Serving you since 1998
April 2007 :   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

April 13, 2007 


UN envoy calls for dialogue with Taliban in Afghanistan
Fri Apr 13, 6:51 AM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - The UN envoy in  Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, urged talks with all the forces in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, to stanch the bloodshed in the country, in an interview published Friday.

"If there is to be a chance for peace, we must talk to everyone, including alleged war criminals. The aim is to stabilise Afghanistan," Koenigs told the German daily Berliner Zeitung.

He said this included the Taliban, which he described as "a movement that includes terrorists and uses terrorist methods but that also has a political foundation."

Koenigs said the hardline Islamist movement also comprised "young fighters who often just need money" and "people who feel discriminated against by corrupt or partisan government officials" as well as drug dealers and Muslim fundamentalists.

"The idea that you have to kill all of them to win the conflict is nonsense," he said.

"Of course there have to be talks with various groups. The answer to the conflict cannot only be based on the military or development policy but must be comprehensively political."

He said the  United Nations was trying to integrate all the conflicting parties with a negotiated truce.

"In the end, reconciliation has to come from the Afghans themselves," he said.

Kurt Beck, the leader of Germany's Social Democrats, half of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling left-right coalition, recently called for dialogue with "moderate Taliban" with the aim of ending the bloody unrest in Afghanistan.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta swiftly rejected the proposal, saying there were no moderate Taliban.

NATO-led forces are battling the strongest Taliban insurgency since the hardline Islamist movement was toppled for harbouring Al-Qaeda chief  Osama bin Laden in December 2001.
Back to Top
Bombings, gunbattles on rise in Afghanistan
KABUL (Reuters) - A  NATO soldier died in combat in  Afghanistan on Friday, a day after two were killed by roadside bombs, bringing the number of foreign troop deaths this week to 12 -- one of the bloodiest weeks for foreign forces in months.

The soldier died in a gunbattle in the south, but under a new NATO policy the alliance refused to say where because that could identify the nationality of the victim before the relevant government makes an announcement.

On Thursday, two NATO soldiers were killed in separate roadside bombings in the east, NATO said in a statement, without saying where, and a helicopter chartered by the U.S.-led coalition crash-landed due to technical problems southwest of Kabul.

At the crash site in Ghazni province, rescuers came under fire from suspected Taliban fighters.

Three Taliban were killed in the resulting gunbattle but there were no casualties among the rescuing troops or the five contractors aboard the aircraft.

The Taliban said they had shot down the helicopter but there was no way of independently verifying either account.

Violence has been rising through the spring following the annual winter lull after last year saw the bloodiest fighting since the Taliban's ouster in 2001.

Eight Canadian soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) and one from the separate U.S.-led coalition died in bombings in the south this week.

It has been the bloodiest single week for the U.S. and NATO -- currently also under U.S. command -- for several months.

In Berlin, Germany's defense minister said he had seen no sign of any spring offensive almost a month into spring.

"So far one cannot speak of any spring offensive by the Taliban," Jung told Reuters in an interview this week.

"There is, as in previous months, a large number of local armed incidents and attacks, of which around 90 percent are in the southern and eastern parts of the country."

NATO and Afghan forces have launched their own offensive, with about 5,000 troops, in the north of southern Helmand province, the opium heartland of the world's top producer.

Germany has about 3,000 troops in the country, mainly in the relatively safe north, and has resisted calls from NATO allies to send more and allow deployment in the south, where most of the fighting occurs.

Instead, it sent six Tornado reconnaissance jets this week. But security experts, including a former German officer, say the planes serve no tactical purpose and are only symbolic.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Berlin)
Back to Top
US troops rescue helicopter passengers in Afghanistan
Fri Apr 13, 2:03 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - US special forces rescued five civilian contractors whose helicopter made a forced landing in  Afghanistan and killed three Taliban rebels who tried to attack them, the coalition said Friday.

The Taliban said late Thursday it had "hit" a  NATO helicopter in southeastern Ghazni province, the same area where the coalition said the civilian chopper came down because of mechanical problems.

The helicopter made a "precautionary landing" in Ghazni just before nightfall and issued a distress call, but the passengers began receiving small arms fire from the Taliban soon afterwards, a coalition statement said.

US Special Forces soldiers and paratroopers along with members of the Afghan police special reaction team made their way to the site, it said.

"The civilian contractors evaded the Taliban fighters until coalition close air support arrived and engaged the pursuing enemy fighters. Three extremists were killed in the engagement," the statement said.

The troops then secured the helicopter site and the civilian contractors were taken to a nearby coalition base, where they were treated for minor injuries and released.

The statement said no Afghan civilian casualties were reported.

"With the recent kidnappings by extremists, these brave soldiers and policemen, who rescued the civilians, likely prevented another cowardly hostage taking," coalition spokesman Major Christopher Belcher said.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said late Thursday that the militia had "hit a NATO helicopter in southwest Afghanistan" but did not give any details to back up the claim.
Back to Top
NATO meets to firm Afghanistan strategy
Fri Apr 13, 3:49 AM ET
MONTREAL (AFP) -  NATO allies with troops deployed in southern  Afghanistan agreed Thursday to strengthen the coalition to confront a Taliban offensive, but stayed silent on sending more units to the battlefield.

Envoys from Australia, Britain, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Romania and the United States, as well as Canada, met behind closed doors for informal talks in Quebec City's old citadel.

"Our discussions at the meeting focused on creating greater coherence in our collective efforts to provide the security and stability necessary to ensure that terrorism does not take root in Afghanistan," said Canada's Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor.

He said their goal was to "coordinate our efforts better in the south," "better train the Afghan army and the police" and "coordinate our efforts in reconstruction."

"But specifically in this meeting we didn't talk about extra troops," O'Connor said.

"Right now the ISAF commander believes that (the current troop commitment) is sufficient for him in the south," he said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Earlier, local media, citing US officials, reported that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates would press the group to send more supplies to Afghanistan, but added Washington would not commit more troops or equipment.

Gates had announced Wednesday that US army soldiers would see their tours of duty in Afghanistan extended to 15 months from 12 in a sign the US military is straining to meet its commitments.

Australia also said Wednesday it would double its deployment, and Poland agreed recently to boost its troop numbers by about 1,000.

The Netherlands Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop told public broadcaster CBC his country would consider mid-2007 whether to extend the Dutch mission.

"Sometimes, it's a filthy war ... so risky," he said. But "we all knew that it was a difficult job and we made the choice (to be) in the difficult south of Afghanistan and we did it with very good allies."

O'Connor meanwhile announced Canada would soon replace its 17 ageing tanks in volatile Kandahar province with 20 Leopard II tanks loaned from Germany, anticipating "a surge in the Taliban this spring and summer."

Another 100 tanks purchased from the Netherlands would be modified and rotated onto the Afghan battlefield by the end of the year, he said.

Canada has deployed 2,500 soldiers in southern Afghanistan as part of the 37,000-strong ISAF contingent that is supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai. Separately there are around 11,000 US-led coalition troops.

NATO commanders have requested additional troops and armaments, but the alliance's response has been timid. NATO needs more aircraft, medical equipment and military trainers, plus money to rebuild the war-torn country.

Canadian, US and British officials have also lamented that caveats by some countries restrict the alliance's ability to deploy in war zones.

Around 1,000 people, the majority of them militants, have been killed in Taliban-related violence this year. Last year was the bloodiest since 2001 with almost 4,000 dead.

On Friday the coalition said US special forces rescued five civilian contractors whose helicopter made a forced landing in Afghanistan and killed three Taliban rebels who tried to attack them.

The Taliban said late Thursday it had "hit" a NATO helicopter in southeastern Ghazni province, the same area where the coalition said the civilian chopper came down because of mechanical problems.

The helicopter made a "precautionary landing" in Ghazni just before nightfall and issued a distress call, but the passengers began receiving small arms fire from the Taliban soon afterwards, a coalition statement said.

US Special Forces soldiers and paratroopers along with members of the Afghan police special reaction team secured the helicopter site and the civilian contractors were taken to a nearby coalition base, where they were treated for minor injuries and released.

On Wednesday two Canadian soldiers were killed and three were injured in two separate roadside bombings near their vehicles west of Kandahar City, the birthplace of the Taliban, increasing Canada's death toll to 53 since 2002.

Two more NATO soldiers were killed Thursday in separate explosions in Afghanistan, taking the number of foreign soldiers killed in the country to 11 in less than a week, ISAF said.

Meanwhile, 35 Islamist Taliban fighters were killed in fierce fighting with Afghan and US-led troops in troubled Zabul province late Wednesday, Afghan officials said.

Four Afghan soldiers were also killed and nearly two dozen wounded in the province after being ambushed by Taliban insurgents on Monday.
Back to Top
38 Taliban, NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan
by Sardar Ahmad
KABUL (AFP) - US and Afghan troops backed by warplanes killed more than 35 Taliban militants during a five-hour battle in a bitterly contested area of southern  Afghanistan, the US-led coalition said Friday.

Meanwhile a  NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldier was killed in a separate gunbattle with rebels on Friday, becoming the 12th foreign soldier to die in Afghanistan in a week.

US special forces and Afghan troops also killed three Taliban who pinned down a group of civilian contractors after their helicopter came down in another area.

The fighting on Thursday in which most of the rebels were killed took place in the Sangin district of Helmand province, which around 1,000 Afghan and international troops wrested from insurgent control at the weekend.

"More than 35 Taliban fighters were killed by ANA (Afghan National Army) and coalition forces during the five-hour afternoon battle," the coalition said in a statement.

The statement said the clashes erupted after the troops identified several militant groups in the region. US air support was also called to pursue the fighters as they fled, the statement said.

Sangin is one of several districts in southern Afghanistan that have been out of government control at times during the last year amid a fierce insurgency led by the Islamist Taliban.

The NATO soldier, whose name and nationality were not revealed, was killed in a firefight with rebels in an unnamed part of southern Afghanistan on Friday, ISAF said in another statement. Two other NATO troops were injured.

The death brought to 40 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year. Some 170 were killed there in 2006.

It came a day after two NATO soldiers were killed in separate explosions in southern Afghanistan, and follows Canada's heaviest single-day troop loss in 50 years with the deaths of six soldiers near Kandahar on Sunday.

Separately on Thursday five civilian contractors had to be rescued after their helicopter made a forced landing in southeastern Ghazni province late Thursday.

The Taliban earlier said it had "hit" a NATO helicopter there.

Militants started firing at the passengers, who evaded them "until coalition close air support arrived and engaged the pursuing enemy fighters. Three extremists were killed in the engagement," a coalition statement said.

"With the recent kidnappings by extremists, these brave soldiers and policemen, who rescued the civilians, likely prevented another cowardly hostage taking," coalition spokesman Major Christopher Belcher said.

Two French aid workers were apparently kidnapped by the Taliban in southwestern Nimroz province on April 3.

French  President Jacques Chirac called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai late Thursday to "demand his support" for efforts to free them, according to Karzai's office.

"The president in response assured that all relevant Afghan authorities will do their utmost to secure their release," it said.

The Taliban beheaded an Afghan journalist kidnapped with an Italian reporter a month ago. The Italian journalist was freed after two week in captivity under a deal which saw five Taliban free from Afghan jails.

Around 1,000 people, most of them militants, have died in insurgency-related violence this year.
Back to Top
Iraqi beheadings and suicide attacks inspire Taliban: experts
by Sardar Ahmad Fri Apr 13, 2:24 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A blindfolded man beheaded on video, a dozen kidnappings in a month and near-daily suicide attacks:  Afghanistan faces brutal new Taliban tactics that are partly inspired by Iraqi insurgents, experts say, but a direct link remains hard to prove.

The Taliban themselves admit their goal is to spread terror. "We behead one as a lesson for others -- it's more effective and creates more fear in the hearts of our enemies," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.

But the fundamentalist movement that sprang from the backward southern province of Kandahar in the mid 1990s and was ousted by US-led forces in 2001 has become increasingly sophisticated in recent months, analysts say.

"There is no direct link with  Iraq but the Taliban are influenced by Al-Qaeda there," said Pakistan-based analyst and retired army general Talat Masood.

"They (the Iraqis) have more of a global character, the Taliban try to learn from them, for example the use of Internet, of video to put pressure on people," he added.

The decapitation of an Afghan driver and journalist working with Italian war correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo bears witness to this shift in tactics in a country where beheadings were once almost unheard of, analysts say.

Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped by the Taliban on March 5 and released under a controversial deal which saw five insurgent prisoners go free.

The Taliban said on Sunday they had beheaded the Afghan journalist and translator, Ajmal Naqshbandi, because the government refused to free any more detainees.

Then an Italian television channel on Tuesday aired images taken around a month earlier of the blindfolded driver, Sayed Agha, being beheaded, after which a shivering Mastrogiacomo begged Italian authorities to "do something."

Apparently emboldened by the exchange made by President Hamid Karzai for Mastrogiacomo, the Taliban meanwhile continue to hold two French aid workers and eight Afghans including a five-member medical team.

The videotaped decapitation was a first for Afghanistan, and harks back to the rash of Iraqi beheadings which started in 2004 and spread fear on the Internet and through sanitised clips on TV.

The chief of the Afghan interior ministry's anti-terrorism department believes the link between the two insurgencies is not simply one of inspiration.

"We've reports that the Taliban are in contact with Iraqi militants," Abdul Wahaab Khetaab told AFP.

"When there's a relation between them we can say there's an exchange too."

Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's feared commander in southern Afghanistan, told Al-Jazeera television in March that Taliban fighters visited Sunni insurgents in Iraq whenever they had the chance and swapped information.

NATO officials have spoken of hundreds of foreign militants in Afghanistan from Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East -- with many known to have fought with  Osama bin Laden and the Taliban before the fall of the regime.

But actual links between Iraqi and Afghan militants are hard to prove.

"It is obvious that there is a mimetic effect with Iraq, ideas and methods are going around. But in the case of men, there's still no proof -- no Taliban have been found so far in Iraq," said Olivier Roy, a French expert on Afghanistan.

The likelihood that the Taliban are inspired rather than trained by Iraqis appears to be borne out by suicide bombings in Afghanistan, again a phenomenon that was unheard of in this devoutly Islamic nation before 2001.

In recent years suicide bombings in Afghanistan have soared -- from 25 in 2005 to 139 in 2006 and with dozens already this year -- but unlike Iraqi attackers, many miss their target or cause few casualties.

"The training is poor, they take poor chaps from refugee camps and after one or two weeks of training they send them," said Masood, the Pakistani analyst.

In fact, Afghan officials have frequently accused Pakistani militants, not Iraqis, of training Taliban suicide bombers in hideouts in Pakistan's tribal border regions.

Whatever the origins of their tactics, the Taliban remain a deadly threat to ordinary Afghans and also to foreign troops, 11 of whom have died in less than a week, including two NATO soldiers on Thursday.

"Since the Taliban cannot win on the battlefield, these beheadings, suicide bombings and explosions are the easiest way to achieve their goals -- create fear and drive people into panic," said Khetaab, the anti-terror chief.
Back to Top
President warns of quitting war against terror
By Ihtasham ul Haque Dawn (Pakistan) / April 13, 2007 issue
ISLAMABAD, April 12: Pakistan on Thursday threatened to quit the international coalition against terrorism if its partners, particularly the United States and its media, continued to accuse Islamabad of dragging its feet.

“If we are bluffing each other, if I am bluffing and if Inter-Services Intelligence is bluffing, then we must be out of the coalition,” President

Pervez Musharraf declared at the concluding session of the Land Forces Symposium 2007 being attended by senior military officials of 22 countries.

He warned that if the blame game continued, it would be impossible to defeat terrorism and extremism, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “The first sign of defeat is to blame each other,” the president said, calling upon the US and its media to realise the gravity of the situation.

“We have suffered the maximum and we have contributed the maximum. Therefore, we will not accept that Pakistan is not doing enough in the war against terror,” the president asserted. “It pains me when people say that Pakistan is not doing enough.”

At the same time, he made it clear that military means alone could not win the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and that political efforts were needed to restore peace and stability in the country.

He said the coalition forces needed to fight a real battle in Afghanistan to get rid of Taliban, Al Qaeda and warlords.

The president rejected assertions that the peace deal in Waziristan had not worked and Pakistan should scrap it. “If this peace deal has achieved 50 per cent success, not 100 per cent, still it is good and we will not scrap it.”

Gen Musharraf said the people of South Waziristan had succeeded in throwing foreign militants out of their area, now it was time for the people of North Waziristan to follow the course so that Pakistan could be made a peaceful place.

He said Al Qaeda operatives were still hiding in the mountains of North and South Waziristan and the government was cashing them everywhere.

“But that does not mean that everything is happening from Pakistan against the Afghan government,” he said, adding that there were no Pakistani Taliban but only Afghan Taliban who had been going in and out of Pakistan.

The president said Pakistan had no option but to go for selective fencing along its borders with Afghanistan to restrict cross-border movement.

“In fact, work has started to fence eight or nine of about 23 crossing points,” he said.

The president regretted that when Pakistan talked about fencing and mining its borders with Afghanistan, the western world got unnecessarily alarmed.

He proposed that there should be a joint operation by the US forces, Pakistan and Afghanistan to deal with Taliban and Al Qaeda and it should be ensured that nobody crossed into one county from the other.
The president said there were no shortcuts to restoring peace and stability in Afghanistan. A long-term strategy was needed to deal with Taliban and Al Qaeda in the country, he said.

He admitted that some people in Pakistan were still supporting the Taliban to continue to create problems for the Afghan government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces there.

“Al Qaeda and Taliban pose a direct challenge for Pakistan,” he said.

He was of the view that Pakistani religious extremists who were preaching hatred should be arrested.

The president accused the coalition forces of failing to stop cross-border movement from Afghanistan. They must find a solution to the problem, instead of blaming others, he said.

He reiterated that hundreds of Afghan refugees were involved in terrorism. That was the reason that Pakistan had repeatedly been urging the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to make arrangements for their return to Afghanistan. “It is good to see that the UNHCR is taking the camps out of Pakistan,” he said.He stressed the need for resolving political disputes in the Muslim world. The number of people supporting extremist activities against the US and Israel was increasing because of the disputes, he said. He said issues concerning Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan must be sorted out to stop the spread of terrorism and extremism in the world.

The president advised the Pakistani media to report various political and military events in their correct perspective.

Agencies add: “The people in South Waziristan have now risen against the foreigners. They have killed about 300 of them,” Gen Musharraf said.

“And they get support from the Pakistan army, they asked for support,” he said.

“Now there are no Al Qaeda men in the cities,” he maintained. He said there were no Pakistani Taliban in Balochistan and all the Taliban in the province were Afghan.
Back to Top
US troops struggle to stop Taliban infiltration from Pakistan
The Associated Press April 13, 2007
DAVUDZAY, Afghanistan: Troops with powerful rifle scopes scanned mountain ridges for elusive, black-clad Taliban infiltrators. Afghan soldiers, hit by a roadside bomb, pressed on into the far-flung valley. U.S. Special Forces swept through the sinister alleys of its main settlement.

The strike, carried out by about 200 American and Afghan government forces, was planned to sever a major insurgent infiltration and supply route — one that begins in neighboring Pakistan and fuels Islamic fighters deep in Afghanistan.

But the attack didn't work.

From soldiers on the battlefield to think-tank analysts, many regard Pakistan's failure to cut such lines as pivotal to the outcome of the 5-year-old conflict.

Field officers say eradicating fighters who cross the porous, 2,365-kilometer (1,470-miles) border is like trying to drain a swamp when one cannot shut off the streams feeding it.

"Stopping the infiltration is not the only way we are going to win this war, but it's a very key factor," said Capt. Samuel Edwards, who led U.S. Army troops in a recent drive into the Davudzay mountain bowl in the southeastern province of Zabul.

Edwards says his unit, a company of the 4th Infantry Regiment, has done well in mapping the spider web of trails between Pakistan's borderlands and into the province.

"We've kind of connected the dots. But we're never going to stop it completely. 'Disrupt' is the word I would stick with," he says.

The company's intelligence officer, Capt. James Kretzschmar, says most of the insurgents enter Zabul through the Maruf Valley after training near the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta.

Former NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones said earlier that Quetta remains the Taliban's main headquarters.

Once inside Zabul, the Taliban and foreign Islamic fighters are believed to veer off in different directions, some heading straight down a highway to Kandahar province.

Others head to Zabul's rugged northwestern districts — Mizan, Arghandab, Daychopan and Khaki Afghan — before moving into the Taliban heartland in the south, where the most intense fighting is now taking place.

"It's an annual cycle. It's weather dependent," says Kretzschmar of Albany, New York.

Winter closes the frontier mountain passes so the movement of men, weapons and supplies begins when the snows thaw in spring, he says.

The infiltrators travel in small groups, often along mountain ridges, hauling equipment on donkeys and motorcycles.

Those already in Zabul blend in with villagers during the winter in places like the Davudzay bowl.

And the Zabul routes are just a fragment of the vast cross-border network, somewhat akin to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in another conflict — Vietnam. There, communist troops and war material moved along an intricate web of jungle tracks and secret roads from a safe haven, North Vietnam, to fight in the south.

Analysts warned that cutting those lines was essential to the U.S. Vietnam War effort, but it never happened.

Now, similar words are heard about the Afghan conflict.

"NATO will not be able to prevail ... will never control the border, without greater control of the border areas by Pakistan and greater coordination and cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan," Gen. John Craddock, the current NATO commander, said recently in Washington.

Taliban fighters and al-Qaida militants converged on the frontier areas after U.S.-led forces drove them from Afghanistan in 2001.

Washington looked the other way as Taliban regrouped — grateful that Islamabad was hunting for al-Qaida leaders like Sept. 11 plotters Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, both now incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay — and lending use of its bases for logistical support to the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

But in recent months, Pakistan has come under greater pressure to root out all border-based militants. In January, U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte voiced concern over the sanctuary enjoyed by the Taliban in Pakistan, and U.S. officials cautioned that al-Qaida could be regrouping along the frontier.

Some Taliban leaders have since been arrested. In February, Islamabad announced plans to build 285 kilometers (177 miles) of fence along two sections of the frontier, and work on part of it is under way.

"The Pakistanis have done pretty well. Nobody has killed more al-Qaida. But they can only do so much," said NATO spokesman Col. Tom Collins in Kabul. "You can add 200,000 troops and you won't seal the border. There will always be goat trails and hidden valleys you won't be able to cover."

Collins cited better coordination among Pakistani, Afghan and NATO border forces.

Pakistan maintains that the insurgency is primarily an Afghan problem, fueled by frustration at enduring poverty and dissatisfaction with the Afghan government. It says it has deployed 80,000 soldiers to stop Taliban supporters crossing from Pakistan to fight — far more troops than marshaled by Afghanistan, the U.S. and NATO on the other side.

It claims many fighters are Afghans who stay in refugee camps, which it wants to close, in Pakistan.

"We are trying to ensure that the support the Taliban have here does not go across," said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad. "Movement across the border has reduced by a great extent."

But U.S. officers on the ground in Zabul see little change.

And Afghan officials say elements in Pakistan's powerful ISI intelligence agency flagrantly support the Taliban and will continue doing so — charges Pakistan strongly denies.

"I can give the Pakistanis a list of the Taliban that are coming into my province," Zabul Governor Dalbar Ayman said angrily in an interview. "The world found their address in Pakistan, so why couldn't the Pakistanis have arrested them years ago? The ISI knows every village, every district, every individual."

Regardless of what Pakistan is or is not doing, Taliban are coming through.

Edwards, of Jonesboro, Georgia, plots their precise trail in the area under his command: Larzab, Tangay Kalay, Davudzay, Myrah, the Chalakoor Valley, Mizan.

Above Tangay Kalay, the machine guns of Staff Sgt. Leon Baudoux's squad were trained on the hamlet below and the mountain pass sloping southward into the Davudzay bowl.

"They are pretty good at hiding behind rocks and popping up every once in a while to spray (shoot) and pray," said Baudoux, of Saginaw, Michigan.

But as the 12-hour operation proceeded, no insurgents popped up. The sheer rock faces, cascades of boulders and rubble on the mountainsides flanking the bowl were silent. Only four curious shepherd boys approached Baudoux's squad.

"Our problem is that it takes us too long to move from point A to point B. All it takes is one guy looking out through a window in a bazaar and calling in, 'they're coming,'" said 1st Lt. Jason Cunningham, also taking part in the operation.

And that's what happened. As a long column of Humvees snaked around hills on its way to trap the Taliban, rumbling through villages past impassive bearded men and waving children, interpreters monitoring insurgents' radio transmissions could hear them warning each other of the Americans' approach.

Instead of fighting, the militants fled the bowl or lay too low to be detected.

"It's always a balancing act," Edwards said after the operation. You send in a large force and it may scare them away; send in too few and risk casualties.

"The plan was solid," said Baudoux. "But there was no enemy. They knew we were coming."
Back to Top
Musharraf says 300 foreign militants killed in Pakistani tribal offensive
The Associated Press April 12, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Tribesmen have killed about 300 foreign militants during a weekslong offensive near the Afghan border, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said, acknowledging for first time that they received military support.

The fighting that began last month in South Waziristan has targeted mainly Uzbek militants with links to al-Qaida who have sheltered in the tribal region since escaping the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

"The people of South Waziristan now have risen against the foreigners. They have killed about 300 of them, and they got support from the Pakistan army. They asked for support," Musharraf said in a speech Thursday at a military conference in Islamabad.

"We are demanding the same in North Waziristan, and there are indications the same may happen there also," he said, referring to the adjoining border region in northwestern Pakistan.

Musharraf's numbers were far higher than those given by Pakistani army officials to journalists on a trip to South Waziristan on Wednesday. They said that between 150 and 230 militants had died in the fighting, along with about 40 tribesmen.

Previously army officials had denied any direct involvement in the fighting, although they said that troops had moved into positions vacated by the foreigners.

The offensive has improved security around the main town in South Waziristan, Wana, but concerns remain that it could empower local pro-Taliban militants in the tribal militia who support the jihad, or holy war, against NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Back to Top
NATO seeks 3,400 more trainers for Afghanistan: U.S.
By Kristin Roberts Thu Apr 12, 11:06 PM ET
QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) -  NATO commanders have asked for 3,400 additional police and Army trainers for  Afghanistan, a need the United States wants European allies to fill, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.

"NATO has asked for about 3,400 training positions, and quite frankly we're having trouble," Gates said after meeting with defense ministers from countries with troops in Afghanistan's volatile southern region.

Gates said the group, including ministers from Canada, Britain, Australia and other countries, talked about approaching European allies that do not have troops engaged in combat in Afghanistan to fill the training requirement.

"You have nations that are not willing to put combat troops in. ... Those who are not willing to do that or able to do that may be able to pick up the slack in this area where those of us who are contributing most of the combat forces don't have additional forces available," he said.

The request for more trainers came about six weeks ago, Gates said. About 60 percent of the 3,400 trainers are needed for Afghanistan's police and the rest for the army.

Those training needs come on top of other troop and equipment shortfalls previously identified by NATO commanders. The United States and Britain have contributed most of the troops to the Afghan mission, and officials have expressed frustration that other nations have not committed additional forces following commanders' call for more troops earlier this year.

Gates said the United States could provide some of the trainers, but he could not say how many. U.S. forces are already stretched thin by the wars in Afghanistan and  Iraq, as highlighted on Wednesday by the Pentagon's decision to extend the tours of all active-duty troops.

"We can fill some of (the training positions) but we don't really have the ability right now to fill them all," he said.
Back to Top
Italy suggests NATO, U.N. guidelines on ransoms
By Phil Stewart Thu Apr 12, 9:47 AM ET
ROME (Reuters) - Italy, criticized over a prisoner swap with the Taliban last month, said on Thursday  NATO and the  United Nations should consider guidelines about appropriate ways to respond in hostage crises.

Addressing parliament, Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema defended the release of five jailed Taliban to free Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, kidnapped in  Afghanistan.

The Taliban beheaded Mastrogiacomo's Afghan driver last month and his Afghan translator last week.

D'Alema said kidnapping cases were too sensitive to create a blanket no-negotiation rule.

"At the same time, I think it's time to explore the possibility of guidelines shared on an international level, a code of shared behaviour," D'Alema said. "I think, for example, in the case of Afghanistan, of a discussion at NATO."

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has agreed to a debate on whether to have a policy on hostage deals following requests from several countries, a NATO spokesman said.

Critics of the Taliban swap, including the United States and Britain, said it encouraged further kidnappings and endangered NATO troops by returning jailed guerrillas to the battlefield.

Apparently emboldened by the hostage deal, the Taliban have since kidnapped two French aid workers and three Afghan companions. They are also holding five Afghan health workers.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ruled out similar deals with the Taliban in future. He and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi have been accused of applying a double standard by taking extraordinary measures to free Italians but not Afghans.

But D'Alema said Rome had also sought the release of the Afghans kidnapped with Mastrogiacomo and that the Taliban broke the deal by only freeing the Italian. Karzai only released the Taliban because they posed "limited danger," D'Alema added.

The kidnap saga has further eroded Prodi's efforts to rally allies behind his foreign policy, the weakest link of the year-old government, and given fresh ammunition to the centre-right opposition.

"It's sent the message of a government that is all too ready to bow to ransoms," Roberto Maroni of the right-wing Northern League party.

Even the Italian charity organization in Afghanistan which mediated the swap has turned against the government. It blames Rome for failing to win the release of one of its staff arrested by Afghan authorities and also revealed Italy paid a $2 million ransom for an Italian reporter seized in Afghanistan last year.

(Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander in Brussels)
Back to Top
Karzai Assailed After Burial of Journalist Killed by Taliban
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA The New York Times April 12, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 11 — An Afghan journalist who was held hostage by the Taliban for a month and was killed this week, was buried in Kabul, his home city, on Wednesday, and his relatives and colleagues criticized President Hamid Karzai for not having done more to win his release.

The journalist, Ajmal Naqshbandi, 25, was working as an interpreter for a correspondent with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, when the two and their driver were kidnapped in Helmand Province on March 4. The driver was beheaded, but Mr. Mastrogiacomo was released March 19 after Mr. Karzai agreed to free five Taliban prisoners, in a deal that was widely criticized.

Taliban spokesmen said they were demanding the release of two jailed comrades before they would free Mr. Naqshbandi. And in a telephone call to a journalist early this month, Mr. Naqshbandi appealed to Mr. Karzai for help.

Sultan Mohammad, a relative of Mr. Naqshbandi, said some of the blame lay with Mr. Karzai and the foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, when they “prematurely” announced last week that there would be no further prisoner exchanges with the Taliban. On Sunday, Mr. Naqshbandi was killed.

The head of the Association for Afghan Journalists, Said Aqa Hussain Sancharki, called on the government in a speech at the graveside to “value the life of Afghans.”

“He should have been freed at any price, even by exchanging 10 or 20 Taliban,” Mr. Sancharki said.

There has been widespread outrage over the whole case, not only at Mr. Karzai, but also at the Taliban because of the driver’s beheading and because Mr. Naqshbandi was killed by having his throat slit, a method associated with the butchering of animals.

The deputy minister for information and youth, Mohammad Naim Farahi, was one of several government officials who attended the funeral for Mr. Naqshbandi. “We are witnessing the biggest calamity of our era,” he said.

At the same time, the furor over the prisoner exchange for Mr. Mastrogiacomo has continued to dog the government. Forty Italian medical workers left Afghanistan on Wednesday in protest at the detention of Rahmatullah Hanifi, a medical worker from the Italian-run Emergency Hospital in Helmand, who acted as a go-between for the government and the Taliban in the swap. Dr. Abdullah Fahim, an adviser for the Health Ministry here, confirmed the pullout by the Italian medical personnel. 
Back to Top
Hot air over Taliban talks
By Philip Smucker Asia Times Online / April 12, 2007
KABUL - No politician or diplomat in Kabul, Afghan or Western, appears ready to talk to the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar or the "mad" Mullah Dadullah, who in any case are too busy fighting an insurgency and kidnapping foreigners to pay any attention.

But with Afghanistan's Taliban movement slowly expanding its grip across the east and south of the country, the idea of making "peace" with a fundamentalist Islamic movement still closely allied with Osama bin Laden is back on the table.

Last week, to the shock and dismay of many of the country's ethnic Tajiks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced publicly that he was in closed-door discussions with the Taliban. To whom precisely he was talking was left unmentioned.

The secrecy hasn't gone over well with Karzai's rivals. In an interview, Afghanistan's parliamentary Speaker, a key figure in a new anti-Karzai coalition, sounded infuriated. "For us, his admission last week that he has been talking to the Taliban comes as a complete surprise," said Younus Qanooni, kneading a set of ruby-red prayer beads in the posh salon in his home. "We were not informed about these closed-curtain talks."

Qanooni is an intelligent, slightly built Tajik who earned his jihadist stripes as a confidant of the "Lion of Panshir", Ahmed Shah Masoud, who was murdered by an al-Qaeda suicide cameraman two days before September 11, 2001. Since then, he has served as interior minister and education minister.

Also last week, together with several other Karzai rivals, Qanooni formed a new northern-dominated opposition group, the United National Front (UNF), whose members include former defense minister Mohammad Fahim, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Prince Mustafa Zahir, the grandson of the deposed and ailing king Mohammad Zahir Shah. Many in this group favor eliminating the Taliban with extreme prejudice.

But the UNF has other good reasons to oppose Karzai's secret dealings with the Taliban. For one, Karzai hails from the Taliban's Pashtun homeland in the south, which makes them part of his own political base. For another, key members of the Karzai-led government are major players in a multibillion-dollar narcotics business that stands as a major hurdle to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's stabilization efforts across the south and east.

Raw drug production is often protected by Taliban forces that have kept NATO forces locked down for months. But there are nuances to the drug trade that suggest a nexus of cooperation among drug dealers, terrorists and the Karzai government. The governor of Helmand province, Asadullah Wafa, complained recently to leading counter-narcotics officials in Kabul that government "eradicators" endowed with tens of millions of US dollars' worth of US government-supplied equipment are demanding stiff bribes in exchange for not destroying poppy fields.

The situation is so fraught with peril from farmers prepared to take up arms with the Taliban to protect their bumper poppy crops that British and Canadian forces often insist to Afghan tribal elders that "we have nothing to do with the drug-eradication business", according to a seasoned British reporter, who has spent the past several months in the south.

So just what do Karzai's negotiations with the Taliban imply as to his own motivations and the goals of the international community to stabilize the country and wipe out terrorism?

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani author of The Taliban, told National Public Radio in the US last week that because Washington had not pushed Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf hard enough to go after Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, the Pashtun-led extremist movement has grown immensely in recent months and, in Rashid's words, is "probably a bigger threat now than al-Qaeda" to Afghanistan.

Indeed, Western diplomats say they are increasingly concerned about the "Talibanization" of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which they believe is assisted by senior al-Qaeda operatives based in Pakistan as well as rogue elements within Pakistan's intelligence services.

A time bomb is ticking in South Asia as terror tactics that have proved successful in Iraq are embraced by Taliban tacticians.

With al-Qaeda still working hand-in-hand with the extremist movement, Karzai's negotiations are in a sense tantamount to "talking to the terrorists", something US administration officials say - for US public consumption - that they categorically oppose.

In Afghanistan, however, that view is a non-starter. The history of the country is one of deal-making with the devil - often in the form of your fellow countrymen - all for the sake of survival. In other

words, Afghan leaders maintain an age-old tradition - spelled pragmatism - of keeping their enemy close at hand to sustain - and sometimes enhance - their own authority. Karzai is engaged in just this.

It would not matter much if Washington actually opposed the idea of peace talks with the Taliban. In any case, the US State Department clearly does not. Western leaders, who still laud Karzai as an anti-terror poster boy, are in fact encouraging talks with the Taliban as a first step toward their own "exit strategy" from Afghanistan.

There is great risk involved. The Taliban, as they grow stronger in the hinterlands, exert more and more influence in the streets of larger towns and cities, as well as within political circles in Kabul. And even if the Taliban chose the political route to shared power in Afghanistan, it is not at all clear that their behind-the-scenes leaders would swear off their long-standing ties to al-Qaeda and an international jihad under the sway of Washington's arch-enemies, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri and bin Laden. No one has forgotten that the Taliban actually decided to continue hosting bin Laden and friends even after Washington threatened all-out war in the autumn of 2001.

Nevertheless, with little concerted military action to end al-Qaeda's machinations inside Pakistan's North Western Frontier Province, the Karzai government may have no choice but to engage in an effort to drive a wedge between Afghanistan's Taliban and the extremists on the other side of the Durand Line. Certainly, NATO countries do not relish the idea of being locked in a decades-long stalemate in Afghanistan, and that is one reason they are encouraging Karzai.

The idea of getting the Taliban on board the political process isn't new.

For several years, Karzai's operatives have engaged in a delicate effort to lure mid-level and senior Taliban away from their one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar, and bring them back into the political fold. There have been some notable successes. Former (some say "current") Taliban leader Mullah Salam Rocketti broke ranks with fighters in the field and is now an elected member of Parliament.

The door remains open. Senior Afghan intelligence officials say they regularly offer to drop or lower charges against captured Taliban operatives in exchange for information about their senior leaders and al-Qaeda's top tier.

Despite well-documented brutalities perpetrated by the Taliban between 1996 and 2001, the international community has never paid much lip service to an international war-crimes court for Afghanistan. Warlords and the Taliban's various ministers of death don't even need an "amnesty", since no one is lining up to prosecute them for human-rights violations.

Talks with the Taliban are not cheap, but they may be cheaper - in the long run - than other options. NATO still does not have adequate forces on the ground to control Afghanistan's Pashtun villages, where the Taliban are making inroads through intimidation and propaganda.

Pashtuns don't want peace at any cost, but they do want it desperately.

A new survey suggests that Taliban support among civilians in southern Afghanistan has shot up to nearly 27% of the population from single digits a year earlier. The Senlis Council's poll of 17,000 Afghan men in the south and east suggested that Afghans in southern Afghanistan are increasingly prepared to announce their support for the Taliban openly. A report on the poll stated that fewer and fewer Pashtuns believe that their own government or NATO has the firepower or willpower to defeat the Taliban militarily.

One of the Taliban's strongest suits, despite its well-honed brutal ways, is a reputation for anti-corruption and stern sharia (Islamic) law enforcement. Many of the Afghans are sick and tired of living in poverty and getting shot at while Kabul politicians live in glass houses and enrich themselves.

These emerging facts on the ground add up to a strengthened Taliban hand at the negotiation table. The next move is Karzai's.

Philip Smucker is a commentator and journalist based in South Asia and the Middle East. He is the author of Al-Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail (2004).
Back to Top
Still committed to Afghanistan: defence minister
Fri Apr 13, 7:37 AM
Canada's defence minister says the Canadian military remains committed to its mission in Afghanistan despite the loss of eight soldiers this week.

"I think if you interview soldiers, you'll find that they're dedicated to this mission, they believe in the mission," O'Connor told CBC News late Thursday after a meeting of NATO allies in Quebec City.

O'Connor hosted a meeting on Thursday of officials from countries that have contributed troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force regional command south.

ISAF is a coalition of 36,000 troops from 37 countries, working to improve security in Afghanistan so that reconstruction can occur. Canada has more than 2,000 soldiers deployed in Kandahar province as part of the force.

Six Canadian soldiers were killed Sunday when their light armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb about 75 kilometres west of Kandahar City.

Two others were killed Wednesday when their military vehicle hit a roadside bomb about 38 kilometres west of Kandahar City. The soldiers had been helping another vehicle hit by a similar bomb earlier in the day.

Fifty-three Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died in Afghanistan since Canada first sent troops to the troubled country in early 2002.

In an official statement released after the meeting, O'Connor said the news of the eight deaths this week was received with "great sadness" by the Canadian Forces.

"We will honour the sacrifice of these brave soldiers by continuing our efforts to build a safe and secure Afghanistan," he said.

O'Connor told reporters that the meeting gave countries participating in ISAF in southern Afghanistan a chance to share ideas, but more teamwork is needed.

"We've got to make sure, for instance ... when we're doing projects that there's a co-ordination between the projects," he said.

The countries at the meeting, in addition to Canada, were Australia, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In Afghanistan, ISAF has five regional commands: north, south, east, west and Kabul.

"Our discussions at the meeting focused on creating greater coherence in our collective efforts to provide the security and stability necessary to ensure that terrorism cannot again take root in Afghanistan," O'Connor said in a statement.

"The Afghan people are relying on the international community to help them rebuild their lives and their country after having suffered through decades of instability, oppression and insurgency."

The meeting was held at the Citadelle in Quebec City under tight security.
Back to Top
The price of Iraqi or Afghan life is as little as £250Comment
The Herald - Apr 12 1:39 PM
THE Pentagon has paid out as little as £250 in compensation for killing innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians in the past four years, according to a US study.

It has also rejected up to 40% of the claims lodged against it for incidents in which US troops have shot people or damaged their homes during security operations in which the civilians were bystanders.

The watchdog American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has obtained files on 496 incidents via the Freedom of Information Act which show that authorisation for "condolence payments" total more than £15m since 2003.

advertisementThe payments, which average £1200 per individual for death or serious injury in the cases studied, are made on the basis they do not indicate military liability or guilt. They can also vary enormously.

In 2005, a nervous US soldier shot and killed a teenage boy in a town south of Baghdad when he mistook his school satchel for a suicide bomb. The boy's guardian was paid £250 condolence money.

In February last year, a fisherman on the River Tigris was gunned down when he leaned over to switch off the engine of his boat after being challenged by a US patrol. Despite an army investigation which conceded neither he nor a second fisherman in the vessel posed a threat, the military refused to pay even condolence money. The family eventually received £1700 as compensation for the boat and the victim's fishing net and mobile phone.

Of the 496 cases scrutinised, 164 resulted in cash payments to families for the deaths or wounding of family members. Half were classified as "compensation", where responsibility for deaths was admitted; the other half as "condolence" money, awarded as "an expression of sympathy without reference to a fault".

Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director, said yesterday: "The US defence department has gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress the human costs of war. It is critical for democracy that the American people have access to this information and the implications for innocent civilians."

A US army spokeswoman added: "Sadly, the enemy's tactics in both Iraq and Afghanistan unnecessarily endanger civilian lives."

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates meanwhile confirmed that all US troops in both combat zones and those training to replace them will have to extend their tours of duty to 15 months from the current 12 to ease overstretch.

It will affect 100,000 regular soldiers and result in the longest combat tours since the Second World War.
Back to Top
Canada to get up to 120 tanks for Afghanistan
Thu Apr 12, 4:35 PM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will lease 20 Leopard II battle tanks from Germany for use in  Afghanistan this year and also plans to buy up to 100 used Leopard IIs from the Netherlands, which has a large surplus supply, Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor said on Thursday.

Canada currently has 17 first-generation Leopards in Afghanistan but says a lack of air conditioning means the 30-year-old tanks will become far too hot to use in summer.

"Equipping Canada's soldiers with the best protection is my top priority," O'Connor told a news conference in Quebec City. Soldiers say the Leopard tanks are useful in the fight against Taliban militants, especially in difficult terrain.

Eight Canadian soldiers have been killed over the last four days in roadside bomb blasts and O'Connor acknowledged it had been "a bad week." Canada has lost 53 soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them in tough fighting last year.

"It's not that the trend is worse, it's just that every once in a while we're going to hit one of these mines ... I've got my fingers crossed that this won't happen again," O'Connor said.

Canada's 2,500-strong mission in the southern city of Kandahar is due to stay until February 2009.

"If we're attacked we fight back. And if the Taliban concentrate as they did last summer, if they try to concentrate against us, we'll crush them like we did last summer," said O'Connor.

The total cost of leasing the German tanks and then buying and re-equipping the Dutch vehicles over the next five years will be C$650 million ($575 million).
($1=$1.13 Canadian)
Back to Top
President urges regional countries to help Afghan government
Tehran, April 12, IRNA
Visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta conferred with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Thursday on expansion of mutual cooperation and the regional developments.

President Ahmadinejad said that the enemies consider the amicable and brotherly ties between the countries in the region against their interests and attempted to foment instability and insecurity in the region.

He called for all regional countries in the region to bolster mutual relations with Afghanistan and help restore peace, stability and security in the neighboring countries.

Expansion of relations among regional countries would be to their own interests, he said adding that the Islamic Republic of Iran would support Afghan nation as before in the past 30 years and is fully ready to share all its experiences with the Afghan government and nation.

Iran will do its best to help Afghan government reinforce its national sovereignty, promote regional security, development and welfare for Afghan nation.

Given the deep-rooted religious, cultural and historical ties between the two nations, he voiced Iran's readiness to assist Afghan government to resolve its domestic issues and restore security in the country.

The Afghan minister, for his part, appreciated Iran's
comprehensive assistance to Afghan reconstruction and expressed the hope that expansion of mutual cooperation would help put an end to the country's internal problems.

Dadfar Spanta said that Afghanistan is keen to use Iranian experience in campaign against drug trafficking.

The Afghan minister once again extended an invitation from Afghan president Hamid Karzai to President Ahmadinejad to visit Afghanistan.

"We are determined to bolster ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran despite opposition from certain western countries. We believe that further expansion of ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran would help restore peace, stability and development in Afghanistan," he said.
Back to Top
Afghanistan Ladies team to train at Female Badminton Academy
Associated Press of Pakistan Thursday, 12 April 2007
ISLAMABAD, Apr 12 (APP): The ladies badminton team of Afghanistan will play training matches here at Pakistan’s first-ever Female Badminton Academy.

This was stated Thursday by Saima Batool who is Incharge-cum-Chief Coach of “Repose” Ladies Badminton Club and Academy.

She said the Chief of Afghanistan Badminton Federation, Gul Hazoori, is in touch with the Academy for the visit of his country’s ladies badminton team to Pakistan.

“The team will get coaching and will also play training matches against our players”, Saima Batool said.

She said the team of the Repose Badminton Academy will also tour Sri Lanka in June to attend a weeklong training camp there while M.G. Aziz Zilani, Treasuer and Chief Coach of Bangladesh Badminton Federation, has also offered to provide technical expertise to the Academy for promotion of female badminton in Pakistan.

Saima said the Academy is concentrating on a core group of six teenage female badminton players who have the potential to represent Pakistan in the ladies competitions in the near future.

These six players, she said, are Dania, Sidra, Nida Rashid Butt, Neelam Nawaz and Sara Mohmand.

“They are training at the Academy, situated at Iqbal Hall G-7/3-4, “, Saima said. “The trainees also do strenuous swimming and gym drills to develop stamina for a tough game like badminton”.

She said the girls had already shown marked improvement by finishing runners-up, while playing for Islamabad, in the recently-held National Badminton Championship at Faisalabad.

She said a medical-cum-psychologist staff, comprising Dr. Zara Batool and Dr. Murtaza Bodla, helps in the training while former national badminton players such as Tahir Ishaq and Imtiaz Gill also sometime assist in coaching of the players.

Saima said she was brought up and educated in England where she was a keen basketball player. “I found on shifting to Pakistan that badminton suits ladies here”.

She said she is running the academy through her own finances though she would like more help from organisations such as Pakistan Sports Trust. She said she was grateful for CDA Chairman Kamran Lashari for letting her establish the Academy at Iqbal Hall.
Back to Top
Afghanistan Says Ahmadinejad To Visit Kabul In the Near Future
KABUL, April 12, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan's foreign ministry said today that Iran's president Mahmud Ahmadinejad is due to visit Afghanistan in the near future.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that details of Ahmadinejad's visit are a main topic in talks between Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta and Iranian officials.

The foreign minister is currently visiting Iran. Spanta arrived on Tuesday (April 10).

The Afghan spokesman however did not give the exact date of the trip. "Issues such as the assistance of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Afghanistan, relations between the two countries and some regional and international issues will be discussed during [Ahmadinejad's] trip to Afghanistan."

Ahmadinejad today discussed bilateral ties during a meeting with Spanta.

Iran and Afghanistan have been expanding their ties following the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Back to Top
Harvest in Helmand
It’s time to gather opium in the poppy fields, and everyone seems to be getting involved – even government officials.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 250, 12-Apr-07)
It could only happen in Helmand. On April 8, about 60 landowners staged a protest in front of the governor’s compound in Lashkar Gah, the capital of this southern Afghan province.

They were demanding that the local authorities step in to resolve a dispute that was threatening to disrupt the all-important gathering of the opium crop. The hired labourers, who work as sharecroppers, had united to force landowners to give them half of the yield, when the owners insisted that one-fifth was a more reasonable share.

The farm owners wanted the provincial government to mediate.

It might look like democracy in action, except that the Afghan government is supposed to be engaged in a high-profile campaign to eradicate the plant.

“We spent all of our money growing the poppy,” complained one landowner. “If the government doesn’t help us with the harvesters, we’ll lose everything.”

But the workers in the fields are in a strong position. This year’s harvest, boosted by copious amounts of rain, may well be the biggest ever, so many hands are needed.

Hired labour also comes at a premium since the work is in dangerous, Taleban-infested areas. Helmand is battling a growing insurgency, and many areas outside the capital are under Taleban control.

“Last year we had to beg from the landowners,” said Abdul Jamil, who gathers poppy every year. “We wanted one-sixteenth of the harvest and we apologised even for that.

“But this season, they need us more than we need them. They are offering a quarter, maybe a third. We are lucky we’re united. If they want us to go into districts where the Taleban are, they’ll have to pay us a lot of money.”

By April 9, the harvesters were back at work. According to unconfirmed reports, the Helmand government imposed a limit of one-quarter of the opium yield as a fair deal for the labourers.

Afghanistan provides over 90 per cent of the world’s supply of opium poppy. Helmand alone accounts for over 40 per cent of total Afghan production, making it the world’s largest opium producer.

President Hamed Karzai has declared a “jihad on drugs”, and the international community has provided generous funds and expertise to help deal with the problem. But despite all the time, effort and money that has gone into eradication, production seems to be going up relentlessly, at least in Helmand.

Gulbuddin, a local police commander, talked of negotiations over price rather than interdiction and punitive action. “We’re telling the farmers, ‘These are your fields, not ours. The harvesters don’t want to go with you. We cannot make them agree to one half, one-third, or less’,” he said.

With the ripening of the poppy, thousands of seasonal workers pour into the province from all over Afghanistan, and even from neighbouring countries. For many, it is their main source of income.

“I am here with six of my friends,” said Abdul Baseer, 40, from Wardak province. “We have a poor life, there are no jobs, and I am already old. So we came here to earn some money. We do not have poppy in our province and there are no other jobs, so we come down here every year.”

Local people, including schoolchildren and even civil servants also get in on the act.

“I work for the government and I make 3,000 afghani [about 60 US dollars] a month,” said Abdul Malek, 35. “My economic position gets worse day by day. I’m married with four children. I live in a government-owned house, but I don’t have a patron and they are trying to kick me out.

“I have no other way of making money, so I go off and do 15 days’ harvesting. I might make 10,000 to 12,000 afghani [200-240 dollars]. That could solve my problems.”

It is backbreaking work. Harvesters typically work two shifts a day. Late in the day they go through the fields, making one cut on each of the bulging poppy pods, so that a milky sap seeps out. This turns into a sticky brown paste overnight, and this has to be scraped off and collected early in the morning before the sun gets too hot. Then another cut is made and the process is repeated for 15 days.

Most migrant workers go from place to place, following the ripening crop. They may work two or three harvests, earning up to 600 dollars in the process.

“I live in Lashkar Gah, and my three brothers and I are going to harvest poppy,” said Esmatullah, 24. “We work for four hours in the morning, and another two or three hours in the afternoon. We are now in Nadali [a village close to Lashgkar Gah], and when that’s finished we will go on somewhere else. The landowners give us a quarter of the harvest, which we have to sell to get money.”

Despite the one-quarter share deal reportedly brokered by local officials, labourers may earn less this year once their opium payment is turned into cash. Overproduction is depressing prices, making it a buyer’s market.

Rahmatullah, a small-time trafficker, explained, “This was a good year. There was a lot of rain and it will be a big harvest. But the price is going down.”

A month ago, he said, a kilogram of poppy paste would fetch 140 dollars, but now it was going for 90 or even 80 dollars.

“Once the harvest is over, we can buy it even more cheaply from the workers,” he said. “They aren’t able to sell everything they earn on the market. Now we control the market, and we can get a good price.”
The farm owners, too, are grumbling about rising costs and falling prices.

“I have 14 jeribs [28,000 square metres or 2.8 hectares] of land under poppy,” said Abdul Haq, from Nadali. “There was no eradication campaign where I was, so my fields are fine. I now have 14 harvesters at work. I’ve had to sell 20 kilos of poppy to pay for the workers’ expenses.”

Experts say that in a good year, one jerib – an Afghan measurement about 45 metres by 45 metres - will produce around 30 kilos of poppy paste.

Even small children await the harvest with glee. After the workers are done, they have free rein to collect and keep anything left in the fields.

Ahmad, an enterprising 11-year-old, is planning to go out to do his own harvest again this year.

“I collected poppy last year and bought myself a bicycle,” he said proudly. “I don’t need anybody to give me money. I can buy the things I want for myself.”

Shopkeepers, too, are also delighted with the influx of workers because it boosts business.

“I usually slaughter just one cow a day,” said a butcher in the Bolan district. “But during poppy season, I slaughter up to five. People need good food, because otherwise the poppy will have a bad effect on them.”

Sawa, who owns a restaurant in Lashkar Gah, was also upbeat. “There are a lot of harvesters in town,” he laughed. “I am making a lot of money.”

But not everyone is so pleased. Given Helmand’s precarious security situation, the arrival of several thousand incomers can be seen as a threat.

“There are too many harvesters in one place,” complained one shopkeeper. “We can’t even drive through town because of all these people in turbans. They’re all wearing black or white turbans, and we can’t differentiate them from the Taleban.”

IWPR is implementing a journalism training and reporting project in Helmand. This story is a compilation of reports by the trainees.
Back to Top
Why we're there; Giving up on Afghanistan mission is not the responsible course
Michael Den Tandt Editorial - Friday, April 13, 2007 Sudbury Star, Canada
Maybe it was the proximity of the 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge that made them hold their tongues. Or maybe it was simple respect for the fallen and for their families.

But for whatever reason, the usual critics of the Afghan mission were strangely quiet this week, even as Canada suffered its worst combat casualties in 50 years. Easter Sunday, six Canadian soldiers died when their armoured vehicle was blown up by a massive roadside bomb. Wednesday, two more soldiers were killed in a second wave of bombings. Canada's losses in Afghanistan now number 54: Forty-three killed by enemy attacks; six by friendly fire; four by accidents. One death remains under investigation. More than 120 soldiers have been injured.

Given this toll, it's inevitable that those calling for Canada to withdraw from the Afghan war will return with renewed vigour. The split within the Liberal opposition between those who continue to believe in the mission, led by Michael Ignatieff, and those who never did, led by Ujjal Dosanjh, will grow even wider.

It's a debate that must be faced head-on by those who support the deployment. Should we be there, even as the costs rise? Should we stay, even in the face of enormous and growing obstacles?

Here's the case for pulling out, as I hear it expressed most often. Whatever may happen short term, we can't win in the long term. Afghanistan is ungovernable. It is home to an ancient warrior culture in which young men are taught from infancy to take up arms against foreign occupiers.
For these reasons, NATO could double the 36,000 troops it now has in Afghanistan, and it would ultimately still fail, just as the British and Russians once did.

Second, we have no vital interests in Afghanistan. This is a country the size of Manitoba, on the far side of the planet, in which nearly 80 per cent of adults have no stable livelihood. Its exports to Canada, in 2003, were worth $618,889. The value of imports from there that same year was $9 million. Granted, Afghanistan is a conduit to the energy-rich Caspian Basin. So? Canada has its own energy reserves.

Third, even if the mission could once have been successful, it has been tainted by its U.S. leadership. The Bush administration's insistence on opium poppy eradication succeeded only in turning ordinary Afghan farmers against the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Americans are failing in Iraq and, because the two conflicts are similar, they will fail in Afghanistan as well.

Fourth: Our soldiers are peacekeepers, not warriors. Many of us remember the old recruitment ad showing a blue-helmeted Canadian coming between a Greek and a Turk in Cyprus, just before the two came to blows. That role was in in keeping with our self-image as a peaceable kingdom. Combat, side by side with the grim-faced troopers of the American Empire, is not.

No doubt, you've heard those arguments too. We all have. They're common wisdom. They have a certain immediate appeal, particularly as the various works of U.S. President George W. Bush continue to unravel. They're also superficial in my view, and based on several deeply flawed assumptions.

To the first point: Neither NATO nor Canada are in Afghanistan to "win" in any conventional sense, nor have we ever been. The purpose of the mission is to buy time for a democratically elected Afghan government to establish its own security institutions. Ordinary Afghans are too poor and brutalized by war to care, frankly, who's in control. They just need someone in control. NATO's job is to fill the power vacuum and provide an umbrella of stability, while the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police build their ranks and their capability. This is an achievable objective.

Second, our vital national interests extend beyond immediate geographic and economic interests. The Afghan mission grew out of the international response to the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Canada is a NATO member. That confers on us certain responsibilities, including the duty to intervene on another NATO member's behalf in the event of an unprovoked act of war, which 9/11 was. What about NATO? Do we allow it to collapse, which it likely will if the Afghan mission comes apart at the seams? What if we need the alliance in future, for our own defence?

Third, tactical failures are not an argument for giving up. They are an argument for improving tactics. Canada has been working quietly for months, within the alliance, for a more realistic approach to the problem. Possible solutions range from looking the other way, which is happening now, to bulk purchases of the poppy crop. The opium controversy masks a deeper problem, which is that Afghans are uncertain of the West's commitment. If they believe the Taliban is bound to eventually return to power, they will lean to the Taliban. As for Iraq, linking the two conflicts is simply wrong, for this reason: The invasion of Iraq was illegal and unprovoked. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was justified and necessary.

As for Canadians being peacekeepers, that was true for a long time. It isn't any longer, and hasn't been for a decade. In Afghanistan, in Bosnia, and to a degree in Haiti, our troops have been peacemakers. This more muscular role grew directly out of international horror at the Rwandan genocide, during which our peacekeepers, led by Gen. Romeo Dallaire, were unable to intervene. Are we still resolved not to allow atrocities to occur in the far corners of the world? If so, we have to accept that our soldiers will sometimes fight, and die, in the service of strangers. We can't have it both ways.

- Michael Den Tandt is Managing Editor of the Sun Times in Owen Sound, and a national affairs columnist for the Osprey News Network. He is a former political correspondent based in Ottawa.
Back to Top
Afghanistan and Philippine agriculture
By Ernesto Ordoñez Philippine Daily Inquirer / April 13, 2007
MANILA, Philippines -- Last March 24-30, top Afghan leaders came to the Philippines for a conference on governance, which was partly sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM-Afghanistan). Included were the elected heads of five key provincial councils. The youngest is in his late 20s and heads the Afghanistan capital of Kabul. The oldest is in his 50s and comes from a critical agricultural area.

Their backgrounds vary. One is a mullah or a religious leader, while another is the son of the head of a politically influential family exiled to Pakistan for more than 20 years. The remaining three provincial council heads are “mujadeen” (warriors for a cause), who led armed groups against forces like the Taliban. They were all more than six feet tall and were exuding a unique kind of charisma. And all put top priority on Afghanistan’s agricultural development.

In three focused interviews I had with them that week, they identified three key areas for their agricultural development: water, technology and security. These are also priority areas in Philippine agriculture.

Water

Abdullah Ahmadzai, head of Logar Provincial Council, said: “More than enough water from rainfall and snow comes to Afghanistan. But because of extremely inadequate water systems, the water needed for agriculture has not reached 70 percent of our potential agricultural area.”

Like in the Philippines, the question is whether to prioritize increasing the efficiency of existing water systems or building new ones, though both are obviously needed.

An Asian Development Bank report titled “Rebuilding the Afghanistan Agriculture Sector” states: “The present status of irrigated agriculture raises a number of policy issues related to maximizing the efficient use of available water.

System efficiency levels are reportedly as low as 25 percent and the potential exists to improve on-farm water management efficiency.”

When we told them that in the Philippines, it costs 10 times more to repair an irrigated system compared to building a new one providing the same amount of additional water, they said they wished to follow the same return of investment (RoI) maximizing approach in allocating their very limited resources.

Technology

Technology is equally important. Today, the principal output of Afghanistan’s irrigated system is wheat, accounting for 80 percent of agricultural production. The average national yield of irrigated wheat is 1.3 tons per hectare.

The ADB report states that: “Combining improved water management with inputs using new technology, a national average for irrigated wheat of 3.0-3.5 tons is feasible.”

With very limited resources, sometimes one has to choose between spending money on water or technology.

In the Philippines, it has been shown that in many instances, investing in technology for increased rice production has a much higher RoI than investing in water systems. The case of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology is one example. This even needs less water than the traditional practice (phone number +63921 2505520).

Security

But the most pressing concern for Afghanistan agriculture is security. Abdullah said: “We desperately need markets and retail outlets to sell our agricultural produce efficiently. In many cases, we cannot even construct these because of violent attacks on these projects. Security is so bad that when I go to several areas in my province, I need five vehicles with armed security personnel to protect me.”

Abdullah said many of these violent initiatives are funded by parties in neighboring countries that do not want Afghan agriculture to prosper, for fear that their agricultural exports to the latter will be greatly reduced.

Thankfully, these violent conditions occur rarely in the Philippines. But there is a similarity with Afghanistan in that our own food security is threatened by cheap imports, arising from either smuggling or an unjust trade regime.

In recent years, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has made significant gains. For example, with farmers and fisherfolk involvement, the smuggling rate of containerized agricultural imports in Metro Manila was reduced from 40 percent to 1 percent. The DA is helping duplicate this in other areas in the country.

The DA has also helped farmers and fisherfolk through its efforts in preserving the rice import quota through the adoption of new WTO provisions and in increasing vegetable tariffs to 40 percent from seven percent.

Conclusion

Afghanistan is perceived to be very different from the Philippines. But in agriculture, the concerns over water, technology and security are similar, though the dimensions in each area are different for each country.

These issues should be addressed immediately using proven effective approaches such as RoI maximization, and understanding other countries’ strategies in our new globalized trade regime. For different as we are, Afghanistan and the Philippines share the common goal of true agricultural development that will directly benefit more than 70 percent of both our peoples.

The author is chairman of Agriwatch.
Back to Top
Pakistan donates four mobile health clinics
KABUL, Apr 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The government of Pakistan has donated four mobile health clinics to Afghanistan.

The health clinics were formally handed over by Pakistan ambassador Tariq Azizuddin to the Public Health Minister Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatemi during a ceremony here on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion, the Pakistani envoy said 10 other such clinics would be handed over to the ministry in the days ahead. 

He said each of the mobile health clinics, equipped with all necessary tools, cost $65,000.

Addressing the ceremony, Health Minister Amin Fatemi thanked the government of Pakistan for the assistance. The minister said each of the clinics has three beds and the facilities of minor surgery.

He said the mobile health clinics would prove quite useful in extending health facilities to nomadic Kuchis and the internally displaced people (IDPs).

The minister expressed the hope that the government of Pakistan would help them in construction of five health centres and provision of 20 ambulances for the central capital Kabul and the provinces.

According to officials of the Finance Ministry, Pakistan has pledged $250 million for reconstruction in Afghanistan. An amount of $200 million has already been delivered over the previous five years.
Zarghona Salehi
Back to Top
'Military engagement not key to stability in Afghanistan'
KABUL, Apr 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Urging the more proactive role of the United Nations in Afghanistan, Norwegian ambassador to Pakistan Janis Bjorn Kanavin has said that military engagement was not a key to stability in the war-torn country.

Military engagement in Afghanistan was necessary, but not a key to stability in the war-torn country, said the envoy, who rejected the 'quick fix formula' in Afghanistan.

"For long-term stability, we should be more targeted in Afghanistan," said the ambassador.

In an interview with a Pakistan English daily newspaper, the Norwegian envoy said certain vested interests based in Pakistan, not the Pakistani government or people, were supporting Taliban in Afghanistan.

He said the people of Pakistan had witnessed gross human rights violations during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. "I think people here will never support them."

The ambassador agreed that a lot of people were disappointed at the slow march towards peace and stability in Afghanistan and said that this disappointment should be turned into hope. "Obviously, expectations from the international community operating in Afghanistan are high and I agree that more can be done. But, I, at the same time, do not agree that we have done nothing in Afghanistan," he said.

Kanavin described the elections and working parliament a symbol of success and recovery in Afghanistan. He reiterated Norway's commitment to peace in Afghanistan. "We are the founding member of NATO and 600 Norwegian troops are operating as part of NATO in Afghanistan. During the last five years, Afghanistan and Palestine have emerged as the top two recipients of Norwegian assistance," he said.

The envoy brushed aside talks about Taliban's spring offensive as an 'unnecessary hype'. "I do not place value on them."

He also said that NATO did not share the US objectives in the region. "We are operating in Afghanistan as part of NATO and our purpose is to create a peaceful and stable Afghanistan, and not to go after the resources of the region," he was quoted as saying.
PAN Monitor
Back to Top
Rice upbeat about success in Afghanistan
NEW YORK, Apr 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The US' Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, expressed the confidence that Afghanistan would be a success story.

Recognising it has been hard to make the journey from tyranny to democracy, in particular in a poor country, Rice said she thought Afghanistan was a "remarkable" story.

Rice was addressing foreign journalists in Washington, who are visiting the US under Edward R Murrow Journalism Programme.

Referring to the Taliban regime, Rice said it had been replaced by a democratically elected government.

However, she conceded that it was a long way to go. "It is difficult in a place like Afghanistan that had 25 years of civil war to get to full stability. The Taliban, of course, try to strike back," she said.

When specifically asked by a visiting Afghan journalist about the rise of anti-US sentiments among people in the region, Rice observed there was disappointment among the people as the US was not able to meet their expectations.

"I sometimes think there is a belief that the United States can pull a rabbit out of the hat and we can undo the 25 years of deprivation. We can't. It takes time," she said.

At the same time, Rice said that in Afghanistan there was gratefulness for what America did in overthrowing the Taliban.

"The Afghan people need to know, and I think President Karzai does, that the Afghan people are going to have an American friend for a very, very long time. And as this - challenges are met, America will be there to help," she said.
Lalit K. Jha
Back to Top

 Back to News Archirves of 2007
 
Disclaimer: This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).