Afghanistan News April 4, 2005

April 4, 2005

Afghanistan Seeks to Become Master of Its Own Aid
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - An annual meeting of donor countries contributing billions of dollars to Afghanistan's reconstruction opened on Monday with a plea from President Hamid Karzai to let his three-month-old government take a leading role.

A fierce debate is raging over slow progress in making Afghans' everyday life easier. On Sunday Karzai accused non-government organizations (NGOs) of squandering funds channeled through them.

Karzai skirted the NGO controversy at the outset of the Afghan Development Forum on Monday, and instead pitched for more control over the way money is spent.
"The Afghan Government, as the ultimate body accountable to the Afghan people, must also be better informed about, and play its due role in, steering the development process," Karzai told an audience including representatives from some 40 donor countries.

"The Government must become the anchor for a more integrated, transparent and accountable development effort," said Karzai, who had led an interim government for three years before winning a presidential election in October.

Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady, one of the new ministers chosen by Karzai in December, was more categorical.

"I urge all of you to channel most of your resources through our budget ...," said Ahady, adding that the government was ready to try and meet the international community's concerns over transparency and accountability.

This forum, due to end on Wednesday, is very much focused on strategy rather than raising money. Pledges of $8.3 billion covering two to three years were made at last year's forum in Berlin, so there is no need to top up funds until next year. In addition, the United States hopes to double this year's assistance to Afghanistan to over $5 billion once Congress approves a supplemental budget plan. Washington also spends $10 billion on military operations in Afghanistan.

"We hope that others would also expand their support because a sustained commitment is the foundations upon which all other efforts must be built," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.

EMPHASIS ON INFRASTRUCTURE
Up to now, the government has been allowed to make proposals, but feels it has little input in the final say over projects.

Aid money put emergency and humanitarian needs first in the three years since U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban for sheltering al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Absorbing over 3 million returning refugees and helping 500,000 internally displaced people go home was another priority for a nation emerging from a quarter-century of conflict.

And assembling a new army and police, while demobilizing private militias, was crucial to restoring security, with Taliban insurgents active, and warlords controlling regional fiefdoms.

The government's priority now is to speed up economic reconstruction, building infrastructure, nurturing a private sector, reducing poverty, and promoting the country's potential role as a land-bridge between energy-rich Central Asian states and fast growing economies in South Asia.

It also needs to expedite irrigation programs and other rural development projects to give farmers a chance of overcoming years of drought and dissuade them from growing poppies for a narcotics trade that accounts for over half of the Afghan economy.

Economic growth was estimated at 29 percent last year, and 16 percent the year before. It will need to keep up this pace if Karzai is to fulfil an election promise to raise Afghanistan's income per capita from $200 to at least $500 within five years.

One of the government's arguments against funds being channeled through NGOs is that it is stunting Afghan firms.

The government believes some NGOs abuse their status, which gives them tax and customs exemptions, to make money, and has drafted a law to bar them from bidding in construction tenders.

Established agencies, with proven track records in relief and aid, say the government is in danger of treating all NGOs alike, and fear the aid community in Afghanistan is being made a fall guy for the slow progress. The government and donor countries have set up a task force to examine policy toward NGOs.

Afghanistan announces 4.75 bln dollar budget
Mon Apr 4, 1:54 AM ET South Asia - AFP
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's finance minister announced a 4.75 billion dollar budget for 2005 to be funded mostly by international donors.

Some 93 percent of total budget will come from international assistance, of which more than three-quarters will go to development projects to be directly managed by donors, Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady said on Sunday.

The Afghan government is only committing 333 million dollars to the budget, he said.

"With government budget, we can only pay wages and finance existing programs, because most of international aid is managed by the international community itself, and we cannot control it," said Adib Farhadi, director for development services with the Ministry of Reconstruction.

The budget was announced a day before the opening of a development forum in the capital Kabul to discuss the distribution of international assistance for the country, devastated by decades of war and now battling a Islamic insurgency carried out in part by members of the ousted Taliban regime.

The forum comes as the Afghan government presses for more control over its own budget.

"With this forum, we have the opportunity to tell the world that although there are still important humanitarian needs, we, Afghans, would like to participate more in the reconstruction of our country," Farhadi said.

"We've come a tremendous way over the last three years. We built the basic capacity for accountability and transparency. Due to this, we'd like more money to go through government channels, and be able to finance national development projects," he said.

Afghanistan begs Bush not to move US envoy to Iraq
April 4, 2005
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's chief justice has written to US President George W. Bush pleading with him not to transfer US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to Iraq until after September's Afghan parliamentary polls.

In an open letter prompted by reports Khalilzad would be moved to Baghdad and obtained by AFP on Monday, Fazil Hadi Shinwary said the Afghan-born US diplomat was "needed more than ever" in his fatherland.

No official White House announcement has been made on the new appointment and Khalilzad remains tight-lipped on the issue.

US media have said Khalilzad, who has been Bush's special envoy to Kabul since late 2001 and was made US ambassador to Afghanistan in 2003, will be nominated for a similar mission in Iraq in coming months.

Khalilzad was widely credited with saving Afghanistan's first presidential election from disaster in October after opposition candidates threatened to boycott the results following allegations of fraud.

Electoral staff had failed to mark voters fingers with indelible ink in some polling stations, leaving no guarantee against multiple voting.

"No one else can work as he has been doing or has done in the past," Shinwary wrote.

Khalilzad, who like President Hamid Karzai hails from Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun majority, enjoys close ties with the US-backed president.

He is still widely regarded as having considerable influence over the Afghan government because the United States has the largest military force in the country.

Japan's prime minister, NATO chief agree to cooperate in rebuilding Afghanistan
Monday April 4, 5:14 PM AP
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed Monday to cooperate in Afghanistan's reconstruction, but Tokyo stressed that its military probably would not be dispatched to help, an official said.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Koizumi he hoped the two sides' closer ties would bring stability to Afghanistan, said Norio Maruyama, a ministry official in charge of European affairs.

Japan has been working with other countries to disarm and demobilize militant factions in Afghanistan.

But in a separate meeting with the NATO chief, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said it was unlikely Japan's military would be dispatched to support NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the war-torn country, the ministry official said.

Tokyo would instead consider how it can contribute to private sector projects, Machimura said.

De Hoop Scheffer told Machimura he understood that Japan's pacifist post-World War II constitution would limit a military dispatch to a non-combat mission. Japan currently has non-combat troops in southern Iraq helping with reconstruction.

ISAF was established under British command to support and protect the fledgling Afghan government after U.S. forces and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance drove the hardline Islamic militia from power in late 2001.

During a speech earlier Monday, the NATO chief called on Tokyo to contribute troops to the operations.

Though Japan's constitution has been interpreted as restricting Tokyo to offers of economic aid, "this interpretation no longer corresponds to reality," he said, according to Kyodo News. "The greatest service that we _ Japan and the NATO allies _ can render to peace and stability is active engagement."

De Hoop Scheffer, who arrived in Tokyo Sunday for talks on international security and defense, also said NATO wasn't taking sides on the debate over whether to end a European arms embargo on China.

France and Germany want to end a 16-year-old European arms embargo imposed after China's military crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Tokyo and its ally, Washington, have been wary of such a move amid a military buildup by Beijing.

Japanese FM to visit Pakistan, Afghanistan on Monday
Pakistan Link,
TOKYO April 03: Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura will make a five-day trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan from Monday to observe reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and participate in an Asian foreign ministerial forum in Islamabad.

On the sidelines of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue forum, Machimura is seeking to meet with South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon, who canceled a trip to Japan last month after a territorial row erupted anew, according to Machimura.

Machimura is scheduled to arrive in Kabul on Tuesday and meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah as well as members of Japanese nongovernmental organizations involved in reconstruction of the country, Kyodo quoted Foreign Ministry officials as saying.

Machimura will then travel to Islamabad the same day and attend the ACD forum, which gets down to business Tuesday evening.

Representatives from the ACD's 26 member states are expected to focus on how to strengthen mutual cooperation in Asia and a Pakistan-proposed initiative on economic cooperation, the officials said.

Machimura hopes to take advantage of the trip to improve relations with South Korea, which have recently deteriorated, due to rekindled territorial and historical disputes, one Japanese official suggested.

On March 26, Japan's Shimane Prefecture declared Feb. 22 as a commemorative day for a Sea of Japan island controlled by South Korea but claimed also by Japan, a move that sparked an angry reaction from South Korea.

Ban canceled a trip to Japan originally planned for March to protest Shimane's move. The prefecture's assembly enacted an ordinance to establish the commemorative day for the island, which is called Takeshima in Japan and Tokto in South Korea

Chinese FM reaffirms support to Afghanistan
KABUL, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing reaffirmed China's support for Afghanistan's economic recovery when delivering a speech at the opening of the third Afghanistan Development Forum (ADF) here on Monday.

"With peace dawning and development burgeoning, Afghanistan today is at a crucial juncture, moving from chaos to order. While the government and people of Afghanistan are sparing no efforts to rebuild the economy, the international community shares the common responsibility and obligation to support and help Afghanistan with its reconstruction," Li said.

The three-day ADF will discuss how to accelerate economic development in Afghanistan with international donors. The theme of the forum this year is "accelerating economic development."

"As the trend of our times is to pursue development through cooperation for a win-win result of mutual benefit, we are actually helping ourselves when we help Afghanistan in its rejuvenation and development," Li stressed.

The Chinese minister also pointed out four key factors for Afghanistan's reconstruction: a stable domestic environment, a full-fledged state structure, sound cooperation with its surrounding countries, and continuous international assistance.

Li reaffirmed that China hopes to see long-term stability in Afghanistan. "We support the Afghan government under the leadership of President Karzai in its efforts to maintain stability and stand ready to strengthen bilateral cooperation in policing, the training of police and anti-drug officers and counter-terrorism."

"The Chinese government is delivering on its 150 million US dollar pledges to Afghanistan," said Li. "The dredging of the Parwan irrigation projects will be completed by the end of this month. The construction of a new Republic Hospital building in Kabul will break ground very soon."

The Chinese government will encourage competitive and well-established Chinese enterprises to come to Afghanistan for investment and trade, he added.

After the opening of ADF, Afghan First Vice President Ahmad ZiaMasoud and Second Vice President Abdul Kalim Khalili met with Li respectively.

Both leaders appreciated the generous assistance the Chinese government offered to the post-Taliban Afghanistan, and hoped to further promote the bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Li expressed the willingness of the Chinese government to help Afghanistan rebuild its shattered economy through multiple forms of cooperation based on the mutual interest.

"We hope to maintain the relationship of good fiend, good neighbor and good partner in the future," Li noted.

After the talks with Afghan leaders during his two-day visit, Li wrapped up his visit to Afghanistan and left for Pakistan on Monday afternoon.

Karzai appoints committee to study controversial NGO law
Mon Apr 4, 1:24 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai appointed a committee of locals and foreign representatives to study draft legislation aimed at controlling aid agencies after some raised concerns over the bill.

Officials announced Friday that they had drafted the legislation, a move which followed a government probe into the activities of some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and amid the perception by many Afghans that the groups are squandering international aid money.

Economy minister Mir Mohammad Amin Farhang has said that under the new law his administration would control the activities of thousands of NGOs, raising concerns among some organisations that it could limit their efforts to rebuild the shattered country.

"The president reiterated his commitment to fight corruption and the misuse of public money both within and outside the government," a government statement issued after Sunday's meeting said.

"The president and the gathered representatives of the donor countries agreed to establish a joint task-force to examine the issue," it said.

"Under this law NGOs would not be allowed to receive government contracts," Paul Barker, country director of Care, said earlier.

"So it would prohibit NGOs from being involved in a wide range of activities in the country."

Another western NGO official said on condition of anonymity: "This law is providing tools for the regulation of NGOs. But it brings a lot of restriction, and it's pretty negative for the NGO community."

Karzai's spokesman said Friday the law had been drafted and approved by cabinet but needed Karzai's approval which would likely come within a few weeks.

Sunday's statement said the new committee is to submit its recommendations with a month.

A conference of major donors was set to begin Monday in Kabul with the aim of dispensing billions of dollars worth of pledges to the country.

Shopkeepers in Southern Afghanistan Protest Plans to Widen Roads
Monday April 4, 2:23 PM Asia Pulse
JALALABAD, April 4 Asia Pulse - Hundreds of shopkeepers in the southeastern city of Jalalabad poured onto the streets last Monday to protest government plans to widen a main thoroughfare.

The shopkeepers chanted anti-government slogans, burned tires and blocked the road from Angorbagh to Jalalabad City.

Traders have opened welding and building materials shops on part of the road, blocking the area that is supposed to be widened.

A 52-year-old shopkeeper told Pajhwok Afghan News that the government has not offered them any compensation for taking away their shops, and are intent on taking away their livelihood.

Abdul Razaq Arsalai, the Mayor of Jalalabad responded that the road belongs to the government and, besides, the shopkeepers have built the shops illegally.

"We will give them another area to build their shops instead of this, but this area is essential to the widening of the road," he said.
(Pajhwok Afghan News)

International force to take charge of west sector of Afghanistan
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Sunday, April 3, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan — The 38-nation International Security Assistance Force is preparing to assume responsibility for another chunk of Afghanistan from the United States.

The ISAF, which has been in charge of the northern sector of Afghanistan for about 20 months, is to take over the west of the country early this summer.

That will leave the United States with the southern and eastern sectors — at least for a while.

Col. Phil Bookert hopes to give up command of Regional Command West in early June. He said Thursday that everything is going according to plan so far. ISAF began the process of moving into the west with the Italians taking over the provincial reconstruction team from the United States in Herat on Thursday.

“In the last eight months, the security situation has improved and it’s much more stable than it was before,” Bookert said of the four provinces he supervises in west Afghanistan.

He said his biggest concerns are criminal activity and narcotics. The two may be connected in a country known as one of the world’s top opium suppliers.

Bookert said that crime has declined, though. He credits that to an active Afghan police force and a new willingness by citizens to report criminal activities to the authorities.

Maj. Joseph Bowman, an ISAF spokesman, said there have been few problems in the north of the country since ISAF took over.

“Overall, it’s been a very smooth transition, and that’s what we expect in the west, too,” he said.

Bowman, one of fewer than 100 Americans working for ISAF, said Phase 3 would include an ISAF takeover of the south. Phase 4 — the east — would complete the handover from the United States to an international force.

“There’s no timetable for Phases 3 and 4,” Bowman said.

Currently, there are about 8,200 ISAF troops in Afghanistan. Through early January, that included a high of 2,294 troops from Germany to a low of three from Austria. Other large contributors include France (906), Canada (842), Belgium (633) and Spain (561).

“We do expect the number of troops to increase as we take over more territory,” Bowman said.

Asked if that takeover is dependent on conditions and events, or simply a hesitancy of countries to contribute troops, Bookert went for a third option.

“I think it’s both,” he said. “I think it’s conditions first. And we have improved conditions in most of the country.”

But are countries unwilling to send troops to areas considered high risk?

“That’s a political question,” Bookert said. “I can’t answer that.”

Bowman said he wasn’t “aware of any instances of nations refusing to participate.” But he said a definitive answer to that question would have to come from the countries themselves — or someone at least a few pay grades higher than his at NATO headquarters.

LAURA'S NEW MISSION: AFGHAN TEACHING HOSP
By DEBORAH ORIN New York Post, NY
April 4, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — First Lady Laura Bush came home from her trip to Afghanistan struck by the desperate need to create a teaching hospital .
The idea was born when Mrs. Bush met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's wife, Zinat, a gynecologist, and comes as the first lady looks to play a bigger role in international women's issues.

"Mrs. Karzai told her, 'I'm a health professional, and this is something we desperately need here,' " said Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary.

"They so much want a teaching hospital for women's and children's care. They need it to train doctors and midwives to go out into the rural areas."

Afghanistan has horrific infant and maternal mortality rates — 257 out of every 1,000 children die before age 5, compared to 7 out of 1,000 in the United States.

Mrs. Bush wants to explore, with the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, ways that private groups can help create a teaching hospital for women, aides say.

She was a driving force behind the creation of an Afghan institute to train female teachers — which she visited last week on a six-hour trip with gun-toting soldiers on her helicopter.

Bomb kills Afghan at Pakistan border crossing
03 Apr 2005 09:49:27 GMT
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, April 3 (Reuters) - A bomb explosion close to a border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan killed an Afghan man on Sunday morning, police said. The attack in the Afghan frontier town of Spin Boldak, in the southern province of Kandahar, comes two days after Taliban fighters killed three truck drivers just outside the town.

The drivers had been transporting jeeps to a U.S. base just outside Kandahar city.

Kandahar Police Chief Ayub Salangi did not say who was suspected of being behind the bomb attack on the border.

"A remote controlled bomb exploded at 8:00 local time in the morning near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border gate in Spin Boldak. One Afghan was killed," Salangi said.

There was a lull in Taliban activity over the winter months, but in in recent weeks there have been a series of attacks.

"We ask Afghans to stay away from military bases belonging to the American, Allied and Afghan forces because there could be a major attack on them," Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah told Reuters via satellite telephone on Sunday in a statement declaring the launch of the anticipated spring offensive.

A day earlier, dozens of Taliban fighters besieged the district headquarters of Deshu in the southwest province of Helmand, and killed three policemen.

In the northern province of Balkh, two men were killed on Friday when their tractor struck a mine, said to have been recently planted in Peyazkar village.

While most casualties in the recent upsurge of violence have been Afghans, four U.S. soldiers were killed in late March when their vehicle hit a mine 40 km (25 miles) south of Kabul.

Persian New Year Celebrations Unite Afghans
Animosities Forgotten During Nowruz Holiday
By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, April 4, 2005; Page A17
MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan -- "Looking at the audience, I see that you are all Kandaharis," the singer said into the microphone as he surveyed a sea of heads sporting the sparkly caps and long-tailed turbans common to that southern city. "But my Pashto is not strong, so I hope you will enjoy our music in Dari."

The tourists crowded into the Ahmadi Supermarket and Restaurant applauded encouragingly.

This northern city might seem an odd destination for travelers from Kandahar, which, after all, is the ethnic Pashtun stronghold where the repressive Taliban movement originated. Mazar-e Sharif, a city dominated by ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, was one of the last holdouts against the Taliban. During the violent struggle for control of the city, which the Taliban held from 1998 to 2001, members of both sides engaged in massacres of the other.

But the Taliban is gone now. And when it comes to ringing in the Persian New Year in Afghanistan, even people from Kandahar will admit that Mazar-e Sharif has no equal.

"This is the place to celebrate, so of course I wanted to come," said Abdul Rezek, 28, an auto parts salesman who had taken the 18-hour bus ride from Kandahar with 12 of his friends several days earlier.

"Definitely people here know where I am from," he added. "But they say, 'You are as a guest here. We welcome you.' "

It has been a recurring theme of this year's festivities in Mazar-e Sharif.

The holiday, known as Nowruz, or new day, began on March 21 with the raising of a religious banner, or janda, in the courtyard of the city's magnificent blue-domed shrine. That is where, according to Afghan tradition, Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the fourth caliph of Islam, is buried. For several weeks, until the janda is taken down in a second ceremony on the 13th day of the new year, the city will host tens of thousands of visitors from across Afghanistan.

Their reasons for journeying north are as varied as the provinces from which the pilgrims hail. There are giddy young men, who come to dance in the streets or listen to concerts. There are the devout, who come to pay solemn homage to Ali. And there are parents of disabled children, who come to beg him for a miraculous cure.

Within each group, Afghans from vastly different provinces are mingling with a degree of ease that is notable in a nation still struggling to forge a national identity after years of regional conflict.

That sense of community was one of the few uplifting aspects of the Chila Khana.

A large, fenced-off outdoor nook in the Mazar-e Sharif shrine's western wall, the Chila Khana -- or House of Forty -- is reserved for the most seriously ill and disabled of worshipers. According to tradition, those who sleep here each night until the janda is taken down will be cured of whatever ails them.

A few days into Nowruz, more than 100 pilgrims were huddled there in a tableau of human misery.

On the men's side, an adolescent with wild hair and bloodshot eyes wailed incoherently. Nearby, Qurban Haiderboi, an elderly pilgrim who had traveled from the western Afghan city of Herat to help out in the Chila Khana, was touting the miraculous recovery of Askar Hamid, a 25-year-old with rolling eyes and crumpled limbs from the northern province of Kunduz.

"Before, he could not speak a single word," Haiderboi shouted as he propped up Hamid against the railing to show him off to a gathering crowd. "But last night I sat with him and told him to say the kalima" -- the Muslim holy prayer. "Now he is saying the kalima for everybody."

On the women's side, a middle-aged mother named Jamila looked on sadly as she cradled her sickly looking 4-year-old son.

Yet her frown turned to a pleasant smile as she described the friendship that had sprung up between her and a 20-year-old woman with a mangled hand. "I didn't know anyone when I came here," said Jamila, who like many Afghans uses only one name. "Now she and I have become like mother and sister even though we are from different provinces. When it is time for me to go to the mosque and pray, I even leave my son with her."

Several miles away, on the dusty plain where a buzkashi match was underway, the fans crowding the stands displayed a similar lack of regional prejudice.

A wild and dangerous game in which dozens of galloping horsemen race each other across the Central Asian steppe while fighting to grab hold of a headless goat carcass, buzkashi is said to date from the time of Genghis Khan. With their Asiatic features, high-heeled boots and quilted jackets and sashes, the professional players looked as though they had stepped out of another era. But they had also accessorized their outfits with a few touches from Afghanistan's more recent past -- including olive-green Soviet tanker's helmets from the 1980s and black plastic knee pads that would have fit in with the rollerbladers in Rock Creek Park.

Every few minutes, the scrum of horsemen whooshed by in a blur of clattering hoofs, rearing horses and cracking whips. Then the announcer would call out the name of the player judged to have gained possession of the carcass -- never an obvious choice -- and the winner would ride up to receive a fistful of cash from the sponsor of that round.

In another time, fans might have rooted for players from their ethnic group or province. But the crowd favorite, known as Malang, appeared to be popular mainly because he usually wins the most rounds in a tournament.

Isakhan, a 42-year-old language teacher from the nearby city of Samangan, confided that it didn't hurt that Malang was a fellow ethnic Uzbek. "I do feel happy when an Uzbek wins," he said.

Others in the crowd immediately interjected that Malang was actually a Turkmen. "No, he's a Tajik!" said another man.

"Okay," Isakhan said finally, "we are all Afghans."

Not that the Nowruz tourists were always tolerant of differences.

At the university auditorium, where a multi-day music festival was held in honor of the holiday, the young men in the audience greeted an Iranian troupe with disappointed jeers when it launched into a slow, funereal chant.

Robert Kluyver, a Dutch consultant with the foundation that sponsored the festival, jumped up and asked the emcee to lecture the audience on the importance of appreciating "fine music" from other cultures.

Afterward, the audience listened politely for a few moments, then broke into rowdy cheers as the music picked up a notch.

"I guess they didn't get the message," Kluyver said with a shake of his head.

Back at the hotel where musicians from the festival had been put up for the night, the Singing Mullah of Shebergan said he was sure he would enjoy a warmer reception when he played at the auditorium the following night.

"I am famous around here," said the 62-year-old, whose real name is Taj Mohammed, as he leaned back on his thin hotel mattress with a confident grin.

Certainly, he had the most interesting stage name, although technically he had given up his job as an Islamic preacher four decades ago. Now, Mohammed works as a supervisor at a natural gas mine by day and an entertainer by night.

Mostly his band plays weddings. But perhaps his most memorable concert was in the early 1990s, when the band traveled to the front lines of the battle then raging between Abdurrashid Dostum, the pro-communist, ethnic Uzbek general, and Islamic guerrilla groups. "Suddenly we came under fire from Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades," said Mohammed, an Uzbek. "But we kept on playing for Dostum."

A powerful militia leader who switched sides multiple times during Afghanistan's various wars and whose troops are widely believed to have brutally massacred hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001, Dostum remains a controversial figure.

But Mohammed said he was unaware of those charges and had only fond memories of the period in the mid-1990s when Dostum ruled several northern areas, including Mazar-e Sharif, as his fiefdom.

Still, Mohammed added that he had always been committed to national unity. Back in the days of civil war, he said, he frequently sang a song of his own composition called "We Love Our Homeland." Its message was that Afghans should stop fighting each other.

Now the band was working on a new song, meant to encourage countrymen to make use of Afghanistan's natural resources.

"It is for the reconstruction of Afghanistan," Mohammed said as his band mates picked up traditional Uzbek instruments for an impromptu performance.

Khost Tribal Elders Discuss Province’s Future
Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs)
April 04, 2005 By Master Sgt. Geoffrey Carter Combined Task Force Thunder Public Affairs
KHOST, Afghanistan -- Whenever different tribes in Afghanistan get together, the atmosphere can be electrified by the tribes’ years of warring and mistrust. This meeting was different.

About 100 tribal elders from about 16 tribes in Khost Province gathered at the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in Khost on March 31 to discuss the upcoming parliamentary elections, Afghanistan’s new democratic government, reconciliation and security.

Maj. Carl Hollister, commander of the Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team, provided the Coalition viewpoint.

The province’s minister of tribal affairs, Tohir Khan, said the meeting would discuss the needs of each tribal area, such as wells and road improvement, but the most important thing that should be taken away from the conference was his message of unity, peace and stability.

Sher Khosti, adviser to Khost Provincial Governor Mera Juddin Pathan, said, “The many tribes in Khost need to put their past behind and come together as one nation to build a better Afghanistan.”

“The problems and solutions for a better way of life in Afghanistan are not just tribal in nature but national in scope,” Khosti said. “Tribes should not only help their neighbors but also help their brothers in other provinces, like the flood victims in Ghazni.”

Hollister addressed the recent increase in attacks against Coalition forces and the local Afghan population. “I want to talk about the recent attacks along the border checkpoints in the Khost Province where many (Al Qaeda members) died. Three of the dead enemy had their bodies desecrated by (Al Qaeda). Their bodies were rigged with explosives to use as weapons to be discarded. When will this stop?”

Hollister was referring to acts that are contrary to what the Koran teaches. “We need your help so that your Afghan brothers lay down their arms and join you for the better future promised by the new Afghanistan,” he told the elders.

“At the direction of the governor’s office and in accordance with President Karzai’s national priority programs, we are building schools and roads, repairing mosques, and we just completed the electric grid for Matun,” Hollister said. “If you can see that the Al Qaeda only offers death and destruction, then you can see that the new Afghanistan is the better choice.”

The tribal elders’ conference ended on a positive note and the elders could leave the ministry with a feeling that the reconstruction of Afghanistan, particularly their province, provided hope for the future.

Gateway in Zhob for Afghan trade: Anti-progress forces will fail - president
By Amanullah Kasi Dawn (Pakistan) April 4, 2005 issue
QUETTA, April 3: President Pervez Musharraf said on Sunday that a gateway would be built in Qamardin Karez in the district of Zhob on the Pakistan-Afghan border to boost trade with Afghanistan and to promote economic cooperation with Central Asian states.

He said that mega-projects in Balochistan worth Rs100 billion would take the province to the centre-stage of regional trade and urged the people to foil designs of elements opposed to progress.

Speaking at a public meeting in the football stadium in Zhob, about 300km north of here, the president said that mega-development programmes in Balochistan were aimed at addressing the grievances of the people of the province, allaying their sense of deprivation and accelerating economic activities.

He reiterated that no obstruction to the development process would be tolerated and the province would continue to move ahead on the road to progress. Declaring that that Pakistan and Balochistan were indispensable to each other, he said that retrogressive elements would not succeed in their designs to reverse the wheel of progress, maintain the status quo and deprive the common man of the fruit of development.

He said that Sardars and Nawabs ruled the province but did nothing for the welfare of the masses. Now that the government had launched a series of projects to improve the living condition of the people, the anti-progress forces were creating hurdles in order to retain their domination.

Gen Musharraf said that the Baloch and the Pakhtuns in the province supported the development projects which would link Balochistan with the progress and prosperity of the country.

He said the government wanted resolution of the Balochistan issue through negotiations, but issues could not be settled by observing strikes and shutdowns. He called for stopping activities which created hurdles in the way of progress, and added that development work could continue only in a peaceful atmosphere.

He said the government was determined to eradicate extremism and terrorism to ensure peace, adding that Islam was a religion of unity, brotherhood and harmony.