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August 15, 2007 

Taliban blast kills three Germans in Kabul
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
KABUL (AFP) - A bomb blast in the Afghan capital killed two German police officers and a foreign ministry staffer, officials in Kabul and Berlin said.

A Western official in Kabul told AFP they were travelling in two vehicles when the bomb went off.

In Berlin, German interior minister Wolfgang Schauble said all three were members of the German federal police.

A fourth person who was injured in the blast was out of danger, he said.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP.

"It was a remote-controlled bomb which exploded in front of a military convoy," he said.

Schauble said the dead and injured were in a "heavily armoured" vehicle on their way to a training exercise, "but the explosion was so powerful" it ripped through the armour plating.

The German embassy in Kabul confirmed all three deceased had German diplomatic status.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was horrified by the deaths.

"I learned of the deaths of three employees of the German embassy in Kabul with deep sadness and horror," Steinmeier said in a statement. "Those behind this attack must be investigated and dealt with as soon as possible."

He confirmed that another embassy employee had been injured in the blast, without giving further details.

Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said the blast took place in the capital's Bagrami district.

"We're investigating the incident, including the type of the bomb," Bashary said.

An AFP photographer at the scene of the explosion in the capital's southeast reported a destroyed, overturned four-wheel-drive vehicle of the type usually used by military forces and diplomats in Kabul.

The photographer also saw military helicopters taking casualties from the scene. He said the area had been cordoned off by French and US troops.

The district police commander for Bagrami, General Baryalai Basheryar Parwani, told an AFP reporter at the scene that the blast was caused by a roadside bomb.

"I think three were killed and a couple were wounded. Their bodies were airlifted," he said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, in which Germany has about 3,000 troops, said it was aware of "an explosion" but had no details.

The attack was the heaviest loss of German life in Afghanistan since a suicide bomb killed three German soldiers and six civilians in a crowded market in the town of Kunduz, 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Kabul, in May.

The Taliban's Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency has intensified this year, despite the efforts of nearly 50,000 international troops working with Afghan security forces.

Kabul has seen some of the violence, with various types of explosions including mines, roadside bombs also known as improvised explosive devices, and car bombs.

In one of the deadliest attacks of the Taliban insurgency, 35 people died June 17 in a suicide attack on a police bus in the capital.

The international troops, more than half of them Americans, are deployed in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and help the government establish its authority, which in the south is mostly limited to main centres.

Wednesday's attack came less than a week after hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders and politicians agreed to deny "terrorists" sanctuary on both sides of the border, where Al-Qaeda-linked militants are active.

The interior ministry said Wednesday that nine insurgents were killed in a gunbattle Tuesday in Logar province, south of Kabul, between Afghan police and coalition forces. No other casualties were reported.
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Govt claims killing 50 Taliban in Tora Bora operation
JALALABAD, Aug 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Dozens of families have abandoned their homes as the anti-Taliban operation by the Afghan and foreign troops continued for the third day in Pachiragam district of the eastern Nangarhar province.

The sweep was launched following the killing of three US soldiers and their interpreter in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast in Khogiani district on Monday.

Local officials say nearly 50 suspected militants have been killed in the three-day air and ground operation in Tora Bora and other adjoining areas of Pachiragam and Khogiani districts.

Police spokesman in Nangarhar Col. Abdul Ghafoor told Pajhwok the US-led Coalition troops fired 11 missiles on suspected hideouts of insurgents in Tora Bora last night. The missiles were fired from the Coalition's main base in the province, said the spokesman.

Besides, the Coalition's aircrafts also carried out two sorties to target the Taliban positions in that area, he added. Chief of Pachiragam district Muhammad Ali Dambali said the overnight operation was conducted in Sultankhel, Gerikhel and Gharanjali areas of the district.

Around 50 militants had been perished and another 40 were under siege, claimed the district chief. Seven people of a family were reported dead in the operation two days back.

Fearing more clashes and air raids, dozens of families have migrated to Khogiani and other neighbouring areas from Pachiragan during the previous few days, residents said.

Muhammad Usman, a dweller of the district, told Pajhwok people were leaving houses to save their lives. The reports were confirmed by the district chief, who added some 100 families had so far been fled while the migration was still on the go.

Meanwhile, some sources informed about the killing of several Pakistani Taliban during the operation. The dead, according to those sources, included six Pakistani militants belonging to Al-Badr Mujahideen, a group which was earlier fighting in the Indian Kashmir.

A member of the group, requesting anonymity, said the six people had joined the Tora Bora Mahaz (front) some time back. The dead, he said, were residents of Charbagh area of Swat (Pakistan) and their families had been informed of their death and burial in that area.

The Tora Bora Front is led by Anwarul Haq Mujahid, son of former jihadi commander Maulvi Muhammad Younus Khalis (late). Mujahid declared jihad or holy war against the government and foreign troops in Afghanistan a few months back.

Qari Sajad, calling himself spokesman for the Tora Bora Mahaz, said 34 common citizens had been perished in the three-day operation. He rejected the government's claim regarding the killing of dozens of Taliban. The self-proclaimed spokesman also dispelled the impression regarding the presence of Taliban in their ranks.
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Taliban say South Korea hostage talks to resume
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - The Taliban militia and South Korean negotiators will resume direct talks on Thursday for the release of 19 South Korean hostages in Afghanistan, the Taliban said.

"The talks will resume tomorrow at 10 o'clock (0730 GMT) in the same place in Ghazni province," Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said, referring to the local headquarters of the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

Jean-Pascal Moret, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told AFP his organisation "has again been asked to make the venue available to the two sides on Thursday morning."

The South Korean embassy in Kabul refused to confirm the new round, but a spokesman said communications with the Taliban "remain open."

Direct negotiations were deferred after the release Monday of two South Korean women, with a local tribal leader and the Red Cross acting as intermediaries.

The Taliban spokesman said however that contacts between the two sides had continued by telephone since Monday's release of the two hostages, Kim Gin-A, 32, and Kim Kyung-Ja, 37.

The released women were still at Bagram military base north of Kabul where "preparations for their repatriation as soon as possible are continuing," the embassy spokesman said.

A foreign ministry official in Seoul said Tuesday the women were to have medical check-ups at the US base.

The Taliban abducted 23 South Koreans, all Christian aid workers including 16 women, on July 19 as they were travelling by bus through insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan.

The militants have shot dead two men from the group and threatened to kill more if the Afghan government does not free Taliban prisoners, a demand that has been repeatedly rejected.

The two women were released following four days of direct talks which began on Friday in Ghazni, 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of Kabul.

News of the resumption of talks came after South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun urged a redoubling of efforts to release the remaining 19 hostages, to build on Monday's success.

"The government has to make greater efforts to have them released. We shouldn't relax until the last moment," Roh said Tuesday.

North Korea sympathised Wednesday with Seoul over its kidnapped citizens, and blasted the United States for refusing to negotiate their release.

"As fellow Koreans, our people feel heartbroken at the tragic fate of civilians and get enraged at the United States," the North's ruling communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial.

It said the United States had ignored an appeal from South Koreans to "actively come out" for the release of the hostages and claimed the kidnapping was caused by Washington's "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan.

"The US is coolly turning aside from the case, while repeatedly calling for 'not making any compromise with terrorism,'" the editorial said.

"It is only too natural that South Korean people from all walks of life are now holding the US chiefly responsible for the case," it said.

The kidnap saga has dragged on for almost a month against a backdrop of daily clashes between the hardline Islamist militia and Afghan and international forces.

In the latest incident Wednesday, a bomb attack in Kabul killed a German foreign ministry employee and two German police officers, for which the Taliban has claimed responsibility. All three were attached to the German embassy in Kabul.
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US hunts al-Qaida in eastern Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press Wednesday, August 15, 2007
BAGRAMI, Afghanistan - Hundreds of U.S.-led troops have launched an offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban militants in an area of eastern Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden once hid, officials said Wednesday.

A bomb attack near the capital, meanwhile, killed three German police officers assigned to protect their country's embassy.

Ground troops and airstrikes are targeting "hundreds of foreign fighters" dug into positions in the Tora Bora region of eastern Nangarhar province, coalition spokeswoman Capt. Vanessa Bowman. She did not say when the operation began or how long it was expected to last.

The remote mountainous area bordering Pakistan was heavily bombarded in late 2001 by the U.S. troops hunting Osama bin Laden and his associates following the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York. Bin Laden is believed to have escaped that assault.

There were no immediate reports of casualties among militants or U.S. and Afghan troops in the new operation.

The German police officers' two-vehicle convoy was traveling on an unpaved road about six miles southeast of Kabul when it was hit by an explosion that flipped and badly damaged one of the vehicles.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the explosion an "underhanded attack."

The officers apparently were on their way to a training session, traveling in a "particularly well-protected vehicle," Schaeubel said.

He said Germany's Federal Crime Office was sending experts to Afghanistan to help investigate the explosion. The wounded officer, who did not suffer life-threatening injuries, was being treated by the German military at a Kabul base.

Amir Mohammad, a police officer, said he believed the device was a land mine but it was not clear if it had been recently planted.

Afghanistan has suffered nearly three decades of civil war and conflict, and is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.

U.S. soldiers and French troops with anti-mine equipment arrived at the scene after the explosion. Afghan police kept reporters away from the site as forensic experts collected evidence.

Separately, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops clashed with militants in central Logar province on Tuesday, killing nine suspected militants, the Interior Ministry said. No police or coalition troops were wounded in the clash, it said.
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Wolesi Jirga approves UN convention on corruption
Zubair Babakarkhail 
KABUL, Aug 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of Parliament approved the UN convention against administrative corruption through a majority vote on Wednesday.

The convention was approved after discussion. Secretary of the parliamentary commission on justice, administrative reforms and administrative corruption Muhammad Sarwar Jawadi told Pajhwok the approval had enabled Afghanistan to become member of the UN convention.

The convention contain information about and suggest ways and means how to put a halt to illegal practices like embezzlement, bribery and misuse of authority by local as well as foreign staffers.

Consisting of eight chapters and 71 articles, the convention presents proposals on how to address and eliminate the root causes of corruption and malpractices in the country.

The convention was presented for discussion and approval in the Wolesi Jirga on Monday. However, some members expressed reservations about any hastily approval and suggested a thorough review lest there is anything against the Constitution of the country.

A member of the Wolesi Jirga Maulvi Attaullah Ludin, while speaking on the convention, said the international community was helping Afghanistan to put a halt to administrative corruption and other ill-practices here. "The convention will prove helpful in putting an end to corruption up to some extent," he hoped.
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Iran, Afghanistan call for international cooperation to fight terrorism
Kabul, Aug 15, IRNA
The presidents of Iran and Afghanistan called on Tuesday in a joint statement for international cooperation to fight terrorism.

The statement was issued at the end of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's day-long visit to Afghanistan.

The Iranian president, currently on a three-nation tour of region visited Afghanistan on Tuesday before leaving for Turkmenistan on the second leg of his regional tour.

He is currently in Kyrgyzstan to attend the Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Bishkek on Thursday on the last leg of his three-nation tour.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan stressed in the joint statement the "productive and positive role" played by Iran as a neighboring state of Afghanistan.

Expressing satisfaction with the improvement of situation in Afghanistan, the two presidents called on international community to provide further assistance for reconstruction of the war-torn country.

They also stressed the absolute rights of all countries to possess modern technologies including peaceful nuclear technology within the framework of international laws and regulations.

The two presidents also stressed the need for finding a peaceful solution to Iran's nuclear standoff with the West.

They stressed that consistent cooperation in the fight against illegal drugs smuggling and reinforcing Afghanistan's armed forces were two major factors in supporting the central government of Afghanistan and helping restore peace and stability to that country.

The statement further stressed Tehran-Kabul border cooperation to facilitate trade exchanges between the two states.
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Karzai leaves for Kyrgyzstan to attend SCO summit
Daud Khan 
KABUL, Aug 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai Wednesday left for Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, to attend the four-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting.

During the one-day summit, President Hamid Karzai will meet his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament.

A press release issued here says the president is accompanied by Foreign Minister Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, his advisor on National Security Dr. Zalmai Rasoul and presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada.

President Karzai has been invited as a special guest to the summit while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri will also attend the summit as observers.

The SCO groups China and Russia with the four Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia have the observer status.

Although the primary focus of SCO has been combating terrorism, religious extremism and separatism, it also covers political, economic and cultural issues.
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Harper changes Afghan point man in shuffle
By Randall Palmer Wednesday, August 15, 2007
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper replaced his embattled point man for Afghanistan on Tuesday in a cabinet shuffle intended to revitalize his minority government after 1-1/2 years in power.

He shifted Gordon O'Connor, whose head the opposition had demanded over his handling of Canada's mission to Afghanistan, out of the defense ministry and into national revenue and replaced him with Peter MacKay, the former foreign minister.

Despite the cabinet shuffle, Harper said his broad priorities would remain unchanged, including asserting Canada's sovereignty, cutting taxes, tackling crime, and protecting the environment.

"We did what we said we were going to do and now it's time to keep moving forward," Harper said in a statement. Eight of the 32 cabinet members changed portfolios and one outsider, Diane Ablonczy, replaced a retiring minister.

Harper kept Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, a professed tax cutter who violated a campaign promise by introducing a tax on income trusts last year and clashed with the premiers of the Atlantic provinces over federal transfers.

Flaherty steered two budgets through the minority Parliament, ramping up spending sharply while also lowering the federal sales tax. He is expected to unveil a third budget, laden with new tax cuts, next February or March.

Industry Minister Maxime Bernier replaced MacKay at foreign affairs and was replaced at industry by Jim Prentice, the former Indian affairs minister and a powerful cabinet member who is close to Harper.

"It's the third cabinet of this so-called new government -- only there to try to correct the mistakes of the two former cabinets," Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said.

Harper was elected in January 2006, ending more than 12 years of Liberal rule. In January 2007, he replaced his stumbling environment minister at a time when the portfolio had taken center stage.

Parliament has voted to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan through February 2009, and Harper needed someone at the defense ministry who could communicate the rationale for the mission over the next 1-1/2 years.

Dion demanded on Tuesday that Harper state clearly that Canada will not extend its combat mission in Afghanistan beyond February 2009. Harper has said he will allow Parliament to decide that.

O'Connor had provided inaccurate information about the monitoring of Afghan detainees and about military funeral costs, drawing the ire of the opposition.

MacKay presents a younger, more affable face than O'Connor, a retired general, but Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe said MacKay too had sometimes contradicted himself.

Harper has managed to exceed the average 18-month life span of a Canadian minority government and stay sufficiently ahead of the opposition in the polls that they do not dare bring him down.

But he has also been unable to boost his standing with the public to the levels that would enable him to win a majority of seats in Parliament and therefore not have to rely on opposition parties to get his legislation through.

A new poll issued on Tuesday by SES Research put the Conservatives at 36 percent, up four points from May, and the Liberals at 33 percent, unchanged from May. It carries a margin of error of 3.3 points 19 times out of 20.

Harper has promised an election in October 2009 but has to be ready to fight one any time that enough opposition members of Parliament team up to defeat him. Liberal leader Dion repeated on Tuesday: "We don't want an election."

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A balancing act of Iran's enemies
Tehran seems to play neighbors and foes against one another.
By Kim Murphy Los Angeles Times August 14, 2007
TEHRAN — They do the jobs that few Iranians would consider. For $11 a day, the Afghans mend shoes, haul bricks, dig drainage channels, push giant wheelbarrows of scavenged debris through treacherous ribbons of cars.

It has been this way since the various wars in Afghanistan sent an estimated 2 million refugees flooding into neighboring Iran. Since April, however, more than 160,000 Afghans have been rounded up and sent home.

Iran plans to expel up to 1 million in what it asserts is an effort to cut down on illegal immigrants and open up new jobs for Iranians. But Afghanistan warns that the exodus could jeopardize its fragile new stability, and for the U.S. and others, the move by Tehran offers an unsettling hint of Iranian mischief-making in the region.

One of the givens of the Middle East's dense diplomacy is Shiite Iran's enduring hostility toward the Taliban, the radical Sunni movement whose fall from power in 2001 was welcomed nowhere as much as in Tehran.

Yet the growing international pressure aimed at Iran's nuclear program appears to have prompted a more complex new strategy for Iran in Afghanistan, interviews with Iranian analysts here suggest. Iran still supports the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, they say, but the Islamic Republic is also not averse to asserting itself in a conflict that Washington once thought was over.

"It is better for Iran if America is entangled in Afghanistan with the Taliban," said Abulfazl Amooei, a political analyst for the Hamshahri diplomatic magazine, which closely reflects the views of Iran's Islamic hard-liners. "Because as soon as the U.S. has no problem in Afghanistan, it can turn to the next area in the Middle East. It can come to Iran and say, 'I am in your neighborhood, and I will attack you if you do not suspend your nuclear enrichment activities.' "

Iran appears to be mounting a high-profile anti-U.S. publicity campaign to the west in Iraq and neighboring Sunni nations. At the same time, it is working below the radar to keep its options open to the east, in Afghanistan.

For years, Iran's power in the Middle East was held in check through a combination of U.S. sanctions and a long war in the 1980s with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, whose regime received aid from the United States and Sunni Arab nations that feared the growing influence of the Islamic Republic and the potential expansion of its hard-line theological revolution.

But the U.S.-led military ouster of Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan during the Bush administration opened a new chapter for Tehran. Now Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has forged cordial relationships with Iraq's new Shiite-dominated government and with Karzai. Last week, the Afghan president rebuffed President Bush's attempts to characterize Iran as a destabilizing force in the region, contending in an earlier interview with CNN that Iran had been "a helper" on such issues as fighting terrorism and narcotics.

Just as worrying for Sunni Arab governments in the Middle East, Ahmadinejad's tough talk against the U.S. and Israel has won Iran unexpected and growing popularity in the Sunni Muslim world. Tehran now sees itself poised to become the dominant power broker in the Mideast and deeper into Asia.

The Bush administration has charged that Iran is supplying weapons to anti-American fighters in Iraq. And recently, U.S. and British officials disclosed that they had intercepted Iranian-made weapons in Afghanistan, bound for the Taliban. The Iranian government has vehemently denied any connection, and the Afghan government has also expressed doubts. But if such shipments are eventually traced to the Iranian government, this would represent a worrying new development for the U.S. and others.

For its part, Iran is furious at America's recent $20-billion weapons package initialed with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations.

Analysts say that Tehran, with its latest maneuvering, appears to be declaring: Backing us into a corner could result in unforeseen misfortunes for the U.S. -- in Iraq, in Lebanon, in the Palestinian territories and also in Afghanistan.

"All Muslim nations, you who are buying weapons from Washington, those who have been deceived by Washington, listen to the words of God," Ayatollah Emami Kashani said at Friday prayers in Tehran early this month. "Don't accept leadership from outside. Don't expose your private parts. . . . The Zionists and the Americans want to make you weak, humiliated and miserable."

Iran's strategy in Afghanistan appears aimed at ensuring that Karzai's government remains in power while Tehran loses no sleep if his opponents keep the U.S. and Britain bogged down in combat there, interviews with analysts and government officials in Tehran suggest.

"You cannot say that Iran is arming the Taliban, but at the same time we should admit that Iran, bearing in mind the circumstances in the region, is not satisfied if the Taliban is totally banished from Afghanistan. And the status quo in Afghanistan is the best for our foreign policy," said Amooei, the political analyst.

Although Iran in the long term is hoping to achieve stability on its eastern border, he said, in the short term it does not want the U.S. to emerge as the peacemaker. "Iran says it is better for Afghanistan and its neighbor states to solve the problem," he said. "Why should Afghanistan be a victory for the U.S.?"

Mohammad Kazem Anbarlouee, former head of a conservative Islamic faction in the parliament and editor of Resalat, a hard-line newspaper, described Iran's strategy in Afghanistan as a delicate balancing act between two enemies: the Taliban on the one hand, and the U.S. and Britain on the other.

"Theologically, we are antagonistic toward the Taliban. They have a very harsh and violent version of Islam. Even on our border at the time the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, they attacked our soldiers," Anbarlouee said.

But "we have always faced multiple enemies," he said. "So we attach to them different levels of importance. We classify some enemies as archenemies. And the other, a lesser enemy. And as you see, we are now facing two kinds of enemies in Afghanistan. . . . And we know how to deal with two opponents at the same time. So we play this game, confronting the two opponents at the same time.

"You see, the world of politics is not the world of romantic scenes or smiles. It's not like Indian films, where there's a flow of tears followed by a happy ending. It's a world of interests."

Yet Anbarlouee and others said it was not possible that Tehran would go so far as to supply weapons to the Taliban, with which Iran nearly went to war in 1999 after its militia killed eight Iranian diplomats.

The U.S. has not directly pointed a finger at the Iranian government.

"We absolutely are certain that there are Iranian-origin weapons flowing into Afghanistan to the Taliban," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in June. "We do not know the extent of any Iranian government involvement at this point, but given the nature of the regime and also some of its past behaviors elsewhere -- whether in the Palestinian areas or in Iraq -- it certainly raises very serious questions, and we are quite concerned about it."

Hamidreza Babaei, a deputy speaker of Iran's parliament, flatly denied any weapons supplies to the Taliban and said his government's primary concern was to promote stability in Afghanistan, because unrest there spills over into Iran.

"I don't know why the Americans are confused and suffering from these sorts of hallucinations," Babaei said. "Everybody who is an enemy, they claim that we're helping that enemy.

"We regard the American administration as our enemy. We also regard the Taliban as our enemy. So there is no reason, no motivation, to support the Taliban. We believe that both of them are menaces to the Afghanistan people."
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Bush lauds Karzai, Musharraf on Jirga
NEW YORK, Aug 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): US President George W. Bush called President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and congratulated them on the successful conclusion of the Peace Jirga.

The US president expressed satisfaction over the progress of the grand meeting that concluded in Kabul on August 12 and was attended by 650 tribal elders from both sides of the border.

In separate telephone calls to his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, President Bush congratulated them on the 'successful conclusion' of the Jirga, the White House announced on Tuesday.

"There was an outcome that was constructive from both sides, especially in three areas: Denying terrorists sanctuary and training, promoting peace in the border areas and establishing regular follow-up consultations," said White House spokesman Dana Perino.

During the telephone call, Bush and Karzai are believed to have discussed the achievements of the Peace Jirga and how to implement its recommendations. This was the first telephonic conversation between the two leaders after the Camp David summit early this month.
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One million US dollars spent on Peace Jirga
Mustafa Basharat 
KABUL, Aug 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The last week meeting of the Regional Peace Jirga cost the impoverished nation one million US dollars.

Spokesman for the Jirga secretariat Muhammad Asif Nang told Pajhwok Afghan News the huge amount was spent on construction and decoration of the Loya Jirga hall, building of a mosque and over one thousand toilets in the vicinity, preparation of banners and arrangements for boarding and lodging of the nearly 700 participants of the grand assembly.

Besides, provision of water inside the Jirga hall, non-stop power supply, food and renting of cars for the participants to bring them from and drop them at their respective places of stay also included in the expenditure list.

Asked who funded the huge sum, the spokesman said the main contributors were the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with $700,000, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with $100,000 and the US embassy with $30,000. The rest of the amount was set aside from the annual development budget, he added.

The country was eager to spend more money on such purposes aimed at bringing peace and stability here, said Nang in reply to a question if the amount was not too big for a poor country like Afghanistan.

He said some 700 people from both sides, including tribal elders, intellectuals, journalists and officials of the two countries, attended the grand meeting.

He reckoned bringing of the tribes straddling the border together, confidence building and preparation of joint plan for restoration of peace in the region as the immediate positive impacts of the Jirga.
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US praises Pakistan's role in fight on terror, reaffirms long-term ties
The Associated Press, Wednesday, August 15, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher praised Pakistan's efforts at fighting terrorism Wednesday and reaffirmed Washington's desire to develop long-term strategic relations with Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said.

Boucher held talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri in the capital Wednesday, and was due to meet President Gen. Pervez Musharraf before leaving the next day.

Boucher's visit comes amid rising U.S. pressure on Musharraf to do more to fight militants in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where American intelligence officials say al-Qaida and the Taliban may be regrouping. It also comes amid a political crisis for Musharraf as he seeks a fresh presidential term.

At his meeting with Kasuri, Boucher said he "appreciated the contribution and sacrifices made by Pakistan ... in fighting extremism and terrorism," the ministry said in a statement.

It also cited Boucher as saying Washington was "committed to a long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan and (that) there existed a solid foundation for such a relationship."

Kasuri told Boucher his country was making "valuable contributions and immense sacrifices in fighting extremism and terrorism," the statement said.

However, the foreign minister expressed concern about recent legislation tying U.S. aid to Pakistan's progress at fighting terrorism. Pakistan has deployed some 90,000 troops to its border regions with Afghanistan, where there has been a surge in attacks in recent weeks.

But U.S. officials have been pressing Pakistan to do more to stop militants from orchestrating attacks against U.S.-led international coalition forces in Afghanistan from its territory.

Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, is seeking another term as president in a vote expected later this year. The opposition says it will challenge Musharraf's presidential bid if he does not quit the military.

Musharraf's attempt in March to remove the country's independent-minded chief justice was met with widespread street protests, and was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court, which would rule on any legal challenge to Musharraf's re-election bid.

This week, hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders and government officials concluded four days of discussions at a U.S.-backed tribal council, or jirga, aimed at countering militancy.
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Bernier to sell Afghan mission in French
DANIEL LEBLANC, Globe and Mail August 15, 2007
OTTAWA -- Maxime Bernier's entrée into the world of global diplomacy is a key part of Conservative efforts to improve their standing in Quebec, with the minister's smooth communication style in French seen as essential to selling the controversial Afghan mission.

A strong proponent of right-wing economic policies, Mr. Bernier is leaving a familiar world at Industry Canada and entering the Department of Foreign Affairs with a largely blank slate on international matters.
The newly promoted minister's biggest challenge will be related to Canada's military and humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. To succeed, he has two things to do: sell the mission to a skeptical Quebec, and use his international role as a lever to help forge a pan-Canadian consensus on the long-term role of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

The matter is tricky because Ottawa is looking to extend the military mission, and the government will need Parliament's approval to do so.

"Whether or not [the mission] will be extended in a new form past 2009 is a decision that will need the support of other political parties," a senior government official said of Mr. Bernier's consensus-building challenge.

The MP, who joined the federal scene only last year, is facing a number of uphill battles. He has to quickly learn about the government's top international priorities, ranging from Arctic sovereignty to free trade in the Americas. His spoken English skills are still lacking, and he has little experience in global security and diplomatic issues. But he also brings the status of an up-and-coming minister to the file, with the backing of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Bernier is not the Quebec lieutenant in the government - that position is held by Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon - but he has acted as the main French-language spokesman on a number of issues, such as the budget and recent Conservative attack ads.

Conservative strategists are now hoping that the government will better communicate its Afghan policy. "It's a file on which the government simply has to communicate at its best," Conservative strategist Philippe Gervais said.

The Conservatives currently hold 10 of Quebec's 75 seats. There are three by-election campaigns under way, and a victory in any of the ridings on Sept. 17 would be a boost.

Josée Verner, former minister of international co-operation, was also given a higher profile job in yesterday's shuffle, promoted to Canadian Heritage. She will oversee a new program to distribute $30-million in cash to festivals, which is a big issue in her home province. She is replacing Bev Oda, who had difficulties in Quebec because of her lack of French.
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Harper's message is stay the course 
JAMES TRAVERS, TORONTO STAR, COLUMNIST, August 15, 2007
Ottawa–Deconstructing Stephen Harper's third cabinet is much like listening to the Prime Minister worry out loud about his government's perilous Afghanistan exposure, internal Conservative rivalries and, of course, the next election.

Each Harper move yesterday touches at least one of those concerns, while together they frame a ruling party determined to be seen as still focused on its core priorities and still dreaming about a majority.
Neither rearranging a few ministers nor the Prime Minister's worn themes is likely to seriously challenge the conclusions of Canadians who still can't bring themselves to trust Conservatives with more power. But Harper did succeed in using mostly the same material to build a cabinet sturdier than its predecessors and mercifully unencumbered by embarrassments.

This time there are no surprise appointments of the floor-crossing Vancouver Liberal David Emerson or Montreal Senator Michael Fortier. This time no Rona Ambrose was humiliated to blur the Prime Minister's fingerprints on an environment policy judged hopelessly inadequate.

Rather than create new problems, the Prime Minister is grabbing his most troubling one by the throat. Gone from their posts are the 3Ds: the ministers responsible for defence, diplomacy and development who, along with the Prime Minister, let Afghanistan become the Conservatives' cross.

Almost as revealing is where Harper is concentrating his strengths. Able Jim Prentice goes to industry at a time when a jittery economy threatens jobs and Ontario's manufacturing base. The inexperienced but now officially risen Quebec star Maxime Bernier becomes foreign minister, the government's senior francophone and another salesman for an Afghanistan policy his province isn't buying. And, finally, the Prime Minister has partly put aside old grudges to bring Diane Ablonczy closer to the inner circle as an underemployed junior minister.

Still, it was only the overdue removal of Gordon O'Connor from defence that set the Prime Minister's men and few women in motion. After 19 months of miscues, misinformation and sometimes wild spending, the former general and arms lobbyist now has responsibilities reduced to better match to his ability as minister of national revenue.

O'Connor's demotion, coupled with Peter MacKay's move to defence from foreign affairs, and Josée Verner's shift from the maligned federal development agency CIDA, is intended to alter the image of the polarizing Afghanistan mission.

Changing that negative public perception now depends heavily on MacKay. Having mostly held the Prime Minister's coat at foreign affairs, MacKay must now prove he's up to the demanding, if less cerebral defence task by re-establishing clear civilian control over the military as well as the larger-than-life Rick Hillier while ending confusion over Canada's Kandahar exit strategy.

MacKay's rugger scrum charm will appeal to the troops – many sharing his Atlantic Canada roots – and he's certain to co-exist with the top general more peacefully. But MacKay's loose grasp of the Afghanistan detainee controversy and an errant claim of sovereignty over the North Pole earlier this month are worrying omens.

Still, this shuffle has other layers. MacKay, Prentice and Bernier nurture leadership ambitions and Harper is mischievously giving each a testing new portfolio that will widen their experience and perhaps limit their futures.

More immediate than internal struggle is a federal election no more than two years away and clearly on the Prime Minister's mind. In resisting wholesale change Harper is minimizing risk while distancing his administration from Afghanistan's worst political dangers.

That doesn't mean policies already evolving away from combat and towards training will alter dramatically. It does confirm that the Prime Minister now understands that a war he needlessly made his own stands in the way of the majority he wants.

Still, not much more than that perception and a handful of cabinet portfolios changed yesterday. Harper's post-shuffle message was very much stay-the-course.

Clean government, law-and-order at home and a muscular military presence abroad are the Prime Minister's once and future priorities. Attractive as they are to core Conservative voters, they are the same priorities that led his party into opinion poll no-man's land.

A relatively minor cabinet shuffle that leaves most key players in place won't provide the momentum the ruling party is missing. Nor will a summer spent canvassing the bureaucracy produce a fall bonanza of bold, galvanizing ideas.

With the notable exception of the 3Ds, its business as usual today for a government that's hardly booming.
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Canada assures Afghanistan of continued assistance
OTTAWA, Aug 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Canada has assured Afghanistan of its continued assistance in capacity building and education sector.

The assurance came during a visit of first Deputy Defence Minister Dr. Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani to Ottawa and his meetings with Canadian officials there, the Afghan embassy said on Wednesday.

A press release received by Pajhwok Afghan News from the embassy, said Dr. Nuristani was accompanied by Assistant Minister for Defence Personnel Education Lt-Gen. Humayun Fawzi.

The two officials met with Ward Elcock, Deputy Minister for National Defence, David Mulroney, Associate Deputy Minister at Foreign Affairs Canada and Vincent Rigby, Assistant Deputy Minister for Defence Policy.

Dr. Nuristani briefed the Canadian officials on the build up of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and education needs of the Afghan defence establishment. He also informed his Canadian counterparts that the ANA, now having more than 50,000 trained personnel, was increasingly taking on security responsibilities across the country.

Dr. Nuristani appreciated Canada’s efforts to help Afghanistan with security, development and governance as part of a wide-range of initiatives undertaken over the past six years.

He also expressed satisfaction over the 'close and effective' relationship between Canadian and Afghan forces deployed in the south of the country. He said the Canadian sacrifices in Afghanistan were for a "valuable cause that will never be forgotten by Afghans".

Accompanied by Omar Samad, Afghanistan envoy to Canada, the delegation also visited Kingston, Ontario, where they were briefed on Canada’s military education and training programmes at the Royal Military College, as part of a roundtable discussion on Afghan military capacity-building needs.
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Cabinet shuffle marks shift in Afghan approach
CAMPBELL CLARK AND JANE TABER - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail August 15, 2007
Prime Minister Stephen Harper fined-tuned his message on Canada's role in Afghanistan Tuesday to prepare for a contentious debate, shuffling the duo of ministers managing the issue in the midst of a combat mission.

In a major cabinet makeover, Mr. Harper dropped one member, added a junior minister and switched the posts of eight others, including many top-tier portfolios such as Defence and Foreign Affairs. And he created a new economic policy strongman at the Industry Department by sending trusted lieutenant Jim Prentice there.

Mr. Harper stressed that the revamp signalled continuity because the members of his cabinet remained largely unchanged. "We are not here to have major about-faces, U-turns, agendas that fall from the sky. We are here to continue our efforts and finish our work, to reinforce our objectives and add a longer-term perspective," he said.

But in addition to the size of the shuffle, which touched one-third of cabinet, there was a shift in the tone of the government's approach to Afghanistan, and a signal that the Conservatives will try to emphasize economic issues.

To begin with, Mr. Harper moved Gordon O'Connor, blamed for a brittle and contradictory message on the Afghan mission, out of Defence to the low-profile National Revenue post.

Nova Scotian Peter MacKay, younger and better known, moved from Foreign Affairs to take his place. That opened room for Quebecker Maxime Bernier to go from Industry to Foreign Affairs.

It's a role where a key task is communicating the government position on Afghanistan to a politically key province that has been cool to the combat role.

Mr. O'Connor, the first to leave Rideau Hall, whisked past reporters with his eyes on his car, while Mr. MacKay smiled and waved, and said,: "It's everyone's day."

Mr. Harper said that Afghanistan remains Canada's most important military and foreign-affairs commitment, and stressed that Canadian troops are there under a United Nations mandate to help impoverished people.

Gone was talk of defeating the Taliban. Mr. Harper stressed Canada's role in helping Afghans fight their own battles, and argued that Quebeckers will support it.

"They understand it's a dangerous situation. Obviously, the government wants to reduce the casualties. We have worked to increase the role of development [aid] in this mission for a year," Mr. Harper said. "We are working to train the Afghan forces and help them control their own security. I think that is the way to go."

Mr. Harper, who extended Canada's mission in the dangerous Kandahar region to 2009, has said he will not extend it again without opposition support. He faces a potentially rough battle if he puts it to a vote in the Commons next spring.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said Mr. MacKay's appointment would make little difference on policy. "Now we have Mr. MacKay, who has also defended the war in Afghanistan very strongly, so we're clearly not seeing any change in direction," he said.

Mr. Harper dropped only one minister, Revenue Minister Carol Skelton, who had said she will not seek re-election. He promoted junior minister Gerry Ritz to Agriculture to make him the Saskatchewan minister in her place. And he made Calgary backbench veteran Diane Ablonczy a junior minister for tourism.

Another minister considered a weak communicator, Ontarian Bev Oda, moved from Canadian Heritage to International Co-operation in a swap with Quebecker Josée Verner. B.C.'s Chuck Strahl replaced Mr. Prentice in Indian Affairs.

Mr. Harper repeatedly insisted that he was not reacting to political trends and passing events, but making long-term plans. The Opposition Liberals called it a third try for a flailing government.

"It's the third cabinet of this so-called 'new government,' only they have to try to correct the mistakes of the two former cabinets," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said.

Mr. Prentice, who headed cabinet committees despite a relatively low-profile portfolio, was handed a key portion of the government's fall agenda — economic productivity —which it will probably outline in a Throne Speech.

Although the government didn't move Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Mr. Prentice is expected to be a second economic policy power, with a major role in dealing with infrastructure, deregulation and foreign investment.

Mr. Harper met individually over several days with his cabinet ministers, handing them a point-form letter outlining what he expects them to achieve for the fall and beyond, one source said.

The source added that Mr. Harper is most popular when he sets out a new agenda.

"They [the government] feel it has succeeded and established in the minds of Canadians that they are a governing party … they have preserved their support from the election and want to build on that," the source said. "They are putting together an agenda to win them a majority." With reports from Daniel Leblanc and Alan Freeman
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Afghan empire's last symbols under threat
Reuters, 08/15/2007 By Sayed Salahuddin
GHAZNI - For more than eight centuries the "Towers of Victory" -- monuments to Afghanistan's greatest empire -- have survived wars and invasions, but now weather and neglect could cause them to come crashing down.

From its base in the Afghan city of Ghazni, the dynasty of Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi extended its rule to stretch from the River Tigris in modern day Iraq to the River Ganges in India.

The two toffee-coloured minarets, adorned with terra-cotta tiles were raised in the early 12th century as monuments to the victories of the Afghan armies that built the empire.

Since then, Afghanistan has more often been victim of invasion than the perpetrator of them. The upper portions of the Towers of Victory have eroded away over time, so now only the bases remain -- though they still stand at around 7 metres (24 feet) tall.

"If attention is not paid, there is the possibility they will be destroyed," said Aqa Mohammad Khoshazada, a senior official with Ghazni's culture and information department. "Floods and rain in spring and snow in winter all end up around the minarets."

Ghazni is regarded as the cradle of Afghan culture and arts and during his rule Mahmoud had attracted 400 scholars and poets to his court. But the sultan was also an iconoclast who destroyed hundreds of Hindu statues during campaigns to introduce Islam into India.

Mahmoud died in 1030. His son, Sultan Masud, built one of the minarets. The other was erected by another successor. The Ghaznavis' rule lasted for more than two centuries.

The city was then razed to the ground by Allauddin Ghori from central Afghanistan, who earned the nickname of "World Burner" for the massacre of Ghazni's people in an orgy of destruction and looting.
The city flourished again, only to be detroyed again by a son of Ghenghiz Khan in 1221. But the minarets survived.

Ghazni changed hands between British and Afghan forces several times in the 19th century suffering more sieges and massacres. More fighting during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, followed by the civil war of the 1990s, also left their mark on Ghazni.

Ghazni's Towers of Victory stand several hundred metres away from each other and lie at the bottom of a hill.

Holes and ditches, made by illegal excavations for antiquities and buried treasure collect water and are now undermining the foundations of the minarets. One has panels of bold Kufic lettering on the top. The tops of the towers are capped with corrugated iron, after the upper sections came down in an earthquake.

But despite repeated appeals and warnings, Afghanistan's impoverished central government, fighting a Taliban insurgency, has allocated just $100 dollars in six years to fill some of the holes around the towers, said Sayed Wali the head of the culture department in Ghazni.
"They are under threat and we have no resources to stop it," Wali said.
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Unearthing Anguish In a Troubled Land
Scores of mass graves have been discovered across Afghanistan, holding victims of decades of repression and war. The government has been loath to act, but relatives for the first time are shedding their fear and demanding justice.
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Monday, August 13, 2007; A01
CHAM TALA, Afghanistan -- A dusty track winds through acres of used-car lots, a vast municipal garbage dump and a cluster of abandoned Russian bunkers just north of Kabul, the capital. Eventually it stops at a steep sandy slope, marked off with police tape. At the bottom are three caves, freshly sealed by bulldozers.

Ten weeks ago, acting on a citizen's tip, police excavated the caves, where they found eight human skeletons and signs of others buried more deeply. It was the latest of 88 mass grave sites across Afghanistan charted in the last year by local and international human rights groups, which believe they contain many thousands of victims.

Some of the mass graves are connected with infamous massacres in rural provinces or prison executions in Kabul, and their locations have been rumored for years. A few have been partly excavated, with several hundred remains identified. In most cases, though, there is no way of knowing who the victims are or when they were killed.

But the grisly discovery at Cham Tala, shown repeatedly on national TV, has suddenly unearthed the long-repressed anger and hopes of Afghans whose relatives disappeared between 1978 and 2001, while the country veered from communist revolution and Soviet occupation to chaotic civil war and religious dictatorship.

For the first time ever, victims' families are beginning to come forward with their stories. They are also demanding justice, despite the fear of reprisal from former militia bosses, a broad amnesty for war crimes passed by parliament, and numerous obstacles to identifying the remains and prosecuting the killers.

"This is my brother. This is my cousin. This is my uncle," said Wida, a slight, grim-faced woman, taking several framed photographs out of a plastic bag. One was an air force engineer arrested in his office, one a long-haired college student dragged from his classroom, one a retired military officer seized while plowing his field. All vanished without a trace, more than 20 years ago.

Last week, Wida and about 150 other people staged a brief protest, holding up photos of the missing as they walked to the U.N. mission headquarters in Kabul. Some victims had vanished into prisons during the repression and factional power struggles of communist rule in the 1980s. Others were captured by Islamic insurgent groups, who turned against one another in a frenzy of bloodletting that destroyed Kabul in the 1990s.

"Thousands of families are missing people. Every time we hear there is a new mass grave, we all think our relatives might be inside," said Wida, 42, who asked that her full name not be used. "We hoped the state would take action, but the government is filled with criminals. Now our only hope is with the international community. If they help us, we will find more families and form a great movement and make our voices heard."

According to Afghan and U.N. human rights officials in Kabul, however, the painstaking work that has been done to locate and preserve the mass grave sites, and the evidence that is being gathered from witnesses and victims' families, will essentially be useless unless the authorities are willing to endorse forensic investigations and legal prosecutions.

Until now, the post-Taliban government headed by President Hamid Karzai has shied away from the sensitive issue. He has neither signed nor rejected the amnesty passed last year by parliament that would protect militias and other groups from war crimes prosecutions, although he submitted a revised bill that would allow individuals to be prosecuted if victims or relatives come forward. Human rights groups say dozens of legislators and appointed officials are either former Islamic commanders or communist officials with records of abuse.

"There were 60,000 civilians killed in Kabul alone during the civil war, and some of those responsible are sitting in parliament," said Nader Nadery, an official of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. "If we don't see the minimum political will to deal with the issue of justice, people will just become more frustrated. These graves are stirring up terrible memories, and we cannot afford to ignore them."

Yet both the United Nations and the Western governments that back Karzai have stopped short of calling for prosecutions of wartime abuses and investigations of mass graves, suggesting that preserving political stability is a more urgent priority. In recent weeks, a team of U.N. experts has been visiting some of the grave sites, but their mandate is only to teach Afghan police how to preserve the contents for any future investigation.

"The common wisdom is that if we touch these graves, it will destabilize the country, but I am not sure that is right," said Javier Leon Diaz, chief human rights officer at the U.N. political assistance mission in Kabul. "There may be hundreds of mass graves in Afghanistan, but without proper forensic investigations, we will never know the truth. The people want justice, and if they see there is no rule of law and the perpetrators are in positions of power, is that not more destabilizing?"

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has tried to determine whether each site was a product of the communist, civil war or Taliban era. In several notorious cases, the perpetrating forces and burial sites are widely known, such as the Taliban massacres in the late 1990s of hundreds of ethnic Hazara villagers at Yakowlang District in Bamian province, and the communist government's systematic executions during the 1980s of thousands of prisoners, whose bodies were dumped near Pul-i-Charki prison east of Kabul.

But many of the graves remain shrouded in historical fog and present-day political obfuscation. Some were used as dumping grounds by both the communists and the Islamic commanders who fought them. Some alleged perpetrators are still too powerful to touch, and no one has dared disturb the explosive evidence underground.

In 2002, for example, rumors spread that a northern warlord, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, had suffocated hundreds of Taliban prisoners inside unventilated shipping containers in November 2001 and buried them in Jowzjan province. Journalists found witnesses, and there were calls for an international investigation. But Dostum was still a powerful militia commander, and the Karzai government was seen as too fragile to challenge him, so U.N. officials advised against an exhumation. The site has never been touched.

In many other cases, witnesses or victims fled the area long ago or were too intimidated to come forward. In several locations where graves have been opened, evidence has been unintentionally damaged by police or journalists. At Cham Tala, for example, police trampled through the freshly opened caves, moved bones and allowed TV cameras inside, rendering the contents virtually useless to investigators, Diaz said.

With the facts so hard to pin down, political factions can easily use the latest grave site discovery to tar their adversaries and keep old wounds alive. At one site found and partly inspected this spring in remote Badakhshan province, a museum of communist-era atrocities is already being built, even though no forensic examination of the remains there has been done.

"We are trying to chart the locations according to phases of time and patterns of violence, but it is very challenging work," said Nadery, the rights commission official. With help from the U.S. group Physicians for Human Rights, commission teams have interviewed more than 5,000 people in 20 provinces, including bulldozer drivers who were ordered to cover the graves. But Nadery said they have not had the means to examine the contents and have documented only "a small part of the overall picture of atrocities."

Ultimately, it may be up to the citizens of Afghanistan to force their government and its international allies to dig up the evidence that others are trying hard to keep buried. Last week's demonstration was a small start, but it was a daring, unprecedented act in Afghanistan. Afterward, the grief and rage that welled up as several protesters told their stories seemed a potentially powerful force for change.

One graying man, Ahmad Ayub, 52, said he stumbled on the protesters by chance and decided to walk along. He trembled with anger as he recounted how his cousin had been murdered along with hundreds of other prisoners at Pul-i-Charki during communist rule.

"I was in that jail, too. It was a horrible place," he said. "Every day they took away a few more people to be killed. Their crime was being too educated or too religious." During the civil war and the Taliban era that followed, he said, people fled the country or had no chance to seek justice. "We thought there would be a decent democracy now, but instead we see the same assassins, talking on TV and passing a law to forgive themselves," he added bitterly. "They are still playing with the blood of the people."

Sarwar Ehsan, 42, listened quietly until Ayub finished, then carefully unrolled a high school portrait of his younger brother. One night in about 1983, he said, a band of Islamic militiamen swept through their neighborhood, grabbing students and accusing them of belonging to communist youth groups. Ignoring his mother's pleas, they dragged off the brother without even letting him put on his shoes.

"I tried to find him everywhere, but there was never a trace," Ehsan said, his eyes reddening. "Then we had to run away to Pakistan, and there was nothing we could do. But all of us have this compulsion to keep searching. I would at least like to find out where my brother is, to see him buried with some respect for human dignity. That does not seem too much to ask."
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U.S. public wakens to forgotten war
Ottawa Citizen, 08/14/2007 By Norma Greenaway
Almost no debate on merits of involvement in Afghanistan except to beat up on Bush

Some U.S. commentators have called Afghanistan the first and most unfortunate orphan of the Iraq war. They have also dubbed it the United States' forgotten war.

Indeed, compared to Canada, the United States almost feels like an Afghanistan-free zone. The conflict gets scant attention in the mainstream U.S. media, especially on the television networks, despite the significant toll the conflict, after almost six years, has taken on U.S. lives and the U.S. treasury.

This oft-forgotten first front in the U.S.-led war on terrorism is, however, creeping back on the radar screen, pushed by reports of a reconstituted and emboldened Al-Qa'ida movement in Pakistan, an unexpectedly resilient Taliban, the recent U.S. visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and U.S. election politics.

Afghanistan cannot rival the bloody and politically charged war in Iraq for attention in the United States. The toll of about 350 U.S. lives lost and about $127 billion in Congress-approved spending in Afghanistan pales beside the more than 3,600 U.S. lives lost in Iraq, and approved spending of $450 billion.

Iraq "is a political football here, as well as a nightmare in trying to figure out how we can get out of this without leaving behind a horrendous civil war," said Marvin Weinbaum, who worked as an analyst on Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. State Department from 1999 through 2003.

The U.S. troop and financial commitment to the NATO-led military offensive in Afghanistan is nowhere near as controversial.

Unlike Canada, where debate rages over whether and for how long Canadian forces should remain engaged in a military role in Afghanistan, there is almost no debate on this side of the border about the merits of U.S. involvement in what the government calls Operation Enduring Freedom.

"Both the Republicans and the Democrats have signed on," Weinbaum said. "Except to use it (Afghanistan) to beat up on (President George W.) Bush over Iraq, no one has said we should be looking for a way out of this."

Weinbaum, scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, also said the U.S. public sees Afghanistan as fertile ground for Al-Qa'ida and other terrorist organizations. Most U.S. residents are persuaded, therefore, that the United States needs to be there and that failure is not an option.

"If (the military intervention in) Afghanistan fails, there will be no state, no economy and no government," Weinbaum said. "In that kind of soil, certainly the enemies of the United States and everybody else will be able to flourish."

Weinbaum said Canadians need to wake up to that prospect. "Bombs go off in Britain. Bombs go off in Spain. They could go off in Toronto. They (Canadians) are not going to be able to buy out of this. We are talking now about hard-core terrorists. And, for the time being, their safest place is Afghanistan."

Weinbaum said Afghanistan is inching back into the public eye for good reason.
But the news is not good, he said, despite the "Pollyanna-ish" note struck last Monday when Bush and Karzai spoke to reporters after their meeting at Camp David. Karzai asserted that the Taliban forces are "defeated" and pose no threat to his government or the country's institutions.

Fresh British parliamentary and U.S. intelligence reports, by contrast, say Osama bin Laden's Al-Qa'ida and a regrouped Taliban have found safe haven in largely ungoverned territory along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The worsening state of affairs in Pakistan also has some of the Democratic rivals for the presidential nomination at each others' throats over, for example, whether the U.S. should unilaterally send troops into Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf were to fail to act on solid intelligence to have his own forces flush the insurgents from hiding.
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