Afghanistan News November 28, 2006

November 28, 2006

NATO chief sees handover to Afghan troops in 2008
Tue Nov 28, 5:02 AM ET
RIGA (Reuters) - NATO forces should be able to hand over responsibility to Afghanistan's security forces gradually in 2008, the alliance's secretary-general said on Tuesday.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer gave a glimpse of NATO's exit strategy from its most dangerous combat mission in a speech to a security conference hours before the start of a summit of alliance leaders in Latvia.

"I would hope that by 2008, we will have made considerable progress ... and effective and trusted Afghan security forces gradually taking control," he told the Riga Conference, appealing to allies to provide more troops with fewer national restrictions on their use in the meantime.

But De Hoop Scheffer said that at present any talk of withdrawals in Afghanistan was premature.

He noted the 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force could only consider pulling out troops when Afghan security forces were able to take over.

De Hoop Scheffer said it was unacceptable that the ISAF force remained 20 percent under full strength because of a failure by allies to contribute troops and equipment requested by commanders.

NATO chief lashes allies over Afghan troop commitments
by Lorne Cook
RIGA (AFP) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has hit out at alliance countries for failing to provide reinforcements in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, as world leaders gathered for a summit in Latvia.

In neighbouring Estonia, US President George W. Bush also urged his NATO counterparts to step up, saying they must "accept difficult assignments" like the increasingly fraught alliance mission in southern Afghanistan.

NATO has been taken by surprise this year by a resurgent Taliban militia, ousted by a US-led coalition in 2001, whose rebellion has claimed some 3,700 lives, four times more than last year, according to an official report.

"It is not acceptable that our mission in the south still lacks 20 percent of its requirements," Scheffer said ahead of the meeting Tuesday, which starts with evening dinner talks on Afghanistan -- NATO's most ambitious operation.

In September, NATO military commander US General James Jones called for some 2,500 extra military personnel for southern Afghanistan -- around 1,000 combat troops backed by about 1,500 logistical and other staff, plus equipment.

But contributors have been slow to step forward.

"When you have a situation where people are actually being shot at, you have combat operations, ... 10 or 15 percent becomes more important," Jones said Tuesday at a pre-summit conference in Riga.

He said that shortfall could make all the difference in a tough battle.

"You lose one or two infantry battalions, you lose helicopter mobility, you lose reconnaissance capability, you lose some of the critical enablers that you need," he said.

Troop numbers aside, commanders on the ground are also frustrated by the caveats or conditions that nations are placing on the use of their forces.

"Caveats take away operational effectiveness," Scheffer said. "We can ill afford reconstruction armies that cannot handle combat."

British, Canadian and Dutch troops have borne the brunt of fighting in the south and east of Afghanistan, leading to calls on countries like Germany and Spain, posted in relatively peaceful regions, to become more involved.

But the commanders are hamstrung by around 50 caveats, which range from geographical restrictions -- the biggest problem -- to refusal to fight at night or in winter conditions for lack of proper equipment.

If the insurgency thrives, reconstruction will slow, and NATO fears ordinary Afghans will turn back to the Taliban militia, who have dramatically stepped up operations in recent months.

"To succeed in Afghanistan, NATO allies must provide the forces NATO military commanders require," Bush said in Tallinn, Estonia on a stopover on his way to Riga.

But security operations are only one part of rebuilding Afghanistan, where the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is trying to spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government.

Scheffer also urged international bodies, like the        European Union, the        United Nations and the        World Bank, as well as non-governmental organisations, to play a greater role.

"We need a better international coordination structure for Afghanistan. We must provide the security and do the reconstruction, but we must also do the politics," he said at the German Marshall Fund hosted conference.

He voiced support for a so-called "contact group" -- similar to the ones created for Bosnia and        Kosovo -- to oversee reconstruction and development.

"We need a body like the ... contact group in Kosovo that brings the key international actors together on a regular basis and coordinates overall strategy."

French        President Jacques Chirac first proposed the idea of a contact group, and he discussed it by phone on Monday with Bush as the US president was winging his way toward the Baltics, the French president's spokesman said.

Blair hopes NATO allies will do more in Afghanistan
COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair is hopeful that his NATO allies will pledge to do more to help British-led troops in southern Afghanistan at an alliance summit in the Latvian capital.

"There are some signs of other countries being more flexible with regard to deploying their troops," Blair's official spokesman said ahead of a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Blair was due to fly on to the NATO summit in Riga later on Tuesday.

"People will make their own decisions and we respect that," he said.

"There are already signs that people are listening, let's see where we are by tomorrow," he added Tuesday.

The spokesman said there were three main messages for the NATO summit.

"Firstly Afghanistan needs to know that we are there for the long haul. Secondly we recognise that it is not just a military mission but also a reconstruction mission, and thirdly we all need to be flexible in the way we deploy."

"It is not a black picture, there are real signs of progress," he said, citing the 4.6 million refugees returning to the violence scarred country.

"The message is that there is real progress but we have to invest for the long haul. NATO as a whole has to recommit to the mission," he said.

British, Canadian and Dutch troops have borne the brunt of fighting in the south and east of Afghanistan, leading to calls on countries like Germany and Spain, posted in relatively peaceful regions, to become more involved.

Bush pleads for more NATO troops for Afghanistan
By Paul Taylor and Mark John
RIGA (Reuters) - President Bush appealed to NATO allies on Tuesday to provide more troops with fewer national restrictions for the alliance's most dangerous mission in Afghanistan, hours before a summit of allied leaders.

"To succeed in Afghanistan, NATO allies must provide the forces NATO military commanders require," Bush told a joint news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves in Tallinn on his way to the NATO meeting in neighboring Latvia.

"Like Estonia, member nations must accept difficult assignments if we expect to be successful," he said in a veiled reference to numerous so-called national caveats that restrict where, when and how allies' troops can be used.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a security conference in Riga it was unacceptable that allied forces in southern Afghanistan, the main battleground with resurgent Taliban fighters, were 20 percent below the required strength.

"Just as we need combat forces that can also handle reconstruction, we can ill afford reconstruction armies that cannot handle combat," he told the Riga Conference.

"Afghanistan is mission possible," de Hoop Scheffer said. "While we have to be frank about the risks, we also have to avoid overdramatising the difficulties."

He was speaking a day after a suicide bomber killed two Canadian soldiers in the latest attack on an alliance convoy in southern Afghanistan, prompting Canada's foreign minister to warn public support could turn against the mission if allies did not come to Ottawa's assistance.

COMING HOME IN COFFINS
Canadian, British and Dutch troops have borne the brunt of fierce fighting with Islamist militias in southern Afghanistan while other nations have confined their soldiers in relatively safer areas in the north and west and in Kabul.

Asked whether Canadian support would wane if other allies did not do more to help Canadian troops, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter McKay told the conference: "Frankly yes, and losing young men and women is the surest way for that to happen ... If soldiers are coming home in coffins, that's a very difficult thing, especially for a younger generation."

NATO's military commander says he needs an extra 2,500 soldiers on top of the existing 32,000 peacekeepers, with more helicopters and greater flexibility to use existing allied troops in the country.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung gave him a glimmer of hope that Berlin could ease its refusal, under strong parliamentary pressure, to send more of its forces to the south.

"If there is an emergency situation then we need to help. This applies to all of Afghanistan. But we won't increase our troops," Jung told German TV stations N-TV and N24.

De Hoop Scheffer gave a glimpse of NATO's exit strategy from Afghanistan in an apparent effort to reassure nervous Europeans they do not face an open-ended commitment in a country where guerrilla warfare defeated the Soviet army in the 1980s.

"I would hope that by 2008, we will have made considerable progress -- with ... effective and trusted Afghan security forces gradually taking control," he said. But he insisted that any talk of withdrawals at present in Afghanistan was premature.

De Hoop Scheffer reeled off a string of statistics on education, health care and economic growth in Afghanistan to highlight what he called NATO's success in the country.

Bush, weakened by election setbacks at home, rejected growing talk that        Iraq has plunged into civil war, saying the latest bombings were part of a nine-month-old pattern of attacks by al Qaeda militants bent on fomenting sectarian violence.

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq nearly tore NATO apart in 2003 when France and Germany led opposition to Washington's drive to overthrow        Saddam Hussein.

Transatlantic relations have healed slowly, with Bush chastened by the setbacks in Iraq and the Europeans humbled by voters' rejection of their own constitution and less tempted to act as a counterweight to Washington in world affairs.

But Riga may be too much of a "lame duck" summit to chart a bold new course of cooperation in global security.

Bush is constrained by the Democrats' capture of both houses of Congress, while British Prime Minister        Tony Blair and French        President Jacques Chirac are both almost certainly in their last months in office.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan in Tallinn)

Afghan suicide bomb kills policeman, rebels storm checkpoint
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - A suicide attacker rammed a car bomb into a police vehicle in western Afghanistan, killing a policeman, while two rebels were left dead after scores stormed a police checkpoint in the east.

The suicide attack on Tuesday was the fourth in insurgency-hit Afghanistan in as many days, after a lull in Taliban-linked unrest, and came as NATO leaders were to meet in Latvia to discuss International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations against the militants.

The suicide attacker drove a car into a police jeep on the outskirts of Herat city after counter-terrorism police had followed him, suspecting he might be planning an attack, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.

"One police officer was martyred and one was wounded in the suicide blast," said Bashary.

Three civilians were also wounded, western Afghanistan deputy police director Ali Khan said.

He said the attacker wanted to enter the city for "destructive attempts" and struck the vehicle as police were trying stop him.

The force of the blast blew a deep hole in the road, which links the city with its airport, an AFP reporter said.

Bashary blamed the attack on "enemies of peace and stability", a term often used by Afghan officials to refer to the hardline Taliban movement that has been waging an insurgency since being driven from power in late 2001.

Meanwhile, police in the eastern province of Khost said about 100 militants stormed a checkpoint near the border with Pakistan early Tuesday, sparking a one-hour exchange of fire.

Police brigade commander Qasim Khail said the attackers were from the Al-Qaeda terror network that backed the Taliban, but he did not give a reason for this claim.

"Two Al-Qaeda members were killed and their bodies are still at the site. We assume five others were also killed but their bodies were taken by the insurgents," he said.

"There are dozens of caps, turbans, patus (blanket-like shawls worn by men) and other belongings left in the area," he said.

In another development, the US-led coalition focused on counter-terror operations announced Tuesday that three members of a "terrorist cell" in a part of Logar about 22 kilometres (14 miles) south of Kabul were detained by ISAF and Afghan forces.

The Taliban insurgency, which makes regular use of suicide and roadside bombings, has been at its bloodiest this year, claiming 3,700 lives -- four times more than last year, according to an official report. Most of the dead are rebels.

The violence dipped a few weeks backed but has risen again over the past few days, with several suicide bombings.

On Saturday an attack aimed at soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in the province of Logar near Kabul wounded two civilians.

The next day a man blew himself up in a restaurant in eastern Paktika province, killing 15 people in one of the biggest suicide attacks in weeks.

And on Monday an attack in the southern city of Kandahar killed two Canadian soldiers.

Foreign forces to remain till Afghanistan has full defensive capacities: foreign ministry
People's Daily Online, China
The Afghan Foreign Ministry has said that foreign forces will continue to be present in Afghanistan until the country reaches its full defensive capacities.

The presence of the foreign troops will last till "it is assured that Afghanistan is not a safe harbor for terrorists once again, and Afghanistan reaches its full defensive capacities," the ministry said in a statement received on Tuesday.

However, "Afghans want the need for foreign troops to be over as soon as possible, so that these forces can return to their homelands," the statement added.

Foreign forces in Afghanistan are present pursuant to resolutions of the UN Security Council to fight the terrorists, it said.

The statement was issued in response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's latest remarks on foreign forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ahmadinejad on Sunday called for the Afghan and Iraqi peoples to drive out foreign troops from their lands.

Lying west to Afghanistan, Iran and Afghanistan share a long border and is still harboring over 1 million Afghan refugees, who arrived there due to decades of war in Afghanistan.

About 31,000 soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force are deployed in Afghanistan to hunt down militants and facilitate reconstruction, while about 10,000 U.S.- led coalition forces are also staying here.
Source: Xinhua

A NATO Bid to Regain Afghans' Trust
Reconstruction Projects Follow Airstrikes
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, November 27, 2006; A12
PANJWAI, Afghanistan -- The road to this southern Afghan farming town is wide, smooth and utterly empty, except for an occasional old man on a bicycle or a meandering herd of baby camels.

It was paved last year with Japanese funds, to help farmers send their grapes to market and to make it easier for patients to reach hospitals in the city of Kandahar, 20 miles to the east. But that was before war came to Panjwai, making its name synonymous with the physical destruction and political mayhem wrought by months of Taliban attacks and NATO bombing.

Now almost no one dares to drive on the road. NATO forces declared victory here in late September, claiming to have killed about 1,500 insurgents in a campaign named Operation Medusa. Yet Taliban fighters still linger in the surrounding orchards and launch sporadic attacks. On Monday, insurgents fired at several NATO bases in the district, although no one was injured.

Many shops in Panjwai remain shuttered, and most of the estimated 80,000 people who fled nearby villages have not returned. Some harbor bitter memories of NATO bombings that destroyed their homes and fruit crops. At least 50 civilians were killed over several weeks of bombing, and President Hamid Karzai last month ordered an investigation into the deaths. NATO officials have said the insurgents used villagers' homes as shelter, provoking the deadly airstrikes.

"I lost three of my sons, my brother, my wife, two daughters-in-law and many grandchildren," said Abdullah Shah, a white-haired farmer, wiping his eyes with a dirty shawl. "I moved the whole family into a tent for safety when the fighting started. The international forces said there were 20 Taliban in that tent, but it was not true. How could there be, when we were so crowded already?"

In an effort to regain public trust, NATO forces have moved into Panjwai with bricks, bulldozers and lots of cash. Local men have been hired to repair damaged buildings, the renovated high school reopened last week, and a new road is being laid from the town to several grape-growing villages that suffered the heaviest bombing damage.

NATO has pledged $8 million to improve Panjwai and the adjacent Zhari district, in hopes of creating a Taliban-proof development zone and a model for other post-conflict areas. Canadian troops have set up a base above the town and patrol the bazaar in armored convoys, while NATO officers meet often with local elders.

"Panjwai is a microcosm. The key is to move fast once the fighting stops, work with local institutions, get development projects going and get local people involved in their own security," said Maj. Steve Murray, deputy commander of a military reconstruction team in Kandahar. "We can fight the Taliban until the cows come home, but we can't make the area safe if we don't deal with the other issues."

Last Tuesday, a Canadian officer arrived as bulldozers were clearing land for the new road. He was soon surrounded by frowning farmers who demanded extra money to let the road cross their fields. The mayor joined the negotiations, calculating acreage on a pad of paper. The officer politely insisted on the previously agreed price.

In the chilly Panjwai bazaar, turbaned men huddling around sidewalk teapots raised more serious issues. They expressed deep ambivalence about the presence of international troops and both fear of and admiration for the Taliban insurgents.

"The coalition forces have brought us nothing but problems. They enter our houses and mosques without permission," said Abdul Jan Mohammed, a grape grower whose vineyards were damaged by NATO airstrikes. "The Taliban don't want to fight. They are just tired of all the corruption, as we are."

Bismillah, 45, whose farm is a half-hour walk from town, said his neighbors had begun to return home since the bombing ended but that insurgents were still lurking nearby. Like many Afghans, Bismillah uses just one name.

"Everything is confused now," he said. "At night we hear shooting and rockets, and we cannot light our lamps for fear of the Taliban. But if a mine explodes on the road, the army and coalition forces come and pressure us to find out who did it. The best thing to do is negotiate, but the Taliban will never negotiate as long as the foreign troops stay here."

One obstacle to security is the shortage of Afghan police and soldiers in the region. In terms of size and competence, the new national army and police force have lagged far behind what officials hoped for, so the government recently began recruiting and training local auxiliary police officers to serve in conflict zones such as Kandahar province.

The program has drawn praise and criticism. It gives men in poor rural areas an income and a vested interest in protecting their communities. But recruitment standards are low, training is cursory, and many who sign up are rejected because of hashish use or other habits.

Commander Ehsanullah Alizai, the provincial police chief, said that local elders and district officials are choosing applicants for the new force and that each recruit is further vetted by his office. But he acknowledged that the two weeks of training they will get are far from adequate.

"Of course it is not enough. It takes a lot of time and education to become a police officer. But this is an emergency," Alizai said, adding that 250 of the expected 1,000 new police officers have completed training and started work. "The security situation in Panjwai and Zhari was getting worse, and the government had to take action."

But the threat of further NATO bombing has not stopped the Taliban from launching new attacks, often against civilians. Last month, two insurgents on a motorbike ambushed Fazel Mahmad, a Panjwai elder, as he was taking his daughter to a doctor in Kandahar. Mahmad, who works with a government program that helps local insurgents return to civilian life, was shot in the neck and throat but survived after surgery at a NATO base.

"The local Taliban are sons of our soil, but the Taliban trained by al-Qaeda see all Afghans as infidels and Americans. They do not want any reconciliation," said Mahmad, who now speaks with a lisp. He said he saw many wounded Taliban fighters being treated at the NATO field hospital, where he said they cursed the medical staff and refused to eat.

In a second recent attack, insurgents opened fire on a clinic at a camp for nomads and refugees beside the highway from Kandahar to Panjwai and briefly kidnapped the doctor. Now the clinic building sits abandoned beside the colony of patched tents and thorn-bush camel corrals.

On Tuesday, several women in the refugee camp said they had fled there after airstrikes on their villages near Panjwai. One woman, Badro, shrieked and wept, saying two of her brothers and all the family's sheep and camels had been killed.

"Everyone is a witness. There were no Taliban there at all," she cried, shaking a fist. "The dead bodies of my family are still there. It is not safe to collect the pieces."

[On Sunday, a Pakistani suicide bomber detonated himself in Paktika province, killing 15 people and wounding 24, including an Afghan special forces commander, the Associated Press reported.]

The Afghan government has made efforts to console and aid survivors in Panjwai. Abdullah Shah said he was paid about $8,000 as compensation for his dead relatives. He was also taken to Kabul, where he said Karzai gave him a hug and promised him a new house.

Last week, the minister of rural development flew to Kandahar and met with a large group of elders from Panjwai, asking what they needed most. He was accompanied by Christopher Alexander, deputy U.N. representative for Afghanistan, who told them the goal was to transform their region "from this year's battlefield to next year's construction ground."

The delegation did not visit Panjwai because it was considered too dangerous, but Alexander said elders from several villages told him security was better because young men who had been fighting for the Taliban were now earning money on NATO construction projects. He also noted that several elders did not attend the Kandahar meeting, suggesting that they were suspicious of the government and sympathetic to the insurgents.

Mahmad, a fruit grower who remained in Panjwai that day, complained bitterly that the residents were trodden upon by everyone.

"We don't support the Taliban, but we don't want the foreign troops here, either," he said. "I blame President Karzai, too. If we had laws and honest government in this country, the Taliban wouldn't be fighting."

Afghan drug war will take a generation to win: study
By Terry Friel Tue Nov 28, 2:28 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan will take a generation to wipe out the opium trade, which is fed by graft and the grip of a small but increasingly powerful band of drug lords with political connections, a new U.N. and World Bank report says.

Efforts to wipe out opium fields often hit poor farmers the most and care must be taken to avoid making the situation worse, said the report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Bank on Tuesday.

"History teaches us that it will take a generation to render Afghanistan opium-free," UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.

"I ... propose that development support to farmers, the arrest of corrupt officials and eradication measures be concentrated in half a dozen provinces with low cultivation in 2006 so as to free them from the scourge of opium."

He said this would help double the number of provinces free of the opium poppy, the raw material for heroin, next year.

The UNODC forecasts a record year for opium in 2006 with cultivation up 60 percent and production up 50 percent in the country that supplies more than 90 percent of world output.

The drugs racket accounts for about a third of Afghanistan's still-crippled economy.

LIMITED SUCCESS
The report says efforts to combat the trade have had limited success and lacked sustainability.

Afghanistan's Western allies say the drugs industry is a major factor fuelling a revival of the Taliban-led insurgency that has made this the bloodiest year since the hardline Islamist group was forced from power by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

Almost 4,000 people have been killed so far this year, about a quarter of them civilians. Most of the increase in opium growing has been in the provinces worst hit by fighting.

Afghan ministers say neither the insurgency nor the illegal drugs trade can be defeated without the other being also overcome.

The report and other experts warn mismanaging efforts to stamp out the opium industry could hurt the poorest the most, fuelling discontent and strengthening the insurgency.

"The critical adverse development impact of actions against drugs is on poor farmers and rural wage laborers," said World Bank economist and co-editor of the report, William Byrd.

"Any counter-narcotics strategy needs to keep short-run expectations modest, avoid worsening the situation of the poor and adequately focus on longer term development."

The Afghan government and aid workers say corruption is a major obstacle with drug lords buying off local officials or bribing them to spare their crops and destroy others'.

Opium poppy covers only about 4 percent of Afghanistan's cultivable land, but with the country in the grip of drought and poppy needing minimal irrigation is becoming an increasingly tempting crop for farmers in dry areas, experts say.

The U.N.-World Bank report also called for a "smart and effective" strategy to curb demand in consuming countries, mainly in the West.

War on drugs strengthens Afghan mafia
By Rachel Morarjee in Kabul November 27 2006 17:41 Financial Times
Afghanistan’s war on drugs has been marred by corruption that has strengthened the grip of an increasingly powerful mafia on the country’s narcotics trade, a report by the World Bank and United Nations said.

Over the past five years, the British-led counter-narcotics strategy had penalised the country’s poorest farmers and strengthened networks of organised crime, consolidating the trade among a tiny elite of traffickers, the damning report said.

“Around 25 to 30 key traffickers, the majority of them based in southern Afghanistan, control major transactions and transfers, working closely with sponsors in top government and political positions.”

Afghanistan’s interior ministry, which oversees the police, had been “captured” by powerful traffickers and was used to facilitate the drugs trade.

“Those driving the drug industry must be brought to justice and officials who support it sacked,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime.

“Interdiction efforts especially need to target high-level profiteers whose wealth magnifies their potential for corrupting the state,” the report said.

Strategies aimed at short-term reductions in opium production in the worst affected areas could do more harm than good, fuelling “discontent and strengthening the insurgency in the volatile south of the country”.

Far from leading to sustained declines in total national cultivation, a successful reduction in one province often led to increases elsewhere, or cultivation in the province itself rebounded the following year, such as in Helmand province after 2003.

To achieve long-term success in the battle against drugs eradication, the report found that efforts should be concentrated in the six Afghan provinces where there was relatively little opium cultivation to build up a line of defence against the spread of the trade. “Rural development programmes are needed throughout the country and should not be focused primarily on opium areas, to help prevent cultivation from further spreading,” said Alastair McKechnie, World Bank country director for Afghanistan.

Efforts to eradicate opium crops had strengthened corruption by giving police an opportunity to collect bribes, which hit hardest the poor farmers and labourers who could not afford to pay off authorities.

“Wealthier opium producers pay bribes to avoid having their crops eradicated, greatly reducing the effectiveness of counter-narcotics measures and gravely undermining the credibility of the government and its local representatives,” the report said.

Afghanistan produced a record opium harvest in 2006, with total cultivation increasing by 59 per cent and production by 49 per cent. The bulk of opium growth this year was concentrated in Helmand and a few other highly insecure and insurgency-ridden provinces in the south.

Even in this record year, opium took up less than 4 per cent of the total cultivated area in Afghanistan, with only an estimated 13 per cent of the population involved in poppy cultivation, which the report said was cause for hope.

Two Afghan suicide blasts bring weeks of calm to end
Carlotta Gall, New York Times Monday, November 27, 2006
(11-27) 04:00 PST Kabul, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber walked into a packed restaurant in southeastern Afghanistan and set off his explosives Sunday morning, killing 15 other people and wounding 25, Afghan officials said.

Twenty-four hours later, a suicide bomber killed two NATO soldiers in an attack on an alliance convoy in the southern city of Kandahar, a NATO spokesman said. The spokesman did not give the nationalities, but Canadians form the bulk of the forces in Kandahar, according to the Reuters news agency.

The attacks, after a few weeks of relative quiet, raised fears that insurgents were resuming their campaign of suicide bombings.

Most of those killed were civilians inside the restaurant, which was in the central bazaar of Urgun, a small town in mountainous Paktika province, which borders Pakistan. The explosion destroyed the building and damaged adjoining shops, said the provincial chief of police security, Gen. Shah Alam Spand. He said militia members are often seen in the vicinity.

Spand said he believed the bomber's targets were a local official and the chief of a militia that works with U.S. forces in the province, who were having breakfast together. Both men were wounded but survived, said Dad Muhammad Rasa, an Interior Ministry spokesman. Three bodyguards with the militia chief also were among the wounded, he said.

The suicide strike -- the deadliest since 16 people were killed in a Sept. 8 suicide car bombing in Kabul -- was the 102nd in Afghanistan this year, attacks that have killed 241 people, said Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

President Hamid Karzai denounced Sunday's attack.

"The enemies of Afghanistan revealed their non-Islamic and inhuman face by killing the innocent civilians who were working hard to support their families," he said in a statement.

Elsewhere, a NATO soldier was killed in fighting in the southern province of Oruzgan when his unit came under fire from insurgents, according to a statement from NATO released in Kabul. The statement did not reveal his nationality, but most of the troops stationed in Oruzgan are Dutch or Australian.

NATO estimated that as many as 50 insurgents were killed when its forces called for an air strike on insurgent positions. There was no independent confirmation of the death toll.

In another clash, three NATO soldiers were wounded in Kandahar province. Residents said 10 civilians were killed by subsequent NATO bombing, Reuters reported.

The violence in Afghanistan this year has been the heaviest since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, with especially heavy fighting in the southern part of the country, suicide attacks and roadside bombs.

The suicide bombings Sunday and today ended a comparative lull in fighting in recent weeks, with the onset of wintry weather, which makes the mountainous terrain difficult for insurgents.

President Bush called Karzai on Saturday evening to assure him that the United States will reiterate its commitment to Afghanistan at a NATO summit in Latvia, Karzai's office said. The summit starts Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Page A - 9

Chirac proposes forming contact group on Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-28 04:41:53
PARIS, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- French President Jacques Chirac proposed forming a contact group on Afghanistan to ensure that a global strategy guides NATO action in the country, French presidential office said on Monday.

Chirac made the remarks during the telephone conversation with his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush.

The two leaders also talked about the situation in the Middle East and "notably the Israeli-Palestinian situation and international action toward Lebanon," said the spokesman.

Bush left Washington on Monday for an international tour that first takes him to Estonia, Latvia and finally to Jordan, where he will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

France wants Iran to join Afghanistan "contact group"
Brussels, Nov 28, IRNA NATO-France-Iran
France on Tuesday will propose that Iran be invited to join a "contact group" of countries and multilateral institutions to coordinate NATO's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, a European daily reported.

The proposal will be made by French President Jacques Chirac at a two-day NATO summit in the Latvian capital Riga, reported the Financial Times newspaper which is printed and distributed in several European capitals simultaneously.

Chirac, who sets out his proposals in an article published by a range of foreign newspapers this morning, calls for "a global strategy, a reinforced political and economic process" to address NATO's difficulties in Afghanistan, according to the daily.

"The establishment of a contact group to bring together the countries of the region, the main nations involved, and the international organizations, as exists already in Kosovo, seems necessary to give our forces all the means to succeed in their mission of supporting the Afghan authorities and to re-focus the alliance on running military operations," says Chirac in his article.

Some NATO officials have already argued that a contact group would be an effective way of both forging international strategy on Afghanistan and committing other countries and institutions to the success of the government of President Hamid Karzai, noted the newspaper.

Afghanistan situation may destabilise Pakistan, India, says Armitage
By ANI Tuesday November 28, 11:29 AM
Singapore, Nov 28 (ANI): Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has said that failure to restore peace in Afghanistan may jeopardise stability in neighbouring Pakistan and also have a "knock-on effect" on India. He said that the persistent violence in that country might "wreck" Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to defeat forces of religious extremism at home. Calling on the international community to pay more attention to Afghanistan, Armitage, said: "I want to call your attention to Afghanistan. The stakes in Afghanistan are actually larger in the near term than they are in Iraq." Speaking at a seminar for conflict mediators in Asia, he said that the continued clashes in Afghanistan could also have knock-on effects on India, which may already perceive itself to be surrounded by failed or failing states such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. "The knock-on effects of a lack of success in Afghanistan will have enormous repercussions," the Daily Times quoted Armitage as saying further. Afghanistan is currently enduring its bloodiest period since US-led coalition forces overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamic government in 2001, with insurgent attacks gathering momentum. He called NATO's current role in Afghanistan "an excellent model" of an international peacekeeping solution. Armitage also said that he expected further US military policy decisions would involve much more consultation and oversight now that Democrats had won control of Congress in the mid-term elections. (ANI)

Pak wants peace in Afghanistan, vows Sherpao
Tuesday November 28, 2006 (1011 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, Interior Minister Monday said that Pakistan want peace in Afghanistan and will continue to play its due role for a peaceful Afghanistan.
Aftab Ahmed Sherpao expressed these views while talking to UN Senior Representative in Afghanistan Dean Avarates and NATO Commander General Richard who called on him at the Interior Ministry.

On the occasion was present, Federal Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah, Additional Interior Secretary Chaudhry Qamar ul Zaman and Director General National Crisis Management Brigadier retired Javed Iqbal Cheema.

The meeting lasted for quite a while in which host of issues of bilateral interests were discussed in length.

Interior Ministry briefed the delegation that Pakistan condemns all forms of terrorism.

He said that Pakistan wants a durable Afghanistan that is free from all kinds of difficulties.

He said that Pakistan stands united and stable only due to the prudent policies of President General Pervez Musharraf and PM Shaukat Aziz underlining that Pakistan is on a road of development and progress.

On the other hand, UN Representative in Afghanistan and NATO Commander General Richard commended the role of Pakistan in war against terrorism while briefed the Interior Minister regarding efforts of NATO for peace in Afghanistan.

Strong, prosperous Afghanistan in the interest of Pakistan: Shaukat Aziz
Tuesday November 28, 2006 (1011 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minster Shaukat Aziz has reiterated Pakistan wants peace in Afghanistan and will continue to play its role on this count adding a strong and prosperous Afghanistan is in the interest of Pakistan.

" Pakistan wants a robust and prosperous Afghanistan. This is major plank of our policy. A destabilized Afghanistan is not a good omen for Pakistan as such situation adds to the difficulties of neighbouring countries", he said this while addressing 4th Altaf Gauhar memorial lecture and later talking to the journalists in prime minister secretariat Monday.

Foreign diplomats, director general ISPR, Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan and other dignitaries also attended the lecture.

Leading journalist Bryn Kalafli delivered lecture on situation of Afghanistan and peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister held Pakistan has played its role for peace and tranquility in Afghanistan. However, challenges are still there. Pakistan provided assistance of $250 millions for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. " We inaugurated Torkham-Jalalabad road.

Afghanistan is the largest narcotics producing country and it is source of livelihood of the people there, he remarked. The international community will have to come forward to provide alternative resources. The need is there that work is done on war footing to generate employment opportunities in Afghanistan. All the stake holders will have to be involved in the process for establishment of peace there. Reconstruction process has to be carried out there so that Afghan refuges return to their homes in a respectful manner. " We have devised a strategy with Afghan government in this connection.

He indicated that recruitments are being made in Afghan army to maintain peace in Afghanistan. The pace of recruitment needs to be accelerated. " We will have to fight jointly against the terrorism, narcotics and enemies of development. This way peace can be ensured in the region, he stressed.

Later talking to the journalists Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said " We want peace in Afghanistan being our neighboring country. The problems facing Afghanistan become source of concern for us. We have always supported Afghan government and will continue to support it in future too.

Responding to a question, he said Women Protection Bill is for the whole country and it is in conformity with Quran and Sunnah. This is first step. More laws will come. Ruling PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has filed draft bill in the assembly in this regard which encompasses issues like marriage with Quran, inheritance and divorce. Women are our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. Therefore every Muslim is delighted over passage of bill. We should not politicize it.

Noted journalist Bryn Kalafli said peace accord similar to Waziristan peace deal is essential for Afghanistan. Pakistan has paid price in war on terror. Karzai government is confined to only presidential palace in Afghanistan, he remarked.

A strong leader is needed in Afghanistan and the world will have to deliberate over it, he urged.

AFGHANISTAN: KIDNAPPED REPORTERS REACH SAFETY
Chaman, 28 Nov. (AKI) - Syed Saleem Shahzad, the correspondent of Italian news agency Adnkronos International (AKI) seized by Taliban fighters last week has reached the Pakistan border and safety. Shahzad and Qamar Yousafzai, a reporter from Quetta, were kidnapped a week ago in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province and accused of being spies. They are now at the Chaman border crossing. Yousafzai, reached briefly by satellite phone by Adnkronos International (AKI) said: "We are immensely relieved. The Taliban did not treat us badly but it has been a very worrying time."

Shahzad and Yousafzai were seized on 21 November in the restive Helmand province and accused of being spies. A purported Taliban spokesman Mohammed Hanif said on Sunday that the two men had been released. However this has yet to be independently confirmed.

Shahzad entered Afghanistan through the Chaman border crossing in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and last contacted his wife on 19 November from Kandahar.

Shahzad's wife, Anita, told AKI by phone from Karachi Tuesday that she was immensely thankful for the support of Saleem's friends. "We thank you at Adnkronos International for all your concern and care" she said. "Thank God Saleem is safe" she added tearfully, as the tension of the past days began to take its toll.

The reporter has travelled widely in Aghanistan where he has reported for Adnkronos International (AKI), Asia Times and the Dawn Group, as well as contributing articles to other international media.

His most recent report for AKI before embarking on this reporting trip was on the suicide bomb attack in Dargai, North Western Frontier Province, in which some 35 people - mostly soldiers - were killed at an army training centre.

Alarm over Afghan school places
Monday, 27 November 2006, 15:09 GMT BBC News
More than half of Afghanistan's children are not going to school because of a shortage of places and teachers, the aid agency Oxfam says.

Despite a five-fold increase in school enrolments since the Taleban were ousted in 2001, the education system simply cannot cope, the charity said.

About seven million children are out of school, with girls badly affected.

The report urged rich countries to invest some $800m (£419m) to rebuild Afghan schools in the next five years.

'Great progress'

The BBC's Mark Dummett in Kabul says that today there are so many pupils going to school in Afghanistan that a lot of them have to have lessons outdoors.

Others make do in makeshift structures like tents while they await proper buildings.

Oxfam says there are not enough classrooms, books or desks. Teachers, especially women teachers, are in short supply.

Our correspondent says that pay is so low at about $50 a month at best that well-qualified staff prefer other work if they can get it.

Under the Taleban, Afghanistan's girls could only attend classes in secret and there are still many fewer girls than boys going to school.

"Girls are particularly losing out with just one in five girls in primary education and one in 20 going to secondary school," the Oxfam report said.

But Education Minister Hanif Atmar said the situation was not as bad as Oxfam had described.

He told the BBC that his ministry did need much more money from international donors to meet the goal of educating every child for free but he said the government was working hard to increase the number of school places and improve the quality of teaching.

"The enrolment that we have in our schools today, at around six million children, we've never had in our history, so that's a great progress made.

"However, there are still challenges that need to be addressed. The critical issue is training of teachers, in particular female teachers, but for training we do need resources that we do not have adequately at the moment."

Nato meeting

Oxfam's report was released on the eve of a summit of Nato leaders in Latvia.

The alliance has a leading role in trying to bring security to Afghanistan.

The country has been promised billions of dollars by the international community for rebuilding, but Oxfam said too little was going on education.

"Rich countries are not providing nearly enough aid to Afghanistan despite their many promises. So far they give only $126m a year," it said.

Pakistan: Afghan registration nears half million mark
Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 28 Nov 2006
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 28 November 2006, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Close to half a million Afghans have been registered in Pakistan in an ongoing government exercise to provide official documentation to Afghans who arrived in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979.

Since the exercise started on October 15, Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has registered some 490,000 Afghans. More than half of them were registered in North West Frontier Province, 22 percent in Balochistan, 15 percent in Punjab, 10 percent in Sindh and 1.3 percent in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The registration exercise is expected to continue through the end of the year, targeting an estimated 2.4 million Afghans in Pakistan who were counted in a 2005 census that preceded registration. Registered Afghans receive a Proof of Registration card that is valid for three years and recognizes the bearer as an Afghan citizen temporarily living in Pakistan.

The US$6 million exercise is the largest-ever registration by a host government of a mixed and protracted situation. It has so far received funds from the European Commission, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Riches of aid leave out schools
In Afghanistan, money has built luxuries for workers, while children struggle to get educated
JAMES RUPERT November 26, 2006 Newsday.com
KABUL, Afghanistan - On most days, Wasim, a thin 12-year-old, leaves home at 5 a.m. for an hour-long trek across Kabul to work. At a muddy street market, he sells the filmy plastic bags that shoppers fill with a kilo of potatoes or onions.

Afternoons, Wasim joins other boys at a line of minivans taking workers home to the sprawling suburbs of this city of 3 million. Amid roaring traffic, crowds and diesel fumes, the boys call out for passengers to the taxis' destinations. Getting home as late as 8 p.m., Wasim usually has earned a dollar or so for his family of 11.

Wasim wants to be a doctor, an ambition ignited at the school he attended last year. There, a charity called Aschiana taught him reading and math, fed him a hot lunch and provided the only doctor he has ever met.

"The doctor takes care of people," Wasim said. "When I was sick, he knew what medicine to give me."

But the rebuilding of this shattered city makes little room for its estimated 50,000 street children or their dreams. Wasim was forced back to full-time hustling 15 months ago when landlords razed the school to build a luxury hotel on the site.

Walls to progress

Soon after, President Hamid Karzai signed decrees giving Aschiana an acre of downtown land. A Washington-based foundation with backing from First Lady Laura Bush raised money for a new school. But a U.S. company took over the land and built a wall around it, saying it was part of 29 acres the company had leased to build a gated community of upscale homes for western aid workers.

It's routine here. In July, Education Ministry official Zahoor Afghan said more than half of government schools in Kabul have no buildings and use rented space or tents instead. A $4-million fund for school construction was sitting partly idle because the land allocated for 20 of the schools had been seized by others, Afghan told the independent Pajhwok news agency.

After a year-long tussle, it appears Aschiana will get its land. But it will likely lose a crucial $200,000 European construction grant if it cannot break ground by Friday, said Aschiana director Muhammad Yusuf.

The key in the battle was a switch by the U.S. Embassy.

During the summer, both sides said the embassy was backing the U.S. company, Red Sea Engineering & Constructors, which had built housing for the embassy. But after pressure from Aschiana's backers in Washington, U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann pushed Red Sea to cede the acre allotted by Karzai, embassy personnel say.

The fight is partly a clash of priorities and cultures in the business of nation-building. Amid the glut of handsomely furnished international aid agencies here, Aschiana is a poor, no-frills Afghan cousin. Its rented properties have dirt courtyards and curtainless windows, but the offerings to students go far beyond basic studies, including calligraphy, music, computer studies, vocational trades, a student newspaper and a student-run bank.

Foreign visitors marvel at the student artwork on the walls of Aschiana's six schools around Kabul, but the group can pay its teachers only $4 a day, and its trained staffers are routinely lured away by richer foreign aid groups, Yusuf said.

Short of destination

The big money in Afghanistan's development is not reaching the majority of its 30 million people. Much of the $13 billion in foreign aid pledged since 2002 is "wasted on high salaries, large overheads, luxury cars, luxury houses that Afghanistan cannot afford at all," President Karzai declared in January.

While foreign aid workers theoretically are working to improve life for ordinary Afghans, many spend much of their time escaping that reality. Millions of dollars in international aid and laundered opium profits have created rich classes of Afghans and foreign aid providers who say a critical part of development is luxury hotels, restaurants and homes for themselves and foreign businesspeople.

Behind its concrete walls and razor wire, Red Sea's housing complex is bidding for a profitable role as a primary escape for foreigners. Of a planned 100 homes (one to three bedrooms), 32 have been built. To avoid Kabul's failing electricity and sewage systems, they are connected to the complex's private utilities.

Inside the walls, an Australian-run restaurant called Red Hot Sizzlin' serves 16-ounce steaks. It has become "the favorite haunt of the beard 'n' baseball-cap brigade," according to Afghan Scene, a slick magazine for Kabul's expatriates.

Afghanistan's renewed explosion of war has killed an estimated 3,700 people this year, quadrupled the rate of violent attacks and frightened many foreign investors. But Red Sea president Roy Carver says his niche - providing comfortable housing and entertainment for U.S.-paid contractors - is secure. The rising instability has brought "much more activity in building up the [Afghan] police and army," Carver said. A $1.4-billion U.S. government contract for construction of roads, power and water projects around Afghanistan means he will have American tenants for his homes and apartments for the next five years.

Carver, an affable Oklahoman, seems to have accepted losing one of his 20 acres as just another unpredictable cost of working in a country without a clear legal system. "It's an uphill battle to be a foreign investor here," he said Thursday at his office.

Carver doesn't deny the need to teach or care for the kids who pick through Kabul's garbage or scavenge scrap metal to help feed their families. He's never seen Aschiana's school, "but it's a noble cause" he said.

Too close for comfort

Still, it's a noble cause that doesn't belong next to his little piece of heaven for foreign aid workers. Meeting Yusuf during the summer, Carver voiced his discomfort half-jokingly. "We're gonna have 100 homes of expatriates out here, and there wouldn't be any way to keep them separate," he said as a reporter looked on. "You don't want your kids coming around them, do you? I mean, come on! We're all a bunch of Yankees!"

On Thanksgiving morning, at his office inside the Red Sea complex, Carver added, "I've never seen a street kid here [in this neighborhood]. They tell me there are thousands of them."

He invited an American visitor to the restaurant that evening for a feast with turkeys flown in frozen from Dubai.

Outside the Red Sea gate a few minutes later, a couple of boys poked aimlessly through a pile of trash. Why weren't they in school? "School? How?" asked a boy named Amin. "That costs money!"

Rookie cager feels honored to represent Afghanistan at Doha Asiad
People's Daily Online, China
Afghan athletes all feel honored to represent their country at the Asian Games, said a young basketball player Monday after attending the South Asian delegation's flag raising ceremony in the Athletes' Village of Doha.

"We are here not expecting to win medals, but to represent our country," said Ali Noorzad who did not become a national player until the Afghan basketball team called up a batch of youngsters to a training camp in the United States in preparations for the Doha Asiad.

It's the first time that the war-destroyed country sends a basketball team for Asian Games competitions after long being apart from the Olympic sports family, and none of the team members intended to go getting some astonishing results from the Doha competitions.

"We came from different parts of the country, we were doing preparations for the Asian Games for just one week, and it's really challenges for us to play against all those strong teams of Asia," said Noorzad, referring to the harsh situation inside his country, which could hardly offer regular training bases for the athletes and teams.

"It's also the first time for most of us to represent our country at an Asian Games. We'll do as good as we can," he added.

The Afghan delegation grouped 86 members including 51 athletes to take part in 11 sports here at the Doha Asiad, which is to be officially unveiled on Dec. 1.
Source: Xinhua