Afghanistan News January 24, 2006

January 24, 2006

Afghan president welcomes protests against attacks, Pakistan
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has welcomed a wave of public demonstrations that followed a massive suicide bombing last week, in particular praising a provincial chief who implicated Pakistan.

Thousands of Afghans have taken part in protests in at least four towns to condemn the January 16 attack -- the deadliest in a recent string of suicide blasts -- and accuse Pakistan of supporting the perpetrators.

The blast killed at least 22 men leaving a wrestling match in the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan.

The latest demonstration was in the western city of Herat Tuesday with nearly 1,000 people shouting, "Down with Pakistan, down with (Pakistan President) Pervez Musharraf."

"The entire nation was saddened," Karzai said at a meeting of provincial governors in the capital Kabul. "There were demonstrations everywhere ... it was very good and courageous," he said.

The president singled out the governor of southern Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, who bluntly accused Pakistan of supporting Taliban and other militants apparently behind a spate of suicide attacks in his province, including the Spin Boldak blast.

Khalid has "very strong political courage and knowledge," Karzai said.

The governor's criticism of Pakistan reflects popular opinion in Afghanistan although the president has himself never made similar accusations.

Pakistan armed and funded the ultra-conservative Taliban, which controlled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, but officially dropped its support after a US-led invasion that ousted the militia for sheltering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

A Taliban-led insurgency, apparently backed by Al-Qaeda, has become increasingly bloody, leaving about 1,600 people dead last year, many of them militants.

Hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants fled to Pakistan after the hardliners were toppled. Afghan officials say they cross the porous border to launch attacks in Afghanistan, although Islamabad denies it.

Seven Taliban rebels escape from Afghanistan's main high-security prison
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Seven mid-ranking Taliban rebels have escaped from Afghanistan's main high-security prison, officials said Tuesday.

The men broke out of Policharki Prison on Sunday, said Gen. Abdul Salam Bakshi, the director of the country's prisons. The prison is located on the outskirts of the capital of Kabul. "We've launched a manhunt for these Taliban members, but there's no sign of them so far," Bakshi said. "They were all caught fighting for the Taliban."

Bakshi said the men were from the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold. They had been sentenced to between 16 and 17 years in prison, but he had no other details about their convictions or identities.

They escaped while relatives were visiting them at the prison, the general said. Ten prison guards who are suspected of helping the men escape have been arrested, Bakshi said.

The breakout comes as authorities are refurbishing part of the prison to improve security ahead of the return of Afghan terror suspects being held in U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. and the Afghan government announced last August that Afghans held at Guantanamo and elsewhere would be sent back to Afghanistan, but didn't say when.

American and allied Afghan forces captured thousands of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida members in Afghanistan after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the repressive Taliban government in late 2001.

Hundreds of detainees were classified as "enemy combatants" and transferred to Guantanamo, while others were detained at Policharki, or at a large detention facility at Bagram, the U.S. military's headquarters north of Kabul.

The escape is the second in six months. In July, four al-Qaida members, including one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia, broke out of Bagram, sparking a massive, but unsuccessful, manhunt.

Afghanistan at "huge risk" of bird flu: UN
Mon Jan 23, 8:47 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - War-shattered Afghanistan faces a huge risk from bird flu, including a strain that can kill people, and must take urgent action to protect itself, UN experts warned.

The Central Asian country is on the path of migrating birds that may be carrying the disease and about 85 percent of its people live in close contact with poultry, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Monday.

Afghanistan's veterinary services were also in disarray, having been ignored in the rebuilding of the country after decades of war.

"As Afghanistan is at the overlapping of several migratory routes, there is a high possibility the country could be infected. We couldn't say it is inevitable but the risk is huge," the FAO representative in Afghanistan, Serge Verniau, told reporters.

"If no action is taken immediately, the risk will increase," Verniau said at a briefing at Qargha Lake, a stopover for migrating birds about 10 kilometres (six miles) outside the capital Kabul.
"The enemy is at the gate."

The FAO proposed a programme that included strengthening animal disease surveillance and laboratory facilities, raising public awareness and preparing an emergency plan in case of an outbreak.

The organisation called on donor nations to support the programme, estimated to cost 1.5 million dollars.

Bird flu has so far killed around 80 people since 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.

Afghanistan's neighbour Iran has destroyed thousands of birds along its border with Turkey to create a buffer against the spread of the flu from that country.

Twenty-one human cases have been diagnosed in Turkey since January 4, with four of them dying.

US$1.5 MLN Needed to Ward Off Bird Flu in Afghanistan: Fao
Tuesday January 24, 2:11 PM
KABUL, Jan 24 Asia Pulse - The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has demanded US$1.5 million in assistance from donors to ward off a possible outbreak of bird flu in Afghanistan.

Avian influenza or bird flu is a contagious disease caused by a virus that usually infect birds and in some cases pigs. The virus can also be transmitted to humans through products containing meat of affected chickens and their eggs.

Speaking at a news conference here on Monday, FAO representative Serge Verniau described the fight against bird influenza as an important step. "The enemy is at the doorstep now and therefore we should take practical steps," he said.

FAO, in its recent report on spread of bird flu virus, revealed it continued to cross the borders and the neighbouring countries must adopt serious measures to avoid the disease.

The FAO has devised a three-pronged strategy for Afghanistan which includes public awareness, provision laboratory facilities and improvement in veterinary services across the country, Vernaiu said.

He said they had to provide diagnostic facilities at laboratories, observe chicken imports, start training programmes and a fowl vaccination campaign. "Afghanistan can be affected by bird flu due to movement of people and birds into this country." Meanwhile, the government had already adopted measures to avoid spread of bird flu in the country. In this respect, the Public Health Ministry has decided to ban poultry import without proper medical check up.

(Pajhwok Afghan News)

FAO Press Release – Kabul, 23 January 2006
Following the International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza in Bejing, China the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Afghanistan organized a Press Conference on 23 January 2006 at Bande Qargha, Kabul. The aim of this press conference was to provide the update information on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and to announce the need of an urgent national action plan to be implemented immediately to control the HPAI among the poultry in Afghanistan. FAO has identified the following three main components for the Urgent Nation Action Plan:

•    Strengthening animal disease surveillance and laboratory facilities,
•    Communication and public awareness to safeguard the health of poultry producers and their families,
•    Prepare a contingency plan of emergency procedures for outbreaks containment to enable a quick and effective response to possible outbreak of Avian Influenza.

The recent outbreak in Turkey underlined the fact that the virus continues to cross the borders and accordingly FAO called upon neighbouring countries including Iran to be on high alert, to apply surveillance and control measures and to ensure that the public is fully informed about the avian influenza risk.

FAO-Afghanistan is concerned that, with trade, the movement of people, animals and migratory birds, Afghanistan could become infected. Urgent short and medium-term actions that are to be undertaken by the Government, with the support of donors, to strengthen its capacity in order to rapidly detect the introduction of HPAI into Afghanistan and minimize its spread in the case of its occurrence.

In his speech during the press conference Mr. Serge Verniau FAO Representative in Afghanistan said “migratory birds will soon start their movement. They will rest on ponds, marshes, and lakes, such as this one here in Bande Qargha. Afghanistan is at a crossroads of the migration routes of many bird species and the country is at risk – the enemy is at the gate. We need to act now and in a practical way”.

For more information please contact:

Assadullah Azhari
National Information Officer
FAO Kabul Afghanistan
+ 93 (0) 70 274 515
assadullah.azhari@fao.org

AFGHANISTAN: TV channel rejects government allegations of improper broadcasting
KABUL, 23 January (IRIN) - A private Afghan television channel on Monday rejected government allegations that it had broadcast non-Islamic material after being fined US $1,000 by the Ministry of Information and Culture (MoIC) for showing clips from Bollywood films.

"We are extremely concerned about the recent decision made by the government which failed to provide prior clarification. The decision contradicts the current media rules and policies," Haji Mohammad Rawish, administrative officer for the Afghan TV channel, its official name, told IRIN, adding the decision had been made in the absence of their representatives.

"There was no representative from Afghan TV while the media monitoring commission was taking such a critical decision," Rawish noted.

While the constitution of post-conflict Afghanistan grants freedom of expression, the media is still very much under considerable pressure in different parts of the country, activists say - a fact many believe impedes the country's political and economic development.

"The media has made significant progress over the past four years. Such a decision by the government should not threaten ongoing media activities in the country," said Humayoon Daneshyar, a local journalist who works for the private radio channel Arman in the capital.

But that could prove a challenge in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative country that strongly values the strong role Islam plays in contemporary Afghan society. Under a revised March 2004 media law signed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, content deemed insulting to Islam was banned. However, penalties for contravening the law were left vaguely worded - leaving open the possibility of punishment in accordance with Sharia law.

Under the hardline Taliban regime there were few newspapers in Afghanistan, all of which were strictly controlled by the state. The only radio station was Radio Sharia, which broadcast mostly religious programmes. Television was banned.

But four years after the Taliban's fall, all that has changed. Around 300 publications are now registered with the MoIC. There are also 42 radio stations and five private television stations across the Central Asian state.

AFGHANISTAN: Government to present five-year development plan at London conference
KABUL, 23 January (IRIN) - The Afghan government will present a five-year development plan to its international supporters at a key conference in London at the end of this month, officials at the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed on Monday in the capital, Kabul.

Known as the Interim National Development Strategy (INDS), the plan focuses on security, governance and the rule of law, human rights, sustainable economic and social development, and counter narcotics.

The INDS was approved at an extraordinary cabinet meeting on Saturday, according to the foreign ministry.

"The government of Afghanistan will present the INDS plan to the delegates of participating countries and international economical and financial institutions for endorsement," Navid Ahmad Moez, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said.

"We expect the international community to support and endorse the INDS, and commit itself politically and financially in the long-term process of reconstruction and stabilisation of Afghanistan," Moez noted.

The plan is due to be signed by Kabul and the international community at the conference scheduled to take place on 31 January and 1 February in London.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan are expected to attend the meeting.

According to officials, only 22 percent of all foreign assistance is channelled through the Afghan government, with the remaining 78 percent being spent through NGOs. The Afghan government is now struggling to receive more donor support.

Afghanistan's international partners are likely to use the event to reassure the country of its continued support as it battles an increasingly deadly and destabilising insurgency while trying to rebuild the country after decades of brutal war.

Despite the presence of about 30,000 foreign troops across the country, the insurgency launched after the US-led coalition forces toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001 has become more violent, with around 20 suicide blasts in the past four months alone.

The country's economy also continues to rely heavily on the trade in illicit drugs - a threat NATO's top operational commander, US Gen James Jones, has described as more serious than the Taliban insurgency.

The UN and the government have estimated the total export value of Afghanistan's opium in 2005 at US $2.7 billion - equivalent to 52 percent of the country's official gross domestic product (GDP).

Suspected Taliban Attack Kills Afghan Police Commander
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
January 22 2006 (RFE/RL)-- A local police commander was killed and another policeman injured when suspected Taliban rebels ambushed their vehicle in southern Afghanistan.

Provincial governor Sher Alam said today the vehicle was attacked in the province of Ghazni yesterday. He also said he suspects the Taliban is responsible for the killing.

The attack took place in Ghazni's Ander district on a highway linking Kabul to the insurgency-hit provinces of Zabul and Kandahar. The Taliban, who were overthrown by a U.S.-led military operation in late 2001, are waging an insurgency mainly in the south and east.

More than a thousand residents demonstrated in Ghazni yesterday, accusing neighboring Pakistan of encouraging the Taliban to carry out attacks.

Wounded fight battles in hospital as enemies launch new attack in Afghanistan
Canadian Press via Yahoo! News STEPHEN THORNE 1/23/06
OTTAWA (CP) - Three wounded Canadian soldiers were fighting battles of their own at a U.S. military hospital in Germany on Monday while their comrades back in Afghanistan were attacked yet again.

None of the dozen Canadian soldiers conducting a routine patrol near Kandahar was injured nor were any vehicles damaged when a roadside bomb detonated 100 metres from their convoy.

"There was a bit of dust on the hood of one vehicle," said Capt. Francois Giroux.

Giroux said the device was not necessarily small. He said the power of the explosion could be affected by where the device was placed, how deep it might have been buried, and how it was covered, among other factors.

In Landstuhl, Germany, meanwhile, the most serious of three soldiers wounded in a Jan. 15 suicide attack at killed a senior Canadian diplomat was improving marginally after surgery to remove part of his skull.

Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey suffered massive head injuries in the car-borne attack and his American doctors were particularly concerned with swelling in his bruised and bleeding brain.

"He had a lot of difficulty with his breathing and in order to facilitate improving his breathing, we needed to go and relieve some of the pressure around his brain," said Maj. Nick Withers, a Canadian air force doctor.

"So he ended up having surgery to remove part of his skull to allow pressure in his brain to decrease and therefore allow us to do other procedures to clear some of the debris out of his lungs."

Bailey remained in a coma with paralysis - both medically induced. Withers has said the combat engineer from Edmonton was not recovering as well as doctors had hoped.

A CT scan had indicated bleeding inside Bailey's skull was abating, but doctors found that the swelling increased whenever they tried to move him.

A specialized medical team that arrived in Landstuhl from Canada on the weekend was to decide at the last minute whether to move him back to Edmonton on Tuesday with two other soldiers badly wounded in the attack.

"The final call will likely be made . . . just prior to departure."

Pte. William Salikin of Grand Forks, B.C., also suffered head injuries in the attack near Kandahar, while Master Cpl. Paul Franklin, a Halifax native, lost his left leg above the knee.

Political officer Glyn Berry, the mission's senior Foreign Affairs official, was killed. A native of Britain, Berry's funeral is to be held Thursday at London's St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church on Trafalgar Square.

Family members were at the bedsides of the wounded soldiers.

Salikin and Bailey were both battling lung infections similar to pneumonia - a result of the tubes that are helping them breath and bacteria acquired in Afghanistan, Withers said.

He said U.S. doctors went into Bailey's lungs after his head operation to suck out debris and infection using a procedure called a bronchoscopy.

Bailey "responded quite well after that and the amount of oxygen he required decreased," said Withers, one of two Canadian military doctors posted in Europe.

"Obviously we're concerned that he has a significant brain injury and the infection that he has is quite serious."

Salikin continued to improve as doctors eased the medication that has been keeping him in a coma. He has been opening his eyes spontaneously and showing two fingers on command.

"They continue to treat him aggressively," said Withers. "He also has a significant lung infection which is interfering with his respiratory function."

Franklin continued to recover Monday from his first reconstructive surgery. Doctors operated on his badly smashed right lower leg on the weekend in efforts to try to save it.

They won't know his prognosis for some time, Withers said.

Rising violence in southern Afghanistan, particularly an increase in suicide bombings, has reinforced fears the country may be subjected to more assaults modelled on those in Iraq.

At least 20 suicide attacks have rocked Afghanistan since late September, compared with just four in the first nine months of 2005, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The escalation signals a tactical shift by Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Attacks Strain Efforts On Terror
Alliance Is Tested By Incidents Along Afghan Frontier
By Griff Witte and Kamran Khan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 23, 2006; A01
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 22 -- Events along the ever-volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border this month have exposed deep fault lines in the anti-terrorism alliance among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and officials on all sides say their joint efforts against militants in the region are now highly precarious.

The heightened tension comes as militant extremists and the United States have both become more aggressive in their tactics, with the Pakistani government caught in between.

Two incidents in particular, which each killed more than a dozen people, have revealed just how tenuous relations among the countries have become.

In the first, U.S. missiles struck a house in the Pakistani village of Damadola where Ayman Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaeda, was thought to be having dinner. In the second, three days later in the Afghan town of Spin Boldak, a man drove a motorbike into a crowd gathered to watch a wrestling match and blew himself up.

Because the incidents took place on opposite sides of the border, they elicited responses with vastly different focuses. After the U.S. missile strike, thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets to condemn the United States. After the suicide bombing, thousands of Afghans took to the streets to condemn Pakistan.

The United States -- long frustrated because its soldiers are in Afghanistan while most of the militants they are hunting are believed to be in Pakistan -- has begun using unmanned aircraft known as Predators armed with Hellfire missiles to reach across the border. Pakistani officials are apparently notified in advance of such missions, and assist with intelligence. But the angry public response there to this month's attack raised questions about whether the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- which has sought to cultivate ties to the West without alienating radical Islamic groups at home -- can handle the domestic political fallout.

Afghanistan, for its part, has applauded the more aggressive U.S. stance. Afghan officials say they want the United States to go even further to stop Pakistan-based militants, who are hitting hard at a time when international commitments to securing Afghanistan have come into doubt.

Meanwhile, along the border, tensions continue to rise.

"We have a lot of grief in our hearts," said Abdul Hakim Jan, an Afghan tribal leader who helped organize a protest beside a border crossing Wednesday following the deadliest suicide bombing in Afghanistan in the four years since the fall of Taliban rule. "All the terrorists and the enemies of Afghanistan are because of Pakistan. They are receiving their training there and they are being sent to Afghanistan for attacks."

Pakistani tribal leaders, for their part, look a few miles west for the source of their troubles: the American military presence in Afghanistan. Throughout the past week and continuing Sunday, tens of thousands of Pakistanis have participated in boisterous rallies at which protesters burned effigies of President Bush, chanted "Long live Osama!" and denounced the Pakistani government for cooperating with the United States.

"People are so angry that this could become a major movement against the American slaves who are ruling Pakistan these days," said Liaquat Baluch, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party.

Volatility in the border region is nothing new. For centuries, the rugged, mountainous area has been largely beyond the control of any government. Both sides of the border are populated by religiously conservative Pashtuns, who in recent decades have freely transported money, drugs and weapons back and forth across the porous boundary.

But since the United States invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the border has taken on special significance. On the Afghan side, the United States has 19,000 troops who provide crucial support for the government and who enjoy a relative degree of popularity. On the Pakistani side, U.S. troops are officially forbidden from pursuing terrorists. As a consequence, many Islamic militants who found sanctuary in Afghanistan before Sept. 11 reportedly have taken refuge in the semiautonomous tribal areas where sympathies for al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, run high.

Until recently, the United States had been dependent on raids by Pakistani security forces to catch the fugitives, with mixed results. But in the predawn hours of Jan. 13, the United States used a different tactic, firing Hellfire missiles from drones in a bid to kill Zawahiri. Pakistani and U.S. intelligence sources have said they expected him to show up for dinner at a house in Damadola, but they now believe he was not there.

The missiles killed at least 13 others. After the attack, local officials said that only villagers were killed, among them women and children, who were buried nearby. But Pakistani intelligence sources have since asserted, without offering proof, that a handful of foreign al Qaeda militants also died, possibly including its chief explosives expert, a son-in-law of Zawahiri and an operational leader in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government's response has been as conflicted as the reports. Some officials joined with the protesters in vehemently denouncing the attack, while others acknowledged that militants operate in the area. Even as the Foreign Ministry lodged a formal objection with the U.S. Embassy, Musharraf stayed silent in public, except to warn his countrymen not to harbor terrorists.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri acknowledged in an interview that the strike has put stress on the government, which since 2001 has walked a fine line of assisting the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign -- and receiving billions of dollars in aid in return -- while also trying to appease radical Islamic constituencies at home.

"Such an action creates immense internal problems for us as the perception grows that the U.S. has no respect for our sovereignty," Kasuri said.

U.S. officials, however, say Pakistan's objections amount to posturing. According to American military and intelligence sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Pakistan had signed off on this month's strike beforehand and had even assisted with gathering pre-attack intelligence.

The use of Predator drones to strike targets in Pakistan is relatively new, and several security officials said it could not happen without the consent of the Pakistani government. There have been at least three such attacks since last May; one in December reportedly succeeded in killing a senior al Qaeda commander, Hamza Rabia.

But now, it remains unclear whether Predator attacks will be allowed to continue.

On Saturday, in a meeting with U.S. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, Musharraf said attacks such as the one aimed at Zawahiri "should not be repeated," according to Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who on Sunday denied that Pakistan had received prior notice of this month's attack, is expected to raise the issue with Bush when they meet at the White House this week.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official, however, said nothing was likely to change in terms of actual U.S. and Pakistani efforts at hunting militants.

"Proper protest has been made, but this will not alter the ground rules and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. It will continue as usual," the official said.

The latest U.S. missile strike came as suicide attacks by militants have been on the rise in Afghanistan, particularly in southern and eastern areas bordering Pakistan. In a country where such attacks have traditionally been rare, Afghan officials blame foreigners.

"It is difficult for me to imagine how it can happen without some kind of support from outside Afghanistan," said Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Others direct blame squarely at Pakistan, which they believe is trying to gain more influence in Afghanistan by sowing instability.

"We were using Pakistan as a base during the resistance times," said Hakim Taniwal, governor of Paktia province, referring to the U.S.-funded guerrilla war against Soviet occupation troops during the 1980s. "Now al Qaeda and Taliban are also using the Pakistani side to attack in Afghanistan."

Afghan government officials are feeling especially vulnerable now because the United States announced late last year that it would reduce its troop strength from 19,000 to 16,500. NATO soldiers are supposed to fill the gap by taking over some operations in the south, but the Netherlands, seen as pivotal to that transition, has wavered over whether it will send troops.

Meanwhile, the Taliban, al Qaeda and other groups that are trying to destabilize the nascent Afghan government appear to be taking advantage of the uncertainty.

"At the strategic level of war, this is a defensive insurgency," said Chris Mason, a retired U.S. diplomat who served in Afghanistan and is now a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington. "They're inserting just enough insurgents to shut down meaningful reconstruction in the south and keep the population on the fence."

Khan reported from Karachi, Pakistan.

Former exile to compose Afghan anthem
Tuesday, 24 January, 2006, 09:25 AM Doha Time
COLOGNE: The long-awaited call from Afghanistan's Ministry of Culture was music to Babrak Wassa's ears.

The Afghan-born composer, who has lived in Germany for 25 years, had just been commissioned to write the score for his homeland's new national anthem.

"I'm very happy. It's a great honour," Wassa said yesterday, adding: "I'll be finished with the orchestral score very quickly."

Wassa, 58, left Afghanistan for political reasons in 1980 and is now a German citizen. He lives in the town of Roesrath, near Cologne.

The melody of his anthem, soon to be heard in Afghanistan and around the world as well, is "simple and catchy, somewhat sprightly and optimistic," Wassa revealed. He said he would like to record it with the West German Radio and Television (WDR) Symphony Orchestra.

"My piece is a mixture of major and minor keys. The melody will be familiar to Afghans," Wassa said. In 2/4 time, it was one of two variations - each a minute and 20 seconds long - that he had proposed to Afghanistan's cultural authorities.

Wassa directs eight choirs in Cologne and the nearby Bergisches Land region.

He said composing the music for the anthem was a "point of honour" and that payment had not been discussed. "The composition will be a gift to the Afghan people," he declared.

The anthem's lyrics, which Afghanistan's government and parliament agreed on last autumn, celebrate the country as the homeland of many tribes.

Wassa, formerly the general music director for radio and television in the Afghan capital Kabul, was taken unawares when the Afghan government asked him in December 2005 to submit a proposal for an anthem.

"For a week, I had no idea at all. There wasn't any melody that I liked," he recalled. But then the notes began to flood into his mind. Wassa played a bit on a keyboard, sang along, and recorded the piece on computer.

Several weeks after his submission, he said the Afghan culture ministry, on behalf of President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet, thanked him for the successful composition. Finally, on Sunday evening, came the official go-ahead.

Wassa studied in Moscow on a scholarship, and after he returned to Afghanistan in 1978 he became general music director in Kabul.

But he said he had come under political pressure, had not been able to work freely, and had felt that he was in danger.

For a year, Wassa made preparations to leave the country. Contacts with other musicians helped him gain a German visa in 1980.

He said things had been difficult at first - "I had just $600 with me and didn't speak any German" - but that over time he had acclimatised to Germany.

Still, Wassa - who is known to many Afghans as a singer and actor as well as a composer - dreams about returning to Afghanistan.

"I have a great longing," he said. "Afghanistan is my homeland, my beloved fatherland." – DPA

Author's sales jump after Osama mentions book
Mon Jan 23, 9:07 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unexpected endorsement from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has resulted in a huge jump in sales for a book by a critic of U.S. foreign policy.

William Blum's "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" was ranked 209,000 on Amazon.com's sales list before bin Laden mentioned it in an audiotape released on Thursday. By Friday, the book was No. 30 on the Amazon.com list.

Bin Laden said al Qaeda group was preparing more attacks in the United States but also told Americans, "It is useful for you to read the book 'The Rogue State.'"

"I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum said on Friday in an interview with Reuters Television in his Washington apartment.

"I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from.

"If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."

Blum said some friends and family members were afraid the bin Laden endorsement might endanger him but he said there had been no threats and he was not concerned.

Blum's 320-page book, which was published in 2000, begins with a chapter titled "Why Do Terrorists Keep Picking on the United States." The first sentence says, "Washington's war on terrorism is as doomed to failure as its war on drugs has been."

Other chapters in "The Rogue State" are titled "America's Gift to the World -- the Afghan Terrorist Alumni," "The U.S. Versus the World at the
United Nations" and "How the CIA Sent Nelson Mandela to Prison for 28 Years."

Blum's other books include "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II," "Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire" and "West Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir."

Afghan women in the driving seat
BBC News By Sean Langan, Kabul Director, BBC Four's Afghan Ladies' Driving School Sunday, 22 January 2006
"I'm a broad-minded person," declared the Afghan driving instructor. "But I was shocked by her behaviour."

"Really?" I asked. His female student had laughed. Was that really so bad?

"It was shameful and embarrassing," he replied. "Her character is no better than that of an animal."

Afghanistan has changed a lot since the collapse of the Taleban regime in 2001.

The first democratic parliamentary elections in more than 30 years were held last September. And women - in some areas - have come out from beneath the burqa after years of being held virtual prisoners in their own homes.

They are now free to walk in public, without a male relative by their side, and can work, vote and even learn how to drive.

'Satanic' drivers

Girls can go to school, at least in the big cities like Herat and Kabul, and a fragile peace now exists in a war-torn country that has known only brutality and chaos since 1979. But some things, it seems, have not really changed at all.

Mamozai's Ladies' and Gentlemen's Driving School was one of the first driving schools in Afghanistan to allow women to enrol. The Taleban thought the idea of teaching women how to drive was "satanic", but Mr Mamozai's school now has more than 200 female graduates.

Even so, the women are often told to "sit up like a man" by their male instructors as they navigate the precarious back-roads of Kabul, and to "stop driving like a woman."

But then that is hardly surprising. Most of the instructors are ex-Taleban and they do not really think women should drive at all. They certainly would not allow their own wives to drive.

And yet that was not about to stop women like Roya, a young English teacher I met on the course, or Mukadas, an Afghan aid-worker and university student, from signing up.

They had experienced far worse in their lives, and nothing, it seems, was about to stop them from taking every opportunity now open to women in Afghanistan - however begrudgingly.

Roya had fled to Pakistan with her family during the Taleban regime, but many of the women on the course had been forced to abandon their studies, or jobs, and remain at home. And all of them had a horrific tale to tell.

One of the women who was learning to drive had been beaten by the Taleban for removing her burqa in a shop, even though the only male present at the time was a twelve-year-old boy.

But despite the fear of constant harassment, beatings and even arrest, many of the women I talked to had found the courage to defy the Taleban.

Mukadas, who had been forced to give up her place at Kabul University under the Taleban, risked her life by teaching at one of Kabul's many underground girls' schools at the time.

"We had a bell," she explained. "It would ring just in time to allow us to hide the books when the Taleban came." She laughed when I asked her whether she had been scared. "Never," she replied.

Old habits

"But I became ill, because of the constant pressure, and because I was forced to remain indoors for almost four years."

Mukadas has now completed her studies at Kabul University, voted in the recent elections, and harangued any driving instructor who dared tell her how to drive.

In fairness, many of the male instructors I met took it all in their stride, and one in particular, Muhhamad Dowoud, even spoke with pride about the courage and abilities of his female students.

In many respects, the instructors were doing their best to come to terms with the new freedoms in Afghanistan. They too had suffered, but old habits die hard.

I accompanied Roya on her driving test. It appeared to be quite simple, and I was sure she would pass. All she had to do was reverse the car round a white line painted on the road.

But then I had overlooked how nothing is ever easy for women in Afghanistan. Even something so simple as taking a test.

I watched as Roya walked towards the test car. A long line of men had gathered by the side of the road. As she walked slowly along the line, her head bowed down, she heard the whispers of invective and abuse.

She refused to tell me exactly what they had said, but I later found out she had been called a "prostitute", a "bitch" and an "un-Islamic whore." She failed the test. "We have freedom now," she said. "But we are not free to enjoy it."

UAE could be gateway to Afghan market
Khaleej Times - 22/01/2006
DUBAI — The last five years have witnessed a remarkable growth in Dubai's non-oil trade with Afghanistan.

Dubai's total foreign non-oil trade with Afghanistan has doubled from Dh460 million in 2000 and reached Dh873 million in 2004, said Abdul Rahman G. Al Mutaiwee, director general of Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) at the 'Defining Trade and Investment Opportunities in Afghanistan Conference' which was launched yesterday at Emirates Towers Hotel.

Statistics reveal that Dubai's total imports from Afghanistan in 2004 reached Dh14.2 million, and Dubai's exports to Afghanistan in the same year hit Dh142.9 million, whereas Dubai's total re-exports to Afghanistan in 2004 reached Dh 715.8 million.

Al Mutaiwee added: "Afghanistan enjoys an economic potential and a considerable reservoir of mineral, gas and other resources that could be exploited by investors in the UAE, as well as the investment opportunities in agriculture, road network, building dams and power generating stations."

Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori UAE Minister of Communications addressed the conference explaining the stability in Afghanistan and possible ways of cooperation between the two countries. He also said that as there are many Afghan businessmen in the country and the UAE could be the gateway to the Afghan market.

The conference, discussed investment opportunities in Afghanistan, Banking and Finance, Challenges and Opportunities. Several Afghan Ministers participated in the three panels as well as chief executive officers of major Afghan's companies.

The Afghan economy has been growing steadily since the past five years and the Afghan GDP increased by 9 per cent in 2004 and is expected to reach 14 per cent in 2005, according to Said Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to the US.

Mohammed Ibrahim, the president of ABC explained the role of the council in promoting commercial opportunities in Afghanistan through the active role of members of the council and also explained that Afghanistan is in rebuilding stage and have many opportunities in different economical sectors such as infrastructure and energy.

During the conference the new website of ABC was launched by the president of ABC, which offers information for the businessmen and investors. The Ambassador of Afghanistan to the UAE, Farid Zikiria explained the importance of this event.

He also announced the new airlink between Sharjah and Kabul that will start mid of next February with 3 flights a week explaining and added this would boost the relations and increase the bilateral trade between the two countries.

Al Mutaiwee concluded saying that: "We hope to see the trade relations between the UAE and Afghanistan growing through bilateral efforts to open new channels of direct economic cooperation, in addition to activating the communication between the business communities in both countries with the necessary establishment of modern economic institutions that could cope with worldwide economic movements.

WAS BIN LADEN A FRANKENSTEIN-CREATION OF THE CIA
By Peter Bergen - From: TPMCafe Book Club - Jan 20, 2006 –
Like Steve Coll I have no dog in the fight about the CIA's culpability (or rather lack thereof)in the rise of the Afghan Arabs. While the CIA has got many things wrong, helping bin Laden and the Afghan Arabs is not one of them. The real story is that the Agency didn't have a clue about bin Laden's importance until around 1995. I examine this question in some detail in chapter 3 of my 2001 book Holy War, Inc. I have pasted in below a goodly extract of that chapter.

Were bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs a creation of the U.S. government? Various books and multiple news reports have charged that the CIA armed and trained the Afghan Arabs and even bin Laden himself as part of its operation to support the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. They argue, therefore, that the United States is culpable in the jihads and terrorism those militants subsequently spread around the world. As we shall see, those charges are overblown and are not supported by the evidence. However, the CIA certainly made tactical errors during the war, some of which encouraged the growth of anti-Western Afghan factions allied to Arab militants.

For the United States, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 was an opportunity for a little payback: just as the Soviets had funded the North Vietnamese in their war against the United States, so now the Americans would finance the Afghan struggle against the Soviets. President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, put it succinctly: it was time, he said, "to finally sow shit in their backyard." The CIA took the lead in arming the Afghans, and from a strategic point of view that operation was a brilliant success. The last Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989. At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a little party was held in celebration.

But were the CIA and the Afghan Arabs in cahoots, as recent studies have suggested? One author charges: "The CIA had funded and trained the Afghan Arabs during the war." Another refers to "the central role of the CIA's Muslim mercenaries, including upwards of 2,000 Algerians in the Afghanistan War." Both authors present these claims as axioms, but provide no real corroboration.

Other commentators have reported that bin Laden himself was aided by the CIA. A report in the respected British newspaper The Guardian states: "In 1986 the CIA even helped him [bin Laden] build an underground camp at Khost [Afghanistan] where he was to train recruits from across the Islamic world in the revolutionary art of jihad." This defies common sense. American officials did not venture into Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets for fear of handing the communists a propaganda victory if they were captured. Bin Laden, meanwhile, had espoused anti-American positions since 1982, and thanks to the fortune derived from his family's giant construction business had little need of CIA money. In fact, the underground camp at Khost was built in 1982 by an Afghan commander, with Arab funding.

While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's military intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran ISI's Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987, explains with admirable clarity the relationship between the CIA and the Afghan mujahideen, or holy warriors: "The foremost function of the CIA was to spend money. It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan." A former CIA official told me: "As quartermasters we were okay."

Former CIA official Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency's Afghan operation in the late 1980s, says: "The CIA did not recruit Arabs," as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight, and the Arabs who did come for jihad were "very disruptive; the Afghans thought they were a pain in the ass." I have heard similar sentiments from Afghans who appreciated the money that flowed from the Gulf but did not appreciate the Arabs' holier-than-thou attempts to convert them to their ultra-purist version of Islam. Peter Jouvenal recalls: "There was no love lost between the Afghans and the Arabs. One Afghan told me, `Whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings."

Moreover, the Afghan Arabs demonstrated a pathological dislike of Westerners. Jouvenal says: "I always kept away from Arabs [in Afghanistan]. They were very hostile. They would ask, `What are you doing in an Islamic country?" The BBC reporter John Simpson had a close call with bin Laden himself outside Jalalabad in 1989. Traveling with a group of Afghan mujahideen, Simpson and his television crew bumped into a Arab man beautifully dressed in spotless white robes; the man began shouting at Simpson's escorts to kill the infidels, and then offered a truck driver the not unreasonable sum of five hundred dollars to do the job. Simpson's Afghan escort turned down the request, and bin Laden was to be found later on a camp bed, weeping in frustration. Only when bin Laden became a public figure, almost a decade later, did Simpson realize who the mysterious Arab was who had wanted him dead.

In 1998 Milt Bearden wrote a well-received thriller, Black Tulip, in which a top CIA operative establishes a base inside Afghanistan that is used by a "handful of American officers." This is, of course, a total fantasy. CIA officers did not travel into Afghanistan. Indeed, the CIA had relatively few contacts with Afghans. Vince Cannistraro was the staff director of the interagency group at the National Security Council that coordinated Afghan policy during the mid-1980s. Cannistraro says there were only six CIA officials in Pakistan at any given time, and they were simply "administrators" who made up the entire Agency operation in the country. Furthermore, a former CIA official told me that the Agency's officers in Pakistan seldom left the embassy in Islamabad and rarely even met with the leaders of the Afghan resistance, let alone with Arab militants. He recounted a story in which CIA officers had to literally beg to join a group of U.S. officials meeting with Afghan leaders in Peshawar in the mid-1980s

In short, the CIA had very limited dealings with the Afghans, let alone with the Afghan Arabs. And for good reason. There was simply no point in the CIA and the Afghan Arabs being in contact with each other. The Agency worked through ISI during the Afghan war, while the Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding. The CIA did not need the Afghan Arabs, and the Afghan Arabs did not need the CIA. So the notion that the Agency funded and trained the Afghan Arabs is, at best, misleading. The "Let's blame everything bad that happens on the CIA" school of thought vastly overestimates the Agency's powers, both for good and ill.