Afghanistan News March 11, 2006

March 11, 2006

Canada's top soldier escapes bomb attack in Afghanistan
Fri Mar 10, 2:04 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's top general was evacuated by a US Blackhawk helicopter from a meeting with village elders in Afghanistan after a nearby roadside bomb attack, officials told AFP.

The bomb was detonated by remote control at about 10:00 am local time Friday, blowing a wheel off a Bison armoured vehicle some 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Kandahar, military spokeswoman Captain Stephanie Godin said.

There were no casualties in the attack, she said. But, Canada's chief of defense, General Rick Hillier, was a mere 800 metres away from the explosion while he met with village elders.

Hillier was taken to a forward operating base in Gumbad by military convoy, then transported by US Blackhawk helicopter to a Canadian base in Kandahar.

Officials and Hillier himself downplayed the incident, saying he was not the target. Rather, insurgents were likely looking to maim any members of the international force in Afghanistan, members of the new national army or police, Hillier said.

"It was a day in the life of this mission," Hillier told CBC television.

"It all sounds a little bit breathless and perhaps a little bit exciting, but the reality was we carried on with our meeting ... We took our planned route back to the forward operating base and I left on schedule," he said.

"It wasn't specifically directed at me or a Canadian soldier deliberately."

Hillier also noted the international community would have to remain in Afghanistan for "a very long time, a decade or more" to rebuild the war-torn country and ensure it does not become a "fertile garden" for Islamic militants.

"This country was beaten for 25 years and you're not going to rebuild a country like this in less than a decade or a decade and a half," he said.

Canada deployed 2,300 troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan last month and took command of coalition forces hunting down militants from the ousted Taliban regime and their Islamist allies, including Al-Qaeda's terror network.

Ten Canadian soldiers and a senior Canadian diplomat have been killed in accidents or attacks during the mission that started in late 2001 after the United States ousted the Taliban.

Pakistan troops kill 30 militants in raid on hideout near Afghan border
Sat Mar 11, 2:22 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Around 30 foreign militants and their local supporters have been killed as Pakistani troops using military helicopters destroyed their hideout in a remote tribal town near the Afghan border, a military spokesman said.

The new operation against pro-Taliban suspects launched late Friday also blew up their ammunition dump and secondary explosions continued to echo in the area, near Miran Shah in the troubled North Waziristan region, late into the night, chief military spokesman Major General Shauklat Sultan told AFP.

"We got information that some local and foreign miscreants were hiding in the vicinity of Miran Shah. We launched strikes with Cobra and other helicopters," General Sultan said.

"According to our initial information 25 to 30 militants were killed" in the raids, he said.

The operation was launched after 8:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Friday, he said, adding that there were no arrests.

The secondary explosions from the den, which continued for sometime, indicated that a large quantity of arms and ammunition had been dumped there, the general said.

The tribal region bordering Afghanistan was the scene of bloody battles last weekend in which around 140 militants and five soldiers were killed.

Last week's fighting in North Waziristan, which coincided with US President US George W. Bush's visit to Islamabad on March 4, was described as the fiercest in a two-and-a-half-year campaign by Pakistani forces against suspected militants.

Hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters have sneaked across the mountainous border in the past four years, finding support from conservative Pakistani tribesmen.

Pakistan launched military operations in the tribal areas in October 2003 and deployed more than 80,000 troops along the border.

Mullahs and Americans mingle in Afghan cafe culture
Kandahar's new coffee shop is as busy as a London pub - without the women
Declan Walsh in Kandahar Friday March 10, 2006 The Guardian

Amid dark talk of foreign infiltration in Kandahar after a merciless run of suicide bombings, another, more benign, influence has already breached the city defences: the cafe latte.
In a dusty square clogged with wheezing rickshaws and turbaned men, Kandahar's first coffee shop has opened. Starbucks it is not - patrons are more likely to be fingering prayer beads than surfing the net - but The Coffee Shop offers freshly ground beans, pastries and the first flowering of cafe culture in the violent, arch-conservative south of Afghanistan.

Returned refugees, town grandees and thirsty mullahs drop their sandals at the door and take a seat to read a book, chat about politics and order a drink. Surprisingly in a land where sweet green tea is king, most opt for a steaming cup of fresh coffee.
"A lot of friends said it was a nice idea but wouldn't work," says the owner, Mohammad Naseem, a returned Afghan-American entrepreneur. He gestures to the tables of chattering men hunched over coffee cups. "Now look at it."

Since opening six months ago, The Coffee Shop has become something of an intellectual oasis in a city that was once the heartland of the Taliban's rule. A giant painting of the 18th century Pashtun legend Ahmad Shah Durrani hangs on a wall beside photographer Steve McCurry's famous portrait of a green-eyed Afghan refugee girl.

Customers can read freely from bookshelves stacked with tomes of Persian poetry and Pashtun history of Qur'anic verse. Dog-eared American bodybuilding and interior decoration magazines offer lighter reading.

Everyone who's anyone in town drops in, says Mr Naseem - professionals, journalists, once even a few mullahs. Some are straight out of central casting, such as the Americans from the nearby CIA base in the former home of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Many customers have come home from Pakistan, Iran and the US.

At one table Farid Khan, a finance ministry employee, flicks through Crusade Wars, a Pashto book about ancient conflicts between Muslims and Christians.

The 22-year-old's family, who live in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, calls twice a day to check he is alive. "They say, 'It's too dangerous there, please come home'," he says, "but it's not as bad as they think. We Afghans need people to come home, to make things happen."

Mr Naseem, a self-confessed coffeeholic, says he opened the cafe "to have a place to hang out with my buddies". Young men have unappealing alternatives for fun in Kandahar - either internet cafes with enclosed booths and a steady stream of pornography, or the samawads - seedy tea houses clouded with a thick marijuana fog. The city's only cinema was razed by the Taliban years ago for a mosque that remains unfinished.

By comparison The Coffee Shop is a clean-living establishment. All drugs are prohibited - including, unusually, tobacco - and reading is encouraged. "The south has a very intellectual history but people dropped books for guns during all the years of war. I want to reverse that," Mr Naseem says.

"Life is a risk in this part of the world. If we take a risk, we take it proudly. Sitting at home doing nothing means the enemy wins," he adds. "That's what they want - for us to be afraid, to hide, to leave the city."

By late evening The Coffee Shop has filled up and the atmosphere resembles a pub on a Friday night in London. A BBC stringer bursts in, swapping loud jokes with a bank official who responds with a monkey-like laugh. The barefooted customers explode into laughter.

As ever in Pashtun society, there is one glaring absence - women. To solve this Naseem plans a "family" area upstairs, but separate from the boys. Selling coffee is one thing but sexual liberation might be a bridge too far.

"I don't want to do anything out of whack with local culture," he says. "You can't rush things around here."

Spain to increase troops in Afghanistan
MADRID, March 10 (UPI) -- In light of Afghanistan's deteriorating situation, the Spanish government has decided to increase its military commitment to ISAF.

El Pais reported that the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will request that the Cortes, the Spanish parliament, authorize sending an additional 200 soldiers to Afghanistan for the International Security Assistance Force there. The new deployment will boost the number of Spanish soldiers in ISAF to 740.

The news will be welcomed in Washington, which has regarded Zapatero's government with suspicion after it withdrew Spanish peacekeepers from Iraq following the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 and wounded hundreds more.

The announcement follows the March 6 visit to Spanish troops in Badghis province by Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Spain has lost a number of troops in Afghanistan. In May 2003, 62 Spanish soldiers died in a plane crash in Turkey while returning from Afghanistan. Another 17 Spanish soldiers died in August 2005 in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

The new troops will be deployed to provide increased security for the Spanish troops already there and help speed up reconstruction efforts.

British general will lead mission in Afghanistan
First time U.S. troops have followed a foreign commander since WWII
By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, March 11, 2006
STAVANGER, Norway — A NATO headquarters unit is in the midst of training for a deployment to Afghanistan that — as early as this summer — will see the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps assume command of all foreign troops in the country.

It will be the first time since World War II that U.S. troops at war would be under the theaterwide command of a foreign officer, in this case, a British three-star general. It will also mark a historic expansion of NATO’s mission outside Europe, possibly providing a blueprint for alliance missions in Africa or elsewhere.

“I’ve absolutely no doubt” NATO is ready to lead the force, the ARRC commander, British army Lt. Gen. David Richards, said in an interview. If attacked, “we will respond robustly to whoever wishes to take us on. The NATO [rules of engagement] are more than robust enough to deal with anyone who wishes to tangle with us.”

Richards also said that member nations such as Germany and Italy have, in almost all cases, released their troops from “caveats” that restrict how they can participate in the mission.

The ARRC — a Rheindahlen, Germany-based headquarters of 450 troops from 17 nations, including around 40 Americans — is completing its final mission rehearsal exercise at a NATO compound in Norway. The rehearsal closely follows the intended plan for NATO: In a “Stage III” that begins a few months after the ARRC’s deployment in May, troops in southern Afghanistan will fall under NATO command as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

In “Stage IV,” that command would expand east, effectively bringing all forces in the country under a unified NATO command. The U.S. commander of Combined Joint Task Force-76, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley of the 10th Mountain Division, would then also become a deputy commander for ISAF.

While some observers believe political and military considerations would keep Stage IV from happening before the fall, Richards — and American Gen. James L. Jones, supreme allied commander Europe — said it could happen sooner than expected.

Stage III could go into effect as early as June or July, with Stage IV coming as soon as 30 days later.

“It is a political decision. ... NATO’s already agreed in principal, it’s a matter of doing it,” Richards said.

Though U.S. troops would be under NATO command, the military roles will follow a complicated division. American forces will continue to conduct “active” counterterrorism operations, with the NATO/ISAF command focusing on broad security and reinforcing the Afghan government and security forces.

Poster-size copies of the “commander’s intent,” laying out the goals and rules for the deployment, are papered all over the walls of the training center. By Thursday, the exercise had begun in earnest, with simulated reports of friendly-fire incidents, bomb attacks and bird flu outbreaks. The exercise is the culmination of 18 months of preparation for the deployment, including a larger field exercise in November.

Soldiers currently deployed with the American-led Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan (CFC-A) and Combined Joint Task Force-76 (CJTF-76) traveled to take part in the exercise. Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, who finished a year as commander of CJTF-76 earlier this month, also attended.

“We want to give them situational awareness and try to add realism from our experience in Afghanistan,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bob Hom, who was playing the role of CFC-A commander in the exercise. Hom is in his 11th month of an Afghanistan deployment as a liaison officer.

For some of the U.S. personnel who have already served in Afghanistan, the exercise reinforced many of the things they had learned in their first tour.

“Though there is no counterterror mission, the broad security tasks are similar. It’s putting more of a multinational force in place,” said Army Lt. Col. Tarn Warren, the ARRC chief of current plans. “We’re expanding and we’re aware of the historical significance.”

The exercise also included several civilian advisers on politics, culture and other issues. The team includes former U.N. officials and Afghan political advisers.

Simon Brooks, an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate to western European militaries, also took part, but for real-world reasons. When NATO expands its role, how will it handle detainees?

NATO officials say they will follow a “96-hour” guideline under which they must transfer prisoners to the Afghan government after a four-day period. But complications arise if those prisoners are then mistreated or abused by Afghan officials. How would NATO nations react?

The week’s lessons and a warning for the Afghanistan mission might inadvertently have been captured best during a Wednesday briefing that kicked off the exercise.

“Many of the problems will be of your own making. Predict that trend to continue,” British Air Marshal Peter Walker, who commands the Joint Warfare Center in Stavanger and oversees the exercise, told the assembled troops.

“You cannot afford single points of failure. There is no limit to how bad things can get. So be careful.”

Commander to draw on lessons of the past for Afghanistan mission
By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, March 11, 2006
STAVANGER, Norway – British army Lt. Gen. David Richards will lead the NATO force tasked with a historic expansion of the alliance’s mission. By summer, Richards and the Allied Rapid Reaction Force could be in command of all foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Richards — known for his knowledge of military history and a veteran of operational commands in Northern Ireland, East Timor and Sierra Leone, among others — makes clear the planned divisions for troops in Afghanistan.

“We have what we in the military call a counterinsurgency role. But the intelligence-led, seek-and-destroy missions against high-value targets ... al-Qaida-type operatives, that is not something that NATO will be engaging in,” he said this week.

“Our underpinning purpose is not a counterterrorist mission, it is to extend and deepen the government of Afghanistan and to create the environment that they and the international community can build up economic development.”

One of the great challenges is tackling Afghanistan’s resurgent drug trade, which allegedly funnels funds to insurgents. Richards said NATO forces take a long-view approach and would work with Afghan security forces to persuade poppy growers to give up the drug trade.

“You will not see NATO soldiers lopping off the top of poppies,” he said.

“NATO will not get involved in poppy eradication because we are deeply cautious that if we get it wrong and create the wrong environment, we will tip otherwise perfectly law-abiding and cooperative people into the opposition’s camp.”

Richards also advocates a longer-term approach to dealing with the insurgency. In recent weeks, he said, he has been influenced by an article written by a former Indian army officer who dealt with insurgents in Kashmir, the disputed territory between India and Pakistan.

“During the first year of my counterinsurgency duties, I believe I created more insurgents than I, for want of a better word, eliminated,” Anit Mukherjee writes. “This was not only because of inexperience, but also because I lacked fundamental knowledge of the terrain, the people, the culture.”

Richards is determined not to repeat those mistakes.

“Perhaps it is not an immediate solution, but I think your best security is your population around you, who also resent the idea not only of one of our soldiers being killed but some of their family being caught up. ... It is not going to be solved overnight,” he said.

“As long as I have my freedoms and enough people, we can make this work,” Richards said. “But don’t forget we are there to create an environment, we are not there to charge over the Hindu Kush and take over every sort of outpost of opposition.”

Growing strength of Pakistani Taliban worries U.S. officials
Knight Ridder Newspapers By Ken Moritsugu Thu, Mar. 09, 2006
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A Pakistan-based movement inspired by the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan is growing along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, challenging U.S.-led efforts to stamp out insurgents in Afghanistan and hunt down Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.

Reports from the South Waziristan region, which is closed to foreign journalists, indicate that local leaders who also call themselves Taliban are setting up offices, recruiting followers and, in some places, acting as local judges.

In Wana, the regional capital, about 20 miles from the Afghan border, these Pakistani Taliban are laying down a strict code of conduct: Men are forbidden to shave, for example, and barbers, fearing punishment, are said to no longer offer the service.

Pakistan, under U.S. pressure, has deployed 80,000 troops to the border region to try to suppress the movement. While some Taliban encampments have been destroyed, their continued presence illustrates the limited success of the three-year military campaign.

"I think the government will be able to quell but it will not be able to root out the insurgency," said Afrasiab Khattak, a leader of the Awami National Party, which opposes the rule of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president.

The movement's growing strength deeply concerns U.S. officials. President Bush raised the issue when he met with Musharraf last weekend in Islamabad, as did Gen. John Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East and Central Asia, on a follow-up visit this week.

While American officials don't have a clear picture of the situation, some worry that Musharraf's heavy-handedness, including the use of helicopter gunships and artillery, and cross-border U.S. missile attacks aimed at al-Qaida members are fueling support for the movement.

Followers of the Pakistani Taliban are primarily members of the Pashtun tribes of the region, though they include some Afghans, Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban fell. Ethnic Pashtuns, who live on both sides of the border, made up Afghanistan's Taliban movement.

Led by commanders and radical clerics, the Pakistani Taliban follow the same unbending - many would say repressive - moral code as the Afghan Taliban and use the same terror tactics to intimidate their enemies.

The movement presents two problems for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. First, the Pakistani militants shelter Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida leaders and fighters as they flee American and Afghan forces. Secondly, Pakistani recruits reportedly are being trained to launch attacks and suicide bombings in Afghanistan.

The extent of the problem is difficult to measure, but it's become large enough to increase tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Pakistan to act on a list of Taliban leaders and their whereabouts in Pakistan that the Afghan government had provided to Pakistan. Musharraf, in a CNN interview, retorted that the list was dated, and described the location given for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as "absolutely nonsense."

It's also a growing challenge to Musharraf's ability to maintain stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan. He remains at odds with India over Kashmir, faces a growing insurgency in Baluchistan province and is wrestling with a host of other problems, from endemic corruption and poverty to hostility over his cooperation with the United States.

Bush said after his meeting with Musharraf that he was satisfied with Musharraf's commitment to capturing al-Qaida leaders. But Musharraf played down any expectations of finding bin Laden or his deputy, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri.

"We don't know where they are," he told CNN. "We are launching our operations on all al-Qaida positions that we come to know, al-Qaida or Taliban. And in the process, if we can get them, we'll get them. But we don't exactly know where they are."

In South Waziristan, the government - amid mounting army casualties after two years of fighting - negotiated peace agreements with various Pakistani Taliban factions in late 2004 and early 2005. The leaders were granted amnesty in return for halting attacks.

The amnesty enabled Taliban groups to re-establish themselves in much of South Waziristan, including Wana, said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist who once interviewed bin Laden and has covered the Taliban movement for years.

"The Taliban have very smartly survived through these peace agreements," Yusufzai said.

Taliban activity now seems to be spreading to North Waziristan, in part because the military campaign in the south drove many militants to the north.

Even as Bush was meeting with Musharraf last weekend, Taliban fighters seized control of key buildings in Miran Shah, a North Waziristan town about 12 miles from the Afghan border.

Pakistani forces dislodged them only after firing artillery into the town, damaging buildings and sending the local population scurrying for safety. The Taliban have retreated to the surrounding hills and nearby villages, where residents suspect they're planning their next attack.

"I think South Waziristan is almost in the control of the extremist groups, and the same is now happening in North Waziristan," said Behroz Khan, the chief of the Peshawar bureau of The News, a Pakistani daily newspaper.

"The military cannot win against them," he added.

The battle in Miran Shah drove hundreds of people out of the town and surrounding villages. Most had to walk 12 miles to a checkpoint, as the military had cut off traffic to the town.

"When they fight, then we feel in danger," said Sibghatullah, a teenager who fled with 30 members of his extended family to the city of Bannu, and who goes by only one name. "Our houses can be destroyed."

Refugees at Bannu acknowledged the Taliban presence in their North Waziristan villages, but offered differing accounts of their influence. Some said villagers initially had gone to the Taliban to resolve disputes. Others said Taliban brutality had cost the movement popular support.

The Taliban won early accolades in the Miran Shah area late last year, when they took on and defeated a local bandit and his fighters.

But the aftermath of the fight appalled others. A Taliban video of the aftermath of the combat shows - perhaps unwittingly - several bystanders in the all-male crowd raising hands to cover their mouths in apparent shock as one bandit's severed head is displayed.

The video also shows the badly wounded bodies of dead bandits stripped to the waists and strung up by the necks for display.

However, Khan, the Peshawar bureau chief, said there also were indications that the military operation had turned the local population against the government. The army and the central government are dominated by majority Punjabis, who long have been rivals of the Pashtuns.

"So far, the Pakistani government and the U.S. government have only earned enmity," Khan said. The military deployment "has expanded the circle of enemies in the region rather than reducing it."

Construction work begins on key bridge in Herat
HERAT CITY, Mar 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Construction work on a half-kilometre bridge on the Harirood River started on Thursday to facilitate the huge traffic of the four districts of the Western Herat province and Kandahar-Herat Highway to the central capital.

Provincial head of the Public Works Department Habibullah Timori told Pajhwok Afghan News the project was started with US fund to reduce the traffic load on the bridge that was linking Shindand, Adraskan, Guzra and Pashtun Zarghun districts.

The length of the bridge was 409-metres while its width was seven metres that was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), he added.
Ahmad Qureshi

27 bags of explosives, arms seized in Baghlan
PUL-I-KHUMRI, Mar 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Police Thursday claimed recovering 27 bags of chemicals weighing over 10 tons used in making bomb and some 300 bullets from a truck in the northern Baghlan province.

Provincial police chief General Mir Alam told Pajhwok Afghan News the explosives were skillfully placed in the hidden parts of the truck. They had apprehended the truck driver and had started further investigation, he added. The chemicals were used for generating bomb and mine, he concluded.

Shir Mohammad Jahish

US pledges aid for training Afghan police
KABUL, Mar 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United States Thursday pledged $763m aid for the training of special counter-narcotics force in Afghanistan to eliminate poppy crops and menace of drug-trafficking from the region.

A press statement issued from the Presidential Palace here stated US ambassador Ronald Neumann and Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah signed an agreement to enhance the skill of police in fight against the drugs.

Neumann said the newly vowed fund would be used to train special counter-narcotics force, border police and Kabul Airport police.

"The accord is sign of the US commitment towards the people of Afghanistan and the elected government," the statement quoted Neumann as saying.

Hailing the donation of the US, Dr Abdullah said the fund would play an important role in pushing the drive against poppy forward.

The US also pledged more than a billion aid for Afghanistan in the last month's London Conference.

Afghanistan has vowed in its five-year plan adopted in the London Conference to effectively enhance its law enforcement capability to tackle the drugs menace by the end of the five-year term.

Waheed Rahmani

Fire at godowns causes $2m loss to Kunduz businessmen
KUNDUZ CITY, Mar 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Fire erupted on Thursday in 16 godowns gutted 300 tons of goods worth $200m in the northern Kunduz province.

45-year-old Noorullah, owner of the godowns told Pajhwok Afghan News the fire was caused by shot circuit that destroyed foodstuff, fertilizers, and other goods of about 100 traders.

The entire items were reduced to ashes, he said, adding the fire also caused him $.3m loss as well. The warehouses were located in the basement of one floor building of Haji Habibullah market in second district of the Kunduz city.

Representative of Alkozay International Company claimed his goods including 5,000 cartons of cigarette, huge amount of tea, sugar, soap and chocolate worth $700,000 were burnt.

He also complained the firefighters reached the spot pretty late. The fire extinguishers insulted instead of helping them, he added.

However, intelligence chief Muhammad Raziq Yaqobi said security forces arrived the scene an hour after the fire started and police thwarted other people who wanted to loot the goods.

He claimed police protected 60% of goods from gutting. He said there was no fire fighting force in the province and urged the government to address the problem.

Rohullah Arman

Poppies on 7,500 acres destroyed: Kandahar governor
KANDAHAR, Mar 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Officials claimed on Thursday they eradicated 7,500 acres of poppy crops in the southern Kandahar province this last month, as counter-narcotics agents stepped up a countrywide anti-drugs campaign.

Provincial Governor Asadullah Khalid told Pajhwok Afghan News the drug crops were destroyed in six districts of Kandahar, one of the Afghan provinces producing large quantities of opium.

After the rip-roaring success of the drive in Dand, Maiwand, Reg, Daman, Arghandab and Zherai districts, the governor vowed, they would not spare poppies cultivated elsewhere in the restive province, a former Taliban stronghold. He said the poppy-eradication drive was set to enter the fourth and final phase.

Khalid added alternative livelihood projects and the anti-drugs effort continued simultaneously. The government is distributing improved wheat seeds and fertilizers on deferred payments to compensate the growers shunning poppy cultivation.

Muhammad Hassan, cooperative officer at the Kandahar Agriculture Department, told Pajhwok the government had provided improved seeds and fertilizer to about 14,000 growers in Arghandab and Zherai districts alone. Farmers in other districts would soon receive similar assistance, he promised.

Saeed Zabuli