KABUL, Jan. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- An suicide attacker was killed, another local person injured Saturday in the suicide explosion in Afghan southern province of Helmand, a local official said.

"This afternoon at about 5 p.m. a suicide attacker in a vehicle full of explosives planned to attack the U.S. military convoy in Grishk district. The attacker was killed, another civilian was injured," Amanullah, the senior police official of Grishk told Xinhua.

"There is no any report about any U.S. casualty in this explosion," he added.

Helmand, together with Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, the former stronghold of Taliban, has become the hotspot of militancy since last year, during which more than 1,500 persons have been killed.

Taliban militants, vowed to continue attacks until the withdrawal of foreign troops, intensified their attacks especially against U.S. troops who have been staying in Afghanistan after the collapse of Taliban in late 2001. Till now, more than 200 U.S. troops have been killed in the Taliban-linked militancy. Enditem

Sat Jan 14, 3:14 AM ET

KABUL (AFP) - Six suspected militants were killed in clashes with Afghan and US-led troops in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, the US military said.

The fatalities occurred on Friday when Afghan and US forces repelled an attack by militants in Deh Rawood, a troubled district in central Uruzgan province, the military said in a statement on Saturday.

"Afghan and coalition forces engaged enemy fighters while conducting offensive patrols in Uruzgan province. An estimated six enemy fighters were killed," it said, adding that an unknown number of militants managed to escape.

Violence linked to a Taliban-led insurgency claimed more than 1,600 lives in Afghanistan last year. The majority of the dead were militants.

Most of the attacks have occurred along the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Al-Qaeda's chief Osama bin Laden are believed to be hiding.

The fundamentalist Taliban were ousted in a US-led military operation in late 2001.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen killed a former Taliban leader who renounced the hard-line Islamic regime after it was ousted in late 2001 and had since supported Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, witnesses said Saturday.

A suicide car bomb, meanwhile, wounded an American soldier when it blew up near a U.S.-Afghan military convoy traveling along a main southern Afghan road, a local police chief said.

In the southern city of Kandahar, two men on a motorbike fatally shot Mohammed Khaksar, the former Taliban deputy interior minister, as he walked with two of his children, said Mohammed Jan Khan, a student who witnessed the shooting.

He said the men shot Khaksar in the head and the heart and the victim collapsed on a road in the city, which was once a Taliban stronghold.

Khaksar's brother, Abdullah Jan, and the city police chief, Gen. Abdul Wahid, confirmed the killing.

Khaksar secretly contacted the United States in 1999 to seek American help in stopping the Taliban. He renounced the movement after it collapsed from a U.S.-led military offensive launched when the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden and close al-Qaida training camps after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Last September, Khaksar ran as a candidate in legislative elections, but lost.

In an interview at the time with The Associated Press, Khaksar said Taliban holdouts who are waging an insurgency across parts of Afghanistan had threatened his life several times. He said he supported President Hamid Karzai, as well as the deployment of international troops here.

The suicide bombing occurred in Helmand province, which has suffered a spate of militant attacks recently, said Khan Mohammed, a district police chief.

The convoy of Afghan soldiers and U.S. military trainers was traveling on the main road from Kandahar to the western city of Herat.

The attacker was killed in the blast and his vehicle was blown into several pieces, Mohammed said. The bombing damaged one U.S. vehicle and slightly wounded one soldier, he said.

A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, said initial reports suggested there had been an explosion, but said it was still being investigated.

It was the latest in a string of suicide bombings that represent a new security threat in Afghanistan, where there are worries that Afghan rebels are adopting the deadly tactics of insurgents in Iraq.

Karzai said in an interview with AP last week that he expected suicide attacks to continue "for a long time."

He said it was not clear who was behind them and suggested some of those responsible for about 20 suicide attacks over the past four months might have been duped into killing themselves.

BBC News Saturday, 14 January 2006

A former Taleban minister who defected to the new Afghan government has been shot dead, his brother says.

Mullah Abdul Samad Khaksar, a one-time Taleban intelligence chief, was killed by two unknown gunmen on a motorbike, Abdullah Khaksar told the BBC.

He is the most senior Taleban defector to be killed.

Mullah Khaksar had told the BBC of his concerns after receiving threats from the Taleban, and asked for bodyguards during last year's election.

KABUL, Jan. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- One Afghan person was killed, 70 were injured Saturday in a mine explosion in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, a local official said.

"This afternoon in the provincial capital of Khost city, a mine explosion in a crowded area killed one person, and injured 70 others," Shir Ahmat Quchai, the commander of the border force in Khost, told Xinhua.

"But most of the injured persons were slightly injured, and some of them have out of the hospital," he added.

The commander condemned the enemies of the country, a term usedto describe Taliban militants, to carry out this explosion, and said they will find the guilty people and give them punishment.

At the same time, the chief of the intelligence service department of Khost, Zaman Khan, said 70 persons were injured, but no one was killed in the explosion.

The explosion happened after the Eidul Adha, the biggest annual religious festival in Afghanistan. Taliban militants, who vowed to continue the holy war until the withdrawal of all the foreign troops, have intensified the attacks since last year, in which more than 1,500 people have lost lives. 

Saturday, 14 January 2006 BBC News

A missile strike apparently targeting al-Qaeda's deputy leader in a village in Pakistan has prompted Islamabad to protest to its American allies.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was not in the village on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan officials said. But the attack left at least 18 local people dead.

The US military has denied knowledge of the attack, which US media reported had been carried out by the CIA.

But Islamabad condemned the strike and called the US ambassador to complain.

Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference the Pakistani government wanted "to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to reoccur".

He said he did not know whether Zawahiri had been in the area at the time.

Zawahiri has eluded capture since the US overthrew the Taleban in Afghanistan in 2001 despite a $25m bounty on his head.

Osama Bin Laden's second-in-command is regarded as the ideological brains behind the al-Qaeda network, says BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera.

The Egyptian has also become its most visible spokesperson, issuing a number of video and audio tapes, whilst Osama Bin Laden has not been seen or heard from for more than a year.

Foreign presence

The raid took place in the village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal area, about 7km (4.5 miles) from the Afghan border.

Jets - or in some accounts a Predator drone - reportedly fired missiles at a particular housing compound in the village.

Tribesmen there are convinced the strike was the work of the Americans and are very angry at the attack.

Reporters who reached Damadola spoke of three houses hundreds of metres apart that had been destroyed.

Shah Zaman said he lost two of his sons and a daughter. "I ran out and saw planes. I ran toward a nearby mountain with my wife. When we were running we heard three more explosions. I saw my home being hit.

"According to preliminary investigations there was foreign presence in the area and that, in all probability, was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement, adding it had complained to the US envoy in Islamabad.

A Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters news agency that Damadola was the stronghold of a banned pro-Taleban group, the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi.

The US has about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, but Pakistan does not allow them to operate across the border.

Pakistan has about 70,000 troops in the border region.

PakTribune.com, Pakistan Saturday January 14, 2006

KABUL, January 15 (Online): Indian engineers have started work on building a huge dam in the western Afghanistan Province of Herat.

The project envisages the construction of a 107.5-metre earth and rock fill dam on the Hari Rud River.

The power generation house on the river`s right bank will have three units to generate a total of 42 MW of power.

India had committed $84 million for the Salma dam project out of its $550 million assistance announced at the Berlin Conference in 2004 to rebuild the war-torn country.

A 14-km transmission line will be laid to transmit power from Chishte Sharif to Herat. Permanent buildings for the project at Chishte Sharif are also coming up. The project is scheduled to be completed in four years.

India had originally undertaken construction of the Salma dam before political and military upheavals overtook Afghanistan and the country witnessed bloody civil wars and a fundamentalist Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.

As peace returned after the rout of Taliban and reconstruction activities were revived, Water and Power Consultancy Services (India) Ltd (WAPCOS) prepared a fresh feasibility assessment and reworked the execution report.

WAPCOS had dealt with a number of micro/mini, major hydroelectric schemes and transmission line projects in Afghanistan prior to 1984. Given the experience of WAPCOS, the Indian government, in consultation with the Afghan authorities, entrusted several feasibility studies to it.

These included the restoration and rehabilitation of seven mini/micro hydel schemes in northern Afghanistan.

WAPCOS conducted a survey for sinking 100 deep tube wells for irrigation and drinking water in Herat and has already completed the work of setting up 24 of these wells. Another 10 tube wells are being sunk in Nemroz province.

Other international agencies engaged in reconstruction work in Afghanistan are also utilizing the expert services of WAPCOS in executing their projects in the infrastructure sectors.

Online News- Pakistan 1/14/06

KABUL: Russia closely watches the reconstruction process in Afghanistan and it is ready to do everything possible to support this central Asian country, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, during a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Astana.

The meeting followed the inauguration ceremony of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, which Putin and Karzai attended alongside other leaders.

Member of the president’s press office Abdul Wali told Pajhwok Afghan News besides attending the inauguration ceremony Hamid Karzai met with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

During the meeting with his Afghan counterpart the Ukrainian President also expressed his country’s readiness to take part in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

The two sides agreed on a team to survey in which sectors Ukraine could help.

By Ben Tanosborn Al-Jazeerah, January 14, 2006

It caught me by surprise. After almost three years, my friend Mingo, who I believed to have gone native in his adopted Afghanistan, has now returned to Europe. A sabbatical from journalism awaits him in 2006… and perhaps the authorship of a book, or two, while engaged in a well-deserved Mediterranean R&R.

A good friend is always expected to be loyal… but a better friend is one who allows you to enter his mind and borrow from some of his ideas, only holding back his right of imprimatur. And Mingo is a better friend… consenting to a second, and final, debriefing after four months: an extract of the critical issues affecting the economy, security, culture and tradition… and democracy’s future in Afghanistan.

Of late, Hamid Karzai has been making public his willingness to seek reconciliation with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader… and there is a hint, or at least an interpretation by some, of perhaps some “sharing” in the political future of the country. But, according to Mingo, most Afghans feel that Karzai’s political tent is too small for him, incapable of housing any invitee as big and influential as Omar.

Omar, and the yet to be seriously heard from Taliban – probably in military hibernation until late Spring – is not a likely candidate to share political fortunes with His Sartorial Excellence, no matter what anyone reads in Karzai’s overtures.

Reconstruction in Afghanistan is too slow for anyone’s likings. And the infrastructure, after four years, is only building up at a snail’s pace. True that expectations were initially too high – it’s always that way – but the results measure, at best, only half of what they should reasonably be, and a quarter of the expectations. A Pashtun proverb, one that Mingo heard dozens of times during his last three months there, underlines what most Afghans think of America, its government, and the taxing and unreasonable patience that is asked of them: Don’t show me the palm tree, they say, show me the dates.

Almost entirely energy-dependent on its neighbors, the exorbitant increase in the price of fuel has for many people wiped out, or exceeded, any economic improvements that might have been encountered in other areas. Things will be critical for eighty percent or more of the population this winter… and that will affect the resurgence of the Taliban.

As unpopular as the Russians were, you get to hear more and more how the free market and American-style democracy are far worse. American democracy, many contend, works fine for a cunning few, while the rest of the people suffer. For the first time in his three years there, Mingo listened to the yearning for the good old socialist times, when the regime at least seemed to care for people, not just some people.

Price-gouging runs rampant, and there seems to be total lack of government control against overly greedy people. Again, the public cry is for the not so distant past when the Taliban would use a firm hand with the heartless businessmen.

And make no mistake about it, Mingo states, that for Afghans, and other people in the Third World, democracy is equated with some reasonable sharing of wealth. If there is unfairness, or the perception of unfairness in wealth distribution, it’s democracy’s fault.

As for security… what the Afghan government officials say about the existing level of security is loudly counterclaimed by the fear people experience throughout the country, from Kabul to Kandahar to Herat… or any point inside or outside that triangle. It was in Herat, Mingo’s base of operations, where he personally witnessed last mid-October a clash between Afghan soldiers and local police which left two dead less than two blocks from where he was staying.

Whether the 1,500+ Afghan civilian deaths in 2005 is a high, low or acceptable number of victims caught in the political turmoil may not be relevant. Relevant, however, is the indisputable fact that people, most if not all, are frightened and feel more and more insecure each day. A much different picture from that provided by the governments in Kabul and Washington, one would say.

Dick Cheney’s assertion last June that, “We will succeed in Iraq, just like we did in Afghanistan,” has the tail waggling the dog… as the strategies and tactics used by the Insurgency in Iraq are finding their way to Afghanistan, not just with the Taliban but with foreign elements slowly infiltrating the country- including suicide bombers.

The government in Kabul may claim a high level of security in the nation, but for the Afghans walking the streets, it’s all about insecurity.

If there is a bright light against the darkness that surrounds security and the economy, it does come in an important area: education; and not just for boys, but also for girls. True those girls still have to fight tradition and the jeering that accompanies them to school; but some of them are braving it… bringing forth a courageous example. Still, despite the overblown statistics given by the government on female attendance, Mingo believes that there could be one girl attending school for every four boys, perhaps the ratio somewhat higher in areas closer to the Iranian and Pakistani borders, where a number of Afghans have returned from exile in the more enlightened Pakistani and Iranian societies where women command a greater voice.

Afghanistan is certainly an example, but not in the context Cheney had intended. Democracy is not just a political system that you can shove down a nation’s cultural throat, but something that needs careful preparation, seeding… and then weeding before it takes on firm roots. And America has yet to learn much in that process… particularly when its brand of democracy is widely viewed, at least in the developing world, as lacking a social conscience.

Ben Tanosborn www.tanosborn.com