Afghanistan News February 23, 2006

February 23, 2006

Afghanistan urges Pakistan to stop naming missiles after its heroes
Thursday February 23, 09:21 PM
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's government said it had asked neighbouring Pakistan to stop naming its nuclear-capable missiles after Afghan heroes.

Kabul had also asked Islamabad in a letter to consider renaming its current Ghauri and Abdali missiles, named after conquerors of parts of the subcontinent, Information and Culture Minister Sayed Makhdom Raheen told AFP on Thursday.

Mohammad Ghauri was a 12th-century Muslim conqueror of India who came from Afghanistan. The 18th-century Pashtun king Ahmad Shah Abdali led several invasions into India and founded the first Pashtun dynasty in 1748.

Pakistan also has a missile named after Mahmud Ghaznavi, who lived in the 11th century and invaded modern-day India as many as 17 times. He died in Ghazni in southern Afghanistan in 1030.

"Afghan kings and emperors such as Ghauri, Abdali and Ghaznavi spread art and civilization across the sub-continent," the minister told AFP. "Their names should not be used for tools of war and killing."

Afghanistan would not mind if Pakistan used the names of Afghan heroes on their peaceful inventions, Raheen said.

Pakistan has developed its nuclear arsenal amid a half-century standoff with its historic rival India. The neighbours have already fought three wars and routinely carry out tests of nuclear-capable missiles.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad meanwhile are tense over an insurgency in Afghanistan, blamed by Afghan officials in large part on militants based in Pakistan.

The Afghan government has demanded that Pakistan do more to crack down on the militants, who are linked to the ousted Taliban regime and the Al-Qaeda terror network.

NATO will be in Afghanistan for years: military chief
Thu Feb 23, 1:26 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Afghanistan has "huge problems" and NATO troops will be in the country for "years and years", the commander of Canada's forces in Afghanistan told a British newspaper in an interview.

Major General Michel Gauthier, whose Canadian Expeditionary Force Command has taken a lead role in the hostile south of the country, made the warning to The Guardian daily.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is due to increase by about 6,000 troops in the coming months to number 16,000 to deploy in southern Afghanistan, where a US-led coalition of about 20,000 soldiers has been leading counter-insurgency operations.

The incoming soldiers will be charged with reconstruction and fighting the drug trade in Helmand province, where remnants of the former Taliban regime and fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network and opium growers persist.

The build-up of NATO troops in southern Afghanistan over the coming months is the alliance's "biggest operational, and perhaps strategic, challenge in years, if not decades," Gauthier said on Thursday.

He said southern Afghanistan was an "unpermissive environment" and the country was facing "huge problems".

Asked if NATO troops would be in Afghanistan for decades, he replied: "For years and years".

A bomb fixed to a bicycle struck a convoy of NATO peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding 13 others including a German soldier.

ISAF troops are frequent targets of an insurgency blamed primarily on militants allied to the hardline Taliban government ousted in a US-led campaign in late 2001.

The insurgency, which has seen a rash of suicide blasts in the past months, has been focused on eastern and southern Afghanistan from where the ultraconservative Taliban rose to control most of the country by 1996.

The major general predicted there would be fewer suicide attacks than at present. They were "counter-cultural" to Afghans, the majority of whom wanted a peaceful and better life.

"What is clear, [is that] narcotics, criminality, terrorism and insurgency, are all linked," he added.

India spreads its net for gas, any gas
Asia Times Online By Siddharth Srivastava 2/22/06
NEW DELHI - While efforts are under way to seal nuclear deals with the US and France to generate electricity, India's efforts to tie up gas resources as another alternative to fossil fuels have gathered momentum.

Following the decision by Myanmar to supply gas to China, India is now making swift maneuvers to ensure that the US$1 billion Myanmar-Bangladesh-India (MBI) gas pipeline materializes. And significantly, India has virtually decided to join the US-backed

Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) pipeline, in part because of the geopolitical difficulties involved in the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline that Washington opposes.

Paradoxically, New Delhi has found an uncommon ally in Islamabad, which is pushing for India's involvement in the TAP as well as the IPI.

Gas on TAP

This month, Delhi for the first time took part as an observer in a meeting of the steering committee of the TAP project. Now it

appears ready to sign on as a participant in the Washington-backed $3.5 billion gas pipeline as an alternative to the IPI.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had discussed the IPI proposal with Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and his Pakistani counterpart, Amanullah Khan Jadoon. Jadoon reiterated Islamabad's commitment to the IPI, despite US misgivings, and at the same time extended support for India's bid to join the TAP.

While India, Pakistan and Iran go through the motions of pursuing the IPI project, apparently unaffected by the International Atomic Energy Agency's referral of Tehran to the UN Security Council, most observers claim that the prospects of the pipeline materializing are now remote. Despite domestic political pressures, India has so far sided with Western powers against Tehran pursuing an independent nuclear program.

In this context, India was an observer at the recent TAP meeting in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat. Dinsha Patel, minister of state for petroleum and natural gas, led the Indian delegation and expressed willingness to join the TAP. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed at the conclusion of the two-day meeting, under which Turkmenistan will supply 3.2 billion cubic feet gas per day to Pakistan for a period of 30 years.

India is closely studying the project's geopolitical, financial and technical aspects. Afghanistan and Pakistan have been seeking India's participation as vital for the TAP's viability.

"We have 90 days to get necessary official approvals to join the project. Once approved by the cabinet, the project will be renamed TAPI," for Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, Deora said in a statement. According to reports, the Oil Ministry will now seek government approval for joining the project within the next three months.

New Delhi, it seems, is satisfied with the availability of gas resources as well as the viability of the project, which has the backing of the Asian Development Bank. The TAP would stretch from the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border in southeastern Turkmenistan to Multan, Pakistan (1,270 kilometers), with a 640km extension to India.

Importantly, TAP does not involve Iran or the US, which means none of the geopolitical problems involving the IPI. The TAP not only provides a southern exit route for land-locked Central Asian gas that will not have to cross Iran or Russia, it is also an important cog in Washington's Afghan rehabilitation plan as it will earn substantial transit fees.

Turkmen Oil, Gas and Natural Resource Minister Gurbanmyrat Ataev said that Ashkhabad considered TAP to be a priority gas export route. "This market is attractive first of all because of its closeness and rapid growth in consumption and secondly because Turkmenistan, as a neutral state, can in fact help strengthen regional cooperation and increase the economic prosperity of the people in the region."

With potential hydrocarbon reserves of over 45.44 billion tonnes of oil equivalent, Turkmenistan can significantly increase supplies to the international market.

Mired in Myanmar

Irked by the delays in implementing the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India pipeline, Myanmar recently inked an MoU with PetroChina to supply 6.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas from Block A of the Shwe gasfields in the Bay of Bengal for over 30 years.

The decision came as a major blow to India's bid to tap gas from its eastern front. It also marked one more victory for Beijing energy giants, which have consistently been beating Indian energy firms in the acquisition of oil and gas reserves around the world. India's state-owned oil giant Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has lost to Chinese companies, in Kazakhstan, Ecuador and Angola.

Now, with Block A-1 gas going to China, the cost of the MBI will increase as the available block close to Bangladesh is A-2, which will require an additional 150km of pipeline for the gas to reach India.

This has provoked India to appoint Brussels-based Suz Tractebel as technical consultants to study a different route for the pipeline through the northeast, bypassing Bangladesh. The European infrastructure consultants appointed by the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) have been briefed to "carry out a study for preparing a detailed feasibility report, an environment management plan and a rapid risk analysis study via the northeast Indian territory", the Ministry of Petroleum announced.

GAIL is also exploring the idea of transporting gas from Myanmar via the sea. According to reports, GAIL is planning to invite bids for a long-term chartering service of ships or barges for the purpose.

These moves come a year after India, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a trilateral pact to collaborate on the MBI project, which is also aimed at helping Bangladesh carry gas from its surplus regions to deficit areas.

The demand for compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas continues to grow in India, with over 300 CNG stations and over 300,000 vehicles running on CNG. The delay in Bangladesh firming up the agreement saw a worried Yangon, which is keen to exploit the financial viability of its new gas finds, acceding to China's demands for gas supplies after persistently urging India to tie up alternative plans, including setting up power projects near the gasfields.

Myanmar is concerned that India will be unable to evacuate gas once the reserves are certified by a third party agency and are made available for commercial production. India's ONGC and GAIL, along with two South Korean companies, Korea Gas and Daewoo, have agreed to jointly develop the block. But there is no agreement on evacuation, with both India and China at an equal distance from the gas blocks.

Though Bangladesh stands to earn substantial transit fees of $125 million per year, it has set conditions that include creation of corridors through India to carry out trade with other neighbors, such as Nepal and Bhutan, as well as steps to reduce its $2.5 billion trade deficit with India. Clearly, New Delhi has made up its mind to bypass Dhaka, even though the cost of the pipeline stands to increase substantially.

For the past year, New Delhi and Yangon have been exploring independent alternatives for importing gas. Bangladesh was not invited to the third meeting on the project. New Delhi has talked of the possibility of constructing the pipeline from Myanmar into Mizoram and onwards to Assam (both in northeast India) and culminating in West Bengal. The shortest pipeline route is from Myanmar to Bengal through Bangladesh, while the alternative land route would be twice the distance.

Thus, given the economic advantages as well as higher feasibility, India opened another window for negotiations with Bangladesh. Former foreign minister Natwar Singh visited Dhaka in August last and said that the tri-nation project would not proceed without the involvement of Bangladesh.

Last month, former petroleum minister Mani Shanker Aiyer visited Beijing. India and China signed a slew of MoUs on energy cooperation, including between ONGC Videsh Ltd, India's flagship firm for overseas oil and gasfield acquisitions, and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). In the first instance of Sino-Indian cooperation, India and China won a joint bid in December last to buy PetroCanada's 37% stake in Syrian oilfields for $573 million.

However, most observers believe that any cooperation in future can only be on a case-by-case basis, with the Myanmar-China deal demonstrating that when it comes to energy security, nations will go it alone if they can.

'Pak launches hunt for 150 Taleban fugitives after receiving a list from Kabul'
ISLAMABAD (The Associated Press 02/22/2006) - Pakistani security agencies are looking for about 150 Taleban fugitives whose names were provided to Islamabad by the Afghan president, local media reported on Wednesday.

Hamid Karzai handed over the list to Pakistani officials during his trip to this Islamic nation last week, a major Pakistan English language newspaper Dawn quoted the country's Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao as saying.

"Yes, we have received a list of about 150 terrorists who are believed to be hiding in Pakistan," Sherpao told the newspaper. It was not immediately clear whose names were on the list. Afghan officials have said that Taleban chief Mullah Omar and scores of his associates are hiding near the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Pakistan, a former supporter of the Taleban but now a key US ally in the war on terror, has deployed thousands of troops along the Afghan border, and says it has done everything it can to flush out remnants of the Taleban regime and al-Qaida, and to prevent them from sneaking across the border.

According to Pakistani officials, Karzai during his meetings with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other officials had discussed how they could enhance cooperation in the war on terror.

Although some Afghan officials, who traveled with Karzai, had told some newsmen that they had given the list of about 150 suspects to Pakistan, no Pakistani or Afghan government spokesmen would confirm this on the record.

Sherpao on Wednesday was not immediately available for comment. After returning home Saturday, Karzai confirmed he had given the Pakistanis detailed information about suspects including their whereabouts.

"We have not given a list of 150 persons to anybody, but we have given some documents, ... specific information about individuals and their locations and we are hopeful that measures should be taken from both sides - from their side and from our side," he told reporters.

Karzai also said that Afghanistan was awaiting notification

Zalmay Khalilzad: US power broker
Tuesday, 21 February 2006 BBC News
Zalmay Khalilzad has never been afraid to roll up his sleeves and get stuck in.

His intervention in Iraq's attempts to form a coalition government in February 2006 came as no surprise to those who watched his progress as Washington's point man, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq.

Indeed in Kabul he came to be known as "the viceroy", or the real president of Afghanistan.

Observers say that as US ambassador to Baghdad, he is now one of the most powerful people in Iraq.

The warning he issued to Iraq's politicians as they negotiated to form a government was an undisguised attempt to exert American influence.

Mr Khalilzad said the US would cut its massive funding if key government posts - specifically the defence and interior ministries - went to "people with a sectarian agenda".

This was seen as a reference to Shia politicians with links to militias, which have been blamed by the Sunni minority for hundreds of murders.

Mr Khalilzad quickly realised that bringing Sunnis into the political process was the best way of defeating the insurgency, says the diplomatic editor of the Times, Richard Beeston.

He has tried his best to do this even though Shia leaders see it as "a stab in the back", Mr Beeston says.

Neo-con protege

Mr Khalilzad is well versed in negotiating tribal and ethnic divisions, the BBC's former Afghanistan correspondent Andrew North says.

His influence in that country was the greater because of his Afghan birth and long involvement with the country during the years of the Soviet invasion.

He was, our correspondent says, totally at home with the wheeling and dealing of Afghan politics.

Alongside his US embassy compound in central Kabul, he had a tent built over the small garden outside, where he could meet key leaders and tribal chiefs in a more traditional style.

Born in northern Afghanistan in 1951, he speaks the country's two main languages - Pashto and Dari.

After studying in Lebanon, Mr Khalilzad moved to the US with his family in the 1970s.

He became a US citizen and a Washington insider, a neo-conservative with close ties to the Republican party.

He is a protege of Vice-President Dick Cheney and former deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Oil analyst

A founder member of the neo-con Project for the New American Century, he signed its 1998 letter that called on President Bill Clinton to topple Saddam Hussein.

He later served as President Bush's envoy to the Iraqi opposition in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

He also worked as an adviser to oil giant Unocal.

Mr Khalilzad's detractors claim his oil industry ties explain his deployment to Iraq, and that at the same time that he was working for Unocal, the company was touting for business in Taleban-run Afghanistan.

He worked in the George Bush Snr and Reagan administrations, and has become the highest-ranking Muslim to serve in the current government.

'Here to help'

He has been accused of wielding too much power and, during his 18-month stay in Kabul, of frequently overshadowing President Hamid Karzai.

Some candidates in 2004's presidential elections also complained that he was manoeuvring behind the scenes to ensure victory for the US-friendly Mr Karzai.

To accusations of excessive meddling, he would often respond with disarming charm: "I'm only here to help."

Whether his attempts to wield influence in Iraq are as successful remains to be seen, but his cultural understanding has undoubtedly eased his negotiations with Iraqis, Richard Beeston says.

"There's quite a lot of latent hostility to all US figures there. He's an incredibly powerful and influential figure in Iraq and that obviously rubs some people up the wrong way," he says.

"But he's respected, at least by politicians I know, as being an honest broker.

"There isn't that sense with him that this is America trying to build an empire."

"Culturally he's much easier for people to digest" than his American predecessors in Iraq, he says.

Efforts against bird flu insufficient - FAO
KABUL, 22 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that efforts by Afghan authorities and the donor community to mitigate the risk of a potential outbreak of avian influenza, otherwise known as bird flu, have been insufficient.

“With cases of the deadly disease detected in Iran and India, Afghanistan is practically surrendered," Serge Verniau, FAO representative in Afghanistan, said at a press conference at the Kala-e-Hashmat Khan Lake, outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday. "Today we can say that an outbreak of the disease among birds in Afghanistan is virtually unavoidable."

Further underscoring that point, he warned that the country was more at risk than ever and Afghanistan needed strict action before avian flu hit the country.

"[The] FAO reiterates its call that emergency action, which is estimated to cost US $1.5 million, should be taken without delay," the FAO official maintained.

According to the FAO, the country's veterinary services have fallen into decay after more than two decades of violence and years of oversight, despite the fact that about 85 percent of the country's 30 million inhabitants live in close proximity with poultry.

The FAO has called for immediate action in strengthening animal disease surveillance and laboratory testing; communication and public awareness to safeguard the health of poultry farmers and their families; as well as preparing an effective contingency plan for emergency procedures to contain a possible outbreak.

To date, avian influenza, a highly contagious viral disease affecting mainly chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds, has killed some 80 people worldwide since it was first reported in 2003, mostly in Asia.

Experts fear the H5N1 virus that is deadly to humans could precipitate a global flu pandemic if it mutates into an easily transmissible form.

The FAO, with the support of Italy, through a regional project, has reinforced the capacities of a diagnostic laboratory at the department of animal health within the Ministry of Agriculture in Kabul. Initial tests have been carried out and are continuing, according to the FAO in Kabul.

“We have tested 455 suspicious samples of birds during the last three weeks and further testing is also under way in an FAO reference laboratory in Italy,” Dr Abdul Habib Nawroz, an FAO medical expert, said.

Commenting on the potential risk of a bird flu outbreak in the Central Asian state, Dr Abdullah Fahim, an Afghan health ministry spokesman, said that the government had banned imports of all poultry and poultry products from counties infected with bird flu.

"We have provided specific training on avian influenza to 300 medical personal and they are deployed in the border areas of the country to strengthen the surveillance system," Fahim noted.

But facing such a possible pandemic will require much more. The war-ravaged country has minimal health services and relies on the World Health Organization (WHO) for diagnosis of any possible signs of bird flu.

"In case of detecting any sign of bird flu in the country, we would send the samples to the WHO-supported regional laboratory in Islamabad (capital of Pakistan),” Fahim said, conceding their own inability to fully detect the virus in their own laboratories.

Afghanistan mostly depends on poultry imports from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, and it’s also a stop for birds during their annual migration from Siberia to the warm waters of the Indian subcontinent and vice versa.

Avian influenza is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus. The disease, which was first identified in Italy more than 100 years ago, occurs worldwide, according to the WHO.

All birds are thought to be susceptible to avian influenza, though some species are more resistant to infection than others. Infection causes a wide spectrum of symptoms in birds, ranging from mild illness to a highly contagious and rapidly fatal disease resulting in severe epidemics. The latter is known as “highly pathogenic avian influenza”. This form is characterised by sudden onset, severe illness and rapid death, with a mortality that can approach 100 percent.

The WHO notes that 15 sub-types of influenza virus are known to infect birds, thus providing an extensive reservoir of influenza viruses potentially circulating in bird populations. To date, all outbreaks of the highly pathogenic form have been caused by influenza A viruses of sub-types H5 and H7.

Migratory waterfowl, most notably wild ducks, are the natural reservoir of avian influenza viruses and these birds are also the most resistant to infection. Domestic poultry, including chickens and turkeys, are particularly susceptible to epidemics of rapidly fatal influenza, the UN health body warned.

Direct or indirect contact of domestic flocks with wild migratory waterfowl has been implicated as a frequent cause of epidemics. Live bird markets have also played an important role in the spread of the disease.

Canadians send Afghan boy with cancer to Pakistan for specialized care
LES PERREAUX
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian soldiers sent an Afghan boy with a massive tumour on his face to a cancer hospital in Pakistan early Thursday morning, where he will likely live out his final days in a little less pain.

Namatullah, a six-year-old boy with a large growth near his mouth that appears to have spread down his neck and into his organs, rode off just before dawn on an trip that was organized with military precision by Canadian troops and an Edmonton church. The boy came to the Canadian provincial reconstruction team site on the weekend with his grandfather, Taj Mohammed, looking for treatment for his malignancy.

The region of Afghanistan barely has functioning hospitals, let alone specialized cancer facilities or palliative care.

Touched by the boy's cries of pain and knowing a modern cancer hospital exists in Pakistan, Cpl. Brian Sanders, an ambulance driver at the camp, contacted his church in Edmonton to see if it could help.

The North Edmonton Christian Fellowship church raised $10,000 Sunday morning, with money still flowing in after news reports publicized Namatullah's case.

"Back in Canada you don't really see this stuff," Sanders said.

"You see it on the news, it's on TV, it's in the papers. We're almost numb to it."

"To see it first hand, changes everything. To have it show up on your doorstep changes everything."

"He is just one of thousands of boys, tens of thousands of boys who have similar situations."

The army organized travel to the Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. The boy left by taxi just before dawn. He will drive to Quetta, Pakistan where he will fly to Lahore.

"The entire army pretty much pulled together," Sanders said.

"We put a battle plan in place and by yesterday afternoon everything was in place."

Capt. Adrian Norbash, the army reconstruction team's doctor, said he is holding out slim hope the hospital might be able to treat the child.

"The tumour on his face is so huge, so destructive. It's invading his mouth, his eye," he said.

"I've got a really bad feeling. Having said that, we have no laboratory capability here and no imaging capability here."

"My impressions are purely a gut feeling. My diagnosis is by no means 100 per cent."

"I still have a small hope but not a large one. Just looking at him it looks scary, looks malignant."

A local Afghan non-governmental organization called the Urugzan Construction Association is taking charge of the boy's travel and treatment in Pakistan, with oversight by the army.

"I'll never be able to watch those kids on TV again without a having a different perspective on it," Sanders said.

Young Afghan-American Visits His Damaged Roots
By Gary Thomas Washington 22 February 2006 VOA
Since the ouster of the Taleban from Afghanistan, Afghan expatriates in the United States and Europe have been returning to their homeland. Some of them stay, looking for business opportunities, while others decide to move on. VOA correspondent Gary Thomas talked to one young Afghan-American who went home, and found a reality far different than his dreams.

It is a long, strange trip from California to Kabul. But, even at the age of 17, it was one that one young Afghan-American named Said Hyder Akbar was compelled to make.

"I felt really guilty for having the kind of life that I had, for managing to escape and to get an education," Mr. Akbar says. "And that also kind of drove me to go back to the country because I had this deep passion for it, but had never been there. And I felt like to sort of validate or to sort of back up my interest in Afghanistan with action, I would have to visit there and spend time there."

Now 20 and a student at Yale University, Akbar has penned a memoir of his visits to Afghanistan after the 2001 fall of the Taleban. The book's title conveys his dual heritage. Called Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story, it spins out a tale of adventure and sorrow.

Akbar was not even born when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. His parents fled to neighboring Pakistan, where he was born, and later made their way to the United States, ending up in California. There he grew up as a typical American teenager.

But, as in many expatriate families, Akbar grew up with an intense interest in a homeland he had never seen, but had heard of in stories of Afghanistan's former glory spun by relatives and other Afghan expatriates.

"Afghanistan was definitely painted in my mind, and it gave me images of this place of orchards and gardens and mountains and the beautiful, peaceful countryside," Mr. Akbar says. "I would have these kind of pristine images when I would think of Afghanistan."

His father, Fazel Akbar, was deeply involved in the anti-Soviet resistance from abroad, and was close to key figures in the resistance. So when Fazel Akbar was called to Kabul in 2002 to become President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, and then governor of Kunar province, Hyder Akbar felt he had to go along to offer Americans a different perspective of Afghanistan.

"There was interest in Afghanistan, but I felt like most journalists were reporting on Afghanistan, but not really looking at it in a nuanced way and not really looking at it from all sides," he says. "So I kind of wanted to offer a perspective that sort of looked deeper into Afghanistan and gave explanation to things people here that most people would not understand, and sort of looking at things through more that just the war on terror or post 9/11."

But the destruction, corruption, and political intrigue startled him, and it was a far cry from the idyllic images of his youth.

"It is incredible to go through it and look at it and breathe it. It looked like, for me, a giant wrecking ball had sort of come over the whole country from one end to the other and just broke everything," Mr. Akbar says.

Akbar went for summer of 2002 and two more, filing dispatches for National Public Radio that formed the basis of his book. He saw up close the political machinations. Another family friend, Haji Qadir, was assassinated while he was there.

If there is anything Akbar wants people to know about Afghanistan, he says it is that it is not yet quite the success story proclaimed in some quarters. He says it is still a fragile state that could collapse under the weight of narcotics production and insurgency.

"I see insurgency, I see opium, as being the two main problems facing Afghanistan right now," Mr. Akbar says. "And it is deeply worrisome for me because I do not know how much longer the situation can be in the balance like this."

Fazel Akbar had to leave Afghanistan to return to the United States for heart surgery. But his son plans to go back. For all of his California upbringing, Said Hyder Akbar remains the child of a homeland it took him 17 years to find.

Afghan Paper Highlights Importance of Northern Highways
Text of editorial by Afghan state-run newspaper Eslah on 22 February entitled "Economic importance of Taloqan-Badakhshan highway to government"

Mr Hamed Karzai paid a visit to Takhar Province on Monday [20 February] to inaugurate the Taloqan-Keshem highway.

The Taloqan-Keshem highway, which has been resurfaced with the cooperation of the Asian Development Bank, is due to be put into use by 16 Hamal [5 April].

The last two decades of war have ruined our infrastructures. The impact of war have badly affected our infrastructures, and today our provinces are in dire need of reconstruction. In reality, reconstruction and the resurfacing of highways mean strengthening the major arteries of the country. The resurfacing of the Taloqan- Keshem highway clearly indicates the enthusiasm of the international community, in particular the Asian Development Bank, towards the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

In the provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan, dozens of huge resources have remained untouched. According to authentic documents, Badakhshan enjoys the biggest source of spinal-ruby and azure in the world, despite the province being deemed as one of the poor and mountainous provinces. For a long time, these mines have been illegally worked and the stones exported to other countries.

In the meantime, there are other numerous mines in Badakhshan which have not attracted private investment due to the lack of transit routes and security problems.

The extension and resurfacing of the Taloqan-Keshem highway will not only play a significant role in tackling our people's economic problems but in the long run it will also be economically important to the government. If foreign investors gain access to the untouched mines of Badakhshan, enourmous revenues will annually go to the government and people in the country.
Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia