Afghanistan News March 3, 2006

March 3, 2006

US says Afghan poppy farming down
By Adam Brookes BBC News, Washington
The US government says the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan fell by nearly half in 2005. Counter-narcotic officials called it a significant decrease which was due in part to strong efforts by the Afghan government.

They were speaking as the US state department released its annual report on narcotics production worldwide. But the officials said they were concerned that poppy cultivation would increase in 2006.

Nearly all of the heroin flowing onto the streets of Europe and Russia is made from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan. And by the time Afghan opium has been exported, it is worth about $2.8bn (£1.6bn) a year.

The US government said the amount of land in Afghanistan cultivated for poppies in 2005 decreased by 48%. But because of good weather, the yield on that poppy crop was very high, so the amount of opium actually exported fell by only 10%, it said.

Still, American counter-narcotics officials said they were pleased and surprised at this fall in cultivation. They said it was because of concerted efforts by the Afghan government and its international partners. Many Afghans had heeded the call of President Hamid Karzai to stop growing poppies and had switched to alternative crops.

But the picture for 2006 looks more mixed. The officials said early indicators suggested poppy cultivation was once again on the rise this year. Anecdotal evidence from village elders and governors, as well as surveys of farmers, suggested some Afghans would be lured back to growing poppies by the easy cash they brought.

The officials also suggested that insurgents in Afghanistan may be encouraging poppy cultivation as a means of destabilising the central government.

The state department's annual report said the US was most threatened not by Afghan heroin but by cocaine imported from south and central America, and by methamphetamine - the cheap and dangerous stimulant that is wreaking havoc in some American communities.

Afghan drugs trade still a major threat: US
By Sue Pleming 03/01/2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Opium production and trafficking make up a third of Afghanistan's economy, and security issues and corruption hamper efforts to eradicate the drug, the State Department said on Wednesday.

In its annual worldwide drugs survey, the department said Afghanistan's huge drugs trade severely damaged efforts to rebuild the country's economy and threatened regional stability overall.

"Dangerous security conditions and corruption constrain government and international efforts to combat the drug trade and provide alternative incomes," said the report, released on the same day as President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Afghanistan en route to India.

The International Monetary Fund estimated legal Gross Domestic Product for the Afghan fiscal year ending on March 21, 2005, at $5.9 billion while illicit opium GDP was about $2.8 billion for the same period. These figures indicate illicit opium GDP accounted for roughly a third of total GDP.

"Criminal financiers and narcotics traffickers exploit the government's weakness and corruption," the report said.

The number of hectares (acres) under poppy cultivation dropped by 48 percent last year but good weather resulted in a better yield than usual, and production dropped by just 10 percent overall to 4,475 metric tonnes in 2005 from 4,950 in 2004.

Senior State Department official Anne Patterson said the drop in opium cultivation last year was also tempered by reports that poppy planting was again on the rise.

Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world's opium poppies and is the largest heroin-producing and trafficking country.

"I don't want to underestimate the difficulty of this, because Colombia is paradise next to Afghanistan," said Patterson of the challenge.

Thousands are killed every year and tens of thousands have been displaced by Colombia's 41-year-old guerrilla war, in which guerrillas fight with far-right paramilitary militias over control of lucrative coca-producing land.

The report said efforts to curb drug production were hampered by the insurgency in Afghanistan and drug-related corruption "at all levels of government".
"Corruption ranges from facilitating drug activities to benefiting from revenue streams generated by the drug trade," said the report.

An increasingly large portion of Afghanistan's opium crop was processed into heroin and morphine base by drug labs inside Afghanistan, easing its movement into markets in Europe, Asia and the Middle East via Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia.

Pakistani nationals were playing a more prominent role in all aspects of the drug trade, the report said. Last year's report was more pessimistic about Afghanistan, saying it was on the verge of becoming a "narcotics state" and pointing out that Afghan poppy cultivation had tripled in 2004 from the previous year.

Patterson said it would take years to tackle Afghanistan's drug problem.
"But it's important to do, not only because of the security of Afghanistan and Afghanistan's democratic institutions. It's also important to do because of the cheap heroin that's spreading into neighboring countries and Europe," she said.

Afghanistan prison riot 'is over' - BBC News Wednesday, 1 March 2006

Afghan police have regained control of the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi jail in the capital, Kabul, the government says.

"The agitation is over," Deputy Justice Minister Mohammad Qasim Hashmizai told journalists outside the jail. "Police are in full control."
The riot began on Saturday with inmates demanding better conditions. At least five deaths have been reported.

Thousands of Afghans disappeared or were tortured in the jail during Afghanistan's communist era. Mr Hashmizai said one body was found as some 1,300 prisoners involved in the rioting were moved under police escort to a new prison block.

Four inmates reportedly died earlier this week and a number of injured prisoners have been taken to hospital. At least 300 of the rioters were Taleban and al-Qaeda militants, officials said. Trouble started on Saturday evening, apparently sparked by a change in prison uniform rules.

Pul-e-Charkhi is a huge prison complex built in the 1970s on the outskirts of the capital. The vast and run-down jail is notorious for disappearances and torture during the communist era, correspondents say.

In January, seven Taleban suspects escaped from the jail, with prison guards accused by officials of helping the break-out. Following the escape, prison authorities ordered inmates to wear bright orange uniforms.

Britain committed to reducing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan
People's Daily - Mar 02 6:06 PM
The British government pledged on Thursday its commitment to reducing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan following the publishing of a United Nations report.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office also published its own report titled Drivers of Opium Cultivation report to coincide with the UN's Rapid Assessment Survey of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

"The UK Government wants to reduce the heroin reaching our streets from Afghanistan. The scale of the drugs trade in Afghanistan is enormous and the strategy to wipe out the trade will take time - there are no quick fixes," said Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells in a press release.

While agreeing with the UN survey on stable cultivation levels in the majority of Afghanistan's thirty-one provinces, an increase in cultivation in thirteen provinces and a decrease in cultivation in three provinces, the British report highlighted the diversity in cultivation.

The British government believes that eradication is just part of the overall Afghan and international strategy to tackle poppy cultivation. "Large seizures are being made, the Afghan police are being trained, alternative livelihoods are being created and counter narcotics institutions built up," said Howells.

"We remain fully supportive of the government of Afghanistan's poppy elimination campaign and we have strongly encouraged other international partners to support their work. The heroin produced in Afghanistan has a detrimental effect on Afghanistan's reconstruction and a devastating effect on young people in Europe, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and throughout the region," he added.

A recent report said two percent of British population had used cocaine, and most of the country's supply comes from Afghanistan.
Source: Xinhua

IRAN: UNHCR to assist 150,000 Afghan returnees in 2006
02 Mar 2006 20:18:16 GMT
ANKARA, 2 March (IRIN) - The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says that based on last year's returns it is budgeting to assist an estimated 150,000 Afghan refugees to voluntarily return to their homeland this year from Iran, host to one of the largest refugee populations in the world. UNHCR Iran adds that should the number of voluntary returns increase, it will adjust its programmes accordingly.

"The main challenge is to be able to merge desires and aspirations of Afghans to go back with the very difficult conditions in Afghanistan and the ability for many to establish sustainable living conditions and livelihoods upon their return," UNHCR country representative, Sten Bronee, said from the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Thursday.

"It is also crucial to sustain the understanding and appreciation both within Iran and Afghanistan for the predicament of the Afghans in making this difficult choice," Bronee added, referring to some of the challenges facing the effort.

Since the UN refugee agency began its voluntary repatriation programme for Afghanistan in 2002, more than 3.5 million Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland - the vast majority from Pakistan and Iran - the two largest host countries to the Afghan diaspora. More than 1.4 million Afghans have returned to their homeland from Iran, 844,000 of whom have received assistance from UNHCR.

In 2002, the refugee agency in Iran assisted 260,000 to return; followed by 142,000 in 2003, 378,000 in 2004, and 64,000 in 2005. This decrease in return numbers is seen as natural following several consecutive years of high return rates, according to the agency.

As part of that assistance effort, returnees register at one of 10 voluntary repatriation centres (VRCs) located throughout Iran - including the cities of Mashhad, Qom, Esfahan, Kerman, Shiraz, Yazd, Arak, Zabol, Zahedan, and Tehran, as well as a dispatching station in Khravan. In Iran they are provided with an assistance package, including a small monetary grant to facilitate their return.

After registration, returnees proceed to one of two exit points along the 936 km Iran-Afghan border, the primary one being Dogharoun in Iran's northeastern Khorasan province. A secondary border crossing point is at Milak in southeastern Sistan Baluchistan.

But despite the programme's successes, many challenges remain in Iran, where according to the government just over 900,000 registered Afghans still live.

"Another challenge is to ensure that the international community remains focused on the need for the continued support for Afghan refugees who decide to return voluntarily and for those who remain in the host countries. It is equally essential that the host countries in the region receive continued support for maintaining the refugees pending their return," Bronee explained.

The repatriation process in Iran takes place within the framework of the tripartite agreement, known as the Joint Programme. The main aims of the Joint Programme are to ensure that repatriation of all Afghan refugees who are registered with the Iranian authorities is voluntary, takes place with dignity and is bolstered by assistance towards reintegration once in Afghanistan.

Although the current Tripartite Agreement, signed in the western Afghan city of Herat in June 2005, is set to expire on 21 March, an extension is expected at the next Tripartite Commission between Tehran, Kabul and UNHCR on 8 March in the western Iranian city of Mashad.

A Message for Gen. Musharraf
The Washington Post - Thursday, March 2, 2006
PRESIDENT BUSH paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday to show support for its emerging democracy, which he rightly said is being watched by "people all over the world." Then he flew to India, where his visit centers on the rapidly growing common interests the United States shares with the world's largest democracy. It's hard to ignore the contrast with the third stop on Mr.

Bush's foreign tour this week: Pakistan, where Pervez Musharraf, a general who seized power in a 1999 coup against an elected government, still monopolizes power. But Mr. Bush is doing his best. "I believe he's committed to free and open elections," he said last week of his Pakistani ally.

If Mr. Bush really believes that, he's a lot more credulous than most Pakistanis are; they long ago stopped believing the public pledges of a leader who more than once has broken them. Gen. Musharraf has been promising to restore democracy since his coup, yet throughout his years in power he has sought to suppress Pakistan's secular democratic parties while striking deals with Muslim extremists. In one such bargain he promised to step down as Army chief of staff by the end of 2004, in exchange for an extension of his term until 2007 and new constitutional powers for the president and the army. He reneged.

Now Gen. Musharraf's surrogates have begun suggesting that he will postpone the elections promised for next year and have the parliament -- which was chosen in a highly irregular 2002 election -- vote to "reelect" him. In short, Gen. Musharraf clearly hopes to prolong his military regime indefinitely, while continuing to enjoy heavy political and economic support from an American president who has dedicated his administration to advancing democracy in the Muslim world.

To his credit Mr. Bush appears to understand the general's game and is making at least a modest effort to head it off. In a speech to the Asia Society before his tour, Mr. Bush said that "the United States and Pakistan understand that in the long run the only way to defeat the terrorists is through democracy," that "Pakistan still has a distance to travel on the road to democracy" and that "the United States and Pakistan both want the elections scheduled for next year to be successful." Mr. Bush should underline that message when he is in Islamabad this week. He should also make clear to Gen. Musharraf that his alliance with the White House and the Pentagon cannot preclude American support for building democratic institutions in his country. That must include efforts to help secular Pakistani political parties get back on their feet and prepare for a genuinely free election in 2007.

Despite Gen. Musharraf's many promises, Pakistan remains a deeply unstable country where the threat of Islamic extremism is great and growing. Though the general may be a tactical ally of the United States against that threat, his refusal to restore democracy in his country has only made it worse. It's time for the United States to stop banking on this unreliable general and start planning for the democratic government that should succeed him.

Afghanistan takes measures to prevent bird flu outbreak
People's Daily - Mar 02 4:21 PM
Afghanistan has taken precautionary measures to prevent and the possible outbreak of bird flu in the country, spokesman of the Public Health Ministry said Thursday.

"We have taken all necessary measures to prevent and deal with the possible outbreak of bird flu in the country," Dr. Abdullah Fahim told Xinhua.

He said this amid the increasing fear of the outbreak of epidemic in the region. According to report, seven dead chickens found in the neighboring province of Nangarhar have been taken to Kabul, the capital of the country, for further bird flu check.

"Despite of several tests, no case of bird flu has been detected, neither in bird nor in human," he noted.

The government has also banned the import and breeding of chickens in the eastern Kunar province. Besides, it asked shop keepers and poultry owners of Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar, to kill all chickens they have, for fear that they might be infected with bird flu from chickens imported from Pakistan.

"We have already issued letters to the Ministry of Commerce and to the custom departments to ban the import of poultry from bird flu-hit countries in the world,"the official said.

Nevertheless the warning, chicken imported from different countries are still available in bulk in Kabul and other cities roadside shops.

He also said that the Ministry for Public Health has trained 300 veterinarians to deal with the possible outbreak of the disease.

The Public Health Ministry has begun giving awareness to the people about the disease and the way to control it through printing and distributing pamphlets and leaflets, added the official.
Source: Xinhua

Afghanistan: Who Instigated The Pol-e Charkhi Prison Riot And Why?
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - March 2, 2006
Five days after it began, the crisis at Kabul's Pol-e Charkhi prison ended on March 1. Tensions now appear to have subsided, but questions linger.
One that has now been answered is how many people were killed when prisoners seized a wing of the high-security prison and during the subsequent standoff with Afghan security forces. Early reports indicated that five died and over 20 were injured, but the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has told RFE/RL that the current death toll is six. That figure may rise, though, as two of the 22 injured are in a critical condition.

Broader questions -- such as who instigated the riots and why -- have not been independently corroborated. But what the standoff will do is to return attention to the government's reconciliation program aimed at ending the neo-Taliban insurgency and the impact on future dealings with captured militants.

A Troubled History

That problems should arise at Pol-e Charkhi was in itself perhaps not a surprise, as twice in a little over a year there had been serious incidents at the prison. In December 2004, foreign prisoners attacked guards with razor blades. A subsequent shoot-out left one Iraqi and three Pakistani prisoners and four Afghan police dead.

Then, this January, seven prisoners escaped from Pol-e Charkhi, apparently by mingling with visitors. Some reports indicated they had links to the neo-Taliban or Al-Qaeda; the prison's governor, General Abdul Salam Bakhshi denied that, calling them unimportant prisoners.

It was a measure introduced to prevent a further prison break -- the introduction of orange uniforms to make prisoners distinguishable from visitors -- that, according to Deputy Justice Minister Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai, triggered the riots on February 26.

Hashimzai says the prisoners attacked their guards after refusing to wear the uniforms.

It is not clear who caused the deaths and injuries. When asked by RFE/RL whether the casualties were the result of the force used by the prison authorities, Olivier Moeckli of the ICRC said that "of course" there were "a few assaults against prisoners," adding that the use of force was restricted "mainly" to the first evening.

It is also not known why, on February 28, some prisoners resumed their violence after the chief negotiator, Sebghatullah Mojaddedi, had persuaded prisoners to allow the wounded and dead to be taken from the prison. Deputy Justice Minister Hashimzai speculated that the prisoners were receiving instructions from outside via mobile phones. It is not clear how prisoners at Pol-e Charkhi could have obtained phones.

The authorities themselves have been unambiguous about whom they believe instigated the uprising. The commander of Kabul police department's rapid reaction police force, General Mahbub Amiri, on February 28 said it was "clear" that "some Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners wanted to create chaos and escape." That was a view echoed by Hashimzai, who said that around 350 Taliban and Al-Qaeda inmates had been among the roughly 1,000 prisoners reportedly involved in the riot. The rioters are said to have shouted slogans against the United States and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The Reconciliation Program And Neo-Taliban Prisoners

While Mojaddedi did not go into details about who spearheaded the riots at Pol-e Charkhi, his presence as the head of the government's negotiating team could be viewed as a clue that the prisoners' leaders were in some way linked with the neo-Taliban. Mojaddedi, who is the speaker of the Council of Elders, the upper house of the National Assembly, also serves as the chairman of the Commission for National Reconciliation, which is trying to end the neo-Taliban insurgency by inviting militants to make peace with the government. (Mojaddedi was not the only name to be put forward by the prisoners; some wanted a pro-Karzai deputy and others the speaker of the People's Council of the National Assembly, Mohammad Yunos Qanuni, to act as negotiators.)

The prison does not hold the most of the more dangerous known Al-Qaeda members. Those remain in U.S. custody at the Bagram air base north of Kabul. The Afghan government is, though, increasingly taking charge of captured neo-Taliban combatants.

Among the prisoners' complaints were poor living conditions. In a report published in 2005, a UN-appointed independent expert mandated to review the human rights situation in Afghanistan, M. Cherif Bassiouni, described the conditions at Pol-e Charkhi prison as "sub-standard." Bassiouni complained that prisoners are "inappropriately shackled" in overcrowded cells, and also about "inadequate sanitation, open electrical wiring, and broken and missing windows during freezing temperatures."

Following the riots, though, the prisoners have now had to be moved to a wing of the prison where conditions are worse, says the ICRC's Olivier Moeckli. "The ICRC had worked and assisted the authorities in repairing the wings where the prisoners were held," he said. "Now…they are in a wing where quite heavy work needs to be done."

Some of the grievances were "reasonable," Mojaddedi said.

Controversially, he included in that list complaints "against prosecutors, judges, and the prison officials and about being jailed for no reason."

By legitimizing some of the grievances of the prisoners against prosecutors and judges and effectively stating that some of the prisoners have been incarcerated for no reason, the Commission for National Reconciliation opens the door for suspected anti-government militants to claim clemency through the reconciliation program even after they are captured in action. The danger is that this could prolong the insurgency.

Given the dismal state of the judicial system and prisons in Afghanistan, both Mojaddedi and the prisoners may, of course, have a legitimate point to make.

What the Pol-e Charkhi crisis should do is to bring the attention of the Kabul government and its international backers to the urgent need to turbo-charge the process of revamping Afghanistan's judicial system from top to bottom.

Taliban Rebels Still Menacing Afghan South
The New York Times By CARLOTTA GALL March 2, 2006
LOY KAREZ, Afghanistan — When Haji Lalai Mama, the 60-year-old tribal elder in these parts, gamely tried to organize a village defense force against the Taliban recently, he had to do it with a relative handful of men and just three rifles. "We were patrolling and ready," he recalled.

But they were not ready enough. The Taliban surprised them under cover of darkness by using a side road. One villager was killed, and 10 others were wounded by a grenade. Two Taliban fighters were captured in the clash. The rest disappeared into the night.

The men at Loy Karez were exceptional in making a stand at all. Few in southern Afghanistan are ready to stand up to the Taliban, at least not without greater support or benefits from the Afghan government.

In fact, four years after the Taliban were ousted from power by the American military, their presence is bigger and more menacing than ever, say police and government officials, village elders, farmers and aid workers across southern Afghanistan.

American and Afghan officials have said for months that the Taliban are no longer capable of fighting large battles, and in their weakness have changed tactics to roadside bombings or attacking soft targets, like harassing villagers, killing teachers and burning schools.

Yet despite its evident military supremacy, the American-led alliance has not been able to root out the insurgency. And the Taliban's tactics have succeeded in sowing fear, nearly all here agree.

The militants have closed down some 200 schools through threats and burnings across the south of Afghanistan, and killed dozens of government officials, tribal elders and civilians over the last year. Commerce has sharply declined in Kandahar, largely because of the rash of suicide bombings in the last few months.

In the villages, people are asking foreigners and nongovernmental organizations not to come around anymore, not because they do not need the aid, but for fear of reprisals from the Taliban, aid workers and villagers said.

Some, like the local Afghan border police commander, Col. Abdul Razziq, 30, say the situation is reaching a pivotal point, at least in his area.

"People are fed up now with the Taliban," he said. "They don't let organizations come and builds roads, dig bore wells and build schools. People are fed up with them. I think now people have to fight them. How long can they tolerate this?"

The American military reacts quickly with overwhelming airpower when it encounters a Taliban group of any size, as it did recently in Helmand Province when local officials claimed 200 Taliban fighters were at large.

But until now, the Taliban, criminals and drug smugglers, who often work together, have had an easy time in Helmand because there has been virtually no security presence in the province, neither from the Afghan Army nor an international force of any strength, said Col. Henry Worsley, the commander of British troops.

The British are starting to arrive in Helmand as part of the new NATO force taking over command of southern Afghanistan this year. The local police are also short of resources and lack training, he said.

"They are clearly a threat," he said of the Taliban and their drug smuggler allies. "But they do have a fairly easy time of it now, and that's going to change."

British troops are planning extensive patrolling with Afghan forces, including patrols on foot and at night to improve security in the villages, he said.

American forces have not spent much time and effort on Helmand, the commander of the United States-led alliance, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, conceded in a recent interview. Yet the alliance has spent a lot of time and investment on the neighboring province of Kandahar, where the Taliban have also expanded their influence.

General Eikenberry does not accept the suggestion of failure. "The challenge is not that the enemy is strong, but after 25 years of warfare, that the institutions of the state are weak," he told a gathering of elders recently in Kandahar.
When greeted with speech after speech calling on America to use its influence on Pakistan to crack down on the Taliban operating across the border, he urged the Afghans to look in the mirror, telling them they have a role to play, too.

"The best strategy when we have a problem is to hold a mirror to yourself," he said. "It means building a government, getting a clean government that is not corrupt, stopping poppy cultivation, building the Afghan National Army and national police. That is the first step."

President Hamid Karzai also appealed to tribal elders at a recent gathering to help, acknowledging that the government cannot achieve anything without the cooperation of the people.

But in southern Afghanistan, the people seem to be waiting for cooperation from the government. A police commander in Kandahar, Mullah Gul, who has been fighting the Taliban for four years, described them as the black sheep of the family. "They are a problem," he said, "but it is not something that we cannot handle among ourselves."

While villagers may not support the government, most are sitting on the fence, and only a few are actively helping the Taliban, police officials say. Villagers say they are caught in the middle, and receive little government support.

"We take them very seriously," said Jamal Khan, 24, a farmer from Nawa district in Helmand Province, said of the Taliban. "They come in the night to our village. We are not armed, and they ask for food and a place to stay. We cannot say anything. Then the government comes in the morning and says you gave a place to the Taliban. But what should we do?"

The school in his village was still in the process of being built, he said, but has become the bane of the villagers' life since armed men tried to burn it down. Villagers fought them off that time but came under fire.

"The district chief is telling the elders that we should safeguard the school, but the elders are saying we don't have weapons, we cannot fight with the Taliban," he said. Already teachers and pupils have stopped attending, he said, adding, "Soon they will burn the school, if not in a week, then in a year."

But there is evidence that at least some elders and others in the area, distrustful of a government that they say is corrupt and exploitative, are sympathetic to the Taliban. The elders from the Sangin district of Helmand, where American planes bombed recently, said they had joined the small number of Taliban fighters because the government officials preyed on them and robbed them.

"The Taliban are in the villages, among the people," said Ali Seraj, a descendant of Afghanistan's royal family and native of Kandahar, who contends that the government is losing the hearts and minds of the ordinary people.

With its corrupt and often brutal local officials, the government has pushed the people into the arms of the Taliban, said Abdul Qadar Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar.

"These are uneducated people, they do not trust the government, they see no help coming to them, so the local people start doing things like the Taliban do," he said.

In Loy Karez, Haji Lalai, the tribal elder who led the stand against the Taliban, identified only four men who were Taliban sympathizers.
As for the two young men captured in the skirmish, they had only joined the Taliban commander, Abdul Samad, that day. They did not even have weapons, they said in an interview at the police station in Kandahar, where they were being held.

Poor, uneducated laborers from the border town of Spinbaldak, they seemed to have joined up without much persuasion. "A friend said, 'Let's go and fight jihad,' " said Saifullah, 20, who sold shoes from a pushcart in the bazaar. "I did not want to go, but they made us go. We are uneducated; we did not understand."

Yet this motley group of six or seven was enough to scare the villagers. It was only when Haji Lalai, who has a reputation as a strongman, came back to live in the village that he girded it to stand up to the Taliban.

"We fought the Taliban and saved this land from the Taliban, so if the government does not help us and pay attention to us, then no one else will go against the Taliban," said Khudai Nazar, 32, a former policeman who joined Haji Lalai in his village defense force. "If they do talk to us, then the whole region will fight the Taliban."