Afghanistan News June 9, 2004

June 9, 2004

70 Taliban Killed in Combat, Afghan Says
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An Afghan commander said Wednesday that Afghan and U.S. forces killed more than 70 Taliban rebels in a seven-day operation in a mountainous southern district, including at least 20 militants who died in a single clash.

Coalition and Afghan forces returned late Tuesday from the scene of the fighting — the rugged Daychopan district of Zabul province — as the Taliban fighters they had been hunting had either been killed or fled the area, said Jan Mohammed Khan.

Khan, who is commander of Afghan forces and also the governor of neighboring Uruzgan province, said 73 Taliban fighters were killed and 13 captured over seven days, while six Afghan government forces and four coalition soldiers were wounded, and none killed.

"We have finished our operation against the Taliban," Khan told The Associated Press.

U.S. military officials were not immediately available for comment. Previously, officials had reported at least 40 insurgents killed in the past week.

Daychopan, a remote area and Taliban stronghold, lies near the borders of two neighboring provinces, Uruzgan and Kandahar, some 190 miles southwest of Kabul.

It was also the focus of fierce clashes last August and early September which left well over 100 Taliban and one American special operations soldier dead — the heaviest fighting since the hardline Islamic militia was ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.

In the latest battle, Khan said that U.S.-led troops backed by jet fighters and helicopters on Tuesday launched an assault on 100 Taliban militants who ambushed a convoy in an area called Sharaboz Kothal.

"We collected 21 bodies," Khan said. "The rest ran back into the mountains." Among the dead were two local Taliban commanders, Mullah Jabar and Mullah Jalan.

On Wednesday, military spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager told reporters in Kabul that 20 anti-coalition fighters were killed in what he described as "the latest of several aggressive engagements by the Marines."

He said that two Marines and two allied Afghans were wounded — although earlier a Marine spokesman had said five Marines were hurt. Neither official mentioned air strikes.

Some 2,000 Marines based in Uruzgan have clashed repeatedly with large bands of militants in the region.

Another Taliban commander was killed Tuesday near Musa Qala in Helmand province, some 280 miles southwest of Kabul, said Mohammed Wali, a provincial government spokesman.

The commander, Mullah Malik, and another man opened fire on troops who tried to stop their car. Both were killed when the soldiers returned fire, Wali said. Two soldiers were wounded.

About 450 people have died across Afghanistan this year in a wave of violence that has cast doubts on plans to hold national elections in September.

Fighting rages in former strongholds of Afghanistan's Taliban regime
Wednesday June 9, 4:58 PM AFP
United States marines have engaged in a fierce battle with insurgents which has left at least 21 suspected Taliban dead, as violence continues in the former strongholds of the fundamentalist militia ousted in a US-led invasion more than two years ago.

"Marines... continued their assault into the Taliban heartland where they killed more Taliban fighters who were poised to ambush the marines in central Afghanistan," the US military said in a statement released late Tuesday without revealing the number killed.

An Afghan official said that American and Afghan forces had killed some 21 militants on Tuesday in fighting on the ground supported by US warplanes.

"We have 21 dead only yesterday (Tuesday)," Kandahar military spokesman General Abdul Wasay told AFP. "But 30 have been killed and about 10 injured in the past several days."

"There is a huge clean-up operation going on in the mountainous areas between Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan," he added.

Zabul security commander Mohammed Ayob confirmed the major operation which was going on in Uruzgan and in the border regions and the mountainous vallies of Deh Chopan in Zabul.

Southcentral Uruzgan, southeastern Zabul and southern Kandahar are neighbouring provinces and the point at which the three meet has been referred to by the US military as the "Taliban heartland" and is believed to host a permanent presence of fighters loyal to the ousted fundamentalist militia.

The latest fighting is the bloodiest since late last summer when hundreds of people, mostly Taliban fighters, were killed in Afghan and US-led offensives against militants in Zabul.

Since then, militants have refused to gather in large numbers, preferring to launch guerrilla-style attacks on small numbers of Afghan and foreign soldiers or unarmed humanitarian and civilian workers.

The latest violence took place in Deh Chopan district of Zabul on Tuesday in an engagement in which five Americans with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and two Afghans were injured, the statement said.

The fighting occurred as coalition troops approached an area identified as a likely ambush site.

"As marines advanced, an intense firefight ensued," press officer for the marines Captain Eric Dent said in the statement, adding that four militants were enemies were detained after the fighting subsided.

The US military was unable to confirm the number of militants killed or the how many were engaged in the firefight with the marines.

Afghan officials believe some 500 to 800 Taliban fighters are holed up in Deh Chopan, some 300 kilometres (185 miles) southwest of Kabul.

Intelligence and military officials told AFP that the insurgents are loyal to one of the ousted Taliban's leaders, Mullah Dadullah, a close lieutenant of the movement's fugitive founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

A senior UN official said earlier this week that a permanent Taliban presence has established itself in the mountainous zone which includes Zabul, Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces.

The past week has seen daily clashes between the US-led coalition force and militants.

US-led troops and militants fought a week ago in Kandahar's Mian Shin district near Deh Chopan.

The marines took part in pitched battles with anti-coalition militants on June 2 and 3 which began when coalition helicopters were fired upon with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as they scouted ahead a ground combat force, according to the 22nd MEU's website.

At last 25 militants died in two days of fighting.

Some 20,000 US-led mainly American coalition forces are in Afghanistan to hunt and kill Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other militants.

Up to 800 Taliban fighting US-led troops in Afghanistan: officials
Wednesday June 9, 2:30 AM AFP
Between 500 and 800 suspected Taliban fighters under the command of a notorious one-legged commander are engaged in bloody clashes with Afghan and US-led forces, officials said, as US marines fought and killed militants in the south.

Intelligence and military officials told AFP that the insurgents are loyal to one of the ousted Taliban's leaders, Mullah Dadullah, a close lieutenant of the movement's fugitive founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

"We believe that Mullah Dadullah has some 500 to 800 men under his command who are mainly operating in the Deh Chopan areas," of Zabul, Kandahar's intelligence chief Abdullah Laghmanai told AFP.

"Most of the attacks were carried out by Mullah Dadullah's men," he said in reference to this week's fierce firefights.

United States marines killed an unknown number of "Taliban fighters" during a fierce firefight in southcentral Afghanistan Tuesday in which five marines were wounded, a military spokesman said.

The troops with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit "continued their assault into the Taliban heartland where they killed more Taliban fighters who were poised to ambush the marines in central Afghanistan," the US military said in a statement.

The fighting occurred as the marines and Afghan soldiers approached an area identified as a likely ambush site near to the marines' base in Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province some 410 kilometres (254 miles) southwest of Kabul.

Five marines, an Afghan soldier and an interpreter were wounded during the fighting while four enemies were detained.

The US military was unable to confirm the number of militants killed or the how many were engaged in the firefight with the marines.

The week's violence began with militants engaging government and US-led troops last Wednesday in Kandahar's Mian Shin district near Deh Chopan. This incident was followed by almost daily attacks.

On Thursday US-led forces and pro-government troops fought militants in Deh Chopan, with some 17 suspected Taliban killed.

Laghmanai said his agents have reported that Taliban fighters are operating a guerrilla insurgency under Dadullah's command, using the rugged mountainous valley of Deh Chopan as a hideout.

The weekend bloodshed in the former Taliban stronghold has left more than 50 militants dead or wounded, according to General Abdul Wasay, military spokesman for southern Afghanistan.

"In the operation in Mian Shin there were some 150 to 200 Taliban but we now estimate the (total) number at around 500," Wasay told AFP.

"Most of the attacks were planned and carried out by Taliban, maybe by Mullah Dadullah."

The recent attacks, targetting troops and aid workers as well as the United Nations-backed electoral efforts, mark the deadliest string of incidents since August when hundreds of people, mostly Taliban fighters, were killed in Afghan and US-led offensives against militants in Deh Chopan.

Since then, militants have preferred to gather in smaller groups and attack more "soft targets" such as non-governmental agencies and government checkpoints as well as small units of US-led troops patrolling.

"They (Taliban) cannot face troops in battles, the only thing they can do is to attack small units here and there," Laghmanai said.

The coalition has not put a figure on the number of militants they are facing but has repeatedly said that they have not seen insurgents grouping in large numbers since last year.

Mullah Dadullah, who lost a leg during Afghanistan's 1979-1989 resistance against the Soviet invasion, has been reportedly named as the military leader of the remnants of the Taliban by Mullah Omar.

More than 20,000 coalition troops are deployed in Afghanistan to hunt Taliban, Al-Qaeda militants and their allies. They are stationed mainly in the south and southeast, regions dominated by ethnic Pashtun tribes who helped the Taliban to power in 1996.

Since they were toppled by a US-led coalition and Afghanistan's ethnic-Tajik Northern Alliance fighters in 2001, remnants of the Taliban have attacked Afghan and foreign troops supporting President Hamid Karzai's administration.

Dadullah vows to turn Zabul into Panjsher
By Rahimullah Yusufzai – The News Int. 6/8-
PESHAWAR: With the Taliban facing a three-pronged US-Afghan army attack in the Zabul province, their top Taliban military commander Mulla Dadullah has vowed to make the mountainous Dai Chopan district as impregnable as the Panjsher valley north of Kabul.

"There are around 800 Taliban fighters in Dai Chopan. They are resisting the joint US-Afghan military force sent to the area and would fight till the end," he told The News on satellite phone from an undisclosed location. Saying that he wasn’t far from the scene of fighting, Dadullah claimed the enemy convoys coming from Kandahar, Urozgan and Qalat were stranded on the way due to Taliban ambushes.

Panjsher valley was a stronghold of late mujahideen leader and Afghanistan’s former defence minister Ahmad Shah Masood. His men resisted attacks by the Soviet Red Army during the Afghan ‘jehad’ and kept Panjsher valley free throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Taliban too failed to capture Panjsher during their five offensives across the Shomali plains north of Kabul.

Dadullah, who lost one of his legs during the Afghan ‘jehad,’ enjoys unparalleled popularity among the Taliban. He commanded Taliban troops that were sent to conquer northern Afghanistan and Bamiyan province during 1997-1998. He also managed to evade arrest after the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif to the Northern Alliance in late 2001.

Later, he turned up in Kandahar and fought against the US forces until the fall of Taliban regime. He was also the first Taliban commander to respond to the call of Mulla Mohammad Omar, supreme Taliban leader, to resist the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Both the sides have made big claims regarding their battle successes during the latest fighting in Zabul. Military spokesmen for the US and Afghan armies have claimed that scores of Taliban fighters were killed and wounded in the fighting. They also claimed that more than 300 Taliban fighters were under siege in the area.

But Dadullah maintained that the American and Afghan troops sent to the area were trapped as their convoys cannot move ahead or turn back. He said the convoys were stranded for the last three days. "I feel those troops had only one strategy and that was to move ahead. They had no plan of retreat and that is why the US and Afghan troops are now unable to fall back," he argued.

Dadullah claimed nine US-Afghan National Army vehicles were destroyed and about 50 of their soldiers were killed. He also conceded the loss of seven Taliban fighters. According to Dadullah, senior Taliban commanders Mulla Qahhar, Mulla Ghazi and others were leading their fighters in the ongoing battle for Dai Chopan. He said Taliban fighters from other places were also rushing to Dai Chopan to fight alongside their colleagues.

He said the US warplanes had bombed the area but the Taliban fighters didn’t suffer any significant losses in their mountain hideouts. He said the US military had also fired cruise missiles from their base in Kandahar to destroy Taliban positions in Dai Chopan area. "Our men are in high spirits and would continue to resist the enemy attacks. There is no way we would abandon the area," he stressed.

Four fighters killed in clash in Afghan north
KABUL, June 8 (Reuters) - At least four fighters loyal to rival Afghan factions have been killed in a clash in northern Afghanistan, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

The clash on Monday outside the city of Mazar-i-Sharif was part of rising tensions in recent days between Hezb-i-Wahdat, a minority Shi'ite Muslim faction and the Sunni Muslim Jamiat-e-Islami group led By fighter Ustad Atta Mohammad.

Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said the clash was triggered by a land dispute.

"Three fighters from Wahdat died in this fighting and one person from Jamiat," Mashal told reporters, adding that police had now brought the situation under control.

Officials of the groups could not immediately be reached for comment. A British civilian military Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Mazar had helped stop the fighting, a resident of the city said.

Factional fighting has flared in several parts of northern Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces overthrew the radical Taliban militia in late 2001.

The fighting, along with a rise in attacks by Taliban Guerrillas in the south and east, is seen as a threat to President Hamid Karzai's efforts to reunite and rebuild war-torn Afghanistan as well as elections due in September.

About 750 people have been killed since last August, largely in southern and eastern areas where Taliban militants are most active.

The violence has already forced Karzai to delay the elections from June and is flaring despite the presence of about 20,000 U.S.-led troops hunting militants across the country and more than 6,500 NATO-led peacekeepers, mainly stationed in Kabul.

Afghan President Karzai Visits Fort Drum
By WILLIAM KATES, Associated Press Writer
FORT DRUM, New York - Afghan President Hamid Karzai told U.S. troops that they would be remembered in "golden letters" in his country's history for their service in toppling the hard-line Taliban regime.

"What you have done for us will remain in the best memories of Afghan history," Karzai told 1,000 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division on Tuesday. "We will write it in golden letters ... for the future to see and remember."

"With your help, we have reclaimed our country from terror and oppression," Karzai said.

Speaking to reporters after his speech, Karzai renewed his plea for more American and NATO troops to help quell an intensifying Taliban-led insurgency and ensure the country has fair elections in September.

Karzai is on a weeklong trip to the United States, but canceled his visit to the West Coast, including a planned address at the University of California, Davis, apparently because of security concerns.

Pat Bailey, a spokeswoman for UC Davis, said agency officials cited security reasons. State Department officials did not returns calls for comment.

Karzai made the northern New York Army post the first stop on his U.S. visit. More than 5,000 10th Mountain Division soldiers — half the division — were deployed to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country, train the Afghan army and hunt down Taliban and Al-Qaida rebels.

Karzai said the troops helped Afghanistan rebuild its roads and schools, establish a national army and functioning government, and plan its first free elections. Karzai, who was elected president in June 2002, is seeking a new five-year term in September.

"We are moving toward lasting stability and democracy. All of this would not have been possible without your help and without your sacrifices," said Karzai.

Karzai read the names of the 11 Fort Drum soldiers killed in Afghanistan and helped present medals to two soldiers, Spc. Victor Thibeault and Sgt. Dan Swank, who were severely injured by a grenade there in December.

"I can't put into words what it meant for him to shake my hand," Swank said.

Karzai was also to attend the Group of Eight summit this week at Sea Island, Ga., and meet President Bush at the White House.

Calif. Visit by Afghan Leader Canceled
Tue Jun 8,10:19 PM ET By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A weekend visit to the University of California, Davis, by Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been canceled, apparently because of security concerns, officials said Tuesday.
Karzai, 46, who heads the country's transitional government, is on a nationwide tour and was scheduled to come to northern California — home to the nation's largest Afghani community — to urge Afghanis in the United States to play a bigger role in their native land's future.

The State Department abruptly notified the university Tuesday the West Coast portion of the trip had been canceled.

Pat Bailey, a spokeswoman for UC Davis, said agency officials said it was because of security reasons. Later, Lisa Lapin, news director at UC Davis, said no official reason was given for the cancellation.

State Department officials did not returns calls for comment. Ann Roman, spokeswoman for the Secret Service, declined to comment.

Some members of the Afghani immigrant community, however, said Karzai and U.S. officials became wary of possible protests.

"Karzai's itinerary called for him to give a talk and then meet with some Afghanis, to show everyone the support he's got. But as far as I'm concerned he doesn't enjoy that kind of support," said Daud Yaar, a California State University, Hayward, economics professor and an activist in the Afghani immigrant community.

"There were some private talks about a demonstration; it would have ruined his media event."

The Davis luncheon was expected to draw more than 5,000 people to campus.

Karzai is expected to participate in the Group 8 summit in Sea Island, Ga., and is also scheduled to attend Reagan's funeral.

Reagan's legacy in Afghanistan debated
08 Jun 2004 21:40:15 GMT By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) - Ronald Reagan's support for mujaheddin fighters helped oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989, a defeat that ultimately contributed to the communist superpower's own collapse.

But should Reagan, who died last Saturday at 93, carry some of the blame for the rise of extremists headed by Osama bin Laden and the current instability in Afghanistan? Like so much about America's 40th president, that is a matter of debate.

Richard Clarke, former anti-terrorism adviser to President George W. Bush, wrote in a new book that acquiescing to the involvement of an "army of Arabs," including bin Laden, in Afghanistan in the 1980s was one of four Reagan administration "mistakes" that affect the United States today.

Milton Beardon, who ran the CIA's covert aid program in Afghanistan during the Soviet period, thinks that argument is misleading. "The whole concept of the Arabs and the (Afghan) war has been overblown," he said.

If mistakes occurred, it was the price of forcing Moscow to withdraw from Afghanistan, said Beardon, adding: "There is always an unintended consequence of war."
Reagan was so committed to confronting the "evil empire" that he forged an aggressive policy of backing anti-communist insurgents in proxy wars worldwide.

According to Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies," Afghanistan was Reagan's best opportunity to drain the Soviets because they were ill-equipped for such a major deployment.

STINGERS AND MORE
At first Reagan did not offer much financial aid to the Afghan resistance, but later he provided them with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and boosted funding from $35 million in 1982 to $600 million in 1987, Clarke wrote.

"The idea of trying to hit at what was perceived as the vulnerable underbelly of the Soviet Union had wide support among experts and in retrospect, it definitely contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union," said Kenneth Katzman of the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service.

Some say bin Laden financed and recruited fundamentalists to fight alongside Afghan tribal leaders, but Beardon said most of the money went for orphanages and homes for widows. Bin Laden was in one important battle in 1987, but his military role was also minor.

While Afghanistan did become a magnet for "Arab bad boys," Islamic extremists were already active before they arrived, Beardon said. Also, Reagan's administration did not give weapons to Arab "volunteers" but focused on Afghan factions, experts said.

Nevertheless, Clarke said, when Washington engaged Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the anti-Soviet fight, "America sought (or acquiesced in) the importation into Afghanistan and Pakistan of an army of 'Arabs' without considering who they were or what would happen to them after the Soviets left."

Nobody predicted these tacit U.S. allies would later turn so threatening toward America. "I think it would have been very difficult to forsee," said Katzman.

Critics complain the United States should have given its funding to moderate Afghan tribal groups and accuse Washington of being beholden to Pakistan's intelligence service, which channeled U.S. aid to the most extreme Afghan factions.

More broadly, experts fault Reagan's successor, father of the current president, and President Bill Clinton, for "walking away" from Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Soviet departure, allowing extremists to find havens there.

Karzai Talks With Afghan Warlords
Tue Jun 8,12:10 PM ET By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - With President Hamid Karzai in the United States Tuesday for talks with his chief international backers, speculation grew at home that he was planning an electoral pact with Afghanistan's most powerful warlords.

Critics charge he is betraying the hopes of millions of Afghans who have suffered more than two decades of war and turmoil by aligning himself with the powerbrokers. Many of them were behind that fighting and still control much of the country.

Karzai has, however, insisted that such leaders, several of them in his current government, were "part of the reality of this country."

He insists he has reached no deals, but suspicions were stoked last week when Karzai met with key leaders of the Northern Alliance which helped U.S. forces drive out the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

Wali Massood, a brother of late alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massood, is among those who suspect Karzai of seeking warlords' support before the vote by offering them a role in a future government.

"That goes against the norm of democracy, that goes against everything," Massood, who is currently setting up an opposition party, told The Associated Press. "This is no way to build a country."

Karzai told reporters on Thursday that he had met with many faction leaders, including Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami party, and Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Several are veterans of Afghanistan's ruinous civil war in the early 1990s, which destroyed much of Kabul. Today, their private armies, though nominally loyal to the government, are suspected of drug and turf wars that have killed civilians and scared off relief workers.

Karzai said he would find time during his trip to the United States, which is to include a meeting with President Bush, to study a list of demands laid out by Rabbani.

They include a prominent role for the mujahedeen in the security forces and respect for Islamic principles. But Karzai insisted that posts in a future government were not discussed in Kabul. "There was nothing like that," he said.

Rabbani has also stopped short of endorsing Karzai publicly.

But critics say Karzai already looks compromised to ordinary Afghans, and risks cementing a status quo that will cripple his efforts to create a strong government able to heal deep ethnic rifts and keep the Taliban at bay.

The threat of the growing Taliban-led rebellion could yet spoil efforts to register some 10 million eligible Afghans in time for the election in September — the first democratic vote in Afghanistan's modern history.

According to Andrew Wilder, head of the Afghan Research Evaluation Unit, a Kabul-based foundation, the faction leaders are less popular and powerful than Karzai seems to think.

Teaming up with them could cost him votes — if the elections are kept reasonably free of intimidation and vote-buying by the armed groups and drug rings resisting Kabul's authority.

"Karzai should be winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans, not the hearts and minds of the warlords," Wilder said. "But if you don't think you're going to have a free and fair elections, maybe cutting deals is the only alternative."

The United Nations insists a belated government plan to disarm thousands of militia fighters go through by September to keep the vote credible.

That effort has been held up by northern commanders, who are trying to have units downsized rather than scrapped and warn of a security vacuum.

An editorial in the Kabul newspaper Erada last week said Afghans were "losing faith" because of Karzai's talks with the commanders, and that the alienation was fueling the anti-government insurgency racking the south and east.

Afghanistan's Karzai Begins Reelection Bid
The Washington Post 06/07/2004 Pamela Constable
KABUL - President Hamid Karzai is the public face of Afghanistan's troubled transition to democracy, the head of a weak civilian government in a country long controlled by gunmen, the beneficiary and victim of American support in a society ambivalent about its past relations with U.S. governments.

Karzai, 47, who is seeking election to a five-year term in September, arrives in Washington Tuesday to begin a two-week international tour that he hopes will serve as a high-profile curtain raiser for his campaign back home.

During the nearly three years since he was installed as Afghanistan's interim leader in a pact brokered by the United Nations following the U.S.-led ouster of Islamic Taliban rule, Karzai has been belittled as an American puppet, an indecisive leader and a hypocrite who touts democratic ideals while making backroom deals with gunmen in a bid to cling to power. But he prefers to describe himself as a realist who puts the need to pacify his jittery postwar nation before all other goals.

"The Afghan people want elections, and they want stability," he said in an interview Sunday on the lawn of his official residence. "Are they compatible? If there is a choice between bringing peace and security, and holding competitive elections, we must decide very carefully."

Barring an unforeseen or calamitous turn of events, Karzai likely will be elected to a five-year term in late September. Eight individuals have declared their intent to challenge him, including a woman physician, a former planning minister and a brother of Afghanistan's late guerrilla hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud. Other candidates could still emerge, but so far none enjoys either Karzai's national stature or international support, and election laws place all challengers at a further disadvantage by allowing only 30 days of campaigning.

U.N. officials and other foreign observers here have expressed increasing concerns that slow and regionally lopsided voter registration, delays in disarming regional militias and mounting Islamic militia attacks could undermine the credibility and security of the elections. But Karzai has said repeatedly that the vote, already delayed by three months, cannot be allowed to slip again.

Many Afghans say they believe Karzai is under U.S. pressure to hold elections soon to provide President Bush with a foreign policy success and bolster his reelection chances. Karzai will travel to Georgia and California this week, then visit the White House and address a joint session of Congress on June 15.

The Afghan president has also come under criticism in recent days for holding private talks with former Islamic militia leaders, prompting widespread speculation that he is offering to share power with unsavory ethnic rivals in order to remain in office.

But Karzai has repeatedly denied making a deal with the militia leaders and said he has no desire to govern in a coalition. In the interview, he said the Afghan public was clamoring for the right to choose its leaders, but he also said his victory at the polls would help strengthen the weak central government and maintain the momentum of national reconstruction.

"The Afghan people have suffered for years. We must provide them the opportunity to vote for and create a more legitimate government than we have today," he said. "I want to be more legitimate than I am today."

Yet Karzai, who lives in a park-like, heavily guarded residential compound with deer, fruit trees and tennis courts, also suggested he had acquired no love for the trappings of power, saying he is "embarrassed by the pomp" and dreams of retiring to a quiet garden spot in his native southern province of Kandahar.

Some Afghans deride Karzai as an "American president," advised by U.S. diplomats and surrounded by American bodyguards. His tenure is sometimes referred to as a "B-52 democracy" secured by 20,000 U.S. troops.

But most people appear to view his muscular U.S. backing -- which has been accompanied by a massive outlay of aid -- as a reassuring asset after a quarter-century of turmoil at the hands of warring domestic militias and predatory foreign neighbors.

In the interview, Karzai outlined his concerns and aspirations for the country, and he made clear his position, reportedly endorsed by his American adviser, that establishing a strong and stable government is a higher priority than building an instant or perfect democracy.

He also said he was less worried about the threat from Islamic terrorism and regional militias than about such issues as poor public service, official corruption, weak provincial administration and political interference by Afghanistan's neighbors.

Last week, Karzai was badly stung by American columnist Robert Novak who described him as "hopelessly corrupt." In the interview he defended his personal honesty and said he had been frustrated in attempts to attack corruption, especially because Afghan public institutions are weak and the reach of the central government is extremely limited.

"I know there is serious corruption, but somehow I cannot grab it; it is a mirage," Karzai said. He said he intends to create a special corruption court, and he vowed to publicly denounce and prosecute any official found to be corrupt, no matter how highly placed. As for himself, the president quoted a proverb in the Pashto language: "A person who is naked is not afraid of water." Even if senior officials were to be drenched by scandal, he added, "I would not get wet."

The other major issue that concerns Afghans is intimidation and abuse by gunmen, who have controlled much of the country for years. An internationally backed program to disarm and demobilize some 50,000 fighters before elections has met with resistance from senior militia leaders.

But instead of standing up to the warlords, Karzai has angered many Afghans, including his own aides, by holding private negotiations with them during the past two weeks. The capital is rife with rumors of Karzai promising a share of power to men responsible for years of destructive factional fighting and rapacious rule.

"Mr. Karzai has the right to talk to everyone, to create a good atmosphere for elections. But if he makes a coalition with the fundamentalists, it will kill democracy," said Abdul Hamid Mobarez, the deputy information minister. "People want the warlords to be weakened, not made more powerful."

In the interview, the president sketched a different version of the meetings, saying the militia bosses had offered not to field a candidate against him out of patriotic motives. He said they agreed the country and its institutions "could not sustain" competitive elections between polarized camps without degenerating into conflict.

Karzai adamantly denied having made a deal to form a coalition government but said he wanted to bring the militia bosses "into the political process, not push them into a corner" or "frighten them away. . . . We are not going to conduct a court of the past."

Often described as a leader cut off from his constituents, Karzai acknowledged that ever since he escaped an assassination attempt in Kandahar in 2002, his personal security has become an obsessive priority for his Afghan and American staff.

But he said he takes the common pulse by meeting constantly with visitors from across the country, listening to their complaints and trying to act on them. Karzai also participates in a weekly radio show called "You and the President," in which he answers questions from the public, although his answers are taped.

Last week, he took questions on low public salaries, judicial bias and his criteria for selecting a new cabinet if elected. In his answer to the third caller, Karzai said he would choose senior aides "according to their patriotism and professionalism. . . . The next cabinet should be representative of the people and acceptable to all."

Karzai's challengers, although unlikely to defeat him, have already begun raising questions that could weaken his campaign or at least require a public airing. Some have criticized him for reaching out to "moderate" Taliban officials or neglecting the interests of his Pashtun ethnic group, the nation's largest.

Masooda Jalal, an outspoken physician who ran against Karzai in his successful bid to continue as transitional president during a national convention in 2002, said she was browbeaten by officials who accused her of undermining the U.N. process for Afghan democracy.

"People made the mistake of thinking the process and Karzai were the same thing," Jalal said. "I was seen as a challenge to both, so I was marginalized. I have no office, no party, no international support. I just want to represent myself and the democratic rights of Afghan women."

More recently, Karzai's opponents have jointly protested a provision in the new election law that requires all presidential candidates to collect 10,000 voter ID cards as proof of popular support, a requirement that could be seen as contravening ballot secrecy and a feat that few minority candidates can easily manage.

Last week Karzai said he would consider changing the law, and in the interview he stressed the importance of holding "free, fair and fearless elections," a phrase that seems likely to crop up in speeches as he tours the United States. But he clearly expects to win in September, and he clearly believes that continuity, rather than competition, is what's best for his politically fragile country.

"We are building a nation from scratch," he said. "People want stability and they have tasked me to deliver it to them. They see the train is moving, and they want the current pace to continue. They don't want me to cause friction . . . or make any sudden moves that could bring unnecessary bloodshed. They don't want the train to stop."

10 suspects arrested over the murder of aid workers in Afghanistan
KABUL, June 9 (AFP) - Afghan police Wednesday arrested ten people suspected of killing three European aid workers and their two local assistants in Afghanistan's usually quiet northwest last week.

A Belgian woman, a Dutch man, a Norwegian man, their Afghan driver and Afghan translator were ambushed and shot dead as they drove through Baghdis province, some 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Kabul on June 2.

All five worked for the medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders).

"We have arrested ten suspects in relation to the killing of the MSF staff," Badghis governor Azizullah Afzali told AFP.

The ten were arrested near the scene of the ambush in Badghis' Qades district. Two of them came from neighbouring Herat province, said the governor.

Badghis police last week blamed resurgent Taliban fighters, who have been waging a bloody campaign of deadly ambushes and bomb attacks in southeast Afghanistan since last year.

But on Wednesday Afzali did not identify the arrested suspects.

"The investigation is ongoing," he told AFP.

"We will do our best to bring the culprits to justice."

Medecins Sans Frontieres has suspended all operations in Afghanistan following the murders.

Badghis authorities are worried the first aid worker killings in the relatively stable northwest will trigger an exodus of aid workers, as the Taliban killings in the southeast already have.

"This is the first incident in Badghis, which will have negative impact on the reconstructions process and humanitarian aid to the province," Afzali said. Two men on a motorbike approached the car head-on and stopped the bike and opened fire, Baghdis police chief Amir Shah Naibzada told AFP last Wednesday.

Intensified attacks by suspected Taliban fighters across Afghanistan have raised concerns that the country is not safe enough to register voters or hold crucial elections slated for September.

Remnants of the ousted Islamic fundamentalist regime have vowed to disrupt polls and kill Afghans working with foreigners to stage the country's first post-Taliban democratic elections.

The latest deaths bring to 20 the number of aid workers killed in the first of half of this year, compared to 13 for the whole of 2003.

Taliban deny plotting suicide attack on foreign aid workers in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, June 7 (AFP) - The Taliban Tuesday denied Pakistani government warnings that it was plotting to blow up Western aid workers in southwest Pakistan using suicide bombers, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.

"The Taliban have no plan about any operation in Pakistan. If we want to launch suicide attacks, we will do it in Afghanistan, on American forces," Taliban spokesman Mufti Latifullah Hakimi told the private Pakistan-based newsagency via satellite phone from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.

Around 30 American, British, French and Sudanese aid workers suspended operations and went into hiding in a four-star hotel and private homes in the Baluchistan provincial capital Quetta on Sunday after authorities warned them that a former Taliban official was plotting suicide attacks against.

The government-run Afghan Refugees' Organization identified the militant as Maulvi Hashim Ishaqzai, who is suspected of having links to Al-Qaeda.

It warned that a group of Taliban headed by Mullah Hashim Ishaqzai, suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, planned to target the United Nations' refugee office and other foreign NGOs at Quetta and other parts of Baluchistan through suicide bomb attacks.

It said only organisations employing US or British nationals would be targeted.

The Taliban spokesman disowned Ishaqzai, saying no man of such a name was known to them.

Fighters loyal to Afghanistan's former rulers have been staging deadly ambushes and bomb attacks on aid workers, troops and officials in Afghanistan for over a year.

Many of the fighters use sanctuaries in western Pakistan's remote tribal border regions.

Child kidnapping on the rise
KABUL, 8 June (IRIN) - Afghan authorities in the capital Kabul have said that child kidnapping is on the rise. According to Interior Ministry officials, at least 200 children have been kidnapped or abducted over the past 12 months.

"The Interior Ministry recognises child kidnapping as a serious issue and is taking positive steps to stop this crime. We have arrested 100 kidnappers in two years and this shows the efforts the ministry is making," Lutfullah Mashal, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told IRIN.

The UN's children's agency UNICEF is also working to eradicate the problem. "Certainly UNICEF is increasingly concerned at the number of reports of child abductions and trafficking in Afghanistan. We take the reports seriously and are working closely with our partners in the government and at community level to try to reduce the risks to children," UNICEF spokesman Edward Carwardine told IRIN in Kabul on Tuesday.

He said that UNICEF was focusing on both prevention and on the reintegration of children who have been intercepted while in the process of being trafficked. This has included training for police officers and border patrols to raise awareness and understanding of the trafficking issue. There has also been training for key government officials.

UNICEF is also working with partners on the ground in areas where trafficking has been reported to increase awareness amongst communities themselves, through meetings with village elders and local workshops.

The children's agency has also been working with religious leaders and community Shurasa (councils) to promote the value of education, emphasising that the school is a safe environment for children where the risk of abduction was reduced.

Afghan authorities say kidnappers are the first link in an international chain of organised criminality that sees the kidnapped children sold as servants and sexual playthings, primarily in Arab countries. Many are killed and their body parts sold.

"We seriously condemn the kidnapping of children in this war-torn country and we will have a session with the justice, foreign and social affairs ministries as well as with UNICEF, at which we will call on the government to punish the kidnappers," Babrak Zadran of the child rights department of the Human Rights Commission told IRIN.

UNICEF, along with the government, is drawing up a National Action Plan to combat child trafficking that would cover a range of issues from prevention, law enforcement and reintegration of children affected by trafficking. The plan is expected to go to the cabinet for final approval in June.

G-8 should help ensure security
Source: Human Rights Watch 8 Jun 2004
(New York, June 8, 2004) - In the face of worsening security, Afghanistan urgently needs support from the United States and the other G-8 countries to protect the integrity of the nationwide elections scheduled for September, Human Rights Watch said today as Afghan President Hamid Karzai begins a visit to the G-8 summit and the White House.

During his visit this week to the G-8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, and his June 15 meeting with President George W. Bush at the White House, President Karzai should secure urgent new troop contributions for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) and pressure donor nations to increase assistance to help make the Afghan elections free and fair.

Human Rights Watch said that numerous promises by donor governments over the last year, both to increase funding to Afghanistan and to supply troops to expand ISAF's geographic mandate, had already been broken. The G-8 nations are all major donors to Afghanistan, and all but Russia and Japan are NATO members.

"There's been too much doubletalk on Afghanistan," said Sam Zarifi, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division. "It's time for the United States and its NATO allies to honor their pledges to provide aid and ensure security in Afghanistan before things deteriorate even further."

Human Rights Watch cited specifically a funding shortfall for the upcoming elections. Donors have not supplied any of the $101 million needed by the U.N. and Afghan government to administer the elections. At the recent conference in Berlin, donors pledged only $70 million - far less than the calculated amount.

Troop commitments have lagged as well. Well over two years after its initial deployment, ISAF is still stationed almost exclusively in Kabul, with a small contingent deployed in the relatively calm city of Kunduz. Plans for the force to progressively move into other provincial centers, originally envisioned in the December 2001 Bonn Agreement that created the first post-Taliban government, have failed because of reluctance of NATO member states to commit troops, equipment and funding to ISAF.

"The NATO countries should be ashamed of their foot-dragging," said Zarifi. "It's bad enough that the United States and Europe treated Afghanistan's security like a hot potato, tossing the responsibility back and forth for months, but it's even more regrettable that Europe won't muster the troops to do the job."

Human Rights Watch urged President Karzai to give an honest assessment about Afghanistan's security problems during his visit, and to actively renew his efforts to encourage international actors to help establish stability outside of the capital.

"In the absence of international security forces, many Afghan provinces have become autocratic fiefdoms ruled by local military commanders," said Zarifi. "President Karzai said recently that poverty is the main problem in Afghanistan, and as he has repeated often, there can be no reconstruction without security."

Human Rights Watch noted that, in the past week alone, a police chief was assassinated in the eastern city of Jalalabad, five aid workers were killed in the northwest, and a U.N. convoy was attacked near the southeastern city of Khost.

With regard to the upcoming elections, Human Rights Watch said that it was likely that without additional international security support, many candidates planning to run against local leaders in parliamentary parts of the elections would be threatened or targeted for violence.

"Barring new efforts, most Afghans expect that local strongmen will dominate the elections in many parts of the country and the Taliban will disrupt voting in the south and southeast," said Zarifi. "This election could signify either the emergence of a new, relatively democratic Afghanistan, or the country's return to rule of the gun."

Human Rights Watch called for an increase in the number of U.N. human rights monitors and political affairs officers deployed in Afghanistan to help protect vulnerable candidates for the elections and improve monitoring of the election process. Currently the United Nations has only eight human rights monitoring positions in the country, not all of which are staffed. This number contrasts sharply with U.N. deployments in other conflict areas like the Balkans and East Timor, where dozens of U.N. human rights monitors helped provide security and support for civil society during post-conflict elections.

Afghanistan's security problems, although overshadowed by events in Iraq, remain extremely severe and international actors need to respond quickly to improve the situation, Human Rights Watch said.

"After an initial burst of self-congratulatory rhetoric when U.S. forces removed the Taliban, the international community has essentially shortchanged Afghanistan's efforts at reconstruction," said Zarifi. "The simple fact is that the country is still in shambles. It's time for international actors in Afghanistan to get serious."

Afghan Leader Says Stability Is His Nation's First Priority
Widespread Concerns Unlikely to Derail Karzai's Election Bid
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, June 8, 2004; Page A13
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 7 -- President Hamid Karzai is the public face of Afghanistan's troubled transition to democracy, the head of a weak civilian government in a country long controlled by gunmen, the recipient of American support in a society ambivalent toward the United States.

Yet barring an unforeseen or calamitous turn of events, Karzai likely will be elected to a five-year presidential term in late September. The 47-year-old Afghan leader arrives in the United States on Tuesday to begin a two-week international tour that he hopes will serve as a high-profile curtain raiser for his campaign back home.

Since he was installed as Afghanistan's interim leader following the U.S.-led ouster of Islamic Taliban rule in late 2001, Karzai has been belittled as an American puppet, an indecisive leader and a hypocrite who touts democratic ideals while making backroom deals to cling to power. But he prefers to describe himself as a realist who puts the need to pacify his jittery postwar nation before all other goals.

In an interview Sunday on the lawn of his official residence, Karzai outlined his concerns and aspirations for the country, making clear his position that establishing a strong and stable government is a higher priority than building an instant or perfect democracy.

"The Afghan people want elections, and they want stability," he said. "Are they compatible? If there is a choice between bringing peace and security, and holding competitive elections, we must decide very carefully."

U.N. officials and other foreign observers here have expressed increasing concerns that slow and regionally lopsided voter registration, delays in disarming regional militias and mounting Islamic militia attacks could undermine the credibility and security of the elections. But Karzai has said repeatedly that the vote, already delayed by three months, cannot be allowed to slip again.

Many Afghans say they believe Karzai is under U.S. pressure to hold elections soon to provide President Bush with a foreign policy success and bolster his reelection chances. Karzai will travel to Georgia and California this week, then visit the White House and address a joint meeting of Congress on June 15.

In the interview, however, Karzai said the Afghan public was clamoring for the right to choose its leaders, but he also said his victory at the polls would help strengthen the weak central government and maintain the momentum of national reconstruction.

"The Afghan people have suffered for years. We must provide them the opportunity to vote for and create a more legitimate government than we have today," he said. "I want to be more legitimate than I am today."

Yet Karzai, who lives in a heavily guarded residential compound with deer, fruit trees and tennis courts, also suggested he had acquired no love for the trappings of power, saying he is "embarrassed by the pomp" and dreams of retiring to a quiet garden spot in his native southern province of Kandahar.

Last week, Karzai said he was stung by American columnist Robert Novak's description of him as "hopelessly corrupt." In the interview he defended his personal honesty and said he had been frustrated in attempts to attack corruption, especially because Afghan public institutions are weak and the reach of the central government is extremely limited.

"I know there is serious corruption, but somehow I cannot grab it; it is a mirage," Karzai said. He said he intends to create a special corruption court, and he vowed to publicly denounce and prosecute any official found to be corrupt, no matter how highly placed.

As for himself, the president quoted a proverb in the Pashto language: "A person who is naked is not afraid of water." Even if senior officials were to be drenched by scandal, he added, "I would not get wet."

Another major issue that concerns Afghans is intimidation and abuse by gunmen, who have controlled much of the country for years. An internationally backed program to disarm and demobilize about 50,000 fighters before elections has met with resistance from senior militia leaders.

But instead of standing up to the warlords, Karzai has angered many Afghans, including his own aides, by holding private negotiations with them over the past two weeks. The capital is rife with rumors of Karzai promising a share of power to men responsible for years of destructive factional fighting and rapacious rule.

"Mr. Karzai has the right to talk to everyone, to create a good atmosphere for elections. But if he makes a coalition with the fundamentalists, it will kill democracy," said Abdul Hamid Mobarez, the deputy information minister. "People want the warlords to be weakened, not made more powerful."

In the interview, the president sketched a different version of the meetings, saying the militia bosses had offered not to field a candidate against him out of patriotic motives. He said they agreed the country and its institutions "could not sustain" competitive elections between polarized camps without degenerating into conflict.

Karzai adamantly denied having made a deal to form a coalition government, but said he wanted to bring the militia bosses "into the political process, not push them into a corner" or "frighten them away. . . . We are not going to conduct a court of the past."

He said he was less worried about the threat from Islamic terrorism and regional militias than about such issues as poor public service, official corruption, weak provincial administration and political interference by Afghanistan's neighbors.

Often described as a leader cut off from his constituents, Karzai acknowledged that ever since he escaped an assassination attempt in Kandahar in 2002, his personal security has become an obsessive priority for his Afghan and American staff.

But he said he takes the common pulse by meeting constantly with visitors from across the country, listening to their complaints and trying to act on them. Karzai also participates in a weekly radio show called "You and the President," in which he answers questions from the public, although his answers are taped.

Last week, he took questions on low public salaries, judicial bias and his criteria for selecting a new cabinet if elected. In his answer to the third caller, Karzai said he would choose senior aides "according to their patriotism and professionalism. . . . The next cabinet should be representative of the people and acceptable to all."

Eight individuals have declared their intent to challenge Karzai in September. Others could still emerge, but so far none enjoys either Karzai's national stature or international support, and election laws place all challengers at a further disadvantage by allowing only 30 days of campaigning.

Karzai's challengers, though unlikely to defeat him, have already begun raising questions that could weaken his campaign or at least require a public airing. Some have criticized him for reaching out to so-called moderates among the Taliban leadership or neglecting the interests of his Pashtun ethnic group, Afghanistan's largest.

Masooda Jalal, an outspoken physician who ran against Karzai in his successful bid to continue as transitional president during a national convention in 2002, said she was browbeaten by officials who accused her of undermining the U.N. process for Afghan democracy.

"People made the mistake of thinking the process and Karzai were the same thing," Jalal said. "I was seen as a challenge to both, so I was marginalized. I have no office, no party, no international support. I just want to represent myself and the democratic rights of Afghan women."

More recently, Karzai's opponents have jointly protested a provision in the new election law that requires presidential candidates to collect 10,000 voter ID cards as proof of support, a requirement that could be seen as contravening ballot secrecy and a feat that few minority candidates can easily manage.

Last week Karzai said he would consider changing the law, and in the interview he stressed the importance of holding "free, fair and fearless elections." But he clearly expects to win in September, and he clearly believes that continuity, rather than competition, is what's best for his politically fragile country.

"We are building a nation from scratch," he said. "People want stability and they have tasked me to deliver it to them. They see the train is moving, and they want the current pace to continue. They don't want me to cause friction . . . or make any sudden moves that could bring unnecessary bloodshed. They don't want the train to stop."

UNHCR suspends repatriation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Jun 7, 2004 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has suspended repatriation of Afghan refugees in Quetta, capital of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, a UNHCR press official said Monday.

Jack Redden who worked at UNHCR Islamabad press information office told Xinhua that the UN refugee organization had to suspend its work in Quetta for security reasons.

Redden said the work would be restarted till the security situation improved and that the UN group as well as the Pakistani authorities were assessing the situation carefully.

"The repatriation work has been suspended till the security situation improves," said Redden, adding the UN group was not planning to withdraw its workers from Quetta at present.

The Pakistani government has received information suggesting that terrorists were planning to carry out suicide attacks on offices of six non-governmental organizations including the UNHCR based in Quetta.

The Balochistan provincial authorities thus have tightened security arrangements and heavy contingent of police and other law- enforcement agencies have been deployed at offices of all foreign organizations.

The UNHCR closed its offices in Pakistan's Balochistan and North West Frontier provinces and suspended repatriation of Afghan refugees in Nov. 2003 after a UN aid worker was killed in Afghanistan.

It resumed the repatriation work in March only after the Pakistani and Afghan governments promised to take effective measures for the refugee workers' safety.

Karzai Shows He'll Cast Lot With a Corps of Warlords
By CARLOTTA GALL June 8, 2004 The New York Times
ABUL, Afghanistan, June 6 - President Hamid Karzai has accepted the support of powerful mujahedeen leaders for the presidential elections scheduled for September, indicating he will continue an alliance with them in a future government. His move has dismayed many Afghans who were hoping that the nation's first democratic elections would herald an end to the power of the warlords, who have dominated politics for the past decade.

Mr. Karzai is far and away the leading candidate to win a five-year term as president, with Afghanistan's first pre-election opinion survey putting his approval rating at 85 percent. The leaders of the powerful Northern Alliance faction have already said they will not field a candidate and will support Mr Karzai, who is scheduled to meet with American soldiers at Fort Drum, N.Y., on Tuesday to personally thank them for their help in Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai met last Thursday with the former president and leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami party, Burhanuddin Rabbani; the leader of the Ittehad-e-Islami, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf; and with some of the most powerful mujahedeen commanders, including Gov. Ismail Khan of Herat Province. All pledged support for him. The education minister, Yunus Qanooni, also publicly expressed his support this week. The defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, and four other important Pashtun mujahedeen party leaders have done the same, presidential aides said.

Mr. Karzai insisted Thursday that he had not made a deal with the faction leaders and was opposed to a coalition government. Yet it is clear that Mr. Karzai, rather than testing his popularity by standing alone, has opted to join forces with the mujahedeen, men who fought the jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet occupation in the 1980's and who have been his traditional allies over the years.

"The president welcomed the offer of support of the two parties," the presidential chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, said in an interview this week. "These are the two distinguished leaders of jihad whom we always respect, and the president of course was also a leader of jihad, and therefore there is no reason that the president would not accept their offer."

Impartial observers say there is more involved than camaraderie among fellow former jihadis. "He knows it is the most important thing to make a bargain with the jihadis," said one Western diplomat. "He came to power with them, and he is not going to change the political dynamic," he said.

Other officials explained it is not Mr. Karzai's style to go it alone, and his strategy has always been a "big tent policy," to co-opt the warlords rather than confront them.

But his joining forces with the jihadi leaders, many of whom still retain armed militias and pay only lip service to the central government, has dismayed some.

"The deal that has taken place is against the national benefit and the will and desires of the people of Afghanistan," said another presidential candidate, a doctor from Kabul, Massouda Jalal.

She accused Mr. Karzai of agreeing to give half the cabinet posts to Mr. Sayyaf and Mr. Rabbani in return for their support in the elections. Mr. Karzai was concerned that he could not win the election without their support, she said.

A coalition with the mujahedeen would prolong the many problems facing the government, she said. "With this coalition, the reconstruction of Afghanistan will not take place, collection of weapons will not take place, we will keep on having instability and anarchy, the unfairness of the current situation will not improve, and the free will of the people will not be implemented," she said.

Underscoring the precariousness of the security situation, United States military officials said one American soldier was killed and two were wounded Monday when an explosive device detonated under their Humvee near the town of Deh Rawood in Uruzgan Province in the south. The attack was the latest in a stretch of violence that has intensified during the last few weeks.

Technocrats in the government, who have battled with the mujahedeen leaders to push through reforms, particularly in the areas of disarmament and reform of the police, military and intelligence service, expressed their concern that without a genuine popular mandate, the future president would not be able to achieve much change.

"The next government must have legitimacy to carry out a difficult series of reforms," said Ashraf Ghani, the finance minister. "It is the people of Afghanistan who are the only judges of legitimacy. We must ensure that the people exercise that right."

The jihadi leaders said they had decided to endorse Mr Karzai's candidacy in the interests of stability and national unity.

"Afghanistan is at a very sensitive, historic moment,'' Mr. Rabbani said. "We need security and trust in each other and national unity. If we do not think of these things, reconstruction will not go forward, and this attention of the international community is our only opportunity."

Leader of reborn Afghan political party says most Taliban want peace
KABUL, June 6 (AFP) - The leader of a newly-resurrected Islamic party said Sunday that a majority of former Taliban government officials want to play a positive role in Afghanistan's future.

'Most of the Taliban, 95 percent of them, wanted peace and stability in Afghanistan and still want it,' said the head of the Jamiat-e-Khuddam-ul-Furqan (JKF), Hazrat Ahmed Amin Mojadidi, at his party's relaunch in Kabul.

'They wish to play a positive, moderate role in the future of the country,' he added. Denying that he represented fundamentalist views, Mojadidi urged the government to give former Taliban, excepting the leadership, a role to play in the war-torn country's redevelopment.

The government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai has previously said that former low-level Taliban could return to Afghanistan and resume their lives.

Mojadidi also said former Taliban would be accepted into his party even though he did not support the former regime's repressive laws. 'Our ideas are not similar to the Taliban's, we are open-minded people and can give ideas to other ulemas (religious scholars) and Taliban to come and join us for the right future of Afghanistan,' he added.

Mojadidi's party, founded in 1966, claims to be Afghanistan's oldest Islamic political body though it has not been active for more than 20 years because of war.

Mojadidi called on the government to establish a court to try war criminals from the various Afghan conflicts under the eye of the international community. The party also supports fair, transparent and free elections, he said.

Mojadidi called on the US-led coalition forces to leave Afghanistan as soon stability was restored and allow 'the Afghan people to police their nation.'

Italy could send more troops to Afghanistan: Berlusconi
ROME, June 8 (AFP) - Rome is considering sending several hundred more troops to Afghanistan at NATO's request to help ensure security for the forthcoming elections, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday.

'The Italian government may send a batallion to Afghanistan during the elections in that country,' Berlusconi said in an interview with state radio RAI.

'We have been asked for our help during the elections in Afghanistan. The NATO secretary general (Jaap de Hoop Scheffer) telephoned me to ask if Italy can assume responsibility for a province and guarantee public order.'

Afghanistan is to hold general elections in September. Italy already has around 1,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and some 3,000 soldiers in Iraq.

Pakistani tribal militia trace cave hideouts in hunt for al-Qaida militants
Associated Press
Tuesday June 8 - A 4,000-man tribal force charged with tracking down al-Qaida fugitives found cave shelters near the Afghan border where foreign militants may have been hiding recently, security officials said Tuesday. The tribal force, or lashkar, on Monday found abandoned food, stoves and clothes in the caves in South Waziristan, where hundreds of Central Asian, Arab and Afghan militants are suspected to be on the run.

"We think al-Qaida suspects left those places after getting information about the raid," a Pakistani security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He said "dozens" of people could have been sheltering in the caves.

He said the lashkar had made no arrests and was still chasing "footprints of the foreigners." The 4,000-strong force began its hunt on Monday in Mandatta village and remote mountains, hoping to forestall a threatened military operation.

In March, an army offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida men left more than 120 people dead. It also netted 163 suspects, mostly local tribesmen, who were later freed under a deal which required them to lay down arms and halt support for foreign militants.

At the time, Pakistan also offered amnesty to foreign militants if they registered with local authorities and respected Pakistan's laws. But none came forward _ precipitating threats from President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that military force could be used again if tribesmen fail to get the militants to surrender.

The security official, whose account was confirmed by a second official in the capital Islamabad, said the lashkar had found nothing of intelligence value in the caves. The lashkar resumed its search Tuesday.

State media said the lashkar had searched about 100 homes on Monday. Officials say hundreds of al-Qaida militants who crossed over from Afghanistan after the fall of the former Taliban regime in late 2001 are hiding in South Waziristan _ also a possible hideout for Osama bin Laden and his chief aide, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Afghanistan's Buddhas still under threat
By Scott Baldauf | The Christian Science Monitor
from the June 08 - MIS AINAK, AFGHANISTAN - Seven strangers pulled into town a few weeks ago with a keen interest in a nearby Buddhist temple. They asked the local villagers why they wanted to work for pennies when they could make hundreds of dollars stealing Buddhas instead.

The villagers' response? On May 16, they called the cops and had the outsiders arrested. But by then it was too late. Heads and torsos, hands and feet were removed, leaving behind only the delicately formed draped clothing of a once-exquisite, now-defaced, Gandhara-style clay Buddha.

And this is where the mystery begins. The arrested men were carrying official permission letters from the Ministry of Culture. And through pressure from the Culture Minister himself, the men were released, never to be seen again.

Culture Ministry officials say it's all a misunderstanding. Local police say it's a case of corruption at the highest levels. And foreign diplomats say it's an indication that today's Afghan government may be no better at protecting Afghanistan's historic treasures than was the radical Islamist Taliban regime.

"There are people working at the Ministry of Culture who know where these Buddhist places are, and they can help the thieves to find the artifacts," says Noor Mohammad Pakteen, the police chief of Logar Province, where Mis Ainak is located. "It's not just that one place. There are so many other places in Logar that have Buddhas. But the problem is that we don't have enough police officers to protect them."

That there are any Buddhas in Afghanistan at all, of course, is a minor miracle. The 12th-century Afghan conqueror Mahmud of Ghazni did his best to destroy all "idols" in his native country, and traveled as far as India to destroy some of theirs as well. The 21st century Taliban followed in Mahmud's footsteps, setting off tons of explosives over three weeks before finally bringing down the historic Buddhas of Bamian in March 2001. But it's the charges of weakness at best and corruption at worst within the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai that most frustrates historians.

"There is corruption in this government, no question about it," says one Western diplomat in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But Mr. Karzai himself is determined to stop it, and he promises that he will be acting soon to remove corruption."

Given Afghanistan's numerous challenges it is hardly surprising that protecting Buddhas is a lower priority, this diplomat adds. For his part, villager Inzoor Gul has no doubts that the Buddhas were stolen with the help of Afghan officials. He says the strangers made it perfectly clear that their intent was profit, not preservation. "They told us that if we do this work for them, without the government finding out, they would share the money with us," says Mr. Gul.

Police chief Pakteen says he conducted a thorough investigation into the arrested men, and is convinced that they were thieves. They were carrying letters from the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Culture, and the leader of the group - who spoke pashto with a Pakistani accent - even claimed to work for the US Embassy in Kabul. All of their paperwork, except for the Culture Ministry letter, was false.

"The thief came to me and said, 'There is something I want to tell you but not in front of the others,'" Pakteen recalls. "When we went a little distance he told me, 'I am from the US Embassy.' These smugglers always use this technique, whether it's drugs or Buddhas. They use the name of a foreign embassy as power, they want us to be afraid of them and let them go."

In any event, the accused thieves were eventually released. Pakteen sent the men to Kabul into the care of the Ministry of Interior, whose security chief released the men after a personal appeal by the Minister of Culture.

Mohammad Nadir Rasooli, director of archaeology for the Culture Ministry, admits that the accused men were not employees of the ministry, but that they were local men who had found the site and had offered to show it to officials. It was all a misunderstanding, he says.

"They were our guides, they were local people who brought information that there were Buddhas in Logar and by the time we got to the site, they [had been] arrested by the police," says Mr. Rasooli. "I personally don't have any relation with them to know whether they are good people."

If the Buddhas are now stolen from Mis Ainak, he says, it was probably Pakistanis who stole them. "The smugglers want to sell Buddhas abroad, and Mis Ainak is a case like that," he says. In the tiny village of Mis Ainak, tribal chief Mohammad Arif says it doesn't matter much who took the Buddhas; what matters is that a vital part of his heritage is now gone.