Afghanistan News November 2, 2006

November 2, 2006

Karzai ventures into Afghan streets
Thu Nov 2, 8:39 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - In a rare venture outside his heavily fortified palace, Afghan President Hamid Karzai grabbed a loaf of bread from a Kabul restaurant on Thursday and shared it and shook hands with shopkeepers on the streets of the capital.

Western-backed Karzai has survived two assassination attempts since taking the reins of the country after the Taliban was ousted in 2001 and rarely ventures outside the walls of his compound, even with heavy protection.

This was only the third time he has walked outside the palace since taking power, and followed a ceremony laying the foundation of a Chinese-funded hospital in downtown Kabul.

The whole street, scene in September of one of the city's bloodiest suicide attacks, was closed to traffic for most of the day, except for pedestrians. The visit was arranged under tight security by Karzai's U.S.-trained Afghan bodyguards.

In line with traditional Afghan hospitality, Karzai did not pay for his bread, the shop owner instead giving it for free.

Regarded by his critics as the 'Mayor of Kabul' because neither his writ nor his travels extend much outside the ancient capital, Karzai escaped one assassination bid by a Taliban fighter in 2002 while visiting the southern city of Kandahar -- his birthplace and the stronghold of Taliban insurgents.

A second attempt came in the form of a rocket attack during a helicopter trip in the 2004 presidential election race, which he won overwhelmingly.

Afghan president opens work on $15 million hospital
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has attended a ceremony to mark the start of the rebuilding of a 15-million-dollar Chinese-funded hospital to replace one that collapsed under construction in 2004, killing around 10 labourers.

Karzai said the new hospital represented progress in Afghans' hopes of having good medical services inside the country instead of having to go to neighbouring nations for treatment for basic illnesses.

The new 10-storey Jamhuriat Hospital will have around 350 beds.

The walls and roof of the old hospital collapsed while under reconstruction by a Chinese firm in 2004. Around 10 labourers were killed and 18 wounded.

Once built, the hospital will be equipped with modern medical instruments at a cost of more than five million dollars, Health Minister Mohammad Amin Fatimi said at the ceremony.

Afghanistan's health system is in tatters after nearly 30 years of war but international donors are helping to reconstruct the sector.

Hadley travels to Afghanistan after Iraq
Wed Nov 1, 10:42 AM ET Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush's national security adviser arrived in Afghanistan Wednesday after wrapping up two days of meetings in Iraq aimed at soothing tension with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley traveled to Kabul for meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior military leaders. A joint NATO-Afghan force has stepped up patrols in areas where insurgents are active to increase security in the country.

Perino said Hadley, who made the trip unannounced as a security precaution, "had two days of good meetings in Iraq." His visit came as al-Maliki was trying to assert authority with the Americans, most recently with Tuesday's orders to lift joint U.S.-Iraqi military checkpoints around the Shiite militant stronghold of Sadr City and other parts of Baghdad.

Al-Maliki has repeatedly said the United States was trying to impose timelines for progress without first seeking his approval. At one point, he said he was a friend of the United States, but "I am not America's man in Iraq." The White House has sought to down play any serious dispute and said Hadley was not on a fence-mending mission.

3 journalists are hurt in Afghanistan
Thu Nov 2, 7:46 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Three National Geographic TV crew members were hurt in southern Afghanistan last weekend in a roadside bomb blast that killed one U.S. soldier and injured eight, a military official said Thursday.

The three American journalists suffered non-life threatening injuries in the blast Saturday in Uruzgan province, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Matt Hackathorn said. He did not disclose their names.

The Department of Defense has previously said that one American Special Forces soldier died in the blast. Eight other soldiers and an interpreter were injured.

Two of the National Geographic crew members, the producer and the cameraman, were flown to Germany for treatment for face lacerations, Hackathorn said. The crew's soundman suffered a ruptured eardrum; he stayed behind in Afghanistan.

The entertainment Web site TMZ.com, which first reported the injuries, said the crew was embedded with Army Special Forces for an upcoming special called "Inside the Green Berets."

Afghan opium crop may match record
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Reporter
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan farmers now planting opium poppies will probably reap a harvest comparable to this year's record crop, in part because insurgents control wide swaths of the south, preventing effective counter-narcotics work, officials said Thursday.

Planting is under way in southern regions responsible for the bulk of the estimated 6,100 tons of Afghan opium produced in the 2005-06 growing season. Anti-drug officials say that despite anti-cultivation campaigns, they foresee little improvement by harvest time next spring.

A senior U.S. official said the new poppy crop probably will be similar to the one planted a year ago, "maybe a little under — we were so high last year." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record.

Drug production has skyrocketed since a U.S.-led offensive toppled the Taliban regime five years ago for giving refuge to        Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida camps. Last spring's poppy harvest accounted for 92 percent of the global opium supply and was enough to make 610 tons of heroin — more than all the world's addicts consume in a year.

Police and government officials are deeply implicated in the trade, which adds to the corruption and lawlessness threatening        Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. Taliban militiamen had all but eradicated opium cultivation by 2000 but now profit from it, protecting poppy farmers.

Deteriorating security in the countryside makes it difficult to monitor how much poppy has been planted, the U.S. official said. Taliban-led militants have increased attacks this year, particularly in Afghanistan's southern opium heartland.

Gen. Khodaidad, a deputy minister in Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, said some provincial governors and police chiefs have been doing effective anti-drug work.

"But unfortunately, in some provinces, especially in the south and southwest, we haven't been doing as well," said Khodaidad, who like many Afghans uses one name. "The reason is very clear — fighting. Some of the districts are under the influence of the Taliban or al-Qaida."

Khodaidad said he hoped for a successful anti-cultivation campaign this fall followed by an eradication campaign in the new year, but he said he couldn't promise a reduction in the harvest. "I can tell you there will be no increase," he said.

The        United Nations' anti-drug chief said recently that proceeds from Afghan opium production are being used to finance terrorist groups. The U.S. official said the country's drug trade was a $3.1 billion business this year and it doesn't "take much of that to fund terrorism."

Seeking to counter corruption that hinders anti-drug efforts, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is training special units of Afghan policemen who must pass polygraph exams and investigations of their backgrounds, Karen P. Tandy, the DEA administrator, said during a visit Sunday.

"DEA is very accustomed to working in countries where corruption is rampant," she said. "We have a method that has been extremely successful. ... You have patriots in every country who care about the future of their country, and that is no less true here in Afghanistan."

Khodaidad said President Hamid Karzai has warned government officials they will be removed if they help drug trafficking. He said a district chief and an administrator from the same district in Badakhshan, a remote and rugged northern province favored by drug producers, were recently fired.

The U.S. official said if there is no reduction in the opium harvest this year, Afghanistan would come under strong U.S. pressure to start spraying poppy fields with herbicide, an idea that Afghans, including Karzai, deeply oppose because of fears the chemicals could harm people.

___

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.

Fraser wraps up mission in southern Afghanistan
Wed. Nov. 1 2006 11:37 PM ETCTV.ca News Staff
Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan handed NATO control of the dangerous southern region of the country over to Dutch forces Wednesday morning.

The move -- a scheduled rotational command change -- completes a deadly eight months for Brig.-Gen. David Fraser in the most volatile region of Afghanistan. He said the military has much more work to do before stability is brought to the country.

"There is an Afghan proverb: 'A might river is made of many single drops,'" Fraser said during the handover ceremony. "In our short time here it is hard not to see ourselves as single drops with no river in sight."
Fraser has commanded about 9,500 NATO forces -- mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops -- in southern Afghanistan.

He added that some progress has been made under his leadership, pointing out that new roads have been built and canals and schools have been constructed.
However, the toll has been high. Forty-two Canadians soldiers and one diplomat have been killed since 2002.

Fraser conceded the job is far from being complete and many Afghans are still waiting for help. The assistance they need, he said, is dependent on more nations contributing troops to Afghanistan to help fight the Taliban so that reconstruction and aid efforts can proceed.

Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie, who visited Afghanistan on a fact-finding trip, said NATO needs to send thousands of additional troops to succeed in its mission.

"The commander is only asking for 2,500 more. If I was him -- maybe I wouldn't last too long -- I would be asking for 40,000 more," he said.

Maj.-Gen. Ton Van Loon of the Netherlands now takes over for Fraser in southern Afghanistan and will command six provinces for half a year. Fraser will also hand over authority of the Canadian contingent to Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant.

Fraser will be heading home to Edmonton, where he will join his wife Poppie, their two sons, and an Akita dog named Seiko.

The Wednesday handover may mark a change in NATO's strategy in the country, said CTV's Steve Chao, reporting from Kandahar. Under Fraser, the coalition forces have been focused on fighting, routing out Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan.

Chao said the next few months will prove crucial for NATO troops. Top officials believe it is vital that the coalition proves that NATO can restore stability and improve the lives of ordinary Afghans.
If that doesn't happen, NATO expects the insurgency to gain strength next spring when the fighting season resumes.

Turkey rejects NATO Afghanistan request
ANKARA, Turkey, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Turkey is unwilling to extend its operations in Afghanistan despite a NATO request to do so.

Turkey's Zaman newspaper reported Oct. 29 that the Turkish government has rebuffed a NATO request to deploy its forces outside the capital Kabul. The rebuff comes despite a personal request by NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, U.S. Gen. James Jones, that Turkish forces in Afghanistan lift their self-imposed restrictions in the war-torn nation.

The Turkish chief of staff and the Turkish Foreign Ministry are opposed to Jones' request.

Hikmet Cetin, Turkey's former NATO senior civilian representative in Afghanistan for nearly three years, has indirectly supported the NATO request.

During an interview with Zaman Cetin said restrictions on Turkish troops in Afghanistan should be reduced to a minimum even as he observed that no other nation could force Turkey to alter its polices.

"The Afghan mission is NATO's most significant operation. I repeated that restrictions were completely unnecessary even when I was representing NATO there. Gen. Jones is right in demanding more troops. When I was in Afghanistan, I was saying that restrictions were unnecessary and strict policies were causing difficulties. Restrictions should be minimized," Cetin said.

Turkey is the United States' sole NATO Muslim ally. Ankara has deployed troops to Afghanistan to support U.S.-led anti-terrorist operations there.

Traditional Afghan council will address return of Taliban
By Agence France Presse (AFP) Wednesday, November 01, 2006 Waheedullah Massoud and Bronwen Roberts
KABUL: Looking back to a centuries-old tradition, Afghanistan is preparing a tribal meeting of hundreds of people to tackle a Taliban insurgency that is paralyzing 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.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will also be invited, reflecting the government's drive to emphasize 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.

Decisions of both are meant to be binding, but analysts say the meetings could be manipulated by pro-Taliban conservatives who could steer conclusions against 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.

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 toward "local solutions" to the grinding insurgency, which officials say cannot be ended through the military action under way.

"From our point of view, it is very important through the organization 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.

via The Daily Star (Lebanon)

Ex Afghan warlord lays down arms to take up career in business
by Sardar Ahmad Thu Nov 2, 3:25 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - With a closely trimmed beard and a Western jacket over his baggy outfit, chubby-faced Ezatullah Atef is a uniquely Afghan mix of former anti-Soviet warlord and shrewd modern businessman.

Not so long ago he commanded 1,400 men in one of thousands of mujahedin units that took up arms in a bitter, decade-long struggle against the Soviet army that eventually forced the invaders to retreat in 1989.

His militia also played a role in the US-led invasion that five years ago toppled the extremist Taliban regime.

Today Atef is back in command though this time not at the head of an army but as manager of Qargha Lake, Kabul's most popular weekend scenic spot where on summer Fridays crowds gather for family picnics, to stroll through the picturesque gardens and take to the water.

"After the fall of the Taliban, I thought the era of the gun was over in Afghanistan," smiles the 46-year-old in an interview by the blue lake. "So I gave up arms and switched to business."

Atef was one of the first warlords to hand in his weapons when a disarmament programme was launched after the rout of the Taliban to rid the country of its mountain of illegal arms and unruly militias.

He says he handed in more than 800 machineguns, six tanks and a pile of artillery in 2002. The Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme records only 640 weapons, however, but says he also disbanded more than 1,400 men who had been under his command.

In July 2005 he also handed over four truckloads of ammunition, the UN-backed programme says.

Atef still has guns around him: he is often accompanied by two bodyguards -- as are many government officials and businessmen in troubled Afghanistan -- and armed men guard parts of the Qargha complex.

But today his business is the peace and calm of his lakeside haven, a state-owned national park dotted with pines and purple bushes and lit up in Spring by yellow roses.

Built in the 1960s, the lake, fed by snow from the surrounding foothills of the Hindu Kush mountain range, has long been an escape for Kabulis tired of the overcrowded city and is one of the few places lovers can be alone.

Once entry was free and there was little more than the natural surroundings to enjoy.

But Atef has introduced many changes since securing a contract from the government that leases him the park for 20 years for 2,500 dollars a month.

After handing over the 40 afghani (nearly one dollar) entrance fee, visitors must pay up again at every turn, whether to park or pitch a tent.

There are dozens of restaurants and ice cream stalls. There are one-dollar boat rides to the deserted far banks of the lake, and pedalboats for families (one dollar for 15 minutes).

Even a seldom-used jet ski waits at the shore and can be used for a fee.

Brightly coloured lodges, modelled on chalets that Atef saw during a trip to Switzerland and which sleep several people, have just opened at a cost of 80 to 200 dollars a night

"I have to spend 800,000 dollars on reconstruction and then I can collect the income for 20 years," he says, though he claims to have already spent two million dollars.

He says he will return the property to the government when the contract expires.

Before starting the work, Atef had to resort to strong-arm tactics to destroy dams built by a rival warlord to divert the river flowing into the lake.

Besides the money generated by the park's various services and facilities, Atef also takes half the income of the lakeside food stalls as rent. On a good Friday this can hit 2,000 dollars, says one owner.

"I provide the stuff, the raw food and materials, he provides the place. Then we split the income 50-50," adds Norrullah who owns a barbeque restaurant.

This set-up has raised some eyebrows in the murky ethics of post-conflict Afghanistan where corruption is endemic, crime is soaring and an estimated 2,000 private armies still exist.

"Some say it is not a fair contract (with the government) but he is doing some good reconstruction work. That is significant -- let him work," says Sahpoor Zazai, a Kabuli who visits the lake most weekends.

"It is much better to have a corrupt businessman than a dangerous warlord," says the civil servant.

Many of the once mighty warlords who helped expel the Red Army or topple the Taliban have become a headache for the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Despite being ordered by the government to disband, some still run their own private armies and ignore the authority of the central government.

"What we know is there are up 2,000 (armed) groups which makes up to 180,000 persons," says the disarmament and demobilisation drive spokeswoman Ariane Quentier.

Most of the groups are involved "in activities which are illegal and (are) preventing the establishment of the state authority and the rule of law".

Former commanders, including some sitting in parliament, are accused of complicity in atrocities during nearly three decades of conflict -- notably the civil war that ruined Kabul and left around 80,000 dead in the capital.

The issue is complex, with calls from some quarters for the men who many regard as the liberators of Afghanistan to be called to account for war crimes.

Atef says he has genuinely left behind his warrior past.

"Who is a warlord and who's not -- I leave for people's judgement," he says.

"I struggled for my country's freedom and I'm proud of that."

Tribesmen threaten suicide attacks on Pak forces
Khar rally warns ‘Pakistani, US spies’ to be stoned to death; Qazi Hussain stopped from entering Bajaur agency
The News International (Pakistan) November 1, 2006
KHAR: Thousands of tribesmen denounced an air raid on a seminary in Chenagai that killed 80 people, accusing the US of involvement in the attack and vowing on Tuesday to send waves of suicide bombers to retaliate against Pakistani forces.

Around 20,000 tribesmen, many brandishing firearms some shouldering rocket launchers, railed in Bajaur agency’s main town of Khar against President Gen Pervez Musharraf and US counterpart George W Bush and called for the deaths. “God is Great!” “Death to Bush! Death to Musharraf!” and “Anyone who is a friend of America is a traitor!” they chanted.

Inayatur Rahman, a tribal elder, told the crowd that he had prepared a “squad of suicide bombers” to target Pakistani security forces in the same way 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!”

The rally also adopted a verbal resolution to stone to death anyone found spying for the Pakistan Army or US government. Tribesmen and religious figures blamed US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan for carrying out the attack. “Our Jihad will continue and God willing, people will go to Afghanistan to oust American and British forces,” Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric, told the crowd.

Rallies were held in other Pakistani cities, including Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Multan, Quetta and Islamabad. The protesters burnt US flags and effigies of Bush, called for the toppling of Musharraf’s government and denounced the killing of innocent students and teachers.

Another 5,000 tribesmen marched through Landi Kotal, the main town of nearby Khyber tribal area, blaming Musharraf for the “bloodshed of innocent tribesmen”, witnesses said. Javed Aziz Khan adds from Peshawar: President Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Qazi Hussain Ahmad and his convoy were denied entry into the Bajaur agency on Tuesday afternoon.

The MMA leader had announced to hold a protest rally against the killing of over 80 persons mostly children in an attack on a seminary on Monday. Qazi Hussain Ahmad along with provincial chief and ex-senior NWFP minister Siraj-ul-Haq, provincial ministers Hafiz Hashmat, Fazle Rabbani, MNAs Bakhtiar Maani, Haroonur Rashid and Ahmad Ghawas was on his way to Chenagai village via Timergara when their convoy was stopped at Tor Ghundai checkpost by heavy contingents of Bajaur Levies. The checkpost is located between Timergara and Bajaur.

The tribal administration informed Qazi and his party leaders about the decision of not allowing them to the site of the bombardment. A group of journalists, accompanying the convoy of the firebrand religious leader, was also refused entry to Bajaur.

Addressing around 2,000 tribesmen at the spot, Qazi Hussain Ahmad lashed out at the federal government for owning the attack. “If the government of Pakistan has done it then the public should be informed what reasons led it to kill innocent children in the religious school,” the MMA chief said. This act, he added, shows that like America, President Musharraf and his team is also the enemy of Pakistan and its people.

The charged participants of the rally were chanting anti-US and anti-Musharraf slogans of “Down with America”, “Down with Musharraf”, “Bush is the killer”, “Jihad will continue” and “Jihad is our way”.

The top MMA leader termed the attack on the religious school an invasion on Pakistan and Islam. He vowed to continue Jihad (holy war) till doomsday. “Our party will decide now whether to give a call for long march against the government or for such rallies across the country to protest the policies of President Musharraf and his allies,” Qazi informed the emotional participants of the rally.

Protests were also held across the country, particularly in NWFP, to condemn the killing of young students in Bajaur early Monday. The situation also forced Britain’s Prince Charles to call off his scheduled visit to the capital of Frontier province.

In Peshawar, workers of religious parties brought out a major rally from Masjid Mohabbat Khan, which marched through different bazaars of the city and converted into a rally at historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar.

Students wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, also took out a peaceful procession from Hashtnagri. They blocked the Grand Trunk Road for some time by burning tyres and also torched an effigy of President Bush and a US flag.

Members of different social society organizations also staged a march from Peshawar Press Club to the Governor’s House to lodge their protest over the killing of innocent children. However, police stopped them from staging a rally close to the residence of NWFP governor after which they returned and held a rally outside the Press Club.

PPI adds from Nowshera: Qazi Hussain Ahmed participated in a protest demonstration staged by the students of the Postgraduate Degree College here. The protesters blocked the GT Road at two points for a couple of hours.

Speaking on the occasion, Qazi condemned the killing of innocent students and their teachers in Bajaur. Our Lahore correspondent adds: The MMA and other religious groups on Tuesday took out protest rallies, calling for immediate removal of Gen Musharraf. The protesters declared him an extreme security risk for the country and a tool in the hands of US forces.

A demonstration was held outside the Lahore Press Club, which was addressed by MMA Punjab President Liaqat Baloch, MMA Lahore president Hafiz Salman Butt, secretary Amirul Azim and Ahmad Jamil Rashid. Addressing the protestors, they said the US killing of civilians was aimed at making the tribal people fight against the Pak Army so as to pave the way for US forces to occupy Pakistani territories and carry out their nefarious designs.

They demanded that a joint session of parliament to discuss the repercussions of the operations in tribal areas and Balochistan. He also demanded of Gen Musharraf to immediately step down since he had become a security risk for the country.

‘Al-Zawahiri was frequent visitor to Madrassa’
The News International (Pakistan) November 1, 2006 By Shakil Shaikh
ISLAMABAD: A religious school in Bajaur agency destroyed in air strikes, killing around 80 people, was an isolated terrorists training facility frequently visited by al-Qaeda’s No 2 Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri.

At a briefing held here on Tuesday, top security sources said the facility, known as Maulvi Liaquat’s Madrassa, was actually used for imparting training to new recruits with second- and third-tier leadership of al-Qaeda, by Dr al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaeda’s operation in Afghanistan’s Kunar province Abu Obaida al-Misri and Abu Farrah Libbi.

The officials showed stills and videos of the early morning training sessions at the destroyed seminary with participants drawn from Swat, Dir, Bajaur and even Afghanistan. The video and still photos taken through infrared cameras clearly show that people aged between 20 to 30 were carrying out exercises with no arms or weapons being used. The timing of the training was generally in and around 4:30 a.m. at the isolated seminary, which has a large portion for training, an undamaged mosque and spacious living area, said the security source.

It was seen that grown-ups doing stretching for their physical training, and it was claimed that these people were to be sent to their targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan within a day or two.

“We continued to monitor the site for several weeks and despite our efforts to stop it through approaching Maulvi Liaquat and Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, they carried out such activities unabated,” said the security source. He said that all the other religious seminaries in that part and other areas were closed and no student or child was present there. “The students had finished their religious education by end-Ramazan and there was a break of around 15 to 20 days,” said the source, and added: “this period was being used to train terrorists as this facility was located at an isolated place in Bajaur agency.”

He said the facility was frequently visited by Dr Al-Zawahiri, Libbi, Al-Misri and others to prepare a new lot of foot soldiers, as al-Qaeda is reportedly running short of them. “No weapon or arms were shown as being used for training, as tactics of terrorists have been changed and they prepare suicide bombers,” said the security source.

He said it was a matter of record that some leaders of the area had already announced to prepare around 20 suicide bombers, yet they were also involved in striking a peace deal to show their other face. “Yes, the peace deal like Waziristan was around the corner but the strike at the terrorist facility was essential from the security point of view, as an element of surprise is a must in such operations,” said the security source.

He said no ground operation was launched nor was it possible as it would give an early warning to these people. He said the first person who arrived at the spot following the strikes was Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, with 20 persons and they surreptitiously took away materials and articles.

He said after him Maulvi Liaquat and people from the area visited the place they did not take away the bodies. He said the mosque located at one side of the seminary remained undamaged except that one of its outer walls were damaged due to Pakistani strikes. “No American or any Nato plane or forces were involved in this operation, as it was an operation conducted fully by Pakistan security forces,” said the source.

He said no one had come out in the open claiming that his child was killed. “The dead bodies were taken to Swat and other areas which proved they were of Jihadis and not of seminary students,” he added.

The security official said it was a careful intelligence operations, as even those offered Namaz-e-Janaza of the dead persons were wearing masks. “No arrest was made as there was no security personnel who reached there,” said the official.

He said it is not yet fully established that the same facility had any link with rockets found in Islamabad and Rawalpindi recently, though investigations are still underway. He said the fact that in-charge of al-Qaeda’s operation in Kunar province established that as Kunar province is stronghold of Gulbadin Hekmatyar and these people belong to Jamaat-e-Islami. “JUI has nothing to do with it,” he said.

He said it was for the government to take action against the Jamaat-e-Islami, for their alleged involvement, if any, in such activities. The official said the entire Bajaur Agency is under the influence of JI therefore the Jamaat is trying to exploit the situation politically.

He said similar actions would be taken against all such facilities if people do not pay any heed to the call of stopping such activities in their areas. He said the operation was not conducted to favour Britain or Nato forces, but it was very much a security concern of Pakistan.

The official did not rule out retaliation by the terrorists and their mastermind for which security would be tightened to avert any sabotage activity in Pakistan. He said: “We have taken a number of political risks and these have ultimately proved good for Pakistan,” he said.

NATO Compensates Relatives Of Dead Afghan Civilians
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
November 1, 2006 -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan says it has paid compensation and handed out aid to civilians in Kandahar Province who were targeted by air strikes last week.

ISAF spokesman Major Luke Knittig said preliminary inquiries confirm 12 civilians were killed by the October 24 raid in the province's Panjwayi district.

Local residents claim that 60 to 85 civilians were killed. But Knittig said 57 other confirmed deaths are thought to have been Taliban fighters who were massing in a large, open compound for an attack.

Knittig said food, shelter, and clothing have been distributed to civilians in the Panjwayi district. He says cash payments have been made to relatives of the civilians killed. - (AFP)

Police Make Arrest In Murder Of Afghan Official
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
November 1, 2006 -- Afghan authorities say they have arrested a man who confessed to assassinating the official in charge of women's affairs for the southern province of Kandahar.

Safia Ama Jan was shot and killed September 25.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said the man -- a former member of the Hizb-e Islami militia -- was arrested October 31. - (AFP)

US's Afghan policies going up in smoke
via Asia Times Online November 1, 2006 By Ann Jones
On the fifth anniversary of the start of the Bush administration's war in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld wrote an upbeat op-ed in the Washington Post on that hapless country's "hopeful and promising" trajectory. He cited only two items as less than "encouraging": "the legitimate worry that increased poppy production could be a destabilizing factor" and the "rising violence in southern Afghanistan".

That rising violence - a full-scale onslaught by the resurgent Taliban - put Afghanistan back in the headlines this summer and brought consternation to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) governments (from Canada to Australia) whose soldiers are now dying in a land they had been led to believe was a peaceful "success story".

Lieutenant-General David Richards, the British commander of NATO troops that took over security in embattled southern Afghanistan from the US in July, warned at the time, "We could actually fail here." In October, he argued that if NATO did not bring security and significant reconstruction to the alienated Pashtun south within six months - the mission the US failed to accomplish during the past five years - the majority of the populace might well switch sympathies to the Taliban.

But coming in the midst of NATO anxieties and Taliban assaults, what are we to make of Rumsfeld's "legitimate worry" about Afghan poppy production, which this year will provide 92% of the world's heroin supply? And what are we to make of President George W Bush's presidential determination, issued just before Afghan President Hamid Karzai's September visit to Washington, that the Afghan government must be "held accountable" for that poppy harvest; that it must not only "deter and eradicate poppy cultivation" in the country, but "investigate, prosecute and extradite all the narco-traffickers" in the land?

Undeniably, the poppy trade and the resurgence of the Taliban are intimately connected, for the Taliban, who briefly banned poppy cultivation in 2000 in an effort to gain US diplomatic recognition and aid, now both support and draw support from that profitable crop. Yet Western policies aimed at the Taliban and the poppy are quite separate and at odds with each other. While NATO troops scramble, between battles, to rebuild rural infrastructure, US advisers urge Afghan anti-narcotics police to eradicate the livelihood of 2 million poor farmers.

So far the poppy-eradication program, largely funded by the US, hasn't made a dent. Last year, it claimed to have destroyed 15,380 hectares of poppies, up from 4,850 the year before; but during the same period overall poppy cultivation soared from 104,000 hectares to 165,000.

When the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, poppies were grown on only 7,600 hectares. Under the US occupation that followed the defeat of the Taliban, poppy cultivation spread to every province, and overall production has increased exponentially ever since - this year by 60%.

Still, the counterproductive eradication program succeeds in one thing. It makes life miserable for hundreds of thousands of small farmers. What happens to them? The Senlis Council, an international drug-policy think-tank, reports that the drug-eradication program not only ruins small farmers but actually drives them into the arms of the Taliban, who offer them loans, protection and a chance to plant again. Big farmers, on the other hand, are undeterred by the poppy-eradication program; they simply pay off the police and associated officials, spreading corruption and dashing hopes of honest government.

In 2002, Bush announced, "We must reduce drug use for one great moral reason. When we fight against drugs, we fight for the souls of our fellow Americans." There's a profusion of ironies here. The US in the 1980s fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union on Afghan soil, encouraging Islamist extremists (then "our" soldiers) and helping to set the stage for the Taliban.

Now, another Republican administration sets Afghan against Afghan again in a kind of cockamamie proxy war supposedly for the souls of American heroin addicts. Since when have Republicans wanted to do anything for American drug addicts but lock them up?

This is the kind of weird "foreign policy" you get when your base is keen on the war on drugs and there's a lot of real stuff you can't talk about outside the Oval Office - or, sometimes, in it. Like, to take an example, the way the Taliban now control the Pakistani border city of Quetta, a subject that went politely unmentioned recently when Bush entertained Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and Afghanistan's Karzai at the White House.

Like the way Pakistan reluctantly hands over some al-Qaeda operatives to the US, but winks at routine Taliban cross-border traffic into Afghanistan. It also makes deals with Talibanized elders in its own tribal area of Waziristan, long thought to be a haven for al-Qaeda and perhaps Osama bin Laden himself. Like the fact that no nation fights harder against the Afghan drug trade than axis-of-evil enemy Iran, while the United States' "staunch ally" Pakistan lends support to the trade and to the Taliban as well.

If we must worry about poppy production while all hell breaks loose in southern Afghanistan and suicide bombers strike Kabul, the capital, is there a more "legitimate" or effective way to worry?

A blooming business

First, we can forget entirely any concern for American heroin addicts. It has been exactly 100 years since public officials first met in London to ban the international trade in opium. A century of cracking down on poppy production from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle to Central Asia's Golden Crescent to Mexico has verified one basic fact of agricultural economics. When supply is cut somewhere, another poppy-growing area quickly arises to meet the demand.

Wipe out poppies in Afghanistan tomorrow and - faster than you can say "mission accomplished" - American addicts will be shooting up heroin from Pakistan or Thailand or the moon. This is a certain fact.

But none of that phony compassion for America's drug addicts factors into Rumsfeld's "legitimate worry". He's concerned about the "destabilizing" effect of the drug trade itself - on the Karzai government, Afghanistan and the Central Asian region.

Paradoxically, many a man on the streets of Kabul points to poppy as the source of jobs, wealth, hope and such stability as Karzai currently enjoys. Karzai himself often promises to rid government and country of drug lords, but as a Pashtun and a realist, he keeps his enemies close. His strategy is to avoid confrontation, befriend potential adversaries and give them offices, often in his cabinet.

Like Musharraf in Pakistan, Karzai walks a tightrope between domestic politics and US demands for dramatic actions - such as ending the drug trade - clearly well beyond his powers. The trade penetrates even the elected parliament, which is full of the usual suspects. Among the 249 members of the wolesi jirga (lower house) are at least 17 known drug traffickers in addition to 40 commanders of armed militias, 24 members of criminal gangs, and 19 men facing serious allegations of war crimes and human-rights violations, any or all of whom may be affiliated with the poppy business. For years the Kabul rumor mill has traced the drug trade to the family of the president himself.

Through many administrations, the US government is itself implicated in the Afghan drug trade. During the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fostered anti-Soviet Islamist extremists, and to finance their covert operations it fostered the drug trade as well.

Before the US-and-Pakistani-sponsored mujahideen took on the Soviets in 1979, Afghanistan produced only a very small amount of opium for regional markets, and no heroin at all. By the end of the jihad against the Soviet army of occupation, it was the world's top producer of both drugs. As Alfred W McCoy reports in The Politics of Heroin, Afghan mujahideen - the guys president Ronald Reagan famously likened to "our founding fathers" - ordered Afghan farmers to grow poppy; Afghan commanders and Pakistani intelligence agents refined heroin; the Pakistani army transported it to Karachi for shipment overseas; while the CIA made it all possible by providing legal cover for these operations.

After the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration made use of the United States' old Islamist allies, paying them millions of dollars to hunt bin Laden, a task to which they do not appear to have been entirely devoted. Asked in 2004 why the US wasn't going after drug kingpins in Afghanistan, an unnamed US official told a New York Times reporter that the drug lords were "the guys who helped us liberate this place in 2001", the guys the US is still relying on to get bin Laden.

Interviewed by the British newspaper The Independent, a US soldier offered another reason: "We start taking out drug guys, and they will start taking out our guys." Reluctant to interfere with the United States' drug-lord allies in the "war on terror" or risk the lives of US soldiers in such a dustup, the Bush administration went after small farmers instead.

Early on, the British, who were responsible for international anti-narcotics operations in Afghanistan, tried to persuade Afghan farmers to take up "alternative livelihoods" - that is, to grow other crops - even though no other crop requires less work or produces a fraction of the profits of poppy. Not that the farmers themselves get rich. Within Afghanistan, where perhaps 3 million people draw direct income from poppy, profits may reach US$3 billion this year; but international traffickers in the global marketplace will make 10 times as much, at the very least.

The small proportion of profit that stays in Afghanistan enriches mainly the kingpins: warlords, government officials, politically connected smugglers. But as drug lords build mansions in Kabul - ornate "Pakistani Palaces" of garish tile and colored glass - they create jobs and a booming trade in all sorts of legal goods from cement to pots and pans. What's more, that small in-country profit adds up to an estimated 60% of Afghanistan's gross domestic product, or more than half the country's annual income. It's also more than twice as much as the US designated in the past five years for Afghan reconstruction, most of which never reached the country anyway.

You have to ask: What if the drug trade could be stopped? What about the destabilizing effect of that?

Fear of flowers

As things stand, the poppy farmer makes a decent living. Poppies enable him to hold on to his scrap of land. He can feed his family and send his children to school. Nevertheless, two years ago some poppy farmers in Nangahar province were actually persuaded to give up poppy for tomatoes. They were pressured by an aggressive US campaign of defoliant aerial spraying of poppy fields that killed poppies and sickened children and livestock. The US still denies responsibility for that episode and similar aerial attacks that devastated livestock in Helmand province in February 2005.

When word came that the Holy Koran had been dumped in a Guantanamo toilet, Nangahar farmers were among the furious Afghans who rioted in Jalalabad. For them the desecration of the Koran was the last straw. They were already furious about the tomatoes. They'd harvested good crops, then watched them rot because a promised bridge they needed to get their tomatoes to market hadn't been built. Remarkably, the Nangahar farmers still gave "alternative livelihoods" one more try, but they made too little money to feed their children. This year they announced they're planting poppies again.

A field of poppies in bloom is a beautiful sight - especially in Afghanistan, where the plant's brilliant greenery and its white and purplish flowers stand against a drab landscape of rock and sand, visual testimony to the promise of human endeavor even in the worst of circumstances. It may be that Afghan farmers contemplate their fields as metaphor, Afghans being great lovers of poetry. But they're practical and desperate as well, so they came up with a plan.

Afghan farmers officially proposed to British anti-narcotics officials that they be licensed to grow poppy and produce opium for state-owned refineries to be built with foreign aid donations. The refineries, in turn, would produce medicinal morphine and codeine for worldwide legal sale, thereby filling a global need for inexpensive, natural painkillers. (Recently hospitalized in the US, I can testify that morphine works exceedingly well, though it's expensive because, unlike heroin, it's in short supply.)

The farmers got nowhere with this proposal, although it's hard to think of any plan that could more effectively have bound the rural peasantry to Karzai's feeble central government, stabilizing and strengthening it. Now, the Senlis Council has proposed the same plan, but again it's unlikely to fly. It's not just that Big Pharma would resent the competition. Think about the Republican base for which "legal drug" is an oxymoron.

In November 2004, in fact, Bush, backed by the civilian leadership of the Pentagon and powerful Republican congressmen like Henry Hyde of Illinois, suddenly increased US funds committed to the conventional Afghan war on drugs sixfold to $780 million, including $150 million designated for aerial spraying. Hyde, still on the case as chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, recently suggested shifting the focus from farmers to "kingpins", but no one in the administration is ready to call off the war.

Two years ago in Kabul I interviewed an American consultant sent by the Bush administration to assess the "drug problem" in Afghanistan. His off-the-record verdict: "The only sensible way out is to legalize drugs. But nobody in the White House wants to hear that." He admitted that the sensible conclusion would not appear in his report.

So you see what I mean about the weird policies a government such as the United States' can develop when it can't talk about real facts. When it cozies up to people it professes to be against. When it attacks people whose hearts and minds it hopes to win. When it pays experts to report false conclusions it wants to hear. When it spends billions to tear down the lives of poor Afghans even as NATO allies pray for a break in battling the Taliban so that - with time running out - they can rebuild.

Ann Jones spent the better part of the past four years in Afghanistan, working on education and women's rights - and watching. She wrote about what she saw in Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

Waging war with 'old guns,' pickup trucks
Afghan commander says his troops are crippled by lack of arms, vehicles
PAUL KORING - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The sprawling base looks like it could be in Texas, even if the road signs suggest Wisconsin.

In fact, it's close to Kandahar air base, just beyond the old bombed-out and burned Soviet officer quarters, now home to scores of ragged children and the wives of officers in the new Afghan National Army. Not far away is Tarnak Farms, the notorious al-Qaeda training area where four Canadians were killed by a U.S. bomb in 2002.

At the corner of Green Bay and South Bend roads is the simple, newly built headquarters of the Afghan army's 205 Corps, known as the Hero Corps. Inside, the commander is General Rahmatullah Raoufi, whose domain stretches across most of strife-torn southern Afghanistan, more or less matching the patch where NATO is battling a fierce Taliban insurgency.

The general has troubles. His wife has been ill, requiring that he be away for many weeks in Turkey, where she is getting treatment.

Over tea, with nuts and raisins to nibble, he is warmly hospitable but firm in warning that unless his troops get more than encouragement from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, they won't be able to take on the Taliban.

He has few troops, and even fewer in Kandahar, the province that is arguably the linchpin of the entire effort to defeat the Taliban. And these troops have few weapons.

"Our guns are old, they are [East German] weapons," he said, referring to the massive collection effort intended to disarm the country's militias. It was mostly old, defective guns that were turned in, but many of the AK-47s -- the ubiquitous military weapon in Central Asia -- have been recycled to the ANA.

NATO's southern commander, Canadian Brigadier-General David Fraser, who hands over command of the multinational forces to a Dutch general today, rejects any suggestion that Gen. Raoufi's troops have been shortchanged.

"We have provided them boots, we have provided them flak jackets," Gen. Fraser said.

But Gen. Raoufi points out that his soldiers are driving around in open Ford Ranger pickup trucks. For starters, he would like 100 Humvees. Perhaps even just one for himself. "I am a corps commander in a Ranger," he said, with only a touch of rancour.

It is odd. Canada's high command is trying to keep scores of armoured G-wagon jeeps inside the Kandahar base as much as possible because they offer only limited protection against roadside bombs. Yet Afghan army troops, working alongside Canadian troops battling the Taliban in the hinterlands, are riding around in unarmoured vehicles little different than those found in shopping-mall parking lots.

Gen. Fraser is too polite to say the fledgling ANA can't yet service or handle sophisticated military vehicles, but that's the message.

The Afghan army "has got to grow in incremental steps," he said. We need to "give them what they need, not give them something that becomes an anchor around their necks."

Even Gen. Raoufi's sprawling new military base came missing one key element. The U.S. contractors who laid out Camp Shirazai forgot to include a mosque. So the general is having one built -- a traditional brick structure, soon to be covered with plaster, that will sit, oddly, among the Western-style barracks.

The burly, mustachioed, Afghan general, a 37-year veteran who fought with the Soviets against the Afghan insurgents, seems resigned to a long, slow rebuilding process.

"When the Canadians first got here, there were some misunderstandings, but the problems have been cleared up," he said. But he hasn't been able to persuade the NATO countries supposedly training and mentoring his troops that the Afghan army is being crippled by a lack of weapons and vehicles.

The Taliban have newer and better weapons, he said -- they all come from Pakistan, where the Taliban train.

He estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 Taliban fighters are active in the southern region. The general said it will be at least five years before his army can fight without Western ground troops. No one in NATO is that optimistic.

AFGHANISTAN: Measles, tetanus and polio vaccination drive launched
KABUL, 1 November (IRIN) - Tens of thousands of children will be vaccinated against measles, tetanus and polio in southern parts of Afghanistan during a 10-day campaign launched on Wednesday by the Ministry of Public Health, with support from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and NGO partners.

WHO officials said that the insurgency-hit south and southeastern areas of the country were especially susceptible to measles outbreaks this winter due to high internal displacement and low immunisation due to insecurity.

The drive, which started in Paktya, Paktika and Khost provinces will be extended on Sunday to ten districts in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Nimroz and Helmand targeting around 540,000 children, according to United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

UN officials in the capital, Kabul said that the remaining districts in Kandahar, Helmand and Nimroz and in Uruzgan and Zabul provinces would be tackled at a later date.

More than 6,000 health workers will be engaged in the ten-day effort, said Dr Hemlal Sharma, a UNICEF health officer in Kabul.

UNICEF officials said that the neonatal tetanus and measles - easily preventable diseases - still remained serous health problems in Afghanistan.

"Ninety-six percent of districts in Afghanistan are classified as high risk for neonatal tetanus, but many cases that occur go unrecognized and unreported," Sharma, told IRIN.

The joint campaign involves both a house-to-house strategy to immunise mothers aged 15-45 years against tetanus and a fixed centre strategy to immunise children aged 9- 59 months, according to the WHO.

The neonatal tetanus death rate is estimated at 10 per 1,000 live births in Afghanistan. This translates into around 10,000 deaths each year in the country, according to UNICEF.

WHO estimated that 30,000-35,000 children under the age of five died as a result of measles in 2000 in Afghanistan. Successive immunisation initiatives over the last few years led to a 94 per cent reduction in 2004 in measles deaths with 559 children succumbing to the disease.

"Unfortunately, Afghanistan has experienced an outbreak of measles in the last two years with 836 cases reported in 2005 and 1,835 cases reported so far this year," said Aleem Siddique, UNAMA's spokesman in Kabul.

Measles is an acute, contagious viral disease, usually occurring in childhood and characterised by an eruption of red spots on the skin, fever and catarrhal symptoms, health experts say.

Polio is re-emerging in Afghanistan, one of just four countries in the world where polio is endemic. It has seen 29 cases of polio this year compared to only nine in 2005. So children under the age of five will also be vaccinated against crippling polio virus in this campaign.

Deteriorating security in the south and southeast, which is blamed on Taliban militants who were toppled by US-led coalition in 2001, has made it difficult for the government and aid organisations to reach the most vulnerable communities, officials say.

Qanuni for a stronger military to counter terrorism
Ahmad Khalid Moahid
KABUL, Oct 31 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Speaker of the Lower house of parliament Younus Qanuni on Tuesday said 70,000 military force was not enough to keep security in the country.

Addressing a gathering of military officials during his visit to Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC), Qanuni said terrorism was posing a serious threat to the people of Afghanistan. "We need a strong military force to fight the scourge of terrorism."

He said the lower house had discussed the number of the Afghan army and the standard of the training imparted to them. The MPs were of the view that the strength of ANA should be increased, said the lower house speaker.

The 70,000 military force was approved for the country during the Bon Conference in Germany before the establishment of the interim government.

MoU on electricity supply to Pakistan signed
Mustafa Basharat
KABUL, Oct 31 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistan, Pakistan and two Central Asian countries have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to provide electricity to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

Under the MoU, Pakistan will import 1,000-megawatt electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan which will be transferred to that country via Afghanistan.

This was disclosed by Minister for Energy and Water Muhammad Ismail Khan while speaking at a news conference here on Tuesday. He said a portion of the electricity would also be used by Afghanistan for its domestic requirements besides charging the buyer and supplier countries.

The minister said experts from the four countries would hold a meeting to the settle issues, like pricing and charges by the government of Afghanistan. The electricity line will pass through the northern Kunduz and eastern Nangarhar provinces.

He described the proposed project as a boost for Afghanistan's as well as economies for the three neighbouring countries. Two other neighbours in the north, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, have also expressed willingness to export electricity to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan, informed the minister.

Foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan: Rahimi
Zubair Babakarkhail
KABUL, Oct 31 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi has said that the government will not set a deadline for withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, a precondition for peace talks set by Hizb-i-Islami party of fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Speaking at his weekly press conference here on Tuesday, Rahimi said at the moment, Afghan security forces were not capable of protecting the country and restoring complete calm and stability. Hence, the foreign forces will stay here to do the job.

No timeframe could be given for their withdrawal as long as Afghan security organs become capable to control the situation, said the presidential spokesman.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for the Hizb-i-Islami party said they were ready to hold negotiations with the Afghan government provided the latter set a deadline for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country.

President Karzai had invited both Mulla Muhammad Omar and Hizb leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar for negotiations. Taliban, in a knee-jerk reaction, turned down the offer.

Rahimi said the government, with the support of the world community, had accelerated the formation and training of the security forces, but it was too early to say how long it would take to enable them take full charge of security and defence of the country.

He expressed satisfaction over the security situation, saying situation had improved recently due to the beefed up security by the foreign and local forces.

Regarding the killing of civilians in recent NATO bombings, Rahimi said President Karzai had met relatives of some of the victims. They were given compensation by the government. He added the government would also arrange to send relatives of victims on Haj.

Elders demand release of kidnapped Italian journalist
Samad Rohani/Javid Hamim
LASHKARGAH, Oct 31 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A number of tribal elders in the southern Helmand province have demanded safe release of the kidnapped Italian journalist.

Photojournalist Gabriele Torsello was abducted by five unidentified armed men while traveling between Do Rahi area of Helmand and Mewand district of Kandahar province some three weeks back.

Haji Shah Agha, an elder and a local trader, said every one should respect the freedom of journalists. He said Gabriele Torsello was a Muslim and he had come to Helmand because he believed that the people of this province greatly respect their guests.

Haji Mohammad Younus, tribal elder from Nad Ali district, said journalists were coming here to inform the world about the agonies of Afghans.

Haji Amir Khan, an influential form Grishk district, said the Italian journalist was innocent. He asked the kidnappers not to punish a man for the sin he had not committed.

Meanwhile, father of the kidnapped photojournalist launched an appeal on Monday for his liberation on Italy's first Islamic radio 'Radiocom Islam'.

Commenting on a rally Saturday promoted in the central Italian city of Ancona by the country's largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), Marcello Torsello said: "The message I'm trying to send out is that Gabriele is one of them, like the Afghan people, he is a Muslim, he loves this population, and is working so that the world will know how they are living and how much help they need."

Gabriele Torsello, a Muslim convert, was kidnapped between October 12 and 14 while he was traveling from Lashkargah, capital of Helmand province to the neighbouring Kandahar.

The kidnappers had warned they would kill him unless the Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman, who has been granted asylum in Italy, was not handed over to an Islamic court for trial and Italy's 1,800 troops left Afghanistan.

Meshrano Jirga forms new committee
Makia Monir
KABUL, Oct 31 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The upper house of parliament on Tuesday constituted a new parliamentary committee to work for reconciliation with dissident groups.

Formation of the National Reconciliation Committee was approved by majority of votes at the House in the Tuesday's session. Members of the newly-constituted committee were taken from other committees of the upper house.

First secretary of the House Aminuddin Muzaffari said: "We want to work on a scheme to launch fresh talks with Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hizb-i-Islami and other dissidents."

He said the dissidents were also people of this country and could not be sidelined.

He expressed the hope that the government would also support the plan and would join efforts to reconcile the opponents.

The government has already formed an independent reconciliation commission heading by Sibghatullah Mujaddidi which, he said, had helped reconciling 2,500 dissidents over the past one and a half years.

Some senators opposed the formation of the new committee, arguing that it would prove a parallel body to the independent commission.

Ahmad Shah Ramazan, head of the international relations committee at the upper house, said both houses of the parliament had forwarded their suggestions to the government many times, but there was no positive response. He urged the need for coordination and understanding between the parliament and the government.

NGO halts operations in Paktia
Zarghona Salehi
KABUL, Oct 31 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR) on Tuesday closed its office in Jaji district of the southeastern Paktia province after an attack by unidentified armed men at its office in the district.

A press release issued here said the NGO was working on welfare projects, like water supply, digging of wells and establishment of health clinics. A DACAAR official told Pajhwok Afghan News four hooded men broke into the office in Jaji district and shot a security guard, who died one day later.

The reason behind the attack on the office was not known, said the release, adding the office would remain closed till full investigations of the incident.

Erik Toft, head of DACAAR in Kabul, said: "With great regret, I say that I came to know that one of our colleagues had been killed and we had no other choice but to halt operations in that district."

Nationalists' Afghan contacts worries Pakistan
KABUL, Oct 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A Pakistani minister has expressed reservations about President Hamid Karzai's contacts with nationalist leaders from NWWP and described it as "intervention in the internal affairs of Pakistan."

However, in a quick reaction, the Awami National Party (ANP) branded the statement as lack of political wisdom on part of the minister.

Pakistan's Minister for Political Affairs Amir Muqam, while speaking to journalists in Peshawar, said the direct contacts of President Hamid Karzai with various political leaders was a bare intervention in the internal affairs of Pakistan.

He said direct contact by the Afghan president with ANP leaders was unacceptable. "It is after these contacts that incidents of bomb blasts in Pakistan, particularly the Frontier province have increased. We have got certain indications that foreign hand was involved in Peshawar blasts," the minister was quoted by a section of the Pakistani media.

He alleged situation had changed after fresh contacts of President Hamid Karzai with different individuals like Maulana Fazlur Rahman, chief of Jamiat Ulma-i-Islam, Asfandyar Wali Khan, president of Awami National Party, and other leaders.

He believed Afghan "contacts" with "individuals" would create unrest among the people and would adversely affect the ties between the two neighbouring countries. "Therefore, the Afghan president should contact directly the government instead of a few individuals," he added.

Defending the peace agreement signed by the Pakistani government with local Taliban in North Waziristan, the Pakistani minister said the Afghan government, NATO forces and the West first opposed the agreement, but now had started making similar agreements inside Afghanistan.

Brushing aside the minister's statement, the Awami National Party, in a statement, said the minister lacked political wisdom. The party's general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain said the minister and his statement had no political standing or ideology.

Wolesi Jirga to probe Panjwayee incident
Makia Monir
KABUL, Oct 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The lower house of parliament on Monday decided to send a parliamentary delegation to probe the recent killing of civilians in NATO bombing in Panjwayee district of the southern Kandahar province.

According to residents, about 90 civilians were killed and 50 houses destroyed as a result of the two-day bombardment by NATO aircrafts last week.

The seven MPs nominated to visit the province are members of the internal security and complaints commissions of the lower house of parliament. The legislators will draw further line of action after submission of the report by the commission.

During today's session, some of the MPs showed scepticism about the formation of the delegation. Pacha Khan Zadran, MP from the southeastern Paktika province, was of the view that sending the delegation was a useless practice.

He said such commissions had been formed in the past but nothing concrete happened as a result of their investigations and findings. He said civilian casualties would continue as long as the NATO and Afghan forces develop coordination among them.

However, MP from Kabul Jamil Karzai blamed Kandahar governor for the repetition of such incidents. He said Governor Asadullah Khalid was paying more attention to his personal affairs than the welfare and safety of the people of the province.

Speaker Younus Qanuni said the neighbouring countries were having hand in insecurity in the Afghanistan. He said the neighboring countries wanted to install a puppet government and force the foreign troops out of Afghanistan to fulfill their agenda.

He also lashed out at the government for what he described inefficiency and said the country needed a strong government to prepare a concrete strategy and implement it.

Noorzia Atmar, female MP, criticised President Karzai for conferring Ghazi Amanullah Khan medal on NATO commander. President Hamid Karzai had awarded the medal to NATO's top commander Jims Jones two days back.

Women oppose dismantling of ministry
Zarghona Salehi
KABUL, Oct 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Some 100 women, mostly government officials, rejected a call for dismantling the Ministry of Women Affairs.

Most of the senators at the upper house have earlier suggested to the government for dismantling of the policy-making ministries, like women affairs, economy, urban development and counter-narcotics.

Syed Hussain Alami Balkhi, head of the parliamentary committee on judicial affairs, said the suggestion was forwarded after the senators found the ministries were doing no more than policy-making. These ministries were even producing negative effects on work of other ministries, Balkhi told Pajhwok Afghan News.

However, Mazari Safa, Deputy Minister for Women Affairs told the meeting of about 100 women that dismantling the ministry was a form of violence against women. She said the ministry had solved problems of women, such as education, health and employment.

She said dismantling the ministry would further increase violence against women in the existing circumstances. Zarmina Rahimi, another speaker, said they had always come to the ministry for seeking solution to their problems.

Research course for students, teachers
Zarghona Salehi
KABUL, Oct 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Afghan-German Research Centre will launch a two-week training course from Tuesday to inform students and teachers of Kabul University about new research programmes, officials said on Monday.

Head the Faculty of Economics and Director of the Afghan-German Research Centre Abdul Malik Halimi said 30 teachers and as many students from economics, social sciences, law and political science faculties would join the programme.

He said the programme was vital because there are no researchers in Afghanistan to conduct research on social issues. He said local as well as foreign teachers would teach the participants during the course. The trainees have been distributed in different groups and each group will be assigned a research project at the end of the programme.

Abdul Hayee Nazifi, head of the Kabul University, termed the programme as important because the research conducted on different issues in the past was not based on modern standards.

Bush Cites Progress in Pakistan, Afghanistan
In Speech, President Tries to Mend Relations
By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 30, 2006; Page A06
President Bush highlighted anti-terrorism efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday, calling the nations invaluable allies despite a surge of violence in southern Afghanistan that has provoked deep suspicions about their ability -- and appetite -- to battle extremists.

Speaking before a Washington audience that included members of the Reserve Officers Association and both countries' ambassadors to the United States, Bush said that 41,000 American and NATO troops in Afghanistan are making progress toward securing and rebuilding the war-torn nation, although significant hurdles remain. While more than 30,000 newly trained Afghan soldiers are working alongside Western troops to secure the country, Bush said, Afghan police "have faced problems with corruption and substandard leadership."

President Bush speaks about the war on terror at a hotel in Washington Friday, Sept. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Charles Dharapak - AP)

Those difficulties have undermined confidence in the police, "and we've made our concerns known to our friends in the Afghan government," Bush said, adding that the police now have new leadership.

Bush made his remarks as a resurgent Taliban is leading a spike in violence in southern Afghanistan, a development that has resulted in increasing friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, of tolerating the presence of extremists in Pakistan's remote western regions, from where they launch attacks into southern Afghanistan. Musharraf, in turn, has accused Karzai of being an ineffective leader whose policies create sympathy for the Taliban and other extremists.

Meanwhile, Musharraf has been dogged by accusations that his nation's intelligence service has ties to the Taliban -- something he has forcefully denied.

In his remarks, Bush praised Pakistan's efforts to track down some notorious terrorists, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Bush said Pakistan also has been instrumental in preventing terrorism since 2001.

"Were it not for the information gained from the terrorists captured with the help of Pakistan, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," he said.

Bush has attempted to broker a verbal truce between the two leaders. Wednesday evening, he hosted a White House dinner with the two leaders in an effort to clear the air.

Meanwhile, he said, U.S. and NATO forces have mounted an offensive to clear Taliban fighters from the treacherous mountainous region in southern Afghanistan. Also, he said, the United States is helping Pakistan with development aid and high-tech equipment to help it gain better control of its borders.

After the speech yesterday, Bush met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose government has been criticized for skirting democratic norms by banning opposition parties, harassing advocacy groups and closing newspapers. The Bush administration has offered only mild criticism of that record as it works to gain greater influence with the oil-rich nation. Nazarbayev's visit to the White House -- his third since becoming president of Kazakhstan in 1990 -- followed a visit to the Bush family compound in Maine, where he met with former president George H.W. Bush.

"We discussed our desire to defeat extremism and our mutual desire to support the forces of moderation throughout the world," the current President Bush said after the meeting.

In conjunction with the visit, the Energy Department and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, announced an anti-proliferation agreement with Kazakhstan. Among other things, it calls for a Kazakh research reactor that runs on highly enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear weapons, to switch to low-enriched uranium.

"This nonproliferation cooperative project with Kazakhstan is critical to our efforts to eliminate excess amounts of potentially dangerous material around the world," said Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.