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April 28, 2007 

Afghanistan: Kabul's Record Criticized At Brussels Forum
By Ahto Lobjakas
BRUSSELS, April 28, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The record of Afghanistan's government was questioned today at a high-level international conference in Brussels.

The message of several key speakers during the German Marshall Fund's Forum in Brussels was that Afghanistan's democratically elected government may be turning into an impediment to progress five years after the collapse of the Taliban regime.

Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. diplomat and peace broker in the Balkans, told the gathering that the Afghan government is "walking away from democracy" and losing its authority.

Holbrooke said he is now more concerned about the weakening of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government than he is by Taliban fighters.

"These recent events, the walking away from democracy, the closing down of [an independent TV station], the alienation of some of the best and the brightest Afghans who had supported the government and now are fed up by it -- these are really fundamental problems." Richard HolbrookeSpeaking on a panel entitled "Can we still win in Afghanistan," Holbrooke said NATO has been successful in containing Taliban.

But he said militants are beginning to benefit from the lack of success of the Kabul government. He said Karzai's government has "lost momentum" and transparency, and that its erstwhile supporters in Afghanistan are becoming alienated.

"These recent events, the walking away from democracy, the closing down of [an independent TV station], the alienation of some of the best and the brightest Afghans who had supported the government and now are fed up by it -- these are really fundamental problems," Holbrooke said.

"We don't want to see in Kabul the kind of political chaos which in Baghdad is destroying the coalition effort," he said.

The former U.S. diplomat was equally scathing about how international aid has been dispersed in Afghanistan.

He said there has been "massive waste" of U.S. and European money, and very poor coordination of the aid effort. As a result, he says little of the billions of dollars in aid meant for Afghan reconstruction has gone toward rebuilding roads, schools, and hospitals -- infrastructure improvements that matter most to the Afghan population.

Slipping Democratic Standards?
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer appeared to share similar concerns, hinting strongly that slipping democratic standards could affect international support for Kabul.

"We are, as NATO and as the international community, defending universal values in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan," de Hoop Scheffer said. "Those universal values are important. And that does mean that by definition, the international community is interested in what kind of media law there is in Afghanistan, is interested in how detainees are treated in Afghanistan."

De Hoop Scheffer said that both "parliamentary and public support" in NATO countries for the continued presence of their troops in Afghanistan depends on the respect for universal values demonstrated by Karzai's government."

The only Afghan member of the Brussels panel, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Fawzai Koofi, said she thinks the Afghan government needs greater international backing to exert its authority outside Kabul.

"Maybe the system is [too] centralized," Koofi said. "Maybe our international partners need to help us look at the decentralization of the power, because more attention to Kabul, more focus on central power, although the reality is that most of the provinces do not obey the central government."

Koofi also said that Afghanistan's international backers should balance development aid better and not neglect the country's relatively secure north -- where she warned that poverty could start feeding instability.

The problems both NATO and the Afghan government face in the volatile south of the country were underlined by Radek Sikorski, a former Polish defense minister.

Sikorski said Polish commanders stationed in Kandahar Province have told him that that the city of Kandahar -- the second largest city in Afghanistan -- is a "no-go area" for both international and Afghan officials.

De Hoop Scheffer said a "dialogue" with Pakistan about sealing the Afghan-Pakistan border to insurgents remains essential.

The NATO chief also used the Brussels forum to call for the nomination of an international coordinator for Afghanistan, whom he said should be a figure with "real political clout."

De Hoop Scheffer also said he thinks NATO troop levels in southern Afghanistan are now adequate. But he warned that without properly trained and equipped Afghan security forces, "there will be no rule of law" in the country.

He said achieving full-fledged democracy in Afghanistan will take "generations."

Holbrooke described Afghanistan as a "defining issue" for NATO, saying success or failure there will "determine the future" of the alliance.

Impact of Illegal Drug Trade
The panelists had given relatively little attention to the issue of the drugs trade until an intervention from the audience by British journalist and author Misha Glenny, who is currently conducting research for a book on the issue.

Glenny said the failure to rein in poppy cultivation is threatening the success of the global war against terrorism.

"We have to be perfectly frank about this," Glenny said. "The war on terror -- or the fight against terrorism, whatever you want to call it -- and the war on drugs are not compatible; that as long as you have the war on drugs, you are guaranteeing the financing of the Taliban in their fight in Afghanistan. So, until you address the issue of narcotics law reform, you are not going to eradicate the Taliban because they can make so much money from opium cultivation."

In his writing, Glenny has suggested that the international community is unable to match the Taliban's funds in trying to create alternative livelihoods.

Glenny also argued that to have a tangible effect on the drugs trade, western countries need to take measures to significantly reduce demand for Afghan heroin.

The panelists did not directly respond to Glenny's point. However, Holbrooke dismissed ideas that buying up the poppy crop could solve the issue, saying U.S. experience in southeast Asia shows farmers will simply extend cultivation.

Koofi, the deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament, said that incentive schemes for farmers to switch to other crops also have unwanted side effects.

She said farmers who in poppy-free areas are reverting to poppy growing in a bid to benefit from the same incentives.
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Ex-diplomat: Afghan's Karzai faltering
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium -  Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, tarnished by corruption and unable to control large swaths of its own territory, is rapidly losing the support of ordinary Afghans, the former U.S. ambassador to the  United Nations Richard Holbrooke said Saturday.

Holbrooke said  NATO, which has committed 36,000 troops to Afghanistan, was at risk of losing the war against the Taliban. The United States has deployed an additional 11,000 troops in the eastern border region with Pakistan.

"I can sense a tremendous deterioration in the standing of the government. Afghans are now universally talking about their disappointment with Karzai. Let's be honest with ourselves ... the government must succeed or else the Taliban will gain from it," he told the Brussels Forum, an annual trans-Atlantic security conference.

Taliban guerrillas have vastly expanded their activities during the past year. Insurgents have now returned to many regions outside their traditional strongholds in the east that were rebel-free since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Afghan and NATO forces clashed with Taliban militants Saturday in the east and south, killing 21 suspected insurgents, officials said, including 11 who died in a NATO airstrike in Khost province's Alishar district. NATO-led forces are in the midst of an operation in southern Afghanistan to root out militants in Helmand province's opium-producing heartland.

Separately, a NATO service member was found dead in his barracks room Friday afternoon, the alliance said. The statement, issued Saturday, gave no further details.

In Brussels, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter Mackay said the fate of the allied operation in Afghanistan — in which 54 Canadian soldiers have died so far — hangs by a thread.

"While I don't want to sound alarmist, I think there is going to be a tipping point unless we are able to stabilize (southern Afghanistan, especially), unless we are able to get on with" building the economy, rule of law and government institutions.

He said Canada has been disappointed by a lack of solidarity within NATO to share the burden of the Afghan operation.

But Daniel Fried, an assistant U.S. secretary of state who also attended the conference, said the situation in Afghanistan not as "dire" as Holbrooke had presented it.

"There are some serious challenges (but) efforts are under way to address the problems Ambassador Holbrooke has identified," Fried said.

Holbrooke, who was instrumental in formulating U.S. policy toward the United Nations, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, remains best-known for his role as the architect of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia.

He said the U.S.-financed effort to train the Afghan police has produced a force that was corrupt and incompetent.

"The U.S. training program (for the police) under DynCorp is an appalling joke ... a complete shambles," he said. He referred to Falls Church, Va.-based DynCorp International Inc. a major provider of security and defense services in Afghanistan,  Iraq and other troublespots.

"I don't want to appear negative, but unless we are honest about the problem we will continue saying year after year that we are making progress, but have lost ground. We all know where that leads."
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Karzai offers peace, Taliban free Frenchwoman
By Sayed Salahuddin Sat Apr 28, 7:05 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban freed a French aid worker on Saturday as President Hamid Karzai marked the anniversary of the end of communist rule with a fresh offer of olive branch to the resurgent Islamic guerrillas.

France's Foreign Ministry confirmed that one member of an aid group who had been kidnapped in  Afghanistan early this month had been released.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said earlier the aid worker was a French woman, identified only as Celine, and she was freed in the southern province of Kandahar as a gesture of goodwill.

Speaking to Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location, he said the deadline for the release of her male French colleague, Eric, and three Afghan workers for the Terre d'Enfance aid group had been extended by a week.

"This release is the result of the efforts made for more than three weeks. They must continue with the same determination and the same discretion until the release of the other hostages," France's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Taliban want France to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and the release of Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government before freeing the Frenchman and his three Afghan colleagues, Yousuf said.

Yousuf, asked if a ransom had been paid, said the aid worker had been freed "because she is a woman."

At a colorful ceremony in Kabul for the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet-backed communist regime, Karzai again pleaded with the Taliban to talk peace.

"Today, while celebrating the jihad victory, we once again invite those who have sided with aliens because of seduction against their nation, to give up sedition and evil and join peaceful life," he said.

DISABLED FIGHTERS
The ceremony was marked by a military parade that included disabled victims of Afghanistan's fighting -- in wheelchairs and on crutches -- as well as a display of Soviet-era tanks, modern American Humvees and camels.

Among the parade were two old British cannons, captured during a bloody British incursion in the 19th century.

The parade passed one of the capital's most famous and oldest mosques, as well as mud-brick ruins from civil war among the Mujahideen (holy warriors) that followed the collapse of communist regime.

The civil war killed tens of thousands and ended with the rise to power of the Taliban in 1996. They were ousted weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and have been fighting Karzai's government and foreign forces since.

Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since soon after the Taliban were ousted, first called on rank-and-file militants to rejoin society more than three years ago and has repeated his offer several times, but few have responded.

He has opened talks with former Taliban leaders in Kabul, but few details have emerged.

He is due to fly to Turkey on Sunday for talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Taliban use of Pakistan as a sanctuary and training centre will be high on the agenda.

Pakistan denies any continued formal support for the group it helped to power in the 1990s, but the issue of cross border infiltration has soured ties between Islamabad and Kabul.

And in an interview published on Thursday in the Spanish daily El Pais Musharraf accused Karzai of weakness on terrorism.

Fighting last year was the worst since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban and many say this year will be bloodier.

On Saturday, U.S. and Afghan forces killed 10 Taliban insurgents after the militants ambushed a convoy in Helmand, the U.S. military said.

And a member of the U.S.-led coalition was killed in fighting in western Herat province on Friday. His nationality was not given.

A  NATO air strike also killed 13 Taliban guerrillas in the southeastern province of Khost late on Friday, provincial officials said.
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Taliban frees French woman after 3 weeks
By ALISA TANG, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Taliban on Saturday freed a French aid worker who was kidnapped more than three weeks ago along with another French citizen and three Afghan colleagues.

Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the French woman was handed over to tribal leaders in the Maywand district of southern Kandahar province.

"Because she is a woman, to make good relations with the French government, we have handed this woman over to Maywand district tribal leaders," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone.

Antoine Vuillaume, who heads the aid group Terre d'Enfance confirmed the woman, identified only by her first name Celine, was released and traveling to Kabul by road on Saturday.

"I hope that she will be able to come to France as soon as possible, based on her physical and psychological state," Vuillaume told reporters in Paris, after meeting with French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. "She is very tired, very hard-hit."

President Jacques Chirac said he was "delighted" by the release. "Everyone must now redouble the efforts to obtain it for other hostages, with the greatest discretion," said a statement from Chirac's office.

Police have been dispatched to the area for further investigation, an official in Kandahar said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Celine and the French man, identified as Eric, work with Terre d'Enfance in southwestern Nimroz province. They were kidnapped along with three Afghan colleagues on April 3.

Celine had been wearing a burqa, and Eric had been dressed in a traditional Afghan shalwar kameez tunic and turban. Afghan officials said they did not tell their colleagues before leaving their office in Nimroz.

A video of the kidnapped French and Afghans surfaced 10 days after their capture, showing Celine and Eric pleading for their lives.

Ahmadi said the French man and the three Afghans are still being held, and reiterated the Taliban's demands to the French government in exchange for their release.

"The French government has to stop giving military support to the Afghan government, and French forces should leave  Afghanistan," he said. "When the French government withdraws its forces from our country, then we will negotiate the release of this French man and three Afghans as well."

The kidnapping came two weeks after Afghan authorities released five Taliban prisoners in exchange for an Italian newspaper reporter, who was abducted along with his two Afghan colleagues in southern Helmand province on March 5. The two Afghans were killed.

The deal was heavily criticized by the United States and some European nations. Afghan lawmakers and foreigners working in the country said it gave the Taliban incentive to stage more kidnappings.

The Afghan government has said the prisoner swap was a one-time deal for the Italian journalist, and has ruled out any future exchanges.

France pulled 200 French special forces out of Afghanistan late last year, and still has about 1,000 troops stationed in the country.
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France confirms hostage freed by Taliban
Sat Apr 28, 7:11 AM ET
PARIS (AFP) - A French woman held hostage by the Taliban has been freed, the French foreign ministry said on Saturday, confirming an earlier statement from the militant group in  Afghanistan.

"The French authorities confirm that one of the members of the Terre d'Enfance (A World For Our Children) organisation held hostage has indeed been freed this morning (Saturday) in Afghanistan," it said in a brief statement.

"The release was the result of three weeks of efforts, which should continue with the same determination and the same discretion to secure the release of the other hostages."

Earlier in the day, Afghan Taliban militants said they had freed a French woman captured more than three weeks ago. They also extended by a week a deadline for demands to be met for the release of four men taken with her.

The two French nationals and three Afghans working for the French non-governmental organisation went missing on April 3 in the southwestern province of Nimroz.

The NGO's chairman, Antoine Vuillaume, told reporters on Saturday that the French woman was now "travelling to Kabul accompanied by French authorities".

"Celine is extremely worn out after 24 days in captivity. She is very weak," he said after meeting with French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.

"Clearly this is a first sign of hope. In any case it is a first result, it is a great relief, and brings hope for the other four people."

The Taliban said on April 20 they wanted France to withdraw its 1,000 troops with NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and for certain Taliban prisoners to be freed in exchange for the hostages.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Friday there was no plan for the troops to stay for the long-term.

The Taliban, driven from power by a US-led coalition in 2001, target mainly troops and government workers in an increasingly intense campaign that has claimed around 1,000 lives this year, by an AFP count.
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Horses, camels, tanks mark Afghan anniversary of fall of communism
The Associated Press Saturday, April 28, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan: Thousands of Afghan men in turbans and military uniforms lined Kabul streets Saturday as Afghanistan's president passed, along with a procession of horses, camels and tanks, to mark the 15th anniversary of communism's fall in the war-ravaged country.

Former mujahedeen who fought against Soviet troops in the 1980s until their 1992 victory poured out for the solemn celebration, as President Hamid Karzai urged militants battling Afghan and international troops today to join the Afghan government.

"I call on those ... who are damaging and destroying their own country to give up fighting and start a peaceful life," Karzai told an audience of jihadi leaders, government officials and tribal elders. "Restart your lives as Afghan citizens."

Karzai has repeatedly pressed Taliban militants to join his government.

Afghanistan fell under Soviet control in 1979, and a U.S.-funded mujahedeen war toppled the communist regime in 1992. A civil war then erupted among the mujahedeen factions, hurling the country into mayhem. The Taliban, which rose to power in 1996, fell after the U.S. invasion in 2001.

Karzai holds weak sway over the country, which is wracked by daily insurgency attacks despite the presence of some 47,000 U.S. and NATO troops.

"The enemy of the Afghan nation, with the help of international terrorists, are working against the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan," Karzai said. "They are burning institutions, encouraging drug trafficking, attacking and killing intellectuals, clerics and tribal elders — fighting against a victory for Afghanistan."

He also asked for cooperation from Pakistan, referring to the neighboring country as Afghanistan's "brother."

Karzai and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf have frequent verbal sparring matches over militants, who many believe live and train in Pakistan, then cross into Afghanistan to wreak havoc.

During a trip to Spain this week, Musharraf said Karzai was doing nothing against terrorism.

The two leaders are scheduled to meet this week in Turkey to discuss their differences on fighting the Taliban.

Amid tight security and hundreds of heavily armed guards, Karzai stood in an open-topped vehicle on Saturday as he inspected troops outside a large mosque in Kabul. Afghan helicopters and fighter jets gave an aerial performance over a parade of men on horses and camels.

About 100 male students, wearing traditional shalwar kameez tunics with white and yellow vests, performed the national dance near bomb-wrecked buildings amid fierce fighting during the civil war, which killed an estimated 50,000 people.

Violence rages on today, as NATO-led troops push forth with their largest-ever military operation in the south to root out militants in the opium heartland of Helmand province.

Elders from Helmand attended the festivities, but with mixed feelings.

"We have been invited to this celebration, and I am happy today, but I want the government to secure all parts of Afghanistan," said a 56-year-old man who identified himself as Aliuddin, from Helmand's Gereshk district.
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11 Taliban killed in east Afghanistan
Sat Apr 28, 3:08 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan police clashed with Taliban militants Saturday in eastern  Afghanistan, and a subsequent  NATO airstrike left 11 insurgents dead, officials said. Three police were wounded in the fighting.

The police and Taliban engaged in a one-hour gun battle in the Alishar district of Khost province, said Wazir Padshah, a spokesman for the provincial police. He said NATO assisted with an airstrike, killing 11 militants.

Lt. Col. Angela Billings, spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, confirmed that NATO launched an airstrike early Saturday, causing some insurgent casualties. She said there were no NATO or civilian casualties.

Separately, a NATO service member was found dead in his barracks room Friday afternoon, said an ISAF statement issued from Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul. The statement, issued Saturday, did not give any further details and said the cause of death is under investigation.
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29 Taliban fighters, two soldiers killed in Afghanistan 
By IANS Saturday April 28, 07:09 PM
Kabul, April 28 (DPA) Afghan and international forces killed at least 29 suspected Taliban fighters in separate clashes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, while two soldiers died in separate incidents, officials said Saturday.

A group of Taliban militants attacked the district headquarters of Alisher district in eastern Khost province Saturday but Afghan police forces repelled the attack 'forcefully,' provincial police chief Mohammad Ayoub said.

'The NATO Air Force engaged the militants from the air as the militants were taking their dead and wounded comrades while retreating from the area,' Ayoub said.

'Fourteen Taliban dead bodies were left on the site and were transported to the provincial hospital,' he said. Two policemen were also slightly wounded.

Meanwhile, Afghan and US-led Coalition forces killed ten Taliban militants and destroyed two buildings in an air and ground engagement Saturday morning in southern Helmand Province, US military said in a statement.

The firefight triggered after the combined forces' convoy was ambushed by militants in the vicinity of Gereshk district, the statement said, adding that the Coalition forces fought back from the ground and employed close air support.

Five more Taliban fighters were killed and another five were arrested when Afghan and coalition forces raided their hideout in southern Zabul province, a separate statement by US military said.

'Credible information led the Coalition to the compound suspected of sheltering local Taliban leadership connected to Mullah Dadullah Lang.

These militants are suspected of weapons smuggling and planning attacks on Coalition forces and peaceful Afghans in the area,' the statement said.

No Afghan or coalition soldiers were hurt during the raid, it added.

A soldier with International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was found dead in his barracks Friday, ISAF said in a statement.

The statement did not identify the soldier nor did it say the cause of death, but said that it was a 'non-combat incident.'

Early Friday, a US-led coalition soldier was killed when his unit engaged with suspected Taliban militants in western Herat province, the US military said in a statement.

'Coalition forces employed a variety of combined arms to include close air support to destroy and repel enemy insurgents during the firefight,' the statement said, but it did not say if any Taliban militants were killed during the fighting.
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PREVIEW-Pakistan-Afghanistan talks aim to reduce bickering
27 Apr 2007 16:41:28 GMT By Daniel Bases
ANKARA, April 27 (Reuters) - The leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan will meet this weekend in Turkey to try to repair ties and boost regional security after accusing each other of not doing enough to stop the Taliban insurgency.

The talks, hosted by Turkey which has historic ties with the region, will be the first meeting in months between two key allies in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Relations between the neighbours have deteriorated sharply over the past year, accompanied by a war of words, as the Taliban's insurgency in Afghanistan has intensified.

The two men will attend a dinner on Sunday hosted by Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, with a second bilateral meeting on Monday and a luncheon with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a Pakistani embassy official in Ankara told Reuters.

"They will talk about a strategy to fight extremism," the official said.

Musharraf criticised Karzai in an interview published on Thursday in the Spanish daily El Pais, accusing him of being weak on terrorism.

Karzai says the Taliban is getting help from Pakistan.

Pakistan denies any continued formal support for the Taliban which it helped to power in the 1990s, but the issue of cross border infiltration has soured ties between Islamabad and Kabul.

The U.S. relationship with Pakistan has been under intense scrutiny for months because of growing frustration over the strength of the Taliban insurgency.

Musharraf has threatened to pull out of the alliance against terrorism after persistent questioning of Pakistan's commitment and distrust of its motives.

Karzai and Musharraf last met for talks in Washington in September, when U.S. President George W. Bush brought them together to try to ease tensions.

About 45,000 U.S. and NATO troops are in Afghanistan battling the Taliban, mostly in ethnic Pashtun-dominated provinces on the border with Pakistan.

Pakistan, which is also battling militants, says it is trying to stop infiltration into Afghanistan.

But it says the real reasons behind the Taliban surge are in Afghanistan, where Pashtun tribes -- the main base of Taliban support -- have grown alienated because of indiscriminate bombings, deprivation and a lack of representation.

Pakistan has deployed around 90,000 troops on the border and is fencing parts of the frontier.
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Afghan ambassador says Canada has not monitored prisoners
Juliet O'Neill CanWest News Service Saturday, April 28, 2007
OTTAWA - Urging an end to the "political circus" over Afghan detainees, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada says no Canadians, including corrections officers, have monitored treatment of prisoners turned over by Canadian military forces.

However, Ambassador Omar Samad said in a Global National interview that Canadian officials will soon have "unrestricted access" to prisons under an agreement currently being worked out with Canada in the wake of political uproar over alleged torture of detainees.

Samad contradicted assertions by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that Corrections Canada officers have been monitoring prisoner treatment - an assertion Day repeated in the Commons Friday, saying they are there "to see if there are cases of torture."

Samad said Corrections Canada officers have for many months, under their mandate to help build Afghan police capacity, had access to some prisons in Afghanistan and may have come across prisoners.

"It doesn't mean those were detention centres of people who were arrested by Canadian forces," Samad said. "So if this has created confusion, I think that we all need to take a step back and define what we're talking about and to bring some clarity to this instead of turning it into a political circus."

"From the Afghan point of view, it's clear there was no followup or monitoring of detainees caught by Canadian forces turned over to Afghans, especially to the NDS (National Directorate of Security) that took place prior to this current time."

Day came under fire in the Commons earlier, with opposition MPs saying the corrections officers, sent in February to help prison reconstruction efforts, have no mandate to monitor prisoners or enforce a Canada-Afghanistan prisoner transfer agreement.

The minister had trumpeted their role Thursday after three days of confusion and contradiction about alleged abuse of prisoners turned over by Canadian troops, access to Afghan prisons and enforcement of a Canada-Afghan prisoner transfer agreement under which the Afghan human rights commission was to monitor prisoner treatment.

Day had said Thursday that corrections staff had made 15 visits to Afghan jails. But his spokeswoman, Melissa Leclerc, had said later they have no mandate to monitor prisoner treatment.

On Friday, Day told the Commons "they are there to support the Afghan officers by training them in the work that they do in the prisons and also to ensure, to see if there are cases of torture."

After question period, deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor should be "put out of his misery" after five days of contradictions and confusion on the Afghan detainee affair.

And former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler told reporters that Canadians must be trained specifically to recognize torture and abuse if they are going to be part of a systematic monitoring system.

"You can't have a drive-by inquiry by some corrections officials who may in fact not even know that it's part of their mandate to monitor the detainees and to understand if there have been situations of torture and inhumane treatment," Cotler said.

Samad said Afghanistan will investigate "if there really have been abuses," and he said cooler heads should prevail "instead of making this more and more confusing for everyone."

He added his issue is not how Canadian politicians have handled the controversy. "My issue is how Afghanistan and my country and my government and my people are portrayed and seen through this political debate that is taking place, which in many cases is not accurate."

He said Afghanistan wants to correct any mistakes that have been made, any abuse that has taken place.

"We are serious about our obligations under international law and Afghan laws," he said.
Ottawa Citizen
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Afghanistan says Al-Qaeda arrest a major success
4/27/2007 Turkish Press
KABUL - The arrest of Al-Qaeda commander Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, who worked with Afghanistan's Taliban, is a major success and will be a blow to terror networks, the Afghan defence ministry said Friday.
"Al-Iraqi was very important for the terrorists' networks. His arrest is a major success," ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"It will help to get to the high-ranking terrorist network figures and it will have deeply negative effect on the network," he said.

A Pentagon spokesman said the militant, on a US "most wanted" list, had been taken into US custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the past week.

He declined to comment on when and where al-Iraqi was captured or whether US forces were directly involved in the capture.

The Al-Qaeda commander has worked directly with the Taliban and was also involved in plots to assassinate Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, the spokesman said.

The militant, said to be close to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is reported to have commanded militant training camps in Afghanistan.

The US-led coalition, which has led counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan since overthrowing the Taliban government in 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda, confirmed the arrest but referred all queries to Washington.
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New film shows September 11 widows in Afghanistan
By Claudia Parsons Fri Apr 27, 6:36 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The director of a new documentary about two September 11 widows who launched a campaign to help Afghan war widows says it's not a "September 11 movie" and her aim is to counter U.S. public amnesia about  Afghanistan.

"Beyond Belief," which premiered at New York's Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday, is the story of two Boston women who were widowed, pregnant, when their husbands died on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley cycled from New York to Boston to raise money to help Afghan war widows. Last year, they traveled to Kabul to visit projects they helped fund, such as one that provides women with incubators to raise chickens.

The film follows their story from struggling with their own grief to the realization that they are relatively lucky compared with the 500,000 Afghan women widowed in more than two decades of conflict and left with no way to support their children.

"I've heard time and time again the market's been inundated with 9/11 (films)," director Beth Murphy said.

"It's not a 9/11 film although September 11 is clearly the starting point," Murphy said. "This is really about two women who experience an enormous tragedy who then, because of that, opened up their eyes to the world."

Among the people they meet in Kabul are an elderly woman whose seven sons died and another who lost three children. "I've had a terrible life," the second woman says. "My children died from starvation. They went into the ground hungry."

After a Friday screening, Murphy said she hoped the film would counter what she called amnesia in the U.S. public about the continuing war in Afghanistan.

The United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks to oust the Taliban government harboring  Osama bin Laden. The country has been fractured by rival warlords since the Soviet Union pulled out in 1989.

"After September 11, there was such a shutting down of ... the American spirit of reaching out to others," Murphy said. "The xenophobic feel and fervor that really took hold in America was really, I think, despicable and it continues to be."

Retik and Quigley most people were supportive of their foundation to help Afghan women, Beyond the 11th, but a few questioned why they were not focused on helping Americans.

"I've gotten horrible e-mails (saying) 'Why don't we just nuke them all?' It's beyond belief to me that there could be such hatred."
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FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, April 28
28 Apr 2007 08:37:06 GMT
More  April 28 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0800 GMT on Saturday:

KABUL - The Taliban said they had released a French woman aid worker abducted early this month, but there was no immediate confirmation from Kabul or Paris.

HELMAND - U.S.-led troops killed 10 Taliban after the militants ambushed a convoy in Gershk district of the southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said.

KABUL - President Hamid Karzai marked the 15th anniversary of the defeat of communist rule with a fresh call to the Taliban to give up their insurgency.

HERAT - A soldier from the U.S.-led coalition force was killed in a clash in the western province of Herat on Friday, the force said.

KHOST - A NATO air strike killed 13 Taliban guerrillas after they attacked a district government headquarters in Khost province in the east, near the Pakistani border, late on Friday, the provincial governor said.

URUZGAN - At least six Taliban and four policemen were killed in a clash in the southern province of Uruzgan late on Friday, police said.
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Afghan story hardly a surprise
Apr 28, 2007 04:30 AM Thomas Walkom Toronto Star, Canada
The only surprise about the Afghan prisoner controversy gripping Ottawa is that any of this comes as a surprise.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is reeling under allegations that prisoners captured by Canadian troops are being handed over to Afghan authorities who then torture and abuse them.

The opposition is in full cry. The newspapers are chock-a-block with references to the brutal abuse handed out by Afghan police to those unfortunate enough to be identified as Taliban suspects.

But what did we think would happen when, in 2001, we signed on to support a gang of brutal warlords trying to oust the gang of brutal clerics who were running this unhappy country?

Afghanistan today may have the trappings of democracy – a well-tailored president elected in a relatively fair vote, a parliament that includes women, even a constitution that promises full-blown political rights.

But underneath, not much has changed. As Canada's foreign affairs department notes in an internal report, the reality of Afghanistan remains bleak.

A censored version of that report, grudgingly released this week under access to information laws, talks of "political repression, human rights abuses and criminal activity by warlords, police, militia and remnants of past military forces."

Those unfortunate enough to end up in the Afghan justice system, the report says, find that bribes and connections are essential. "Those who have no money or power can remain in prison without trial for months, and possibly years." Violence against women is widespread "both at home and in public."

And that's the version Ottawa is willing to let the public see. The unexpurgated version is even blunter, noting that "extra-judicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common."

Civil wars are rarely gentle. The Afghan conflict, which has been sputtering on for more than 27 years, is particularly brutal. Over time, the various sides have treated one another with unspeakable savagery.

For human rights groups, Afghanistan is a full-time job. Amnesty International slams the government of President Hamid Karzai ("barely functional"), the Taliban insurgents ("war crimes") as well as U.S. troops ("torture and ill-treatment").

In this context, Canadian soldiers – equipped with wallet-sized cards that list key elements of the Geneva Conventions on correct prisoner-of-war treatment – seem absurdly benign.

As far as anyone can tell, Canada's hands-on treatment of captured prisoners has been good. First, it seems that not many have been detained. Citing political sensitivity, the defence department won't release figures.

But Amnesty's John Tackaberry estimates the number arrested by Canadian troops since 2002 at about 40.

Second, prisoners themselves say the Canadians treat them well. The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith recently interviewed 30 who had been detained. Most, he wrote, praised their Canadian captors fulsomely. Their troubles, it seems, began only when Canada handed them over to the Afghans who, among other things, whipped them with thick, electric cables, stripped them naked in freezing cells or left them hanging upside down for days.

Throughout all of this, the Canadian government has adopted the ostrich strategy of keeping its head firmly buried. Technically, it made sure its soldiers would be beyond reproach. In practice, it left glaring loopholes.

On paper, Canadian policy seems golden. The defence department's 2004 manual for handling detainees says all are to be accorded prisoner-of-war status "as this is the highest standard required under international humanitarian law."

Amnesty's Hilary Homes argues that it would be more appropriate to make reference to other elements of international law. Still, compared to the U.S., Canada's formal position has been positively enlightened. Detainees under Canadian control are not to be waterboarded, hung by their wrists, humiliated or threatened with sodomy. It's just name, rank and serial number as far as Canada is concerned.

Of course, it is easy to be Mr. Nice Guy when you don't want to bother imprisoning alleged insurgents yourself. And that seems to be Canada's view.

In the early days of the war, Canadian troops handed over their prisoners to the U.S. When it was pointed out that this could get them in trouble (the Geneva Conventions require that prisoners be transferred only to countries willing to observe basic human rights laws – which the Americans are not), Ottawa came up with another solution. It would hand them over as quickly as possible to the Afghans.

After all, the theory went, the Karzai regime is the legal government of Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is party to the Geneva Conventions. So, why not?

The problem is that this theory is at odds with everything the government knows about the Afghan authorities. The U.S. State Department has documented their brutal and corrupt practices; so has Amnesty International. As the public discovered this week, so, too, has Canada's foreign affairs department.

In its efforts to wash its hands of the problem, Ottawa has proved particularly inept. First, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said he would send officials into Afghan prisons to make sure that those captured by our troops were well-treated. Then, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day insisted – incorrectly, according to those on the ground in Kandahar – that Canadian officials have already made such visits.

Meanwhile, Harper insists the abuse allegations are "baseless accusations," while Day labels them part of a Taliban disinformation campaign.

If there were not independent confirmation of Afghan interrogation techniques, this defence might have some validity. But in the context of Afghanistan today, the Harper-Day strategy veers perilously close to that used by Holocaust deniers, who insist that the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II was a fiction created by a powerful, international Zionist conspiracy.

Sadly, all of this is part of a familiar pattern. Hypocrisy has long been Canada's national vice. In the post-9/11 period, it has run rampant. We say we are firm believers in fair play and the rule of law. But it seems we are only willing to apply those standards when there is little cost.

We eagerly chastise Iran for its human rights abuses; Iran, after all, is regarded these days as an official pariah.

Yet, when it is politically convenient to ignore abuse, we happily do so.

Take the case of 20-year-old Omar Khadr. The Conservatives, like the Liberals before them, have made not a peep on behalf of this imprisoned Canadian child soldier, who has been held by the Americans against all international law at Guantanamo Bay for fully a quarter of his life and who now faces charges before a tribunal so blatantly stacked that even his U.S. military lawyer calls it a "kangaroo court."

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, we close our eyes and pledge allegiance to the grand principles of human rights. As the Star's Rosie DiManno reported from Kandahar this week, we may detain Afghans on the flimsiest of evidence. (In the case she witnessed, Canadian troops arrested a man they thought might be a bomber simply because he was bearded, dark and one-armed – a description that could fit thousands in a land of dark, bearded males, many of whom have had hands or limbs blown off by the mines that still pepper the countryside.)

Then, we hand these detainees over to the jailers with the thick, electric cables.

Don't ask. Don't tell. It is all very Canadian.
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Backwater Afghan province straddles fence between government, Taliban
The Associated Press Friday, April 27, 2007
KHAKAR, Afghanistan: There isn't a single foreign aid worker in the province to help this village of illiterate have-nots. Visits by U.S. troops to dole out medicine, cooking oil and teddy bears are rare events. And when they leave, the Taliban slither down from the mountains in their wake.

Khakar is what the Americans call a "swing village" — given sustained security and assistance it might well side with the government, but with a lack of these, coupled with intimidation and persuasion, it goes the way of the insurgents.

"This is commonplace. They're kind of sitting on the fence to see how things go," says Lt. Col. Karl Slaughenhaupt, a senior adviser to the Afghan National Army. "They are willing to support the government but at this point in time we simply don't have enough contact with the people to push the anti-government elements out."

Slaughenhaupt's admission speaks to one of the core problems of the conflict. Five years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime, the government and international community have not provided either enough bread or guns to undercut the resurgent militants.

Zabul, a backwater province in southeastern Afghanistan, offers a dramatic example.

"The economy is the key solution. If it is good, there will be no Taliban. But now I cannot even support my brothers in Zabul with a piece of bread," says provincial governor Dalbar Ayman, picking up a slice of local flat bread from his plate.

By United Nations standards, up to 80 percent of the province's 300,000 people, mostly subsistence farmers and pastoralists, have insufficient food.

There are only two midwives and no obstetricians in the entire province, where most of the 11 districts are without medical facilities of any kind.

Conditions for women aren't substantially better in the deeply conservative region than under the radical Taliban, which virtually shuttered females in their homes. Fewer than 10 percent of girls now go to school and only some 5 percent are literate. In 2005 elections, 11 percent of Zabul women went to the polls, compared to the national average of 40 percent.

"No need to go. If she dies we'll just get another," a U.S. officer quotes the father of a young, severely malnourished girl as saying when urged to take her to the provincial hospital, just two and a half hours' drive from his home.

To bring in the needed aid and reconstruction, officials say that security is vital. And because there's a lack of it, the classic formula of a successful counter-insurgency — one part military muscle to four parts political, economic and propaganda operations — can't be applied.

"The people are not confident that we can protect them. That's why I want more troops," the governor says. "Hopefully we won't go backward if we don't get them, but we certainly won't move forward."

Many residents agree with the governor, but also criticize him.

"In our hearts we don't support the Taliban, but people have no choice because the government can't provide them with security. The governor sits in his compound and doesn't know what is happening," says Haji Fezal, a farmer and transport business owner. "The Taliban are increasing, pouring across the border from Pakistan and the government can't control what is happening in the districts."

Zabul, the size of Kuwait (or U.S. states Connecticut and Rhode Island combined), has some 1,000 NATO and 600 Afghan army troops — one for every 17 square kilometers. In Khaki Afghan district, where the insurgents recently overran the district headquarters, there are no troops at all.

The governor says he urgently needs 30 to 40 percent more, asking, "Foreign troops came to Afghanistan to carry out a task, so why are they not made stronger to finish it?"

The Americans agree.

"This is a huge area to care for with just three small platoons. You've come to the province with the least assets," says Maj. Christopher Clay, of St. Louis, who commands B Company, 1st Regiment, 4th Infantry Regiment — the main U.S. military unit in Zabul.

Less than a year ago, Clay said, the province was beginning to be regarded as a success story, so it was shortchanged, resources were taken out and the "fragile foundations started to crumble."

U.S. soldiers and officers also complain that they're inadequately supported by their own command, with Iraq getting top priority, followed by Taliban strongholds like Helmand and Kandahar provinces, in the competition for resources.

"I haven't even been able to get a spare part for my vehicle since I got here," says 1st Lt. Keith Wei, of San Francisco, who serves as Clay's executive officer.

Even when resources are available, getting them out to the people can be a difficult, delicate matter.

"If we build a school, the Taliban will come in, beat up the children and burn it down. If we show too much presence it will attract too much attention from the Taliban. So we have to find the happy medium," says Capt. Christopher Green, taking part in the humanitarian operation at Khakar.

Green, of Palm Beach, Florida, said large quantities of food also can't be provided to the village's 150 inhabitants lest they become "a grocery store for the Taliban," who villagers said come around regularly to interrogate them about what the Americans are doing.

To win local support, about 90 Afghan and U.S. troops recently laid down a barbed-wire enclosure at the base of a mountain range, about an hour's drive from the provincial capital Qalat. The villagers entered for medical treatment and handouts. A female U.S. army doctor, pistol swinging from her hip, a stethoscope around her neck, treated the mostly veiled, shy women inside a makeshift tent.

There are also some tangible signs of development.

USAID has put in 4,300 electrical connections in Qalat, and more roads are being hacked into the rugged interior. The United Arab Emirates has built a hospital in Qalat, but it still lacks nurses and supplies, and some doctors left after Taliban threats.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Kevin P. McGlaughlin, a former B-52 pilot who until recently headed the military's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Zabul, says winning the conflict requires a 20-year or more commitment by the international community to reconstruction — a task he conceded was not the army's strength.

"We're a flash in the pan. This is not our bread and butter, rebuilding things," he said. "The key is to get the professional developers, the United Nations, the NGOs. But if you don't have the military to provide security you won't get reconstruction."

Currently, there are no civilian foreign aid workers in the province because of insecurity.

Seth G. Jones, of the U.S.-based think tank RAND Corporation, who traveled to Afghanistan earlier this year, sounds a warning about the need to focus on places like Zabul.

"NATO and the U.S. will win or lose in Afghanistan in the rural villages and districts of the country, not in the capital city of Kabul," he said in an interview. "In Afghanistan, all politics is local."
_____

AP reporter Noor Khan contributed to this report
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Corruption linked to Afghan drug trade
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 27 (UPI) -- Officials in Afghanistan have alleged that widespread corruption throughout the government has limited the recent fight against the nation's drug trade.
The Financial Times reported Friday that several Afghan officials claim that recent reports of success from drug enforcement agents are likely not indicative of the truth in light of widespread government corruption.

"When teams go out to eradicate, we have had reports that they are making deals and will not start their work if they are paid off," said Col. Mohammed Hussain, an Afghan Interior Ministry liaison official, told the newspaper.

While one police officer in Kandahar reported finding massive amounts of opium plants at the site of a recent eradication effort, the city's governor denied the corruption allegations.

Assadullah Khalid told the Financial Times that all drug enforcement efforts are observed by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime to ensure success.

"With each group of eradicators, we had two guys and the UNODC to monitor our own team. I am happy with the results but we still need alternative livelihoods to support the people," Khalid said.
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Marines recalled during investigation
Fri Apr 27, 2:13 PM ET Associated Press
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Eight members of a Marine Corps company involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an ambush last month in  Afghanistan were brought back to Camp Lejeune while an investigation continues, a base spokesman said Friday.

The March 4 shootings — which came after a minivan rigged with explosives rammed the Marines' convoy — left 12 people dead including a 1-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, according to a report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission.

The panel said Marines fired indiscriminately at pedestrians, motorists and public transportation passengers along a stretch of road in Nangahar province.

The special operations company commander, the senior sergeant and six members of the company were recalled to their base at Camp Lejeune earlier this month, said Maj. Cliff Gilmore, spokesman for the Marine Corps Special Operation Command.

The rest of the company of 120 Marines, part of the 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion, was ordered out of Afghanistan after the incident but remains deployed in the region.

A senior U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on April 11 that a U.S. military commander determined that the Marines used excessive force and referred the case for possible criminal inquiry. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe's results have not been released.

Gilmore said he didn't know when the Navy's probe would be completed. No charges have been filed, and Gilmore didn't release the names of the Marines brought back to the North Carolina base.

"What I expect is a very detailed and thorough investigation," Gilmore said.

Gilmore said the company has a new company commander and senior sergeant. The unit had left Camp Lejeune in January for a six-month deployment aboard Navy ships with 2,200 Marines and sailors.
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Karzai Regime Censors Rebuffed By Tolo TV
www.skyreporter.com
Committee’s View Of Attorney General’s Claims “Unjust”

Managers of Afghanistan’s most popular independent broadcaster describe as “unjust and inequitable” a demand from the Western-sponsored government’s Information Ministry that they apologize to the official who ordered last week’s violent police raid of the station.

The broadcasters' statement released today concludes: "Tolo TV is not able to apologise to a person or organization in respect of wrongs it has not committed."

President Karzai’s Information Minister, Kharim Khoram, is a confederate of rogue Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet, who dispatched more than 50 armed policemen against Tolo TV’s studios. Seven reporters were detained and beaten. No warrants had been issued.

Both Sabet and Khoram are former long time aides to fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan’s and the West’s most-wanted terrorists. They are allied with other notorious figures who are attempting to smother free journalism in the capital – evidently with the tacit approval of President Karzai’s international backers. No condemnation of the raid has been forthcoming from US, British or Canadian officials.

For more about the Karzai regime’s crackdown on the media, see skyreporter’s earlier dispatches on the case. For more about Sabet, Britain’s and Canada’s man on the Karzai team, see ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE and the AFGHAN HEROIN series.
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Rogue Attorney General Humbled By Gen. Amerkhel’s Return
 skyreporter.com
General Aminullah Amerkhel, whose suspension as chief of police at Kabul Airport led to a reported surge of heroin smuggling, has returned to Afghanistan from exile in London to face down his now-discredited accuser, Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet.

Prior to leaving London for Kabul Tuesday, Amerkhel thanked skyreporter.com for detailing his plight in our series of film reports, AFGHAN HEROIN, which can be viewed in previous file pages to the left of this screen. “Thank you, from me and my family,” Amerkhel said by telephone. “You are the number one reason I’m able to go back home.”

Amerkhel’s return, however, is first and foremost a victory for Senate Speaker Sibgatullah Mojadidi, who in a series of meetings with Hamid Karzai has pressed the President to restrain his reckless, hot-headed Attorney General. Transcripts of skyreporter’s stories about Sabet’s bizarre crusade against Amerkhel were discussed at several of these meetings.

Over a six month period, Attorney General Sabet has failed to produce detailed charges in the case. Both Interpol and British police shunned his attempts to have Amerkhel arrested in London. This, even though Sabet is allegedly in the pay of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency (see ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE, April 24).

The British are thought to have tired of Attorney General Sabet’s controversies – not least his order, last week, for a jackboot-style police raid on the country’s most popular independent source of news, Tolo TV.

But unquestionably, Sabet’s downward spiral began with the unexplained and arbitrary removal of one of the country’s most effective drug-busting policemen. Amerkhel’s senior colleagues have said - on the record and on camera – that the general is a sound, experienced officer. Only out of respect for Afghanistan’s constitution, they explained, have they been forced to acquiesce to the Attorney General’s actions.

Now, that same constitution is coming back to haunt Sabet. Like the arrests and beatings at Tolo TV last week, Sabet’s campaign against Amerkhel appears to be legally groundless. Worse, according to senior lawmen and legislators, the suspension was followed by a resumption of heroin trafficking.

subsequent to Sabet’s suspension of Amerkhel - and despite the Attorney General’s reported limited means - he began developing an expensive residential lot overlooking one of Kabul’s most exclusive neighbourhoods. Sources have told skyreporter that Sabet also increased his staff. His circle of personal confederates has grown, too, though not entirely on the government payroll.

As for Amerkhel’s future, parliamentary sources indicate that a number of the general’s fellow police officials intend to clear his name - and put him back to work against the country’s drug gangs. Sabet, meantime, has taken news of Amerkhel’s return angrily, and has planted at least one story with a pro-regime news outlet claiming that there are still charges to be answered.

For now, though, Amerkhel is enjoying a reunion with his wife and six children. It’s a far different fate than the one Sabet had planned for him last autumn. Arrest proceedings were underway, meaning that the general would have been jailed alongside many criminals he had helped convict.

Fearing for his life, Amerkhel fled to London, using an entry visa from an earlier visit to Britain sponsored by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s transport minister. On that occasion, the general had consulted with Britain’s head of aviation security and other top civil servants, passing on his knowledge and advice.

Now, a valued and trusted lawman is back on the ground in Afghanistan. How his case proceeds will say much about the Karzai administration’s struggle to regain some measure of credibility.
Abdul Jabar Sabet is still in his office - the office where seven reporters found themselves one night last week, arrested without warrants and beaten, some severely.
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Problems of Afghan students in Iran discussed
TEHRAN, April 26 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Problems of around 130,000 Afghan children enrolled in Iranian schools were discussed threadbare at a meeting here, a local media report said on Thursday.

UNHCR representative Austin Brawni, Afghan Charge de Affaires Abdul Ghafur and UNICEF Bureau Director in Tehran Christian Salazar conferred on the situation of the Afghan children studying in Iran.

Over the last three decades, IRNA quoted the Afghan charge de affaires as saying, three generations of his compatriots had moved to Iran, where more than a million of them were still living.

Residence cards for most of the 130,000 Afghan students were a big problem, Abdul Ghafur said, adding the school network in his country was in a shambles as a result of decades of conflict.

Thirty years of war have left 80 percent of schools demolished in Afghanistan, where two million children are taught in outdoor classes, according to the charge de affaires. Half of the six million students in his country were deprived of academic facilities, Ghafur continued.

About 10 percent of the Afghan population was living in Iran, or 1-35th of the Iranian population comprised Afghans, said UNHCR representative Austin Brawni, who argued taking care of such a large number of refugees was no easy job.

He observed: "The Afghan refugees here have urged Iranian policymakers and planners to shoulder a great deal of work for their residence, occupation, schooling and repatriation."

Christian Salazar, UNICEF Bureau director in Tehran, informed the meeting the UN Fund for Children had allocated a separate budget for the education of Afghan children, especially in Sistan-Balochistan.

He also referred to meetings with heads of Iranian schools where Afghan children were studying, Education Ministry officials and civil society members on resolving the problems facing the refugee children.
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