Afghanistan News January 17, 2006

January 17, 2006

Afghan President Postpones Visit To Tehran
16 January 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has postponed a visit to Tehran, where he had been expected to hold a summit with the presidents of Iran and Tajikistan.

"Due to poor weather condition and technical problems, the journey of President Karzai to Iran has been postponed," Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Navid Ahmad Mois announced. No new date was given for when Karzai might visit Tehran.

Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmonov was expected to arrive in Tehran today for talks with Iranian leaders on expanding the economic and cultural ties between the two countries. (RFE/RL's Afghan Service, IRNA)

Afghanistan reeling after suicide attacks kill 26 people
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (AFP) -     Afghanistan's border town of Spin Boldak was in shock after one of the biggest suicide bombings since the Taliban's fall in 2001 killed 22 people leaving a wrestling match.

Monday's bombing in the town on the Pakistan border struck hours after another suicide blast in the nearby city of Kandahar killed three soldiers and a civilian.

The attacks, just one day after a Canadian diplomat and two Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing near Kandahar, added to fears that tactics used by Iraqi insurgents are being imported into Afghanistan.

Most of the shops in the commercial town of Spin Boldak, in Kandahar province, did not open for business Tuesday as people milled around the site of the blast, which left a 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) crater in the ground.

Dozens of others rushed into the town's only clinic to identify relatives killed in the blast.

A mangled motorcycle -- likely that of the attacker -- and a burnt-out police vehicle were also at the site, an AFP correspondent said on Tuesday.

District police chief Abdul Wassey told AFP the death toll had risen by two to 22, with at least another 27 hurt. "Personally I helped evacuate 22 people who were wounded," he said.

The attacker blew himself up in a crowd of people leaving a wrestling match in a field about a kilometre (less than a mile) from the centre of town.

"I saw a big fire and a couple of vehicles on fire and I estimate around 30 people were lying either dead or wounded," witness Ahmadullah Jan told AFP. "There were screams and blood everywhere."

Doctors at a hospital just across the border in the Pakistani town of Chaman said around 30 people were wounded, 12 of them seriously. Fifteen bodies were also brought over, doctor Abdul Nasir Achakzai said.

The Taliban, which was ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001, denied it had carried out the attack, saying it did not target civilians.

"We strongly condemn this attack on innocent people. The Taliban leadership convey their condolences to the relatives of the victims," purported spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.

Ahmadi had claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for the Kandahar blast hours earlier.

In that attack an "explosives-laden vehicle" rammed into an Afghan National Army convoy, killing three soldiers and wounding five others, defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.

A civilian also died and 10 were wounded, a doctor said.

The attacks were the latest in a wave of more than 20 suicide bombings in the past four months aimed at US-led forces, their     NATO allies and Afghan troops.

On January 5, ten people were killed and 50 wounded in a suicide bomb attack in central Uruzgan province during a visit by US ambassador Ronald Neumann.

Kandahar province governor Asadullah Khalid accused neighbouring Pakistan of failing to crack down on militants along the porous border, echoing a common complaint by Afghan officials.

"These kind of attacks are carried out by those elements who are being equipped and trained in Pakistan," he said.

UN Secretary General     Kofi Annan condemned the violence as an "unacceptable assault upon the peace process," a UN statement said.

Analysts and some military officials have said the spike in suicide attacks showed the increased influence of Al-Qaeda, which was sheltered by the Taliban regime.

The US-led coalition hunting down insurgents in the country said however it did not see a trend of     Iraq-style attacks.

"The equipment is not as complex as what we see in Iraq. In fact, numerous IEDs (improvised explosive devices) fail to detonate or detonate prematurely here," spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts said.

"So we see nothing that ties the two together, other than that the focus of attacks is on the civilian population, religious leaders and non-governmental organisations and is intended to break the will of the Afghan people and Afghan and coalition forces."

Canadian role in Afghanistan about to change as threats rise
STEPHEN THORNE Mon Jan 16, 8:50 PM ET
OTTAWA (CP) - A fresh battalion of Canadian troops head to some of the harshest climes of     Afghanistan next month in the midst of an escalating insurgency to face an enemy they will see but will not know.

Sunday's attack that killed Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry and wounded three Canadian soldiers brought home with cold clarity the realities of a war that has evolved and shifted since Canada first joined the fight four years ago.

Canadians chased an elusive enemy in the months after Afghan-trained terrorists attacked New York and Washington. The Canucks were often targeted by wildly inaccurate rockets fired from makeshift launchers far from camp.

But now suicide bombers, roadside devices and insidious landmines strike with disturbing regularity - and effectiveness.

Under a multinational brigade led by a Canadian general, about half of the 2,200 troops arriving next month will change Canada's role in the country, taking their fight to the enemy in remote villages and mountains.

They will venture far from the airfield base where a monument fashioned after an Inuit Inukshuk memorializes Canadians killed in Afghanistan.

Combat units will work from forward operating bases - often remote, spartan camps close to suspected enemy strongholds, sometimes integrated with allied and Afghan troops, special forces soldiers and informed civilians.

Like the Canadians and other     NATO and U.S. coalition forces already there, however, their greatest threat will come from the ghostlike enemy they don't know - the suicide bombers, roadside devices and insidious landmines that seem to come from nowhere.

"We are deploying all efforts to understand what's happening here," Lt.-Gen. Marc Caron, chief of land staff for Canadian Forces from Ottawa, said Monday in Edmonton.

"The Afghan army had a number of incidents. Are the tactics changing? And if they are, what will be our reaction? We're working on this."

Berry died when an explosives-laden vehicle turned into his convoy and blew up, destroying the armoured jeep in which he was a passenger. Soldiers said they had no warning of the attack.

His remains will be loaded aboard a Canadian Forces Hercules aircraft after a tarmac ceremony in Kandahar on Tuesday, a military spokesman said. Berry will be buried in his native Great Britain.

A grim     Prime Minister Paul Martin said peace and stability make it essential that Canadians take on dangerous missions abroad.

"I believe that we do have a responsibility to the world outside of our borders," Martin said in Vancouver. "When we're serving abroad, I think our men and women are entitled to know that they have the support of all Canadians. I have talked to all of those who have lost loved ones and I have never had one person raise with me the merit of Canada's involvement."

The Conservatives will not withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan if they win next Monday's federal election, the party's defence critic and potential defence minister, Gordon O'Connor, said Monday.

"Canada's made an international commitment to participate in the counter-terrorist operations in Afghanistan and we'll stand by that," the retired general said in an interview.

"We support the mission in Afghanistan because the terrorists came out of there, blew up the towers and killed 25 Canadians. Therefore, it's an attack on Canada and, from our point of view: you attack us, we attack back."

Caron downplayed reports that some NATO countries are debating whether to pull their troops out of Afghanistan - notably suggestions that there is a vote in the Dutch parliament expected in the coming weeks.

"I have not sensed any hesitation of any NATO allies to come work in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, those incidents rally the troops and it reinforces our fortitude to make sure the mission is a success," he said.

The 2,200 members of the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group, also out of Edmonton, are preparing to move in as the Canadian casualty count over 44 1/2 months is nine dead, 26 wounded.

The new soldiers will start their mission in the relentless wind and biting cold of an Afghan winter and finish it in the choking dust and blistering heat of a desert summer.

Most of them will be based 20 kilometres south of the isolated city of Kandahar in the heart of Afghanistan's most conservative province.

The ancient trading depot, home to a million ethnic Pashtuns, was the birthplace of the fundamentalist Taliban regime that ruled the tortured country with an iron fist for five years.

The people the Canadians will encounter everyday, who smile, wave, shake their hands and pour them tea, are a complex yet pragmatic breed whose alliances and allegiances shift like the desert sands that surround them.

Some say winning hearts and minds is ultimately impossible in a country that has turned out the Mongols of Ghengis Khan, the British of history's greatest empire and the Soviet superpower, to name a few.

The daunting task of bridging the chasm will fall to a small group of engineers, medicos, diplomatic officers and civilian aid workers who take over from the 250-member provincial reconstruction team hit Sunday.

They will attempt to forge and maintain alliances, earn trust and respect and gather intelligence through liaisons like the meeting Berry held with local leaders just before his death. They will conduct outreach and training programs and school, water-well and other work projects.

They will do so in a dirt-poor country where there have been about 27 suicide bombings in four months.

It's a relatively new tactic for Afghan militants and one that has reinforced fears the country may be subject to more assaults modelled on those in     Iraq.

The latest came in two attacks Monday:

-A suicide bomber on a motorbike drove up to a crowd watching a wrestling match in a border town, killing 20 people and wounding more than 30 others.

-A bomb hit a convoy of Afghan army trucks loaded with troops in the southern city of Kandahar, killing four people and wounding 16.

Fighting normally eases during the Afghan winter but the recent attacks point to a possible new strategy by pro-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Violence across southern and eastern Afghanistan spiked last year, leaving about 1,600 people dead, the most since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering     Osama bin Laden.

U.N. Chief Condemns Wave Of Attacks In Afghanistan
Radio Free Afghanistan, Afghanistan
January 17 2006 -- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has condemned a wave of deadly attacks in Afghanistan, calling them an unacceptable assault on the peace process.
A U.N. statement said Annan urges all concerned parties in Afghanistan to work in a spirit of national unity and reconciliation. On Monday, at least 20 people were killed and around 20 others injured when an attacker riding a motorcycle detonated explosives

among a crowd at a wrestling match in Spin Boldak, in southern Kandahar province near Pakistan.

Earlier, three Afghan soldiers and at least one other person were reported killed in a blast targeting an Afghan army vehicle in Kandahar city. The Reuters news agency quoted a Taliban spokesman as claiming responsibility for both attacks.

Monday's assaults came after a Canadian diplomat and two Afghans were killed in a Taliban suicide attack Sunday in Kandahar.

Afghanistan: Militia force launched to guard border with Pakistan
Tuesday January 17, 2006 (0010 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
KABUL: Afghanistan’s government said it recently established a 1,000-strong tribal militia force to tighten security along the mountainous border with Pakistan near where a purported CIA air strike targeted top al-Qaida lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri.

The force was formed a month ago to slow the flow of militants slipping back and forth across the largely unguarded, unmarked frontier between Afghanistan’s Kunar province and Pakistan’s Bajur area, Kunar Gov. Assadullah Wafa told news agency in an interview.

Speaking in his office in the regional capital Asadabad, near a large U.S. military base that houses hundreds of Marines and special forces commandos, the governor said al-Qaida was believed to run training camps in Bajur.

He said the new force made up of young men from villages in the area would "hopefully make it harder for the militants" to slip across the frontier.

Kunar has long been a popular region for al-Qaida and other militants. Its rugged largely inaccessible mountains and high number of caves make it hard for security forces to operate effectively.

Some of the deadliest attacks on U.S. troops last year occurred in Kunar. In June, suspected Taliban rebels shot down a helicopter, resulting in the deaths of 16 special forces troops, after killing three American commandos on the ground.

The province’s deputy police chief, Sumwal Hasan Farahi, said the militants have support from many local residents, who are mainly Pashtun, the same ethnic group as the Taliban.

Farahi said his forces have launched several operations against the militants together with U.S. troops, but with little success.

Up to 17 people were believed killed in Friday’s bombing attack on the Pakistani village of Damadola, just a few kilometers (miles) from the border. Two senior Pakistani security officials have said that al-Zawahri was the intended victim and said Pakistan’s assessment was that the U.S. acted on incorrect information.

Major ammunition cache found on Tajik-Afghan border
17.01.2006, 09.39
DUSHANBE, January 17 (Itar-Tass) - A major cache with unguided rocket projectiles and other ammunition has been found in the Pamir section of the Tajik-Afghan border, Itar-Tass learnt at the press service of the Tajik State Border Committee on Tuesday.

The cache, which was found during a search operation in the area of the border village of Pushkharvi, contained two unguided rocket projectiles and 10 fuses for them, over 140 fragmentation mines, several pieces of antitank shells and other ammunition - - a total of more than 300 pieces.

According to frontier-guards, the cache was laid during the civil confrontation in Tajikistan in 1992-1997.

Dutch public divided on Afghan deployment
Expatica 17 January 2006
AMSTERDAM — Eight out of 10 Dutch people support peace missions to aid reconstruction in a country such as Afghanistan.

But only 46 percent of the 1,200 people polled for news programme Netwerk believe sending troops to the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan will help. The Netherlands ready has 600 soldiers in other parts of the country.

Netwerk reported on Monday night 47 percent are against new mission to Afghanistan and 37 percent are in favour. The other 16 percent had no opinion.

The number of people opposed to contributing 1.200 to a 6,000-strong Nato force is roughly equal to the figure in the Maurice de Hond poll last week.

A large number (56

percent) are against a new deployment of Dutch forces if it is mainly to support the US in the "war on terror". A similar number don't believe the mission to Uruzgan will help in that regard. A quarter of those polled think it will.

About half believe it is right to have a long debate on the pros and cons of the Uruzgan deployment. But two thirds feel politicians in The Hague have handled the issue badly and only 4 percent of the respondents think the performance of MPs and ministers on the issue has been good.

The Netwerk poll shows a real divide on the question of potential military casualties: 45 percent of the people are not prepared to accept casualties, while 42 percent are.

Pakistan, Afghanistan Hail Gas Pipeline Project
Tuesday January 17, 11:19 AM
KABUL, Jan 17 Asia Pulse - Pakistan and Afghanistan Monday hailed the project of gas pipeline with Turkmenistan and have termed it a profitable scheme for the three countries.

After a joint press conference, Afghanistan Minister for Mines and Industries Engineer Mohammad Sadiq and Pakistan Minister for Petroleum Amanullah Khan Jadoon told reporters that the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan would be fruitful for all three countries.

"Afghanistan wants to help its neighbouring countries in important projects and also take share in some other vital schemes," said Engineer Mohammad Sadiq.

Sadiq added that along with bilateral ties he also discussed with his Pakistani counterpart the gas pipeline project.

He said that in this regard a ministerial meeting among the three countries would take place in February in Ashkabad.

"The projects will not only solve gas problem of Pakistan but will also prove beneficial for Afghanistan," said Pakistan Minister Amanullah Khan Jadoon. Pakistan was ready to help Afghanistan in exploring oil, gas and other mines, he added.
(Pajhwok Afghan News)

Security situation not getting worse in Afghanistan, insists ISAF
Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) 16 Jan 2006
Kabul_(dpa) _ Despite an increase of attacks and suicide bombings by the remnants of the ousted Taliban regime, peacekeeping forces in war-torn Afghanistan said Monday that the security situation in the country is not worsening.

Speaking in a regular press conference, Andrew Elmes, the spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters that security situation has not deteriorated in Afghanistan but that its complexion has changed due to the involvement of drug smugglers and other criminals.

Elmes said that security can be improved by increased involvement and intelligence from the Afghan Security Forces themselves.

Elmes's comments came a day after a suicide car bomb killed a Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar and injured 13 others, including three Canadian soldiers and ten Afghan civilians.

Afghan wary of U.S. Presence in Afghanistan
Tuesday January 17, 2006 (0010 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
WASHINGTON: Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, Afghans have been wary of the continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
They remember bitterly the aftermath of the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, when the West -- led by the United States -- left Afghanistan to the mercy of local powers, resulting in the reign of the oppressive Taliban regime.

When the Taliban were overthrown, the Afghans, although fiercely independent, welcomed the presence of U.S. troops, which they perhaps naively considered to be liberators. Their fears of being abandoned once again were rekindled when the United States sent troops to Iraq in 2003.

Recent developments have intensified those fears. Last week, Washington signaled that it is reducing its military presence in Afghanistan. U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking on January 4 at the Pentagon, confirmed that American forces in Afghanistan would be reduced from 19,000 to about 16,500 during 2006.

Although the reduction is not significant in absolute numbers, the fact that it coincides with the other news that Washington will reduce U.S. assistance to Afghanistan from $1 billion to $600 million this year creates fear and uncertainty among Afghans. The U.S. seems to be stepping back at a time when the fight against insurgents continues unabated. The most recent attack came in the central province of Uruzgan when the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann was visiting the area. Ten Afghans died and 50 others were wounded (Eurasia Insight, January 1).

The statements about troop drawdowns and reduced economic assistance to Afghanistan could hardly come at a worse time. The new Afghan parliament -- the first in over 30 years -- is not yet fully functional; the drug trade continues; the Afghan national army is still in its early development (only about 27,000 troops are trained so far); disarmament is far from complete; and, worst of all, the insurgency is growing deadlier as suicide bombings increase.

Contrary to recent comments by NATO military commander Gen. David Jones, the realities on the ground in Afghanistan suggest that U.S. forces should stay. Jones insisted that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are not regrouping: "There’s a knee-jerk reaction that wants to say: ‘Oh, the Taliban is coming back’ or ‘al-Qaeda’s coming back.’ I don’t know of any commander or any estimate that can say that with certainty" (AFP, January 6).

More than 30 people have been killed in more than a dozen suicide attacks in the last three months. Most bombings have been blamed on remnants of the Taliban, who are thought to be copying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq (see EDM, December 8). In 2005 the Taliban increasing became a security threat to the Afghan government. Insurgent attacks claimed the lives of some 1,500 Afghans and 90 Americans troops.

U.S. forces so far have been unable to wipe out the insurgency, capture Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, or bring a sense of security to the area. They have, however, lent psychological support to Afghans. According to a recent poll a large majority of Afghans view the U.S. presence favorably. Polls by the nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland show "overwhelming popular support for U.S. and international troops in the country and huge opposition to Islamic militants linked to the former Taliban regime" (VOA, January 11).

Afghan popular fears are twofold. First, Afghans believe that NATO is not as strongly committed to fight terrorism in Afghanistan as is the U.S.-led coalition forces because, in their view, that is not a NATO mission. The NATO troops are peacekeeping forces and thus could perform as a fighting force in one part of the country and as a peacekeeping force in another. Besides, most NATO members are "refusing to allow their troops to conduct combat operations aimed at containing the Taliban insurgency.

Second, Afghans fear that if the United States gradually pulls out of the region or reduces its forces to an ineffective fighting level, then the Taliban -- with the help of Pakistan -- will step up their activities and the country will be once again engulfed in turmoil. Already, there are reports that some districts in the volatile south and southwestern provinces are controlled by the government forces by day and the Taliban by night.

Insurgent violence continues to increase. Taliban militants set fire to three schools in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces on January 8. In another case, "Taliban militants beheaded the headmaster of a school in the southern Zabul province last week." According to local reports, the Taliban regularly distribute threatening papers in Kandahar, a former stronghold of the Taliban regime. They call on students and teachers to give up going to school, since they do not want anyone to learn about religions other than Islam.

News that Washington is cutting its financial aid is also cause for concern. The U.S. decision comes ahead of a conference scheduled in London later this month about aid to Afghanistan, and the donor community usually takes its lead from the United States.

Ukraine to offer Afghanistan its services in hydroelectric power plant construction, says Plachkov
Kyiv, January 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Ukraine will offer Afghanistan its services in designing and constructing small hydroelectric power plants, Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov has told reporters.

He noted that the Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Ministry is planning to arrange for a visit of an Ukrainian delegation to Afghanistan early in February.

Plachkov said that Ukraine has enormous potential in designing and producing equipment for hydroelectric power plants. "We plan to conduct similar work in Georgia and Croatia," the minister said.

Peacekeeper nation at war in Afghanistan
National Post, 01/16/2006 By Peter Kuitenbrouwer
Canadians are accustomed to seeing their armed forces keeping the peace overseas. But as Canada's short, bloody history in Kandahar shows, our troops are, for the first time since Korea, at war.

Yesterday's suicide bomb attack, which killed Glyn Berry, Canada's senior diplomat in Afghanistan, and wounded three soldiers, is the latest in a bloody string of attacks. Kandahar has already been the scene of most of Canada's nine dead in Afghanistan since 2001 -- more casualties than any other recent military mission.

And although Defence Minister Bill Graham warned last fall, "the public needs to be prepared for the sight of body bag coming back from Afghanistan," the news of the new attack still struck hard yesterday in and around the sprawling Canadian Forces Base Edmonton, home to many of the troops now in Kandahar.

"It kind of hurts because it could be family of people I'm working with here," a butcher at Sobey's Namao Centre, just outside the base, said yesterday, when a reporter informed him of the suicide attack. He said troops shop at his Sobeys, and spouses of soldiers work in the store.

The butcher, who asked his name not pe published, said he opposes Canada's involvement in Kandahar. "I don't think we should be sending our troops over there. I don't think it's our fight."

Kim Nossal, a political scientist at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., said Canadians need to wake up to the fact that the country is at war. "In southern Afghanistan we are in a war situation and people need to start talking about it," he said.

The city, a South Asian crossroads, has a long history of foreign intervention. Founded by Alexander the Great 2,500 years ago, Kandahar has since seen invasions by Persians, Turks, Arabs and Monguls. The British occupied it twice in the 19th century and the Soviets occupied in the late 20th century. When the Taliban took over the country in 1994, Kandahar was home and headquarters to their spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

About 850 Canadian troops from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton and Winnipeg, first went to Kandahar in February, 2002, operating under U.S. command as part of an effort to sniff out Al-Qaeda operatives and remnants of the Taliban forces who controlled the country until the allied invasion in the fall of 2001.

On April 17, 2002, Harry Schmidt, an American F-16 pilot, dropped a "friendly fire" laser-guided bomb that killed four Canadians: Ainsworth Dyer, Richard Green, Marc Leger and Nathan Smith.

Canadian troops have since operated mainly in Kabul, but last summer the main Canadian operations moved to Kandahar. Since then there have been several bloody incidents:
- In December, Pt. Ryan Crawford and Cpt. Manuel Panchana-Moya suffered broken legs after their armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb.

- In November, Private Braun Scott Woodfield, of Victoria, was killed when his armoured troop carrier rolled during a routine patrol on a highway about 45 kilometres from Kandahar.
- In October, an Afghan man in a pickup packed with explosives swerved into a convoy of three military trucks. The Canadians suffered only light injuries, though the blast killed a 10-year-old Afghan boy on a farm tractor.

This month, the Canadian Forces are sending up to 100 commandos from the elite Joint Task Force 2 to Afghanistan. Starting in two weeks, more troops will arrive in Kandahar, bringing Canada's troop strength up to about 2,000 women and men.

The troops, called Task Force Afghanistan, are part of Operation Enduring Freedom, a U.S.-led campaign. "We continue to help the Afghan people with peace and stabilizing the country," Canadian Forces Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais told a news conference yesterday in Ottawa.

Prof. Nassal said Canada has little choice but to hold its ground in Kandahar. "We all invaded Afghanistan," he said. "We bear some kind of longer-term responsibility to try to put Humpty back together again, even though the task is very difficult."

'Star Afghan' and the Desire for Change
Asharq Alawsat, UK 01/15/2006
An interesting news article discussed the launch of the 'Star Afghan' television show similar to the popular international entertainment program, 'Fame Academy'. The show is attracting a wide audience especially amongst the Afghan youth.

According to the article, one of the show's producers articulated that wars had caused a vacuum in the country over the past 15 years, asserting that the show had gained unprecedented audience ratings. The show was launched after the fall of the Taliban regime, which had completely prohibited music and television in afghan society.

Regardless of the ethical values behind the show, or the concept of cultural invasion, or even the American war on the Taliban regime, far from all of this, the show is a mere representation of the Afghan desire for a necessary change against repression. The issue focuses on the Afghan search for a lifestyle that connects them to the world and allows them to communicate with it.

"Life is mortal. There is no need for suppression. If submission is a condition of survival, then I do not want this life of slavery." The previous statement featured in the opening of the novel by the young Afghan writer, Latifa, entitled "The stolen face," which focuses on the way of life to which Afghan women were subjected.

Latifa, a young woman in her twenties, is a model for the level of awareness amongst the Afghan youth. To perceive the Afghan youth from one perspective only is unfair. Stripping the Afghan youth of their willpower and considering them merely products of American brainwashing is an atrocious judgment imposed upon a society that has escaped suppression, survived wars and given birth to a creative youth.

The image is quite the opposite in neighboring Iran. Last week, press agencies informed us that Iranian security forces had arrested two young boys who listened to American "pop" music or had been selling CD's and tapes that feature this type of music.

It is confounding to see the picture of 400 Iranian women of the revolutionary guard forces training in a military base in support of Iran's right to develop its nuclear program and in support of the Palestinian cause.

The youth of a number of Islamic countries are prisoners of the way that state governments label them as "the Nation's ordnance, the Nation's army and the Nation's spirit." Such a perception sacrifices the youth for political rhetoric, revolutions and even nuclear programs.

There is an entitled danger in controlling the youth and occupying their minds with ideological instigations. I believe that examples of the dangers of such a practice are abundant and clear. The youth pay the price for policies to which they have never agreed and whoever has had the opportunity to reject and divest them, did so.

Which situation is more peaceful? That of Afghans filling Kabul's cinemas with laughter as they watch 'Star Afghan' despite their poverty and illiteracy, or the image of 400 young Iranian women dressed in black clothes and green scarves practicing military training and carrying weapons?