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August 11, 2007 

Musharraf to join meeting of leaders in Afghanistan
By Taimoor Shahand Carlotta Gall New York Times 08/11/2007 01:35:22 AM PDT
KABUL, Afghanistan - As hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan delegates entered a second day of discussions, the office of Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, announced Friday that he would attend the conclusion of the assembly, which was aimed at trying to end the terrorism and insurgency threatening both countries.

In what had been seen as a slight to Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, Musharraf canceled his participation at the so-called Peace Jirga in Kabul on Thursday. He met instead with chief aides to consider imposing emergency rule to cope with the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan, and then backed away from that idea.

The jirga, a meeting of tribal elders and political leaders that is to end this weekend, is Karzai's main political initiative this year, and was agreed upon when Musharraf and Karzai met with President Bush in Washington last September.

It is intended to be the first of two meetings, one in Afghanistan and one in Pakistan, and Karzai hopes that the jirga, based on traditional tribal structures, will help win support in Pakistan, which he says remains the main source of extremism and militancy in the region.

Musharraf, however, has been less enthusiastic about the idea from the start, and Pakistani officials have questioned the need and effectiveness of such a tribal tradition. They have also expressed irritation that Afghanistan accuses its neighbor of supporting the Taliban and being the source

of extremism. Government officials urged delegates to counter any such accusations, according to a delegate.
Opening the proceedings Thursday, Karzai described pardoning a 14-year-old Pakistani boy who was caught by the police when he was sent from a religious school in Pakistan as a suicide bomber into Afghanistan.

"Who are they who are sending suicide bombers into Afghanistan?" the president asked the assembled delegates, some 350 from Afghanistan and 300 from Pakistan.

"Are they representatives of the people or religion? Or are they enemies of both? These are the questions we have to find answers to, otherwise there will be insecurity in the region. If we do not find the answers there will be continuing enmity with Islam, and enmity among Pakistanis and Afghans."

Pakistan itself is suffering from militancy, too, Karzai pointed out. Nearly 300 people have died in violence since the government battled militants in the Red Mosque in the center of Islamabad last month. Pakistani forces are in just about daily combat with militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, as are NATO and Afghan forces in this country.

In western Afghanistan, seven Afghan soldiers and 20 militants were killed Friday in battles between the insurgents and Afghan and NATO forces, Afghanistan's defense ministry said.

Sixteen Pakistani soldiers were believed kidnapped Thursday by Taliban rebels in South Waziristan, in the tribal areas, and Pakistan's military said at least 10 Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters had been killed in air attacks.
Taimoor Shah reported from Kabul, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.
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More assaults on militants as Musharraf prepares for Kabul jirga
Sat Aug 11, 3:48 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani helicopter gunships launched new assaults Saturday on Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the mountainous northwest as President Pervez Musharraf prepared to address a peace summit in Kabul.

Cobra helicopters killed three suspected militants, pounding what was believed to be their base after a firefight Saturday in Mir Ali town in North Waziristan tribal district, the military said.

"A security convoy was passing when an improvised explosive device planted by militants exploded, causing no harm to the security personnel," chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP.

"Armed miscreants then attacked security men with automatic weapons that injured a soldier.

"In retaliatory firing by helicopters three miscreants were killed," Arshad said.

The continuing violence in the tribal area comes amid a joint tribal gathering organised by Pakistan and the Afghan government in Kabul to discuss ways to counter the Al-Qaeda and Taliban threat.

Musharraf cancelled his trip Thursday to the inaugural session of the "peace jirga" which is being attended by around 700 tribal elders from the border regions.

The jirga is scheduled to end on Sunday and the foreign ministry in Islamabad said late Friday the president had agreed "in principle" to address the closing session.

Musharraf's decision to attend the talk-fest followed a conversation with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who telephoned him Thursday to discuss the jirga as well as reports he was considering imposing a state of emergency, the foreign ministry said.

The turnaround also followed a call late Friday from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who again urged him to attend the gathering which runs to Sunday.

Relations between Karzai and Musharraf have been strained over the resurgence of the Taliban, which was driven from government by a US-led coalition in 2001 after having been helped to power by Pakistan in 1996.

The border regions have become an intense headache for Musharraf, who is facing accusations from Washington and at home that not enough is being done to root out the terrorist presence on the Pakistani side of the border.

He has been angered by the accusations, and suggestions of unilateral US airstrikes on the region.

While the Kabul jirga, brokered by US President George W. Bush during a meeting in Washington in September with Karzai and Musharraf, had meant to bring together representatives of all the tribal regions, elders from two of the most volatile areas boycotted.

North and South Waziristan refused to send delegates, citing the lack of Taliban representation and saying that without all parties to the problem being present, no solution could be reached.

North and South Waziristan, two of Pakistan's seven border tribal areas, have become notorious hideouts for operatives of both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, which use the region to plan assaults in Pakistan, Afghanistan and worldwide.

Pakistani media have reported that Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives intimidate and sometimes murder people who oppose their presence.

Arshad earlier said security forces were focussing on squeezing them out.

"We are responding with greater force against militant attacks on security forces now," Arshad said Friday. "The action is not being done under any outside pressure. We know Al-Qaeda is present in the region, there are Taliban elements and their local supporters and we are acting against them in our own national interest."

Musharraf on Thursday decided not to impose a state of emergency, ignoring the advice of aides who wanted strong action to prevent more instability in the troubled nation.
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Pakistan proposes joint tribal council with Afghanistan
Dawn (Pakistan) By Ismail Khan
PESHAWAR, Aug 10: At the ongoing grand peace jirga in Kabul, Pakistan has proposed formation of a joint tribal council to open negotiations with Afghan resistance groups and work for a ceasefire to create necessary conditions for peaceful resolution of the conflict, an official document made available to Dawn reveals.

The six-page document — titled “Pak-Afghan Jirga: Draft Declaration” — says that Pakistan would call for durable institutions to guarantee the unity and stability of Afghanistan and underline the need for peace as a ‘critical prerequisite’ for the prosperity of the Afghan people.

The document, which was distributed among the delegates of the jirga, said there was no military solution to the current conflict in Afghanistan.

It calls for the creation of a tribal council or a peace and reconciliation jirga, comprising 25 representatives each from Pakistan and Afghanistan, authorised by the grand jirga and also by the government of Afghanistan, “to immediately undertake to open negotiations with the resistance on how best and how soon to end violence in the country.”

The tribal council, it says, shall comprise only tribesmen and will not include any government representatives from the two sides.

The council, says the document, would solicit the response of the resistance and engage with the government in Kabul on how best to find common ground between the positions held by the two sides, keeping in mind the imperatives of the unity of Afghanistan, its territorial integrity, sovereignty and its fundamental character as an Islamic, democratic country.

It says that the tribal council would address all issues which impact on the impasse as far as negotiations between the government and resistance are concerned and seek a comprehensive resolution to the conflict within the framework of a united Afghanistan free of militancy and extremism and address the root cause of the conflict and violence including the question of the presence of coalition forces in that country.

The document says that as soon as the peace and conciliation jirga begins its consultations with the resistance, including the Taliban and the Hezb-i-Islami (Hekmatyar), a ceasefire should come into effect between the resistance and Afghan/coalition forces for a period to be mutually agreed upon.

“This would give a respite to both the resistance and the (Afghan) government to consider coolly and dispassionately the grave situation confronting the nation and the likely options on how best to resolve the conflict,” it says.

According to the draft declaration, Pakistan would also seek the Grand Jirga to call upon the resistance to show vision and maturity and respond positively in order to achieve a breakthrough in ending violence and creating an environment in which they too can join the mainstream Afghan institutions.

Pakistan would also seek the Grand Jirga to resolve that a key component for peace in Afghanistan is the security and stability of the Pak-Afghan border.

“All possible measures, therefore, must be adopted to ensure that this becomes a border of peace and friendship bringing the two countries closer together” and those crossing the border with ulterior motives must be confronted by institutions and systems rooted in the culture of the area.

Pakistan will be seeking the establishment of border peace monitoring committees, on both sides of the border, comprising tribesmen living across the Durand Line to be assisted by officials concerned from both sides to undertake to monitor movement of people across the border, identify the main routes and bring tribal pressure to bear on people involved in sabotage.

The draft declaration also seeks to call upon the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to draw up a comprehensive Border Infrastructure Development Project in cooperation with the international community for speedy uplift of the tribes along the borders.

According to the draft declaration, Pakistan would also be seeking the creation of a Pak-Afghan Peace and Friendship Commission, as a permanent institution mandated to not only implement the decisions of the Grand Jirga but also carry forward the task of building bridges of trust and cordiality, accommodation and tolerance.

It may be mentioned here that Pakistan has constituted seven working committees to deliberate on strengthening bilateral relations, make an appraisal of factors and circumstances which contribute to the growth of terrorism and militancy, devise a bilateral mechanism to combat terrorism through cooperation and joint strategy.

It has also set up separate working committees to firm up recommendations on ways to deny sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists and to elements involved in subversive and anti-state activities in each other country and to initiate immediate action-specific intelligence exchanges.

One committee has been formed to work out an effective mechanism to tackle the alarming increase in poppy cultivation, processing and trafficking in both countries and the underlying connection between terrorism and drug trafficking.

Two other working committees have been formed to enhance goodwill and create further confidence-building measures and mechanism and agree on bilateral mechanism comprising an adequate number of members from each side to meet periodically to facilitate the implementation of the decisions and recommendations made by the Grand Jirga and discuss any other related issues.

The seven committees, according to the document, already have draft recommendations which would further be deliberated upon during the course of the joint jirga.
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US welcomes Musharraf's decision to attend Pak-Afghan peace Jirga
By ANI Saturday August 11, 10:22 AM
Islamabad, Aug 11 (ANI): The United States welcomed the decision of President Pervez Musharraf to attend Pak-Afghan Joint Jirga.

US State Department said that President Musharraf's decision to attend Pak-Afghan Jirga bespeaks Pakistan's sincerity in war against terrorism.

President Musharraf decided to attend the concluding session of Pak-Afghan Jirga on Saturday in Kabul.

The Foreign Ministry said Musharraf agreed "in principle" to address the closing session of the joint Pak-Afghan peace jirga.

Musharraf agreed to address the anti-terror conference after Afghan President Hamid Karzai phoned him, the ministry said.

Karzai said that Musharraf's personal participation would be a source of support and encouragement for the jirga, The News reported.

Musharraf was originally due to attend the opening of the conference on Thursday, but pulled out of the three-day long Joint Peace Jirga, reportedly on security grounds.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz attended the opening session of the ongoing three-day Jirga in Kabul.

Karzai first suggested the idea of a joint Afghan-Pakistan peace jirga during talks with US President George W Bush in September.

In October, Karzai said he saw the jirga as an attempt to revive Pashtun civil society on both sides of the border, to combat what he called the growing "Talebanisation" of the region.

Jirgas are a traditional method of decision-making and dispute-resolution. The Taleban have denounced the jirga, calling the process "George Bush's initiative". (ANI)
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Conflicting claims on Taliban-held Korean hostages
Saturday, August 11, 2007
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban said on Saturday they had freed two female South Korean hostages, but local and national government officials said they had no knowledge of such a release.

"Today at 6.30 pm (1330 GMT), we released two of the female Korean hostages who were seriously ill, without any condition," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location.

"It's possible that at any moment they will reach Ghazni, it all depends on the transport. As far as we are concerned, they are free ... It's a gesture of good faith to the people of Korea and to the Korean delegation in Afghanistan."

However, the governor of Ghazni province, where the group of Korean church volunteers were seized on July 20 and are thought to be held, and a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said they had no knowledge of any release.

The Taliban have already killed two male hostages and threatened to kill more among the remaining 21, 18 of whom are women, unless Taliban prisoners are freed in exchange.

Earlier, the insurgents had said talks with Korean diplomats were going well and the hostages would be freed in a prisoner swap, although a provincial governor was less optimistic.

"We assure you and the whole world that all of the Koreans will be released and will go to their homes," Mawlavi Nasrullah, one of two Taliban negotiators in the talks, told reporters.

"And our prisoners will come to their homes," he said in the city of Ghazni, where the Taliban and Korean diplomats have been holding face-to-face talks since late Friday.

The second Taliban negotiator, Qari Bashir, said: "We are very hopeful that this issue will be resolved today or tomorrow inshallah (God willing)." He said the hostages were well.

IMMINENT SWAP?

The governor of Ghazni, who was present during the talks, said he did not know why the Taliban were predicting an imminent swap of hostages for Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government.

"I don't know anything about that. You should ask the Taliban. I don't know why the Taliban are so sure," Merajuddin Pattan told Reuters after the talks had finished for the day. "I don't know how long this drama is going to continue.

"We haven't got any clear result so far and the talks will continue tomorrow. The Taliban are still asking for the release of 21 prisoners. We'll see what will happen," he said.

A government official in Seoul also said the release of the hostages was not imminent.

The South Korean government is under intense domestic pressure to secure the safe release of the hostages, but has no power on its own to grant the kidnappers' demand for a swap with Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government.

Afghanistan's authorities and allies like the United States fear releasing Taliban prisoners in exchange for the Koreans would encourage more kidnappings.

Afghan officials have previously ruled out any prisoner swap and have threatened to free the hostages by force if necessary.

The talks are being held at a Red Crescent building in the city of Ghazni where the Afghan government has guaranteed the safety of the Taliban negotiators.

The Taliban say they have split the hostages into small groups and said any use of force to try to free them would put their lives at risk.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul and Cheon Jong-woo in Seoul)
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Taliban: Koreans' release may come soon
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
GHAZNI, Afghanistan - A Taliban leader taking part in hostage negotiations for the lives of 21 South Koreans said Saturday that the hostages would "definitely" be released and possibly as soon as "today or tomorrow."

Mullah Qari Bashir said that face-to-face negotiations with four Korean officials that began Friday were going well and that the Taliban were sticking with their original demand — that 21 Taliban prisoners be released from prisons in Afghanistan.

"God willing the government (of Afghanistan) and the government of Korea will accept this," Bashir said outside the Afghan Red Cross office in Ghazni. "Definitely these people will be released. God willing our friends (Taliban militants in prison) will be released."

Asked when the Koreans might be freed, he said: "Hopefully today or tomorrow."

"I'm very optimistic. The negotiations are continuing on a positive track," Bashir said.

Four South Korean officials and two top Taliban leaders met in person Saturday for a second round of talks over the fate of the 21 members of a church group held hostage for three weeks.

The six officials met for four hours Friday evening in their first face-to-face talks. The South Korean president's office confirmed the meeting but declined to give details, citing the safety of the captives.

"They are healthy and happy and secure," Bashir said of the Korean captives.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujaheed, said Saturday that the government in Kabul gave the Taliban leaders — Bashir and Mullah Nasorullah — a written guarantee also signed by American and other foreign officials that the two Taliban would be safe.

The talks are being held at the Afghan Red Cross office in Ghazni. Red Cross officials drove the Korean delegates and the Taliban leaders to the office Saturday in separate vehicles.

Marajudin Pathan, the local governor, said Friday that the Afghan government has "given them the freedom of secrecy to talk with each other." He said no Afghan officials were taking part in the talks.

He said the government had guaranteed the Taliban members' "safety and security."

Though Pathan has said the crisis was likely to be resolved by a ransom payment, the Taliban leaders on Saturday said they were still demanding that 21 militant prisoners be released. The Afghan government has said previously that it would not release the prisoners out of fear it would encourage future kidnappings.

The kidnapping of the 23 Koreans — the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion — underscores the rise of the Taliban's power in rural Afghanistan the last two years, a time of increasing violence driven by a rise in suicide blasts and roadside bombings.

The remaining captives — volunteers from a church group who planned to do health work in Afghanistan — include 16 women and five men. Two male captives were executed by gunfire.

Nasorullah, the other Taliban leader taking part in the talks, appealed to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush to release Taliban prisoners. He acknowledged that people in Korea are sad for their hostages but said he was sad for his militants friends in prison.

"I want to say to the world and Karzai and Bush to release my friends," Nasorullah said.
___
Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.
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Afghan Crisis Casts Shadow on Korea
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH The Associated Press Saturday, August 11, 2007; 2:22 PM
SEOUL, South Korea -- The pews of the 12,000-seat auditorium are packed for Sunday services and the capital's skyline is aglow with red neon crosses. Those not inside the Yoido Full Gospel Church _ the world's largest congregation _ can watch the sermons online in 16 languages.

South Korea has an ancient tradition of Buddhism, but in recent times evangelists have put Christianity on track to becoming the nation's dominant faith. Korean missionary work, second only to the United States, places it at the forefront of the global search for converts.

But the kidnapping of 23 church volunteers in Afghanistan July 19 is forcing churches to think again.

In recent years, hundreds of volunteers have been expelled from Afghanistan, Egypt and China, while others were detained or killed in Iraq. Some press ahead in Somalia, even though it was declared off-limits by the Korean government.

Two of the hostages in Afghanistan_ a clergyman and another man _ have been shot to death and abandoned by the roadside. The fate of the remaining five men and 16 women, remains uncertain.

The church and the hostages' relatives say the volunteers were working on humanitarian projects and were not evangelizing.

They are mostly in their 20s and 30s, and belonged to the Presbyterian Saemmul Community Church, which has roughly 3,800 followers, in the town of Bundang just south of Seoul.

Many attended Bible school together and trained as nurses, teachers, musicians, engineers, and a hairdresser before setting off to Afghanistan on a trip headed by a pastor with the Korean Foundation for World Aid, a non-governmental agency guided by Christian beliefs.

There were 16,616 South Koreans posted in 173 countries as of January, according to the Korea World Missions Association.

The country's recent embrace of Christianity, once a tiny minority, has spurred one of the most dramatic national religious shifts in the last century. It now equals Buddhism at around 26 percent out of a population of 49 million, according to conservative estimates. The remainder have no stated religious affiliation.

Americans successfully introduced Christianity to Korea 120 years ago, but it has really gained a foothold since the 1960s, after 35 years of Japanese occupation and the 1950-1953 Korean War that left about 2 million Koreans dead.

South Korean missionary work is driven by a sense of postwar moral debt to the foreign missionaries who built schools, hospitals and orphanages. The church won further support for helping bring democracy to South Korea in the 1980s.

Christian groups also provide extensive humanitarian help to neighboring North Korea, as well as its citizens who flee into China to escape Kim Jong Il's dictatorship.

At U.S. theology centers, Korean missionaries are trained to work in potentially hostile environments by teaching culture and language rather than preaching.

"Many (Korean) ministers, theologians, and seminary professors have been educated in the U.S.," Sung-Deuk Oak, an assistant professor of Korean Christianity at UCLA, told The Associated Press. "American theology is powerful in Korea."

Cross-culture church planting, as it is known in Christian circles, has become "a worldwide trend" that is popular at Korean's dominant Presbyterian church, he said.

South Korean missionary work targets a geographical region of the northern hemisphere, known as the "10/40 window," between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, said Pastor Oh Sung-kwon, Secretary General of the National Council of Churches in Korea.

The area comprises roughly two-thirds of the global population _ predominantly Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, Jewish or atheist _ and 55 countries considered the poorest and least evangelized. Several governments there, particularly Middle Eastern Islamic nations, prohibit Christian aid work and arrest or deport missionaries.

The hostage standoff shows how badly guidelines are needed, Oh said. He feels his government is "too conservative" in assessing potential risks, but acknowledges the church made mistakes.

"It was not a mistake to help Afghans in need, but it was a mistake not to consider security. We are sorry," he said in an interview. "Church leaders are reconsidering our missionary work."

Kim He-jung, a 27-year-old attending services at the Yoido church, said she wrote a will before traveling to Kazakhstan this year on a church trip. "I have received love from God and want to share it. I am ready to sacrifice myself," she said.

Seoul is home to 11 of the world's 12 largest Christian congregations, including Yoido, which began Bible classes in a tent in 1958 and now has 800,000 members and a goal of having 5,000 churches worldwide by 2010.

It runs the Osanri Prayer Mountain retreat, where the devout can lock themselves in cubicles for prayer and fasting, and attracts a million pilgrims annually, tens of thousands of them foreigners.

South Koreans "are very hardworking and deliberate in their faith," said Amanda Thompson, who attended the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the United States with a sister of one of the slain hostages.

"They are a praying people," she said. "They have inspired me and I believe that they could do a great work of inspiration for other Christians as well _ especially in America."
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Dozen insurgents said killed in new Afghan battle
Sat Aug 11, 1:15 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Coalition war planes were called into help a military convoy under attack in southern Afghanistan in a day-long battle estimated to have killed a dozens insurgents, the US-led force said.

About 30 rebels ambushed the reconnaissance patrol from three hilltops as it was moving through the southern province of Kandahar Friday, the coalition said in a statement on Saturday.

The attackers opened fire on the soldiers with heavy machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, it said.

The soldiers retaliated and called in fighter planes for help when the rebels began reinforcing their positions.

"An estimated dozen insurgents were killed in the battle," the coalition said. An Afghan and a coalition soldier were wounded.

A large group of women and children was seen leaving the area before the attack and there were no signs of civilian casualties, it said.

Afghan officials were not immediately available to comment.

The fighting was in the remote and mountainous Myanishen district, which was held by the Taliban for a few days in June.

The ambush follows similar large attacks on Afghan and international troops over the past week, with heavy fighting leaving dozens dead.

Afghan and NATO-led troops came under attack in the western province of Badghis on Friday, sparking fighting that left 20 rebels and seven soldiers dead.

The coalition said 10 militants were confirmed killed when troops fought off an ambush in the southern Helmand province Thursday, but scores more were believed dead or wounded. It has not updated the toll.

On Tuesday about 75 rebels attacked a base in the southern Uruzgan. US-led coalition forces said they killed more than 20 to repel the attack.

Kandahar was the first province taken by the Taliban when it swept to power in 1996. The hardline Islamic militia was driven from government in late 2001 by a US-led coalition and is now waging an Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency.
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Day of bloodshed in Afghanistan mars 'peace jirga'
by Waheedullah Massoud Fri Aug 10, 1:57 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Fresh fighting across Afghanistan left at least 45 people dead Friday, including a British soldier, as a council of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders debated ways to end extremist violence in the region.

On a day of bloodshed which marred the "peace jirga" in Kabul, Taliban militants ambushed a joint Afghan and NATO army convoy, sparking a firefight that killed seven Afghan soldiers and 20 militants, the defence ministry said.

Five "important" Taliban commanders were among the dead, including the rebel movement's commander for western Badghis province, defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"The militants ambushed our convoy," said Azimi, adding that the army called in NATO warplanes to bomb militant positions after the attack.

"We called in friendly forces' air power. Seven Afghan soldiers were martyred in the ambush and 20 enemy elements were also killed," he said.

Eight Afghan army vehicles were destroyed, he said.

Elsewhere in western Afghanistan on Friday, tribal villagers repelled an attack by Taliban fighters in a battle that left five rebels and two civilians dead.

Dozens of Taliban attacked the village of Nal in the western province of Farah, but the locals resisted, provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Sarjang told AFP.

"Five Taliban and two villagers were killed in the clash. We have sent a delegation down there to investigate the incident," he said.

Fighters for the Taliban, the Islamic extremists who governed Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, regularly try to overrun remote areas of the country and already control several districts in the south.

Meanwhile, a British soldier serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed while on patrol in southern Afghanistan's flashpoint Helmand province.

Another British soldier was wounded in the incident, the British defence ministry said.

The soldiers were part of a patrol checking on a local irrigation project near Jusyalay, northeast of Sangin in the volatile southern province when they came under fire from Taliban fighters.

"It was during this engagement that two soldiers were injured. An emergency response helicopter was requested, but sadly one of the soldiers was pronounced dead at the scene," the ministry said in a statement.

"The injuries sustained by the second soldier are not life threatening," it added.

The latest death brings to 129 the number of international troops killed this year, according to an AFP count, most of them in action as the Taliban insurgency has intensified. More than 190 were killed last year.

The US-led coalition earlier announced that air strikes and ground battles between soldiers and insurgents in Helmand on Thursday had killed at least 10 rebels, with many more believed dead or wounded.

Intense clashes have taken place in recent days in the south, a stronghold of the resurgent Taliban, who are seeking to overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The fighting comes as about 700 Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders, religious clerics, parliamentarians and other figures -- many from the troubled border area -- met for a second day Friday on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda threat.

The four-day meeting is expected to come up with a common approach to rooting out the extremists, although analysts say it is unlikely to have much impact.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who abruptly called off an appearance at the opening day of the jirga on Thursday, has now agreed to address the closing session of the conference, his foreign ministry said late Friday.

About 50,000 international troops, more than half of them Americans, are deployed in Afghanistan.
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Officials: Pakistan troops fatally shoot civilian, wound 2 after escaping bomb attack
The Associated Press Saturday, August 11, 2007
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan: Pakistani security forces fatally shot a civilian and wounded two others Saturday in a troubled northwestern tribal region, shortly after a roadside bomb went off near their vehicles, officials said.

The soldiers had been traveling through Mir Ali town in the North Waziristan tribal area when militants tried to blow up their vehicles, a security official said.

The troops responded by firing on suspects who were later found to be local villagers, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of his job.

Pakistan's army confirmed the attack, but provided no further details.

The bomb attack and the subsequent shootout was the latest violence in the restive region near the Afghanistan border.

U.S. and Afghan officials are concerned that Taliban and al-Qaida militants are regrouping in the area.

The attack came a day after Pakistan said President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had agreed to attend the closing session of a meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan, of hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders discussing how to contain the rising militant violence along their shared border.

In a statement Friday, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Musharraf made this decision after receiving a call from his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, who invited him to attend the closing session on Sunday.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the campaign against terrorism, has deployed about 90,000 troops in its tribal regions to flush out foreign militants since the attacks on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001.

Although some tribal elders insist that no foreign militants are hiding in their areas, Pakistani security forces there have regularly been attacked with bombs, rockets and assault rifles.

On Thursday, militants kidnapped 16 paramilitary soldiers as they traveled on a road in nearby South Waziristan.

A Pakistan army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, said Saturday that authorities were still trying to trace and rescue the soldiers.
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Pakistani army targets militant hide-out near Afghan border
The Associated Press Friday, August 10, 2007
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan: Pakistani troops backed by two helicopter gunships attacked a suspected militant hide-out near the Afghan border Friday, but there was no immediate word on casualties, officials said.

The attack was the latest violence in the restive border region, where U.S. and other officials are concerned that Taliban and al-Qaida militants are regrouping.

Friday's attack hit a compound in the village of Boya, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) west of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan area, and suspected militants inside did not get a chance to retaliate, said a local security official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job.

The assault came a day after the military killed at least 10 suspected militants when they fired on two trucks and two cars carrying suspected militants fleeing the bombing of a military convoy in North Waziristan, the army said.

Also Thursday, rebels kidnapped 16 paramilitary soldiers as they traveled on a road in nearby South Waziristan.

On Friday, a local security official said help was being sought from tribal elders to get the soldiers freed.

Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in its war on terror, and it has deployed about 90,000 troops in its tribal regions near Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, in an effort to evict foreign militants and their local supporters.

Although some of the tribal elders claim no foreign militants were hiding in areas under their control, security forces regularly come under attack with bombs, rockets and assault rifles.

Violence in North and neighboring South Waziristan have spiked in the past month.
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Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.
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Moslem leader calls for release of South Korean hostages in Afghanistan
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Din Syamsuddin, the chief of Indonesia`s second largest Islamic organization Muhammadiyah, expressed hope here on Friday that various diplomatic efforts and appeals made by the organization for the release of South Korean social workers being held hostage in Afghanistan would soon be met.

"The Muhammadiyah executive board has issued a press statement calling for the release of the hostages and we hope there will soon be news about their release," he said to newsmen after meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla at his office here.

He said that in the religious summit meeting in Kyoto, Japan, some time ago he had also made a call for the release of the hostages and the call became one of the topics of discussion in the forum.

"We have also conveyed the call through the United Nations," he said.

South Korean ambassador to Indonesia Lee Sun-jin has asked for Muhammadiyah`s moral support for the release of 23 South Korean social workers that had been abducted and now held hostage by the Taliban.

Two of the hostages namely Bae Hyung-kyu and Shim Sung-min had been killed because the abductors` demand was not met.

Din said Muhammadiyah condemned the abduction and considered the action harmful to the peace process and development currently being carried out in Afghanistan.

He said the action was against Islamic teachings and even harmed the image of Islam itself in the international world. He said Islam did not agree with the use of violent methods to achieve goals.
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Fight Less, Win More
By Nathaniel Fick The Washington Post Sunday, August 12, 2007; B01
On a highway north of Kabul last month, an American soldier aimed a machine gun at my car from the turret of his armored Humvee. In the split second for which our eyes locked, I had a revelation: To a man with a weapon, everything looks like a threat.

I had served as an infantry officer in Afghanistan in 2001-02 and in Iraq in 2003, but this was my first time on the other end of an American machine gun. It's not something I'll forget. It's not the sort of thing ordinary Afghans forget, either, and it reminded me that heavy-handed military tactics can alienate the people we're trying to help while playing into the hands of the people we're trying to defeat.

Welcome to the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare -- the kind of war you win by not shooting.

The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause. The laws of these campaigns seem topsy-turvy by conventional military standards: Money is more decisive than bullets; protecting our own forces undermines the U.S. mission; heavy firepower is counterproductive; and winning battles guarantees nothing.

My unnerving encounter on the highway was particularly ironic since I was there, at the invitation of the U.S. Army, to help teach these very principles at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy. The grandly misnamed "academy" is a tiny collection of huts and tents on Kabul's dusty southern outskirts. Since May, motley classes of several dozen Afghan army officers, Afghan policemen, NATO officers, American officers and civilians have been learning and living side by side for a week at a time.

The academy does much more than teach the theory and tactics of fighting the Taliban insurgents who are trying to unseat President Hamid Karzai and claw their way back to power. It is also a rare forum for military officers, civilian aid workers, academics and diplomats -- from Afghanistan and all 37 countries in NATO's International Security Assistance Force -- to unite in trying to bring good governance, prosperity and security to Afghanistan. The curriculum is based on the Army and Marine Corps' new counterinsurgency doctrine, released in December. Classes revolve around four so-called paradoxes of counterinsurgency. Unless we learn all four well, we'll continue to win battles in Afghanistan while losing the war.

The first tenet is that the best weapons don't shoot. Counterinsurgents must excel at finding creative, nonmilitary solutions to military problems.

Consider, for example, the question of roads. When U.N. teams begin building new stretches of road in volatile Afghan provinces such as Zabul and Kandahar, insurgents inevitably attack the workers. But as the projects progress and villagers begin to see the benefits of having paved access to markets and health care, the Taliban attacks become less frequent. New highways then extend the reach of the Karzai administration into previously inaccessible areas, making a continuous Afghan police presence possible and helping lower the overall level of violence -- no mean feat in a country larger and more populous than Iraq, with a shaky central government.

Said another way: Reconstruction funds can shape the battlefield as surely as bombs. But such methods are still not used widely enough in Afghanistan. After spending more than $14 billion in aid to the country since 2001, the United States' latest disbursement, of more than $10 billion, will start this month. Some 80 percent of it is earmarked for security spending, leaving only about 20 percent for reconstruction projects and initiatives to foster good governance.

The second pillar of the academy's curriculum relates to the first: The more you protect your forces, the less safe you may be. To be effective, troops, diplomats and civilian aid workers need to get out among the people. But nearly every American I saw in Kabul was hidden behind high walls or racing through the streets in armored convoys.

Afghanistan, however, isn't Iraq. Tourists travel through much of the country in relative safety, glass office towers are sprouting up in Kabul, and Coca-Cola recently opened a bottling plant. I drove through the capital in a dirty green Toyota, wearing civilian clothes and stopping to shop in bazaars, eat in restaurants and visit businesses. In two weeks, I saw more of Kabul than most military officers do in a year.

This isolation also infects our diplomatic community. After a State Department official gave a presentation at the academy, he and I climbed a nearby hill to explore the ruins of an old palace. He was only nine days from the end of his 12-month tour, and our walk was the first time he'd ever been allowed to get out and explore the city.

Of course, mingling with the population means exposing ourselves to attacks, and commanders have an obligation to safeguard their troops. But they have an even greater responsibility to accomplish their mission. When we retreat behind body armor and concrete barriers, it becomes impossible to understand the society we claim to defend. If we emphasize "force protection" above all else, we will never develop the cultural understanding, relationships and intelligence we need to win. Accepting the greater tactical risk of reaching out to Afghans reduces the strategic risk that the Taliban will return to power.

The third paradox hammered home at the academy is that the more force you use, the less effective you may be. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are notoriously difficult to tally, but 300-500 noncombatants have probably been killed already this year, mostly in U.S. and coalition air strikes. Killing civilians, even in error, is not only a serious moral transgression but also a lethal strategic misstep. Wayward U.S. strikes have seriously undermined the very legitimacy of the Karzai government and made all too many Afghans resent coalition forces. If Afghans lose patience with the coalition presence, those forces will be run out of the country, in the footsteps of the British and the Soviets before them.

I stress this point because one of my many gratifying moments at the academy came at the start of a class on targeting. I told the students to list the top three targets they would aim for if they were leading forces in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold. When I asked a U.S. officer to share his list, he rattled off the names of three senior Taliban leaders to be captured or killed. Then I turned and asked an Afghan officer the same question. "First we must target the local councils to see how we can best help them," he replied. "Then we must target the local mullahs to find out their needs and let them know we respect their authority." Exactly. In counterinsurgency warfare, targeting is more about whom you bring in than whom you take out.

The academy's final lesson is that tactical success in a vacuum guarantees nothing. Just as it did in Vietnam, the U.S. military could win every battle and still lose the war. That's largely because our primary enemies in Afghanistan still have a sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan. Rather than make a suicidal stand against the allied forces invading Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, many Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters melted away to create a parallel "Talibanistan" in the lawless tribal areas of western Pakistan. Last fall, Gen. James Jones, then NATO's supreme commander, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Taliban leadership now operates openly from Quetta, a Pakistani border city that's long been a hotbed of Islamic militancy. Karzai reiterated this point during his visit to Camp David last week.

Chasing terrorists and the Taliban around Afghanistan leads to little lasting progress as long as they can slip across the border to rest and regroup. Since 2001, the United States has tolerated this quiet reconstitution of the Taliban in Pakistan as long as Islamabad granted us basing and overflight rights, tepidly pursued al-Qaeda's leadership and cracked down on A.Q. Khan's nuclear-proliferation network. The Durand Line, which separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, is a mapmaker's fantasy. Without political reform, economic development and military operations on both sides of the border, we can do little more than put a finger in the dike that's keeping radicalism and instability in Pakistan from spilling back into Afghanistan.

On the last afternoon of the course, I asked my students to define victory in Afghanistan. We'd talked about this earlier in the week, and most of their answers had focused on militarily defeating the Taliban or killing Osama bin Laden. Now the Afghan officers took the lead in a spirited discussion with their U.S. and NATO classmates. Finally the group agreed on a unanimous result, which neatly expresses the prize we're striving for: "Victory is achieved when the people of Afghanistan consent to the legitimacy of their government and stop actively and passively supporting the insurgency."

Winning that consent will require doing some difficult and uncomfortable things: de-escalating military force, boosting the capacities of the Karzai government, accelerating reconstruction, getting real with Pakistan. It won't be easy. But the alternative, which I glimpsed while staring down the barrel of that machine gun, is our nation going zero for two in its first wars of the new century.

Nathaniel Fick, a former captain

in the Marines, is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and the author of "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer."
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Taliban mobile radio in parts of Afghanistan
Hamid Mir / The News International (Pakistan) August 11, 2007
KABUL: Taliban have launched their mobile radio station in the eastern and central provinces of Afghanistan. Two days ago Radio Shariat of Taliban started its transmission in Paktia, Paktika, Khost and Ghazni provinces.

Some people listened Radio Shariat in Wardag and in rural areas of Kabul but it was jammed within a few hours. However, its transmission is still going on in the eastern areas and in troubled Ghazni province where Taliban had kidnapped South Koreans a few weeks ago.

Taliban have launched Radio Shariat after six years. They converted Radio Kabul into Radio Shariat in 1996 after capturing Kabul. Afghan government officials have confirmed the existence of Radio Shariat in some parts of the country but they were sure that it would be difficult for Taliban to continue the transmission successfully because they were facing a lot of technical problems and also short of good contents.

“How can they run a radio without music?” commented one Afghan official on Friday. In its transmission, the Radio Shariat criticised the Grand Jirga on Friday and said there can be no peace in Afghanistan as long as foreign invaders are present on Afghan soil.

During the last three days, Radio Shariat urged Afghans many time to rise and join Jihad against the infidels. But more surprisingly, this radio is silent on suicide bombings and also on the kidnapping of 21 South Koreans.

Government sources in Kabul were trying their best to jam the transmission of Radio Shariat In eastern provinces. These sources are sure that Taliban are running this mobile radio from Mazda truck which is changing its location continuously.
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Issue of Indian consulates delays committee recommendations
KABUL, Aug 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Contentious issues pertaining to closure of Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar as well direct talks with the Taliban by the Afghan government delayed the submission of recommendations by first working committee of the Peace Jirga on Saturday.

The two proposals came from the Pakistani members of the committee. However, the Afghan members objected and argued that those were the internal issues of Afghanistan and must be omitted. Later, the two sides agreed to set aside the suggestions.

In its recommendations, the first working committee asked for boosting cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan and acting upon the policy of non-interference in each other's internal affairs.

Member of the committee from Pakistan Ilyas Bilour told Pajhwok Afghan News they agreed to recommend cooperation and non-interference in internal affairs of each other by the neighbours.

Muhammad Kabir Ranjbar, member of the committee from Afghanistan, said the Pakistani members wanted to add a suggestion regarding replacement of foreign troops with soldiers from Islamic countries in Afghanistan.

However, he said, the suggestion was rejected on the ground that it was the matter pertaining to internal and foreign policy of Afghanistan. The suggestion was later removed from the agenda.

Ranjbar said the two sides agreed on non-interference in the internal affairs of each other, increase in economic cooperation, establishment of railway links, cultural cooperation and exchange of specialists and teachers between universities of the two countries.

The agenda assigned to committee No. 1 included strengthening of bilateral ties based on good neighborliness, non-interference in internal affairs of each other, adopting confidence-building measures and setting up of direct contacts between political parties, civil society, intellectuals, media and sportsmen.

The committee was co-chaired by Azizullah Wasifi (Afghanistan) and Ali Muhammad Jan Auragzai (Pakistan) with Muhammad Gul Kochi and Khalid Aziz as their secretaries respectively.
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Moscow in bid to challenge foreign mly presence in Afghanistan
Abdul Rauf Liwal 
KABUL, Aug 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The recent test of a sea-based ballistic missile and a rocket attack on a village in Georgia are pointers to Russia's plans to challenge the presence and increasing influence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO (NATO) in the region, said political and military analysts.

In a statement last month, the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.

It said the treaty had been suspended due to "extraordinary circumstances which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures".

Analyst Waheed Muzhda said the mentioned treaty the Collective Security Treaty (CST) was the major source for ensuring security in Europe. However, by withdrawing form the treaty, Russia could deploy increasing troops on its borders.

Russia, both directly and indirectly, wants to prevent expansion of NATO in the region and this is why it is creating hurdles in the way of its expansion. Muzdha mentioned the presence of new rockets with Taliban, that can down NATO aircrafts, as the proof of his claim.

The revolution of Mikheil Saakashvill in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, the victory of Victorio Yushenkov and Pink Revolution in Kyrgyzstan were alarm signals for Russia.

Another analyst, who declined to be named, told this writer that Russia wanted to create trouble for the United States and NATO by activities in the region. Therefore, he argued, Russia encouraged the formation of an alliance in the name of Afghanistan National Front to present some sort of resistance to NATO and the Afghanistan government.

At the same, he said, former bases of Afghan mujahideen in Iran were now been used by Lashkar-i-Muhammad Rasulullah led by Yahya Khordtarak who is fighting foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Ahmad Behzad, MP from the western province of Herat, said Quds forces of Iran was member of the Pasdaran soldiers of Iran planned equipping militants inside Afghanistan.

Noorul Haq Uloomi, another parliamentarian in the Lower House, said NATO expansion in Asia and South Asia was not acceptable to Russia because it considered their presence here as a danger to its superiority in the region.

In a meeting, the Defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) had decided to hold the biggest-ever joint counterterrorism military exercise, evolving into more of the Defence Alliance aimed at countering US global influence in military action in Afghanistan.

The first anti-Western indication came two years ago when SCO called on the United States and its NATO allies to set a timetable to withdraw its troops from Central Asia.


The Uzbek government also evicted the US forces from Manas airbase which had been a transit point for combat operations in Afghanistan.

At least 1,600 Chinese soldiers, 2,000 Russian military personnel and 2,400 solders from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are part of the this year's exercise called Peace Mission 2007 taking place in Russia's Urals and China's Xingjian regions.

Sher Muhammad Karimi, an official at the Ministry of Defence, told this news agency that Russia was enjoying supremacy in the region and that was why it was opposing efforts by other countries to get a foothold here and challenge its supremacy.

Sensing the United States' efforts to strength its military ties with countries of the region despite being 14,000-kilometer away, Russia accelerated struggle to get closer to the Central Asian countries.

Muhammad Hassan Wolasmal, political analyst, said the United States had long-term plans in the region. It wanted complete dominance here. At the same time, US wanted to install a regime of its liking in Iran to get control over its oil reserves, said Wolasmal.

In order to thwart the US plans for its dominance in the region, Russia wanted to support Taliban and militancy in Afghanistan to convert Afghanistan into another Vietnam by lending support to Iran.
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German military to stay in Afghanistan until Taliban defeat: MP
Aug 11, 2007, 16:39 GMT Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Berlin - The German military must stay in Afghanistan until the Taliban has been defeated, the leader of the Germany's Christian Democrat parliamentary party said in an interview made available Saturday.

The German mission was not just about the people in Afghanistan but also 'about ourselves,' Volker Kauder told Berlin-based weekly Tagesspiegel am Sonntag in a statement to be published Sunday.

Those asking for a withdrawal of German troops 'seriously threaten our security,' Kauder said.

The Taliban were closely following current discussions in Germany and drawing new courage from them, he added.

'But if we say clearly: we'll stay until the Taliban have been defeated, it will weaken their position. The people in Afghanistan also have to be reassured that they can rely on us,' Kauder said.

The former Social Democrat minister Egon Bahr, meanwhile, has called for an increase of the international forces in Afghanistan from their current 40,000 to 'no less than 200,000 men.'

The troops should not stay for one year only, 'but for five or ten years,' Bahr told Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag. The German military should also send more troops, Bahr said, although exact numbers had to be decided on after a detailed NATO analysis of the situation.

Bahr was the brain behind Germany's Ostpolitik (policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union) in chancellor Willy Brandt's social-liberal government coalition during the late 1960s and early 70s.

The fate of the German engineer kidnapped in Afghanistan three and a half weeks ago, meanwhile, remained uncertain on Saturday.

'The crisis staff is working around the clock to free the German hostage,' a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry said in Berlin without giving any further details.

Engineer Rudolf B, 62, was abducted together with a colleague on July 18 - one day before the group of South Koreans.

Forty-four-year-old Ruediger D was killed by his kidnappers. According to the post-mortem report, he was shot dead after a dizzy spell.
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Police terrorized by Taliban
August 10, 2007 Washington Times By Jason Motlagh
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Haidari knows that when he graduates from the Kabul police academy this month, he will take on one of the most dangerous — and most poorly paid — jobs in Afghanistan.

But what worries him more than the Taliban extremists, who increasingly are aiming their attacks at the lightly armed and poorly equipped police, is the thought he may be posted to work in a remote region under a corrupt commander.

“My friends who have been sent to the provinces say their officers have told them to steal from the people and take money from criminals,” the 23-year-old recruit said just days before his graduation ceremony. “I"m scared of getting a police commander who works with the Taliban.”

There are plenty of reasons for a new officer to be uneasy. Police are dying at a record rate this year, easy targets for Taliban forces who, after losing hundreds of fighters in head-on confrontations with NATO forces last summer, have turned to suicide and hit-and-run attacks.

The Washington Times reported in early June that more than 200 police officers had been killed in the previous 10 weeks.

“These days, [the Taliban] are killing police, not army soldiers so much,” Mr. Haidari said as several fellow trainees nodded. “We are still ready.”

The Taliban appears to have adopted a deliberate strategy of trying to frighten off new police recruits, demonstrating there is no place where they are safe. At least 35 persons, most of them police trainees, were killed in a June 17 bus bombing directly outside the police headquarters in Kabul.

“Strategically, it makes sense to attack Afghan security forces where ... it gives people a complex about whether it is worth joining,” said Hekmat Karzai, head of the Kabul-based Center for Conflict and Peace Studies.

The police are especially vulnerable because they are spread so thinly. In some districts, there are just 25 to 30 officers to serve a population of 100,000 people, providing daily law enforcement while battling insurgents when necessary and lending a hand in drug eradication.

“In remote areas of the country, the only force that you can find that is active there, that is working there, is the police,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary.

When they do encounter the Taliban, the police are poorly equipped for the fight. While insurgents strike with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, police carry only AK-47s and other dated weaponry.

With all the dangers, police officers earn $70 a month — about half of what army troops are paid — and up to $10 of that is often siphoned off by corrupt officials before payday, said one veteran officer who requested anonymity.

“We love our country and are working without salary sometimes,” said Maj. Gen. Said Zal, a ranking officer at the Kabul academy.

Some officers have not been paid in more than a year, making them more likely to turn to illicit activities such as protecting this year's record opium poppy crop.

District command posts have been sold to the highest bidder, who then can glean drug profits, a recent report from the International Crisis Group said.

However, efforts are under way to ensure a more honest and capable national police force.

The European Union is taking over police training duties from Germany, and has committed to sending advisers to restive provinces where they will work with the Afghan government to attract and train new recruits.

The plan is to add 20,000 police to the current level of about 62,000 over the next couple of years, Mr. Bashary said.

The government is also putting together a 5,000-man reserve force to be based in the central provinces, where it can provide “quick-response support wherever police are attacked,” he said. “They will go in and pound the enemy, and then withdraw.”

Another program aims to hire 11,200 auxiliary officers to supplement forces in restive parts of the country, notably southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

Critics counter that the 10-day training course for auxiliary policemen will undermine the overall strength and integrity of the national police, increasing the likelihood of graft and infiltration by criminal elements.
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Coalition calls on Ottawa to increase funds for AIDS fight
SHERYL UBELACKER Canadian Press August 10, 2007 at 8:08 PM EDT
Toronto — Canada's commitment to the global fight against HIV-AIDS remains woefully inadequate, says a coalition of advocacy groups, marking the one-year anniversary of the international AIDS conference in Toronto.

The Canadian Coalition for Youth and HIV-AIDS in Africa, which includes the country's chapters of CARE, Plan, Save the Children and World Vision, called on the federal government Friday to step up funding for programs to battle the pandemic that has killed 25 million people and infected 40 million more since 1981.

Stephen Lewis, former UN envoy for AIDS in Africa, said that while the number of people receiving antiretroviral drugs to control their infection has risen in the last year — to 2.2 million from 1.6 million a year ago — “we are losing the battle against the virus.”

For every person who began such treatment in 2006, another six people contracted HIV, he said.

“AIDS is a vexing catastrophe in Africa and a looming ominous presence in China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. This is not a virus that will go away.”

Millions of people are desperate for treatment but still have no access to life-sustaining antiretroviral medications, said Mr. Lewis. “Many of them die. All of them who die will die unnecessarily.”

Canada, he said, has not responded robustly enough to the global health crisis, which is decimating communities and families in developing countries, leaving 14 million children orphaned.

“Where is Canada? Where is Canada's voice?” Lewis asked.

“What we need is a government with a voice that spends rather less money on defence and armaments, whether it's Afghanistan or elsewhere, and rather more money on the human condition. And that requires leadership from the present government, which frankly does not exist.”

In an email, Richard Walker, a spokesman for International Co-operation Minister Josee Vernier, countered that the government is “playing a leadership role in ensuring a comprehensive and integrated global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic” by providing about $190-million a year.

The last federal budget, earlier this year, reaffirmed the government's commitment to double overall international assistance from the 2001 level by 2010, the e-mail stated, bringing Canada's international assistance to $4.4-billion by 2008-09.

Last year's federal budget provided $250-million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, bringing Canada's total commitment to the fund to $550-million, Mr. Walker said in the email.

Dave Toycen, president and CEO of World Vision Canada, said Ottawa has a chance to “get back on track” at next month's meetings to discuss replenishing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Last year, Canada contributed $200-million in funding, Mr. Toycen said, “but we need to do a whole lot more.”

“We are calling on Canada to provide five per cent of the requirements of the Global Fund,” Mr. Toycen said. “That's our fair share. It's about $900-million over the next three years, and we want 12 per cent of that prioritized towards children.”

Sarah Hendriks of Plan Canada said children and young adults are among those most affected by HIV-AIDS.

More than 10 million young people are living with the disease, she said. Half of those newly infected each year are under 25.

“And every single day — including this day, Aug 10, 2007 — 5,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 will become infected with HIV.”

“These are incredibly mind-numbing statistics. And yet they are very real statistics.”

David Morley, president and CEO of Save the Children Canada, agreed that efforts need to be focused on children and youth, particularly in hard-hit Africa, “because they're the most vulnerable.”

“They have inherited this whirlwind from the past quarter-century and Africa is theirs to rebuild,” he said. “It is supporting children and youth who are the agents of change . . . and we need more people helping them.”
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Bush pushes Musharraf on democracy, Al-Qaeda
Washington (AFP) - US President George W. Bush urged Pervez Musharraf to move toward democracy after the embattled Pakistani leader pulled back from declaring a state of emergency.

At the same time, Bush renewed US calls for full cooperation from its key anti-terror ally in the hunt for Al-Qaeda leaders believed to be holed up in remote tribal lands along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Bush's comments at a White House press conference late Thursday came after Musharraf, against the advice of his aides, decided not to impose a state of emergency despite rampant instability.

Any such move would have automatically extended the current parliament for another 12 months, meaning a delay in elections due by early 2008.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had earlier spoken to Musharraf by telephone to press home Washington's concerns amid talk of possible emergency rule and following his decision to pull out of a key tribal council in Kabul aimed at ending Taliban and Al-Qaeda-sponsored terrorism.

The United States has consistently pushed for elections which it sees as a way to enhance the legitimacy of the government of Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless 1999 coup and is also the army chief.
Bush said he had called on Musharraf to move toward democracy. "My focus in terms of the domestic scene is they have a free and fair election," he said. "That is what we have been talking about, and hopefully, they will."

The Pakistani leader had earlier huddled with key aides worried about the threat of violence from Islamic extremists as well as a series of other issues which have left him facing the greatest challenge yet to his leadership.

Mass protests over the attempted suspension of the country's chief justice and efforts by rivals to return from exile to contest an election come on top of criticism of his handling of militants along the Afghan border.

But he decided against a state of emergency because of the looming polls, Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani told AFP.

"President Musharraf has decided not to impose the state of emergency in the country as suggested by some political parties and others," Durrani said.

"The decision was taken because the priority of the president and present government is to have free, fair and impartial elections in line with the constitutional requirements."

Bush in Washington paid tribute to Musharraf's cooperation with the United States in the US-led "war on terror," and was also careful to express respect for Pakistan's sovereignty.

Musharraf has been angered by accusations that his government is not doing enough to deal with the supposed Al-Qaeda haven in the tribal belt, as well as hints by officials here of possible unilateral US military strikes.

"I have made it clear to him that I expect that there be full cooperation in sharing intelligence" and "swift action" against Al-Qaeda inside Pakistan if solid intelligence emerged about their whereabouts, Bush said.

"We spend a lot of time with the leadership in Pakistan talking about what we will do with actionable intelligence."

Meanwhile the Pakistani military Thursday struck at suspected militants in restive North Waziristan tribal area on the Afghan border, killing at least 10 fighters, chief spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.

Helicopter gunships fired on the suspected militant hideouts after attacks earlier in the day against the military.

In South Waziristan, security forces were looking for 16 soldiers missing and presumed kidnapped, amid reports that suspected militants wearing civilian clothes had captured them, officials said.

Violence has spiked in the tribal areas since the collapse of a peace deal between pro-Taliban militants and government forces on July 15, days after an army assault on a radical mosque in Islamabad killed scores of people.
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