Afghanistan News November 16, 2006

November 16, 2006

Afghanistan stable, but not peaceful, says Karzai
Asian News International (ANI)
Shimla, Nov. 16 (ANI): Although, Afghanistan is not at peace and its people continue to suffer at the hands of terrorists, it is stable and is progressing, said Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. In his address at a function organized by his alma mater Himachal Pradesh University here, Karzai said, "Stable it is, very stable, in peace, it is not. We still have suffering. Children are dying. Sons and daughters (of the country) are dying. Our elders are dying at the hands of terrorism. So we still suffer but we are very stable and progressing towards future very rapidly with firm foundation". He said terrorism is the worst enemy of all those who play with it and those who are affected by it.

"Terrorism has destroyed Afghanistan. It's the enemy of all of us, of those who play with it and those who are affected by it. Therefore, we will continue to resist them. Trying to tell those (terrorists) who understand that what they are doing is wrong for humanity. And for those terrorists who do not understand it is our duty to get rid of them," Karzai said. Parrying questions about Pakistan's role in supporting the Taliban, Karzai said, it was the duty of every individual to fight terrorism, which was still claiming lives of innocent children and women. About his arrival 23 years ago in India, he said knowing about Mahatma Gandhi was an experience in itself as he learnt about tolerance, cross-cultural co-existence and values like humanity. Karzai hopes to win fresh trade and investment for the impoverished country during a weekend visit to New Delhi.

The Regional Economic Cooperation Conference for Afghan Reconstruction brings together the countries neighbouring Afghanistan, the G8 group countries, the United Nations and global financial institutions. Afghanistan's infrastructure is largely in shambles after decades of war, since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamic Government in 2001. Lying between the untapped reserves of energy-rich Central Asia and energy-starved India and Pakistan, Afghanistan has big copper reserves, precious gems, coal and iron deposits.

Afghan president aims to hand over leadership if stability returns
Wed Nov 15, 10:12 AM ET
SHIMLA, India (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he would rather hand leadership to a younger generation than seek a new term if stability returns to the war-torn Central Asian nation.

"If I could leave a legacy of stability and continuation I would like the new generation and leadership to take over," Karzai told reporters in the north Indian hill town of Shimla, where he obtained a degree 23 years ago.

Karzai, 49, has travelled to India to attend a leadership conference and made a sentimental journey to Shimla to visit his his alma mater, Himachal Pradesh University, where he earned a degree in political science.

"I fell in love with the magical charms of this hill town the moment I arrived here in 1977," he said.

However, he said in his own country, continued attacks by the Taliban militia deposed in a US-led war in 2002, remained a problem.

Karzai pledged to continue to resist the Taliban.

Karzai, interim head of state since 2001, was elected as president for a five-year term in October last year when 8.1 million Afghans flocked to the polls in the face of threatened Taliban violence for their first chance to vote for their country's leader.

On Wednesday, as he walked through Shimla, once the summer capital of India's British colonial rulers, dressed in his usual colourful native attire, he spoke about his struggles with the English language, which has helped him immensely later in life.

He is scheduled to fly back to New Delhi early Friday.

Pakistan's ambitions in Afghanistan leading to region's Talibanisation
By I. Ramamohan Rao Asian News International (ANI)
New Delhi, Nov 16 (ANI): With the successful completion of the third round of Foreign Secretary-level talks with India, General Perves Musharraf hopes to deploy with confidence more troops on the Western border to bolster the 80,000 army that he already has on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. He feels confident about persuading the United States, the United Kingdom and the NATO forces to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan, which would enable him to come to some understanding with the Taliban, and further Pakistan's desire to have 'strategic depth' in the region. . Pakistan has set its sights on at least six Southern Afghanistan provinces, which could be controlled by its hand maiden Taliban. The provinces are Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Paktiya, Paktika and Nangarhar - all bordering Pakistan. For namesake, these provinces may remain a part of Afghanistan, but the actual control will lie with Pakistan through the Taliban. Simultaneously, Pakistan has toned downed its earlier efforts to make the Durand Line a permanent border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Karzai, who will be in New Delhi this weekend, is expected to share his concerns with the Government of India. India has conducted its entire Afghan affairs with the unquestioned assumption that the US is going to be absolutely successful in establishing durable peace in Afghanistan. During the last about five years, India has committed 650 million dollars for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, which is being appreciated in Kabul. But India has still to make any substantial move to win back its traditional allies, the Pushtuns. There is hardly any Indian project in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. However, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has not been idle. After lying low for sometime and appearing to be sincerely helping the Americans, it has continued to nurture the Taliban. The Taliban has intensified its attacks deep into Afghanistan and made things so hot for the NATO forces that several nations providing troops for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan have been left in a state of confusion.

Rattled by the rising casualties, the British Chief of Army Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, demanded the withdrawal of British troops, Canada refused to extend the deployment and ordered its troops not to participate in any counter-insurgency operations, France, Turkey and Italy refused to move their contingents out of Kabul to the combat zones. Five Commanders of NATO nations had to tell their respective governments to be tough with Pakistan if they want peace to be restored. Pressure was put on President Hamid Karzai to 'involve the Taliban in governance as they felt that it was not possible to defeat them.' The Bush Administration has been reluctant to push Pakistan hard enough to desist from its duality.

When the Afghanistan Government established contact with the Taliban leadership, they replied, 'give us control of six provinces, and you will not hear a shot after that.' The Karzai Government was furious, and saw through the Pakistan game. They got wind of the fact that after Taliban secure these six provinces, Pakistan would put pressure for another three provinces, Khost, Kunar and Badakhshan to be overseen by the Hizb-e-Islami headed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, by another ISI creation, thus reducing Afghanistan to a tiny little state. All this fits into the scheme of Pakistan, both for acquiring the strategic depth against India, which it lost after the rout of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in 2001, and also securing its vital economic interests This will provide Pakistan total control over the most vital part of the highway to the mineral and oil-rich Central Asian region and also the oil pipelines to be laid in the near future to transport the oil and gas from the Central Asia through Afghanistan. This will also render Afghanistan to remain a weak neighbour and keep the Indian influence away from its backyard.

Besides this, the other important matter for Pakistan is the water of the rivers Kabul and Kunar and their tributaries like the Gorband, Panjshir, Kaitur, Kochiand Gomal which originate from the mighty Hindukush and Suleimanki ranges in Afghanistan and are the major contributors of water into the mighty Indus in Pakistan. Faced with an acute water shortage, which is anticipated to worsen further in the years to come, Islamabad is worried as its food production has reached a plateau, forcing it to import large quantities of wheat and sugar. It is finding extremely difficult to meet the rising food requirement without increasing the availability of water to bring additional areas under food crops. Eyeing the unutilized waters of Afghan rivers, Pakistan tried to push for a water-sharing treaty with Afghanistan. The proposed Kalabagh Dam in NWFP would not be viable till Pakistan is assured of the waters from the Kabul and Kunar rivers, for which Afghanistan is planning its own multipurpose projects. Since the entire catchment areas of these rivers and their tributaries are in Afghanistan, no Government in Kabul will ever agree to part with its valuable natural resource for nothing. Afghanistan has already made it clear to Pakistan that in case it agrees to give its excess waters it will not be for free, Pakistan will have to pay for it with the rider that Afghanistan reserves the right to get it back as and when required.

For Pakistan, the control of the Taliban and the Hizb-e-Islami over the bordering provinces is the shortest route to get all its objectives achieved. Pakistan tried to convince the Bush Administration and the NATO by signing the much touted agreement with the Taliban in North Waziristan, saying that it is the only way to deal with the terrorist threat. But US and NATO commanders in Afghanistan are unconvinced. The attack on the Madrassa in Bajaur Agency killing 82 militants has put a spanner in the ISI's designs. The success of Pakistan in its designs and rehabilitation of the Taliban-Hizb combine and through them the Al-Qaeda; will be the greatest setback to the US and its allies and their most trumpeted 'War against Terrorism.' But it is India which should be the most worried country.

Pakistan has lured the Pashtuns away from India and turned their full force towards Kabul. Historically, the Pashtuns of NWFP were never fanatics and followed the secular and moderate traditions under the ancient tribal Code called Pashtunwali. Despite the Talibanisation of the population, Pashtunwali is in their blood and cannot be dismissed easily. Pashtuns were the traditional friends of India and the Indian National Congress. The legendary Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as the 'Frontier Gandhi' was their unquestioned leader and his party ruled the province at the time of partition of India. Pakistan got the god sent opportunity when Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The US and the Saudi Arabia pumped in billions of Dollars and arms to wage a running war against the USSR occupation of Afghanistan.

Pakistan used all these funds to prop up fundamentalist organizations to get jihadi recruits through the Madrassas and systematically marginalized the Pashtun nationalist leadership under the Awami National Party. India's inability to go against the Russians in that period of Cold War eroded the entire goodwill which it enjoyed among the Pashtuns as they felt betrayed twice - once at the time of partition and second time during Soviet occupation.

After the Russian withdrawal, as the US lost interest and in the vacuum Afghanistan was plunged into chaotic civil war among the various factions of Mujahiddeen, the ISI grabbed the opportunity. It created the Taliban, armed them, and provided them all the required logistical support to install its government and control over almost entire Afghanistan, except a very small portion held by the Northern Alliance under the legendary Commander Ahmad Shah Masoud. One thing is clear, the Pakistanis must be aware that ruling the Pashtuns is like riding the tiger. The Pushtuns have never in history accepted the dominance of others and are not likely to trust and allow the Pakistanis to rule over them for long. As many in Pakistan fear that the next step maybe the Talibanisation of Pakistan itself, can Musharraf stop it?

Army woefully unready, Afghans say
PAUL KORING The Globe and Mail (Canada) November 16, 2006
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The Afghan National Army, linchpin of the nation's hopes of eventually defeating the Taliban insurgency and defending its fragile democracy, remains woefully unready, according to the nation's leaders, its own officers and foreign soldiers currently spearheading the fight.

While the ANA gets qualified good reviews -- it is, for instance, the least-corrupt of Afghanistan's security forces and its soldiers have acquitted themselves ably in limited combat encounters -- the glimmers of hope are vastly overshadowed by darker realities.

Any long-term prospect of winning the war against a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan depends ultimately on large numbers of "boots on the grounds," meaning a viable and continuing presence of Afghan soldiers and police throughout the region. Currently, the ANA has too few boots and most of them are on the wrong places.

In more than a score of interviews with Canadian and Afghan officials, both military and civilian, a disquieting picture emerges.

Despite five years of effort and money to build a loyal and professional force, the Afghan army remains too small and too ill-equipped to fight alone. Its effective strength is likely smaller, perhaps by as much as a third, than its claimed 35,000 soldiers. While there are grand plans for the army to reach 70,000 in the next four years, it may actually be shrinking as waves of three-year contract soldiers complete their obligations and decline to re-enlist because of miserable pay, grim conditions and long periods away from families.

"We have got to find a way to keep these soldiers in the ANA," said Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marc Lanthier, who heads Canada's liaison effort with the ANA. Part of the solution, he suggests, is building bases and facilities for units deployed far from home, as is the case with most ANA troops. Even if the ambitious target of 70,000 is reached by 2010, that will be less than one-quarter the size of Iraq's still-growing security forces. Yet Afghanistan is bigger, poorer and more populous than Iraq, and, while the Taliban insurgency has yet to reach the scale of Iraq's civil war, it poses the same sort of long-term threat to the nation's viability as a functioning civil state.

Some mostly peaceful regions, meanwhile, have large ANA contingents jealously guarded by governors loath to allow them to be redeployed to places where the fighting is fiercest and the ANA is thinnest.

For instance, in Kandahar province, the heartland of the Taliban considered by many to be the crucial battleground, there is just a single, under-strength battalion of about 450 Afghan soldiers. Nominally, an Afghan infantry battalion has 611 soldiers. The reality is "closer to 65 per cent" of that number, said Col. Lanthier. Canada has twice that number of soldiers deployed outside of bases in Kandahar province. In terms of war-fighting capacity, the ratio is more like 10-to-1.

But the real need is for large numbers of Afghan police and soldiers to be able to sustain a security presence throughout the areas contested by the Taliban. "There's a real need for redistribution of ANA within the country," Canadian Colonel Fred Lewis said with some understatement.

"If you have more foreign troops here than you have indigenous troops, then there is a real problem," said Col. Lewis, the deputy commander of the Canadian contingent and a key architect of the counter-insurgency strategy.

There are more contract employees serving food and fixing toilets for the 10,000 NATO personnel living on the sprawling Kandahar air base than there are Afghan soldiers stationed in the entire province -- a vast, rugged swath of land the size of Nova Scotia with roughly the same population.

"In Kandahar, we do not have any effective police. As for the ANA, they are there but not enough of them to be effective," a senior Afghan official acknowledged with unusual candour, although he did ask that his name not be used. Similar assessments are made by Canadian military officers.

ANA soldiers get high marks from Canadians embedded with them for their bravery and their willingness to fight. "They are good fighters, but they are not yet good soldiers," said Warrant Officer Dominique Sauvé, part of a unit known as an OMLT, or Observer Mentor Liaison Team, embedded with the sole Afghan battalion in Kandahar province. WO Sauvé has no illusions. The ANA needs vast improvement, especially in leadership, before it is capable. Still, even ill-trained, ill-equipped, ill-paid, ill-treated and ill-led, its soldiers have significant advantages in some areas over even elite foreign troops.

"They know the language and they know the country," WO Sauvé said.

But ANA units still cannot operate on their own. They need NATO for communications, air support, logistics and transport, and to take a secondary role in any operation larger than a simple cordoning off of a compound and searching it.

Often, as many as a third of the soldiers in a battalion are absent. Frequently, they have simply gone home, as far away as the other side of Afghanistan, to deliver pay packets to their families. Soldiers who sign up for three years rarely get official leave, meaning many of them simply disappear from time to time.

"Some of them see little reason to re-enlist" at the end of their three-year contract, said Canadian Major Adam Barsby, who teaches at the Afghan Army Training Centre near Kabul. Although the Afghan government issues no official figures, the estimate of foreign trainers is that two-thirds of the new recruits are being sent to fill holes in existing battalions caused by soldiers deserting or finishing their contracts.

Estimates of how many trained, experienced, reliable and uncorrupt Afghan army and police might be needed to suppress the Taliban insurgency and maintain reasonable security in a province like Kandahar vary widely. But both Afghan and NATO officers suggested many thousands, not a few hundred, before the load shifts away from foreign forces.

Afghan violence 'likely to rise'
Thursday, 16 November 2006 BBC News
A top American defence official has warned that the level of violence in Afghanistan will go on rising.

General Michael Maples said that insurgents had expanded their operations and abilities even while incurring serious combat losses.

Gen Maples is head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency.

More than 3,000 people have died in fighting in Afghanistan this year, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Gen Maples told a Congressional hearing that the insurgents in Afghanistan had strengthened their influence with their core base of Pashtun communities.

"Violence this year is likely to be twice as high as the violence level seen in 2005. In 2007, insurgents are likely to sustain their use of more visible, aggressive and lethal tactics," he was quoted saying by the AFP news agency.

Deteriorating

The head of the CIA, General Michael Hayden defended the government of President Hamid Karzai.

"Kabul needs help because it lacks capacity, not because it lacks political will or lacks support," Gen Hayden told the hearing.

"President Karzai understands this and recognises his government's responsibility."

There has been a four-fold rise this year in the number of people killed in the conflict in Afghanistan, according to a report on the insurgency released on Monday.

Separately, a US government study has warned that the prevalence of opium cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan threatened the stability of the government.

The report by the Government Accountability Office also warned that the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan could derail a US anti-drug programme.

Afghanistan is the world's largest supplier of opium, and drug money is reportedly fuelling the insurgency.

The report claimed that the Usaid's programme to eradicate drugs was making only limited progress - opium cultivation grew by 50% this year while staff attempting to eradicate drugs or administer alternative uses for land had been attacked and in some cases killed.

Taliban, Al-Qaeda Resurge In Afghanistan, CIA Says
By Dafna Linzer and Walter Pincus The Washington Post Thursday, November 16, 2006; A22
Al-Qaeda's influence and numbers are rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with fighters operating from new havens and mimicking techniques learned on the Iraqi battlefield for use against U.S. and allied troops, the directors of the CIA and defense intelligence told Congress yesterday.

Five years after the United States drove al-Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the CIA, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that both groups are back, waging a "bloody insurgency" in the south and east of the country. U.S. support for the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai will be needed for "at least a decade" to ensure that the country does not fall again, he said.

At yesterday's Senate hearings, devoted mostly to Iraq, Hayden and Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, painted a stark portrait of a struggling Afghanistan and a successful al-Qaeda capable of operating on two battlefields.

"The direct tissue between Iraq and Afghanistan is al-Qaeda," said Hayden, who visited both countries recently. "The lessons learned in Iraq are being applied to Afghanistan."

Senators noted the increased use of roadside bombs and the relatively new phenomenon of suicide attacks, which had not been seen in Afghanistan before the Iraq war.

Hayden told the Senate panel that the Taliban, aided by al-Qaeda, "has built momentum this year" in Afghanistan and that "the level of violence associated with the insurgency has increased significantly." He also noted that Karzai's government "is nowhere to be seen" in many rural areas where a lack of security is affecting millions of Afghans for whom the quality of life has not advanced since the U.S. military arrived in October 2001.

Maples said the insurgency "had strengthened its capabilities and influence" with its base among Pashtun communities in the south, as violence this year has almost doubled since 2005. U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan began dropping earlier this year as NATO arrived to take over the bulk of the fighting. Meanwhile, U.S. Special Forces continue to search for al-Qaeda bases in Afghan-Pakistani border areas.

The CIA director said that region has become a new "physical safe haven" that al-Qaeda uses as a "jump-off point for its guerrilla forays into Afghanistan."

Bush administration officials have repeatedly said that the battle against al-Qaeda has led to the death or capture of more than half of Osama bin Laden's top people.

Hayden said yesterday that "the group's cadre of seasoned, committed leaders" remains fairly cohesive and focused on strategic objectives, "despite having lost a number of veterans over the years." Bin Laden himself, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, continue to play a crucial role while hiding out somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Hayden said the organization had lost a series of leaders since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the losses have been "mitigated by what is, frankly, a pretty deep bench of low-ranking personnel capable of stepping up to assume leadership positions." Hayden said the lower ranks are dominated by men in their early 40s with two decades of experience fighting.

The two intelligence chiefs said that al-Qaeda, through propaganda and attacks, has been increasingly successful in defining Afghanistan and Iraq as critical battlegrounds against the West.

"We have radical groups like al-Qaeda and its affiliates sponsoring terrorists, insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere that seem to be able to preempt governments and eclipse the moderate actors in the region. There remains in Iraq today a broad and vicious al-Qaeda offensive targeting us and innocent Iraqis," the CIA director said.

In Iraq, Maples said, al-Qaeda accounts for a fraction of the daily attacks. "Yet the high-profile nature of these operations have a disproportionate impact on the population and on perceptions of stability," he said. The death earlier this year of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, did not stop what Hayden described as an "al-Qaeda campaign of almost satanic terror" in that country.

In Iraq, Maples said, al-Qaeda has managed to "capitalize on the current cycle of sectarian violence, by creating the perception that its attacks are designed to aid and defend the country's Sunni minority."

Both men said a U.S. military failure in Iraq would effectively turn the country into al-Qaeda's next haven, providing the group with the kind of security it had in Afghanistan for years before 2001.

Resurgent Taliban strangles southern heartland
By Terry Friel November 16, 2006
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Thousands of cars, gleaming in the desert sun, fill sales yards along the road to the airport in Afghanistan's second city.

The shops and bazaars of Kandahar are full to bursting.

But the prosperity is deceptive in the city where the Taliban was born, now a centre of violence amid a resurgence by the hardline Islamist group five years after it was toppled from power by U.S.-led forces.

"It's getting worse. I am afraid -- these suicide attacks happen all the time," said Ahmad Shah, a 60-year-old tyre mechanic outside his shop -- an old shipping container on the airport road by the city gates.

"The foreigners fight only for themselves. The Taliban fight only for themselves."

The road from the city to the airport, a major military base, has been the scene of many bombings targeting foreign troops.

In August, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a NATO convoy near Shah's shop, killing a civilian and wounding several more.

This has been the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the Taliban's hardline government was ousted in November, 2001.

A resurgent Taliban is fighting back, fuelled by drug money, safe havens in Pakistan and growing frustration and anger among Afghans at the lack of reconstruction or a real economy.

"It is getting worse because they (the Taliban) have got stronger," Shah said. "It's getting worse because people don't have jobs. They have nothing."

Until recently, the Taliban had virtually surrounded Kandahar, where one-eyed Mullah Mohammad Omar began his movement in 1994.

TALIBAN OFFENSIVE

In September, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) launched a two-week offensive against the insurgents, killing at least 500. Attacks in the south have dropped since, but the Taliban remains strong and active.

"If it keeps going on like this, nothing will get better," said Faizal Huk, who runs one of about 70 car sales yards along the airport road. "Fighting for the Taliban is like work. That's all they have."

He estimates his business has almost halved in the past few months due to worsening violence. The middle-aged father of six never fled his homeland during years of Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban rule.

"Now, I will go anywhere," he said. "I spent all my life in Afghanistan. Now we will be refugees. I don't think things will improve. It is getting worse day-by-day.

"We don't have any hope for our children. Tomorrow or the day after we will die, we are old. What will happen to our children?"

Increasingly in Kandahar, people are talking of leaving the country or of friends or relatives who already have, although there is no real evidence yet of a mass exodus by residents.

The head of the 31,000-strong ISAF, British General David Richards, has warned failure to reinforce military victories with reconstruction, jobs and a better life is undermining the mission in Afghanistan. He says the next six months will be pivotal.

"The desire for a quick cheap war followed by a quick cheap peace is what has brought Afghanistan to the present, increasingly dangerous, situation," the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in its latest report this month.

DANGEROUS CITY

In Kandahar, there is a long way to go. Provincial women's affairs department head Rona Trena says most aid groups have shut shop or dramatically pared back their work because of the danger.

"Everything comes back to security. It is getting worse every day," she said in her modest office, with almost no security despite the assassination of her predecessor.

"Reconstruction and development has slowed about 80 percent. We are also seeing a drop in the number of girls going to school.

"Many women have no jobs now. They are coming here looking for work because but they can't find anything because the (aid) projects have stopped."

Many here and in Kabul blame Pakistan, home to a large number of ethnic Pashtuns who support the mainly Pashtun Taliban.

Senior intelligence officers say all training camps for the Taliban and other militant groups lie in Pakistan and say they have firm evidence Islamabad still supports its one-time protege.

The Pakistani government denies the charges.

"Pakistan has been at best a most grudging ally," the ICG said. "The Taliban and al Qaeda found refuge there and regrouped."

Security is tight around Kandahar, but it can be deceptive.

Gunfire occasionally crackles at night and the police at key posts are under-equipped, poorly paid. And scared.

At the main checkpoint where the highway from the opium capital of Helmand province enters Kandahar six constables have five AK-47s. Only one works. The magazines of the rest are empty.

They haven't been paid for five months, some don't have proper boots. They feed their families by taking home leftover bread from the lunch the police force gives them.

"We are just left here. No one comes to ask about us," complained 28-year-old Mohammad Arif.

If fighting erupted? "We would run away," said Abdul Ahmad, 43, without hesitation. "We don't want to die."

Violence in Afghanistan doubled in 2006: US military
Thu Nov 16, 7:11 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Insurgent violence in Afghanistan this year will likely double that of 2005 and will continue next year, the US military's top intelligence official told Congress.

General Michael Maples, director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, said insurgents had expanded their abilities and operations even while incurring serious combat losses.

"Despite having absorbed heavy combat losses in 2006, the insurgency has strengthened its capabilities and influence with its core base of Pashtun communities," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

"Violence this year is likely to be twice as high as the violence level seen in 2005 ... In 2007, insurgents are likely to sustain their use of more visible, aggressive and lethal tactics," he said.

Maples said the insurgents aimed to undermine the international community's support for Afghanistan military and reconstruction operations, and to demonstrate the Kabul government's weakness.

The head of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden, in his testimony emphasized the need to continue supporting the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

"Kabul needs help because it lacks capacity, not because it lacks political will or lacks support," Hayden said. "President Karzai understands this and recognizes his government's responsibility."

Citing a recent conversation with the US ambassador in Kabul, Ron Neuman, Hayden said "the effort would take a long time -- in my view, at least a decade -- and cost many billions of dollars. I would add that the Afghan government won't be able to do it alone."

Afghan insurgency threatens to derail US anti-drug program
November 16, 2006
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Afghanistan's worsening security situation threatens to derail a US anti-drug program, a congressional study said, predicting at least a decade to stem the scourge.

The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a US congressional watchdog agency, said "the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan threatens the success of the US counternarcotics goal of significantly reducing illicit drug cultivation, production, and trafficking."

There was "limited progress" in a US counternarcotics strategy devised for Afghanistan by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, it said.

They received 532 million dollars in fiscal year 2005 funds and initiated a number of projects under the strategy, but the opium poppy crop in 2006 grew by over 50 percent, reaching a record amount, the GAO noted.

Afghanistan is the world's largest opium supplier, and the drug trade is reportedly fueling the insurgency that began weeks after the 2001 toppling of the Taliban-led government by a US-led invasion.

The insurgency peaked this year with NATO sending soldiers to quell the violence.

"The worsening security situation," particularly because of the insurgency led by the Taliban militia, "threatens to derail US efforts by slowing or stopping projects," GAO said.

Drug eradicators were attacked several times and alternative livelihood project personnel were killed, the report said.

"Given the difficulties of working in Afghanistan, sustainable progress toward the US counternarcotics goal will likely take a decade or more of committed US resources and efforts," it said.

The report said the pace of US anti-drug efforts was further slowed by the country's persistent developmental challenges, including inadequate access to roads and limited government institutions.

Government says NATO has not found needed troops yet
November 16, 2006
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - NATO needs another 1,500 troops for its Afghanistan mission and so far does not know which members of the alliance will supply them, Canada's defense minister said on Wednesday.

Most recently, Poland pledged another 1,000 personnel to help quell a revived Taliban insurgency, 40 percent of what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's top commander called for in September. The force currently numbers more than 30,000.

Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor said he does not know what countries will supply the extra troops, but pointed out NATO defense staff chiefs were meeting in Brussels and suggested more might be decided there.

One thing that is certain, however, is Canada will not provide the extra personnel, O'Connor said. The country has about 2,500 troops in Kandahar province.

"We've just sent 450 soldiers over there, so we're doing our part," he told reporters after giving a speech to a business audience.

O'Connor is on a cross-country speaking tour to help shore up support at home for the mission. Opinion polls have shown Canadians are increasingly pessimistic about the future of the conflict and divided over Canada's role in the region.

He said attacks by Taliban have eased in the past two weeks, partly because many of the leaders were killed in recent fierce fighting in the Kandahar area.

Street children on the rise in Kabul
By Jeff Swicord Voice of America (VOA) November 15, 2006
Kabul, Afghanistan - After decades of conflict, street children have become a major problem for Afghanistan. Most will never have the opportunity to live a normal life. But Jeff Swicord reports from Kabul on one program that is working to change the odds.

Take a walk through the crowded markets of Kabul and you can see them everywhere: young school age boys and girls selling plastic bags, bottled water, and other merchandise. Street children, like 12 year-old Madena -- originally from the northern city of Mazar Shariff. "My father was killed in the war and now I am working here," she says.

According to United Nations statistics, more than 60,000 children now work in the streets of Kabul to survive. Mohammad Yousef is director of Aschiana, or "the nest," an organization dedicated to improving the lives of street children. He says street children are just one more tragedy bestowed on Afghan society after almost 40 years of war.

"Most of the children lost their parents during the war and must work on the street to survive. And others, there is just nobody in their family responsible for their education, their clothes and the other necessities of life. So, they are obliged to come to the streets and do work."

Mohammad Yousef was a radio journalist during the war. During a visit to Kabul, he met a young boy shining shoes on the street. That chance meeting gave Mohammad an idea that would change the lives of thousands of street children in Kabul.

"I realized that there were so many children with the potential to receive a good education. But because of the war in our country, they will not get a good education and they will become a problem for society in the future. They will have anger in their heart toward society. So I thought we should have a center like this one for those children who have the ability to be educated."

Since 1994 Aschiana has provided support, food, and educational opportunities to almost 10,000 children in the Kabul area. The children come in shifts during the day to maximize their numbers. The goal is to build up their academic skills so they can integrate back into regular schooling. When we visited, they were taking part in a music class.

"We have different kinds of programs for them here. We have the education program. We have the health program. And, we have sponsorship programs and programs for music and theater."

Many have suffered physical violence, sexual abuse, and psychological trauma from the war. The arts program has played a big part in their therapy.

The children have developed a reputation for their work. And many have sold paintings to private individuals, which helps to improve the image of street children within the community."

"In our community, the children that are working on the streets have a bad reputation. The stereotype is that they are robbers and thieves, not good people. We want to bring these children into the community and show people that they are just as capable as more privileged children."

Aschiana has faced funding shortages several times in its history. And Mohammad was jailed during the Taleban years for schooling girls.

But each month, several hundred children enter normal schools with the skills to develop and grow like regular children. It's a small victory that makes all the difficulties worthwhile. A victory in a battle the staff of Aschiana are willing to fight -- one child at a time.

Editorial: Exiting Afghanistan
The News International 15 November 2006 (Pakistan)
With the Democrats talking about a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq within six months, it was about time someone suggested to Washington to start thinking about leaving Afghanistan too. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz did that on Monday, a day after telling the world's sole superpower that its presence in Afghanistan didn't give it the right to make military intrusion in Pakistan in pursuance of its "war on terror." In a separate interview, Mr Aziz said that Pakistan was the "most important stakeholder" in Afghanistan but that America will have to leave that country sooner or later. In saying that "history is full of examples where we didn't focus too much on an exit strategy," the prime minister is clearly impressing upon Washington the need to have a well-thought out strategy for leaving Afghanistan.

Therefore, even though it would be impractical to ask or expect the Americans to withdraw immediately, it's not too soon for them to start working on a departure plan, since leave they must. Central to any such strategy must be extensive consultations with its allies, especially Kabul and Islamabad. To quote the prime minister, a "good exit strategy is one which leaves that country, that area, peaceful, economically and politically empowered". Indeed, it is this empowerment which would be the key element in the defeat of terrorism, not military force alone, as the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is increasingly proving. The situation calls for massive investment in Afghanistan and economic assistance to it, the prime minister said. This also applies to that country's neighbours, including Iran. In other words, there should be a kind of Marshall Plan if the troubled region is to have peace. But will the Pakistani leader's words be heeded? The softening of Washington's position on "axis of evil" Iran since the Republican defeat in the midterm elections looks like an indication that America is prepared to heed advice on such matters -- or so one hopes.

Iran prepared to assist Afghanistan’s reconstruction: Rafsanjani
14 November 2006 - Source: MNA, Iran - TEHRAN
Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here on Monday that Iran is completely prepared to assist Afghanistan’s reconstruction process and to promote security in the neighboring country.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic policy is to fully support the process of boosting peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Rafsanjani said in a meeting with Afghanistan’s Senate Speaker Sebghatollah Mojaddadi.

Rafsanjani expressed concern over rising drug production in Afghanistan, saying, “We hope the Afghan officials will find a solution to counter drug production.”

He also stated that the two countries should not allow the issue of Hirmand River to cause a problem in their relations. “We expect the issue to be resolved based on the Hirmand treaty,” he added.

Mojaddadi said that Afghanistan is on the path of development and needs the cooperation of its neighbors. “The Afghan people will not accept colonialism and will try to take their destiny into their own hands by strengthening the ruling system,” he added.

In a separate meeting with the Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Rafsanjani said that unity and national solidarity of the Lebanese people can thwart the Zionist regime’s plots to create civil strife in the country.

Lebanon’s victory over the occupying regime has upped the dignity and credibility of Lebanon among Islamic countries. “The Lebanese and Palestinian people have no option left but to resist and struggle for restoring their rights,” he added.

Berri expressed appreciation for Iran’s financial and moral helps to the Lebanese nation. The recent developments in the Middle East show that Islamic Republic has become an influential power in the Middle East and among Islamic countries, he commented.

Mojaddadi and Berri are in Iran to participate in the ongoing 7th General Assembly of the Association of Asian Parliaments for Peace (AAPP) that opened on Sunday in Tehran.

Steering his nation without a rudder
Los Angeles Times 11/12/2006 By Paul Watson
Afghanistan's Karzai faces disaffection in a nation hungry for progress. Many see him as a shadow of a president, and they fear a slide back to the Taliban

TRIBAL elders pleaded with Hamid Karzai to intervene in a land feud with their neighbors. But it was too dangerous for the president of Afghanistan to travel south to the heart of the Taliban insurgency, so Karzai invited them up to Kabul for lunch.

At least 120 men arrived, making their way past razor wire strung out a mile from the palace doors. After being repeatedly frisked and scanned, they finally passed through the palace gates.

The desert dust still clung to their plastic sandals and tattered clothes as they sat down under vaulted ceilings and crystal chandeliers. Waiters in black uniforms served up platters of roast chicken legs and heaping plates of pulau rice with raisins, almonds and pistachios.

The elders of the Tokhi and Hotak tribes, ethnic Pashtuns from Zabol province, ate their meal off fine china and washed it down with tumblers of doogh, a salty yogurt drink sprinkled with chopped mint.

Karzai, 48, himself the son of a Pashtun chief, assured them that he would try to find a solution to their 40-year-old argument with the Nasir tribe. "My father spent all of his life solving tribal problems, and I was with him the whole time," he said. The elders muttered skeptically.

Most presidents don't concern themselves with tribal disputes, but Karzai, like Afghan kings of old, makes local quarrels part of his daily routine.

Five years after the fall of Kabul, aides say he is turning to tradition as he struggles to build a stable democracy on a foundation of war, corruption, foreign interference and religious extremism. Critics counter that he is retreating behind the walls of his 19th century palace and losing touch with a country sinking deeper into trouble.

But Karzai's foreign backers have left him with little real power, and his weak, corruption-riddled government lacks direct control over billions of dollars in development aid, money meant to help Karzai win Afghan support for his administration.

After the United States joined forces with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance militia to oust the Taliban regime, it pledged to help rebuild the country and chose Karzai to lead the effort. Since then, foreign donors have spent at least $16 billion in Afghanistan; more than $10.3 billion of that has come from the United States.

Afghanistan has made enormous progress in some areas. With hopes for a better future soaring, its citizens defied insurgent threats to elect Karzai to a full term two years ago and to choose a parliament last year. The elections were the freest and fairest in the country's history.

Under Karzai, more than 90% of Afghan children are in school, compared with fewer than 20% during Taliban rule. A multinational effort is training an army that is halfway to its goal of 70,000 soldiers in uniform, as it strives to overcome ethnic divisions, equipment problems and low morale. Parliament is gradually asserting its authority. A full quarter of the members are women.

But the progress has not met the rising expectations of Karzai's countrymen. Many see the nation slipping back into the grip of violence, corruption and extremism from which the West promised to liberate them.

On paper, the post-Taliban constitution gives Afghanistan's president ample power. But parliament wrangled with Karzai for months over his Cabinet picks and rejected his nominee to head the Supreme Court.

He has had better success shuffling provincial governors, but several are still regarded as corrupt and ineffective. Central government influence remains weak in large parts of the country.

Perhaps Karzai's greatest strength is giving pep talks to Afghans at news conferences and in speeches, urging them to unite and solve their problems. Still, many say they would prefer honest justice, jobs and peace to fine words.

From ethnic minorities in the north to his fellow Pashtuns in the south, Karzai faces the same growing disaffection.

Sitting on a curb in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Sanam Shah spoke of the Karzai era's mixed blessings. A mother of eight and an ethnic Uzbek, she suffers kidney and digestive problems and traveled from her desert village of Andkhoi to find a good doctor.

Foreign aid has delivered new equipment to her local clinic, but none of the employees are properly trained to use it, she said, speaking through the mesh of her white burka veil. "I think Karzai is doing a fine job, but nothing has changed in my life," she said.

Hundreds of miles to the south in Lowgar, the owner of a two-pump gas station, a Pashtun, said he was unemployed under the Taliban but was able start his own business when U.S. aid rebuilt the highway.
But the Taliban are back, scaring off customers by ambushing cars at night, said Hekmatullah, who, like many Afghans, uses one name.

"Power is back in the hands of those who had it before, like warlords, the Taliban and thieves," he said. "Nobody pays attention to poor people like us."

In the eyes of Afghans, the restrictions on Karzai's authority imposed by foreign governments make him a shadow of a president with only the trappings of power: photo opportunities, ribbon cuttings, bodyguards with wraparound sunglasses who carry M-4 assault rifles and whisper into microphones in the sleeves of their dark suits.

Although Karzai is officially commander in chief, he has no control over the foreign troops fighting the Taliban insurgency and little over his own army, which answers to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. His defense minister's main job is cajoling donors into providing the army with better equipment.

Karzai repeatedly has demanded changes in tactics, but each time foreign troops accidentally kill Afghan civilians, he loses credibility with his people.

In the meantime, the insurgency has spread across more than half the country, with fighters advancing northward from strongholds in the east and pushing all the way to the Iranian border in the west. Government officials say the militants in villages and districts near Kabul, the capital, are laying the groundwork for future offensives.
Former mujahedin retain ties to their old commanders, and many are ready to fight again if democracy falters.

Corruption in the courts and police has made many Afghans nostalgic for the Taliban's ruthless justice. The threat of violence has forced hundreds of schools to close and left others without enough books or teachers.

The country's gross domestic product has doubled since Karzai came to office, but the drug trade is the largest employer and source of income. Drugs account for half of Afghanistan's economy and create what the United Nations calls a "narco society."

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid aimed at persuading farmers to grow legal crops, this year's opium harvest is expected to set a record. It's up 50% from last year, to an estimated 6,700 tons, the U.N. said in early September.

Though reconstruction spending could help the government draw support away from drug lords, the Taliban and other foes, only a quarter of public spending goes through the Afghan government, World Bank figures show.

U.S. money supports a wide variety of projects to improve agriculture and government institutions, support schools and clinics, and rebuild roads, bridges, canals and other infrastructure destroyed by war. But unlike Britain and a few other countries, the United States has not demonstrated confidence in Karzai's government by giving it direct control of the funds.

William Byrd, senior economic advisor at the World Bank office in Kabul, said more of the money should be channeled through the government, allowing Afghans to learn to handle it and showing respect for the country's sovereignty.

"The only way to get these government systems going is to start working with them, and in them, rather than on parallel tracks outside," he said.

Aid groups and their contractors are also guilty of corruption, but they aren't accountable to Afghan voters, said Jawed Ludin, Karzai's chief of staff.

"Democracy is about the empowerment of people," Ludin said in an interview. "To make democracy in Afghanistan real, we should give the Afghan people the sense that they can control things, that they can implement their own decisions."

Journey from Pakistan - UNTIL the war to oust the Taliban five years ago, Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders were comfortably entrenched in Afghanistan and Karzai was living in exile in Pakistan, trying to organize opposition.

Karzai shared a Pashtun heritage with most of the Taliban. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was chief of the Popalzai tribe. Karzai inherited that post when his father was killed in 1999 in what was widely regarded as a warning from the Taliban to Pashtuns who opposed them.

In October 2001, with the war underway, Karzai entered southern Afghanistan with a small group of armed men, including U.S. Special Forces, to rally tribal leaders on the mullahs' home turf.

For those Afghans suspicious of U.S. intentions, Karzai's close ties to the U.S. military were an issue from the start. When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced that an American chopper had rescued Karzai from a firefight with the Taliban, Karzai insisted that he had walked away from the battle and never left Afghanistan.

Still, Ludin now cites that incursion into the Taliban heartland as a sad irony. "The president and American Special Forces were going in a leisurely fashion from village to village in 2001, and they were welcomed everywhere," Ludin said. "And everywhere they went, the Taliban were driven away from those villages, districts and provinces without a fight."

Five years later, President Karzai can't risk a visit to his home region. "Now these same areas are seen as hotbeds of the Taliban and terrorism," Ludin said. "Today, if the president wants to go to Kandahar, he needs massive security arrangements."

Ludin blames Pakistan for reviving an insurgency that once looked to be on its last legs.

After they were ousted from power in 2001, the Taliban retreated to bases in Pakistan, where the military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency had once nurtured them. From there, the Taliban and its allies regrouped in eastern and southern Afghanistan, U.S. military intelligence documents say.

Washington today regards Pakistan as a key ally in fighting terrorism, but many Afghans suspect the country of playing a double game, cooperating with the United States while fostering the Taliban insurgency.
Karzai wants the U.S. to do more to stop the insurgency at its roots in Pakistan, but Washington strongly supports Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Karzai's frustration over tactics used by the U.S. and allied military forces, including the continued bombing of civilian areas, is raw. Senior Afghan officials are surprisingly frank about the dangers of foreign military dominance.

Despite the success in uniting Afghanistan's fractured ethnic groups into a national army, a senior aide to Karzai, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the army a "sort of lame-duck institution" without the capacity to make decisions.

"It will fall the instant that the U.S. military is not behind it," the official said.

An open tent - KARZAI lives and works in an 83-acre compound called the Arg-e-Shahi, or Citadel of the King, which was built in 1880 to replace a royal fortress destroyed by British troops. Three miles and a world away, one of his chief critics, Ramazan Bashar Dost, holds court in a large canvas tent in Kabul's main park. Outside, noisy children chase soccer balls in the swirling dust.

Each afternoon, Dost, a member of Afghanistan's parliament, sits next to a small, round folding table, framed by two yellow tent poles sunk into a dirt floor honeycombed with cracks. He listens quietly as Afghans vent their anger over corruption, unemployment and other ills.

Dost has become a kind of anti-Karzai, a French-educated intellectual who presides over a humble court of last resort where anyone is free to take a seat and gripe or ask for help, no appointment required. He is in high demand as ordinary Afghans wait their turn to complain about big issues such as corruption and foreign interference, or something as small as bullies at school.

Dozens duck through the tent flap each day, joining a circle of people waiting on plastic patio chairs in the dim light of a bare bulb. Some of Dost's visitors are fellow intellectuals who come to debate policy; others are activists who lobby for legislative agendas. But, like most of the people clamoring for Karzai's time, the majority in Dost's tent are seeking solutions to personal problems.

A few bedsheet banners hang on the tent's faded yellow walls. One explains the meaning of democracy in Dari, one of Afghanistan's main languages.

"Demo = people, cracy = government," it explains. "The famous definition by Abraham Lincoln is government of the people, for the people and by the people."

Dost resigned as planning minister last year after Karzai refused to let him shut down most nongovernmental aid agencies, which Dost claimed were embezzling money. The controversy made Dost one of Afghanistan's most admired politicians.

He offers a sympathetic ear to Afghans who feel wronged by the system. Even if Dost can't solve their problems, the visitors seem to leave feeling they've accomplished something. At least he sat and listened, which is more than most felt they got from bureaucrats.

Afghans also rely on Dost to tell uncomfortable truths if he can't pressure Afghan officials to do so first. As an example, he cites the roughly $60,000 a month the government had been paying two German experts to fix the national airline, Ariana. "Ariana has become worse. It is more dangerous," he said.

Meanwhile, the families of men who died fighting the Soviets in the 1980s get no more than $6 a month in compensation. "The Afghan people see this gap between $6 and $60,000 and they say they cannot accept this impossible situation," Dost said.

Examples like that are, "in my opinion, the biggest reason why the Taliban have become so strong in Afghanistan," he said. "Now the Afghan people have lost their trust in the international community."

Karzai's leadership style is making matters worse, Dost said. "He has a tribal image of the state. He believes that he's not a president of a country, but he's a father of a family, or a chief of a tribe."

One summer evening, a 22-year-old orphan came to ask Dost's help in finding money to launch an agency for street children and other orphans. Another young man wanted Dost to arrange a transfer to a safer high school because thugs were threatening him.

Dost took notes and gave the men slips of paper with the phone numbers of government officials who might help. But he didn't hold out much hope.

"For Afghan people, democracy means you can do anything you want," Dost said. "There are no rules, no laws, no justice or authority. When you have power now in Afghanistan, then you have the money, and you can have everything."

Behind palace walls - IN contrast to Dost's tent, Karzai's door is difficult to pass through. Few Afghans are allowed onto the palace grounds, and those who are must make their way through at least five high-security layers. Dogs sniff for explosives. Guards scrutinize pens, key chains and other everyday items.

A suspected Taliban militant tried to assassinate Karzai in 2002 as he waved from an open-roofed car in Kandahar, his hometown. Karzai's American guards killed the would-be assassin. Now his trips outside Kabul are infrequent.

Karzai allowed an intimate look behind the scenes on two difficult days this summer as he toiled in his palace. He declined to sit for an interview, but he allowed a reporter and photographer to watch him maneuver the shifting sands of Afghan politics, culture and war.

The president's office is in the two-story Gul Khana, or House of Flowers, whose outer walls have softball-sized patches where masons have filled in hundreds of shrapnel holes from Afghanistan's long years of war. He lives there with his wife, Zinat, an OB-GYN who stays mostly out of the public eye. They have no children.

His is a draining schedule. Karzai, who earned a degree in political science in India, works seven days a week, 12 hours a day, normally starting with a briefing from his intelligence chief.

On a routine day this summer, he met with French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. That was followed by a meeting with his two vice presidents and other senior officials to discuss Cabinet nominations.
Karzai sat in a high-backed chair behind a large wooden desk that had a small globe of colored stone in one corner. His officials sat at a glass-topped boardroom table, polished to such a gloss that it mirrored Karzai.

Then Karzai had lunch with the elders from Zabol. The petitioners were reaching for the toothpicks when Mohammed Nabi Tokhi, a retired senator who is said to be more than 100 years old, rose from his seat next to Karzai.

His fiery eyes were magnified by the thick lenses of black-rimmed glasses. Tottering to a microphone stand, he said a prayer for the president and then railed against the Nasir tribe, whom he accused of stealing about 2,500 acres of Tokhi land in the 1960s.

"They are a faithless tribe, a tribe of cowards," he said, his voice rising. "There is no way that we and the Nasirs will ever be able to live together in one area."

There was little Karzai could do that wouldn't anger one side. So he passed the problem to a special commission and urged his bickering fellow Pashtuns to talk to each other.

"No matter what you say," he told the Zabol elders, "you have to accept one thing: The Nasiris are also an Afghan tribe and they have equal rights with other tribes, don't they? Are they the sons of this nation or not?"

"Yes," a few men replied. Others grumbled or pushed past Karzai's guards to press their own petitions into his hands.

Afterward, Karzai retreated to his inner office, where he usually has some quiet time each afternoon. Typically he settles into a leather armchair to watch news on a large flat-screen TV or read a book before returning to his official schedule, which often runs until 10 p.m.

The next day, Karzai received a delegation of about 30 villagers from Oruzgan province, where U.S. bombers had killed about 60 civilians along with scores of Taliban fighters.

Over green tea and sponge cake, Karzai related how Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had once asked him to join the regime as foreign minister. Karzai said he saw the Taliban, then backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as a foreign tool and wrote to Omar, "This nation has never been a slave and will never be a slave."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Karzai said, he was sitting on a mountain in Oruzgan when his hand-held satellite phone rang. The call was from an aide to Omar who said the chief wanted to speak to him on a field radio. Karzai told him that he didn't have a radio and that his phone's battery was dying.

"Then this guy told me, 'Mullah Omar is asking, "What do you want?" ' I said: 'Hey man! I want my country!' " Karzai recounted. " 'Kick the foreigners out of this nation.' "

Afghanistan's enemies are still allied with foreigners, Karzai told the elders. Then he turned to look into the eyes of Abdul Rauf, a shy 7-year-old who had lost his family in the American bombing.
"He saw his father and mother dying but couldn't do anything. He is just a child," an elder said as Karzai sadly shook his head.

"The enemies are coming from Pakistan," the president said, "and the international community is bombarding them. And, caught in between, we suffer, not Pakistan."

It was time for Karzai to go. He told the elders the future was in their hands. "They should not bombard us like this!" one shouted back.

"Definitely! You are right," Karzai replied. "Don't call me the president. Call me your small brother, call me your son. I am your servant, not your president. If you need anything just tell me."

"The first need of the people is security," another elder interrupted. "And security comes when the nation and the government get together."