Afghanistan News March 23, 2005

March 23, 2005

Afghanistan's Karzai on a Two-Day Visit to Pakistan
Wednesday March 23, 7:48 AM Asia Pulse
KABUL, March 23 Asia Pulse - Afghan president Hamid Karzai left Kabul on Tuesday for a two-day visit to Pakistan.
Ahmad Navid Ma'ez, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said President Karzai would hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, on extension of the Central Asian gas pipeline.

The pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan is viewed as an important economic project of the region that would attract considerable benefits for landlocked Afghanistan. The project is expected to provide 10,000 jobs and US$300 million in taxes for Afghanistan.

The ministers of foreign affairs, transport, refugees, youth, frontiers are accompanying the President on this trip. The foreign ministry spokesman added that both sides would also discuss the ongoing war on drugs and on economic and trade ties. Transit issues and the condition of Afghan refugees in Pakistan would also be discussed.

Karzai will participate in the ceremony of the National Day of Pakistan tomorrow.

Jalil Abbas Jilani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, told Pajhwok that the two sides would sign five agreements on political consultations between the two foreign ministries, tourism, cultural cooperation, cooperation in mass media and creation of transportation company of Peshawar-Jalalabad and Quetta-Kandahar.

Jilani predicted trade between the two countries would reach $1 million in the current year.

Pakistan pledged $100 million in aid for reconstruction of Afghanistan in the Tokyo conference in January 2002.

The Pakistani spokesman said his country has delivered $43 million of this pledge so far.

(Pajhwok Afghan News)

Karzai arrives in Pakistan as U.S. presses for Taliban reconciliation
SADAQAT JAN
ISLAMABAD, Afghanistan (AP) Afghan leader Hamid Karzai arrived in neighboring Pakistan on Tuesday for talks with its leaders amid U.S. pressure on him to announce a reconciliation program for Taliban militants.

Karzai was to hold talks later Tuesday with Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on ``all issues'' of interest to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, an official in Musharraf's office said on condition of anonymity.

The Afghan president was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday and will also be guest of honor at a military parade Wednesday for Pakistan's National Day.

American officials and commanders are pressing Karzai to announce the details of a reconciliation drive for the former ruling Taliban, a move which could defuse an insurgency still busying 17,000 U.S. troops near the border and hampering aid efforts.

The U.S. military has said Karzai must work out with Pakistan which top Taliban figures would be excluded from the program, but it remains unclear whether any agreement has been reached or if Pakistan is willing to arrest Taliban leaders living there.

Lt. Gen. David Barno, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said last week that talks between Karzai and Musharraf would help address the fact that Pakistan has yet to arrest any top Taliban leaders.

It was unclear whether Karzai would discuss the issue in Islamabad. His spokesman, Jawed Ludin, on Tuesday reiterated Kabul's willingness to pardon Taliban who want to return to their villages, but refused to comment on what would be done with Taliban leaders such as Mullah Omar and his top lieutenants. ``Afghanistan has turned over a new page,'' Ludin said. ``The issue now is reconstruction.''

Pakistan was a key supporter of the Taliban militia which a U.S.-led coalition ousted from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 for harboring terrorists. Musharraf switched sides and allied Pakistan with the anti-terrorism war after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, and has since sought to set up strong ties with Karzai's U.S.-backed government.

During Karzai's stay in Islamabad, Pakistan and Afghanistan will also sign agreements on tourism and culture, including one establishing bus services between the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta and the Afghan towns of Jalalabad and Kandahar, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.

Afghanistan Takes Leaf Out of West Point's Book
Tue Mar 22, 6:27 AM ET By Simon Cameron-Moore
KABUL (Reuters) - Mentored by advisers from the prestigious U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Afghanistan opened its own cadet school on Tuesday to groom an officer class versed in democratic values for its fledgling army.

The Afghan National Army has 22,000 men trained and deployed so far, many of them helping U.S. forces quash an insurgency by remnants of the ousted Taliban regime in the south and east of the country.

Afghanistan aims to eventually have an army of 70,000 strong, but in the meantime the presence of NATO peacekeepers and U.S. forces acts as a security guarantor.

"What we're going to produce is officers who can understand the role of the military in a democracy and could anticipate and respond effectively in a changing world as they assume positions of leadership in the Afghan Army and Afghan nation," West Point's dean, Brigadier General Daniel J. Kaufman, told Reuters following a ceremony to mark the academy's opening. An election won by President Hamid Karzai last October was seen as a turning point for a nation that had known only conflict and repression since it was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979.

"They (Afghans) are experienced fighters, there's no doubt about that. What's new is defending a republic," said Kaufman.

The Taliban, ousted by U.S.-backed forces in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, have become a fading force.

But regional warlords, representing armed factions of Afghanistan's many ethnic groups and tribes, are still seen as a threat to the country's long term stability.

For that reason, the new National Military Academy of Afghanistan will ensure cadets are chosen from all the country's different groups in order to forge a national identity.

There were 120 cadets aged around 18 in the first intake at the academy, but the plan is for the number to be raised to 250 in subsequent years.

Aside from military training, they will undergo a four-year undergraduate academic course designed to reflect the needs of the country, before being inducted into the army as second lieutenants.

Specialist courses in mechanical and electrical engineering, political science, international relations, history and foreign languages will be part of the curriculum, along with more soldierly pursuits including the development of leadership and honor systems.

Kaufman hoped that as the Afghan Army matures, it too will help peacekeeping missions elsewhere in the world.

"We can perceive in the not too distant future that the Afghan Army is going to be helping others just as we're helping them today."

One killed, six injured in southern Afghanistan prison riot
March 22, 2005
KABUL (AFP) - One prisoner has been killed and six people including three policemen injured during a clash at a jail in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

The incident took place Monday night in the city of Kandahar, the former stronghold of the ultra-Islamic Taliban regime.

"One prisoner was killed and six others including three police were injured in Kandahar prison," city police director General Salim Khan told AFP Tuesday, declining to give more details.

The trouble started when an inmate attacked a prison police guard and opened fire, injuring him and two other policemen, a police source said.

In a subsequent exchange of fire the attacker was killed and three prisoners were wounded, the source said.

Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal was not available for comment.

On December 17 four guards and two prisoners were killed in Kabul's main jail as clashes erupted after an escape attempt.

In the Kabul riot, a Pakistani and an Iraqi detainee were killed after attacking a guard at Pul-e-Charki jail with a razor blade and stealing his gun.

They were killed after intervention by the national army.

U.S. Forces Say Kill Five Rebels in Afghanistan
Wed Mar 23, 2005 04:49 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed five militants in southeastern Afghanistan after they fired rockets and small arms at U.S.-led troop positions, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
There were no casualties among U.S.-led soldiers in the Tuesday night attacks on a base in Khost province and on checkpoints on the nearby border with Pakistan, it said.

"Coalition troops returned fire with 155 mm artillery rounds at enemy positions. Coalition aircraft killed five insurgents," the U.S. military said.

The U.S. military did not say who the attackers were but a Taliban spokesman said Taliban fighters were responsible and they had fired 20 rockets at U.S. positions near Khost airport.

Ten Afghan government soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in the attack, the Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakami told the Afghan Islamic Press news agency.

The attack in Khost came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai was in Pakistan for talks with President Pervez Musharraf.

Taliban loyalists have been waging an insurgency against U.S. and Afghan government forces since the conservative Islamic militia was ousted in late 2001.

The insurgents and their Islamic militant allies have been most active in the south and east of the country although their attacks have fallen off over recent months.

Afghan government complaints in the past that Taliban fighters have been able to plot and launch attacks into Afghanistan from the safety of Pakistani territory have strained relations between the neighbors.

But the Pakistan army effectively choked off Taliban movement across the rugged, porous border in the run-up to Afghanistan's largely peaceful presidential election in October.

One suspected Taliban killed, another arrested in gunfight with police, official says
Associted Press / March 22, 2005
Police confronted a group of suspected Taliban guerrillas in southeastern Afghanistan, sparking a gunbattle in which one rebel was killed and another arrested, an official said Tuesday.

One police officer was also wounded in the clash Monday morning in Mizan district of Zabul province, 380 kilometers (240 miles) southwest of Kabul, district chief Rahmatullah Khan told The Associated Press.

Khan said police were tipped off about a group of militants in the Pitaw Mountains. The gunfight broke out when his men tried to surround the rebels, Khan said. He didn't identify either the dead man or the captured suspect.

More than three years after ousting the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, American commanders insist the former ruling militia are a fading force. Still, they also expect a seasonal surge in attacks as the harsh Afghan winter fades.

In another incident in the lawless south and east, one prisoner was killed and four others wounded when inmates tried to break out of a jail in the city of Kandahar, police said.

The inmates seized a gun from a guard late Monday night but were surrounded by police before they could escape, deputy police chief Salim Khan said. A guard and two police officers were also shot and injured, he said.

All the inmates involved were regular criminals rather than militants, Khan said.

President Karzai, School Officials Break Ground for School Wall
Combined Forces Command Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs)
March 22, 2005 By Senior Airman Joshua G. Moshier
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai and American University of Afghanistan officials broke ground March 21 to begin the process of building the university.

They dug in to officially break ground on the future university’s perimeter wall.

The $370,000 wall-building project is being funded by Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan and will take about five months to complete, said Lt. Col. Bill Leady, CFC-A engineer.

“This marks the first physical construction of what will be a strong tie between the American and Afghanistan cultures,” Leady said.

CFC-A will oversee the wall project in accordance with the university board of trustees’ desires. Once the wall has been erected, the university buildings will be constructed under a partnership with university officials and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The university will be privately run by an elected board of trustees comprised of Afghans and Americans and will stress an American style of education. The school will not have any direct political or financial ties to America.

“We are laying the foundation for a modern and democratic Afghanistan,” said one school official. “This is a gift to the thousands of Afghanistan students who will one day graduate from this university.”

Group would help Afghanistan
The JournalNews.com, NY By JOHN MACHACEK / WASHINGTON BUREAU (Original publication: March 22, 2005)
A New York-led coalition of universities, private groups and the International Paper Co. will help rebuild Afghanistan's orchards, vineyards and forests under an initiative announced yesterday by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The New York Partnership for a Green Afghanistan, which includes the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is sending 80,000 trees to Afghanistan initially and will provide experts to help rebuild Afghan fruit farms, nurseries and woodlands destroyed by nearly 25 years of war.

"This effort is another step in helping revitalize the country from the ground up," said Clinton, a New York Democrat who has visited Afghanistan twice in the past three years. "New Yorkers want to support this struggling democracy."

The tree-planting program has been organized by Global Partnership for Afghanistan, a not-for-profit group founded by Dana and Bruce Freyer of Scarsdale and Afghan-Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks led to U.S. strikes in Afghanistan against militant Islamic forces supporting Osama bin Laden.

"Acres of scorched earth and dried fields stand where Afghans once cultivated flourishing orchards and vineyards, and the country struggles to feed its population," said New York University Professor M. Ishaq Nadiri, global's co-chairman and a senior economic adviser to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

Cornell will share its expertise in fruit breeding and production and disease and insect control — areas needed to make Afghanistan an agricultural exporter again and reclaim its reputation as the "orchard of Central Asia," Clinton said.

Afghan New Year signals new returns, new challenges
By Tim Irwin In Herat
HERAT, Afghanistan, March 21 (UNHCR) – In Afghanistan and Iran, New Year, or naw roz, which is celebrated today, marks the end of winter, with the rising temperatures and melting snows signalling a new season of activity.

Among those on the move are Afghans who, after years and sometimes decades of living as refugees in Iran, have decided to return to their homeland.

At the UNHCR reception centre in Islam Qala, western Afghanistan, Ali Fatahi and his family are drinking tea surrounded by their luggage. They have travelled by bus through the night from Tehran, where Ali and his wife lived for the past 25 years and where their six children were born. His daughters appear tired from the journey and the apprehension of adjusting to life in a new and, to them, foreign country. Asked how she feels to be in Afghanistan, 16-year-old Leyla looks surprised. "Are we in Afghanistan now?" she asks her father.

The Fatahi family is among the more than 1 million Afghans who have returned from Iran since the UN refugee agency began its voluntary repatriation programme in 2002. The harsh winter means that just 3,100 people have sought UNHCR assistance to return from Iran since the beginning of this year.

For Ali, the decision to return home after more than a quarter of a century was a complex one, based on his belief that conditions in Afghanistan were improving and his perception that he faced growing obstacles in Iran.

"We were always treated well," he says. "But during the past year it has become more difficult. Finding work has become harder and last year I couldn't afford to send my daughters to school."

As he waits at the reception centre for the truck carrying his and other returnees' belongings, he discusses his plans for the future. "I have some savings and I hope to open a garage in Sherbegan," he says, referring to a city in the north of the country.

As with other Afghans returning from Iran, the cost of moving the Fatahi family and their possessions to Afghanistan is covered by the UN refugee agency. Once inside the country, they can then claim a cash transportation grant based on the distance to their final destination. After such a long absence, Ali and his family are unsure of what awaits them. A scribbled mobile phone number represents their only contact in Sherbegan – Ali's father-in-law, whom none of them has seen for many years.

"Twenty-five years is a long time," says Ali. "But we always knew we would return once the security situation improved. Everybody wants a better life in their own country."

Repatriation from Iran, as well as Pakistan, is governed by a tripartite agreement between the host government, the government of Afghanistan and UNHCR. The agreement is based on the principle that all returns must be voluntary. With the current agreement with Iran due to expire at the end of this month, talks are ongoing to ensure its renewal.

For Afghans, naw roz also means the start of a new academic year. In an otherwise empty classroom on the outskirts of the western city of Herat, six students are preparing to enter the Afghan school system for the first time. The group varies in age from 12 to 20, but each member shares a common background. They were all born in Iran and have recently returned with their families. They understand the challenges of returning to a country where poverty, unemployment and lack of housing remain a reality for many.

Sixteen-year-old Ferishta returned six months ago and was immediately struck by her new surroundings. "We miss the facilities a lot. My school in Iran was more modern and we had computers. But here I am no longer a refugee," she says.

Her comments are picked up by 13-year-old Pakiza, who is attending the preparatory classes with her younger brother. "Here we have less, but it feels like it belongs to us."

"The role of UNHCR is to assist refugees to return to Afghanistan and to help them reintegrate into their places of origin," says Bernard Doyle, who is responsible for the agency's operations in the west of the country. "Conditions in Afghanistan have improved but it still faces tough challenges. UNHCR is working with the government of Afghanistan, other UN agencies and developmental partners to come up with long-term solutions to the issue of migration in the region."

Khawar is a widow who works as a cleaner in the school where her daughter is attending classes. She and her family left Iran six months ago. They own a small property in a rural district but have settled in Herat because of its greater employment prospects. For her, the process of returning to Afghanistan has been more difficult than expected. But she is certain she made the right decision.

"We struggled in Iran and we struggle here," she says. "But in our own homes we feel more comfortable."

Afghan anti-poppy push ups prices
Tue Mar 22, 2005 05:57 PM GMT
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S.-led efforts to eradicate opium cultivation in Afghanistan have nearly doubled raw opium prices and threatened to push Afghan farmers back to growing poppies, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.

Falling prices last year due to a large harvest helped the international community discourage farmers from planting this year. But the expected market tightening has driven prices to $180 (95 pounds) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) this month from $100 last October, he said.

Farmers could now return to cultivating poppy "if active intervention on law enforcement, coupled with effective alternative livelihoods assistance, is not provided on an urgent basis," he reported to the U.N. Security Council.

Heroin and morphine are derived from opium, which comes from poppies.

The illegal narcotics trade dominates Afghanistan's economy, accounting for 60 percent of its gross domestic product and 87 percent of the world's supply.

A U.S. State Department report released earlier this month described Afghan heroin production as an "enormous threat to world stability."

Encouraged by the Western powers, President Hamid Karzai has vowed to wage war on the drug trade to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a narco-state just three years after U.S. and Afghan resistance forces drove the Taliban from power.

Washington has earmarked $700 million for the campaign while Britain is putting up $100 million and seeking another $300 million from smaller countries.

But with more than 350,000 families -- roughly 10 percent of the population -- believed to be dependent on opium production, rapid eradication of the crop could have dire consequences, particularly since many growers are believed to have taken an advance on their 2005 harvest and would be left with huge debts, Annan said.

Changing the market dynamics will require a focus on the middlemen and end users as well as suppliers, Annan said.

In a briefing to the council, Jean Arnault, Annan's special envoy for Afghanistan, said a recent decision to delay Afghan parliamentary and provincial elections until September had the advantage of delaying the vote until after the completion of this year's poppy eradication campaign.

The delay also would give the government more time to disarm militias, better educate citizens and better train security forces ahead of the voting, he said.

All quiet on Afghanistan's western front
By Andrew North BBC News, at Shindand airbase, Western Afghanistan Wednesday, 23 March, 2005, 11:22 GMT
'Mig tipping' 'is a favourite pastime of bored troops

Shattered Soviet war-planes, desert scrub, a battered runway and a cluster of shell-scarred buildings patched up with wooden boards.

When you fly into Shindand airfield you have to look hard to spot any sign of activity, let alone that it is the US military's main base in western Afghanistan.

This huge Soviet-built base has been the focus of speculation over possible US operations against Iran - about 50 miles away to the west.

But it is the debris of past wars, rather than preparations for future ones, that dominate the scene right now.

Nuclear installations

The war junk sometimes serves as entertainment for bored troops. Some while away off-duty hours by what they call "Mig-tipping" - standing on the back end of those Soviet warplanes until they lift up.

What sparked greater interest in the American presence here was a New Yorker magazine article claiming US special forces teams had been crossing into Iran from Afghanistan for some time, allegedly seeking out nuclear installations and other potential targets.

Shindand - which has been under US control since only August last year - was seen as the most likely starting point.

But the American commander for the region denies Iran is the focus for the US troops he controls.

Rumours fuelled

"The US presence in western Afghanistan is for reconstruction and economic development. We have done no operations along the Iranian border, and I have no knowledge of operations along the Iranian border," says Col Phil Bookert at his headquarters in Herat city, two hours drive to the north.

"That is not why we are here," he continues. "We're here to do reconstruction and economic development activities in Herat and Farah provinces, and they happen to border Iran.

"We do reconstruction activities between here and Iran, but we certainly don't cross the border."

He was careful though when pressed further: "I have no knowledge of coalition operations into Iran looking for anything."

Of course, if such operations were taking place from here, it is unlikely most of the soldiers at Shindand - the bulk of them military police - would be told.

Speculation continues

Comments by the influential Republican Senator John McCain, calling for permanent US bases in Afghanistan have also helped fuel rumours about plans for Shindand - one of the largest airfields in the country.

Relics of the previous occupying power are everywhere

Although troops have repaired key parts of the base including holes in the runway - some caused by US bombing in 2001 - there is little sign Shindand is being prepared for a larger role just yet.

There are only a few hundred US troops here. And none of the constant clatter and roar of helicopters that you find at other US bases like Kandahar or Bagram.

And the plan is for the US to hand over the base later this year to an Italian-led contingent serving with the Nato peacekeeping troops.

But this would still allow the US to use the base, defence experts point out. As long as there is tension between Washington and Tehran, speculation will continue as to America's plans for Shindand.

Envoy: Delay in Afghan Elections May Help
Wed Mar 23, 3:11 AM ET By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS - The delay in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban parliamentary elections until Sept. 18 could have the unintended advantage of diminishing the influence of drug money on the electoral process, the top U.N. envoy to Afghanistan said.

Jean Arnault told the U.N. Security Council the delay will also allow for more in-depth education of voters, candidates and parties, as well as better-trained police and army units.

It will also give the Afghan government more time "to complete the process of demilitarization that has gained much momentum in recent months," he said Tuesday.

Arnault said the United Nations would still have preferred elections be held this spring, as the Afghan electoral board initially decided, but acknowledged the voting method selected for the parliamentary election made mid-September the earliest possible date.

Under the voting system, candidates may register as individuals, with or without a party affiliation. Each voter casts one vote for one candidate in a district. If a province has five seats, the top five vote-getters win the seats.

While it's direct and easy to understand, critics say the system marginalizes political parties, favors local leaders and regional warlords, and is less representative than a proportional representation system based on party lists.

Arnault told the Security Council that several thousand candidates are expected to run for the 249 seats in the Lower House of Parliament and provincial councils. The large number of candidates will make the checking of their eligibility for office and producing ballots time-consuming, he said.

Nonetheless, the U.N. envoy cited several advantages in delaying the election.

"First, it means that the electoral campaign and the election itself will take place after the completion of this year's poppy eradication campaign," Arnault said. A successful campaign, he added, will diminish the influence of drug money on the electoral process and increase security.

Arnault said the delay will also allow more time to prepare for the establishment of the future National Assembly. Over 100 staffers with expertise in different aspects of the legislative process are currently being trained, led by France with support from the U.N. Development Program, he said.

The U.N. envoy said Afghanistan has only $40 million of the total $148 million needed to hold the election — primarily from contributions from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Britain and the United States.

The parliamentary elections are supposed to complete a political process agreed to in Bonn, Germany, after U.S. and allied Afghan forces drove out the Taliban in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan's Exports to Afghanistan Reach US$752 MLN
Tuesday March 22, 4:45 PM Asia Pulse
ISLAMABAD, March 22 Asia Pulse - Pakistan's exports to Afghanistan during eight months of current fiscal have surpassed last year's total turnover of the exports to Afghanistan by Rs 6.94 billion to reach Rs 44.66 billion (US$752 million).

The exports for July-February stood Rs 44.66 billion compared to Rs 25.14 billion during the same period last year. Exports during the whole previous fiscal year were worth Rs 37.71 billion.

According to data, Pakistani exports include wheat and flour (Rs 5.29 billion), rice (Rs 1.68 billion), ghee (Rs 3.98 billion), sugar (Rs 2.1 billion), cement (Rs 1.84 billion), paints and varnish (Rs 1.44 billion), mild steel products (Rs 2.8 billion), sanitary ware (Rs 52.53 million), construction material (Rs 896.86 million), electrical goods (Rs 201.3 million), electronic goods (Rs 124.62 million), medicine (Rs 367. 07 million), grain and pulses (Rs 55.44 million), fruit and vegetables (Rs 895.02 million), milk and cereals (Rs 594.71 million) and miscellaneous items (Rs 21.18 billion).

(PPI)

OIC Assistance Fund to the People of Afghanistan:
150 dinking water wells drilled in deprived regions of Afghanistan
Source: The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
Jeddah: 20 March 2005 - H.E. Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference met today Sunday 10 Safar 1426H (20 March 2005) in his office at the OIC General Secretariat headquarters, with Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Abdurrahman Al-Thani, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the OIC Assistance Fund for the People of Afghanistan, who was accompanied by the Fund's Executive Director, Mr. Ismael Al-Dafa'a.

Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Thani briefed the Secretary General on the Assistance Fund for the People of Afghanistan and projects being financed and executed by the Fund with a view to assisting the Afghani people in overcoming the impact of the painful events witnessed over past decades.

On his part, the Executive Director pointed out that, pursuant to the plan approved by the Board of Trustees, the Fund has managed to carry out a number of vital projects, relief operations and humanitarian interventions. These included the drilling of 150 drinking water wells in seven different Afghan provinces facing chronic drought, as well as the distribution of 300 tons of food and relief material, among the Afghan refugee camps in the Provinces of Ghazni and Paktia. Also work has already been initiated in the suburbs of Kabul for the construction of two healthcare units, out of the twenty approved by the Board of Trustees for the benefit of different regions in Afghanistan.

Prof. Ihsanoglu paid tribute to the Fund's efforts in extending assistance and relief to the Afghan people, and called on the OIC Member States to make additional voluntary donations in support of this and other OIC Funds active in various humanitarian and charitable areas, including that of the reconstruction of the war and natural disaster victim areas, both in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the resettlement of refugees and migrants back in their hometowns, after providing them with the necessary amenities to live in dignity and honour.

Afghanistan: Death toll from floods appears lower than feared
By Ron Synovitz
Hundreds of Afghans were reported killed by floodwaters raging through mountain gorges across the country in the past week. Rivers already swollen by snowmelt from the harshest winter in years have been overflowing in the wake of heavy rains. But as the floodwaters recede in some areas, the death toll doesn't appear to be as high as initially reported by provincial officials.

Prague, 22 March 2005 (RFE/RL) -- United Nations officials said today that, so far, they can confirm just two of 115 deaths that had been reported as a result of flooding in Uruzgan Province.

UN spokesman Martin Battersby says the bodies of an adult and one child have been found near Deh Rawood, about 120 kilometers north of Kandahar. The two were caught up in the waters of the Helmand River when it overflowed on 18 March.

"We, ourselves [should act decisively], through each individual and people's cooperation in villages, in districts, and provinces, we should stand up together and fight natural disasters." -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai

An Afghan Health Ministry official in Kabul, Azizullah Atghar, says 12 people from Uruzgan have been officially reported as missing.

Uruzgan Governor Jan Mohammed Khan insists the real number of missing is much higher. But he said today he has no information about any fatalities.

That remark contradicts a statement the Uruzgan governor made on 20 March, when he said 115 deaths had been confirmed in the province as a result of flooding.

In Kabul, officials today were reporting the total death toll across the north and west of the country at about 26.

Regardless of the actual death toll, the flooding has caused a humanitarian crisis. In several provinces, the surging waters have destroyed thousands of mud-brick homes that were built close to dry riverbeds during years of drought.

The situation prompted a call yesterday by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for ordinary Afghans to do whatever they can to help those in need.

"We, ourselves [should act decisively], through each individual and people's cooperation in villages, in districts, and provinces, we should stand up together and fight natural disasters," Karzai said.

UN and Afghan officials anticipated the crisis. A month ago, authorities in Kabul began to meet with UN staff, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and U.S.-led coalition commanders to coordinate their emergency response plans.

"Definitely, coalition forces have been involved in the preparation for any type of flood relief response -- whether it be rescue or relief aid," says Lieutenant Cindy Moore, a spokeswoman for coalition forces in Afghanistan. "We've been involved with the UN, as well as ISAF and the government of Afghanistan, in trying to put together a plan in case there were situations where citizens needed to be evacuated, rescued, or just have relief provided to them in the area where they live."

The advance planning led to the rescue of hundreds of people in Deh Rawood on 18 and 19 March, when the Helmand River overflowed. That's because the Afghan government was able to quickly call in U.S. military helicopters for an emergency evacuation.

The coalition also sent in American A-10 fighter planes -- which normally provide close air support to U.S. Special Forces commando teams battling Taliban fighters.

Moore confirmed that the fighter pilots used their high-tech targeting systems as search devices to locate endangered civilians at night. The fighter pilots were able to direct rescue helicopters to dozens of Afghans who were at risk of being washed away by the flooding.

U.S. troops are now working with the United Nations and Afghan government officials to distribute tents, medicine, and food supplies in the Deh Rawood area.

Moore says the situation in Uruzgan Province is no longer considered critical. But she says the threat of flooding is being closely monitored across the country.

"Everyone will continue to look at areas that might need assistance -- from the government of Afghanistan, ISAF, the UN, the coalition, and other relief efforts -- certainly the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, UNICEF, and different other agencies within the ministries of Afghanistan," she says. "We hope to support, if called upon, in any way. We [in the U.S.-led coalition forces] do stand by and are ready to support any rescue or relief efforts that we are asked to do."

UN spokeswoman Ariane Quentier says the World Food Program also has been airlifting tons of food and cooking oil -- along with tents, blankets, and plastic sheeting -- to hard-hit areas.

The provinces of Farah, Herat, Faryab, and Ghor also have been hit by flooding. Provincial officials say large numbers of livestock have been killed and many mud-brick houses have collapsed.

Afghan students, including two women, to take part in Washington law contest
Wednesday March 23, 7:48 PM AP
Five Afghan law students, including two women, will pit their skills against contemporaries from around the world in a prestigious competition in the United States, officials said Wednesday.

The five are among 500 students taking part in this year's Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition in Washington. Afghan students also took part last year, but with an all-male team.

Three years after the fall of the former ruling Taliban, Afghanistan is casting off the fundamentalism that once barred women from public life and kept girls out of school.

The seven-day competition, organized by the International Law Students Association, is a simulation of the International Court of Justice in which participants show their skills in pleading mock cases in areas from cross-border crime to maritime law.

Edrees Alimi, 24, said he and his fellow Afghan contestants would try to score a victory for Afghanistan _ and would use their skills to help the war-ravaged country rebuild.

"We have a stable country," Alimi said after a practice session on Wednesday. Working abroad "would be the biggest mistake we could make because our country really needs us," he said.

None of the five, who depart Friday, has been beyond Afghanistan and its neighboring countries before, according to the U.N. Development Program, which is sponsoring their trip as part of efforts to revive the decrepit Afghan justice system.

Kidnapped Iranian rescued in Farah
KABUL, March 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- The Interior Ministry said police rescued on Sunday an Iranian national who was kidnapped in western province of Farah nearly three months ago. One person has been arrested in this connection.

Dad Mohammad Rasa, a spokesperson of the Interior Ministry told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday that the Iranian, an elderly person, was kidnapped from Zabul(a place in Iran not to be confused with the Afghan province of the same name) almost three months ago by Afghans.

"The Iranian was rescued from a private jail in Gosha village in Posht road district of Farah Province" Rasa said. He said the suspect arrested by the police was a resident of the same area.

Some time ago, a child was kidnapped from the same area of Iran and was brought to west Afghanistan but he was also rescued by Afghan Police.

UN demining team sent to Kabul's TV hill after explosion
KABUL, Mar. 22, (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- The United Nation's Mine Action Center of Afghanistan(UNAMACA) sent a demining team to Kabul's 'TV hill' on Tuesday after a landmine exploded on Monday wounding a youth.

The landmine had exploded on Monday when people had gathered at the foot of the hill to celebrate the Afghan New Year 'Now Roz'. People gather at the Karta-e-Sakhi tomb at the site every year during New Year.

Patrick Fruchet, a spokesman for the UNAMACA in Kabul, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday: "We sent a three-member technical team to that area." The UN team will check and survey the area and then will clear it of mines.

On Monday, an 18-year old youth had both his legs blown off when he stepped on a landmine during the flag-hoisting ceremony at the site. The mine is thought to have been planted during the Soviet era.

Fruchet said the area had been marked with red color to denote the unsafe areas but that this warning sign had not been heeded by people. Haq Nawaz Haqyar, the police chief of the area, told Pajhwok that they had earlier warned those living in the vicinity not to roam in the areas marked with the color red.

Fruchet added that there were still more than 4,000 areas in Afghanistan that have been marked red that are to be cleared of mines.

Karzai's Afghanistan, Poisoned by Heroin Habit, Seeks Investors
Simon Clark
March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Shaghasi's fields near Afghanistan's eastern city of Jalalabad are planted with wheat this year, instead of the red, white and purple poppies he had grown since 2001.

That's a hopeful sign for President Hamid Karzai, who wants to stamp out opium production and build a legal economy based on trade, minerals and agriculture. Less encouraging is what's inside the walls of Shaghasi's garden: a small patch of poppies, enough to supply him with seeds to plant next season.

``This is the main industry of Afghanistan,'' says the 35- year-old father of five, who switched to wheat only after Karzai's police officers plowed up his poppies. The farmer, who would only give one name, stood to earn more than $5,000 from his deadly crop, or 25 times the average annual Afghan income. ``My father taught me how to grow the flowers, and I will teach my children,'' he says.

Three and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Afghanistan's first democratically elected president is racing to prove that he's restoring order and that the central Asian country can be a profitable place for foreign investors.

`Bitter Medicine'

``Now that Afghanistan is putting itself back together again, we don't need to grow poppies,'' Karzai, 47, says at his Kabul palace, which is protected by sand-bagged machine gun posts, concrete roadblocks and former U.S. special-forces soldiers working for Fort Worth, Texas-based DynCorp International LLC. ``If we don't take this dose of bitter medicine, our tomorrow will be one of despair.''

Karzai, who was elected in October, wants to bring in international companies to develop power and transportation systems, build hotels and create jobs.

``Afghanistan is ready for any business, especially where transportation and power generation are concerned,'' he says. ``This is a country hungry for investment.'' Karzai says Afghanistan may become a ``land bridge'' between the Middle East, China and India, echoing its historic role as part of the Silk Route between Europe and the Far East.

Construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan could generate $200 million a year in transit fees, says Najeeb Jung, a senior energy specialist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

`Narcomafia State'

Failure to create a healthy economy will produce a ``narcomafia state'' as dangerous as the Taliban regime that supported the Sept. 11 terrorists, says Ashraf Ghani, 55, Afghanistan's finance minister until December, who now heads Kabul University.

It would also affect U.S. President George W. Bush's policy of fostering democracy in the Middle East, from Iraq to the Palestinian territories, says Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul.

``We regard their success as our success,'' says Khalilzad, 54, an ethnic Afghan who lives in three converted truck containers in a heavily guarded compound in the city of more than 3 million.

Hikmet Cetin, the senior civilian representative of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Afghanistan, says building a legal economy would make the $13 billion annual cost of keeping 8,500 NATO soldiers and 18,000 U.S. troops worthwhile. ``This will be a waste of money if we don't build an economy,'' says Cetin, 67, a former foreign minister of Turkey.

`Unfinished Business'

So far, Paris-based Alcatel SA, the world's second-largest supplier of telecommunications network equipment; Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft drink maker; Chicago- based Hyatt Hotels Corp.; and more than 1,500 other international and domestic companies have registered with the Afghan Investment Support Agency and declared plans to invest a combined $800 million, according to Suleman Fatimie, 25, vice president for investment at the Kabul-based agency.

``We've got unfinished business here,'' says Saad Mohseni, 38, who returned to Kabul from Melbourne in 2002, after 14 years away, to start a television station with his two brothers and sister.

Mohseni's family is investing $5 million in radio, magazines and a telephone directory business as well as its Tolo TV channel. ``In the West, you can build a skyscraper, and no one will notice,'' he says. ``Here, you can do something significant. It's good for the ego.''

Obstacles to Growth

The obstacles to Karzai's ambitions are in stark evidence after 23 years of war, from devastated roads to an electricity supply that reaches less than 6 percent of the population and then for only a few hours every other day.

The country's 24 million citizens have a life expectancy of 44.5 years, must avoid 305 square miles (790 square kilometers) of land mines and, after the crushing rule of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban, have the world's worst educational system, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

Nature also provides a giant hurdle in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which soars as high as 24,580 feet (7,492 meters) to the north of Kabul.

The biggest impediment to development is the country's dependence on opium, Karzai says. Last year's opium proceeds equaled 61 percent of 2003 gross domestic product of $4.6 billion, making Afghanistan the world's most-drug-dependent economy, according to the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Heroin Economy

Poppy cultivation has spread to every province of Afghanistan, soaring 64 percent in 2004 and pouring $2.8 billion into the pockets of warlords, traffickers and farmers, the UN agency says.

Opium, used to make heroin, is poisoning Afghanistan's reputation, corrupting government officials and subverting the country's fledgling legal system, Karzai says.

Billionaire investor George Soros, 74, was asked at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January whether he would invest in Afghanistan. ``I'm not in the drugs business,'' he replied.

Opium production provided funds for fighters against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, for sparring warlords in the early 1990s and for the Taliban in all but their last year in power, when they enforced a ban with threats of beatings and prison. Cultivation of the hardy poppy also grew as a result of years of drought.

Today, Afghanistan is the source of three-quarters of the world's heroin, including most of that used in the U.K. and the U.S., according to the International Narcotics Control Board, the body that implements UN drug conventions.

`Slow Suicide'

``Grow something else,'' says John Crane, a plasterer from Sheffield, England, who injected heroin every day for 13 years until June 24, 2002. Crane, 39, says he lost at least 10 friends to the drug. ``Heroin is suicide in slow motion,'' he says.

Before the Russians invaded in 1979, Afghanistan was self- sufficient in food production, says Karzai, who wears a dark jacket over a gray-green shalwar kameez: loose trousers and a knee-length shirt. Agriculture, including raisins and almonds, accounted for 30 percent of exports, bringing in $100 million a year, according to the World Bank.

More than half of Afghanistan's legitimate economy is still based on agricultural products, including wheat, raisins, citrus fruits, mulberries and pomegranates.

U.S. Ambassador Khalilzad says he's prepared to help speed up eradication by using planes to spray chemicals on the land. Karzai rejects this as a health hazard. ``Spray? No way!'' Karzai says fiercely. ``We don't need foreign planes to come and spray our fields.''

9 Percent Growth Target

To beat opium for good, Afghanistan needs to build an economy capable of supporting an average income of $1,000 a year, five times the current level of $199, Kabul University's Ghani says.

That's the point at which people will readily give up the illegal crop, he says. The Afghan government is targeting economic growth of 9 percent a year, which would result in per- capita income of $500 by 2015.

Haji Din Mohammad, a former Mujahedeen leader who's governor of Nangarhar, the province that includes Jalalabad, says he's joined Karzai's battle against opium.

``Of course, nothing can take the place of poppies, but we must find another way,'' says Mohammad, 51, whose smiling eyes look out from above a white beard and an ankle-length traditional coat called a chapan. ``We want to have dignity in the world again.''

Blooming Poppies

A sea of blooming poppies surrounded Jalalabad last spring, Mohammad says. Now, it's surrounded by green wheat. Poppy cultivation in Nangarhar, the biggest opium-producing province in 2004, may fall by as much as 95 percent this year, Mohammad says. About two-thirds of farmers agreed to stop growing, and the fields of the others were destroyed by force, he says.

Nangarhar's economy gained about $500 million from opium in 2004, the governor estimates, which the province will need to replace if opium production is to stay down for good.

A hectare (2.5 acres) of opium poppies yielded $4,600 in 2004, more than 10 times the value of a hectare of wheat, according to the UN. The price traffickers pay to farmers for a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of dry opium fell to $142 in 2004 from $425 in 2003, the UN said.

``We expect cultivation to fall this year, but it will only stay down if the Afghan authorities remain committed and international aid is forthcoming,'' says Thomas Pietschmann, 43, a researcher at the UN drug office in Vienna. Pietschmann says the price may rise to $400 a kilogram by the end of this year if supply falls significantly.

Relying on Aid

Since the U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan has relied on foreign aid for survival. In March 2004, the U.S., Japan, Germany, the U.K. and other countries pledged $8.2 billion over three years to Afghanistan. Karzai had asked for $27.5 billion over seven years.

The Afghan government expects to raise $333 million of tax revenue in 2005, less than the amount targeted by the city of Columbus, Ohio, which has a population of about 745,000.

Most of the money NATO spends is used to pay for goods and services from outside Afghanistan and doesn't go into the economy, Cetin says. Afghanistan has so little domestic industry, it doesn't even make its own pencils or toilet paper; the leading toilet paper brand, Horsehead, is imported from China.

``That creates opportunities to cater to domestic demand and to kick-start the export of fruits, textiles and minerals,'' says Pierre Van Hoeylandt, 34, founder of Afghanistan's first venture capital fund, as he sips a margarita cocktail in Kabul's Elbow Room restaurant.

Afghanistan Renewal Fund

The former McKinsey & Co. manager's Afghanistan Renewal Fund has so far drawn commitments totaling $20 million from eight investors, including the Asian Development Bank and CDC Group Plc, an investment company with $1.6 billion under management that's owned by the U.K. government.

Van Hoeylandt, the son of a former French Foreign Legionnaire, says he and other executives of the firm will invest $200,000 of their own money in the fund.

Innes Meek, a director at London-based CDC, says he visited Kabul's ministry of telecommunications in November with Van Hoeylandt during a tour to decide whether to invest in the Afghanistan Renewal Fund. They were greeted by a 6-foot-tall Afghan with a shaved head, a black beard and no left hand.

``How are you?'' asked Ahmad Rateb Popal, founder of Watan Telecom LLC, in a New York accent he acquired while studying business at Queens College in Flushing, New York. Popal, 41, says he lost his hand when a bomb he was placing against the Soviets in 1979 exploded too early.

Mobile-Phone Company

``We walked through cavernous, unfurnished rooms where the few lights cast shadows, like in a cloister,'' Meek, 56, recalls.

Entering a room where five figures huddled near a wireless telephone, Popal picked up the receiver and dialed Van Hoeylandt's mobile phone. ``It worked,'' Meek says. ``I was there to find out if he had a business and if it needed capital. The answer to both was yes.''

Watan Telecom is installing digital networking equipment supplied by China's Huawei Technologies Co. and Globecomm Systems Inc. of the U.S. in government ministries.

Popal says he was in jail in the U.S. from 1989 to 1997 for smuggling drugs. In 1998, he returned to live in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he was an interpreter for his friend Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's ambassador to Islamabad. When the Taliban fell, Popal dedicated his time to his business activities.

Seeking Investors

``I managed to change my life, and now, the promise of a clean and honest living keeps me going,'' Popal says. ``I made mistakes, and I learned from them.''

Popal is seeking investors to expand his phone company and a steel mill. So far, Van Hoeylandt has yet to invest any money.

Another pioneer is Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, the world's largest maker of printing equipment. ``We came to Kabul two months after the war,'' says Michael Outschar, 42, a manager at the Heidelberg, Germany-based company. ``We're training people so they get used to our technology.''

The Afghan operation will become profitable if it can win contracts to print the 25 million books a year needed in schools, he says.

One of the biggest lures for foreign investors is Afghanistan's 300 types of mineral deposits, including coal, copper, marble and emeralds, says Mir Mohammad Sediq, the minister for mines and industry.

The country also contains reserves of 95 million barrels of oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, has reserves of 262 billion barrels.

Lapis Lazuli

The blue lapis lazuli stone used to decorate the death masks of Egypt's pharaohs and to make the blue paint Michelangelo used to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel came from Afghanistan. The World Bank estimates that the annual value of solid minerals produced in the country will rise to $253 million by 2008 from $60 million last year.

Sediq, 59, whose Kabul office is dominated by a 6-foot-by-12- foot Soviet map of Afghanistan's mineral resources and a display of plastic flowers, unfolds a letter which he says demonstrates investor interest.

The letter is from Alex Mason, international director of Diamond Oil, a U.K. company, who wrote that he was putting together a group of companies to develop the oil and gas resources. In a telephone interview, Mason, 66, says he lived in Kabul for 12 years until 1979, running ventures including a paint factory.

Refinery

``We're working on putting together an offer to refine oil in northern Afghanistan,'' he says. Petrofac, a U.K. service provider to the oil and gas industry, has talked to Mason about the venture, says Malcolm Douglas, a sales manager at the London- based company.

``They are ready for us, but we aren't ready for them because the mineral and hydrocarbon laws haven't been passed,'' Sediq says.

The U.S. and British geological surveys are copying Russian exploratory documents and sending the results to their headquarters, according to Sediq, who says he worked for Unocal Corp., an El Segundo, California-based oil and natural gas producer, in the 1990s when it tried to strike a deal with the Taliban to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Unocal pulled out of Afghanistan in 1998, when the U.S. bombed the country in retaliation for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was suspected of planning and financing.

`Off the Radar'

``This project is totally off the radar screen,'' Unocal spokesman Barry Lane says.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said in an interview in Davos that he's still considering backing a pipeline across Afghanistan to his country as one of four options for transporting natural gas. The others include pipelines from Iran and Qatar and importing gas by ship.

For Afghanistan to develop its natural resources and boost trade with its neighbors, it will need to be able to transport goods. The country has about 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) of paved roads compared with about 44,000 miles in northern neighbor Uzbekistan and 68,000 miles in Pakistan, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

``How can we be a land bridge when we have no roads?'' asks Shakib Noori, a 22-year-old manager at the Afghan Investment Support Agency, as his Nissan sport utility vehicle jolts down the mud-swamped half of the 100-mile road from Kabul to Jalalabad.

Highway Delayed

The highway, which continues 45 miles east from Jalalabad to the Pakistan border, won't be completed by the target date of November 2006, says Hasse Jonsson, 64, a manager at Stockholm- based WSP International AB, which planned the road.

Work on the European Union-funded highway was delayed after workers from Jinan-based China Railway Shisiju Group, which was contracted to build half the route, were the target of gunfire and a rocket earlier this year, Jonsson says. Construction started in December 2003.

The one principal highway completed so far is the 300-mile route between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, the former base of the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. The road, funded by the U.S. and overseen by East Orange, New Jersey- based Louis Berger Group Inc., was completed in December 2003.

Syed Rahman, 39, a partner in a Jalalabad-based trading company that imports flour, sweets and shampoo, says it takes 10 days and costs him 83 cents to bring a carton containing 72 packs of orange-flavored Minoo cookies the 870 miles from Iran to Jalalabad. The time and cost would fall by half if all of the roads were paved, he says.

No Plane

Air travel in Afghanistan, where six domestic and foreign carriers offer an average of eight international departures a day, is just as bad. State-owned Ariana Afghan Airlines flies to 13 international destinations including Dubai and Moscow. On Feb. 2, Ariana's 6:30 a.m. flight to Kabul from Dubai wasn't showing on the departure board, and no one knew why.

``The plane is somewhere around the world,'' Azizullah Ezat, a Dubai-based Ariana manager, told stranded passengers. ``Perhaps it is in Mecca.''

The performance of Kam Air, Afghanistan's largest privately owned carrier, which flies to Dubai and Istanbul, is also poor. On Feb. 3, a Kam Air Boeing 737 flying from Herat crashed after failing to land at Kabul Airport, which doesn't have radar, in a snowstorm. None of the 96 passengers and eight crew members survived.

Ariana for Sale

Noorullah Delawari, governor of Afghanistan's central bank and one of three commissioners overseeing Ariana, says the plane should not have been allowed to leave Herat in bad weather. He also says the government tried to sell Ariana, but airlines including Dubai-based Emirates, the largest Arab airline, wanted it to improve performance first.

Unreliable airlines make it harder to export goods, says Rahim Walizada, who sent 16,000 Afghan carpets in 2004 to destinations such as Germany and the U.S., where he owns the Chuk Palu store on New York's Fifth Avenue.

``Customers demand you send on time,'' says Walizada, 40, who returned from New York to live in Kabul in 2002. Walizada takes his wares by road to Pakistan, where he can use British Airways Plc, Europe's second-largest airline, and Emirates.

``We're living in the 14th century,'' Walizada says as his diesel generator cuts out, plunging his glass-fronted store into darkness. Illuminated only by the orange flames of a gas heater, Walizada uses his mobile phone as a flashlight to help him move around.

48-Year-Old Dam

Kabul's sporadic power supply is generated by a thermal power plant and three hydroelectric dams on the Kabul and Panjsheer rivers. The Sarobi dam east of Kabul was built by Siemens AG in 1957 to last for 30 years. Some of its turbines are broken, and the dam itself may break at any time, says Gholam Hassanzadah, president of Siemens in Afghanistan.

``Until there is electricity, there is zero development,'' says Hassanzadah, 54, who reopened Germany's largest engineering company in Afghanistan in 2003 after a 14-year absence.

Siemens plans to complete repairs on two dams, including Sarobi, by 2006. The Munich-based company is also supplying telecommunications equipment to Afghanistan's two mobile-phone operators.

In addition to its dams, Afghanistan imports electricity from neighbors Iran and Uzbekistan. The power lines from each source operate on different voltages, preventing creation of a national network, Hassanzadah says. ``No management of energy exists,'' he says. ``The ministries are full of clerks.''

Power Shortage

Afghanistan has the capacity to generate 350 megawatts -- barely enough to power 280,000 U.S. homes -- and needs to produce at least 14 times more to have a chance of developing, Hassanzadah says. Neighboring Pakistan, with a population of 159 million, has 19,478 megawatts of installed power capacity, according to Siemens.

HeidelbergCement AG scrapped a plan to reopen a rusting plant north of Kabul because of the power shortage, says Francis Marechal, a manager at the company, Germany's largest cement maker.

Borrowing money to pay for new power plants would be impossible under the country's current financial system. Afghanistan's central bank is trying to create a market for the afghani, the currency it introduced in October 2002.

So far, there's no base interest rate, preventing banks from paying interest on accounts held in afghanis, says John Haye, 57, chief executive officer of Afghanistan International Bank, a Kabul-based lender managed by ING Groep NV, the Netherlands' largest financial-services company.

Standard Chartered

Few people in Afghanistan have money to put in a bank. Even when they do, opening accounts is problematic, says Joseph Silvanus, CEO of the Kabul branch of London-based lender Standard Chartered Plc, which runs the country's two automated teller machines. It's hard to establish a customer's identity because there are no records. Afghanistan also lacks a land registry, so mortgages aren't possible either.

``No one has ever tried to foreclose on a loan here, and we don't want to be the first to try,'' says Silvanus, 39. A sign declaring ``No Fire Arms Allowed!'' greets customers at the guarded compound where Silvanus, an Indian citizen, is based.

Standard Chartered, which opened its Kabul operation in January 2004, has more than 1,800 savings accounts for international workers and Afghans. It also handles wire transfers for the United Nations, businesses and charities, Silvanus says.

``Before the year is out, we'll get started with export finance,'' he says. A business contract can be used as security on an export loan.

Debts and Daughters

Most of Afghanistan's financial system is in the hands of hawala networks, whose members use relationships of mutual trust to move money, says William Byrd, the World Bank's senior economic adviser in Kabul.

Poorer opium farmers also borrow from drug traffickers to buy seeds and are sometimes forced to sell their daughters into marriage if they fail to repay debts, Byrd says.

Naim Habibi, an Afghan entrepreneur whose family owns a Dubai-based cigarette company, says the lack of formal credit is crimping his expansion plans. The 48-year-old entrepreneur plans to start Afghanistan's first dairy, with 500 cows on 200 hectares on the Shamali Plains north of Kabul.

``We don't want more aid,'' Habibi says. ``We want more credit.''

Connecting Afghans

While the banking system languishes, Afghanistan's two mobile-phone companies have had more success in modernizing the way Afghans communicate. A dusty room on the fourth floor of Kabul's central post office contains manual switchboards installed by Siemens half a century ago to connect 20,000 analog lines.

From across the hallway comes the hum of Alcatel equipment and Hewlett-Packard Co. computers. This room, with its raised floor covering a nest of cables, hosts the switch for Roshan, Afghanistan's largest mobile-phone company, which has attracted 390,000 customers since July 2003.

``Here, you could be in New York,'' says Karim Khoja, 46, CEO of Roshan, as he points to the Alcatel and Hewlett-Packard products. ``There, you're in Afghanistan,'' he says of the manual switchboards.

Roshan is 51 percent owned by the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the world's Ismaili Muslims and one of the world's richest men. The Aga Khan's foundation has invested $61 million in Roshan, as well as backing projects ranging from hospitals to the five-star Serena hotel in Kabul, says Aly Mawji, 35, representative of the Aga Khan Development Network in Afghanistan.

Returning Refugees

``We're investing in the development of Afghanistan to promote stability in this country and the wider region,'' he says.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, more than 2.5 million refugees have returned from Iran, Pakistan and other countries.

``I'm glad to be on my native soil,'' says Zalmai Safi, a 55- year-old father of five who lives in a borrowed tent behind Kabul's sports stadium, where the Taliban used to carry out public executions. Safi earns $4 a week by brushing snow off people's roofs.

Wealthier Afghans whose families fled in the 1970s are also returning with skills and business ideas. Zolaykha Sherzad, a relative of former Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah, quit her career as an architect in New York to train women in Kabul to cut silk cloth from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif into Western designs.

Better Than Baghdad

``I can be the bridge between Afghanistan and the West,'' says Sherzad, 36. The Taliban barred women from working outside their homes and forced them to wear head-to-toe burkas. It also prevented girls from attending school.

The security situation is better than in Iraq, according to one former Baghdad resident.

``We don't live in fear here,'' says Allan Richardson, 50, a U.K. citizen who quit as CEO of Iraqi mobile-phone operator Iraqna in August to become head of Afghan Wireless Communications Co., the second-biggest Afghan mobile-phone operator, with about 280,000 customers. ``You can walk down the street here without the constant threat of being blown up.''

The threat does exist. Walizada, the carpet seller, was injured last year when a suicide bomber slammed a car into the residence of U.S. security company DynCorp, shattering the glass windows of his store across the street.

Ghani, Afghanistan's former finance minister, agrees that his country's security and infrastructure problems are serious, but he stresses the importance of having the foundations of a legitimate political system to address the issues.

`One Country'

``You can build all the roads you want, but they count for nothing without a democratic political system,'' he says. Parliamentary and local elections will be held in September, according to Khaleeq Ahmad, an Afghan government spokesman.

In May 2003, while Ghani was finance minister, the government risked running out of money to pay officials. Ghani put his metallic-gray Mercedes SUV on a military plane and flew to the western city of Herat, which has been made relatively prosperous from trade with nearby Iran.

He visited seven mosques and told worshippers that if they wanted to be one country, they had to support Kabul. Then Ghani went to Ismael Khan, then Herat's governor.

``He came to me and said, `There is no money in the central bank,' so I gave him the money,'' Khan says. The former strongman of Herat says he handed over $8 million and 700 million afghanis ($12 million) -- almost enough to pay the government's entire wage bill for one month. Ghani put the cash in his jeep and flew back to Kabul.

`Preventing Future 9/11s'

Even if they don't have money at risk in Afghanistan, investors as far away as New York say they still have a stake in the country.

``Afghanistan is a litmus test,'' says Tony James, 54, president of Blackstone Group LP, which manages a $6.45 billion buyout fund -- bigger than the legal Afghan economy. ``The resolution of the issues in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine is going to determine the direction of the world economically and politically for the next couple of decades.''

James, who was co-head of investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston in September 2001, recalls standing on the 22nd floor of CSFB's New York headquarters and watching the World Trade Center towers collapse. ``Seeing prosperity in Afghanistan is about preventing future 9/11s,'' he says.

Karzai concurs. ``The international community should stay with Afghanistan if not for the interest of Afghanistan, then for their own interests,'' he says.

The hopeful signs notwithstanding, investors are still hedging their bets -- just like poppy farmer Shaghasi.