Afghanistan News July 19, 2005

July 19, 2005

Suicide Bomber Kills Self in Afghanistan
Associated Press / July 19, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan - A bomber blew himself up near a district chief's house in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing only himself, officials said. No other casualties were reported.

The unidentified man detonated explosives he was carrying about 160 feet from the official's house in the city of Herat, capital of Herat province, said provincial police chief Mohammed Ayub Salangi.

Dad Mohammed Rasa, an Interior Ministry official, confirmed the attempted attack.

The district chief was sitting on a motorcycle near his house in downtown Herat at the time of the explosion early Tuesday, Salangi said.

The attack comes amid an unprecedented spate of bloodshed that has left more than 700 people dead in three months and threatens to sabotage three years of progress toward peace in Afghanistan that followed a U.S.-led invasion to oust the hardline Islamic Taliban regime.

The violence has been concentrated in Afghanistan's south and southeastern provinces. Herat has been spared much of the bloodshed and is considered one of the country's safest cities.

Suicide attacks are relatively unusual in Afghanistan.

The last such attack was on June 1, when a suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber killed 20 people at the funeral of an anti-Taliban cleric in the southern city of Kandahar, one of the worst terror attacks here since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

Afghanistan Welcomes Arrests of Taliban
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press / July 19, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan on Tuesday welcomed the purported capture of five senior Taliban leaders in neighboring Pakistan but said a claim that one of them was a deputy to Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar was not true.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials told The Associated Press on Monday that one of the men, Maulvi Abdul Qadeer, formerly chairman of the Taliban Special Council, was a deputy to Omar.

But Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Saher Azimi said that was "not correct."

"In the leadership of the Taliban we have no one named Qadeer," he told reporters in Kabul.

A former top Taliban official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he no longer wants to be associated with the group, also said Qadeer was not among the top Taliban leaders and was never an adviser to Omar.

Both Pakistani officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters. Pakistani authorities Tuesday declined to confirm that the five had been detained.

The Pakistani officials identified another one of the five as Abdul Kabir, a former governor in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, but they declined to name the three others.

Azimi said the arrests, if confirmed, were positive steps ahead of crucial legislative elections in Afghanistan in September.

"If true, such a step is very important for security in the region, especially before the election," Azimi said. "Such an action by Pakistan has had a positive effect."

The two Pakistani officials said the arrests were made Monday when security agents raided several homes in the country's northwest.

One of officials on Tuesday, again speaking on condition of anonymity, repeated his claim that Qadeer is a deputy to Omar.

"He was a big catch," he said.

The official said the five have been brought to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for questioning.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, says it has arrested more than 700 Taliban and al-Qaida members, including high level operatives, since the hard-line Taliban was ousted from power in Afghanistan in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden and Omar have so far eluded capture, but U.S. and Afghan officials believe they are hiding out in Pakistan's rugged tribal belt on the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has deployed more than 70,000 troops to this region to flush out remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The purported arrests came hours after Pakistan's government announced that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will travel to Afghanistan July 24 to discuss how the two countries could improve economic relations and better coordinate in the fight against terrorism.

Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of not doing enough to fight militants on its territory and say a massive spike in rebel violence in Afghanistan recently is largely attributable to insurgents based across the border.
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Associated Press correspondent Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Blair, Karzai in plea on terror
BBC News / Tuesday, 19 July, 2005
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have said "terrorists" blamed for attacks in both countries must be defeated.

The two men were speaking at a news conference after talks in London.

Mr Blair said London's bombers and others used Iraq and Afghanistan as an excuse. He again denied the invasion of Iraq had made Britain a target.

President Karzai said Afghanistan shared the UK's pain, and called for people to unite against terrorism.

He said Afghans shared the suffering of people in London following the suicide bombings which killed more than 50 people there on 7 July.

"We in Afghanistan can feel that pain perhaps better than any other country," he told reporters.

Afghanistan is facing an upsurge in violence, blamed on hardline Taleban fighters, which has claimed at least 600 lives this year.

Mr Karzai said the violence in Afghanistan and the UK was "not related to Islam". He said Muslims had been targeted in the attacks, and he condemned the recent assassinations of clerics in Afghanistan and bombings at mosques.

Mr Blair said it was important people did not give in to "the perverted and twisted logic" used by those who carried out the attacks.

"The Afghan people and the Iraqis are trying to establish a democracy. This same terrorism is trying to stop them."

Co-operation accord

President Karzai's visit is his third to the UK since he took over after the fall of the Taleban three-and-a-half years ago.

Through military and economic aid, Britain has played a central role in helping the country with its fragile efforts to recover from years of war and turmoil. The Afghan leader wants to ensure that help continues.

He and Mr Blair are due to sign a 10-year co-operation agreement.

In the light of the London attacks, President Karzai has decided to use his visit to speak out against extreme Islamic ideologies, a senior Afghan official told the BBC.

The views promoted by Osama Bin Laden will be a particular target. One place he plans to deliver this message is at a mosque in London.

Mr Karzai feels strongly about the issue, the official said, because of the suffering Afghanistan experienced as a result of becoming al-Qaeda's sanctuary until 2001.

Even though Bin Laden's network no longer has a firm base in Afghanistan, it is still seen as a threat to the country and is accused of helping to orchestrate the recent increase in violence.

Iraq and Afghanistan only 'an excuse' for terrorists: Blair
London (AFP 7/19/05) -Prime Minister Tony Blair rounded on critics who allege his support for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars made Britain more vulnerable to terrorists, insisting they were merely "an excuse" for attacks.

"Of course, these terrorists will use Iraq as an excuse, or use Afghanistan," Blair told a press conference when quizzed about the reasons behind the July 7 London bombings in which at least 56 people died.

"September 11, of course, happened before both of those things and then the excuse was American policy, or Israel," he said Tuesday, referring to the 2001 attacks on the United States.

"They will always have their reasons for acting," he said, speaking alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "But we've got to be very careful of almost giving in to the sort of perverted and twisted logic with which they argue," Blair warned.

On Monday, the Royal Institute of International Affairs think tank released a report saying Blair's support for the US-led Iraq war made Britain a more high-profile terrorist target. On Tuesday, a newspaper poll said that two-thirds of Britons believe there was a link between the London bombings and the conflict.

Pakistan destroys arms bought from tribesmen near Afghanistan border
Tue Jul 19, 1:21 AM ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistan's security forces have destroyed a large number of weapons bought under a "buy back" programme from tribesmen in the tribal districts near the Afghan border, the military said.

"The weapons were smashed by using heavy bulldozers and welding equipment to make them permanently unserviceable," a military statement said on Monday.

The weapons destroyed near the northwest city of Peshawar included rocket-launchers, recoilless rifles, mortars and Russian-made light machine guns, it said.

The lawless tribal belt was flooded with thousands of weapons worth millions of dollars during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The destroyed weapons were taken from tribesmen in North and South Waziristan regions under a "buy-back programme" from January to June this year.

Troops hunting militants with suspected links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban killed 17 in a clash in the rugged North Waziristan border tribal area on Sunday.

Pakistan, a key ally in the US "war on terror", has deployed about 70,000 troops along its border with southeastern Afghanistan to track down foreign militants in the tribal area.

Taliban attacks in the southeast have surged in recent months ahead of Afghanistan's landmark parliamentary elections in September.

Al-Qaeda and Taliban members fled to the deeply religious region after the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 by US-led attacks.

In a series of operations since last year, Pakistani forces have destroyed hideouts and training camps of militants linked to Al-Qaeda and killed hundreds of rebels, officials say. About 250 soldiers have also died.

Pakistan says all 17 militants killed in gunbattle were from Kazakhstan
Islamabad (AFP) - The Pakistani military said that 17 militants gunned down near the Afghan border were all from Kazakhstan and included women and teenage youths.

"We now believe the entire group was from Kazakhstan," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP on Monday. He said the authorities recovered four passports and some documents and identity cards which indicated they were Kazakhs.

Troops hunting militants with suspected links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban killed the 17 in a clash in the rugged border tribal area on Sunday. The clash broke out two days after US forces in Afghanistan killed 24 suspected Al-Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies on the Pakistani side of the border.

Pakistani troops acting on a tip-off cordoned off a hideout in an isolated complex outside Miranshah, the main town in the semi-autonomous North Waziristan tribal region.

The 17, including women and teenagers, were killed as they tried to break the siege and flee the compound in two vehicles after a shoot-out, Sultan said. One vehicle was knocked out and the other was crippled.

The general said the group included women and youths aged under 20, who also took part in the fighting. "These guys were all trained fighters," the general said adding that women and young people received training in explosives.

He said local officials and elders had tried for more than two hours to persuade the group to surrender but a gunbattle erupted when they tried to escape in their vehicles. The women hurled grenades when security forces stopped them, Sultan said.

Troops recovered arms and ammunition, including detonators, explosives and bomb-making instructions. Sixteen locals who had helped the group were arrested.
Pakistan, a key ally in the US "war on terror", has deployed about 70,000 troops along its border with southeastern Afghanistan to track down foreign militants in the tribal area.

Taliban attacks in the southeast have surged in recent months ahead of Afghanistan's landmark parliamentary elections in September. Al-Qaeda and Taliban members fled to the deeply religious region after the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 by US-led attacks.

In a series of operations since last year, Pakistani forces have destroyed hideouts and training camps of militants linked to Al-Qaeda and killed hundreds of rebels, officials say. About 250 soldiers have also died.

Afghan Zardad jailed for 20 years
BBC News / Tuesday, 19 July, 2005
An Afghan warlord found guilty of torture and hostage taking in his home country has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

Faryadi Zardad, 42, of Streatham, London, convicted in a landmark case at the Old Bailey on Monday, was given two 20-year terms to run concurrently.

It was thought to be the first time torture offences committed in one country were prosecuted in another.

The judge recommended Zardad be deported after serving his sentence.

Victims traced

Mr Justice Tready told the Afghan national, who controlled a series of military checkpoints between Kabul and Jalalabad, he was "in a position of real power."

"You were personally involved in these acts of torture and hostage-taking as well as authorising your men."

One of the key legal challenges of the case had been to show that although Zardad did not necessarily administer torture himself he was still responsible through the men he controlled at his checkpoints.

The Old Bailey jury found Zardad guilty after hearing in a lengthy retrial of numerous incidents of hostage taking between 1992 and 1996.

The jury in his first trial, last year, had been unable to agree.

The warlord, who came to Britain on a fake passport in 1998, was first tracked down at his south London home by John Simpson for BBC Newsnight.

Police then mounted an investigation, which involved officers making several trips to Afghanistan under armed escort to track down the warlord's victims.

The government's top law officer, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, came to the court for the first time since his appointment to prosecute the first trial.

He explained why Britain had decided to try the case, arguing that Zardad's crimes were so "merciless" and such "an affront to justice" that they could be tried in any country.

"Brutal regime"

Sentencing, Mr Justice Tready told Zardad that his crimes were so serious that they transcended national boundaries.

"Their gravity is demonstrated by the fact that most unusually a person who has committed them in another country can be tried and punished for them by the courts of this country."

He continued: "It is clear to me from the evidence that for a period of over three years you, as a powerful warlord, presided over a brutal regime of terror in areas under your control.

"You represented the only real form of authority, law and government in the areas under your control and you grossly abused your power."

In both trials, evidence from Afghan witnesses - many in fear of their lives - was beamed into the British court via a video link from the UK embassy in Kabul.

One witness said he was held for four months and beaten so frequently that his family failed to recognise him.

But Anthony Jennings QC, for the defence, had urged jurors to treat prosecution witnesses from Afghanistan with care and ask whether they had an axe to grind.

Zardad himself told the court he had not tortured anyone but had given orders against torture.

Afghans hail UK sentence, mull war crimes body
July 19, 2005
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan hailed Tuesday's British court decision to jail a former Afghan commander for 20 years for torture and said it was considering forming a body to enable prosecution of anyone found guilty of war crimes.

The court passed sentence on Farayadi Sarwar Zardad one day after finding him guilty of torturing and terrorising innocent civilians in Afghanistan over a four-year period in the 1990s. Prosecutors said it was the first case of its kind in the world.

"There were plenty of evidence against him and we back and welcome the decision," Afghan Information Minister Sayed Makhdoom Rahin told Reuters.

Zardad is regarded as one of the notorious war criminals from the period of factional fighting which accompanied the mujahideen (holy warriors') defeat of a Soviet-backed regime in 1992.

Some military strongmen and high-ranking officials in President Hamid Karzai's government are also accused of serious rights abuses and war crimes during that period, and rights bodies have often called for their prosecution and punishment.

The Taliban government which ruled from 1996 until 2001 stands accused of widespread rights violations, while the U.S. forces that overthrew the fundamentalists and installed Karzai in power have also been accused of abusing suspects in detention.

Karzai's spokesman, Karim Rahimi, said the government would favour the trial of anyone found guilty of rights abuses.

He said the government was considering establishing a fact-finding commission to look into abuses during the past quarter-century of war, invasion and civil strife.

"INCLUSIVE" INVESTIGATIONS
"This commission will talk to the tribal chiefs, clerics and those people who have fallen victims or have witnessed a crime.

"The work of the commission will cover violations committed dating back to the past and present and will take serious steps to punish any one found guilty."

He said the investigations would be "inclusive", but could not say when the commission would be formed. He said it would take it a long time to complete its mission.

Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said the probe should also cover members of Afghanistan's former communist regime, which was backed by Soviet forces accused of killing countless civilians during their 10-year occupation until 1989.

"Zardad is not the only person who committed crimes," he said. "There are hundreds of communist generals, warlords and factional leaders who have committed crimes against humanity, who have harassed people in Afghanistan.

"Most of these criminals have fled and escaped to European countries and they are hiding there," he said.

However, a Human Rights Watch report this month said that numerous high-level officials and advisers in Karzai's government were implicated in war crimes and rights abuses, and some were running in national elections set for Sept. 18.

The report slammed a culture of impunity and called on the government and the international community to prioritise efforts to prosecute those guilty of abuses.

The unprecedented case against Zardad -- his second trial after a jury failed to reach a verdict last year -- was the first in Britain to involve rights violations committed abroad and to have witnesses give evidence anonymously via a satellite link.

Zardad moved to Britain in 1998 seeking asylum and was running a south London pizza parlour when he was arrested in 2002 by anti-terrorism police after the case was brought to light by a BBC journalist.

Attempt foiled to destroy Sarobi dam
KABUL, July 18 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Security officials Sunday night foiled a terrorist attempt to hit the Sarobi dam, some 75 kilometres southeast of this central capital.

The Sarobi district police chief Sher Shah Yousafzai told Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday unidentified terrorist had fitted 10 Russian-built SAM-21 missiles on a hill top in the Ozbin area, five kilometres from the district headquarters.

"The missiles were directed at the Sarobi dam to spread destruction and plunge the central capital in darkness," opined the police officer. The dam is fulfilling electricity needs of the capital and its surrounding areas.

There are two hydroelectricity dams in the area; Naghlo and Sarobi dams with the electricity generating capacity of 100 and 22 megawatts respectively. The electricity so generated is provided to the capital Kabul and its adjacent areas.

No one has been arrested so far in connection with the terrorist attempt, the police officer said. It is pertinent to recall that a patrolling party of the international peace keepers had come under attack in the same area on July 9.

Farmers in Herat warn they will step up poppy cultivation
Afghan Press Monitor (No 113, 19 Jul 05) - published by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting
(Cheragh) Farmers in the western province of Herat have warned that they will resume poppy cultivation if the government does not stop importing wheat. The authorities in Herat argue that a shortfall in local crop production forced them to import wheat from neighbouring countries. But farmers rejected this, and said the imported wheat drives down the prices of domestic agricultural products. One farmer, Abdul Saboor, warned that if the situation continues as it is, people like him will be forced to resume opium poppy cultivation, as the low prices fetched by grain are not enough to support their families.

(Cheragh is an independent daily run by the Development and Democracy Association.)

Two Taleban commanders arrested in Kandahar
Afghan Press Monitor (No 113, 19 Jul 05) - published by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting
(The Kabul Times) The Afghan government announced on July 18 that two prominent Taleban commanders had been arrested in Kandahar province in recent days. Defence ministry spokesman General Zaher Azimi said Mullah Abdul Rahman and Mullah Naimatullah were captured in the Shah Wali Kot district by the locally-based 205th Corps. Secret documents were seized from the two men, Azimi added. In a similar operation in the Shahr-e-Safa district, security officials detained three suspected Taleban, along with their weapons.

(The Kabul Times is a state-run newspaper published in English every other day.)

Major Japanese funding for human settlements upgrading in Afghanistan
Source: United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT)
Nairobi, 18 July 2005 – The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security have announced that they will provide over 3 million US dollars towards upgrading homes and urban community facilities in informal settlements in the three Afghan cities of Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad.

The funding, amounting to a total of US$ 3,560,585 will be disbursed through the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security in support of a year-long project designed to provide basic urban services and shelter for more than 100,000 people in 48 settlements in the three cities. The project is scheduled to commence in August 2005 and completed by July 2006.

The primary objective of the project is to enhance human security and protection within these settlements. Because of the prolonged conflict, Afghan cities have lost much of their capacity to provide essential services to their population, which has grown rapidly because of the influx of the returnees.

For the returnees, many of whose households are headed by women, there is no choice other than to settle in informal settlements. However, the lack of basic services in the informal settlements creates a persistent uncertainty for the inhabitants, who face multifaceted human insecurity and threats: poverty, social exclusion and discrimination, exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous chieftains, and the fear that they will be forcefully evicted or their homes destroyed. Poor environmental conditions, increasing crime, poor employment opportunities and a rapidly rising population further exacerbate their conditions.

UN-HABITAT said the project will help communities living in designated settlements to improve basic services including waste collection and disposal and community infrastructure. This will be done through community mobilisation, enabling women to play their role in local development, and promoting inclusive community-level decision-making.

The project will pursue a strategy where most of the direct support will go towards creating livelihoods for the residents and the returnees. The outcomes of the project are empowered communities, better living environment, and local governance based on representation, transparency, accountability and participation. In addition, the project will help build a direct link between municipal planning and community-level development, in the process creating partnership between the municipalities and the citizens. These outcomes will have sustainable impact on improving human security in these settlements. About 11,650 families are expected to benefit from the project by way of gaining more secured ownership of the plots.

The project will be executed by UN-HABITAT in collaboration with the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, local municipalities, UNDP, the United Nations Mine Action Centre Afghanistan (UNMACA), UNHCR, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Afghan police seize huge quantity of Kabul-bound explosives
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, July 19 (AFP) - Afghan police seized more than 850 kilograms (1,870 pounds) of explosives and thousands of fuses from a truck carrying vegetables to Kabul, police said Tuesday.

The explosives were discovered late Monday night when police acting on a tip-off searched the truck in Jalalabad city, some 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of the capital, said senior counter-terrorism police officer Ahmad Shah Himat.

"Police seized 876 kilograms (1,931 pounds) of explosives and 5,000 fuses placed in onion sacks in a vegetable truck on its way to Kabul," Himat told AFP.

Police have arrested two people who admitted they were paid to take the explosives from Jalalabad to Kabul, he said. "They confessed that they were paid to carry the explosives to Kabul and a group was to collect them in Kabul," he said. An investigation into the case was underway, Himat added.

Meanwhile a roadside bomb destroyed a Pakistani fuel tanker in eastern Kabul's Bagrami district on Monday, but no one was hurt in the incident, the interior ministry said.

"A fuel tanker with a Pakistani registration number plate was ... destroyed in a roadside bomb yesterday but there were no casualties," Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.

In a separate incident in eastern Nangarhar province, intelligence agents on Monday arrested three Taliban suspects and seized rockets, landmines and assault rifles, an intelligence official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

"Three Taliban were arrested, one was wounded who managed to flee and three rockets, 20 AK-47 rifles, six land mines and lots of rounds were seized in an ambush by our men in Khogyani district of Nangarhar province yesterday," the official said.

In another incident the Afghan army arrested a local Taliban commander after an hour-long exchange of fire in Charchino district of southern Uruzgan province in which one Taliban fighter was killed, Afghan defense ministry spokesman general Mohammed Zahir Azimi said.

More than three years after their ouster by a US-led campaign, the Taliban have stepped up attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan ahead of parliamentary elections in September.

Pakistan, Afghanistan to sign accord on power supply
Islamabad, July 19, IRNA
Pakistan and Afghanistan will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on export of 50 megawatts of electricity to Afghanistan's Khost province.

Some other agreements will be also signed during Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's upcoming visit to Afghanistan on July 24, local press reports said on Tuesday.

Under the agreement, Pakistan would supply 50 megawatts electricity to Afghanistan's Khost province. The agreement would be signed on July 25, following finalisation of documents by the Joint Economic Commission of both countries, the daily explained.

Prime Minister Aziz would also inaugurate the Allama Iqbal Department at the Kabul University, Foreign Office said on Monday.

The two countries' leadership were already working on developing Pak-Afghan qualified industrial zones at border areas for poverty reduction. Pakistan sought duty-free export of its products in these zones.

Meanwhile, sources said that Pakistan is likely to remove the remaining six items from the negative list of Afghan Transit Trade.

The sources said a two-member delegation including the CBR chairman and commerce secretary is scheduled to visit Kabul, before premier Aziz's visit there, to discuss the issue.

Pak PM Aziz to visit Kabul on July 24
Islamabad, July 18, IRNA
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will visit Afghanistan on July 24 to discuss economic and trade cooperation as well as security matters, the Foreign Office said on Monday.

"The Prime Minister will meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and will discuss all facets of bilateral interests," Foreign Office Spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told the weekly press briefing.

He said Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Economic Commission meets in Kabul on July 23 and 24.

Meanwhile, sources said that Pakistan is likely to remove remaining six items from the negative list of Afghan Transit Trade.

The sources said a two member delegation including the CBR Chairman and Secretary of Commerce is scheduled to visit Kabul before premier Aziz's visit there to discuss the issue.

"Bilateral trade stands at more than 1 billion dollars," Jilani said.

VIEW: Manufacturing Afghan nationalism
Wajahat Ali / Daily Times (Pakistan) / July 19, 2005
How can Afghanistan merge together different ethnic factions (with antagonistic pasts)? What incentive or motivation should be introduced to bring them in concert with each other? And how can Kabul convince these groups to trade their cultural identities for an abstract personality in a bid to create the imagined community of Afghans?

Islamabad and Kabul are engaged in a war of words. The verbal battle comes in the wake of the upsurge of violence in Afghanistan, where, according to a news report, the Taliban have claimed over 600 lives since the beginning of the year. Compared to the number of fatalities throughout last year — 850 deaths in militant attacks — the figure presents a frightening picture.

The failing security situation in Afghanistan is the main cause of the current tension between the two capitals. Afghan officials accuse Islamabad of supporting anti-Kabul elements. Islamabad categorically denies the charge.

In early May, there were anti-US demonstrations in Afghanistan to protest the desecration of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The violence that sparked in Jalalabad spread towards the east and the south of the country, claiming 16 lives and injuring more than a hundred people.

The areas of bloodshed almost stretched along the region where US forces have been deployed in their battle against the Taliban and other militant factions. So while admitting that US military operations and the ensuing detention of innocent Afghans have become sources of resentment, President Hamid Karzai also made an encrypted reference to foreign involvement.

“Afghan students were encouraged to rise up and start demonstrations,” he said, while “other elements got into the demonstration and in the name of Afghanistan’s students and boys, destroyed [its] property”.

The situation worsened when Kabul claimed it had nailed three suspects of Pakistani descent for plotting to assassinate the outgoing US envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad. Islamabad’s riposte was that Afghanistan should take action against the individuals according to its laws.

President Pervez Musharraf telephoned Karzai twice in the same week. The second time round, he reportedly sought a halt to allegations against his government.

Musharraf said Pakistan’s nearly 70,000-strong security forces along the border were working to stop the enemy from crossing the Durand Line. But he maintained that it was, nevertheless, for the Afghan authorities to improve their internal security.

A few days later, Islamabad revealed information on militants entering Pakistan from Afghanistan. It requested guarantees that Kabul would take necessary measures to end the infiltration to help Pakistan reduce terrorist acts in its urban centres.

Officials in Islamabad have been visibly upset with the Afghan authorities. Most Pakistanis genuinely feel betrayed by Kabul officials, some of whom spent years in Pakistan during the Soviet invasion and after its troop withdrawal when Afghanistan plunged into factional fighting.

The Afghan side of the equation is simple, however. Kabul is busy with the twin processes of state- and nation-building. It needs to engender a spirit of nationalism — and that is where the trouble begins.

How can Afghanistan merge together different ethnic factions (with antagonistic pasts)? What incentive or motivation should be introduced to bring them in concert with each other? And how can Kabul convince these groups to trade their cultural identities for an abstract personality in a bid to create the imagined community of Afghans?

For Ernest Renan, a nation is “a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours”. The Afghans display both these characteristics. In fact, the only common factor among the Uzbeks, Tajiks or Pashtuns living in Afghanistan today is a strong feeling of exploitation by external elements. Straddled between three major regions of the world — the Middle East, South, and Central Asia — Afghanistan has witnessed conflict among global or regional power players.

So while Kabul has resorted to positive mechanisms of state-building by conducting the presidential elections to reconstitute the central authority and embracing some high profile challengers of Hamid Karzai to form a more inclusive administration, it has also employed a negative tactic — demonising its neighbours.

Pakistan has been a preferred target for at least three reasons:

* The Afghan officials now calling the shots in Kabul were fighting the Taliban when Islamabad was trying to prop up the militant group to secure its interests in the neighbouring country. Apart from making that historic blunder of monumental proportion, it was also trying to sideline the people now running Afghanistan’s affairs.

* Taliban remnants have two significant links on this side of the border: their Pashtun descent and the religious and ideological affinity they have with the extremist elements.

* The above two factors breed enough suspicion. What worsens the situation are reports that the Taliban have contacts with “rogue elements” of Pakistan’s intelligence community. It is also suggested that Pakistan has not reconciled with losing its “influence” in Afghanistan.

The war of words will only aggravate the situation. Pakistan needs to pursue a strategy of generosity towards Afghanistan. Islamabad must help Kabul acquire greater political stability. It needs to pursue good neighbourly relations with Afghanistan and maintain the sanctity of the border that separates the two states.

Pakistan may even consider giving preferential treatment to the Afghan traders entering the country. This will not threaten our economy in any significant way (especially when the Afghan supplies are thoroughly security-cleared). But it will work to our advantage when the Gwadar port is made operational.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan will do a great service to its people (and the world at large) if it stops externalising its problems. Drug trade is once again becoming a nuisance for the world and, according to a memo written by officials of the US embassy in Kabul, the Afghan authorities — including the president — have not done much to address the situation.

The need of the hour is for both sides to begin to trust each other. Until a minimum level of trust can be developed, the friction will continue and can sour relations all over again.

The writer is Assistant Editor at Daily Times

Qaeda warns European nations to quit Iraq by August 15 or risk attacks
July 19, 2005
DUBAI (AFP) - The Al-Qaeda terror network warned European nations to pull their troops out of Iraq within a month or face more attacks like the deadly London bombings, according to an Internet statement.

"This message is the final warning to European states. We want to give you a one-month deadline to bring your soldiers out from the land of Mesopotamia (Iraq)," said the statement signed by Al-Qaeda group the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades and dated July 16.

After August 15, "there will be no more messages, just actions that will be engraved on the heart of Europe.

"It will be a bloody war in the service of God," said the statement, the authenticity of which could not be verified.

"It's a message we are addressing to the crusaders who are still present in Iraq -- Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy and those other countries whose troops continue to criss-cross Iraqi territory.

"These are our last words. The mujahedeen, who are on the lookout, will have other words to say in your capitals."

A statement issued in the name of the "Europe Division" of the same Al-Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the July 7 bombings on London's public transport system which killed at least 56 people and wounded some 700.

The same group also claimed the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2003 attacks in Istanbul.

"After the laudable strikes that have shaken London and the cities of other Crusaders still present in Iraq, we have renewed the ultimatum that we had given," the statement said.

"We give you all one month to reflect carefully on your policy towards Islam and Muslims.

"We're giving you this deadline so that you stop running behind the United States and the Zionists, without paying attention to the blood that has been shed and continues to be shed in the land of Islam -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine."

The statement came amid intense debate in Britian over the role the 2003 invasion of Iraq played in spurring the four British suicide bombers to carry out the deadly attacks.

In a Guardian/ICM poll published Tuesday, two-thirds of respondents said they saw a link, while three-quarters said they considered further attacks likely.

But the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair has continued to deny that the war left Britain more vulnerable to terror attacks, despite a damning report from the respected think-tank, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades take their name from an Al-Qaeda commander killed during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

The group previously gave European countries an ultimatum to pull out of Iraq in April last year, a month after the Madrid attacks which killed 191 people and helped secure the election of a Socialist government committed to withdrawing Spanish troops.

Following the expiry of a three-month deadline, the group issued a further statement in August threatening to strike those European countries that continued to "attack Muslims and interfere in their domestic affairs."

Afghanistan: Race To Preserve Historic Minarets Of Herat, Jam
Grant Podelco - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Experts from the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, are back on the ground in western Afghanistan. They're working with local authorities on a $1 million project to preserve the crumbling, centuries-old minarets in Herat and Jam, which are in danger of collapse. Political instability had forced the teams to interrupt their work. This summer, however, their biggest challenge is not lack of security, but logistics. Massive rigging is needed to stabilize the tall towers, but the equipment is too heavy to transport by normal means. As RFE/RL reports, UNESCO is once again hoping to enlist the help of the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan.

Prague, 12 July 2005 (RFE/RL) -- In Afghanistan's leafy western city of Herat, a two-lane road slices between the city's five remaining 15th-century minarets. Every truck, car, bus, motorcycle, and horse-drawn carriage that passes by sends vibrations coursing through the delicate structures:

In particular, the Fifth Minaret -- all 55 meters of it -- seems ready to collapse into a dusty heap of bricks and colored tiles at any moment. A large crack near its base makes drivers speed up just a little as they pass by.

Professor Giorgio Macchi of Italy's Pavia University helped to stabilize the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. He has been enlisted to prevent the collapse of the Fifth Minaret. Christian Manhart, a cultural specialist at UNESCO in Paris, recalls Macchi's conclusions after visiting Herat.

"He did his measurements of the crack, and there he saw that we had already several hundreds of oscillations per minute -- small movements -- of the open crack, which is just above the base. And he said this is the proof that the minaret starts to move and that the process of collapse had started. And he said it can collapse within the next three days, three weeks, or three months. We have to do something immediately," Manhart says.

That was almost two years ago. Emergency measures were quickly put in place. Stainless steel cables now connect the Fifth Minaret to concrete blocks sunk into the soil. While that sounds simple, Manhart says the project was anything but. The cables were so heavy that the U.S.-led military coalition had to be called in to airlift them from Kabul.

Manhart says a UNESCO team has just returned from Herat. Experts made soil measurements to determine how best to proceed with the next phase of the project.

"Our aim in the long term is -- long term means 2006 and eventually 2007 even -- to strengthen the foundations of the minaret using steel bars and to link these steel bars with small steel bars which will be placed inside the staircase of the minaret in order to create a new 'backbone' of this minaret, which is now dramatically leaning still and only held by the cables which we have placed in 2003," Manhart says.

Some 300 kilometers from Herat, the 12th-century Minaret of Jam is tucked into a remote gorge in neighboring Ghor Province. The second-tallest brick minaret in the world at more than 65 meters, it has survived earthquakes, wars, and the havoc wreaked by Ghengis Khan.

Unknown to the West until the 1950s, the Minaret of Jam was the first site in Afghanistan to be placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It's also on the List of World Heritage in Danger, as it, too, is threatened with collapse. Two rivers -- the Hari Rud and the Jam Rud -- flow close by and are eroding its foundation.

Jam is a treacherous two-day drive from Herat. Italian architect Andrea Bruno -- who also worked to stabilize the tower in Pisa -- led the UNESCO team that just returned from the area.

"During the last mission, other specialists also have been invited -- two geologists carried out three different types of inquiry, which were quite difficult due to the topographical situation of the location of the minaret and the difficulty to transport the necessary tools by Jeep from Herat to the Jam Valley," Bruno says.

Stabilizing the Minaret of Jam involves wrapping special stainless steel cables around its base. As in Herat, the task of getting the equipment to such a remote location presents formidable challenges, as UNESCO's Christian Manhart explains.

"Professor Macchi has made a concept of strengthening [the base] and holding it together by rolling steel cables around. This also sounds very easy, but these steel cables must be of a certain material and quality, and also they must be brought around with a predefined pressure. And this is possible only if you construct a machine which will roll on rails around. So this machine is presently under construction in Italy, and the rails also. We then have to bring all this equipment to this very remote area of Jam," Manhart says.

Manhart says UNESCO is again hoping military helicopters can be called in to help transport the cables and rails to Jam.

The preservation efforts in both Herat and Jam would be even more difficult were it not for the enthusiasm the Afghans themselves have shown in the projects. In addition to lending muscle to repair work, Manhart says Afghans are now actively involved in protecting their unique cultural heritage.

"Yes, we have very good cooperation with the Afghans. They are very keen to do this work, and they are also keen to learn, because our projects are not only aimed at the consolidation of the monuments but also on the capacity building of the services in Afghanistan in charge of the conservation of cultural heritage. And we did already a lot of onsite training. We sent some of them already to conferences and training courses. And the capacity has already considerably improved. There is extremely good cooperation with them," Manhart says.

Sayyed Makhdum Rahin is Afghanistan's minister of information and culture. He tells RFE/RL that the next phase of the preservation project is due to get under way next month.

"About two years ago, based on a proposal by Afghanistan's Information and Culture Ministry, the Jam minaret was included on the World Heritage List. Since then, UNESCO has been looking for ways to protect this minaret. We had some discussions in this regard recently, and starting in August, a [UNESCO] delegation is due to start its work in order to protect the minaret," Rahin says.

Preservation efforts aren't limited to the minarets themselves, however. Funded by Italy and Germany, a tile-making workshop has also been set up in Herat. The minarets in Herat and the nearby mausoleum of Queen Gawhar Shad were at one time covered with glazed tiles in shades of turquoise, yellow, deep blue, cream, and black. Only scattered patches remain. Hundreds of broken tiles lay like colored candies at the base of the minarets.

Manhart says tile masters were brought back to Herat from Iran and elsewhere, given salaries, and put to work teaching some two dozen students the ancient tradition of tile making. He notes that the tiles, while beautiful to look at, more importantly protect the minarets and mausoleum from the damaging effects of rain and wind.

Professor Bruno says it is vital that these monuments be saved, to preserve the structures themselves, as well as Afghanistan's unique place in the world's cultural history.

"Especially the Minaret of Jam is unique in the world, and you know now it is described on the list of World Heritage Sites. Herat in the past was the first city for the very highest expression of architecture. And not only from an architectural point of view but also from all the other expressions of Islamic art, like calligraphy, mosaics, and poetry. It's been described as the Florence of Afghanistan," Bruno says.

(RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari contributed to this report.)