response from the Wazir tribe," said Wazir, himself a member of the tribe. "They will extend full support to us by arresting any foreign terrorists, if they are hiding there."

South Waziristan is just across the frontier from Afghanistan's Paktika province, where U.S. troops have been hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who launch attacks against them and sneak back into Pakistan.

Jamali dismissed speculation that Pakistan was under U.S. pressure to increase border security. "It's our duty. We don't need pressure for that work," the prime minister said.

Jamali, Karzai vow to fight terrorism
Daily Times 1/13/04
KABUL: Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday and promised to increase security along the border with Afghanistan to stop attacks across the two countries’ border.

Prime Minister Jamali also donated 100 buses and 200 trucks to Afghanistan and pledged to build a railway and repair a road in Afghan border provinces of Torkham and Jalalabad, news agencies reported.

“The fight against terrorism — yes, Afghanistan has been a sufferer, now, unfortunately, it has travelled to Pakistan also, so it has to be a joint effort to fight extremism and terrorism,” Jamali told reporters.

“There is no looking back, we have to go ahead with it, it is a menace all over the world...and we have to try to eradicate it, so there is no let off, there is no turning back,” Jamali said. He also visited the Pakistani embassy that angry Afghans ransacked four times in the last 10 years, most recently in July. He also called on former Afghan king Zahir Shah.

“We want to ensure, and do our double best, that there is no crisscross from Afghanistan into Pakistan, or from Pakistan into Afghanistan,” Jamali said at a joint news conference in a courtyard of Karzai’s palace in Kabul after holding talks with the Afghan president.

“Terrorism in any shape, any form is not acceptable. It could radiate from any group,” Jamali said. “There’s been plenty of activity on the Pakistani side.”

“We’ll keep on making it better, increasing it ... so that the people of both countries don’t suffer at all,” Jamali said. He said the effort to fight terrorism was homegrown, not the result of pressure from the US. “It’s our duty. We don’t need pressure for that work.”

The prime minister also said two more border crossings would be opened between Pakistan and Afghanistan to boost trade and ease congestion at the existing crossing point. He said Pakistan intended to increase official annual trade with Afghanistan from $620 million to over $1 billion in the future.

Karzai said the two countries recognised they were now in a “joint fight for the future of both countries, the future of this region and eventually the future of the international community”.

Staff report adds from Islamabad: Prime Minister Jamali said Kabul had agreed to release 94 Pakistanis imprisoned in Kabul and those jailed in other parts of the country would be released soon.

Addressing a press conference on his return from Kabul, Mr Jamali said Pakistan would establish medical facilities including a kidney centre at Jalalabad and a limb centre in Kandahar.

He said the National Bank of Pakistan would open its branches in Kandahar and Jalalabad in three months while Habib Bank would also open branches in Afghanistan.

He said Pakistan had promised increased cooperation to Afghanistan in trade, education, communication and infrastructure development. He said Pakistan Railways would carry out a survey for the Chaman-Kandahar railway line and Afghanistan had been asked to award that contract to Pakistan.

“Afghanistan has also agreed to allow the use of its territory for transport and communication by Pakistan during the closure of Lowari Top,” he said. He said he briefed President Hamid Karzai about his talks with the Indian prime minister on the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan. “President Karzai was supportive of this important project,” he said.

Pakistani PM Visits Afghan Capital
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali arrived Monday in Afghanistan for talks with President Hamid Karzai expected to focus on the stepped-up struggle against Islamic militants along the rugged border between the two countries.

Arriving by a Pakistan International Airlines plane, Jamali was greeted at Kabul's airport by senior Afghan officials including Foreign Minister Abdullah and Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.

The trip comes amid signs that Pakistan is taking a tougher line against al-Qaida militants and fighters of the former Taliban regime that Afghanistan says are launching attacks in Afghan territory and then retreating into Pakistan. The rugged tribal areas along the border are also thought to be a possible hiding place of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The meeting also follows a thaw in relations between Pakistan and India, whose rivalry has helped fuel the wars that laid waste to much of Afghanistan over the past quarter-century. It is Jamali's first official visit to Afghanistan since he took office in late 2002. Afghan officials said security and economic issues would dominate the talks.

The visit comes "at an important juncture in time as both countries continue to actively combat terrorism and work toward building up a secure, stable and prosperous region," Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad said. "Afghan leaders will express their desire to boost relations and cooperation across the board," Samad said in a statement.

In the past week, bloody attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan have left at least 36 people dead, most of them civilians.

Before departing Pakistan, Jamali appealed for all factions in Afghanistan to work for peace and stability in Afghanistan and said Pakistan would support the country's reconstruction. He also told reporters that Pakistan would not allow anybody to use its soil for any kind of "wrong activity" in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops to the border, but says the mountainous frontier is too long and remote to be sealed completely. About 15-20 suspected al-Qaida terrorists taking refuge in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan eluded capture in a Pakistani military operation Thursday. Relations have also been soured by disputes over where the border runs.

Afghanistan has welcomed the recent Pakistani border operations, and also condemned two attempts last month on the life of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, which have been blamed on Islamic militants.

On the eve of the two-day trip, Jamali ordered the release of 149 Afghans from Pakistani jails as a goodwill gesture, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported. Millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and the civil war which followed, meaning many still have family ties across the border.

But diplomatic relations are uneasy because of Pakistan's previous strong backing for the Taliban. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Pakistan withdrew its support and has become a key American ally.

No US pressure for anti al-Qaeda operation:
Pakistan (Pakistan Link)
ISLAMABAD : Pakistan Monday said there is 'no pressure' from the United States for launching a major operation against suspected al-Qaeda militants in the country's tribal region that borders Afghanistan.

“We do not yield to any foreign pressure and the operation is driven by our own interests,” Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said in Islamabad. Khan told reporters at weekly press briefing that Pakistan’s cooperation against war on terror is publicly known.

“Pakistan made its own determination based on information and intelligence,” the spokesman said. The offensive is in the area of South Waziristan, where the authorities believe a number of foreigners have taken shelter.

Afghan and US officials say the area has been a hub of activity for members of Afghanistan's ousted Taleban regime and Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda. The military crackdown started in the early hours of Thursday morning following intelligence reports that some suspected foreign militants were hiding in the mountains near Waziristan's main town of Wana.

Initial reports said that as the ground troops moved into the area to round up the suspects, they came under fire. Helicopter gunships were called in to provide the air cover. To a question the spokesman said that Pakistan had given the United States logistical support, shared intelligence information and gave them authorization to use Pakistani airspace in the war on ‘terrorism’. He said cooperation in these areas is continuing.

Khan said it was a search operation after receiving some credible information that some suspected foreign terrorists were hiding and some tribesmen had given them refuge. Four Pakistani soldiers were killed when a ‘stray’ rocket hit an army camp in the area last month.

None of the suspected militants have been found but some local tribesmen had been detained. The authorities had set a deadline to the local tribesmen to hand over the foreign suspects till Monday.

The Ahmed Zai tribesmen assured the authorities on Monday that will hand over to the government within a week those who were blamed for giving shelter to the foreigners. South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan's troubled Paktika province, has remained a hub of al-Qaeda and Taleban activity for quite some time
Last year, the Pakistani military carried out two major operations in the area. The fiercest one was in October, when eight suspected militants and two troops were killed. One of the people killed was later identified as Hasan Mahsum, a leader of a Chinese Islamic militant movement.

Since early last year, the Pakistani military authorities have kept the entire tribal region of South Waziristan under siege, as there are suspicions that some high-ranking al-Qaeda militants may be hiding in the area.

Suspected Taliban Kill 4 Afghan Officers
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Dozens of suspected Taliban fighters armed with assault rifles attacked a police checkpoint Monday and killed four policemen, a provincial governor said.

The attack occurred in the southwestern province of Nimroz, said Kareem Baravi, the Nimroz governor. Authorities have stepped up security in Nimroz in recent months to track suspected al-Qaida fugitives and fighters of the Taliban militia believed to be hiding there.

The Taliban, whose government was overthrown in the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan late 2001, have regrouped and increased attacks against police and soldiers to prevent them working for U.S. troops or President Hamid Karzai's government. The violence has been concentrated in the south and east, near the Pakistani border. But there have also been incidents in the north.

In Mazar-e-Sharif, the main northern city, a bomb exploded Sunday evening in front of the office of the French aid group Agency for Technical Coooperation and Development, injuring a guard and a worker, said Quadratullah Hamdard, a spokesman for the Afghan military in the city. Two employees have been detained as part of the investigation.

On Thursday, police removed a bomb from a ditch near a United Nations office in the city and destroyed it. 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.

At least 36 people died in violence in Afghanistan last week, including 15 civilians, most of them children, killed by a double bombing in the southern city of Kandahar. Four suspected Taliban were killed last week when a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely in the southern province of Helmand on a road regularly used by Afghan soldiers.

100 Now Killed in Afghan Military Campaign
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. soldier died over the weekend after a traffic accident near Kabul, becoming the 100th American death since the U.S.-led military campaign began in Afghanistan two years ago.

The U.S. military did not name the soldier in a brief statement issued Monday. It said the soldier was involved in a vehicle accident southwest of the Afghan capital on Friday night and died as a result of his injuries the next morning. "His death underscores the dangers inherent in Operation Enduring Freedom and our condolences go out to his family," the statement said, without giving further details.

U.S. troops make up the majority of the 11,700-strong coalition forces hunting al-Qaida rebels and remnants of the former ruling Taliban regime that was ousted from power in Afghanistan in late 2001.

According to the Department of Defense Web site, as of Friday morning there had been 30 U.S. deaths from hostile fire since the operation began in October 2001 and another 69 "non-hostile" deaths. The soldier's death Saturday would bring the total to 100.

The U.S.-led forces began their campaign to oust the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, after the hardline Islamic militia refused to hand over al-Qaida leader and suspected mastermind of the terror plot, Osama bin Laden, who had used Afghanistan as a base.

Bin Laden has evaded capture and is believed to be hiding someplace on the rugged, poorly defined border between Afghanistan and Pakistan — where many of the tribal population on both sides of the frontier sympathize with the Taliban.

Despite the presence of the coalition forces, Taliban, al-Qaida and guerrillas loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have stepped up their campaign against the coalition and the U.S.-backed Afghan government in recent months.

Rebels have waged frequent attacks on security forces, government officials and aid workers, particularly in the lawless south and east of the country. The attacks have cast doubts over whether Afghanistan, which earlier this month adopted a new constitution after two decades of war and civil strife, will be stable enough to hold general elections in June as planned.

U.S. Soldier Dies in Afghan Accident
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. soldier died over the weekend after a traffic accident near the Afghan capital, the U.S. military said Monday. The soldier was involved in a vehicle accident southwest of Kabul on Friday night and died as a result of his injuries the next morning, said a statement from the military.

"His death underscores the dangers inherent in Operation Enduring Freedom and our condolences go out to his family," it said, without giving further details or releasing the soldier's name.

Mujahideens return weapons to ISAF
Pak Tribune
KABUL, January 13 (Online): Another phase of the disarmament process in Afghanistan began the other day as dozens of famed Mujahideen fighters turned over their weapons to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) near Kabul.

Looking haggard and in various states of dress, about 180 hard-core resistance fighters brought AK-47's, rocket launchers and numerous other weapons to the 7th Division Afghan militia headquarters, once a training camp for al-Qaeda terrorists, according to the Canadian Press, a Canadian news agency.

It was a symbolically important handover, as the once-proud "freedom fighters" lined up, listened to a few short speeches from their former commanders and lay down their arms at the base known as Reeshkhor.

The base was formerly a Taliban stronghold controlled by Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, considered the most dogmatic Islamic fundamentalist leader in Afghanistan.
"These are basically citizen soldiers; these were the backbone of the resistance," Canadian Forces Maj. Bob Knight said after watching the handover ceremony on behalf of ISAF. "They're fighters, they're not regular army, and they're very proud of who they are." The Mujahideen, or Islamic warriors, made up much of Afghanistan's guerrilla opposition.

They were a powerful force, active in much of the country from 1979, fighting both Soviet forces and the Soviet-backed Afghan government. After 1989, when Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, the Mujahideen fought a civil war against the Afghan government, which devastated the country, Kabul in particular.
Although later defeated by the Taliban in the Afghan capital and in the country's desert-covered southern regions, the guerrillas continued to reign over most of Afghanistan's steep-sloped mountains to the north.

But after more than two decades of battles, the soldiers said Sunday they are tired of fighting. "They will give me work as a labourer," said Mohammed Asif, who began training with the 7th division when he was 12 years old.

"We're happy that the Taliban and al-Qaeda is no longer here," said Asif, 28. "We want work, jobs." Knight said the former fighters recognize "the war is over. It's time to get on with rebuilding Afghanistan."

So far, nearly 800 members of various Afghan militias have handed in their weapons in exchange for a small amount of money, clothing and promises of education, farm equipment or jobs. Fulfilling those promises is critical to ensuring Afghanistan doesn't disintegrate into all-out war.

"This is the whole key to the programme, not the money, (nor) the suit of clothes that they will receive," said Knight. "The real success of the program will be the reintegration, the job offers that are available to them, job retraining, all of these things that the lead nation and the United Nations development program are working towards getting going."

The aim of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programme is to disarm 2,000 soldiers by the end of January. However, the process has seen delays and isn't expected to be completed until mid-February, just as Canada takes over command of ISAF, the NATO-led force that includes about 2,000 Canadian troops.

Thousands of soldiers forsake new army
KABUL, 12 Jan 2004 (IRIN) - More than a quarter of the newly-trained 10,000-strong Afghan National Army (ANA) have left the service since its formation in mid-2002, officials at the Afghan Ministry of Defence told IRIN on Sunday. "Around two to three thousand soldiers have fled the ANA so far," General Zahir Azimi a spokesperson for the ministry said.

The widespread desertion of so many new troops is a serious challenge to the internationally-trained and supervised ANA, seen as critical to the country's future peace and stability. Azini said tough training, low wages, factional links and forced recruitment were the key causes behind the decision of so many new soldiers to foresake the force. The new army is scheduled to grow to 70,000-strong and replace the armed private militias - said to number around 100,000 - currently being disarmed by the Afghan government.

In the beginning, local commanders were instructed to send their troops to join the national army, and this element of compulsion appears to have spurned some recruits to leave. "More than 80 percent of those who have escaped, had been forcibly sent to join the ANA by local commanders and they were mostly the weak and lazy ones who could not take the tough training," Azimi said, adding, that the process had stopped, "Now it is a totally voluntary recruitment system."

Recruits receive about US $70 per month during training and in the first year of service with newly-established ANA battalions. "They were paid less than what they could earn in private business, so this could also be a reason why they left," Azimi noted.

Kabul is clearly concerned about the walkout at a time when poor security is hampering preparations for elections scheduled for later this year. A recent announcement on state-run Afghan television told deserters to come back and join the army, otherwise they would have to pay for the cost of their training. But officials at ANA high command in Kabul told IRIN only less than a thousand soldiers from the central corps had fled, but that half had returned.

"All together, 800 people had left the army, some before training, some during the training and a very limited number of them fled after they had joined the central corps here," Major General Mohammad Mu'een Faqir, commander of ANA central corps told IRIN.

Faqir said often absent soldiers had problems in their localities and some could not rejoin the fledgling army due to poor security in their provinces. "We sent letters to their community elders and solved their problems and 388 of those who escaped, came back from different provinces and rejoined the army," the general maintained, adding in recent months they had no absenteeism.

But the army believes poor pay is not the primary reason new recruits are leaving. According to ANA central corps, soldiers receive a daily food allowance, in addition to their monthly wage. "This reaches 6,000 Afghanis [around $110] per month which is a decent salary for a soldier in my years of experience in the army," the commander ascertained.

However, an ANA soldier contacted by IRIN, said unfair treatment by commanders had had a negative impact on morale. Pay was less of an issue, the recruit said his current salary in the ANA was more than what he earned in a factory when he was a refugee in neighbouring Pakistan.

The ANA has been supervised by the US army, with the assistance of Britain, New Zealand, France and Germany. Technical assistance to the new army - envisaged to provide security to Afghanistan's emerging post-Taliban government - has been provided by Bulgaria, Romania, Canada, South Korea and Mongolia.

Disarming private militias and forming an ethnically balanced, professional army is one of the priorities of the internationally-supported Afghan government. A loyal armed force is key to Kabul extending its authority to the provinces which have been troubled by factional fighting and rights abuses by warlords in the north and a resurgence of the ousted Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the south and east.

The flash point where Afghanistan meets Pakistan
Barnett R. Rubin IHT Monday, January 12, 2004
NEW YORK Over lunch at the loya jirga in Kabul - the recent meeting that discussed and adopted Afghanistan's new constitution - I asked a delegate from Kandahar Province, a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, whether the Taliban's resurgence there was due mainly to support from Pakistan or conditions in Afghanistan. "Without the support of Pakistan," he answered, fixing me with his gray-green eyes, "the Taliban cannot do anything." Pakistan, he said, "never wants a strong government in Afghanistan, because if we have a strong government we will reclaim our land, all the way to Gwadar" - a Pakistani Indian Ocean port.
.
This is one view, unsurprising in a delegate from a Pashtun area. The Pashtun ethnic group, predominant in Kandahar, not only is the largest in Afghanistan, but populates territory nearby in Pakistan, and many Afghan Pashtuns feel a unity with those lands. An opposition leader I spoke with at the loya jirga saw things differently, urging that Afghanistan's constitution "recognize the borders of the country" as they are now. As he saw it, the refusal to recognize Pashtun tribal territories as part of Pakistan had destabilized Afghanistan's South and East for decades. In principle, Karzai agreed. He knows peace and prosperity require full cooperation and recognized but open borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And there is hope this problem might finally be resolved as part of a regional settlement in South Asia.
.
Over breakfast on the second day of the loya jirga, Karzai argued that Afghanistan needed partners in Pakistan for a dialogue. Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, added that the status of the tribal areas had become a huge question mark for Pakistan. After Sept. 11, 2001, the Pakistani Army entered the tribal areas for the first time, yet the government still assumed no responsibility for governing them. Pakistan's northwest frontier with Afghanistan, like its northeast frontier with India, where armies face each other in Kashmir, is contested and unrecognized. And these two border areas have long been dysfunctionally linked. In 1947 the nascent Pakistani Army recruited Pashtuns from both sides of the frontier to fight in Kashmir. During the 1980's the Pakistani military used the weapons and training aid intended for the Afghan mujahedeen to train a new generation of guerrillas for Kashmir. And Pakistan allowed Al Qaeda to establish itself in Afghanistan partly in return for Qaeda help in training Kashmir fighters.
.
Madrasas in the tribal areas trained a generation of militants from among the impoverished youth of the tribal areas, both Pakistanis and Afghan refugees. They marched off to fight in Afghanistan, Kashmir or both, and now such militants have twice nearly assassinated Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf.
.
Now forces are coming together that could finally bring about some progress on the border issues. The loya jirga consolidated the strength and legitimacy of Karzai, and it showed that Pashtuns could assert influence while accommodating other groups.
.
In Pakistan, Musharraf, after his close calls with assassination, has once again sent the Pakistani Army to battle extremists in the tribal territories and seems finally to have agreed to cease using extremists in Kashmir. This may be the time to push him to rein in cross-border activities by the Taliban.
.
Musharraf's agreement with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India for a serious dialogue on Kashmir sets the stage for critical agreements. And at the recent South Asia summit meeting, leaders spoke of a need to overcome barriers to trade and investment barriers in their region as a step to joining the global economy - more reason to settle the old disputes. As the dialogue on Kashmir starts, so must a parallel effort on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. The United States has already supported a working-level discussion of the Afghan-Pakistan border through intelligence cooperation. This should be raised to the political level. And reconstruction aid that will accompany the deployment of security teams into the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan should be complemented with development aid for the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan, where for too long smuggling, drug trafficking, looting and migration have provided the only avenues to wealth.
The writer is director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

Afghan progress undermined by drugs
By Dennis Kux and Harpinder Athwal - CSM
WASHINGTON - After three weeks of vigorous debates in the loya jirga, Afghans have succeeded in approving a new Constitution for their country. But whether Afghanistan has a presidential or parliamentary system, the focus of controversy is in many respects overshadowed by the burgeoning narcotics trade. Unless checked, the drug trade has the potential to undermine Afghanistan's entire political and economic reconstruction process.

A recent trip to Afghanistan convinced us that along with growing insecurity, the drug trade is the single biggest obstacle to a stable Afghanistan. This year narcotics accounted for more than 40 percent of the Afghan economy; the UN estimates that Afghanistan's current annual production of 3,600 tons of opium is 75 percent of the world's output.

The struggle to produce a democratic constitution to underpin a stable, unified Afghanistan will bear little or no fruit if the narcotics trade continues to flourish. The Afghan drug lords, tied to terrorists and warlords for support and assistance, have a vested interest in a weak government in Kabul. And these "narcolords" will use all their power to keep the already fractured and volatile Karzai government unstable.

Afghan drug money provides a steady source of finance for groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These groups view the Karzai government as a pawn of the US and its allies and they want to drive the international assistance community from Afghanistan. The terrorists target foreign aid workers and contractors, who are essentially undefended, in an effort to push out all international groups working to reconstruct Afghanistan and secure its future. The peace cannot be won while a reliable source of funding from narcotics continues to put weapons and resources into the hands of warlords and the Taliban. The war on terror in Afghanistan has to include an assault on the drug trade.

So far, the international effort to tackle narcotics has failed badly - and, as one Afghan official in Kabul told us, the nation is at a crossroads, at risk of falling into the hands of "drug cartels or 'narcoterrorists.'"

The British, who've had the lead role in dealing with drugs, have achieved little. Their program to pay farmers to eradicate poppy fields has, unfortunately, led to increased poppy production. And the US military and coalition forces have maintained a hands-off policy, studiously avoiding involvement in battling narcotics.
Lacking an effective national police force and functioning legal system, the Afghan central government is powerless to deal with the problem alone. Arrests can be made but, given the legal void, those taken into custody can't be tried. Yet Afghan government ministers, international aid officials, and diplomats we met with all agree that failure to send a forceful, unified message to the drug traffickers that they cannot operate with impunity risks undermining any effort to create stability and security in Afghanistan.

The weak policy requires drastic overhaul. Drug traffickers and poppy cultivators need to know that the current permissive attitude has changed. There is no time to wait for "crop alternatives" before tackling the problem. The growth of poppies has already been declared illegal, and Kabul should start enforcing the policy with a vigorous eradication program. Karzai government officials told us they believe fears of a backlash among farmers and drug middlemen are exaggerated.
Certainly more vigorous antidrug enforcement - under the difficult circumstances of a struggling democracy - will be imperfect. But it would send a badly needed signal to traffickers that the government is serious about containing the drug trade. For the program to be more than mere rhetoric, it is essential that the US military become more actively involved.

By sending Zalmay Khalilzad as the new ambassador in Kabul, the US has made a good start with strategy adjustments. The first step has been to accelerate the training of the new Afghan National Army and national police force, and the second was to expand the Provincial Reconstruction Teams with the aim of increasing security across the country. These welcome changes will mean little in curbing the growth of the Taliban and cutting the roots of Al Qaeda - in short, winning the first battle in the war on terror - without a far more vigorous US participation in an antidrug program.

• Dennis Kux, a former State Department South Asia specialist, is a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Harpinder Athwal is communications manager for Citizens for Global Solutions. They traveled to Afghanistan last month as part of a Council on Foreign Relations and Asia Society Task Force mission.

India, China start new round of talks on border dispute
BEIJING (AFP) - Indian and Chinese negotiators were meeting in Beijing for a new round of talks aimed at resolving the ongoing border dispute between the nuclear neighbours, officials said.

BEIJING (AFP) - Indian and Chinese negotiators were meeting in Beijing for a new round of talks aimed at resolving the ongoing border dispute between the nuclear neighbours, officials said. India's National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra arrived Sunday for the two days of dialogue and was meeting Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo.

"He is in town and having discussions with his counterpart," said P.K. Rawat, a spokesman at the Indian embassy, on Monday. Mishra, who is the representative of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the border issue, is also expected to call on some senior Chinese leaders and exchange views on bilateral ties as well as other issues of common concern.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said last week Beijing hoped progress would result from Mishra's visit. "We hope that against the backdrop of the continuous development of Sino-Indian relations, the two sides' representatives will ... actively inquire into and solve the border issues between the two countries," spokesman Kong Quan said at a regular briefing.

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.

EDITORIAL: Ms Bhutto’s critique
Daily Times 1/13/04
In an interview to Daily Times, PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto has accused President Pervez Musharraf of having imposed a ‘soft revolution’ on Pakistan ‘in order to bring the MMA to power’. She said General Musharraf had a two-pronged policy at the strategic and tactical levels. At the tactical level he had aped the liberal policies of the PPP ‘to throw dust in the eyes of the constituency of the democratic forces’, while his strategy was to ‘further the aims of the MMA’. Thus, he was offering two convenient choices to the world: you can either have military dictatorship or a religious dictatorship in Pakistan. Needless to say, she argued, the world would plump for military dictatorship. And if the West was not willing to support him, he put forward to it the stark possibility of the extremist mullahs coming to power and getting hold of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. In her words ‘the covert agenda of Musharraf and his backers coincides with the overt agenda of the MMA’. And all this has apparently been done in Pakistan ‘to keep the PPP out of power’.

As we try to grapple with Ms Bhutto’s analysis of the situation in Pakistan, we see the government using troops and paramilitary forces in South Waziristan to winkle out terrorists that have already killed four Pakistani troops during the operation. We note that the MMA has cried foul and is threatening all sorts of dire consequences even as its party members in Wana sit in a jirga and promise to cooperate with the army and deliver the offenders. In Saudi Arabia, PML-N leader Mr Nawaz Sharif has termed the South Waziristan operation a ‘national tragedy’ that will lead to ‘civil war’ in Pakistan. Chiming in with the MMA rhetoric, Mr Sharif has also condemned the latest detente with India, the unilateral ceasefire and the abandonment of Pakistan’s ‘national stance’ on Kashmir. Meanwhile, responding to the Christmas Day attack on him, President Musharraf has got the Jamali government to round up activists of the jihadi organisations all over Punjab. By one count over 60 of them are already in custody. On the other hand, the seminaries belonging to the JUI, so far considered sacrosanct because the government was negotiating the LFO with the clergy over the LFO, have been raided and sealed and some pupils picked up.

The complex scenario above will not help in studying Ms Bhutto’s simplistic critique as a genuine analysis of the situation. But some of the points she has made must be accepted. The military in Pakistan has always been paranoid about the PPP, and in the post-Zia days, this tendency has almost become a kind of organisational credo. She is also right in saying that the MQM was created, along with what is sometimes called the Nawaz League, to keep the PPP out of power. But Ms Bhutto’s claim that President Musharraf has aped many PPP policies can also be seen from another angle. President Musharraf did indeed express a liberal worldview immediately after coming to power. Accordingly, this paper had argued that since the Nawaz League had broken up along liberal lines and the PPP already possessed a world view in tune with General Musharraf’s liberal thinking, he should take the two mainstream parties along and relent on the ‘conditionalities’ imposed on the PPP’s exiled leadership. Regrettably, that was not to be and we believe that this failure of realpolitik — while it was being practised vigorously on other fronts — will not be without a cost for both President Musharraf and Pakistan.

As far as the phenomenon of the electoral triumph of the MMA is concerned, the fact is that it has been variously interpreted. But if we base our evaluation on the surveys conducted by some private TV channels, one major factor among others for the decline of the two mainstream parties and the rise of the MMA alliance was the perceived venality and corruption of the two when they alternated in power in the 1990s. The common man was unable to fathom the importance of the fact that both tried to normalise with India in order to lessen the stranglehold of the army. He was more receptive to the style of politics practised by the two parties in and out of power. Both opposed each other beyond the bounds of democratic decency and were never seen opposed ‘in principle’ to an army takeover when in opposition. This is something that both Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto must contend with.

The West may be supporting President Musharraf because of his policy, not because of his status. The West is also very realistic about the residual worth of the two mainstream parties at the present moment. But the return to democracy is ineluctable and the future remains with the two mainstream parties and not with the mullahs. We only hope that the two leaders and their mainstream parties will improve in conduct after a chastening period in the wilderness. *