Afghanistan News January 21, 2005

January 21, 2005

Afghans count mixed blessings to mark Muslim holy day
Friday January 21, 1:11 AM AFP
Kabul's grimy livestock market blazed into life this week as thousands of Muslims browsed through animals, searching for a beast to sacrifice for Eid al-Adha, one of the year's biggest Muslim festivals.

The blessings they will be counting as they make their offerings and give thanks for what they have received in the past 12 months, however, are mixed.

New buildings sprouting up along the roadside in the north of the Afghan capital en route to the market signal the growing prosperity many Afghans are starting to reap three years after the fall of the Taliban. But not everyone is on the right side of the wealth divide.

For Ebadullah Ebadi, an employee of an international relief organization and a recipient of the flow of foreign aid dollars into Afghanistan, this year's festival signals progress and prosperity.

"The progress that I have made over the past three years is significant -- three years ago it could only been a dream that I would not believe come true," said the 33-year-old father of four.

Dragging home a huge ox he had just bought in the market, Ebadi said his blessings were many over the past year -- a new apartment, a new car and most significantly his children and only daughter all at school.

Ebadi was following a tradition dating back centuries in which Muslims carry out Qurbani, the ritual slaughter of an animal, a sheep, a cow or a goat to thank God.

Eid-al Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, dates back to the time of the prophet Abraham, who according to Muslim belief, was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac before he received divine intervention.

During the festival, which lasts for three days from Thursday to Saturday, Afghans visit their relatives, wear new dresses and give their daughters and sons small sums of money.

While the traditions are old, the conditions are new. Under the repressive Taliban regime, which was forced from power by a US-led invasion at the end of 2001, women were barred from attending school or leaving the house without wearing a shroud-like burqa to cover their bodies.

Three years on, women are allowed to work, girls go to school and the city's roads are clogged with traffic as glassy new buildings replace the ruins of a bloody civil war in the 1990s.

Not everyone in the Afghan capital is receiving the trickle-down of the foreign aid or the 2.8 billion dollars of opium wealth that Afghanistan generated last year, and many still wrestle with crushing poverty.

"For me nothing has been changed -- actually it has got worse with prices jumping to the sky," said Mohammad Akram, an engineer searching for a job.

"Life is getting more expensive day by day, how can you afford to get by?" he asks.

Rents have been pushed up by the hundreds of foreign aid and reconstruction workers living in the capital but wages have failed to rise in tandem for most Afghans.

"If you see all these buildings, new roads, they are all significant but if you go outside Kabul you don't even have electricity. Loads of people still struggle for three meals a day," said one young man, Baharam Sarwari.

Government Prepares Population Estimates Needed To Create Parliament
Ron Synovitz - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
The Central Statistics Office in Kabul says it has nearly completed an initial estimate of provincial populations across Afghanistan. The study creates the framework for a complete census in the future. The pre-census estimates also will be used to determine the number of representatives that each province will send to the new parliament being created by elections scheduled for April. The exercise illustrates difficulties faced by those trying to create a representative legislature in a war-torn country where precise population figures are unknown. A complete census -- which will require house-to-house interviews by thousands of field researchers -- has not yet begun and is not expected to be finished until next year at the earliest.

Prague, 20 January 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The head of Afghanistan's Central Statistics Office says the most comprehensive population estimate in the country since 1979 is nearing completion.

Ajmal Watanyar tells RFE/RL that statistically-based estimates are missing only for some of the southern Afghan provinces where clashes continue between Taliban fighters and U.S.-led coalition forces:

"We have accomplished our work in 30 provinces of Afghanistan and our work is continuing in three provinces. They are Helmand, Daikondi, and Paktika. The only province that is left is Zabol Province and we are planning to go there soon [to start our work]."

The pre-census data generated by the Watanyar's office is based on estimates of the number of households in each province.

Yanming Lin is the Asia area director for the United Nations Population Fund, which is assisting Kabul's attempts to conduct a complete census. "What has nearly been completed is an exercise called a 'Household Listing' exercise," he said. "So, of course, it is not a door-to-door exercise. It is different from a census. A household listing is done by some [statistical] sampling rather than a full census. A population housing census is quite different. The full census, as far as we know, has not started yet."

Lin says it remains unclear when thousands of census workers -- known as enumerators -- will begin household interviews across the country:

"There are a lot of factors that would determine the day when the actual enumeration starts to takes place. We are trying to mobilize resources, first of all. And we are trying to guarantee that the technical expertise is there first. And we want to make sure that the whole exercise, once it is undertaken, becomes a success. For a census, the enumeration workers will have to visit the households door-to-door. We have to map out the census first. We have to find out how many households are easily accessible. And there are a lot of factors that will determine the number of enumerators that will be required."

Andrew Wilder is the Kabul-based director of an election monitoring group called the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit. "Unfortunately, there won't be a full census prior to the parliamentary election," he said. "But it has been a fairly comprehensive pre-census exercise -- based on household enumeration -- which has generated new figures. And so those figures will be used for the apportioning of seats for parliamentary elections by province."

Wilder says a complete census will help those who plan projects for reconstruction and development: "It's extremely important to try to get a much more accurate sense than we currently have about what the actual population of Afghanistan is. There hasn't really been a reliable census since the 1970s. The 1979 [census] was the last effort but that was incomplete. And a lot of the population figures since then have been predictions [based] on that. Trying to determine what education rates are, maternal mortality rates, all these kind of figures [is very difficult] if you don't have a baseline data for population. So for planning purposes [and projects related to reconstruction], it is extremely important."

Wilder described the existing information on Afghanistan's population as "very broad generalizations and guesswork."

"We don't have, for example, urbanization rates," he said. "We don't have a good sense of what the population of Kabul city is now. Is it two-and-a-half million? Is it three-and-a-half million? In terms of refugee returnee figures, what impact is that having on population figures? Trying to determine [school] enrollment rates for children, literacy rates, health indicators, it is essential to have good baseline population data that we can measure the progress against. And we currently don't really have that except for very broad generalizations and guesswork."

Wilder said he will not be surprised to see controversy generated in Afghanistan over the pre-census household listing exercise or the results of a future census: "Whatever is done during censuses anywhere in the world is controversial. And Afghanistan will certainly not be an exception -- especially in such an ethnically polarized society that we have now. I think whatever results anyone projects, there will be disagreements from various quarters."

Some Afghan residents say they are concerned they were not interviewed for the initial study. But UN and Afghan officials say that is the result of a misunderstanding about the difference between pre-census estimates and the full census that has yet to begin.

(Sultan Sarwar of RFE/RL's Afghan Service contributed to this report.)

Pakistani courts overwhelmed by war on terror
By Amir Zia
KARACHI, Jan 20 (Reuters) - For all the breakthroughs Pakistan made against al Qaeda and homegrown militant groups in 2004, its war on terror risks sliding into a morass due to abuse of the court appeals process by lawyers for terror convicts.

Frustrated police officers say judges and investigators are subject to intimidation from men they believed had been taken out of circulation for good, and some prisoners are even pulling the strings of terror networks from their cells.

"These dangerous terrorists are not just alive, but under the jail manual enjoy a lot of facilities including visitors," said a senior police officer at the forefront of the crackdown on militant groups in the southern city of Karachi.

"They coordinate with each other and even direct operations by exploiting the corrupt jail system."

In December 2003, President Pervez Musharraf survived two al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts. Pakistan's security forces subsequently redoubled efforts to bust terror groups thriving in its teeming cities and in its remote mountains on the border with Afghanistan.

A year later, during an official visit to Washington, London and Paris, Musharraf was able to crow over victories against al Qaeda following a series of high-profile arrests and a major army crackdown on Islamic militancy in tribal regions on the Afghan border.

U.S. President George W. Bush praised Musharraf's determination "to bring to justice not only people like Osama bin Laden, but ... those who would inflict harm and pain on his own people".

Pakistan, a close U.S. ally in the war on terror since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has arrested more al Qaeda-linked suspects than any other country, with more than 600 captured in the last three years.

But the security forces' successes are being undermined by the inability of courts to cope.

Iqbal Haider, a former law minister, said courts had more than a million cases pending.

APPALLING BACKLOG
"The infrastructure of our courts is appalling," he said. "Our legal system is painfully slow."

In volatile Karachi, about 200 convicted militants, including several sentenced to hang, are awaiting appeals in the High Court of Sindh province, officials said.

The situation is mirrored at courts across Pakistan where hundreds more appeals challenging punishments handed down by lower anti-terrorism courts have been lodged.

"This delay is extremely damaging for the war on terror," said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani analyst and author of a book on Afghanistan's Taliban.

"It shows the government doesn't have a sufficient focus to bring these people to justice," he said.

"The judiciary is in a mess."

Frustration is growing among the police.

"We arrest militants and smash their cells, but getting them convicted has proved very difficult," said a senior Karachi police official who declined to be identified.

"Even if we get them convicted in lower courts, their appeals drag on in superior courts for years," he said.

Pakistani law gives a convict the right to appeal in the High Court and the Supreme Court. But no case can be heard if even one of the defence lawyers is absent.

Prominent Islamist militants, including British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, are among the convicts whose appeal is pending before the high court.

PEARL KILLING
Sheikh was sentenced to death in July 2002 for planning the abduction and killing of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl and not a single hearing of Sheikh's case has been held since he filed his appeal on July 19, 2002.

The two-member bench of the Sindh High Court has adjourned the case without a formal hearing more than 20 times, lawyers say.

"It's nobody's fault. Judges are overwhelmed by work," Sheikh's defence lawyer, Abdul Waheed Katpar, told Reuters.

Habib Ahmed, an assistant advocate general, said more judges were needed to cope given the crime rate in a country of 150 million people.

The government has introduced a bill in parliament to try to ensure that terror cases are dealt with promptly, Law Minister Mohammad Wasi Zafar said.

"The National Assembly has passed the bill. We await its approval in the Senate," he said. "The government also plans to increase the number of judges."

But lawyers don't want to be judges. They would be paid less and would be more vulnerable to threats.

"Those who are fighting world powers are not afraid of judges," a Law Ministry official said. "They openly threaten them.

"We have to improve security for judges even after their retirement."

Winter takes toll on refugees living in Kabul
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 20 Jan 2005
Desperate conditions continue for displaced people who cannot to go home.
By Shahabuddin Tarakhel in Kabul (ARR No. 158, 20-Jan-05)

Nazifa, six, looks dishevelled as she stands beside her father amid the puddles and snow outside the tent that is their home in the Chaman-e-Hozori section of Kabul.

Her blue eyes well up with tears as she calls out for her mother, who froze to death in December during one of the city's first snowfalls.

Her father, Abdul Qahar, 60, tells how he brought his family of six to Kabul from the northern province of Kapisa three years ago. He told IWPR that his wife became ill when the cold weather arrived late in 2004. He said he took her to the hospital several times for treatment but he was unable to pay the doctor's bills, and she died on December 20.

Since the collapse of the Taleban regime in 2001, dozens of international relief agencies have arrived in Afghanistan to provide help to those displaced by years of war and drought. Yet the capital still faces a serious refugee problem, and this year's especially cold winter has dramatised the scale of the hardship.

About 3,000 refugee families are living either in tents or abandoned government buildings in Kabul, according to Mohammad Hafiz Nadim, spokesman for the ministry for refugees and repatriation.

He said there are currently about 30 "tent towns" in Kabul. About 300 families live in the Chaman-e-Hozori camp alone. At least three people have died there so far this winter.

Ajmal, 33, who came to Chaman-e-Hozori from Peshawar, Pakistan, was observing the third day of mourning for his mother's death by cooking rice.

"Two weeks ago when it was raining, our tent got wet, and because of that, my 55 year-old mother got sick," he said. "We took her to the doctor but the medicine given to her was not effective. As a result she died of pneumonia.... If we had a home, my mother would be still alive."

Parigul, 33, from the Paghman district west of Kabul, lost her eight-year-old son Khalid to pneumonia in that same tent camp.

"We don't have money to rent a home, we live in the tent because we have to. I myself, my four kids and my husband are all sick because of the cold," she said.

Pashtoon Gul, 32, from Kapisa province, has been living in the camp for three years. She suffered a miscarriage last year and another earlier this month. She fears her family won't survive the winter and is asking the government and aid organisations for better shelter.

Shamsuddin, 45, has been caring for his nine children since his wife froze to death last year. He too is asking for better housing.

Why do they stay?

Many of the refugees questioned said they refuse to return to their home provinces, citing lack of security, shelter, schools and hospitals, and fear of warlords.

But Mohammad Hashim Mayar, coordinator for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, ACBAR, said, "Displaced people don't want to return to their home areas because here in Kabul charitable organisations are providing aid for them."

He conceded that the refugees are not getting enough aid, though.

"It is a matter of sorrow that displaced people are dying and getting sick in the presence of dozens of non-governmental organisations and the central government," he said. "The government and charitable organisations must strive to solve their problems."

Nadim from the ministry of refugees and repatriation said the new government is aware of the problems and is currently working on a plan to provide land for the returnees to build homes on.

Meanwhile the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, is providing flour, oil, peas, medicines, blankets and heaters for those returnee families who are living in Kabul in tents and abandoned buildings. Farhad Nadiri, a spokesperson for UNHCR Kabul, said the organisation is also providing mobile medical clinics.

"These refugees settled in camps and abandoned buildings need more aid and UNHCR will try to provide it," said Nadiri, adding that his agency believes the government should provide homes and land for the returnees.

More than 3.5 million Afghan refugees have returned since UNHCR began its voluntary repatriation programme in 2002. Nadiri said this figure includes over 750,000 refugees who returned last year, mostly from Pakistan and Iran. He said that 160,000 of the refugees that UNHCR has helped return remain displaced within the country - mainly because they don't have homes.

Arif, 42, who lives in the abandoned former Soviet embassy, was originally from the central province of Wardak. He's asking the government for help.

"Once security is provided and schools and hospitals are built, we will return to our homes," he said.

On January 4, about 50 returnees protested outside the Rural Rehabilitation Ministry demanding more support from the government and charity organisations. They were asking for jobs and for permanent homes to be built either in Kabul or their home provinces.

Gulchehra, 45, clad in a green burka, said she had just returned from Pakistan. "In Pakistan we could find food, but here we can't," she said.

Ramazan Nazar, another one of the demonstrators, said he was encouraged to leave Iran three months ago for Kabul because he heard on TV that "returnees would be provided with houses and work opportunities". He said he and the other disgruntled returnees had initially lodged their complaints by writing a letter to the ministry of refugees and repatriation, but no action was taken.

The demonstrators vowed to keep protesting until they get help.

Shahabuddin Tarakhel is an IWPR staff reporter based in Kabul.

China to take "active" part in reconstruction of Afghanistan:
New Kerala
[World News]: Beijing, Jan 20 : China today pledged to take an "active" part in the post-war reconstruction activities in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, in his congratulatory message to mark the 50 years of the establishment of diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, noted that bilateral ties have withstood the test of changes in international and domestic arenas of the two countries and achieved constant development.

Following the establishment of the new government in Afghanistan, exchanges and cooperation between the two countries in political and economic areas quickly recovered and expanded, steering Sino-Afghan relations into a new stage of development, Hu said in his message to his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai.

Hu, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party, said China and Afghanistan are friendly neighbours and that consolidating and advancing friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation with Afghanistan is China's set policy.

The Chinese government and people will continue supporting the peace process in Afghanistan, take an active part in its post-war reconstruction and work together with the Afghan government and people to push Sino-Afghan relations to a new high in the new century, Hu said.

Karzai, in his congratulatory message to Hu, noted that Afghan-China friendship has all along been based on good-neighbourliness, mutually beneficial cooperation and mutual respect, and expressed hope that such friendly ties will be further deepened and expanded, the official Xinhua news agency reported. PTI

Afghan warlord Dostam survives suicide attack, over 20 hurt
by Shoaib Najafizada
SHEBERGHAN, Afghanistan, Jan 20 (AFP) - Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam narrowly escaped assassination when a suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday, injuring at least 21 people including Dostam's brother, officials said.

The attacker, with explosives strapped to his body, struck outside the Ghocha Park Mosque in the northern town of Sheberghan, where the strongman had been saying open-air prayers for the Eid al-Adha Muslim festival.

"After the holy Eid prayer, as I left the mosque and I was putting on my shoes there was a big explosion. I am not hurt but at least 21 of our compatriots were injured,' Dostam told provincial Aina Television station.

"According to the latest report I was given, six of them are in a critical condition."

The warlord blamed Al-Qaeda for the attack, without giving evidence to back his claim. "The investigation has not been completed but personally I think this was the work of terrorists and an Al-Qaeda group," he said.

Dostam, an ethnic Uzbek and former general, was an unsuccessful candidate in last October's presidential election. He won 10 percent of the vote, largely among the Uzbek and Turkmen minorities.

Television footage showed a group of people talking in the mosque's courtyard, followed by a blast and a cloud of smoke and scenes of panic. It then cut to a body and a charred pile of clothes lying on the ground.

Dostam's brother Qadir, who was injured in the blast, told AFP that Dostam's bodyguards stepped in front of the bomber and took the brunt of the explosion. "Two of the bodyguards are seriously injured," he added.

The exact number of injuries remained unclear. Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP 23 people were injured while local television journalist Mohammed Yusuf Rawanyar said 22 were hurt.

Despite the attack, a visibly shaken Dostam continued to hold court on Thursday afternoon at his house in Sheberghan, receiving over 30 guests, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Visitors were frisked by a contingent of more than 10 armed guards at the gate of Dostam's compound but the former general only had two guards at his side.

One of Afghanistan's most feared military strongmen, Dostam recently began disarming his local militia as part of a UN-backed scheme but was allowed to retain a personal retinue of 200 bodyguards.

Although he said his own forces had been weakened, the warlord told the television station he would "continue to fight terrorism till the last minute."

Known for a taste for whisky and a love of cultivating roses, Dostam -- a nickname meaning everybody's friend -- gained a reputation as a brutal turncoat during the years of violence that have shattered Afghanistan.

He started out in the 1980s fighting for the Soviet Union against Afghan mujahideen commanders and then backed communist president Najibullah after the Russians left.

During the civil war that followed the fall of Najibullah he switched sides twice, first backing late resistance leader Ahmad Shah Masood and then going over to rival warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Dostam retreated to northern Afghanistan and built a fiefdom in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, after battling with the Taliban for control of the city in 1997 in a brutal campaign marked by massacres of retreating troops.

Since the fall of the Taliban regime, Dostam has backed the government in Kabul, but he keeps control of substantial oil and gas reserves in the north.

Save Progress on weapons cantonment in Afghanistan
Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 19 Jan 2005
A programme to collect artillery, tanks and other heavy weapons from armed factions in Afghanistan has now commenced in the Panjsher Valley, in the northeastern part of the country.
Under the nationwide programme, known as Heavy Weapons Cantonment (HWC), arms belonging to armed factions throughout Afghanistan are collected and stored at special government-run cantonment sites.

"This [the start of the programme in the Panjsher Valley] is an important step forward in this programme that seeks to reach the common goal of building an increasingly secure Afghanistan," said Lt Cdr Ken Mackillop, Spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, at a press briefing in Kabul on 12 January.

Locking up weapons of war

Once deposited, the weapons cannot be removed from the cantonment sites without the permission of both the Ministry of Defence and ISAF. The programme therefore contributes directly to establishing a safe and secure environment in Afghanistan.

Throughout the country, the process is now 82% complete and some 7,360 operational and repairable heavy weapons are under lock and key in guarded compounds.

The programme is an initiative of the Afghanistan Ministry of Defence. ISAF endorses, supports and facilitates the cantonment of the weapons, including providing logistic support for the collection and transport of the weapons.

FOREIGN TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN MAY BE PLACED UNDER ONE COMMAND
BRUSSELS/MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti) - International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) and U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan may soon be placed under one command.

This makes military sense, a high-ranking NATO official said to reporters in Brussels Thursday. The defense ministers of NATO's 26 member nations will consider the possibility of unifying the ISAF and the American military contingent under one command as they gather for a no-tie meeting in Nice, February 9 and 10.

The numerical strength of the ISAF is 9,000 and the American contingent has 20,000.

The Khamid Karzai government and the UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, have repeatedly proposed extending the peacekeepers' mandate beyond the capital of Kabul, specifically into zones under the control of warlords. But until now, none of the ISAF leader nations has shown willingness to take on responsibility for such moves.

At its Istanbul summit last summer, NATO decided to restructure the ISAF. In keeping with that decision, control of the ISAF was transferred in August 2004 from NATO to a European Corps, formed from military units of the armed forces of France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain. The European Corps is to command the ISAF for six months, after which time it shall hand it over to Turkey. Italy, the UK and Spain are the next in line to take over.

The Istanbul summit also decided to send 3,500 more troops into Afghanistan, bringing the overall strength of the international peacekeeping force there to 18,000. Some of the servicemen and women from the 1,500-strong reinforcement contingent are to be stationed outside the country at Uzbek and European military bases. And the remaining troops are to be deployed mainly in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan. The peacekeepers' mission is primarily about being present. They will be involved in certain operations, of course, but they won't patrol or guard any sites excepttheir own.

Afghan President Karzai asks for NATO help during spring elections
By Ward Sanderson, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Thursday, January 20, 2005
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked international peacekeepers to provide security for his country’s spring parliamentary elections, though it’s unclear when exactly they will take place.

“During our elections, ISAF provided protections for voters,” Karzai was quoted as saying in a news release, referring to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. “I am sure that same security will be provided for the parliamentary elections.”

Initially, they were to take place concurrently with October’s presidential elections, which Karzai handily won, but the second election was rescheduled for April because of security worries. The date didn’t stick because of rules governing how soon the country’s electoral landscape must be mapped prior to an election.

International officials nonetheless said they expect the elections will happen in April or May.

For its part, NATO said it would provide security as it did during the presidential balloting. But it is not involved in the scheduling.

“This is not NATO’s call to suggest the timing,” said an alliance spokeswoman in Brussels, Belgium, under customary condition of anonymity. “We would accept whatever the government decides, together with the United Nations.”

The spokeswoman said she did not know whether American troops will be directly involved with the NATO election mission, but some U.S. troops did work with the ISAF during October’s presidential voting. Most of the Americans work under Operation Enduring Freedom, which focuses on hunting down terrorists but also engages in reconstruction work.

“The United States are the leading nation for the OEF mission,” the alliance spokeswoman said. “They had a lot of troops there [for presidential elections].”

A spokesman at the alliance’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, U.S. Air Force Capt. Virgil Magee, said he was unsure how many Americans might be on election duty.

Last year, as many as 1,100 additional U.S. troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division deployed to help. That meant about 18,000 Americans served in the country at the time. The alliance sent two additional battalions of about 1,800 troops.

The NATO troops primarily are working to keep the capital, Kabul, secure but they have begun expanding into other regions through provincial reconstruction teams.

Karzai has previously called for increasing numbers of international troops in the country. His recent speech to NATO personnel, however, focused on giving thanks for troops there now.

“It is because of your effort that we are where we are today,” he said earlier this month. “It is because of the blood that some soldiers shed that this country is more stable and that we have democracy. Our people vote now, but it has not come without a cost. This is something we will remember forever in this country.

“Afghan citizens are once again the owners of Afghanistan and we know how important that is and we are grateful.”

No Fast Eradication of Afghan Opium - Minister
Thu Jan 20,10:09 AM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Aggressive moves to destroy Afghanistan's opium fields would strip many farmers of their livelihood and risk feeding the violent insurgency there, its new anti-narcotics minister warned on Thursday.

The booming drugs trade in the impoverished Islamic state now accounts for 87 percent of the world's supply of heroin, derived from opium in poppies. Some U.S. officials have urged measures such as aerial spraying to eradicate the crop.

"To take away the livelihood of farmers could pose security problems at this time," Habibullah Qaderi, Afghan Minister for Counter Narcotics, told a news briefing before a NATO-hosted seminar in Brussels.

"We will be careful with the eradication. It is in the plan but we have not decided how to do it," said Qaderi, who was put in charge of a new national anti-narcotics ministry last month.

Analysts have warned that farmers will fight any attempt to destroy their fields unless they are assured alternative ways of making a living.

Qaderi said President Hamid Karzai ruled out aerial spraying because of the risk of damage to other crops and contamination of the water supply to rural areas.

"Certainly we need to give more stress to alternative livelihoods. If you want to get rid of the poppies, we need assistance from European countries and from America itself," he said of international funds offered to farmers to switch from poppies to other crops.

Afghan opium production has surged to record levels since the U.S.-led ousting of its Taliban rulers in 2001. A U.N. report last year warned that if nothing was done, Afghanistan could turn into a lawless "narco-state" run by drug cartels.

Britain has led an international campaign against the $2.8 billion-a-year Afghan opium trade, with few results so far. Drug exports make up 60 percent of Afghanistan's economy.

Opium trade is halal in Islam: Bara scholar
Daily Times, Pakistan -
BARA: Mufti Munir Shakir, a renowned religious scholar, has declared the trade of opium “halal,” legitimate, in the light of Islamic teachings during his routine sermon on an unlicensed FM radio station operating in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency the other day. The Mufti is a popular religious scholar in Khyber Agency and adjacent areas of Afghanistan where a large number of people very regularly listen to his sermons on the FM radio station set up in Malakdin Khel area of Bara for the last six months. Poppy cultivation has increased several times in the tribal belt over last four years. Not only have the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan banned the business and cultivation of opium but almost all religious scholars in both the countries have declared the trade and cultivation of poppy prohibited in Islam. Answering a question, Munir Shakir declared the cultivation and trade of opium legitimate on the grounds that it was mostly used in about 98 percent medication. He said the use of anything that had the potential of having a positive impact and benifit on human beings could not be declared illegitimate and prohibited in Islam. staff report

Afghan Supreme Court Rejects Granting Pardon to Drug Lords
RFE/RL 01/19/2005 By Amin Tarzi
The Afghan Supreme Court has rejected suggestions made by President Hamid Karzai to grant a pardon to the country's drug traffickers, Afghan Voice Agency reported on 17 January.

Supreme Court spokesman Wahid Mujhda said that such a move would be against international norms and Islamic laws. In an attempt to curb his country's growing narcotics problem, Karzai suggested offering amnesty to drug traffickers.

Taliban are gone but Afghan women still learn to read and write in secret classrooms
By Nick Meo in Kabul 20 January 2005 Belfast Telegraph (UK)
Off a dirty backstreet in a far-flung suburb of Kabul, past a washing line of ragged clothes and up a dingy stairwell, is a carefully hidden upstairs room.

Inside, teenage girls in headscarves sit crosslegged on the floor, faces twisted in concentration, doing something once strictly forbidden for female Afghans; learning to read and write.

Under the Taliban, an underground network of secret schools taught a rudimentary education at great risk to teachers and students. In the democratic new Afghanistan, schools for girls are still operating - still in secret.

"There is no signboard in the street though most of the neighbours know what is going on here," said Faryal Benish of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (Rawa).

"If the fundamentalists found out they would attack us. And the parents know it's a school but if they knew it was us teaching their girls, they might not let them come to lessons."

Rawa enjoyed brief fame in the West after 11 September as a group of doughty feminists who defied the Taliban. They taught girls banned from schools. They helped widows barred from working. They also tried to tell the world about the nightmare Afghan women had fallen into, smuggling out a horrifying film shot surreptitiously of a woman being executed in Kabul's sports stadium.

Yet. more than three years after the Taliban's fall. the women of Rawa still dare not emerge in public in Kabul. Members believe they are still in so much danger from their enemies that they have not even opened an office in the capital.

"We can be killed easily if we carry out our activities in public," said a Rawa organiser, Neelab Ismat, "It is better than the Taliban days of course. But we can only work underground, even now."

The secret schools - there are 50 in the capital, teaching hundreds of girls and women - no longer run the terrible risks they once did. But the threat from Islamic hardliners still requires discretion.

Some girls attend Rawa's literacy classes because their fathers have banned them from government schools.

"They are very backward, narrow-minded people," said Faryal, an 18-year-old student and Rawa member. "They think girls are just for washing the clothes and sitting in the house."

Most of the pupils in the Laila (Tulip) school in the north of the city attend as an alternative to government schools. Their parents banned them from making the journey to and from the state school because security is still bad in their part of the city. Parents fear their daughters will be kidnapped on the way to or from school - the girls attending the Tulip school all live within a couple of streets of the classroom.

The teacher, Rahela, started lessons seven years ago. "I would like to teach in a government school and perhaps when security conditions are better I will do that," she said.

"But God knows when that will be. We still haven't seen democracy in our land."

In the Taliban days, her pupils sometimes had to hurriedly hide their books under their burkhas when suspicious police poked their noses in. Rahela always told police she was running a handicraft class.

Now, about a dozen girls between the ages of 10 and 19 learn together for an hour every morning in the cosy room, kept warm against the January cold by a wood-burning stove. On dark days, a single bulb provides light - powered by a car battery.

In a corner, a fat baby boy slept in a cot, a brother being looked after by a 12-year-old pupil. Older brothers started arriving at the lesson's end to escort their sisters back through the streets.

Thirteen-year-old Nargis has learnt to read in the past three years and wants to be a doctor.

"My father won't let me go to the government school," she said. "But I like it here and I've learned a lot." The network of schools are now the main activity of Rawa but underground meetings and campaigns are still organised by the 2,000 members in Afghanistan, derided as Communists by their enemies.

They tried to distribute copies of their magazine - Woman's Message - but men in uniform threatened shopkeepers not to stock it. A newspaper in Kabul linked to a warlord described them as "dangerous" adding; "they must be finished".

Their founder, Meena, was assassinated by a fundamentalist warlord in the 1980s and knowledge of the risks they run are never far from the thoughts of members. Ms Ismat said: "We hold meetings but they are not public. We must be very careful who we tell, and who we let into our organisation." Even student members at the university don't tell their friends they have joined.

Rawa doesn't like President Hamid Karzai - "too close to the warlords" - and hates George Bush. "He is a hypocrite, using the pain of Afghanistan's women for propaganda," said Ms Ismat.

The appointment of three new women ministers to the Afghan cabinet last month was dismissed as window-dressing of a government dominated by conservative old men, many with fundamentalist leanings.

Ms Ismat said: "We saw in the election many women who were proud to vote, but we do not think this new government will help women much.

"Hospitals for women are terrible, commanders can still force girls into marriage, and there are hardly any jobs for women. Unfortunately we are not hopeful about the future of Afghanistan. There are some open-minded men here, but most are still very backward."

Iran 'forced' Afghans to go home
By Pam O'Toole BBC regional analyst Friday, 21 January, 2005, 01:54 GMT
The United Nations refugee chief says thousands of Afghans may have been forced to return to Afghanistan because of Iran's policies.

The UN High Commission for Refugees has been increasingly concerned that Iranian officials are pressurizing Afghan refugees to go home.

There have been radio campaigns informing them that they have to leave.

Rudd Lubbers told the BBC that such actions went too far, saying thousands may have been forcibly returned.

He said that the UN refugee agency did not want its agreement on voluntary repatriation to be interpreted as being instrumental in deportation.

There have been reports of round-ups, or of people being denied extensions of their residence documents and then being denied access to public services, or even being arrested, for having no documents.

'Too far'

The high commissioner, who has just returned from a visit to the region, said there were indications that some Afghan refugees as well as illegal Afghan migrants, were being pushed out of Iran.

He said the UNHCR wanted more intensive discussions with Tehran before extending their current voluntary repatriation agreement.

"When we had a return last year of 380,000 [people from Iran] certainly not all was forced, no. The large majority was voluntary," he told the BBC.

"But when there are, let's say, 5% of them forced, it's 5% too much - we are talking almost 20,000 people. Therefore, I confirm that we are talking of a problem of at least thousands if not ten of thousands," he added.

Tehran has denied forcing legitimate Afghan refugees home, but says it has arrested many illegal Afghan workers.

Mr Lubbers said voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan should continue at the current rate for some time.

But he added that in the long-term, it would be useful if Iran, Pakistan and European countries hosting Afghans would also consider allowing some to remain as migrant workers.

The UNHCR, he said, was arranging a conference with European countries, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan next month to discuss this and other long-term solutions for Afghan refugees.

Afghanistan denies rumor on American Special Forces operating in Iran from Afghanistan
India Daily - Jan 20 8:01 AM
According to the Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad-Zaher Azimi, the country will never allow American to operate covert special operations in Iran from Afghanistan. The report came from the official Iranian news agency IRNA. The Afghan reaction was in response to the report in The New Yorker magazine of a covert U.S. military reconnaissance operation under way in Iran.

Chance of U.S. Attack on Iran Very Low - Khatami
By Daniel Wallis - January 20, 2005
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Iran, sandwiched between U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, said on Thursday it believed the chance of a U.S. attack was low since American forces were pinned down elsewhere, but if one happened it would fail.

"I do not think the Americans would do such a crazy thing as carry out military attacks against Iran," Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told state radio during a visit to Uganda.

"We believe the possibility of America attacking Iran is very low, as it is involved in other places," he said. "The Iraqi problem is too complicated and so it does not seem they would think about attacking another country."

Khatami said Iran would in any case defend itself against any attack by the United States, which he described as not "wise enough" to understand the implications of its own actions.

Khatami was asked about an article in the New Yorker magazine that reported the United States had conducted secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets.

"If any country tries to invade our country, we are strong enough to defend ourselves," Khatami told a news conference. "The U.S. has shown many times that it is not wise enough to think about the future and the implications of its actions ... If the Americans can rescue themselves from Iraq, they have done a great job."

The New Yorker article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said secret missions have been under way at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.

Pentagon officials called the New Yorker report "riddled with errors."

But President Bush said on Monday Washington would not rule out military action against Iran -- which he has labeled part of an "axis of evil" alongside prewar Iraq and North Korea -- if it was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.

The United States has toppled regimes in Iran's neighbors Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

"No one is going to benefit from attacking our country, including the U.S. and others. Our friends will certainly condemn any such acts on behalf of the United States," Khatami said after talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

"We are not seeking war with any country, including the United States, and we will mobilize our resources to avoid any such tensions in the future."

Enmity between the United States and Iran dates back to the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy by radical Islamic students who held 52 hostages there for 444 days.

Washington severed ties with Tehran in 1980.

The embassy takeover was politically damaging for then President Jimmy Carter, who ordered a botched rescue attempt in which eight U.S. military personnel died when a helicopter collided with a support aircraft over the Iranian desert.

On July 3, 1988, U.S. warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf killing all 290 aboard, wrongly identifying it as an attacking fighter.

Israel in the Iran fray, too
By Ehsan Ahrari / Asia Times Online / January 20, 2005
Reporter Seymour Hersh's allegations that the United States may be penetrating Iranian territory in search of credible evidence of its nuclear activities, or even with a view to bringing about regime change, have somewhat overshadowed Israeli perspectives.

In general, no discussion of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions can be held without reference to what the government of Israel thinks. An important aspect of Tel Aviv's approach is to keep on ringing alarm bells, so that the attention of the international community remains focused on the issue. At the same time, it has made a point of remaining engaged with American officials. The fact that nuclear non-proliferation is one of the top national security issues of the Bush administration makes Israel's job on the latter point considerably easy.

Actually, Israel has nothing to worry about the possibility of this issue fading into oblivion, for two major reasons. First, speculation in and around Washington has never stopped circulating that the Bush administration has some sort of a plan about destabilizing, or even bringing about regime change, in Iran. What hasn't been clear, however, is whether it would follow the Afghan model of a military campaign, or the Iraqi version of it. Considering the fact that the US military is innovative and prolific about coming up with sui generis campaigns for different military operations, chances are that if Washington indeed has plans for regime change in Iran, it might not follow either of the two preceding operations. That is why the recently published essay of Hersh about a potential US military action against Iran is read with considerable interest and attention worldwide.

The second reason why the world's attention remains focused on the issue is the possibility that Israel, at some point, will take it on itself to carry out preemptive operations against Iran, from air and sea. Hersh mentions this possibility in his recent essay. He writes, "Israel has acquired three submarines capable of launching cruise missiles and has equipped some of its aircraft with additional fuel tanks, putting Israel's F-161 fighters within the range of most Iranian [nuclear and missile] targets."

It is interesting to examine Israel's own assessment of the Iranian nuclear issue. In a recent paper entitled "Europe and Iran's Nuclear Future", issued by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, an institution generally regarded as reflecting the official thinking of that country, it is clear that Israel remains dissatisfied with the basic approach of the EU-3 countries (Germany, France and the United Kingdom) toward Iran on the nuclear issue. It states:

--Iran's nuclear ambitions are clearly reflected in the extent of its program, its past record of concealment, its ongoing effort to hinder inspection, and its determination to continue with uranium enrichment-related activities. By contrast, the EU-3 have shown no similar determination. The European stance has been and remains to reach a "suspension" (which is, by definition, a temporary measure) of Iran's enrichment program, with some minor additions. The Europeans have never unreservedly condemned Iran's military nuclear ambitions, probably out of political considerations, ie, the desire to be seen by Iran as an "honest broker", rather than from any real confidence in Iran's innocence. But by failing to do so, they expose themselves to suspicions of acting from ulterior motives.

It should not, therefore, surprise anyone that the US also remains unhappy with the EU-3 approach, which is described in Washington as characterized by too much carrot and not enough stick.

The most important aspect of Israel's perspectives on Iran's potential development of nuclear weapons is what could be called its alleged "cascading effect". The same paper states that if Iran "continues with its weapons development program and acquires or even comes close to acquiring a military nuclear capability, Saudi Arabia will probably feel compelled to seek a nuclear 'umbrella' from Pakistan, through an existing or new cooperation agreement. Others in the region, particularly Egypt and Turkey, will be similarly driven to obtain such a capability." It goes on to claim that even Iraq would be impelled "in the more distant future, to develop a WMD [weapons of mass destruction] capability."

Thus, the essential aspect of Israel's position on the subject is that no Middle Eastern country, save itself, has the right to possess nuclear weapons. Two realities should be kept in mind regarding Israel's position. First, the US government has absolutely no problem with Israel having a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Second, the Israeli position regarding nuclear non-proliferation is a virtual carbon copy of the long-standing US position on the subject. Washington originally did not want the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons. In fact, the capabilities of the former communist superpower to do so radically changed the rules of the game underlying the Cold War. During that period, US foreign policy, along with that of the Soviet Union, was constantly driven by the notion of nuclear deterrence. It was only after the implosion of the Soviet Union that US foreign policy was liberated from any thought regarding how Moscow would respond or react to its own maneuvers worldwide.

In the same manner, Israel is afraid that if a Middle Eastern country becomes a nuclear power, it could forever lose its freedom of action in the Middle East. The specifics of such a scenario are not important because Israel will do everything in its power, including preemptive attacks, to make sure that no Middle Eastern country ever develops nuclear weapons. The US, regardless of who is sitting in the White House, has no problem with such a frame of mind. Such a reality makes it difficult for Iran to realistically think about becoming a nuclear power any time soon.

Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.

Afghan teen in Oxford faces deportation
The Star Online - Jan 20 5:23 PM
LONDON: An Afghan teenager who won a place at Britain's prestigious Oxford University only three years after arriving in the country with rudimentary English skills faces imminent deportation, he said yesterday.

Azim Anfari, who fled the Taliban regime in 2001 and claimed political asylum in Britain, has been told his visa will not be renewed.

The 18-year-old, who won a place to study engineering at St John's College, Oxford, last year after gaining high marks at a community college in Bristol, southwest England, said an appeal against the visa decision had failed.

“This country feels like my home now. I've worked really hard and all my efforts will be worthless if I have to go back now,” he said.

“I would be in danger in Afghanistan. I am worried about the warlords and militants. I am determined to stay.

“Life is really good at Oxford, I am learning a lot but it is hard work.”

Anfari claimed in his 2001 asylum application that he had feared he would be forced to fight in the war which followed the Sept 11 attacks.

He arrived in Britain with his brother, and after enrolling on a course to learn English, began studying for A-level examinations needed to enter British universities while also holding down a job as a restaurant dishwasher. – AFP