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April 14, 2007 

Scores killed in Afghan suicide blast
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Afghan police headquarters in the east of the country on Saturday, killing at least eight people, officials said.

The attack came as the U.S.-led coalition said it had killed 35 Taliban insurgents in fierce fighting two days ago.

Seven of those killed in the suicide attack in Khost were border police and the eighth was a civilian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Six policemen were also wounded.

Taliban commander Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters by telephone his insurgents had carried out the attack.

The Taliban have vowed to step up suicide bombings as fighting against U.S-led forces intensifies after the traditional winter lull.

Coalition and Afghan forces killed more than 35 Taliban fighters on Thursday in a fierce five-hour battle supported by air strikes and artillery, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Foreign and Afghan forces have launched a major offensive in Helmand, Afghanistan's major opium producing province.

A British soldier was killed in separate fighting in Helmand on Friday, the 12th foreign casualty in the bloodiest week in months for  NATO and Coalition forces.

Last year was the bloodiest since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 and many expect this year to be even more violent.

Several hundred civilians, scores of Taliban, dozens of Afghan forces, some aid workers and more than 30 U.S.-led troops have died so far this year.

The Taliban have also kidnapped three foreigners and several Afghans this year in a bid to press the government to release comrades from jail and to begin peace talks.

Taliban guerrillas said they had issued a video of two kidnapped French aid workers -- a man and a woman -- appealing to the Paris authorities to heed their captors' demands. They were abducted in an area of southwestern Nimroz province.

Civilian casualties are also mounting, some of them victims of NATO and U.S.-led fighting as well as of the Taliban and other insurgents through suicide bombings and executions.

On Saturday, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission issued a report saying U.S. marines who killed several civilians in apparently indiscriminate shooting after a bomb blast had acted illegally.

U.S. military authorities are still investigating, but the unit involved was called home early soon after the incident.
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France analysing video of Taliban hostages
PARIS (AFP) - French authorities were on Saturday analysing a video obtained by a Canadian television network showing two French nationals taken hostage in  Afghanistan, France's foreign minister said.

"We remain completely mobilised in Paris and in Afghanistan to obtain the release of the members of the group," minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement. "More than ever, our objective is to bring them back safe and sound."

Douste-Blazy confirmed the two kidnapped French nationals appear in the video, as well as three Afghans who were abducted with them. Paris says it has not received any demands from the kidnappers.

CBC public television reported late Friday that it had obtained a video of two French aid workers taken hostage in Afghanistan, in which they say they fear their lives may soon end.

It did not explain how it obtained the video, which gives the first glimpse of the kidnap victims since their abduction more than a week ago.

According to the network, the pictures show a young woman saying in a weak voice that she was a French volunteer worker kidnapped by the Taliban 10 days ago. The images then show a man who says his name is Eric.

Both the man and the woman make appeals for saving their lives, the report said.

The video also shows three Afghan men, blindfolded and shackled, who were the translators and driver with the French pair when they were taken.

At the end of the video, a glimpse can be seen of the heavily armed Taliban kidnappers.

The French aid workers, from the non-governmental organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World for Our Children), went missing on April 3 in the southwestern province of Nimroz.

The Islamist Taliban militia say they are holding the pair, along with three of their Afghan colleagues.

Concerns over the safety of the hostages mounted since the Taliban said on Sunday that they had beheaded an Afghan reporter whom they kidnapped with an Italian journalist a month ago in the southern province of Helmand.

The Taliban said it executed Ajmal Naqshbandi because the government failed to meet their demand to free rebel prisoners. However, Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo was freed in a hostage deal that saw five militants released from Afghan jails.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was criticised both within and outside Afghanistan for his controversial deal and has said that his government will not repeat the hostage trade with the Taliban.

French  President Jacques Chirac has called Karzai to demand his support for efforts to free the French aid workers.

The rebels have also been holding five Afghan medics since kidnapping them in southern Kandahar province on March 27. The rebels on Monday threatened to kill at least one of the doctors unless the government enters talks.
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Report: Marines broke international law
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 14, 3:19 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. Marine unit that shot its way out of a suicide attack in eastern  Afghanistan last month violated international humanitarian law by using excessive force that left 12 civilians dead, a report released Saturday said.

Following the March 4 attack in Nangahar province, when an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into a convoy of Marines, the unit shot at vehicles and pedestrians in six different locations while driving along a 10-mile stretch of road, according to a report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission.

A U.S. military commander also determined that Marines used excessive force, and he referred the case for possible criminal inquiry.

The group's report was based on interviews with victims and their families, eyewitnesses, local community leaders, local and regional hospitals, as well as police.

"At least 12 people were killed and another 35 injured by the shooting, including several women and children," the 11-page AIHRC report said. "In failing to distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets the U.S. Marines Corps Special Forces employed indiscriminate force," AIHRC said.

"Their actions thus constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law standards."

U.S. military officials said after the incident that the suicide attack was part of complex ambush, that included militant gunmen shooting at Marines, which may have caused some of the civilian casualties.

"There is some evidence at the immediate site of the incident to support this claim, but it is far from conclusive and all witnesses and Afghan government officials interviewed uniformly denied that any attack beyond the initial (suicide car bombing) took place," the report said.

AHIRC alleges that U.S. troops, serving with  NATO-led International Security Assistance Force returned to the area after the bombing for an investigation and a cleanup operation, which involved removal of all bullet shells and cartridges.

AIHRC interviewed a member of Afghanistan's National Police criminal investigations office who said that his unit "made a full observation, 2.5 kilometers around the site of the incident, but ... ISAF forces had collected all shells, magazines, cartridges from the spot and we could not find any trace or sign of them."

The U.S. military officials were not immediately available to comment on the allegation.

The initial military investigation of the incident concluded that the Marines' response was "out of proportion to the threat that was immediately there," a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday in Washington.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe's results have not been released. The findings have been forwarded to U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The case has also been referred to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service for a broader criminal inquiry, the official said.

"The investigation revealed the actions taken by some of the special operators in the convoy following the attack appear to warrant a further inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service," the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Another official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the initial military investigation concluded that there was a "reasonable suspicion" that the Marines violated the rules for the use of deadly force, and that crimes, possibly including homicide, may have been committed in the aftermath of the convoy being struck by a car bomb.

"We deeply regret the loss of life and casualties that resulted from the (suicide car bombing) and the actions that followed," said Lt. Col. Lou Leto, a spokesman for Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command of U.S. Central Command. "We will work to prevent similar events from occurring in the future."

Army Maj. Gen. Francis H. Kearney III, head of Special Operations Command Central, began his investigation after taking the highly unusual step of ordering the unit of about 120 Marines out of Afghanistan.

The Marines are in a special operations unit that deployed from Camp LeJeune, N.C., in January with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. After Kearney ordered them out of Afghanistan they returned to the ships of the 26th in the Persian Gulf.
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US resists NATO call for extra force trainers in Afghanistan
Sat Apr 14, 1:38 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States shied away from a call by  NATO to send thousands more of its stretched military personnel to train Afghanistan's police and army, in comments released Friday.

"Quite frankly, we're having trouble, and probably two thirds of those (forces requested) are for the police," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said after a NATO meeting in Canada, in comments released by the Defense Department.

"So one of the things we talked about (at the meeting) was approaching other Europeans about filling some of those positions, because it's training jobs and they have some real expertise in that area."

Ministers and envoys from eight NATO allies meeting in Quebec on Thursday agreed to bolster cooperation in  Afghanistan ahead of an expected spring offensive by resurgent fighters loyal to the ousted Taliban regime.

The meeting did not discuss sending more forces to join the 37,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), but Gates later revealed that commanders asked the US to fill "about 3,400 training positions."

The US military is already looking stretched, having started a "surge" of troops to boost its presence in  Iraq. Gates said Wednesday that army soldiers' tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan would be extended from 12 to 15 months.

ISAF is trying to stabilize the war-torn country which has seen an upsurge in attacks by the Taliban, ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001.
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Pakistan president hits out at Afghan leader over security
Sat Apr 14, 1:18 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf hit out at his Afghan counterpart, saying on US television he was "very angry" at criticism of Pakistani progress in fighting cross-border terrorism.

"Pakistan is being maligned by the West ... unfairly" in criticism that it is not doing enough to root out terrorists on its soil and to help crush the Taliban Islamist movement in  Afghanistan, Musharraf told CBS television news.

He blamed the criticism on a "total lack of understanding of the environment and reality by President (Hamid) Karzai himself." Asked if he was "angry" with Afghanistan's US-backed leader, he replied: "Yes, indeed. Very angry."

Musharraf, an army general who took power in a military coup in 1999, is an ally of the United States in its anti-terrorism drive launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

He has since come under intense pressure from Washington to catch fighters linked to the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda network who are said to be hiding out on Pakistani soil.

Insurgents have been retreating into Pakistan across its volatile western border after launching attacks on Afghanistan, where US and other  NATO-led forces face a resurgent offensive by the Taliban.

But Musharraf dismissed as "absolute nonsense" a claim by Karzai that the wanted Taliban leader Mullah Omar -- a close ally of Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden -- was hiding out in Pakistan.

Parts of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are lawless tribal zones not controlled by the central authorities. But Pakistan has signed peace deals with some of the Islamic clans, despite criticism from Western allies.

Musharraf said on Thursday that tribesmen in the South Waziristan tribal area had killed 300 foreign militants of the Al-Qaeda network, with help from the Pakistani military.

But he rejected "absolutely and totally" on Friday the prospect of a joint US-Pakistan military operation to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan.

"The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it," he said.
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Chirac asks Afghan government to help free 2 French citizens held by Taliban
The Associated Press April 13, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan: French President Jacques Chirac asked the Afghan government to help secure the release of two French citizens kidnapped by suspected Taliban militants last week, an official said Friday.

The Taliban has claimed it abducted a French man and woman and three Afghans from the aid group Terre d'Enfance who disappeared in southwestern Nimroz province last week.

President Hamid Karzai told Chirac during a phone call Thursday "that the relevant authorities will do their best to secure their release," said Karim Rahimi, Karzai's spokesman.

The apparent kidnapping came after Afghan authorities released five Taliban prisoners in exchange for an Italian newspaper reporter, who was kidnapped alongside his two Afghan colleagues by the Taliban in southern Helmand province on March 5.

The two Afghans — a freelance reporter working as the Italian's translator and his driver — were killed.

The exchange was widely criticized by Afghan lawmakers, analysts and international workers, who said it would encourage further abductions.

Karzai has ruled out any future exchanges.
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Another British soldier killed in Afghanistan
Fri Apr 13, 1:35 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - A British soldier was killed and two others wounded in southern  Afghanistan on Friday when their patrol fought fierce firefights with Taliban insurgents, the Ministry of Defence said.

The fighting erupted when a unit returned from a patrol aimed at reassuring Afghans that  NATO forces were improving security in an area of northwest Helmand province and spotted five Taliban preparing an ambush.

The soldiers based near the town of Now Zad opened fire on the Taliban who were soon reinforced, with other fighters firing mortars, rockets, RPGs, heavy machine guns and small arms, the ministry said.

One of the soldiers received serious gunshot wounds, it added in a statement relayed from an ISAF press centre in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan.

Backed by an Apache attack helicopter exchanging fire with Taliban fighters on the ground, a Chinook ambulance helicopter arrived to collect the casualty and evacuated him for medical care at the main British base at Camp Bastion.

However, he was pronounced dead on arrival, the ministry statement said.

The death takes to 53 the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan since the country's hardline former rulers, the Taliban, were ousted from power in late 2001.

The ministry said the patrol continued to withdraw while fighting off another larger Taliban force for over two hours.

Two more soldiers were also wounded, but British forces initially estimated "a significant number of the enemy were killed."

The Chinook and Apache escort returned to the scene under fire, collected the two soldiers and took them for treatment at Camp Bastion, the ministry said.

Their condition is not serious, it added.

The troops serving in the 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

Britain has pledged an extra 1,400 troops for Afghanistan, taking the country's contingent in the NATO-led ISAF to 7,700.

Most of them are based in Helmand, where the Taliban militia have made a strong resurgence since being ousted from Kabul
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Learning to shoot and talk all at once
The Australian 04/13/2007 By Bruce Loudon 
TO many it must seem like heresy. But when Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai returned to Kabul from a summit of South Asian leaders in New Delhi earlier this week and spoke openly about the talks he had been having with the Taliban, the disclosure aroused almost none of the expected antagonism or uproar.

Some of the Tajik warlords and politicians - heirs to the memory of the heroic Ahmed Shah Masood and suspicious of the motives of Karzai, a Pashtun, like most of the Taliban - expressed dismay, even anger. But for the most part Karzai's announcement was accepted as sensible. Even the commanders of the NATO-led coalition, poised to confront the Taliban's promised full-scale spring offensive, did not demur.

Talking to the Taliban is no longer the taboo that it once was. Karzai admits he has been talking to the organisation, though just who he has been meeting is not clear. In an almost unremittingly bleak scenario, this must be one of the few positive signs to emerge from the conflict in recent times.

As a conference of more than 200 senior army officers from 22 countries, including Australia, was told in Pakistan's capital Islamabad this week, military means alone will not bring about an end to the fighting.
Many believe the Taliban is gaining popular support among Afghans as a direct consequence of the levels of military conflict in the country. When it ruled the roost in Kabul with its medieval and obscurantist policies, the Islamic fundamentalist movement was despised by the Afghan people. Now, though, it is increasingly assuming the aura of a national liberation movement.

Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, a retired Pakistani general who is the governor of his country's North-West Frontier Province on the border of Afghanistan, has spent a lifetime in the area and believes the Taliban is gaining support.

What was initially an insurgency by rag-tag and widely despised remnants of the regime driven out of Kabul in 2001 is turning into a "war of liberation", he says, with all the classic patriotic and nationalistic attributes. The Taliban struggle, Aurakzai adds, is "developing into some kind of nationalist movement, a resistance movement, some sort of liberation war against the coalition forces".

Aurakzai may be dismissed as working closely with his country's controversial ISI spy agency, but few know the Pashtun people, who straddle the Durand Line border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, better. He negotiated the first of the contentious so-called peace deals in the area between Taliban-supporting tribal militants and the Government in Islamabad. He is in daily contact with the Taliban. He knows the way its members think in a way that no person from outside can claim to.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, too, believes that whatever the strength of the coalition's military commitment to Afghanistan, it will come to nought without accompanying political negotiations. However, there are those who see in his assertions a large element of self-interest, given the ISI's longstanding involvement with the Taliban and Karzai's repeated claims that Pakistan would like to colonise his beleaguered nation.

Musharraf, of course, has contact with the Taliban and those who support it. The peace deals he concluded in North and South Waziristan and in the Bajaur Agency are products of those contacts. Many, though, denounce the deals as amounting to little more than running up the white flag in the face of Taliban pressure, which is being seen in the heart of Islamabad with fundamentalist students practically laying siege to parts of the capital.

But Musharraf maintains that just as he has no alternative to talking to the Taliban and its tribal militant supporters, so too there is no alternative but to talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's history has been one of wild tribal nationalism that has always succeeded in seeing off those perceived to be invaders. Most recently the might of the ill-fated Soviet Union's much vaunted Red Army - deployed in vastly greater numbers than NATO's commanders have at their disposal - was routed and sent packing in ignominy. The Soviets were put to flight by the mujaheddin, in part because of an infusion of US assistance.

Nonetheless, they defied those who believed they would be no match for the Soviets' military might, just as the Taliban, who see themselves as the successors of the mujaheddin in the fight against a foreign occupation force, seem to be defying the best that the NATO coalition is able to throw at them.

It is a difficult equation. Talking to the Taliban implies talking indirectly to al-Qa'ida. Though the two are obviously not as close as they were when Osama bin Laden was in Kabul, they are still clearly linked.
But the growing view in South Asian capitals is that talking to the Taliban, sooner or later, will become inevitable, especially given the lead provided by Karzai. And there is a need to talk sooner rather than later, many argue, because so-called "creeping Talibanisation" is posing an ever greater threat to Pakistan and could come to pose a significant challenge to the nuclear-armed country's security, with a possibility that Islamists could seize power in Islamabad.

Signs of this are being seen in the heart of Islamabad, with thousands of Taliban-supporting students besieging parts of the city within a stone's throw of Musharraf's office, demanding the imposition of sharia law. Senior Pakistani officials maintain that it's nothing to worry about, that traditionally in Pakistan fundamentalist religious parties get no more than 3 per cent or 4 per cent of the vote.

But, as one senior official says, that now may be up to as much as 15 per cent or more, and out of a population of 160 million, that makes an awful lot of hardline, very committed Taliban supporters. The official adds: "We can kid ourselves about being able to defeat the Taliban militarily, but we can't as long as they have the sort of popular support that they have and which they are gaining every day both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yes, conduct the military campaign, we must do that. The coalition is doing a fine job. But somehow we have to talk to the Taliban and try to de-link them from al-Qa'ida to reach a deal that brings them into the political process."

Many will jib at the prospect, given the appalling and disgraceful nature of the Taliban regime when it was in power in Kabul. But there may be no alternative if assessments that the conflict is turning into a national liberation struggle are correct. Karzai seems to be leading the way in opening the lines of communication and many will see that as a pointer to the way ahead, though without, of course, any diminution in the military campaign against the Taliban.
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UNSG appoints new members to oversee sanctions
NEW YORK, Apr 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United Nations' Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, appointed two new members to the UN committee monitoring sanctions against Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The two members are Mubarak Mashhoor al-Shahrani (Saudi Arabia) and Carlton Greene (US), Moon announced. Their tenure is till June 30 next year, he said.

They replaced Ashraf Mohsen (Egypt) and John Smith (US), who had earlier resigned from the UN Analytical Supports and Sanctions Monitoring Team.

Established by the United Nations in 2004, Analytical Supports and Sanction Monitoring Team is primarily responsible to oversee the implementation of sanctions imposed by the world body against the two groups.

Commenting on the sanctions, a UN official told the Pajhwok Afghan News, countries are expected to freeze financial assets, including properties of all those involved in helping the two organisations and its leaders.

Under the sanctions, countries are also bound not to supply arms and ammunition or military training to al-Qaeda and Taliban and its leaders.

The committee submits periodical report and its set of recommendations to the UN on the implementation of the sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Lalit K. Jha
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Afghanistan to get 200 aircrafts in three years: Wardak
KABUL, Apr 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak on Thursday said the country would have 200 aircrafts in the coming three years.

The minister was briefing journalist here on the last day of the accountability week announced by the government.

He said the fleet of aircrafts would have fighter jets, transportation as well as surveillance planes. However, he did not mention who would provide the aircrafts to the ministry.

At the moment, the Defence Ministry has more than 40 different aircrafts.

About the training and recruitment of the Afghan National Army (ANA), Wardak said they were concentrating on the quality as well as quantity. He said the strength of ANA would be increased to 70,000 by the end of this year.

Under the Bonn Agreement, Afghanistan will have 70,000 military personnel. At present, the number of ANA is 46,000.

The minister said recruitment centres had been established in all the 34 provinces to speed up the formation of the Afghan military.

He said ANA conducted 10,224 operations in the country over the previous two years. The minister said 2,822 miscreants were killed and another 1,324 were arrested during those operations.

He said 331 ANA soldiers killed and 861 wounded during the operations and violence. He described 2006 as the bloodiest year which registered increasing number of attacks from the Taliban.

He said the 'enemies' were now involved in face to face fighting signifying their level of preparations. By increasing attacks, they (the opponents) wanted to force the foreign troops to leave the country, he said.  
Najib Khelwatgar
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An online boutique of Afghan handicrafts
NEW YORK, Apr 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Four Afghan - American sisters have launched an online boutique - www.artizansarai.com - of traditional handcrafted jewelry, crafts, embroidered home dcor and fashion accessories from Afghanistan.

The purpose is to popularise traditional arts and crafts in the US and generate employment opportunities for artisans back home, sys Samira Atash, one of the sisters and a fashion designer.

"We have picked up products which are unique and hand made from Afghanistan. No other retailer would have these collections. The hand embroidery, engraving, and craftsmanship that can be found in Afghanistan are the best in the world. Artizan Sarai will showcase this and bring Afghan products to a new level," Samira told Pajhwok Afghan News in an interview. The online boutique was launched on April 10.

Referring to her first visit to Afghanistan some three years ago after her family left the country in the wake of Soviet invasion, Samira said they were taken aback by the poverty.

"There is so much, but we are still poor. We wanted to do something for them but not something which could be considered as donation, but something that would help them become self-reliant and earn money," she said.

This is the best way, the four sisters - all from different professional backgrounds, including fashion designer, attorney, journalism and interior designer - thought of they could contribute.
Lalit K. Jha
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UNICEF's Goodwill envoy visits Afghanistan
KABUL, Apr 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill ambassador and singer Clay Aiken is currently visiting Afghanistan to create awareness about the hope and promise he has seen in the young people of the war-torn country.

"The people here are very strong and they are very proud of their country,"

Aiken told reporters in Kabul. He praised the "strength and conviction of the Afghan people and their ability to make sure that this country returns to its glory after such a long darkness."

The singer, who gained a name on the televised talent competition 'American

Idol,' has been the UNICEF's Goodwill ambassador since 2004. He has been in Afghanistan to see first-hand the grassroots health and education projects being delivered by the UNICEF.

He said he was "thrilled" to be associated with UNICEF's support for the country's rebuilding efforts.

During his stay here, Aiken visited schools in Kabul and the central province of Bamyan. In Kabul, he met young women at Macfee High School. Aiken described Bamyan as one of the most beautiful places he has ever seen.

Calling the people of Afghanistan the country's "greatest natural resource," Aiken said he would inform people in the United States, who too often associate Afghanistan with conflicts, troops and military activities.
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