Afghanistan News January 19, 2006

January 19, 2006

Hundreds protest Afghan suicide attack, blame Pakistan
Spin Boldak (AFP) - More than 1,000 Afghans demonstrated near the border with Pakistan, accusing the neighbouring country of supporting attackers behind a suicide blast that killed 22 people.

Protestors in the frontier town of Spin Boldak accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of aiding the "terrorists" behind Monday's attack, one of Afghanistan's deadliest, an AFP correspondent said on Wednesday.

"Death to ISI, Death to Taliban and Al-Qaeda," the crowd shouted, demanding Pakistan "hand over the murderers of our martyrs and innocent civilians". "Pakistan interferes in Afghanistan, supports, trains and provides safe havens for terrorists," demonstrators shouted.

The attacker detonated his explosives in a crowd of men who were leaving a wrestling match put on to mark last week's Eid religious festival. More than 30 people were wounded, police said.

"We took to the streets to condemn Pakistan's double game," protestor Jawid Ahmad told AFP in Spin Boldak. "They claim they fight against terrorism but in secret they support terrorists and Al-Qaeda," he said. "They support instability in Afghanistan."

The blast was the latest in a spike of suicide attacks -- unheard of before the fall of the Taliban in a US-led operation that was launched in late 2001 after the hardliners refused to surrender Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

There have been at least 20 suicide blasts in Afghanistan in the past four months, at least six of them this year, with the majority claimed by Taliban militants. Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yusuof Ahmadi has, however, insisted the movement was not behind the Spin Boldak blast.

But he claimed Taliban responsibility for a suicide attack in Kandahar city on the same day which killed three soldiers and a civilian, and one on Sunday in which Canada's most senior envoy in the country and two Afghans died.

Kandahar province governor Assadullah Khalid, who on Monday also blamed the attack on "elements trained in Pakistan", said the demonstrators would march to the border gate.
The town's main bazaar was closed, he said. Most shops in the town were also shut on Tuesday as the town reeled from the attack, condemned by President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of interfering in Afghanistan's affairs, including by supporting the development of the Islamic Taliban movement in the early 1990s.

Many also say that Pakistan had not been serious about rooting out Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who fled to the country after the hardliners were removed from power.

Pakistan turned its back on the Taliban after the September 11, 2001 attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda and has deployed thousands of troops to find militants believed to be sheltering in its territory.

Al Qaeda threatened Sweden over Afghanistan troops
Wed Jan 18, 6:03 AM ET
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's security service warned in December that al Qaeda had threatened the country over over its peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan but said on Wednesday the alert was over.

The SAPO security service said the threat came after parliament backed plans to boost the country's contingent with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, a decision taken despite the killing of two Swedish peacekeepers there in November.

"We saw comments from al Qaeda that were directed against Sweden and we also received other information that constituted a heightened risk scenario," SAPO chief Klas Bergenstrand told Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

"They had a focus and direction against Sweden that we hadn't seen before and were coupled with a criticism of Sweden's participation in Afghanistan," he said.

The neutral Nordic nation opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq and has not previously been the object of any known threats by Islamic fundamentalists, unlike its neighbors Denmark and Norway.

Sweden is not a NATO member, but has about 100 troops providing security for reconstruction work in Afghanistan, a force to be boosted to 375 personnel.

A SAPO spokesman said the information was the result of new coordination efforts between SAPO and military intelligence, who jointly provide the government with a threat assessment update every two weeks. He declined to give details about the current threat level but said the al Qaeda alert was now "historical."

US warns on UK Afghan troop role
Wednesday, 18 January 2006 BBC News
The US envoy to Nato has said that a British-led military force due to move into southern Afghanistan must be ready to fight resurgent Taleban militants.

Ambassador Victoria Nuland said Nato would need to provide "a strong and robust fighting force" in the region.

Scores have died in a spate of attacks in the south in recent months, among them a Canadian diplomat on Sunday.

Nato has about 9,000 peacekeepers in Afghanistan and will expand its role to the south where US-led troops operate.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says British troops are going to the south to guarantee reconstruction, not to engage in American-style capture and kill missions.

But Ambassador Nuland said there should be no illusions about the "rigorous environment" in the south.

"Nato forces, in providing security and stability throughout the country except to the east, will be prepared to perform missions up to and including what we call counter-insurgency, which obviously will require a strong and robust fighting force," she said.

'Setback'

The escalation of violence in southern Afghanistan has led the Dutch government to delay a decision on whether to send more than 1,000 troops to join the Nato mission.

But our correspondent says he understands the British government has decided it cannot wait any longer before making an announcement on the number of troops it will provide.

He says the Dutch position does not mean the UK will deploy more troops, but it is a setback for British hopes that Nato can quickly take over from the US in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, violence in the south is on the rise.

There have been at least three suspected suicide bombings in the southern province of Kandahar since the weekend, and Taleban commanders are threatening to carry out more attacks.

One blast on Monday killed 20 Afghans in Spin Boldak near the Pakistan border. A day earlier a senior Canadian diplomat was among three killed in another bombing in the city of Kandahar itself.

Last year was the deadliest in Afghanistan since 2001, with more than 1,400 people killed in violence linked to militancy, most of them in the south and east.

Much of the violence has been blamed on remnants of the hardline Taleban movement, which governed Afghanistan until the US-led invasion four years ago.

No pressure for postponement of Afghan president's Iran visit Tehran
Jan 18, IRNA Afghanistan-Iran-Karzai
Afghan Ambassador to Iran Mohammad Omar Davoudzi said here Wednesday that no country has imposed pressure on Kabul to postpone a scheduled visit by President Hamid Karzai to Iran.

The Afghan president was due to arrive in Tehran on Monday.

Talking to IRNA, Davoudzi said the postponement was not a result of pressure by any country.

He added that the decision was made by Afghanistan itself following heavy snow and bad weather conditions in Kabul.

It was not the first time a president postponed a visit to a country, he said, adding that a scheduled visit by former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami to Kabul and two visits by Karzai to Tehran have previously been postponed.

The ambassador stressed that Afghanistan attaches special significance to its ties with Iran, saying the Iranian nation did not spare any efforts to help the Afghan nation during its decades of battle against against foreign occupiers and terrorist groups.

He also pointed to Iran's active participation in Afghanistan's reconstruction and said Iran has played an important role in this regard.

ANP seeks change in Afghan policy
PESHAWAR - The Dawn, Jan 17: Awami National Party (ANP) president Asfandyar Wali Khan has asked the ‘establishment’ to revamp its Afghan policy to end the root cause of violence in the tribal belt. Otherwise, he warned, its ‘flawed policy’ would ruin the country.

Speaking at a news conference here on Tuesday, the ANP chief said that his party adhered to the non-violence philosophy of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and condemned the killing of innocent people in the US air-strike on Damadola village in Bajaur Agency.

According to media, he pointed out, the US had taken Pakistan into confidence before targeting the three houses in the village which had been visited by a ‘guest’ of the establishment before the attack. He said the ANP would organize a conference of political parties on Feb 11 to chalk out a strategy on the issue of the Fata operation.

He said tribesmen had neither invited nor provided shelter to any Taliban or Al Qaeda militants. Instead, he added, militants had been staying in the area as guests of the establishment. He wondered that each time innocent people were killed, but guests of the establishment escaped unscathed.

“After 9/11 the government should have sealed borders of Waziristan and Bajaur with Afghanistan, but it didn’t close them,” he added. Mr Khan said that security agencies had arrested dozens of third- and fourth-ranking leaders of militant organizations at Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi, but they had not launched any operation in those cities.

He said that gunslingers of militant leaders, residing in tribal areas, had always been guests of the secret agencies. He said the ANP had condemned the bomb blasts by the so-called resistance groups inside Afghanistan and tribal parts of Pakistan.

He asked why Pakistanis had been made cannon fodder to an alien’s war. He predicted that violence and unrest would continue unabated unless its ‘root-cause’ was removed.

He alleged that Gen Pervez Musharraf had failed to remove the root cause of terrorism and added that the general was responsible for this trouble. He regretted that political authorities had declined permission to an ANP delegation which was proceeding to Bajaur in the morning.

He asked why the government had sealed Fata for political leaders who wanted to condole with the families of airstrike victims. Mr Khan alleged that the establishment had handed over Waziristan to militants who had so far killed over 70 notables of various tribes.

“Waziristan lies on the one end of Fata an Bajaur on the other and both are caught in flames, threatening the entire region,” he said. “Why has the government failed to quell militancy if Gen Musharraf is opposed to it?” he asked.

Canada Committed to Afghanistan Mission Despite Recent Attack
By Omid Ghoreishi Epoch Times Edmonton Staff Jan 19, 2006
A Canadian soldier stands atop an armoured vehicle during a patrol in Afghanistan. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)

High-res image (690 x 453 px, 300 dpi) Both the Conservatives and Liberals announced this week that their parties are both committed to Canada's mission in Afghanistan despite a recent surge in violence and a suicide bombing that killed one Canadian and critically wounded three others near Kandahar this week.

The Sunday attack claimed the life of senior Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry—the ninth death incident since Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.

The following day, two more suicide bombings left 26 dead and 46 injured, making it the bloodiest day in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Many Afghan residents are reportedly worried that the recent surge in violence, which increasingly resembles that which plagues Iraq, will deter foreign forces and reconstruction teams.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai pleaded that the world not to turn its back on the country and warning that the terrorist threat is one affecting the whole of the international community.

"If you don't defend yourself here, you will have to defend yourself back home in European capitals and American capitals," he said from Kabul.

But neither of the two front-runner parties in Canada expressed anything short of firm commitment to the efforts in Afghanistan, despite increasing Canadian casualties.

Paul Martin told reporters in Vancouver this week that Canada is responsible not only for the people of Afghanistan, but also for aiding in the establishment of democracy to secure a safer future for Canada.

"The more that we can do to establish Afghanistan democracy…the more we protect ourselves at home," he said.

The Conservative party has also indicated it was firmly committed to stay the course in Afghanistan they win Monday's election, going ahead with plans to triple the Canadian presence in the country within the next month.

"We support the effort in Afghanistan," Conservative defence critic Gordon O'Connor was quoted as saying in The Globe and Mail . "The terrorists came out of Afghanistan and attacked the twin towers. In those twin towers, 25 Canadians were killed and in killing the 25 Canadians, they were basically attacking us."

Canada expanded its mission in August 2005 from the International Security Assistance Force in the relatively safe Afghan capital Kabul—where the primary task was to maintain security in Kabul and the surrounding areas—to Kandahar, where the situation is more dangerous.

Currently there are about 680 Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, the majority of whom are based in Kandahar. The new troops arriving next month will increase the number of Canadian personnel in Kandahar to about 2000.

A former Taliban stronghold, Kandahar has become a center for militia attacks and more recently what seems to be a newly copied strategy from Iraqi insurgents, suicide bombings, by the members of the former Taliban regime.

"Kandahar is one of the most unstable areas in Afghanistan…they're [Canadian soldiers are] trained and prepared to deal with the risk that goes along with being in Kandahar," says Captain Stephanie Godin, a spokeswoman for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces.

NATO in, U.S. out

The primary task of the troops in Kandahar will be to improve the security situation in southern Afghanistan as part of NATO's expansion to take over the control from the U.S.-led multinational coalition, as the U.S. is looking to reduce its commitment in Afghanistan to focus more on Iraq.

The transition, scheduled to take place in the spring of 2006 in the southern provinces, has already met with difficulty as the Netherlands, another major contributor to NATO's plan, is still considering whether to send the extra troops required because of safety concerns. The concerns have only worsened with the recent surge in violence.

Although there remains scattered opposition to the foreign presence in Afghanistan, a recent poll by the ABC news shows that a large majority of Afghan people believe the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban was good for their country.

Saeed Jafaie, an Afghan-Canadian and a former executive member of an Edmonton-area Afghan cultural group, says he was happy to see Canadian soldiers go to Afghanistan to join the U.S. forces in fighting against the Taliban.

"I was very hopeful to finally see my people come out of pressures they suffered under Taliban," says Jafaie.

"Now by help of Canadian forces and some other countries who helped us drive Taliban out of power, it is evident that people are living under better condition, the economy [is] growing, and people can continue through their daily life."

Jafaie thinks that Canada should increase its number of troops in Afghanistan because their "existence just not brings security for people, they also help every community to build schools, water resources… they show so mush care and support for the people."

Canada first joined the U.S.-led war against terrorism in October 2001, when about 1,000 Canadian sailors left Halifax for to the Arabian Sea as part of Operation Apollo, a mission to support the United States in its mission in Afghanistan.

Taliban say 'hundreds' of suicide attackers ready
By Saeed Ali Achakzai Wed Jan 18, 6:29 AM ET
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A Taliban commander said on Tuesday hundreds of his guerrillas were ready to launch suicide attacks across     Afghanistan to drive out foreign forces.

The threat of violence came as several thousand people gathered in the town of Spin Boldak, on the border with Pakistan, to denounce a suicide attack there on Monday that killed 23.

"Hundreds of Afghan Taliban mujahideen are ready for suicide attacks," said the Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah.

"They only await orders from the Taliban leadership," he said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

Afghanistan has seen a wave of 19 suicide attacks in the past year, including 13 in the past 10 weeks, the     United Nations says.

Security analysts suspect the Taliban have stepped up suicide attacks after seeing al Qaeda's success in     Iraq.

The attacks have come as the United States hopes to cut back its troop strength in Afghanistan from more than 18,000 to 16,500 in the next few months.

Members of     NATO, who have an Afghan peacekeeping force of almost 10,000, are due to increase their numbers to 15,000 and take over responsibilities from U.S. forces in the restive south.

The government says the insurgents appear to be trying to frighten NATO members from their expansion and to unsettle aid donors due to meet in London at the end of the month to draw up a long-term plan to help Afghanistan.

Dadullah said attacks would increase.

"Taliban mujahideen are present in all cities of Afghanistan and they will continue to increase their attacks," he said.

"An increase in the number of foreign forces in Afghanistan will make it easier to attack and inflict losses on them."

The Taliban have been battling U.S-led troops since being ousted in 2001, months after the September 11 attacks on the United States, after they refused to hand over al Qaeda leader     Osama bin Laden.

"COWARDS"

On Monday, shortly before the suicide blast in Spin Boldak, a suicide bomber threw himself in front of an Afghan army vehicle in the southern city of Kandahar, killing three soldiers and two civilians.

An apparent suicide attack on a Canadian military convoy in Kandahar on Sunday killed a Canadian foreign affairs official and two Afghans.

Dadullah said foreign forces were helpless and cowed in the face of suicide attacks. "Infidels cannot do anything about suicide attacks ... (they) are cowards while we Muslims are making sacrifices for the independence of our country."

Protesters in Spin Boldak chanted support for U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai and condemned the Taliban, al Qaeda and what they called "Pakistani spies."

"These Taliban are coming from Pakistan. They get training for suicide attacks in Pakistan and then come to Afghanistan," said Kandahar province governor Assadullah Khalid, who joined the rally. "We ask the Pakistani government to secure its border."

Pakistan, a supporter of the Taliban before the September 11, attacks, denies helping them but says some fighters might be able to slip across the porous border.

A pro-government cleric, Maulvi Ghulam Mohammad, told the rally suicide attacks were forbidden in Islam and foreign troops had come to help.

Dadullah derided as "foolish" government efforts to tempt Taliban to give up and said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was "all right, inside Afghanistan and leading the jihad."

(Additional reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR)

US hunt for Al-Qaeda leaders may be gaining: US analysts
Washington (AFP) - US intelligence appears to be getting closer to top al-Qaeda leaders despite a seemingly hit-and-miss hunt that has left behind civilian casualties and bruised relations with allies, analysts say.

Pakistani officials said four or five "foreign terrorists" may have been among the dead in the latest action, a missile strike in a remote triabl area late Thursday or early Friday aimed at Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda's number two.

With 18 civilians also reported killed and Pakistani condemnations pouring in, the strike underscored the cost of a secret hunt that has so far failed to net either Zawahiri or Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

But analysts said a series of successful strikes by armed Predator drones controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency over the past two years point to a more disciplined effort than in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"They are working on better intelligence, and they are not launching an attack like this unless they do have hard intelligence," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of the CIA's counter-terrorism center.

With US officials refusing to comment on the missile strike, little is known publicly about what led US intelligence to the village of Damadola in the Bajur tribal area in northwestern Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said the strike was launched in response to intelligence that up to a dozen Al-Qaeda associates had been invited to a dinner at the village, possibly including Zawahiri. However, it was unknown whether Zawahiri was there.

The bodies of the foreign militants were quickly removed from the scene by two local loyalists, Bajur's administrator Fajim Wazi said in a statement Tuesday.

"Clearly an attack like this is politically risky and there is always an element of risk of collateral damage, in some cases a very high level of risk," Cannistraro told AFP.

"And to do it it had to be on the basis that an important, high value target was there. I think that is the key to understanding why they did this one," he said. "It's because they had intelligence which they believed to be concrete and solid that the number two in Al-Qaeda who is obviously a high priority for the CIA was going to be there," he said.

The site, which had been reliably reported to have been visited in the past by Zawahiri, was probably under remote surveillance for at least three days before the attack, he said. So the CIA must have known that women and children not directly associated with al-Qaeda were present and at high risk, he said.

"That was kind of the trade-off," he said. "I think in this case the opportunity to get someone like the number two of the organization you've declared war on probably outweighed the concern about the collateral damage."

The CIA has blundered in the past, most notoriously in February 2002 when an armed Predator tracked and killed a tall man in white robes in Afghanistan in the mistaken supposition he was bin Laden. But the Predator has filled a need to surreptitiously observe and suddenly strike a fleeting enemy.

"For destructive power it's about as precise as you can get with anything much bigger than a sniper rifle," said John Pike, director of Global Security.Org, a group that gathers and analyzes information about the military.

The CIA appears to have used armed Predators only sparingly but with notable recent successes. In November 2002, a CIA-controlled Predator fired a missile at a vehicle in Yemen, killing six people, including Ali Qaed Sunian Al-Harthi, a suspected ringleader in the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole.

Haith al-Yemeni, a top Al-Qaeda leader, was reported to have been killed in May 2005 by a missile fired by a CIA Predator in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. His killing closely followed the capture of another senior Al-Qaeda figure, Abu Faraj al-Libbi in Pakistan.

In early December, Al-Qaeda's reputed number three, Hamza Rabia, was killed by a missile reportedly fired from a CIA Predator into a safehouse in the village of Asorai. Five people were killed in the attack.

Untouched until now, though, have been Al-Qaeda's two top leaders -- bin Laden, who has been silent for a year, and Zawahiri, who surfaces from time to time with video-taped statements. They are very difficult targets, Cannistraro says.

"But they do move. Sometimes they use walkie talkies and other short range communications devices to signal that they are moving. "I think that the intelligence gained very methodically is not just human intelligence," he said. "But the Pakistani's cooperation... is probably essential."

Shortage of military doctors in Afghanistan critical and getting worse
By STEPHEN THORNE
OTTAWA (CP) - Critical shortages of doctors, nurses and other medical staff mean the Canadian army and its allies in Afghanistan are being forced to rely on each other in emergencies like Sunday's suicide bomb attack, Forces doctors say.

Canada's military has a 35 per cent shortfall in deployable doctors and the problem is growing as it begins its most dangerous Afghan mission yet, the doctor in charge of recruiting and retaining the Forces' medical staff said Wednesday.

"Right now we have a critical shortage of general-duty medical officers in uniform," Lt.-Col. Randy Russell told The Canadian Press.

"It's very difficult to support deployed operations, disaster assistance relief and so on."

The problem is compounded by the fact the deployable medical officers - captains and majors - form the pool from which the military draws and trains much-needed specialists such as anesthesiologists and surgeons, Russell said.

Such shortages are not uncommon among allied militaries, he said, so they tend to pull together at critical times.

Government and military officials suggest those specialties will be in even higher demand over the course of the next mission starting next month, when 2,200 Canadian troops move into Kandahar.

Half those troops will take on offensive duties. Defence Minister Bill Graham and the chief of staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, have warned Canadians to expect casualties.

On Sunday, those warnings were borne out as the senior diplomat of the multi-faceted mission, Glyn Berry, was killed by a suicide bomber. Berry's remains were expected to arrive in his native England on Thursday.

Three soldiers wounded in the blast were initially treated by a Canadian doctor on the scene, then taken to a U.S. army field hospital where they were attended to by an international team of physicians.

They were then transferred to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Family members arrived from Canada to be at their bedsides Wednesday.

It was unclear whether Pte. William Edward Salikin and Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey were still in medically induced comas.

One of the men was still listed in serious condition and the other was in very serious condition 52 hours after they arrived at the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Maj. Nick Withers said in an interview.

Withers, one of only two Canadian military doctors posted in Europe, deferred to the American neurosurgeon on all other issues related to the men.

The fourth casualty, Master Cpl. Paul Franklin, had applied a tourniquet to his own severed leg after the blast. He was in stable condition.

Withers, who's acting as the Canadian medical liaison at the U.S. facility as well as running a clinic a three-hour drive away, said the medic couldn't remember if he'd tried to help his wounded comrades before he passed out.

Russell said the shortage of deployable physicians is a reflection of the health-care situation in Canada as a whole, and may be just the tip of the iceberg.

"When we look at that pipeline, it's becoming clear that we're about to have a critical shortfall of specialists, as well - orthopedic surgeons and general surgeons and internists, etc.," he said.

"We're going to feel this pinch even more because we are considering the possibility of increasing our complement of specialists, just because the pace of deployed operations has been so great over the past few years."

"So we're short to begin with and it's about to get worse."

Currently, military doctors work shorter deployments than other soldiers - usually three months instead of six. But they deploy more often, Russell said.

"At some point in time, that becomes a life-dissatisfier for your family, and so it becomes harder to retain that group."

Historically, 60 to 70 per cent of military doctors leave the Forces as soon as their four-year commitments are up, he added. Last year, it improved to 20 per cent.

Russell and his staff are working on sweetening the pot for prospective military doctors.

Family physicians licensed in Canada currently receive a $225,000 signing bonus in exchange for their four-year commitments. Their pay ranges from $120,000 to $165,000 annually, plus professional development supplements.

Medical students also receive incentives, including $40,000 bonuses for second-year students and $110,000 bonuses for fourth-year students along with $40,000-to $50,000-a-year salaries and texts until they graduate.

The Canadian military has three general-duty physicians in Kandahar, along with five nurses and four other medical staff.

Many famous Afghan authors were raised in Iran:
daily Tehran, Jan 18, IRNA Iran-Afghanistan-Culture
Some of the famous Afghan authors are immigrants who have studied literature and poetry in Iran since childhood, the English-language daily 'Iran News' quoted Mehr News Agency (MNA) as saying on Wednesday.

"Prominent Afghan writers like Asef Soltanzadeh, Reza Ebrahimi, Ameneh Mohammadi, and Abbas Jafari owe their success to Iranian literature teachers and professors," Mohammad-Hossein Mohammadi, an Iran-based Afghan author told MNA.

The author of the book 'The Red Fig of the Grave' stated that the main commonality between Iranian and Afghan literature is their common language, which has been developed in Iran but has remained archaic and awkward in Afghanistan.

However, this shouldn't be regarded as a flaw in Afghan literature; on the contrary, it reminds Iranian authors of their language in the past, he added according to the article.

He is convinced that the deficiencies of Afghan short stories are due to the great political and cultural changes that have occurred over the past few decades in Iran and Afghanistan, saying that short story writing flourished during the 1940s and 1950s and had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s in Afghanistan, the article wrote.

But in the late 1970s the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the establishment of the communist government in Afghanistan severed the cultural bounds between the two countries and hence inflicted great harm on Afghan literature, he added.

Although Afghan authors have not proven themselves in the international arena like Iranian writers have, due to their talent, Afghan literature has a promising future, he said in conclusion.

Pakistanis Say Airstrike Killed Al Qaeda Figures
By Kamran Khan and Griff Witte Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, January 19, 2006; A16
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 19 -- A senior al Qaeda operative and a son-in-law of the group's deputy leader, Ayman Zawahiri, were among those killed in a U.S. airstrike in an area along the Afghan border last week, Pakistani sources said Thursday.

"Our intelligence agencies have received new information that has confirmed the death of several senior al Qaeda operatives in Bajur Friday morning," a Pakistani federal minister said on condition of anonymity. "We'll soon go on the record with an official statement, but some confirmations are awaited."

A senior Pakistani intelligence official who also spoke on condition of anonymity said Pakistan had received convincing reports Wednesday confirming that at least three al Qaeda operatives were killed, including Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, who uses the alias Abu Khabab al-Masri. The United States has posted a $5 million bounty for the reputed training camp leader and expert in explosives and poisons.

The intelligence official also said Abdul Rahman Maghribi, the son-in-law of Zawahiri, was killed. Maghribi was believed to have been al Qaeda's chief of propaganda for the region. A key operative in Afghanistan's Konar province, Abu Ubayida Misri, also died, the official said.

U.S. military sources declined to comment on the identities of the victims of Friday's attack, which was carried out by the CIA using a Predator drone and killed at least 13 people, including women and children.

Violence increasing in Afghanistan
Suicide bombers bring new wave of terror, concerns about "re-Talibanization" of country.
By Tom Regan The Christian Science Monitor 17 Jan 2006
In the latest of a series of deadly attacks in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber Monday rode a motorcycle into a crowd of wrestling fans, detonated a vest filled with explosives, and killed 20 people in the town of Spin Buldak, a key crossing point into Pakistan. The attack was the third in two days in the province, a former stronghold of the Taliban. The Los Angeles Times reports there have been about 25 suicide bombings in the country in the past four months.

The CBC reports that a senior Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan was killed by a suicide bomber in an attack Sunday in the same city. The attack also killed two Afghans and left three Canadian soldiers seriously wounded. While Canada has not contributed troops for the war in Iraq, Canadian forces have been serving in Afghanistan since 2002. Currently there are 650 Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar, but that contingent will increase in February to 2,200.

Lt. Col. Steve Borland, the Canadian deputy commander of the Kandahar force, said that contrary to previous years, there has been "no winter lull" in violence.

"There are a number of threats that we have exposed here in the form of improvised explosive devices that can be delivered by people, by vehicles remotely. There's any number of threats that we face every day here."

Many of the violent attacks have been claimed by Taliban militants, who have been fighting since the Taliban government was ousted by US-led coalition troops in 2001.

The Independent reports that this new wave of suicide bombings and the general rise in violence across the country have been described as the "re-Talibanization" of Afghanistan.

The new Taliban are deploying tactics that have torn Iraq to shreds, and Afghanistan is seeing a surge in the previously unknown practice of suicide bombings – 25 in four months. This is seen as the reintroduction of Al Qa'ida into Afghanistan – a devastating example of how over-extending the "war on terror" into Iraq is rebounding on the West with vengeance.

US military commanders in Afghanistan, however, have downplayed these fears before the past weekend's violence, saying that there is no certainty that the Taliban or Al Qaeda is regrouping in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post reports that the surge in violence comes as the US plans to hand off control of security in the volatile southern sector of the country to NATO troops, and just weeks before an international conference where countries will "weight their commitment to Afghanistan." It also coincides with a new push by coalition troops to pursue Al Qaeda and Taliban members in the lawless tribal region of neighboring Pakistan.

Reuters reports that NATO is now considering a "Plan B" to continue expansion of its forces if the Netherlands decides not to take part, according to diplomats in Brussels. The Dutch parliament is still considering whether to send an additional 1,200 troops to the area. The death of the Canadian diplomat on Sunday "will not help Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende convince sceptics in his coalition to back sending Dutch troops who would be a key part of the NATO force."

Originally, plans had called for NATO troops to increase their presence in the south from 9,000 to 15,000, with Canada, Britain, and the Netherlands making up the bulk of the new troops. But NATO officials worry that if the expansion of forces is delayed, it will affect the alliance's credibility as a security force and "and would be seen as a victory for the Taliban insurgents."

Unlike Iraq, where the American presence is viewed negatively by a majority of the inhabitants, an overwhelming majority of Afghans view the American presence in a positive light, according to a recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

However the Pak Tribune, a Pakistani online news site based in Islamabad, reports that the US decision to withdraw some of its troops, combined with this year's reduction of aid to Afghanistan from $1 billion to $600 million, has rekindled fears in the country that once again the West will "leave Afghanistan to the mercy of local powers."

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.

Canada's National Post reports that President Hamid Karzai has urged the world not to abandon his embattled country.

"We are in a joint struggle against terrorism, for us and for the international community," he said from his fortified palace in the capital, Kabul. "If you don't defend yourself here, you will have to defend yourself back home in European capitals and American capitals."