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US, Afghan troops kill three "terrorists," capture one
Wed Nov 1, 1:57 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - US and Afghan troops have killed three "terrorists" during a clash with militants in violence-hit southeastern Afghanistan, the US-led coalition said.
Another suspect was captured during a raid at a compound in Khost province near the Pakistani border, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
The nationalities of the militants killed were not released.
"Credible intelligence led the combined force to the compound which was a refuge for terrorist network facilitators," it said.
"Terrorists continue to exploit innocent civilians in a misguided attempt to shield themselves," it said referring to the presence of women and children in the same compound, none of whom was injured, according to the military.
International forces operating in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban in a US-led military offensive in 2001, have often accused Taliban rebels of using civilians as human shields.
The US-led coalition handed over control of foreign military operations to 31,000-strong NATO's International Security Assistance Force in July but still has 8,000 troops under its command for "counter-insurgency" operations.
The 2,450-kilometre (1,500-mile) porous Afghan-Pakistan border has been hard-hit by a wave of insurgency blamed on Taliban, their al-Qaeda allies and supporters of former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Blast hits convoy of foreign troops in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A blast hit a convoy of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, residents said, in the latest wave of the bloodiest violence by suspected militants since Taliban's ouster in 2001.
The cause of the blast and reports of casualties were not immediately available.
The blast took place on the main highway leading to a NATO base outside Kandahar city.
Apart from NATO, U.S.-led forces are also stationed in Kandahar, part of Taliban's main bastion.
Taliban activity up on Pakistan border-US report
WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Taliban activities along the Afghan-Pakistan border region have increased in the two months since Islamabad struck a controversial deal with militants, suggesting the problem remains unresolved, according to a congressional report released on Monday.
U.S. officials, while skeptical, took a wait-and-see attitude after President Pervez Musharraf's government on Sept. 5 signed a truce with pro-Taliban militants that was aimed at ensuring a permanent peace in North Waziristan. Critics feared the pact would give the Taliban a sanctuary in the rugged region.
"Seven weeks after the deal was struck, the rate of Taliban activities in neighboring Afghanistan appears much increased and some reports have the militants failing to uphold their commitments," said the report by Alan Kronstadt, an Asian specialist at the Congressional Research Service, which does research for the U.S. Congress.
"It is possible the 'Pakistani Taliban' in North Waziristan is seeking to establish a local administrative infrastructure much as was done in South Waziristan following a similar truce there in April 2004," the report said.
Under the deal, the Taliban vowed to distance themselves from foreign militants and to end the cross-border movement of militants into Afghanistan.
Pakistani government forces, meanwhile, agreed to refrain from further military operations in the area and to withdraw from numerous checkpoints.
Islamabad argued that the deal would marginalize militant forces while not impairing the government's efforts to pursue al Qaeda, which is said to also operate along the border.
Afghanistan will be third Vietnam for US: Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Islamabad, Oct 31, IRNA
Afghanistan will prove a third Vietnam for the United States and Afghans will continue their jihad against the coalition forces, former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said in a four-page statement issued from an undisclosed location on Monday.
According to the Pakistani daily 'Daily Times', Hekmatyar said that he was happy at the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq, which, he said, showed that the US was being defeated there and in Afghanistan.
He said that US President George Bush had compared Iraq with Vietnam and claimed that Afghanistan would become the third Vietnam for the US after Iraq.
The former Afghan prime minister said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would break the US economic backbone and its fate would be similar to that of the Soviet Union.
Hekmatyar's statement is the second since he released a four-page statement on October 23 to greet Afghans on Eid-ul Fitr.
Afghan customs chief 'removed by mafia'
Tuesday, 31 October 2006 BBC News By David Loyn Developing World Correspondent
The head of customs at Kabul airport claims he has been sacked for being too good at his job.
General Aminullah Amrkhel is now living in fear of his life at home.
While the general was in charge of customs, the number of smugglers arrested rose significantly, and when he was removed from his post earlier this month, he says that he was on the verge of breaking up a major crime ring that was smuggling drugs through the airport.
General Aminullah claims that a criminal "mafia" is now so powerful in Kabul that it had the power to have him removed from his job.
"This dismissal is unjust and I totally reject it. It is a plot against me and against the law. The same people who are supporting the mafia have got me out of my job," he said.
Now the Afghan attorney-general's office is threatening to arrest him for failure to answer their questions into alleged irregularities.
This is not the first time that there have been claims against him, in what looks like a concerted campaign to get him out of his job.
After investigators failed to find anything against the general earlier this year, they were sacked.
Others 'under threat'
In a BBC report in April, the general expressed his impatience at being obstructed while doing his job.
He released a remarkable tape showing a woman suspect demanding to be released, although when she was arrested she was carrying several kilograms of heroin strapped to her body.
She threatened the customs officers, claiming to have influential friends.
Her claims proved to be right when she was in fact released shortly afterwards, and was only re-arrested to face trial after Gen Aminullah personally appealed to the interior minister.
Kabul's head of criminal investigations, General Ali Shah Paktiawal believes that he is under threat too.
He has had the windows of his office painted over so that he does not present an easy target while sitting at work.
He said: "Aminullah is my good friend. He is an honest man, the sort of man Afghanistan needs."
But he says that his case is different for now, in that although he is under threat from criminals, the government is not yet trying to obstruct him.
When I asked him why he is under threat, he answered with the same word used by Gen Aminullah - the mafia.
Gen Aminullah has had training in Britain, and won widespread international support for his tough stand at the airport.
It is one of the key transit points for the export of heroin, which is Afghanistan's largest foreign currency earner.
He claims to have been offered large bribes to look the other way on several occasions, but always turned them down.
He faced considerable problems in carrying out his job, working in the bomb-damaged airport, with second-hand equipment, but despite that he still managed to use intelligence reports to his advantage to stop many smugglers.
The international backing he won has not been enough to keep him in his post, and he now faces credible threats to his life.
As well as taking away his job, the government has removed his bodyguards.
NATO chief calls for bigger EU, UN role in Afghanistan
BERLIN (AFP) - NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has urged the UN and the European Union to beef up their role in Afghanistan, calling the mission there "the most important operation" for the Atlantic alliance.
In an interview published Wednesday in the German daily Tagesspiegel, De Hoop Scheffer said NATO could help lay the groundwork for Afghanistan's long-term stability but the country needed more than military support.
"As NATO secretary general, I ensure that Afghanistan has a prominent place on NATO's radar screen," he said.
"But I believe that Afghanistan must be equally present on the radar screen of the European Union, the United Nations, the G8 and other international organizations," he added, referring to the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
He warned that neglect of Afghanistan would be a fatal mistake.
"If we do not reinforce our engagement in Afghanistan, Afghanistan will come to us. It will again become an exporter of terror. The consequences will be felt in Amsterdam or Berlin or London or New York."
The Dutchman said international organizations such as the EU and the UN could do more in areas such as fighting the drug trade, in particular by viewing the issue as a development problem.
"Do we have a real, internationally coordinated anti-drug strategy? I don't think so," he said.
"You cannot fight drugs simply by burning down poppy fields. Then the farmer asks himself, how can I feed my family?"
He said there was no need for "new and complicated structures" to organize international activities in Afghanistan, but added that better coordination was key.
"NATO cannot solve all the problems in Afghanistan on its own," he said.
"At the end of the day, the answer in Afghanistan cannot be a military one. The answer is nation-building and development."
NATO has faced a spike in violence in Afghanistan linked to the hardline Taliban movement which the US-led coalition toppled from government in late 2001.
The alliance has appealed for member states to provide additional soldiers to bolster the 31,000 troops stationed in the country.
De Hoop Scheffer said NATO would be forced in the future to refine its concept of security, including expanding its operations to include protecting energy supplies.
"I could imagine that NATO with its naval forces could play a role in securing sea routes for oil and energy transports," he said.
"We are also talking about protecting critical infrastructure in the energy sector against terrorist threats."
NATO force not big enough for quick victory: British general
LONDON (AFP) - NATO troops in Afghanistan are insufficient to guarantee a swift victory for coalition troops there, the organisation's commander in the Asian country said in interviews for the British press.
Lieutenant-General David Richards, the British leader of the NATO troops in Afghanistan, also said that coalition soldiers would focus more attention on reconstruction within the country than on fighting the Taliban militia over the winter.
"If you said to me, if your aim is to win, I'd say no. I haven't got enough (to) win this, say, in the next six months, but I can continue to make sufficient improvements to keep the people here confident in us and in their government," Richards told Wednesday's edition of the Financial Times from Kabul.
Richards, who commands about 31,000 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops from 37 countries, said that it would be possible to "persuade through substantive improvement, the people of this country that we are making real progress."
"I can persuade them of that without huge amounts of additional troops," he said, before noting that he was "confident that NATO nations will continue to answer the call."
Attempting to persuade Afghans that NATO is making progress in the country, Richards said that significant visible improvements to persuade them to "keep the faith" with foreign troops.
"Something that really hit me in the eye was just how important it was for the Afghan people for us to prove that we could fight and defend their areas," Richards told The Times.
"We did prove this but we don't need to carry on doing this in the long term, and I hope the fighting element throughout the winter will be minimal compared with what our troops have had to face in the summer."
He added that: "I think in the last few months we have managed to stabilise the security situation and now I want to put a security cloak around the reconstruction programmes."
"Operation Oqab is the first pan-Afghanistan synchronised mission designed to facilitate more focused and visible reconstruction and governance."
Richards said that he had issued a directive to all coalition troops to not just "monitor" the taking of illegal road tolls by local police but "to physically intervene and stop them".
He also said that while he regularly called off military operations due to the risk to civilians, the "ultimate criminal" was the Taliban who used non-combatants as human shields.
"The ultimate criminal is the Taliban. I think it is quite amazing that there have not been more civilian casualties given the completely callous disregard of the Taliban for civilians."
The general insisted that the "security situation has improved" but noted that "there are bound to be tactical blips and setbacks".
3 German soldiers confess involvement in Afghan skull scandal
BERLIN, Oct. 31, (Xinhua) -- Three German soldiers have confessed their involvement in a scandal in which German peacekeepers in Afghanistan were shown in newspaper photos as playing with human skulls, the Luebecker Nachrichten daily reported on Tuesday.
Gen. Christof Munzlinger, the commander of Germany's 18th Armored Brigade, was quoted as saying that the three soldiers "have confessed completely to the case, and have shown remorse over the incident."
He said the soldiers were at a unit in Bad Segeberg in northern Germany, without identifying them.
Germany's Bild newspaper published five pictures on its front page Wednesday, showing uniformed German soldiers holding up skulls near the Afghan capital Kabul in early 2003. The newspaper said it was unclear where the skulls had come from.
The scandal immediately provoked widespread disgust and prompted investigations by the military and prosecutors.
Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung announced on Friday that two German soldiers had been suspended for profaning human skulls in Afghanistan.
Jung said that all soldiers who had been confirmed as taking part in the scandal would be dismissed. "People who behave in such a manner don't belong in the armed forces," he said.
German state prosecutors said on Friday they were investigating criminal charges against seven suspects in total, including the two soldiers who had been suspended.
Profaning human remains is a legal offence in Germany and the punishment could be three years in prison.
Defense Ministry officials have also expressed concern that German soldiers and nationals could be targeted by insurgents because of the images.
Germany has about 2,500 soldiers serving in Afghanistan as part of the 30,000-strong International Security Assistance Force.
Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case
Scientist With Ties To Group Goes Free
By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 31, 2006; A01
In December 2001, as the investigation into the U.S. anthrax attacks was gathering steam, coalition soldiers in Afghanistan uncovered what appeared to be an important clue: a trail of documents chronicling an attempt by al-Qaeda to create its own anthrax weapon.
The documents told of a singular mission by a scientist named Abdur Rauf, an obscure, middle-aged Pakistani with alleged al-Qaeda sympathies and an advanced degree in microbiology.
Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them into highly lethal biological weapons. He reported directly to al-Qaeda's No. 2 commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and in one document he appeared to signal a breakthrough.
"I successfully achieved the targets," he wrote cryptically to Zawahiri in a note in 1999.
Precisely what Rauf achieved may never be known with certainty. That's because U.S. officials remain stymied in their nearly five-year quest to bring charges against a man who they say admitted serving as a top consultant to al-Qaeda on anthrax -- a claim that makes him one of a handful of people linked publicly to the group's effort to wage biological warfare against Western targets.
Rauf, 47, has been under scrutiny in Pakistan since he was detained there for questioning in late 2001, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials who agreed to talk about the case for the first time. But officially he remains free, and Pakistan now says it has no grounds for arrest. Last year, in an acknowledgment of the impasse in its four-year joint investigation with Pakistan, the FBI officially put the case on inactive status.
"We will never close the door, but the chances of getting him into the United States are slim to none," said one U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, agreed to discuss the case on the condition that he not be identified by name.
The documents that first revealed Rauf's role were part of a large stack of papers discovered in a house after coalition forces overran an al-Qaeda base in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. He emerges from documents and interviews as one of the most intriguing, and in some ways most troubling, figures in an international investigation into al-Qaeda's biological weapons program.
With the evidence against Rauf, some U.S. officials say they are perplexed about why Pakistani authorities have refused to further pursue him, while acknowledging that the case presents both legal and political difficulties for Pakistan.
To terrorism experts, Rauf is a symbol of a dangerous convergence: a marriage of militancy and technical expertise that could someday yield new kinds of highly lethal weapons to be used against civilians.
"He was someone who at least understood the professional procedures and methods," said Milton Leitenberg, an expert on biological weapons with the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies who reviewed the seized documents. "In theory, if he went in the laboratory and tried and tried, maybe he could have gotten it right."
Exactly how far al-Qaeda progressed with Rauf's help is not publicly known. No one has turned up any links between his work and the U.S. anthrax attacks, in which spores were mailed in letters to news organizations and U.S. Senate offices. Coalition forces discovered rudimentary laboratories in Kandahar but no evidence of bioweapons production. Yet both the White House and a presidential commission have hinted at additional findings suggesting that the terrorists were much further along than was first thought.
Last year's presidential commission on intelligence failures, led by retired judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), described al-Qaeda's biological program as "extensive" and "well-organized," particularly with regard to "Agent X," a pathogen that terrorism experts say was almost certainly anthrax.
"Al-Qaeda had acquired several biological agents possibly as early as 1999, and the necessary equipment to enable limited, basic production of Agent X," the commission said.
U.S. officials are even more reticent in discussing possible links between al-Qaeda's anthrax program and the 2001 U.S. attacks, which killed five people and briefly shut down the U.S. Capitol. Privately, FBI officials doubt that such a link exists. They note that the attacks came with an explicit warning -- a letter advising the victims to take penicillin, resulting in a far lower death toll -- but without an explicit claim of responsibility. "It doesn't fit with al-Qaeda's modus operandi," one intelligence official said.
Yet U.S. officials have been unable to rule out al-Qaeda or any other group as a suspect. Earlier this month, FBI officials acknowledged that the ultra-fine powder mailed five years ago was simply made and could have been produced by a well-trained microbiologist anywhere in the world.
Several leading bioterrorism experts still contend that the evidence points to al-Qaeda or possibly an allied group that coordinated its attack with the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These experts point to hijacker Mohamed Atta's inquiries into renting a crop-duster aircraft and to an unexplained emergency-room visit by another hijacker, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, for treatment of an unusual skin lesion that resembled cutaneous anthrax.
Whether or not al-Qaeda was involved, U.S. officials and bioterrorism experts agree on this: The alliance between the terrorist group and a little-known Pakistani scientist could have yielded disastrous results in time.
The Quest for Anthrax
For all his expertise, Rauf was hardly the ideal candidate for helping al-Qaeda realize its ambition of making biological weapons.
The tall, thin and bespectacled scientist held a doctorate in microbiology but specialized in food production, according to U.S. officials familiar with the case. He had to learn about anthrax and other bioterrorism agents as he went along, slowing his progress considerably.
"He could potentially do a great deal of harm because of his knowledge and skills," said one U.S. intelligence expert connected with the case. "On the other hand, he lacked the specific knowledge and training al-Qaeda needed most."
Exactly how he became acquainted with Zawahiri remains unclear. Rauf worked at the prestigious Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in his home town of Lahore, and officials speculate that he may have crossed paths professionally with Zawahiri, a physician.
In any case, captured documents suggest a close collaboration between the two men as they sought equipment for a bioweapons lab.
"I hope my letter will find you in the best of health and circumstances by the God Almighty," Rauf writes to Zawahiri in one of three intercepted notes.
The heavily redacted notes and other documents were obtained from the Defense Department through the Freedom of Information Act after they were first described in the journal Science in a 2003 article by three researchers at the National Defense University. Rauf's name was redacted, but U.S. and Pakistani officials confirmed his authorship in interviews with The Washington Post. Rauf's name was first publicly associated with the documents by Ross Getman, a New York lawyer who maintains a Web site devoted to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Rauf was a member of the Society for Applied Microbiology, an international professional organization based in Britain, and he appears to have used his membership to make contacts and arrange visits related to his quest. One note from Rauf was handwritten on the group's stationery, apparently while he was attending a 1999 scientific conference at Porton Down, Britain's premier biodefense research center in the southern city of Wiltshire.
Rauf, who writes to Zawahiri in occasionally faltering English, admits in one note to several setbacks. For starters, he had found a supplier who could sell him Bacillus anthracis -- the bacterium that causes anthrax -- but it was a harmless strain incapable of killing anyone.
"Unfortunately, I did not find the required culture of B. anthrax -- i.e., pathogenic," he writes to Zawahiri. He then describes a new attempt to acquire a lethal strain from a different lab.
In a later note he is more upbeat, telling his patron he had "successfully achieved the targets" and had "tried to solve technical problems of our work." He ticked off a list of items he had acquired or arranged to purchase, including respirators, a fermenter used for growing bacteria and vaccines to protect lab workers against accidental exposure.
Rauf also describes an unusual visit -- apparently as the guest of another scientist -- to a high-containment biological lab where dangerous pathogens such as anthrax are kept.
"I visited along with [the host] all the units . . . including the special confidential room in which thousands of cultures are placed," the note reads.
Another handwritten note includes a crude diagram of a biological lab, identifying how space should be allocated for major tasks such as animal testing and growing bacteria.
A recurring theme in the notes is money, or Rauf's apparent lack of it. He complains in one note that his salary was cut while he was on leave from his job for postdoctoral research. "This is highly objectionable, unaffordable and unpracticable with me," he writes.
Rauf's money demands may have led to a falling-out with Zawahiri, who appears to have decided to explore other options for obtaining bacteria and lab equipment, said Rohan Gunaratna, an al-Qaeda expert with the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.
Gunaratna said al-Qaeda leaders also collaborated with Yazid Sufaat, a member of an allied Southeast Asian group called Jemaah Islamiyah, in purchasing equipment for the Kandahar lab. Sufaat, who once studied chemistry at California State University at Sacramento, has been in custody since late 2001.
"Rauf was financially driven, and al-Qaeda didn't entirely trust him," Gunaratna said.
Investigation Breaks Down
Rauf's detention kicked off a joint U.S.-Pakistani investigation that at first was remarkably successful.
"There was great cooperation at the start," said one U.S. intelligence official who closely followed the case.
The FBI's New York office took the lead U.S. role, and its agents worked closely with the CIA and bureau officials in Pakistan in carrying out interrogations. Though not formally charged with any crimes, Rauf consented to questioning and provided useful leads, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. But problems began when the U.S. side sought to expand the investigation with the goal of pursuing criminal charges, including possible indictment and prosecution in the United States, officials from both countries confirmed.
In earlier cases, the Pakistani government incurred the wrath of Islamic leaders when it sought to prosecute professionals for alleged ties to al-Qaeda.
In 2003, the Pakistanis shut off U.S. access to Rauf. According to Pakistani officials familiar with the case, there simply was not enough evidence showing that he succeeded in providing al-Qaeda with something useful.
Since then, Rauf has been allowed to resume his normal life. Whether he has returned to his former workplace is unclear; officials at the research council declined to respond to requests for information about the scientist. Attempts to contact Rauf in Lahore were unsuccessful.
"He was detained for questioning, and later the courts determined there was not sufficient evidence to continue detaining him," said Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan's information minister. "If there was evidence that proved his role beyond a shadow of a doubt, we would have acted on it. But that kind of evidence was not available."
Special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
No 'real change' for Afghan women
By Pam O'Toole BBC News / Tuesday, 31 October 2006
An international women's rights group says guarantees given to Afghan women after the fall of the Taleban in 2001 have not translated into real change.
Womankind Worldwide says millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face systematic discrimination and violence in their households and communities.
The report admits that there have been some legal, civil and constitutional gains for Afghan women.
But serious challenges remain and need to be addressed urgently, it states.
These include challenges to women's safety, realisation of civil and political rights and status.
Self-harming
Womankind Worldwide sent a film crew to Afghanistan to investigate the situation of women there.
They found a young Afghan woman crying in hospital who said she wanted to die. She was recovering after setting fire to herself.
Womankind Worldwide says there has been a dramatic rise in cases of self-immolation by Afghan women since 2003.
It believes many are the result of forced marriages, thought to account for about 60% to 80% of all Afghan marriages.
57% of girls are married before the legal marriage age of 16.
Domestic violence remains widespread.
At an Afghan women's shelter, a young woman told the film crew that she came to the shelter to forget life's troubles.
"I come here so I can ease the pain a little. When I am at home sometimes I feel as though someone is choking me," she told the film crew.
Womankind Worldwide says the Afghan authorities rarely investigate women's complaints of violent attacks.
Women reporting rape run the risk of being imprisoned for having sexual intercourse outside marriage.
Unfulfilled promises
Although women now hold more than 25% of the seats in the Afghan parliament, female politicians and activists often face intimidation or even violence.
"Women who are standing up to defend women's' rights are not being protected," says Brita Fernandes Schmidt of Womankind Worldwide.
"My message, really, to the international community is: you need to address specific security issues for women," she says.
"Women's rights activists are getting killed, women's NGO workers are getting killed, and that is not going to change unless some drastic action is taken," Ms Fernandes continues.
Womankind Worldwide says the international community needs to fulfil promises made after the fall of the Taleban to help protect Afghan women.
It says the international community should give women a greater voice in setting the aid and reconstruction agenda.
Until basic rights are granted to Afghan women in practice as well as on paper, the report says, it could not be said that the status of Afghan women had changed significantly in the past five years.
‘UK-Taliban deal in jeopardy’
By Rauf Klasra The News International (Pakistan) October 31, 2006
LONDON: Pakistan might come under serious pressure from Nato after reports that a recent deal between the British army and the Taliban in Afghanistan following the pattern of the one struck by the Pakistan Army in Waziristan is in jeopardy after a disclosure that it was simply a trick of the Taliban to get rid of foreign soldiers.
The British government has learnt that Taliban with the help of local elders had only played a trick to get rid of foreign soldiers from the Musa Qala area. Now, after the departure of British troops as a part of deal, the Taliban are said to have returned to the area.
The end of the deal between UK troops and Taliban might result in fresh pressure on Pakistan from Nato to scrap its own deal with local Taliban along the bordering areas of Afghanistan. President General Pervez Musahrraf when visited London last month had successfully convinced Prime Minister Blair and his army general about the effectiveness of such ‘deals’ with Taliban to bring peace in Afghanistan. But, a report suggests that such deals may not last long after reports that Taliban were trying to be smart enough to resurface in those areas from where British troops were withdrawn as a part of compromise struck in Musa Qala.
The controversial deal between Taliban and the UK forces had led a heated debate here in London as many were opposed to the idea while majority was supporting a political solution of the whole bloody conflict through negotiations.
Musa Qala was one of the four towns in northern Helmand where British troops were sent this summer on the request of Governor Muhammad Daud after his officials and police proved incapable of defending themselves against Taliban attacks.
Times claimed that tribal elders of Musa Qala were the same who in the past had supported Taliban against us. The deal was just a clever trick to get the foreign soldiers withdraw. Soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment, who were withdrawn from Musa Qala this month as part of the deal with Afghan tribal elders after more than two months of heavy fighting, remember the experience of violence, dirt, heat and lack of water.
NATO Warplanes Kill 12 Insurgents In Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
KABUL, October 31, 2006 -- NATO warplanes killed 12 insurgents in southern Afghanistan after spotting a group of rebels.
The strike occurred in the southern province of Kandahar on Monday (October 30). It takes to nearly 140 the number of rebels the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says it has killed in a series of major clashes since the weekend. Meanwhile, NATO said a roadside bomb today killed two of its soldiers the eastern province of Nuristan.
Afghan art restorers learn new techniques in Italy
Tue Oct 31, 12:23 PM ET
ROME (AFP) - A group of Afghan art restorers, fresh from a six-week training course in Italy focusing on wall paintings, will head home soon to apply new techniques to preservation work in their war-torn homeland.
"Over 30 years of war we lost so many valuable things," Mohammad Daoud Lali said as he received his diploma Tuesday. "We are very grateful to learn new things."
His colleague Ahmad Shah said the six employees of the National Museum of Afghanistan learned how to analyze the composition of wall paintings to determine what chemicals to use in restoring them.
The course, the third edition of a program begun in 2004 with funding from the Italian government, took place at Rome's Art Restoration Institute and at the ancient Greek sites of Heraclea and Siris in southern Italy, where the students got hands-on experience.
Many Afghan building complexes "both religious and civil, were lavishly decorated with mural paintings," archeologist Anna Filigenzi told AFP after the ceremony. "What we have, although fragments, give us a picture of a great painting tradition, a long-living tradition of high quality."
She said that many of the paintings are on fragile clay walls, and the students also learned methods for reinforcing the walls.
"Thirty percent of the objects were lost under the mujahedeen (warlords), another 30 percent were damaged or looted by the Taliban. We hope to preserve the 40 percent that's left," said Reza Sharifi, the group's interpreter.
"We have a good range of historical objects in the museum from prehistoric times to now," he added.
Much of Afghanistan's ancient art heritage was destroyed during Afghanistan's civil war of the 1980s and 1990s and under the Taliban.
The most serious act of destruction was of the giant Buddha statues in the central town of Bamiyan in 2001, shortly before the Taliban were ousted from power by US-led forces.
Whether to restore or simply conserve what is left of the ruined statues is "a very hot conversation between many groups in Afghanistan," Sharifi said, adding: "Our government hasn't decided."
Interior minister discusses major issues with Afghan counterpart
Tehran, Nov 1, IRNA Iran-Afghanistan-ECO
Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi discussed latest bilateral and regional issues here with his Afghan counterpart, Ahmad Zarar Moqbal, on Tuesday.
The meeting was held on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of interior ministers of member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) in the Iranian capital which ends today.
Referring to the two countries' common history and civilization, the Iranian minister said Tehran was in favor of an advanced and powerful Afghanistan.
"Given the many historical and cultural commonalties enjoyed by Iran and Afghanistan, they should be able to forge a better cooperation without interference by a third party," Pour-Mohammadi stressed.
The Afghan minister, for his part, expressed Kabul's gratitude to Tehran for decades of hosting Afghan refugees, and praised Iran as a powerful neighboring state of Afghanistan that gives it "great comfort and peace of mind."
At present, Moqbal said without further elaborating, Afghanistan "still needs the support of Iran."
U.S., Afghanistan to launch strategic dialogue in '07
Tue Oct 31, 5:43 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will begin key talks with Afghanistan next year, a move that deepens a partnership with Kabul five years after American forces helped oust the Islamist Taliban, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said he accepted an invitation by visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta to hold the first round of talks hosted by President Hamid Karzai in Kabul in January.
Afghanistan will join Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Japan and China and others on a list of countries with which the United States holds periodic senior-level talks.
Burns, speaking at a conference in Washington on Afghan reconstruction, repeated the U.S. view that a surge of fighting and suicide bombings in southern Afghanistan did not represent a "strategic threat" to Karzai's government.
"While we've seen an increase in the number of attacks in the regions and some of the provincial cities and even in Kabul and Kandahar themselves over the past few months, we do not believe that these attacks pose a strategic threat to the central government," he said.
The clashes also reflected NATO and other allied troops "taking the battle to the Taliban, along with the Afghan forces" in southern and eastern parts of the country, Burns said.
Fighting, mainly in the Taliban's southern stronghold, is the worst since U.S.-led forces drove the group from power in 2001.
More than 3,000 people have died this year, mostly rebels but including hundreds of civilians and about 150 foreign soldiers.
Pakistanis used U.S. intel in air raid
By HABIBULLAH KHAN and SADAQAT JAN Associated Press / October 31, 2006
KHAR, Pakistan - Pakistan's army spokesman said Tuesday that the military used intelligence from U.S.-led coalition forces in a helicopter attack that left 80 people dead. Thousands of angry tribesmen decried both governments over the killings and threatened to launch a wave of suicide attacks against Pakistani troops.
Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the chief army spokesman, told The Associated Press that American forces did not take part in Monday's attack on a religious school, or madrassa, that Pakistan called a front for an al-Qaida training camp.
But he said his government received intelligence as part of long-standing cooperation with the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan to battle terrorists operating along the porous border between the countries.
"Intelligence sharing was definitely there, but to say they (the coalition) have carried out the operation, that is absolutely wrong," Sultan said. "One doesn't know ... what was the percentage of help (was provided)."
Sultan later contacted the AP to deny he had made the remarks.
In Kabul, Col. Tom Collins, a U.S. military spokesman, said it is common knowledge that the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan share intelligence as part of a three-way military agreement. But he said he had no information regarding the recent operation in Pakistan.
Another U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, said the U.S. did not participate in the attack or provide the Pakistanis with any forces, aircraft or equipment. He declined to say, however, if other American assistance was provided.
"Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the war on terror and the United States does routinely share intelligence with its allies, however, I cannot comment on any particular operation," he said.
As many as 20,000 people protested Tuesday in Khar, the main town in Pakistan's northwestern tribal Bajur district, claiming innocent students and teachers were killed in the attack. They chanted: "God is Great!" "Death to Bush! Death to Musharraf!" and "Anyone who is a friend of America is a traitor!"
In a fiery speech, local pro-Taliban elder Inayatur Rahman said he had prepared a "squad of suicide bombers" to target Pakistani security forces in the same way that militants are attacking Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We will carry out these suicide attacks soon," he said, asking the crowd if they approved the idea. The angry mob yelled back in unison, "Yes!"
One of three people who survived the raid said Tuesday the school was not used by terrorists, and many children were among dead.
"There was not militant training in the madrassa (religious school)," said 22-year-old Abu Bakar, from Loi Sam, a Bajur tribal district town 10 miles from Chinghai, the village where Monday's attack took place, about two miles from Afghan border.
"We had come here to learn Allah's religion," Bakar, whose legs were broken by rubble that fell on him after the missile strike, said from the hospital where he was being treated.
Bakar said 86 people were inside the seminary and just two other students — ages 15 and 16 — survived the raid. Many children, including some as young as 5 years old, were among the dead, he said.
"I am wounded but am more saddened by the deaths of small, innocent children," said Bakar.
In the northwestern city of Peshawar, 500 members of a hard-line Islamic group burned an effigy of President Bush and denounced Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Smaller protests were held in Multan, Quetta and Lahore.
Islamic leaders had called for nationwide protests Tuesday to denounce the raid. It was the deadliest military operation known to have been launched against suspected militants in the country.
Pakistan said its helicopters fired five missiles into the madrassa, flattening the building and killing 80 people inside.
The attack threatened Musharraf's efforts to persuade deeply conservative tribespeople to back his government's efforts against pro-Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, who enjoy strong support in many semiautonomous regions in northern Pakistan.
It also sparked claims of U.S. collusion with Pakistan, with villagers saying fixed-wing drone aircraft were seen flying over the town in the days before the attack, according to the Dawn daily newspaper.
In January, a U.S. Predator drone fired a missile targeting al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman-al-Zawahri in Damadola, near Chingai. The strike missed al-Zawahri, but killed several other al-Qaida members and civilians and sparked massive anti-U.S. protests across Pakistan.
Pakistan also witnessed violent protests this year after European newspapers published cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, and after the August killing of a ethnic-Baluch tribal chief in another Pakistani military raid.
Scores of pro-government tribal police deployed throughout Bajur on Tuesday and blocked roads with stones to prevent political activists and journalists reaching Khar and Chingai, a local government official said on condition of anonymity as he was unauthorized to speak to the media.
Small protests were held in several Pakistani cities, including Peshawar, Karachi and Multan on Monday. The unrest caused Britain's Prince Charles, currently in Pakistan, to cancel his planned Tuesday trip to Peshawar in the country's northwest.
Many local lawmakers and regional Cabinet ministers resigned in protest over the attack. The planned signing of a peace deal between tribal leaders and the military was also canceled Monday in response to the airstrike.
"Islamabad is acting against its own citizens who profess loyalty, promise to maintain peace and to ... eliminate foreign militants," a Pakistan daily, The Nation, said in an editorial.
Ali Dayan Hasan, a South Asia representative for Human Rights Watch, accused Pakistani authorities of "persistent use of excessive and disproportionate force ... in pursuing counter-terror operations."
Among those killed Monday was Liaquat Hussain, a fugitive cleric and al-Zawahri associate who ran the targeted madrassa. The raid was launched after Hussain rejected government warnings to stop using the school as a terrorist training camp, the military said.
Another al-Zawahri lieutenant, Faqir Mohammed, left the madrassa 30 minutes before the strike, according to a Bajur intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Pakistan's most influential Islamist political leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, was to lead a convoy of cars Tuesday from the northwestern city of Peshawar to Khar and Chingai, his spokesman, Shahid Shamsi, said.
"They killed 80 teenagers who were students of the Quran," Ahmed told reporters on Monday. "This is a very cruel joint activity (between the U.S. and Musharraf governments)."
___
Associated Press Writer Jason Straziuso in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report. Sadaqat Jan reported from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Another deadly blow for Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / October 31, 2006
KARACHI - Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf wanted to draw a line in the sand in his struggle for the spiritual soul of the country by early next month, ramming through parliament a controversial bill regarding women's rights that is seen as a move to purge Islamic laws from the constitution.
Instead, helicopter gunships raining death on a village in the remote Bajour agency tribal area on Monday morning significantly escalated Musharraf's battle with militant Islamic forces fiercely opposed to any softening of the state's Islamic legislation.
A pre-dawn attack on a madrassa (Islamic seminary) in a village in the Bajour tribal district in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) claimed the lives of scores of people.
Pakistani authorities claimed immediately that the raid was carried out by Pakistani forces. However, Asia Times Online contacts on the spot are convinced that the raid was undertaken by North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces. Recently, Islamabad agreed with NATO that it could conduct operations in Pakistan from across the border in Afghanistan.
Monday's attack came two days after thousands of pro-Taliban tribesmen held an anti-US, anti-NATO rally in Damadola in the Bajour area close to the site of a US missile attack that killed several al-Qaeda members and civilians in January.
Authorities say information that Taliban or al-Qaeda fugitives were in the region prompted Monday's raid. The border village lies opposite the Afghan province of Kunar and is considered a major corridor for militants to enter Afghanistan. In May, Pakistani authorities said a senior al-Qaeda figure, Abu Marwan al-Suri, had been killed in Bajour during a clash with local police.
Just as they are denying NATO involvement in Monday's attack, Pakistani authorities also initially denied the US had carried out the January attack.
Political fallout
Soon after Monday's raid, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the chief of the powerful Islamic political party, the Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan (JI), announced that two leading JI members had resigned their posts - a senior minister in NWFP, Sirajul Haq, and a member of the federal parliament from the Bajour agency, Haroon Rasheed.
The JI is a part of the six-party religious alliance the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which has been at the forefront of agitation against the proposed legislation on women's issues, as well as in opposition in general to Musharraf and his pro-US stance in the "war on terror".
Haq was quoted as saying that protests would be staged throughout the northern tribal region on Tuesday.
Significantly, Pakistan and Taliban authorities struck a peace deal in Bajour only two days ago and were scheduled to sign a document to that effect on Monday. This lends credence to the possibility that it was NATO and not Pakistani forces that made the raid.
Clearly, any peace deal in Bajour is now off the table, and the MMA will seize on the raid to ramp up and expand its campaign against the proposed women's legislation. The MMA has already threatened to resign from the central parliament and all four provincial assemblies, two of which have a controlling MMA presence.
Behind this political activism in the garb of religious issues, though, lies the fear that any demonstrations will turn anti-West - and violent. Under cover of violence and chaos, various smaller underground religious groups as well as militants will mobilize for the fulfillment of their agendas.
Militants already have immense power in the country and have forced the government to step away from the tribal areas, notably North and South Waziristan, where the Pakistani Taliban have a heavy footprint. The same was to happen in Bajour agency.
Bajour is home of the powerful Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammedi, which was the group responsible which gathering more than 10,000 Pakistani youths to go to Afghanistan before the US invasion of 2001.
Bajour is also the strategic back yard of the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, which is active in the Afghan insurgency. Many prominent al-Qaeda leaders use the area while in transit in the Nooristan-Kunar Valley.
Musharraf in the crosshairs
With the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, pockets of jihadi groups have sprung up in Pakistani cities and villages, and to them the symbol of hatred is Musharraf.
After the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001, Musharraf came up with a guarded approach to handle jihadis. He held many secret meetings with their leaders at which he expressed his resolve in the cause of Islam, as well as in jihad.
He tried to convince the jihadist leadership that Pakistan's decision to ditch the Taliban was made under duress from the US and that as soon as Pakistan could it would resume its support of the Islamic forces in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the bridge continued to widen between the jihadis and Musharraf, to a point where Musharraf was repeatedly a target for assassination by jihadist groups allied with disaffected military officers.
Pakistani military operations in Waziristan further alienated the jihadist outfits from Musharraf, even as his dependence on the US grew. Recent Pentagon documents indicate that disbursements to Islamabad amounted to about US$3.6 billion for operations from January 2002 through August 2005, an amount roughly equal to one-quarter of Pakistan's total military expenditure during that period. At the same time, as the Taliban revival in Afghanistan continues, the United States' dependency on Musharraf has grown.
Musharraf appears to forget that Pakistan is still a traditional society in which the majority of the people live in a tribal setup. Traditions are generally the final word, and the true literacy rate (which only means capability to read Urdu-language newspapers) is hardly 25%.
In such an environment there is a blind following in religious issues, as in the case of the Women's Protection Bill, which all traditional clerics from north to south and from east to west are unanimous in rejecting.
Military dictatorships, as is Musharraf's, tend to care more their constituency (the armed forces) than the masses. Yet any development that is perceived as an intervention against religion will have a serious impact, as Islam is specifically the soul of the Pakistani army, thanks to the rule of the late dictator General Zia ul-Haq and his Islamification program.
Monday's bombing in Bajour brings Musharraf's showdown, and the line in the sand, with Islamic forces just that little bit closer.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
Thousands protest in Pakistan after deadly school airstrike
Khar (AFP) - Thousands of tribesman chanting "Death to America" rallied against the Pakistani and US governments ahead of nationwide protests over a raid on an Islamic school that killed 80 people.
Pakistan launched its deadliest ever airstrike on Monday against a religious college or madrassa in the troubled Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan, saying it doubled as an Al-Qaeda-linked militant training camp.
But Islamists insist the dead were students and more than 5,000 bearded tribesmen wearing turbans protested on Tuesday in Khar, the main town in the rugged region to condemn the pre-dawn attack.
The tribesmen recited religious poetry and shouted "Death to Bush" and "Death to Musharraf", an AFP correspondent said. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is a key ally in US leader George W. Bush's "war on terror".
Authorities closed all entry routes to the mountain-fringed town to prevent outsiders from coming into Bajaur and to keep law and order, a local administration official said on Tuesday.
Islamist leaders accused the United States of either ordering the strike on the madrassa, which Pakistan says was launched by its own helicopter gunships, or of actually carrying out the raid using Predator drones.
"It was the Americans who fired a missile on the madrassa and later Pakistani helicopters came to take the responsibility for the Americans' act," Islamic fundamentalist parliamentarian Haroon Rashid told AFP in Khar.
"I live just one kilometre (over half a mile) away from the madrassa and witnessed everything," added Rashid, who said he had resigned from politics in protest.
Pakistan's biggest coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA -- United Action Front) has also called protests in several cities.
MMA Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed was travelling to Khar in a convoy to offer his condolences, a spokesman for the coalition said in the northwestern city of Peshawar, but government sources said he would likely be denied entry.
In the conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, schools and offices were open and public transport was operating but Islamists prepared to hold a peaceful protest in the city centre later in the day.
Extra security had already been deployed in Peshawar due to a planned Tuesday visit by Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, which was cancelled on security fears following the deadly airstrike.
In Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, police stepped up security around the US Consulate, closing a main road leading to the building following a protest on Monday when bearded Islamists burned a US flag.
Pakistan's military said the raid killed around 80 militants, including some foreigners and a local Taliban commander, Maulvi Liaqat, who ran the Islamic school, also known as a madrassa.
Around four missiles were fired at the concrete-walled compound, reducing much of it to rubble. Dozens of mangled bodies covered in sheets were laid out on makeshift beds afterwards for funeral prayers.
Liaqat was an associate of Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in January escaped a similar air strike at Damadola, about two kilometres (one mile) away from the site of Monday's attack, security sources said.
The madrassa was being used as a training centre to send hardcore Islamic fighters across the border into Afghanistan to attack NATO soldiers, they added.
Musharraf recently approved a peace deal between insurgents in North Waziristan, another of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas, and there was speculation before Monday that a similar accord was planned for Bajaur.
The airstrike came two days after thousands of pro-militant tribesmen gathered in Bajaur and chanted their support for Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
Pakistan has spent the last five years battling Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who sought sanctuary in the tribal areas after fleeing Afghanistan following the US-led ousting of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Tajik Leader, Aga Khan Inaugurate Bridge To Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
DUSHANBE, October 31, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov and the Aga Khan, the billionaire spiritual leader of the world's Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, today inaugurated a bridge on the Panj River that separates Tajikistan from Afghanistan.
The ceremony took place in the Ishkashim dictrict of Tajikistan's eastern Gorno-Badakhshan region. The Asia Plus news agency says this is the third bridge the Aga Khan Development Network.
EU To Give EUR2.5 Million For People Hit By Afghanistan Drought
October 31, 2006
BRUSSELS (AP)--The European Commission said Tuesday it would give EUR2.5 million to help people affected by a severe drought in Afghanistan.
The money will provide more food and clean water to the 2.5 million people the European Union estimates have been affected by a drought that caused reduced harvests in the past year.
Afghanistan saw less snowfall last winter and fewer rain showers in the spring.
The Commission said the funding should help those it believes have been hit the hardest, such as female-headed households and the disabled.
Since 2004, the E.U. has provided EUR77 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. The E.U.'s 25 nations also make individual aid donations on top of that.
Afghan National Assembly to examine civilian casualties in Kandahar
Wolesi Jirga or the lower house of Afghan National Assembly has decided to send a fact finding commission to the southern Kandahar province and investigate civilian casualties inflicted by NATO airstrikes in Panjwai district, a state-run newspaper reported Tuesday.
"Members of Wolesi Jirga with its speaker Mohammad Yunus Qanooni on the chair decided Monday to send a delegation to Panjwai and examine the lose of life and property damages inflicted to locals," daily Anis writes.
At least 60 civilians including women and children according to Afghan officials were killed by NATO air raids in a village in the troubled Panjwai district on Oct. 24. However, NATO troops said 70 persons were killed in the attack, but only 12 civilians were confirmed to be among the dead.
Earlier, Qanooni held talks with NATO's military officials and urged them not to damage civilians' life. President Hamid Karzai has earlier strongly condemned the bloody incidents and called for coordinated operation with Afghan authorities in order to prevent civilian casualties. Source: Xinhua
Afghans seek age-old meeting for brand new problem
by Waheedullah Massoud and Bronwen Roberts Tue Oct 31, 12:14 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Looking back to a centuries-old tradition, Afghanistan is preparing a tribal meeting of hundreds of people to tackle a Taliban insurgency that is paralysing the country.
But analysts warn the "jirga" could backfire, with a chance that delegates -- likely to include Islamist tribal leaders -- will make demands that are unacceptable to the government and its international allies.
The gathering in Afghanistan and another due in Pakistan are intended to enlist support in the ethnic Pashtun belt along their border that sees the worst of the violence.
The eastern city of Jalalabad will likely be the venue for the Afghan jirga expected in December or January, Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told AFP.
The meeting is part of the government's mission to "use all the possibilities, chances and instruments to reduce terrorist activities in Afghanistan," he said.
Up to 1,600 people were expected to attend, presidential spokesman Khaleeq Ahmad said.
They would be drawn from parliament, civil society and tribal elders, he said, with the United Nations and other international representatives asked to monitor.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf will also be invited, reflecting the government's drive to emphasise that the Taliban problem straddles the border.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai mooted the jirgas in Washington last month amid tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan about the insurgency, with each blaming the other for not doing enough against the militants.
Pashtuns have for centuries used jirgas or tribal councils, traditionally composed of male tribal elders, to resolve internal disputes.
Weightier matters of national political import are the subject of the grander loya jirga or great council. A united Afghanistan was established at one in 1747 -- the latest decided a post-Taliban constitution in 2004.
Decisions of both are meant to be binding, but analysts say the meetings could be manipulated by pro-Taliban conservatives who could reach conclusions counter to government policy.
"If the jirga makes decisions against the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, or if it says the government must resign, or the parliament should be dissolved, will the Afghan government accept this?" said analyst and university lecturer Nasrullah Stanikzai.
Foreign minister Spanta said the jirga would stress "the principle of consensus" and conceded its decisions would not necessarily be binding.
Stanikzai was particularly concerned about who would attend on the Pakistan side of the border, where Afghan officials allege religious circles are recruiting and training militants sent to fight in Afghanistan.
Another analyst, Waheed Mujda, agreed.
"In Pakistani tribal regions, religious figures have replaced tribal chiefs," he said.
The change came during the 1980s Soviet occupation when fundamentalist Islamic parties with close ties with the Pakistani army and intelligence agency -- which wanted to rout the Russians -- rose to power and sidelined tribal chiefs, he said.
Karzai said in Washington he believed the jirga was "a very efficient way of preventing terrorists from cross-border activities or from trying to have sanctuaries."
This reflects a leaning towards "local solutions" to the grinding insurgency, which officials say cannot be ended through the military action under way.
They say any solution depends on grassroots support of communities, who have the power to turn in or toss out any insurgents among them.
Afghanistan and Pakistan bicker about the movement of militants across their porous border.
Islamabad says its 80,000 troops stationed there show a commitment to stopping infiltration, but Kabul is not so sure.
"From our point of view, it is very important through the organisation of this jirga to give the message to the international community and also the Afghan people that the terrorist problem in Afghanistan has an international character and an ideological character," Spanta said.
But Mujda was doubtful the jirgas would make headway against the insurgency, in which the Taliban are supported by other Islamic outfits such as Al-Qaeda and have adopted Iraq-style terror tactics and a blind anti-Western vitriol.
"This is a dream and a fantasy. It will have no outcome," he said.
Iranian official: Afghanistan back to chaos
LONDON, October 31 (IranMania) - Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Political and International Studies Office said Afghanistan is again back to a chaotic situation, IRNA reported.
In an article presented to International Conference on Central Asia and Caucasus, Seyed Rassoul Mousavi said that currently there is a severe war between NATO forces supporting Afghani government and rebels led by Taliban in different regions of the country particularly in southern and eastern regions.
Mousavi predicted the following scenarios for NATO-Taliban war in Afghanistan: NATO's full victory over Taliban and other rebels, Taliban's victory over NATO and the Western forces, reconciliation between the two hostile sides and process of forming a new government in Afghanistan as well as continuation of the current situation and establishment of condition of no-war no-peace and prolongation of chaos.
Khalid Rahman, director general of Islamabad Political Studies Institute, said in his article that although regional cooperation has increased worldwide and has helped economic development and establishment of peace and stability, it has not still succeeded in Central Asia and Caucasus.
He added that ECO and SAARC have been established to expand regional cooperation, but they have not yet achieved suitable results.
There are extensive potentials in comprehensive cooperation in this region, however, some factors such as poverty and changing conditions have unfortunately hindered progress, he noted.
Pak FM to visit Afghanistan to review jirga modalities
Islamabad, Oct 30, IRNA
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri will visit Afghanistan soon to firm up modalities for convening of grand Jirgas or council of elders on both sides of the Durand Line, the Foreign Office said on Monday.
Foreign Office spokesperson, Ms. Tasnim Aslam said in her weekly news briefing in Islamabad that an understanding for such Jirgas was reached between President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai at a meeting hosted by President Bush in Washington.
The spokesperson expressed her surprise on a reported statement by NATO commanders that attacks inside Afghanistan have increased following North Waziristan peace agreement.
She said these remarks have come at a time when NATO itself was trying to conclude similar deals inside Afghanistan and one or two agreements have already been finalized in different areas of Afghanistan.
The spokesperson said the challenges facing Afghanistan cannot be addressed by trying to shift responsibility to Pakistan.
A comprehensive approach focused on reconstruction, reconciliation and willing hearts and minds was necessary to resolve the Afghan problem.
Siachen: To a question she said Pakistan believes that all issues including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir and Siachen are resolvable given political will and commitment.
In this connection, she pointed out Pakistan and India were close to signing an agreement on Siachen in 1989.
Responding to another question she said Pakistan condemns human rights violations in the Indian-controlled Kashmir.
British-Pakistani Ties: Tasnim Aslam told a questioner that the issue of death sentence of Mirza Tahir did not came under discussion during Prince Charles meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.
The spokesperson said British Prime Minister Tony Blair would visit Pakistan and the dates would be announced shortly.
The foreign ministers of Belgium and Holland would also visit Pakistan next month.
She said the visit to this region by US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Richard Burns has been postponed and therefore, Pakistan-US strategic dialogue would take place at a later date.
A hidden enemy frustrates efforts to rebuild Afghanistan
By Raymond Whitaker in Gereshk, Afghanistan The Independent (UK) 31 October 2006
"Effing brilliant," said a Royal Marine as J Company, 42 Commando, returned to base from their heaviest clash with the Taliban since they arrived in Afghanistan a month ago. Their elation and relief was understandable, but the engagement also showed the movement remained a threat, even in the relatively secure centre of Helmand province.
Up to a dozen Taliban fighters were believed killed. No marines were hurt, but the company found an Afghan civilian with a leg wound lying in the road after the encounter. He was brought to the Gereshk base and evacuated by helicopter to the hospital at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand.
The encounter began yesterday afternoon as the company was completing a patrol on the eastern bank of the Helmand river about six miles outside Gereshk, an area known to be heavily infiltrated by the Taliban. "Just as we were returning to our vehicles, we came under mortar fire from two positions, one on each side of the river," said the company commander, Major Ewen Murchison.
"At first the fire was inaccurate, but then it started coming closer to us, and one shell fell 25 metres from some of the men. We saw a group of five to seven armed individuals down on the river bed, who were signaling with mirrors to the mortar crews, apparently to direct their fire. We neutralised them with machine-gun fire. One of the mortars was in range, and we neutralised that too." Although two RAF Harriers were scrambled from Kandahar air base, the pilots could not identify the second mortar, which was mounted on a truck. Major Murchison said he decided against a follow-up operation, which could have run into a prepared ambush, and casualties could not be verified.
"Every time we've gone out in force before, they've always moved out," said one of J Company's officers, Captain Tom Vincent. "This was the first time they've been prepared to stand up and have a go. That's why the lads are so happy." His commander added that for some of the younger men, "it was the first time they've heard the thump of a mortar and the whizz of the shell going past. It's an interesting sound if you've never heard it before."
Rarely, though, are encounters between British forces and armed Afghans so straightforward. Major Murchison described an incident earlier in the patrol, when they detained an Afghan with a shotgun who appeared to be passing on their movements by mobile phone. Although they found two AK-47 ammunition clips beneath his bed when they searched his home, they could not find any clear evidence that the man was connected to the Taliban or the opium trade, and he was released. It lent force to the major's comment that "it is difficult to distinguish between the Taliban and ordinary hoods".
Gereshk, the commercial capital of Helmand, is an important target for the Taliban, because it straddles a strategic intersection. "But they do not need to take the town," said the marines' commander. "They can sit outside and have an influence, both economically and through intimidation. It is our job to restrict their freedom of action and allow the Afghan security forces to build up competence and confidence."
The death of a marine in a suicide bombing in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, this month signalled that British forces faced a new threat, although Major Murchison said he was more concerned about roadside bombs, three of which had exploded in Gereshk in the past three weeks.
As for the main mission of British troops in Helmand, to support development, the major made it clear that only a handful of smaller projects were possible at the moment.
Kandahar governor under fire in Senate
Makia Monir
KABUL, Oct 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Senators on Sunday lashed out at local officials and governor of the southern Kandahar province for avoiding civilian casualties during military operations.
The upper house, during its morning session, discussed the recent civilian deaths in bombing by foreign forces five days back. The legislators criticised Governor Asadullah Khalid for ignoring safety of civilians. Dozens of civilians were killed when NATO aircrafts pounded areas in Kandahar.
The senators also called for summoning the NATO top commander Lt Gen David Richards to the House to explain the issue before the people's representatives.
Speaking on the occasion, Senator Mohammad Omar Shirzad expressed grave concern over the mounting civilian casualties during military operations in Kandahar. He blamed the provincial governor for the losses and lack of coordination among NATO troops and local authorities.
Several other senators also joined Shirzad and voiced concern over the losses suffered by common people during the operations.
Earlier, the international human rights agencies have also condemned the killing of civilians and asked the NATO troops to avoid civilian casualties while conducting anti-insurgent operations.
President Hamid Karzai has already ordered investigations into the Kandahar bombing. The probe commission appointed by the president is led by a former jihadi leader Mulla Naqibullah Akhunzada.
Afghans in Pakistan: documenting a population on the move
By Asif Shahzad In Muzaffarabad, Pakistan
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Oct 31 (UNHCR) – Jabbar Khan bears the same name as the last Afghan governor who was forced out of Kashmir in 1819, but unlike his namesake, he refuses to be defeated.
At 33, Jabbar is no stranger to displacement. His father was a refugee from Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan. Jabbar himself was born in Kurram agency in north-western Pakistan, and moved to Nasir Bagh camp when he was five. When he was 21, the government closed the camp and the family moved to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir (AJK).
Then came the earthquake of 8 October 2005, which killed more than 73,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. "When the earthquake came, I was with my friend on his roof," he told a UNHCR worker at a registration centre in Muzaffarabad. "After it passed, I ran home to see my family. I was shocked to find that my roof had collapsed and my two daughters trapped under the debris. I cried for help but we could not save their lives."
The family also lost their home. "The house was totally destroyed and we were sleeping under the open sky. The situation was terrible, people were crying, dead people were everywhere and the jolts were still coming," he recalled. He took his wife and surviving three children to join their relatives in a refugee camp in Mansehra in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Jabbar's story reflects the needs and challenges of the ongoing registration of Afghans in Pakistan. Afghans are a famously mobile population, whether fleeing conflict and poverty, or moving in search of work or – in Jabbar's case – by force of nature. Trying to keep track of them is a daunting task.
A Pakistan government census in early 2005 counted just over three million Afghans living in Pakistan. More than 580,000 have repatriated since then, leaving an estimated 2.4 million Afghans still in Pakistan. The current registration is a follow-up to the census and seeks to develop a clear profile of the remaining Afghans, not all of them refugees. Those registered are given a Proof of Registration card that is valid for three years and recognises the bearer as an Afghan citizen temporarily living in Pakistan.
Asked why he came back to Muzaffarabad for registration, Jabbar said, "I am registering myself and my family because we will get a valid identity from the government of Pakistan and I can frequently travel to Lahore for my business." He explained that he now runs a shoe shop that earns him about 500 rupees (US$8.30) a day.
Rehmat Khan, an Afghan scrap collector-photographer, also registered in Muzaffarabad with his four wives and six children. "We are happy here. There is nothing in my country – no peace or food to eat," he said.
Most of the Afghans who participated in the registration exercise seemed pleased with their PoR card. "I am very happy to have my own identity card," said Abdul Raheem. "Now the police will not harass me and I can travel to other parts of Pakistan."
More than 45,000 Afghans have been registered in the exercise so far, including 1,700 in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The countrywide registration started on October 15 and is expected to run till the end of the year.
NATO future tied to Afghan success, foreign ministers warn
CanWest News Service - Tuesday, October 31, 2006
OTTAWA - The NATO alliance could die if it does not get the troops it needs to fight the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan, former foreign affairs minister John Manley said Monday.
Manley's sober assessment of the transatlantic alliance was echoed by current Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, who suggested he is becoming frustrated by his repeated attempts to persuade fellow NATO countries to either send more troops to Afghanistan or remove their restrictions, called caveats, that prevent them from being deployed to the country's war-torn south where Canada and a handful of other nations are bearing the brunt of heavy fighting against the Taliban.
"This mission has created an enormous risk for NATO. Clearly, NATO has to expand out of Europe if it is to remain relevant,'' Manley said in a speech to a symposium of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute in Ottawa.
"If it proves incapable of rallying forces, willing and able to do the job in Afghanistan, however you define that job, it could easily spell the effective end of the alliance.''
Later, in a separate speech to the same gathering, MacKay reiterated the tough talk that he has been taking to European capitals and diplomatic audiences _ that Canada can't go it alone in southern Afghanistan and needs more countries in the 26-member alliance to send troops to the front lines or allow soldiers dispatched to other, less hostile parts of the country to join the fight in the south.
MacKay traveled recently to Hungary to meet with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to discuss the problem.
After the speech, MacKay said he expected the issue to be "front and centre'' when Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NATO's other 25 leaders meet in Latvia next month for their annual summit.
"I think that we're obviously looking at other issues at that time but Afghanistan and an assessment of the mission will occur at Riga. And that will be a time and a place to take stock of the future of NATO as well,'' MacKay said.
An ocean away, the U.S. ambassador to NATO also told delegates at a separate meeting in Brussels that NATO needs to redefine itself for its new Afghan mission before the alliance's leaders meet next month.
"We want NATO to be able to demonstrate when our heads meet four weeks from now that we have an alliance that is taking on global responsibilities, that it increasingly has the global capabilities to meet those responsibilities, and that it is doing it with global partners,'' Victoria Nuland, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Monday in a speech to a European foreign policy think-tank.
Nuland said NATO has to update its operating doctrine to reflect the fact it is now deploying outside its old European boundaries.
NATO's military contribution to Afghanistan is its first outside Europe as the alliance is trying to transform into a viable entity in the post 9/11 world. NATO was originally formed at the height of the Cold War to defend mainland Europe from the former Soviet Union.
The U.S. and others want NATO to be more robust and rapidly deployable, with more special forces and better transport capability.
But the alliance has been forced to repeatedly take what has been called a "begging bowl'' approach with Afghanistan, figuratively going to member countries with cap in hand asking for military contributions _ troops, hardware, cash _ to give its military mission more teeth.
NATO called for 2,500 more troops for Afghanistan at its meeting of defence ministers last month, but fell short as Poland, as is often the case with newer eager members of the alliance, offered 1,000 troops with no strings attached.
Nuland predicted there would be plenty of diplomatic "mud wrestling'' over the language used in preparation of documents for the NATO summit next month. "It's going to be a tense conversation as we head towards Riga,'' she predicted.
In the meantime, MacKay urged Canadians to continue to be patient about progress in Afghanistan in the face of rising casualties and deaths.
"Clearly though the immediate question is when are we going to be able to bring about a greater sense of stability in the south and that's where a lot of our efforts have been focused,'' he said.
MacKay stressed that it is in Canada's national interest to stay the course in Afghanistan, pointing out that the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has singled out Canada for reprisals for supporting the U.S. war on terrorism.
MacKay said other countries named by bin Laden have been attacked on their soil, but so far Canada has is the only one not to be directly attacked.
A hidden enemy frustrates efforts to rebuild Afghanistan
By Raymond Whitaker in Gereshk, Afghanistan - 31 October 2006 – The Independent
"Effing brilliant," said a Royal Marine as J Company, 42 Commando, returned to base from their heaviest clash with the Taliban since they arrived in Afghanistan a month ago. Their elation and relief was understandable, but the engagement also showed the movement remained a threat, even in the relatively secure centre of Helmand province.
Up to a dozen Taliban fighters were believed killed. No marines were hurt, but the company found an Afghan civilian with a leg wound lying in the road after the encounter. He was brought to the Gereshk base and evacuated by helicopter to the hospital at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand.
The encounter began yesterday afternoon as the company was completing a patrol on the eastern bank of the Helmand river about six miles outside Gereshk, an area known to be heavily infiltrated by the Taliban. "Just as we were returning to our vehicles, we came under mortar fire from two positions, one on each side of the river," said the company commander, Major Ewen Murchison.
"At first the fire was inaccurate, but then it started coming closer to us, and one shell fell 25 metres from some of the men. We saw a group of five to seven armed individuals down on the river bed, who were signaling with mirrors to the mortar crews, apparently to direct their fire. We neutralised them with machine-gun fire. One of the mortars was in range, and we neutralised that too." Although two RAF Harriers were scrambled from Kandahar air base, the pilots could not identify the second mortar, which was mounted on a truck. Major Murchison said he decided against a follow-up operation, which could have run into a prepared ambush, and casualties could not be verified.
"Every time we've gone out in force before, they've always moved out," said one of J Company's officers, Captain Tom Vincent. "This was the first time they've been prepared to stand up and have a go. That's why the lads are so happy." His commander added that for some of the younger men, "it was the first time they've heard the thump of a mortar and the whizz of the shell going past. It's an interesting sound if you've never heard it before."
Rarely, though, are encounters between British forces and armed Afghans so straightforward. Major Murchison described an incident earlier in the patrol, when they detained an Afghan with a shotgun who appeared to be passing on their movements by mobile phone. Although they found two AK-47 ammunition clips beneath his bed when they searched his home, they could not find any clear evidence that the man was connected to the Taliban or the opium trade, and he was released. It lent force to the major's comment that "it is difficult to distinguish between the Taliban and ordinary hoods".
Gereshk, the commercial capital of Helmand, is an important target for the Taliban, because it straddles a strategic intersection. "But they do not need to take the town," said the marines' commander. "They can sit outside and have an influence, both economically and through intimidation. It is our job to restrict their freedom of action and allow the Afghan security forces to build up competence and confidence."
The death of a marine in a suicide bombing in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, this month signalled that British forces faced a new threat, although Major Murchison said he was more concerned about roadside bombs, three of which had exploded in Gereshk in the past three weeks.
As for the main mission of British troops in Helmand, to support development, the major made it clear that only a handful of smaller projects were possible at the moment.
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