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August 22, 2007 

Afghan provincial governor survives suicide blast
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The governor of Afghanistan's southeastern province of Khost survived an assassination attempt on Wednesday when a suicide car bomber struck his convoy, witnesses and officials said.

At least three of governor Arsala Jamal's bodyguards were killed in the attack, which occurred close to a base for Western troops just outside Khost town, they said.

Minutes after the attack, Jamal told Reuters he was fine.

"The attack was against my convoy. I am fine, but I see some people in flames in cars ahead of me."

Khost lies near the border with Pakistan and has suffered a spate of attacks in recent months.

Militants also fired a rocket on a NATO military base in the eastern province of Nuristan on Wednesday, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding 11 U.S. soldiers, a provincial official said.

Hours later, a NATO convoy was attacked in a rare raid in the relatively peaceful western province of Herat destroying a vehicle, a provincial official said, but he did not know if there were any casualties. A NATO official confirmed the incident, but also had no information on casualties.

Violence has surged in the past 19 months in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Copying Iraqi insurgents' tactics, the Taliban largely rely on suicide attacks and roadside bombs as part of their campaign against the Afghan government and foreign troops.

Nearly 20 people, many of them civilians, were killed in two separate suicide attacks at the weekend in the southern province of Kandahar.

Also on Wednesday, Taliban and Afghan forces clashed in two separate districts of Ghazni province which lies to the southwest of Kabul, the two sides said.

Both sides gave conflicting accounts about casualties.

The clashes in Ghazni came a day after the Taliban unleashed a series of attacks on Afghan troops in Kapisa province which lies to the northeast of Kabul and in Baghlan province further north, Afghan officials and witnesses said.
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Mayor of southern Afghan town kidnapped by gunmen
The Associated Press Wednesday, August 22, 2007  
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Gunmen abducted a mayor of a southern Afghan town Wednesday as he drove with three people on a stretch of treacherous road, an official said.

Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Gereshk, a town in the world's largest drug-producing province of Helmand, was abducted with two of his sons and another man as he traveled to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, said Abdul Manaf Khan, the Gereshk district chief.

The gunmen released his sons and the other man traveling in the car, but kept Shah, Khan said. Authorities launched a search-and-rescue operation.

Abductions have become the Taliban's modus operandi recently, as both Afghan and foreigners helping with reconstruction efforts in the war-ravaged country have been targeted.

A group of 23 South Koreans and two Germans were taken hostage in separate incidents last month in central Afghanistan. Two of the Koreans were shot to death, two were released, and the rest remain in captivity.

One of the German men was shot dead while the other remains in captivity.
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11 dead in Afghanistan violence
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least 11 people including two shepherd boys have been killed in a new wave of violence in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed car into the convoy of the governor of eastern Khost province on Wednesday, killing a security guard but missing his primary target, officials and medical sources.

A doctor at the city hospital told AFP that seven other people including three civilians -- two of them teenage boys -- were injured in the attack in the provincial capital Khost and admitted for treatment.

"I'm OK, but I don't have any information about the others," the governor, Arsala Jamal, told AFP after the bombing.

Jamal was returning from a ceremony to mark the opening of a new road built under the supervision of NATO-led forces when the bomber hit his convoy, according to a NATO spokeswoman, US Major Christine Nelson-Chung.

"We're horrified by the action taking against the life of the governor," Nelson-Chung said.

The attack was the latest in a wave of such incidents blamed on the Taliban militants.

Elsewhere, two shepherd boys were killed in the cross-fire as police clashed with Taliban rebels in the restive south of the country on Tuesday, a police commander said.

The children, from a nomadic tribe, died in fighting in Ghazni province, where Taliban militants have been holding 19 South Koreans hostage for more than a month.

"We're investigating to find out how those two kids were killed. We don't yet know if they were killed by police or enemy fire," provincial police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.

He said the fighting had lasted several hours and a number of Taliban were also killed, although he could not give a figure.

Two Taliban fighters died in a separate clash elsewhere in the province on Tuesday, he added.

In other clashes, two policemen and four militants were killed in fighting in the eastern province of Paktika.

The violence was the latest in an upsurge of Taliban-led unrest which has plagued Afghanistan since the hardline Islamic militia was ousted by a US-led invasion in late 2001.

The rebels, who are said to have Al-Qaeda's backing, have increasingly used tactics often employed by extremists in Iraq, such as suicide bombings and kidnappings.

In addition to the South Koreans, the Taliban have been holding a German engineer hostage for more than a month. The rebels have demanded the release of some of their jailed fighters for the hostages.

The government has rejected that demand, saying that to do so would encourage criminals in the war-shattered nation.
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11 NATO soldiers wounded in Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms attacked a remote NATO base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding 11 alliance soldiers, officials said.

A suicide bomber, meanwhile, attacked a provincial governor elsewhere in the east, killing four people and wounding eight others. The governor was unharmed.

The militants in Afghan army uniforms approached the NATO's forward operating base in mountainous Nuristan province before launching the attack, the alliance said.

The attack left two Afghan soldiers dead and 11 NATO troops wounded, it said. NATO did not identify the nationality of the wounded troops.

Most of the troops in the east are American.

Lt. Col. Claudia Foss, spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, denounced the Taliban militants for wearing Afghan uniforms.

"This is another example of the Taliban extremists ignoring international law of armed conflict," she said.

In Khost province, a suicide bomber attacked the six-vehicle convoy carrying Khost Gov. Arsallah Jamal close to the capital of the province, a region where Taliban and al-Qaida linked militants are believed to operate, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary.

"It was an attack on me," Jamal told The Associated Press via telephone.

Two of the dead were Jamal's bodyguards, while the other two were passers-by, the interior ministry said.

The attack happened hours after gunmen in southern Afghanistan abducted the mayor of Gereshk, a town in the opium-growing province of Helmand, said Abdul Manaf Khan, the Gereshk district chief.

Dur Ali Shah was traveling with two of his sons and another man to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah on a treacherous stretch of road, Khan said. Only Shar was taken, Khan said.

Authorities have launched a search and rescue operation, he said.

Abductions have become a key insurgent tactic in recent months in trying to destabilize the country, targeting both Afghan officials and foreigners helping with reconstruction efforts.

A group of 23 South Koreans and two Germans were taken hostage in separate incidents last month. Two of the Koreans were killed, two were released and the rest remain captive. One of the German men was killed, the other remains a captive.
___

Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report
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Wave of violence in Afghanistan kills 24
Tue Aug 21, 10:57 AM ET
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least 24 people including two police officers were killed in clashes as fresh violence swept through insurgency-hit Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

Eight Taliban militants and two policemen were killed in fighting which erupted late Monday in the southern province of Ghazni where the Taliban have been holding 19 South Korean aid workers hostage for the past month, police said.

The fighting in the province's Qara Bagh -- where the Koreans were kidnapped on July 19 -- and Ander districts was still ongoing Tuesday, provincial police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.

Two other police were seriously wounded, he said.

Elsewhere in Ghazni, two Afghan civilians were killed and two injured when a landmine apparently intended for the security forces went off under their vehicle on Tuesday, Ahmadzai said.

"The Taliban had planted the mine, aimed at us," the police commander said.

In separate clashes between Taliban and security forces, seven militants were killed in an operation by Afghan and coalition forces in neighbouring Helmand province Monday, the defence ministry said in a statement.

"Seven terrorists who had infiltrated the area to destabilise the area were killed during an operation by Afghan and coalition forces," the statement said, referring to a 10,000-strong US-led force in Afghanistan mandated to hunt down the Taliban.

The operation took place in Helmand's troubled Sangin district, which has been badly hit by the insurgency.

Also in Sangin, four Afghan army soldiers were injured the same day after their checkpost came under Taliban rocket fire.

Four other Taliban guerrillas were killed late Monday in the southwestern province of Farah, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang told AFP.

A woman from a nomadic tribe was killed and three members of her family wounded when assailants hurled a hand grenade into their tent in the eastern province of Khost, police said.

It was not known if the attack on the gypsy-like tribe was carried out by Taliban militants, Khost police spokesman Wazir Padshah told AFP.

The gypsy tribes are among Afghanistan's most impoverished residents, frequently moving from one place to another and steering clear of clashes with either the Taliban or the security forces.

Meanwhile, a NATO helicopter made an emergency landing near the capital Kabul, the alliance's headquarters here said. It gave no reason for the emergency or whether there were casualties.

The unrest has so far this year claimed the lives of 136 international soldiers from the NATO and US-led forces.
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Taliban renews death threats against hostages
Wed Aug 22, 3:48 AM ET
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants who have been holding 19 South Koreans for more than a month renewed a threat Wednesday to kill them if their demands are not met.

A purported rebel spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said some of the captives were sick and they were also suffering from lack of proper food.

"If the demands of the Taliban are not met the Korean hostages face death," Mujahed told AFP in a telephone call from an unknown location.

"Although we want this crisis to be solved through negotiations, it seems the US authorities are creating problems."

He did not, however, set any deadline and it was impossible to verify his comments independently.

The Korean aid workers were seized while travelling in insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan on July 19, a day after a German engineer was kidnapped nearby.

The Islamic militant group has demanded the release of some of its jailed fighters in exchange for the hostages -- a demand the US-backed government in Kabul has so far rejected.

Mujahed said weather conditions and lack of "proper food" in the southern Ghazni province meant life for the hostages was increasingly harsh.

"Their health condition is not good. The weather conditions and a lack of proper food have made conditions for them very hard. Most of them are sick."

Negotiations between Taliban captors and a South Korean delegation to free the captives have failed. Mujahed, however, said telephone contacts between he two sides was continuing.

"We've been in phone contact with the Korean delegation. So far, there has not been any decision for face-to-face talks," he said.

A South Korean embassy official here, under cover of anonymity, confirmed contact was being maintained.

The spokesman said the Taliban wanted 10 of its prisoners freed in exchange for the German engineer, who was also sick, and four Afghan colleagues.

The kidnappings are among a series of incidents blamed on the Taliban, who are waging a bloody insurgency against the Kabul government and its coalition allies that has spiralled in intensity over the past year.

A female German aid worker was kidnapped in the capital at the weekend, but she was later freed in a police raid and authorities said her abduction was a criminal act motivated by money.
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Afghan Government Forms Special Panel on Hostage
Korea Times, South Korea
The Afghan government has formed a special presidential committee to deal with the South Korean hostage situation, and the committee is seeking "another means" to get the captives released, Yonhap News quoted a presidential spokesman as saying Tuesday in Dubai.

The special committee is made up of representatives of the foreign affairs, interior and national security ministries, spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told Yonhap through an intermediary. President Hamid Karzai is concerned about the captives and established the committee to help quickly resolve the crisis, he said.

Hamidzada said the committee was working hard toward a peaceful solution but also mentioned "another means" to have the hostages released.

Twenty-three South Koreans were kidnapped on July 19 while traveling in Afghanistan on a church-sponsored volunteer mission. The Taliban has claimed responsibility, and two male captives were executed as the Afghan government refused the militia's demands to exchange the hostages with Taliban prisoners.

The spokesman would not elaborate on what he meant by other means, only saying that all available options were being considered. But he said the options do not include any hostage swap.
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Osama Bin Laden Is `Healthy and Active,' Taliban Says (Update2)
By Michael Heath
Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- A Taliban commander in Afghanistan said al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is alive and well, according to the transcript of a video provided by a U.S.-based organization that monitors extremist Web sites.

``He is extremely healthy and active,'' Mansour Dadullah said, according to the video's English-language subtitles. The clip was dated June 15, the IntelCenter in Alexandria, Virginia, said today.

Since bin Laden escaped U.S. and Afghan forces at the battle of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in December 2001, there have been no confirmed sightings of him. He has released several video and audio tapes from his presumed hiding places on the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Bush administration said in its latest National Intelligence Estimate last month that al-Qaeda, the group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., is regaining strength in Pakistan and honing its tactics in Iraq.

The State Department is offering as much as $25 million for information leading to bin Laden's capture.

Dadullah, whose brother Mullah Dadullah was a top commander in the Taliban until he was killed this year, said he was contacted by bin Laden. ``I received a message from him in which he advised me, `I must follow Mullah Dadullah and continue the same activities so that the mujahedeen may not weaken.' ''

Death Speculation

``There's a very high percentage chance'' that bin Laden is dead, Will Geddes, managing director of the London-based International Corporate Protection security company, said in a telephone interview today.

Even if bin Laden is alive, it may not be a ``massive blow'' to the U.S., Geddes said. ``Al-Qaeda is no longer one man leading an international army.'' The organization has become a ``generic umbrella name,'' he said.

L'Est Republicain newspaper reported in September that Saudi Arabian intelligence officials believe Saudi-born bin Laden died from a fever in a remote region of Pakistan.

The French newspaper cited a report from France's DGSE external intelligence agency. Saudi Arabia and Western governments, including France and the U.S., cast doubt on the report.
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Film of ill-fated US raid in Afghanistan planned: report
Tue Aug 21, 2:29 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The story of an ill-fated raid by US Navy Seals to capture a Taliban leader in Afghanistan is to be the subject of a new film, movie industry press reported Tuesday.

In the latest example of Hollywood's willingness to bring the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to the big screen, Universal has scooped the rights to "Lone Survivor," Marcus Luttrell's best-selling memoir, Variety reported.

Luttrell was part of a four-man team sent into Afghanistan in June 2005 on a mission to apprehend a senior Taliban leader, only to be ambushed by dozens of militia.

Luttrell was the only member of the team to escape alive, eventually being rescued from hostile territory after Afghan villagers came to his aid.

"Lone Survivor" is to be directed by Peter Berg, whose new film "The Kingdom," about a terror plot in Saudi Arabia, is released next month.

Several other films about Iraq and Afghanistan are due for release in coming months, including "In the Valley of Elah," "Lions for Lambs," "Grace Is Gone" and "Charlie Wilson's War."
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“Peace jirga” established to hold talks with Taliban, other Afghan groups, says Awais
Associated Press of Pakistan    
QUETTA, Aug 22 (APP): Governor Balochistan Awais Ahmed Ghani has said that a “bilateral 50-member peace jirga” has been established to launch initiatives for peace in Afghanistan, besides holding dialogue with all resistant groups including Taliban for reconciliation in the country. The Governor was replying to a question while talking to APP here  Wednesday.

 He said that the “bilateral peace jirga” has been established  for initiation of peace overtures contained in the provision of the joint declaration issued at the recent jirga in Kabul as envisaged by Pakistan which is a significant breakthrough in finding a solution to the  prevailing  crisis in Afghanistan.

He said that the organizing of Pak-Afghan jirga is a great success for Pakistan as the jirga accepted that the viewpoint of Pakistan on crucial issues of Kabul is right. All parties in the jirga unanimously believed that the core issue in Afghanistan cannot be resolved through use of military power and can only be resolved through political dialogue.

He, however, said that the jirga of this nature could only bring the  desired results, if resistant groups including Taliban in Afghanistan are given representation in it and hoped that this suggestion would be given  due consideration.

He expressed the hope that the jirga declaration and recommendations  would help both the neighbouring countries to overcome their mistrusts and militancy, besides it will also help in resolving other vital issues.

To a question regarding his recent visit to US, he said that he gave a clear message to US that its military strategy in Afghanistan is wrong  and urged Washington to resolve the issue through political dialogue.

He strongly rejected the stance of US “to do more” for stopping  spread of Taliban to other places and said that growing  terrorism in Afghanistan is home-grown and indigenous in nature.

He also told Washington to modulate its military  policy in Afghanistan for its future stability and integrity and urged  to establish peace and resolve the issue through political dialogue by including all resistant groups and Taliban.

He said tribal area in Pakistan is one fourth of Afghanistan where  90,000 troops are deployed to counter terrorism while Afghanistan has deployed only 20,000 troops on its territory.

He expressed the hope that US and Afghanistan would not level any  sort of allegation against Pakistan in future.

He strongly rejected the claim about presence of Osama and Mulla Omar in Balochistan and said that Kabul issues irresponsible statements without solid evidence in this regard. “Kabul should point out the location of their presence in the province and we would take strict action against them,” he said, adding that Pakistan has strong defence and intelligence system and not a single man can cross its border illegally. 
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Musharraf: Pakistan to take steps to implement Pak-Afghan Peace Jirga decisions
ISLAMABAD, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf Tuesday said Pakistan would take all possible follow-up steps to implement the decisions taken at the Pak-Afghan Joint Peace Jirga. Musharraf made the remarks while chairing a high-level meeting here at Aiwan-e-Sadr.

He expressed his satisfaction on the holding of the peace jirga and hoped that the involvement of tribal and religious leaders from both sides of the Pak-Afghan border would help promote peace and security and check illegal border crossings.

He said Pakistan firmly believed in a strong, stable and prosperous Afghanistan which was not only in the interest of Afghan people but also in the interest of Pakistan and the entire region.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz gave an overview on Pak-Afghan economic cooperation and assistance being extended by Pakistan in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Some senior officials also attended the meeting.

Following an agreement reached by Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a meeting hosted by U.S. President George W Bush at the White House in September 2006, Pakistan and Afghanistan held a joint peace jirga, attended by around 650 tribal elders and officials from both countries, in the Afghan capital Kabul on Aug. 9

The jirga decided in its declaration that a committee with 25 members from each side would be formed to approach and talk to their opposing forces.
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"Negative message" if Japan ends Afghan mission
By Robert Birsel
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The failure of Japan to extend a navy mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan would send the wrong message to the world and to terrorists, Japan's defense minister said on Wednesday.

Japan has been providing fuel and goods for U.S.-led coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since 2001 under a law that expires on November 1.

The head of Japan's main opposition party opposes a bill to extend the law. Policy experts say the end of the Japanese mission could sour Japan's security ties with the United States.

Defense Minister Yuriko Koike said during a visit to Pakistan the Japanese operation was highly valued by its allies, including Pakistan, and they wanted to see Japan continue it.

"If we stop our operation in the region, members who have been participating in this global war on terrorism need to change their plans and operational schedules," Koike told a news conference.

"We need to be careful ... that would give a negative message to international society and also to terrorists."

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf agreed with Koike, telling her that the Japanese operations in the Indian Ocean were indispensable for Pakistan to continue its own participation in the U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan, according to Kyodo News.

Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which won control of the upper house of parliament last month, has vowed to oppose the extension of the mission.

Asked about the implications for ties with the United States if the mission was not extended, Koike said: "Our effort is not for the U.S., it's for international society."

Ozawa said this month the war in Afghanistan was an American fight that "had nothing to do with the United Nations or the international community."

If Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party fails to push a renewal through parliament by the end of October, supplies may be interrupted.

More significant may be the symbolism of Washington's closest Asian ally withdrawing from the Afghan operation.

Ozawa said his party may also submit a bill to parliament halting supply flights into Iraq by Japanese troops based in Kuwait.

But many analysts doubt that Ozawa will deliver on his threat to block the extension of the Indian Ocean operation, not least because his party is deeply divided on the issue.

Restricted by its pacifist constitution, Japan has spent years in lockstep with U.S. defense policy in return for the shelter of Washington's "nuclear umbrella."

Abe has sought to propel Japan further out of its post-World War Two pacifist shell since he took office last September.

Tokyo has been a major contributor of aid to Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001.
(Additional reporting by Hugh Lawson in Tokyo)
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CIA missed chances to tackle al-Qaida
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday.

Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found.

"They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," the report stated.

Yet the review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson found neither a "single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have stopped the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

In a statement, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the decision to release the report was not his choice or preference, but that he was making the report available as required by Congress in a law President Bush signed earlier this month.

"I thought the release of this report would distract officers serving their country on the front lines of a global conflict," Hayden said. "It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed."

The report does cover terrain heavily examined by a congressional inquiry and the Sept. 11 Commission. However, the CIA watchdog's report goes further than previous reviews to examine the personal failings of individuals within the agency who led the pre-9/11 efforts against al-Qaida.

Helgerson's team found that no CIA employees violated the law or were part of any misconduct. But it still called on then-CIA Director Porter Goss to form accountability boards to look at the performance of specific individuals to determine whether reprimands were called for.

The inquiry boards were recommended for officials including former CIA Director George Tenet, who resigned in July 2004; his Deputy Director for Operations Jim Pavitt; Counterterrorism Center Chief Cofer Black and the agency's executive director, who was not further identified. Other less senior officials were also tagged for accountability reviews, but identifying information was removed from the report's public version.

In a statement, Tenet said the inspector general is "flat wrong" about the lack of plan.

"There was in fact a robust plan, marked by extraordinary effort and dedication to fighting terrorism, dating back to long before 9/11," he said. "Without such an effort, we would not have been able to give the president a plan on Sept. 15, 2001, that led to the routing of the Taliban, chasing al-Qaida from its Afghan sanctuary and combating terrorists across 92 countries."

In October 2005, Goss rejected the recommendation for the inquiry boards. He said he had spoken personally with the current employees named in the report, and he trusted their abilities and dedication. "This report unveiled no mysteries," Goss said.

Hayden stuck by Goss's decision.

Providing a glimpse of a series of shortfalls laid out in the longer, still-classified report, the executive summary says:

• U.S. spy agencies, which were overseen by Tenet, lacked a comprehensive strategic plan to counter Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. The inspector general concluded that Tenet "by virtue of his position, bears ultimate responsibility for the fact that no such strategic plan was ever created."

• The CIA's analysis of al-Qaida before Sept. 2001 was lacking. No comprehensive report focusing on bin Laden was written after 1993, and no comprehensive report laying out the threats of 2001 was assembled. "A number of important issues were covered insufficiently or not at all," the report found.

• The CIA and the National Security Agency tussled over their responsibilities in dealing with al-Qaida well into 2001. Only Tenet's personal involvement could have led to a timely resolution, the report concluded.

• The CIA station charged with monitoring bin Laden — code-named Alec Station — was overworked, lacked operational experience, expertise and training. The report recommended forming accountability boards for the CIA Counterterror Center chiefs from 1998 to 2001, including Black.

• Although 50 to 60 people read at least one CIA cable about two of the hijackers, the information wasn't shared with the proper offices and agencies. "That so many individuals failed to act in this case reflects a systemic breakdown.... Basically, there was no coherent, functioning watch-listing program," the report said. The report again called for further review of Black and his predecessor.

While blame is heaped on Tenet and his deputies, the report also says that Tenet was forcefully engaged in counterterrorism efforts and personally sounded the alarm before Congress, the military and policymakers. In a now well-known 1998 memo, he declared, "We are at war."

The trouble, the report said, was follow-up.

The inspector general did take exception to findings of Congress' joint inquiry into 9/11. For instance, the congressional inquiry found that the CIA was reluctant to seek authority to assassinate bin Laden. Instead, the inspector general believed the problem was the agency's limited covert-action capabilities.

The CIA's reliance on a group of sources with questionable reliability "proved insufficient to mount a credible operation against bin Laden," the report said. "Efforts to develop other options had limited potential prior to 9/11."

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said the CIA has learned from the past and has corrected many of these shortcomings, but has to do more.

"Sadly, the CIA's 9/11 accountability review serves as a sobering reminder that the Bush Administration policies for the past six years have failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden," the West Virginia Democrat said. "Nor have the administration's policies deprived Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders of the safe haven they need to plot against the United States."
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Germany fears it's being targeted in Afghanistan
By Louis Charbonneau - Analysis Reuters - Wednesday, August 22 12:31 pm
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany fears its peacekeepers and aid workers in Afghanistan have become targets of the Taliban and other insurgents who want to force Berlin to pull its soldiers and citizens out of the country.

A senior Taliban leader told the German weekly Der Spiegel in March that German peacekeepers deployed in the relatively quiet north of Afghanistan would no longer be spared the deadly attacks which were then commonplace in the southern regions.

German police, soldiers and aid workers have been killed and civilians kidnapped, intensifying debate in Germany on whether it is time for Germany to call it quits in Afghanistan where a resurgent Taliban is making strong gains.

German government officials have expressed concern that the Taliban may have targeted Germany to influence debate on the renewal of Berlin's peacekeeping mandate this fall.

"Those behind the attacks and kidnappings want to sabotage our long-term engagement," German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told weekly newspaper Die Zeit. "That's why we can't give in to them."

NATO has some 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, which it sent there after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban government following the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Germany's own mandate permits the deployment of up to 3,500 troops in northern Afghanistan.

Christopher Langton, head of defence analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said it was possible Germans and others were being targeted in efforts to weaken their resolve to stay in Afghanistan.

"There is certainly a possibility of certain nationalities being targeted because they have troops in the country," said Langton, adding that the insurgents were simultaneously trying to pressure and undermine the Afghan government.

Other analysts say it is too early to be sure to what extent recent kidnappings of German and South Korean aid workers -- several of whom were killed by the Taliban kidnappers -- are y aimed directly at these two countries.

DISTRUBING TREND
Joanna Nathan, an analyst in Kabul for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think-tank, said the kidnapping of foreigners was a new and disturbing trend but most kidnappings were opportunistic and in areas where people rarely travel.

She said an attack like the one last week which killed three German policemen could have been aimed directly at Germany, but added: "I'm not sure that they're specifically targeting countries and peacekeeping nations yet."

A Kabul-based Western security expert who declined to be named said Germans were merely "targets of opportunity".

There may be a precedent for specific attacks on nationals of a particular country, Langton said.

He said the number of attacks on the Dutch appeared to rise before a parliamentary election in the Netherlands and a vote in parliament on the Netherlands' peacekeeping presence in Afghanistan. The Dutch voted in an election last year.

"Of course we have no way of knowing whether this is deliberate or coincidental," he said.

Hajo Funke, a professor of political science at the Free University in Berlin, said events in Afghanistan had already affected discussions in Germany on its Afghan mandate.

Conservatives such as Chancellor Angela Merkel, who oppose withdrawal from Afghanistan or dilution of the country's peacekeeping mandate, seem even more determined to stay.

"They have deepened the divide between those who want to keep the mandate and those in the (left-wing) opposition who want to change or eliminate it," Funke said, adding that most Germans would like their troops brought home.

DECISION ON MANDATE
Although Germany is expected to renew its troops' mandate, there is a possibility parliament will narrow it.

The mandate is already limited, preventing Berlin deploying peacekeepers in the troubled south or west of the country despite pressure from NATO allies to send troops there.

Some members of Germany's coalition would like Berlin to have more freedom, above all to train Afghan security forces in the south. Senior Foreign Ministry officials say this is a possibility, but it is not clear whether parliament will agree.

Kidnapping of foreigners is a recent phenomenon, but Langton said abduction for cash had a long history in Afghanistan.

"Kidnapping for profit is a pattern of life, an activity that has been part of Afghanistan going back centuries," he said.

Last weekend a criminal gang -- not the Taliban -- kidnapped a German aid worker and held her for two days before she was rescued by the police. Analysts said they wanted a ransom.

If the goal is money, kidnapping Germans can be very lucrative. It is an open secret that Berlin pays ransoms.

(Additional reporting by Jon Hemming in Kabul)
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Afghanistan: Health Minister Calls AIDS Epidemic 'Serious And Alarming' Challenge
August 22, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Afghanistan's Health Ministry announced on August 2 that HIV infections have increased fourfold in that country in the past six months. Official figures show 75 cases recorded this year, but international groups estimate that the real HIV-positive rate is higher. RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan broadcaster Mustafa Sarwar discussed the Afghan AIDS epidemic with Health Minister Mohammad Amin Fatemi.

RFE/RL: What strategies has the Health Ministry implemented to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan?

Mohammad Amin Fatemi: Firstly, two years ago, we established a department called the Department of AIDS Control. This department has been working since then, especially under the provision of Afghanistan's National Development Strategy. A five-year approach called the "National Strategy for AIDS Control" was created, and it will be working on the issue until 2010. This strategy includes some key elements for the prevention of AIDS in Afghanistan. This includes strengthening the country's system for AIDS detection, obtaining political commitments to fulfill this strategy, creating a good coordination system, and raising local awareness regarding AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases -- especially in remote areas where people lack health and medical services.

RFE/RL: To what extent has this strategy been successful?

Fatemi: I must say that this strategy has been very successful. By conducting this strategy, we can persuade donor countries and the international community to provide us with financial support. We need some $38 million for our five-year strategy. Through a formal letter, the World Bank has been the first donor and has committed to give $10 million to the (Afghan) Health Ministry for this purpose. The World Health Organization also has committed to provide us with about $1 million; and France will help us with $200,000. Since we need more than $30 million, we have requested additional funds of $11 million from The Global Fund [to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, or GFATM]. In response to this request, The Global Fund has said it will give us an answer in November. And, fortunately, the Asian Development Bank has pledged $1.5 million.
I can estimate that somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people [are infected]. Most of them are among refugees returning home from Iran or Pakistan.

RFE/RL: Have you conducted any surveys yet to discover how many people in Afghanistan are infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS?

Fatemi: So far, 245 positive cases have been found.

RFE/RL: Some reports claim that the number of people infected with AIDS in Afghanistan is far greater than the figures provided in official reports. How do you respond to such claims?

Fatemi: It is exactly true. The international organizations -- including the World Bank, the World Health Organization, donor countries, and other [Health] ministry partners -- estimate that the number of people infected with AIDS is between 1,000 and 2,000. But as a health official, I can estimate that this number is even higher -- somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people. Most of them are among [Afghan] refugees returning home from Iran or Pakistan. There are also other reasons that explain why the number of infected people remains high and yet hidden. Many people don't want to share information about a very simple sexually transmitted or related disease with a doctor or even with members of their family.

RFE/RL: How big is the danger of an even greater increase in the number of cases of HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan?

Fatemi: As the person responsible for health issues in Afghanistan, and as a person who has been working in this area for a long time, I must say that it would have been a great challenge -- and a warning sign for me -- if there were only one reported case of AIDS in Afghanistan. Now there are more than 200 positive cases of the disease in the country. We must consider it as a serious and alarming challenge. Nearly 60 percent of those infected are drug addicts. And, unfortunately, poppy cultivation and drug smuggling are still a big problem in Afghanistan. Likewise, unemployment and poverty are challenges ahead of us. So what is important is that we have to work in order to develop both the economic and social situations in our country. If we spend the $38 million during our five-year program the right way, the proportion of HIV/AIDS cases need not be higher than 0.5 percent of the whole population.
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BRIDGE CONNECTING TAJIKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN SET TO OPEN
David Trilling EurasiaNet.org - Aug 21 10:34 AM
A major new piece in Central Asia’s expanding transportation grid -- a bridge across the Pyanj River connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan -- is set to open in a few days. The United States, which supplied most of the funding and know-how for the project, hopes the bridge will promote regional stabilization.

The opening ceremony, currently scheduled to take place on August 26, "offers a new era of trade in the region," US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Sullivan said in an August 14 speech in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

In recent years, trade between Afghanistan and Tajikistan has depended upon sporadic ferry service across the Pyanj River, connecting the Tajik city of Nizhny Pyanj and Shir Khan Bandar on the Afghan side. The ferry’s relatively small size limited the number of trucks that could traverse the border to roughly 50 per day. In addition, the ferry is not operational for several months of the year due to hazardous currents, according to a 2005 statement issued by the US Embassy in Dushanbe.

According to Tajik and Afghan officials, the new bridge will allow for as many as 1,000 trucks a day to cross the border, greatly increasing the flow of goods between Central Asia and South Asia.

Construction on the $37-million span began almost two years ago. The span stands to especially benefit Tajikistan, where external trade has suffered from a lack of efficient and reliable overland trade routes. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Built to withstand earthquakes and the Pyanj River’s swift currents, the bridge contains 13,000 cubic meters of concrete procured from Tajikistan, as well as steal from Russia and Germany, said Brian Walls, a civilian who is overseeing the project on behalf of the US Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to truck traffic, the bridge is also built to handle heavy military vehicles, Walls added. The span is almost a half-mile long.

More than 600 local workers helped build the bridge, with Afghans now helping their Tajik counterparts complete the necessary customs infrastructure. Though the buildings will not be ready in time for the opening, they should be operational later this year.

Since the start of construction, the project has overcome a few speed-bumps, according to official sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. For example, Tajik officials tried to tax the Italian contractor as much as $6 million against the terms of the agreement. In addition, the Tajik government changed the price of cement, as specified in the original contract, several times, causing delays and headaches for construction crews.

The bureaucratic obstacles did not cause a substantial delay in construction. When the project was originally announced, completion was envisioned in April of 2007.

Sullivan, the assistant secretary of state, pledged that the United States will continue to promote infrastructure development in Central Asia, calling such improvements "critical to regional integration and prosperity." He added that US development assistance will focus not only on bridge and road construction, but also on advances in the area of telecommunications. "Moving ideas and information [among] all peoples of the region with speed and efficiency should be an important goal," he said.

Editor’s Note: David Trilling is a freelance photojournalist working in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
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Chinese Vice President meets Afghan FM
August 22, 2007
Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong met in Beijing on Wednesday with visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta and proposed stepping up the bilateral partnership.

The Chinese government and people valued the traditional friendship with Afghanistan, Zeng told Spanta, according to a press release from Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Zeng also pledged that China would continue to offer support and assistance for Afghanistan's peaceful reconstruction.

In Beijing as a guest of Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Spanta began his first-ever China visit as foreign minister on Aug. 17.

He held talks with Yang Tuesday and met with State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan on Monday.

Spanta said the two countries had a long history of bilateral relations and treasured the special friendship between the two peoples.

Spanta said, according to the press release, that Afghanistan appreciated China offers to help in his country's reconstruction and was willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China.

He also reiterated that Afghanistan would continue to adhere to the one-China policy.
Source: Xinhua
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Afghan Foreign Minister Meets Chinese Official
Aug 20, 2007
BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese senior diplomat said on Monday that China will continue to give support to Afghanistan's peace process and economic reconstruction.

"China will continue to support Afghanistan's peace process, actively participate in and provide every help it could in Afghanistan's economic reconstruction," State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan told visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta.

Tang said China and Afghanistan are "good neighbors, good friends and good partners". China sincerely hopes that lasting peace and stability will be realized in Afghanistan, which is in the common interests of both China and Afghanistan and the world at large.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai paid a state visit to China in June 2006, during which Karzai and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao signed a good neighborly treaty for friendship and cooperation. Hu and Karzai met again on Aug. 15 this year on the sidelines of a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Tang said the events marked that China-Afghanistan comprehensive and cooperative partnership has entered a new phase of development.

He said that China is also ready to strengthen cooperation with Afghanistan on non-traditional security issues and support Afghanistan to play an active role in regional affairs.

Spanta said Afghanistan and China are traditional good neighbors and the two peoples always enjoy intimate friendship, adding Afghanistan appreciated China's help and support for his country's peace and reconstruction process.

Spanta said the Afghan government will firmly stick to the one-China policy and support China's reunification cause.

Spanta arrived here Friday for a six-day official visit to China, his first-ever visit to China as foreign minister. During his stay in Beijing, he will also meet with Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong and hold talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
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Helmand: A Kinder, Gentler Taleban?
As combat operations rage across Helmand province, Musa Qala district is quiet – and firmly under Taleban control.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Aziz Ahmad Tassal (ARR No. 264, 21-Aug-07)
Musa Qala, in the north of Helmand province, is unusually peaceful these days. Children are getting ready to go to newly-opened schools, and farmers in this opium-rich region are busy preparing their fields for autumn planting.

In contrast to the rest of Helmand, security is good in Musa Qala. There is little crime, and the bitter battles that have scarred surrounding areas seem far away.

Nor do residents live in fear that the Taleban are coming – they are already here.

“The Taleban control everything in Musa Qala,” said Mohammad Aref, 26, a shopkeeper in Musa Qala bazaar. “They have reinstated some traditions from their old regime of five years ago. They collect food rations from every house, and they drive around in their trucks.

“But the Taleban don’t treat people badly, the way they did before. They are very calm and they respect people. Everyone is happy with them."

The Taleban took over Musa Qala in early February, after a tenuous truce brokered by tribal elders collapsed. So far, there is little sign that either the Afghan government or the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, is ready to intervene and change the status quo.

"We have no plans to recapture Musa Qala," said Ghulam Mahayuddin Ghuri, commander-in-chief of the Third Corps of the Afghan National Army.

Face to face with the Taleban, residents like Mohammad Aref are making the best of things.

"People are very happy that the Taleban have brought security," he said. "And they are not forcing families to give them a male fighter, like they used to."

During the Taleban regime, from their capture of Kabul in 1996 until the United States-led Coalition drove them into retreat in late 2001, they would conscript soldiers from the local population. They levied one male member from each household, or from everyone who owned a shop or plot of land. Anyone who could not afford to pay someone else to go in his place was forced to join the Taleban.

In addition, the Taleban instituted a brutal regime to impose their strict interpretation of Islam on the general population. Music, films, television, photography, even kite-flying were banned. Men could be beaten for wearing their beards too short, women could not work or study, and in some places they could not even leave the house unless accompanied by a male family member.

Even in this conservative southern province, people chafed under such restrictions, and most welcomed the freedom that came with the new government and the international presence in Afghanistan from the end of 2001.

But in the past few years, disillusionment has set in. The promised reconstruction has been slow to arrive, and the Kabul government is seen as weak and ineffectual, unable to provide security or development. Local government and the police are plagued with corruption, crime is booming, and the drugs industry is taking over the economy.

The foreign military presence is also becoming increasingly unpopular. As ISAF mounts operation after operation to clear away the insurgents, the civilian casualties climb.

Musa Qala was the scene of intense fighting between ISAF and the Taleban throughout the late summer and early autumn of 2006. In October, the British-led forces withdrew from the district after reaching an agreement with tribal elders designed to keep the Taleban out of the district centre.

But that agreement broke down in early February 2007, after an ISAF air strike, which the Taleban claimed fell within an agreed exclusion zone, killed the brother of a powerful commander.

The Taleban swept in and established their own regime, complete with district governor, police chief and Sharia courts.

But according to residents, they have learned a bit about winning hearts and minds since the fall of their government in Kabul.

"If people want to watch television in their homes or listen to music, they can do as they wish. We won’t say anything to them," said a Taleban commander, who did not want to be named.

“Everyone gives zakat [Muslim tithe] to their own mullah. It is voluntary. If they don’t give it, no one will force them."

The commander said the rules imposed by the Taleban were "Afghan Islamic law", and he said people were very happy with it.

"No one tells people what to do," said one local resident, who did not want to be named. "They can shave their beard or let it grow. And no one bothers you if you are cultivating poppy. Opium is bought and sold on a very high level."

Helmand alone will supply close to half of the world's heroin this year. Its poppy crop increases annually despite all the rhetoric from the Kabul government and the international community linking the war on drugs with the war on terror.

The Taleban eradicated opium production almost entirely, in a one-year campaign conducted in 2000-2001. But this time around, they are being more lenient, perhaps because they too are benefiting from the profits of the trade.

Musa Qala is now known locally as "Smugglers' District", and some observers say that many of the factories that process opium paste into heroin have relocated here, since it is a no-go zone for the government and its counter-narcotics forces.

But it would be a mistake to assume that the Taleban have gone all soft, say residents.

"The Taleban are not forcing people, the way they did before," said Sher Mohammad, 20, a resident of Musa Qala. "But still, people are changing themselves, they are going back to the way they were during the first Taleban regime. For example, instead of playing music in the shops they now play Taleban songs. Women still go out, but not too much."

The Taleban have also expanded their radio station, the Voice of Sharia, to Musa Qala, backed by a wealthy patron from the district. It broadcasts a daily ration of exhortation to join the jihad, news and analysis, and music such as national, jihadi and fighting songs, always sung without musical accompaniment. Staffed by volunteers, its major message is of resistance to the government and to the foreign presence in Afghanistan.

A local Taleban, Mullah Ezatullah, praised the new regime, noting that there is a new district governor, Mullah Matin, while Mullah Mohammad Hassan doubles up as deputy governor and town mayor. The chief of police, Mullah Torjan, has managed to get the security situation under control, he added.

"If someone commits a crime, he is punished," said Ezatullah. "If a person steals, his hand is cut off. All things are done according to our law.

"Our government is not like [President Hamed] Karzai's," he told IWPR. "In Kabul, when someone is a high-ranking official, people have to fear his friends and relatives. But in the Taleban government, all people are equal. And all the people support the Taleban."

That may be a bit of an overstatement. Despite the welcome calm in the district, there is tension in the air.

"People are not happy," said one resident, who would not give his name. "Many are afraid to come to the bazaar from neighbouring villages. They are afraid that the foreigners will come and bomb the district. They are afraid of an attack from the air, as well as from ground troops."

After the Taleban took over in Musa Qala, hundreds of families fled in fear of both the Taleban and the expected retribution from the foreign forces. Many are still living elsewhere, camping out in ruined buildings, as they are afraid to return to their homes.

The Taleban do enjoy broad support among the population, said this resident, but there was an element of fear in the people's acquiescence.

"The Taleban are very serious in this district, and when they say something, they do it. People give them food, and other kinds of help, not because they are forced to but because they don’t want to upset the Taleban," he said. "People don’t play music at weddings unless they get permission from the Taleban."

Abdul Bari, another Musa Qala resident, is also disgruntled with the new government.

"Who knows how much they have changed?" he grumbled. "We can’t watch television, we can’t watch the news, and there are other restrictions that upset us."

The Taleban are also taxing local businesses, added Abdul Bari, although he would not disclose the percentage or amount.

The Taleban have allowed some privately-run schools to open.

In Musa Qala, as in much of the rest of Helmand, most schools have been closed due to security concerns. Many schools have been burned, and teachers and schoolchildren have been killed. The mayhem is most often attributed to the Taleban, although they have denied the charges.

"I am now back in school, and very happy," said Faiz Mohammad, a local teacher. "But the schools have been flattened, ruined by the bombs. So I have made my own house into a school. People are very happy, but unfortunately we don’t have desks, chairs, or anything else."

"I love going to school," said sixth-grader Ahmadullah. "I am very happy that I am going to be studying again."

"The Taleban have encouraged us to send our children to school," said Zia ul-Haq, a resident of Musa Qala’s bazaar district. "We are very happy now, because literacy is light and without it a person is blind."

At present, however, most girls are still denied an education. While the Taleban do not publicly oppose girls going to school, they will not allow co-education. Until the situation improves and separate new schools are built, girls will most likely stay at home.

“We are not opposed to education," said a Taleban commander. "We support schools that are in accordance with Afghan culture and Sharia law. Boys and girls should not study together."

He insisted that the Taleban did not close schools to hamper education, and certainly did not burn them. "When schools are closed, it is because they have been bombed or there’s been fighting in the area. And those who burn schools are criminals and anti-Islamic,” he said.

He said the Taleban keep a tight rein on the curriculum. As an example of the kind of schooling they favour, he said, “We like schools that teach ‘A is for Allah’ instead of ‘A is for Anor’ [pomegranate]. Not ‘J is for Jawari’ [maize], but ‘J is for Jihad’."

Aziz Ahmad Tassal is an IWPR staff reporter in Helmand. IWPR trainees in the province contributed to this report.
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AFGHANISTAN: Hundreds of families displaced by fighting in Nangarhar Province
TORA BORA, 22 August 2007 (IRIN) - Hundreds of families have been displaced by ground and aerial military operations by US and Afghan forces against insurgents in the Tora Bora area of Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials told IRIN on 22 August.

"Initial reports indicate over 400 families have been displaced as a result of military operations in Tora Bora," said Nooragha Zhuwak, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar.

Most displaced families have sought refuge with relatives in the nearby villages of Wazir, Piyada Khel and Agaam in the districts of Khogyani and Pacheeragaam, local authorities said.

US forces operating outside NATO command in Afghanistan have confirmed ongoing operations in the area which started on 20 August.

"This is a combined armed operation of Afghan and US forces to disrupt al-Qaeda and other extremist militants who were massing in the Tora Bora region of eastern Afghanistan," said Vanessa Bowman, a spokesperson for the US army.

No time to gather up belongings

Local officials said US forces had informed them about the military operation in advance, but displaced civilians say they knew nothing about it, and were unable to take their belongings with them.

"At about 10pm the bombing started. We were only able to take our children out of the area,” one displaced man said.

Haji Zalmai, the administrator of Khogyani District, told IRIN that displaced families urgently needed shelter and food. "People cannot host displaced families at their houses for long," he said.

Some displaced families, meanwhile, are calling for an urgent ceasefire to allow them to return to their houses and collect their movable possessions, including livestock, clothes and kitchen appliances. Local officials, however, say they have no idea when the military operation will end.

According to a US army spokesperson, the operation in Tora Bora is "one part of a larger overall effort" which aims to improve security and stability in eastern Afghanistan.

Humanitarian response

Humanitarian relief, albeit limited, has already been distributed to some affected families.

US forces say they have supplied seven pallets of aid to displaced families - including beans, rice, cooking oil, stoves, charcoal and non perishable foods.

The Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) has also begun a rapid assessment of needs to determine the quality and quantity of relief required.

"Once assessments are complete we will ask the UN, the ICRC and other aid organisations for their assistance," Mohammad Iqbal Shaheed, the president of ARCS in Nangarhar, told IRIN.

Civilian casualties

At least four wounded civilians received treatment at a medical facility in Khogyani District, government officials said.

Afghan and US forces say that so far no "substantiated" report of civilian deaths has been received.

"The targets were carefully chosen to pinpoint enemy positions and eliminate the likelihood of harming innocent civilians," said Bowman.

In a separate incident on 16 August NATO-led international soldiers killed five Afghan civilians and injured three others after their convoy was ambushed by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, a NATO press release said.

The impact of armed conflict on Afghan civilians has increasingly become a worrying issue for Afghans and the international community.

On 21 August, a representative of the UN Secretary-General for the rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin, warned that as armed conflict escalated in Afghanistan more civilians would be forced to flee their homes.

Since the beginning of 2007 over 1,000 civilians have died in the fighting, according to the Afghan authorities, and the UN estimates that in the past three years over 80,000 people have been displaced.
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Taliban hackers phone UK soldiers' families
news.com.au August 22, 2007 03:53pm
TALIBAN extremists are reportedly phoning the families of troops fighting in Afghanistan and telling them their loved ones are dead.

Afghan insurgents have been using mobile phone-hacking technology to extract phone numbers to target the families of British troops, The Sun newspaper reported today.

According to The Sun, a Taliban fanatic called the wife of an Royal Air Force officer and told her: “You’ll never see your husband alive again – we have just killed him.”

After calling the RAF, she was told that her husband was safe and well.

As a result of opposition forces using advanced technology to monitor calls made on mobile phones, British servicemen have been banned from using their phones.

“We assume these days that every conversation over mobile phones is being heard by our enemies,” a senior officer said.

“They have some pretty powerful friends and allies, who are giving them some very sophisticated help. They will use that information in any way they can to damage us, whether it is physically or mentally.”

The Ministry of Defence said families of troops in Iraq had also suffered from “nuisance calls” in the past year.
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Energy: Meeting on Turkmenistan pipeline put off
Islamabad, 22 August (AKI/DAWN) - A steering committee meeting of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Islamabad, has been postponed indefinitely on Ashkhabad’s request, it is learnt.

Pakistan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had organised the meeting and Afghanistan, India and Turkmenistan had agreed to participate. However, the Turkmen government later sought postponement, citing the domestic political situation, informed sources told the Pakistani daily Dawn.

The meeting was considered crucial for the fact that it was to formally consider amendments made by the ADB in the multilateral framework agreement for the inclusion of India in the project and discuss the security situation in Afghanistan which was one of the most important factors in realisation of the 4-billion dollar transnational pipeline project.

On the agenda of the meeting was the finalisation of gas volumes by the respective parties. Ashkhabad was to specify how much gas quantities, based on independent certification, it would dedicate for the project and the recipient nations were to put forth their gas requirements through the pipeline that is to stretch more than 1,600 kilometres from Turkmenistan’s south-eastern Daulatabad field to the Indian city of Bikaner, via Afghanistan and Pakistan.

These estimates are required to be reflected in the draft gas sales and purchase agreements (GSPA) prepared by Pakistan.

The finalisation of the framework agreement by the four participating countries is the key stage where they can think of implementing the project and trigger a host of activities and agreements between and among the four nations and the ADB.

The framework is to deal with contractual obligations of the parties in the construction of the pipeline, the security, gas tariffs and uninterrupted gas flows over the 30-year life of the project.

The ADB had furnished the final draft of the inter-governmental framework agreement to the four nations in April this year along with some modifications that were required to allow for the inclusion of India in the pipeline project.

The original inter-governmental agreement was prepared without making India a part of the project and hence an amended draft was required following an “in principle” decision of the Indian cabinet to join the project.

A source in Pakistan's petroleum ministry, however, said before the finalisation of the four-nation agreement, the stakeholders have to hammer out seven issues that have been hampering progress on a gas pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan for almost two years now.

The capital cost of the 1,435 kilometre pipeline of 56-inch diameter (from Turkmenistan to the Pakistani city of Multan) had recently been updated to about 4 billion from 3.3 billion dollars in 2004.

Pakistan believes that bottlenecks hampering progress on the project involved the non-confirmation of uncommitted gas volume by Turkmenistan regarding the Daulatabad gas field, the uncertainties or lack of clarity with regard to the price of the gas to be demanded by Turkmenistan and the security situation in Afghanistan.

Also there are significant difficulties in the expected implementation of security and risk mitigation measures proposed by the ADB’s consultant and the usual delays of the Turkmen government in complying with the decisions taken by the steering committee.
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British Presence Mars Independence Celebration
History runs deep as Afghans commemorate victory over the British 88 years ago, and Helmand residents ponder the irony of British troops patrolling their province again.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Aziz Ahmad Tassal (ARR No. 264, 21-Aug-07)
Compared with previous years, the celebration was muted. Trees were draped in the red, green, and black of the Afghan flag, and lights strung across the roads lit up the evening.

Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, was preparing to commemorate the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, which finally drove the British out of this proud, mountainous land. Known as Afghan Independence Day, it is a major event on the national calendar.

But there was little in the way of festivities. After a two-hour event at the local stadium marked by a few pro forma speeches and some sports exhibitions, Lashkar Gah's residents went back to their daily routine.

A suicide bomb outside the capital took four lives, but that too has become a routine event for this battle-scarred province.

"In previous years, everyone would prepare for many days in advance," said one Helmand resident. "They were happy and excited. But now the presence of the British forces in the town has turned people against the celebration. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth."

The British-led International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, took over command from United States-led Coalition forces in Helmand last summer. The local Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, is now under British control, its mission to help to rebuild the scarred and battered region.

But Helmand has become the centre of the Taleban insurgency, and many local residents see the British more as a danger than a help. Battles and bombs have taught them to fear and resent the foreign presence, while a stalled reconstruction effort has left them angry and cynical.

The provincial government did its best to put a good face on the day, but the speeches given at the Karzai Stadium in the heart of Lashkar Gah would not be reassuring to a foreigner looking for signs that the British were winning the public relations war.

Helmand's governor, Asadullah Wafa, gave a speech to a crowd of some 700 people, including government officials, tribal leaders, popular sportsmen and journalists, in which he recalled the proud fighting traditions of the Afghan people.

"Afghans will never tolerate invaders," he said. "Defend your nation, and keep your country the way your grandfathers did."

After the governor spoke, a number of government officials also addressed the crowd, urging people to cooperate in improving security and reconstructing the province.

Hajji Hayatullah, a local expert in political affairs, told IWPR that today's British presence differed fundamentally from that of the last century.

"Invasion is when a country comes in and does not respect your culture and your flag," he said. "Thieves come over the wall - guests come through the door."

The British, he insisted, were guests, invited by the international community as part of the Bonn Agreement of late 2001.

The nature of their mission was also wholly different from the Great Game played out in the 19th century between Britain and Russia.

"They are here to reconstruct Afghanistan," he said.

But Hayatullah’s was a lone voice.

In a country where calling someone "son of an Angrez" – an Englishman - can start a fistfight, the presence of a British garrison in town, no matter what its name or stated purpose, reopens old wounds.

"If we flip through the pages of our history, the Afghans only did things that could be written in gold," said Alishah Mazlumyar, a tribal leader from Nadali district." The Afghans expelled the invaders, but they did not reap the harvest. That blood, those victims, those graveyards were all in vain."

Mazlumyar delivered a brief summary of the popular version of history. King Amanullah Khan, known as the father of Afghan independence, summoned the nation to fight, and the army attacked the British, still reeling from the First World War. The attacks ended with the Treaty of Rawalpindi, which established Afghan independence and effectively ended the colonial era.

Amanullah then set about instituting reforms in his fiercely conservative nation. Among the most famous, and most scandalous, was his public unveiling of his wife, Queen Soraya. Women, decreed the king, were no longer to be hidden from view.

This shocked and alienated his countrymen, and Amanullah was soon toppled by an upstart from the north. Habibullah Kalakani, known as Bache-ye Saqao, the “son of a water-carrier”, ruled for only nine months. Many believe that he was supported by the British as revenge for their defeat. This is just more ammunition for those who see the British as Afghanistan's quintessential enemy.

Mazlumyar argues that the seeds of Afghanistan's present sorrows were sown in that turbulent period. "The present disaster has its roots in 1919, the day we expelled the British," he said. "We obtained our freedom, but the price in blood was very high."

The British should not have come back, he insisted. Given the long and violent history between the two countries, which spanned nearly a century and left many bitter memories on both sides, they would have been well advised to keep clear of Afghanistan.

"I wish other countries were here instead of the British," he said. "The people of Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar have not yet forgotten those bloody battles. And the British, who lost 17,000 of their people in 1842 on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad, may still have prejudice against the Afghans. There must still be some British who recall how the ground was stained red with their blood, and remember the bodies of the fallen, slashed by swords, and the burned corpses of their dead."

Mazlumyar then turned to the Battle of Maiwand in 1880, in which the Afghans virtually annihilated the British, in a clash that was disastrous for both sides. He mentioned General Ayub Khan, who commanded the British, and the indomitable Malalai, a woman who rallied the Afghan troops when they were all but defeated, using her veil as a standard and crying, at least in popular legend, “Young love, if you do not fall in the battle of Maiwind, by God someone is saving you as a token of shame.”

Yaqub Khan, a shopkeeper who had an Afghan flag prominently displayed outside his store in honour of Independence Day, was glum.

"I am not happy about this day," he said. "We should celebrate when there are no more Brits on our soil. We see them now going around Helmand as if they inherited this land from their fathers. They still hate us. You can see it in those soldiers out on the roads who yell at us, using swearwords. They will never help Afghanistan; they just want revenge."

Sayed Qayum, a newly-minted member of the Afghan National Army with just one day's service under his belt, displayed proper fighting spirit. But his staunchly anti-British sentiments were somewhat misplaced considering that the British and his government are on the same side.

"I will stand with the government as long as there is one single enemy in Afghanistan," he blustered. "If he is my father, if he is a Taleb, if anyone tries to hurt even one plant of this soil, I will not let him. There is no difference to me between the Angrez and the Taleban; both of them are enemies of Afghanistan. I will fight them until my last breath, I will not let any enemy of Afghanistan remain alive."

Mohammad Akbar, a white-bearded elder, was more moderate.

"When the Angrez came to Afghanistan, they wanted to conquer us," he said. "But Afghans cannot be conquered. They showed their strength and expelled the invaders. Now the British are back to reconstruct Afghanistan. But if we see they have the same ideas as before, we will answer them in the same way we did 88 years ago."

Aziz Ahmad Tassal is an IWPR staff reporter in Helmand.
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Expatriate leaves San Jose to give micro-loans to poor Afghan women
Fariba Nawa, San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Kabul, Afghanistan -- Katrin Fakiri's office is a constant rush of phone calls, e-mail messages, and people entering and leaving. On a wall, a framed picture of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Fakiri and several other women hangs crookedly.

Fakiri, 35, is the director of Parwaz, a flourishing microcredit organization that offers an estimated 9,000 poor women small loans at 2 percent interest. Its total assets of $1.1 million and staff of 70 workers are a far cry from the $50,000 budget and four employees Fakiri started with four years ago.

In 2003, she gave up security, mobility and independence to move from San Jose to her birthplace, Kabul, and start a nongovernmental organization to help women start their own businesses. Before she left the Bay Area, she was a single woman climbing the corporate ladder in the Silicon Valley. Now she's married, a mother of a year-old son and head of one of Afghanistan's 12 flourishing microfinance companies.

Fakiri is one of several thousand Afghan expatriates who returned to Afghanistan after Sept. 11 and the U.S.-led ouster of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government. From the Bay Area, home to the largest Afghan community in the United States with some 60,000 people, these expatriates opened nonprofit organizations, invested in business ventures and found jobs as government advisers.

Fakiri worked without salary for the first two years and learned to make tough decisions. She sacked seven employees, including a male project manager who had been undermining her efforts. He would agree with her decisions in meetings, then tell other employees to ignore them. She also ordered the arrest of a female employee who had siphoned off thousands of dollars that was supposed to go for loans.

"This is a country where if you want to a lead an organization, you have to have some dictatorship characteristics," she said. "These people are survivors, and they survived because they know how to work the system. If someone is perceived as being weak, they'll take advantage of you."

Fakiri lived in Kabul until age 9, when her family fled the Soviet invasion and settled in the United States, first in New York, then San Jose. Of seven brothers, one sister and her parents, she's the only one who returned. She concedes that she had idyllic images of her childhood until she witnessed the war's destruction and how different most Afghans were from her. They were not concerned with ideals and nostalgia; they were worried about just getting through the day.

In the past two years, most expatriates have returned to the United States and elsewhere after the Taliban began a campaign of kidnappings and suicide bombings, delaying many reconstruction efforts. Only a few have remained.

Homa Clifford, owner of a real estate agency in Fremont, arrived in Kabul in 2004 with her husband, Abdullah, an accountant for a U.S. company hired to reform Afghanistan's financial system. She said a lack of confidence in local government and deteriorating security sent them packing a year later. However, Clifford says she would return once a "safe and secure environment" has been established.

Fakiri also points out that life in Kabul as a woman has not been easy. She has stopped smiling at people, especially men, who might perceive it as a sign of promiscuity. She dresses more conservatively, wearing long-sleeved, knee-length skirts with slacks and a head scarf outside the office.

"I lost the freedom to be myself. I'm friendly, social and interact with men and women, and here I have to watch what I wear, who I talk to. If I go walking, I have to take one of my guards.

"There are days when I say I can't do this anymore (until) I see someone who didn't have enough food to eat running a business," she said.

A half hour from Fakiri's posh office, six Afghan women are sewing, embroidering and making jewelry in a collective business they call Medina. With a $540 loan from Parwaz, they have moved their enterprise to a two-story building with three small rooms, where they also teach disabled children literacy and arts and crafts.

On a recent morning, three young women sat in front of Chinese-made sewing machines as their instructor, Habiba, showed them how to sew various patterns.

Nazifa, 20, who is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair, says she wants to learn how to sew and read and write so she can eventually support herself. Neither student nor teacher would give their last names.

"In the beginning, I didn't think women would be able to open businesses and be able to pay back the loan," Fakiri said. "But about 98 percent are paying off their loans. If the security is good, I could stay here forever."

This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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DACAAR providing safe drinking water to 7,000 families in Farah and Herat provinces
Source: Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR) Wednesday, August 22, 2007
DACAAR's Water & Sanitation Programme began implementing two projects in the drought ridden provinces of Farah and Herat in Western Afghanistan this summer – projects that will provide safe water and hygiene education to a total of 7,000 families, about 42,000 individuals. In addition, DACAAR activities will also ensure that 300 returnee families in Farah province are provided with shelters. The two projects are funded by ECHO, the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission.

The project sites – Shindand and Ghoryan districts of Herat province and Farah Center, Pusht-e-Rud and Qala-e-Kah districts of Farah province – are all underserved areas that have not benefited from the development taking place elsewhere in Afghanistan, mainly due to volatile security. The project areas are characterized by insufficient amounts of clean water, a situation that has worsened with the return of refugees that fled during the many years of war. DACAAR will therefore place a special focus on vulnerable groups during implementation, in particular returnees. Surveys have been carried out in the districts in order to get an exact measure of the problem.

As always when DACAAR implements water and sanitation projects, local communities play an active role in both the planning and the implementation phases. Beneficiaries (both men and women) will take part in locating appropriate sites for water points and will contribute to the construction of wells with locally available materials and unskilled labourers. Hygiene education couples will be recruited from the local communities and trained to educate their fellow community members in order to ensure the clean water has the optimum impact. The overall aim is to secure local ownership and long term sustainability.

The ECHO funding amounts to EUR 619,029 for the project in Farah province, and EUR 514,489 for the project in Herat province. The projects in Herat and Farah provinces were initiated in May and June 2007 respectively, and will be completed during 2008, each with a duration of 12 months.

For further information, please contact:

WSP Manager Shah Wali Public Information Officer Christian Jepsen
Kabul, Afghanistan Kabul, Afghanistan
Tel.: +93 (0) 799 21 23 74 Tel.: +93 (0) 797 164 638
E-mail: shahwali@dacaar.org E-mail: christian@dacaar.org
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The caretaker of Kabul: Afghan dedicated his life to guarding the embassy
By Terri Judd  Independent (UK) 22 August 2007
When British soldiers turned up at the embassy in Kabul following the fall of the Taliban, their path was blocked by an elderly Afghan gentleman.

For 12 years, Zahoor Shah had tended the roses in the compound, hidden away the silver and barred fighters from entering. It took the British some hours before they could persuade him that the rightful owners had finally returned. By the time the new Charge d'Affaires Stephen Evans and his staff turned up the following day, Mr Shah was properly attired to welcome them.

"I arrived on the afternoon of 19 November 2001. We came down the curving drive and pulled up at the entrance of the embassy. Mr Shah was at the top of the stairs, wearing his white coat with gold buttons and black trousers to greet us," said Mr Evans.

He had found heating oil and the old grand table was set for dinner with the ambassadorial china, silver and crystal glasses. "From somewhere he had found a couple of bottles of wine and there were candles on the table," explained Mr Evans.

Yesterday the current British ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles paid tribute to Mr Shah after news that he had lost his battle with throat cancer. "We owe him an enormous debt for the loyalty and resilience he showed during the years of Taliban rule," he said.

Nobody was entirely sure how old he was, though it is believed he had started life at the embassy as an eight- or nine-year-old ball-boy in the forties.

Mr Evans, who returned as ambassador in 2006 until early 2007, remembered him as a gentle, courteous man who was proud of his job and his embassy. "Because he had worked for the embassy for so long he provided a continuity with the past when Afghanistan was essentially peaceful, before things went terribly wrong in the 1970s. He was someone who had stuck through the Soviet period, through the civil war, through the Taliban era and the later transition. He was very loyal," he added.

The former Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon founded the embassy in Kabul in the 1920s declaring its ambassador should be the best-housed man in Asia. A large section of it was later passed to the Pakistanis but the smaller "hospital compound" was kept on.

After the Soviet invasion, the mission was left with only a Charge d'Affaires and by 1989 the last diplomat had gone. Mr Shah and his team of six staff hid away the portraits of Queen Mary and King George VI, the gilded Wilton china service, the silver teapots and monogrammed tureens.

They stood guard through the fiercest fighting, despite one of the staff being killed by a rocket in 1996, and slept in the gatehouse to repel intruders. The gatekeeper Sayed Afzal once kept a Taliban delegation at bay, informing them there was nothing left but "a few old tables and chairs".

The British High Commission in Islamabad called regularly to make sure they were alright, while the odd intrepid visitor would drop by. Money for the upkeep was passed through the UN offices until the embassy reopened in November 2001.

Nine months later, Mr Shah, along with Mr Afzal, was presented with a MBE for devotion to duty through so many years of conflict. At a traditional tea party on the lawn, to the sound of Highland piper, the men were honoured.

"You have performed remarkable service over very many years," said the then ambassador Ron Nash. "You have worked faithfully to protect our embassy. There has been physical danger and war around you... and you have taken care of your possessions for many years when there were no British officials."

When the embassy staff moved to new premises a couple of years ago, Mr Shah decided to retire. He developed throat cancer and had been very frail for months when he died on Saturday, surrounded by his extended family.
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Report: Afghan Teen Arrested for Role in German Police Deaths
Deutsche Welle
Afghan intelligence agents have arrested a teenager who allegedly detonated the roadside bomb that killed three German police officers outside of Kabul last week, an intelligence spokesman said.

"The one who has detonated the mine is a boy and has been arrested," Sayed Ansari, spokesman for the intelligence service National Directorate for Security (NDS) told the German DPA news agency.

"He was arrested by our National Directorate of Security forces two hours after the incident," Ansari said, adding that the boy, who was reported to be either 15 or 16 years old, was being interrogated and that the reason for the attack remained unclear.

The online version of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel also reported Tuesday that a young Afghan had been arrested in connection with the bombing. Neither the German Foreign Office nor the Federal Criminal Police, in which the three officers served, confirmed the report.

Western security officials told DPA they highly doubted the boy was responsible for causing the explosion that killed the three officers attached to the German embassy in Kabul last Wednesday. Taliban members said they were responsible for the attack, though the claim could not be independently confirmed.

Influencing German debate

The bombing last week, the kidnapping of a German aid worker, who was later released and returned to Germany on Wednesday, and the ongoing hostage crisis surrounding a 62-year-old German engineer have raised concerns that the Taliban is targeting Germans to influence the domestic debate surrounding three Bundeswehr deployments to Afghanistan.

"Those behind the attacks and kidnappings want to sabotage our long-term engagement," German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told weekly newspaper Die Zeit. "That's why we can't give in to them."

Germany has a total of about 3,000 troops serving in Afghanistan under three mandates, all of which are up for renewal this autumn.
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Afghan ministry questions reported arrest in bombing
EARTHtimes.org - Aug 22 3:22 AM
Kabul - The Afghan Interior Ministry said Wednesday that it knows of no arrest made in connection with a roadside bombing that killed three German police officers last week in Kabul. Ministry spokesman Semarai Bashari would not confirm a report Tuesday by the German news magazine Der Spiegel that cited Afghan investigators as saying that a young man was arrested a day after the August 15 bombing and they believed he was responsible for detonating the bomb.

Western security officials in Kabul said Wednesday that they were also unaware of an arrest in the bombing on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

Early this week, Bashari and the Afghan police denied rumours of an arrest of an 18-year-old believed to have set off the bomb.

Taliban spokesman Kari Jussif Ahmadi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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Czechs plan to send 200-strong reconstruction team to Afghanistan
The Associated Press Wednesday, August 22, 2007
PRAGUE, Czech Republic: The Czech government agreed Wednesday to send a team of up to 200 troops and civilian experts to help reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, an official said.

The Czech Republic currently has a field hospital in Kabul, and some 90 troops joining Danish and German soldiers in protecting workers on bridge and hospital building projects in the country's northeastern province of Badakshan.

If the decision is approved by both chambers of parliament, the team would be deployed to the province of Logar, southeast of Kabul, in early 2008 and would likely replace the troops in Badakshan, defense ministry spokesman Andrej Cirtek said.

Czech troops were first deployed to Afghanistan in April 2002. One soldier died in a landslide there in May this year.
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Afghan General Says Iranian Engineers Helping Taliban
August 20, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- An Afghan National Army general says four Iranian radio communication experts are helping the Taliban militia in Afghanistan's south, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reported.

Major General Muhiddin Ghori, who made the allegations, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that it remains unclear whether the four were sent to Helmand Province by the Iranian government.

In recent months, there have been numerous cases of Iranian-built weapons, including land mines, turning up in Afghanistan. But Tehran has denied accusations by U.S. officials that those shipments were made with the knowledge and approval of the Iranian government.
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Govt awards TAP pipeline contract to US company
Daily Times (Pakistan), August 20, 2007
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has awarded the contract of laying the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) gas pipeline project to the United States International Oil Company (IOC) with an estimated cost of $10 billion. Geo News quoted a press release issued by the oil company’s liaison office stating that the contract for the 2,200-kilometre TAP gas pipeline, scheduled for completion within three years, had been awarded to the US-based company. It said two oil refineries and four thermal powerhouses, with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, would also be established under this project.

It further reported that the pipeline would be built up to Gwadar and would supply two million barrels of oil and four billion cubic feet of natural gas to Pakistan every day. APP quoted IOC’s press statement as saying that a $3.5- billion refinery would also be built at Gwadar under the terms of the contract. Online reported that the project envisages the construction of a Hydro-cracker to facilitate the production of JP-1 and JP-4 petroleum products in Pakistan for the first time in the nation’s history.

According to sources in the International Oil Company, the matters of security and insurance in Afghanistan during the laying of the pipeline have been finalized between the oil company and authorities, and a signing ceremony confirming the mega-project agreement would be held shortly. Agencies
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Afghanistan needs people like late Ghafoorzai: Khalilzad
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): At a time when Afghanistan is standing at a critical juncture of its history, the nation greatly misses the talent and vision of people like Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai, said US ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad.

In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News on the eve of the 10th death anniversary of the late premier, Khalilzad said: "Ghafoorzai will be recognised as a patriot who tried to serve people in difficult times and made the ultimate sacrifice for Afghanistan."

A career diplomat, Ghafoorzai died in a plane crash in Bamiyan on August 21, 1997, just eight days after he was appointed as the prime minister of Afghanistan. At that time, he was leading an 11-member delegation to the central Bamyan province to hold talks with local leaders as part of his endeavor to involve all communities and ethnic groups in his broad-based national government.

"It was a great loss. He played an important role for his country," Khalilzad said, adding Afghanistan during its turbulent years in the past several decades lost many of its talented and visionary people like Ghafoorzai. "Their talent is now not available when Afghanistan really needs them," he said.

Stating that Ghafoorzai was an accomplished diplomat, Khalilzad recollected how the late premier was the first to raise the voice against the then Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

His courageous and patriotic position, despite the fact that his family was still in Kabul, constituted not only a major setback for the Soviet invasion at the international level, but proved his personal valour towards a noble cause. His denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan marked the beginning of his political campaign in support of the mujahideen or freedom fighters against the occupying force.

A friend of the late premier, Khalilzad said: "I know him personally. After he left the regime that was installed by the Soviets, I got to know him. He was always worried about his country and people of Afghanistan."

Khalilzad continued to meet and interact with late Ghafoorzai even after Russians left Afghanistan and both used to share their views on situation in the country.

"He did talk with me about what he was doing and why he accepted to go and join the government that existed at that time which was in conflict with the Taliban," Khalilzad said.

Ghafoorzai, in fact, was among the first few to have mooted the idea of establishing a broad-based government, with a view to achieve lasting peace and prosperity, and enhancing the national unity of the country. He had planned to bring in all the ethnic groups within a political framework to be administered by technocrats, experts and impartial personalities from both inside and outside the country.

Asked if Ghafoorzai vision also included negotiations with Taliban, Khalilzad referred to the stated policy of the Karzai government, which has opened its doors to any one who participates in the political process and accepts that violence is not a solution to the problems of Afghanistan.

"Those who believe that enough Afghans have been killed and time has come to come together to build this country, there is room for them in present Afghanistan," Khalilzad said.
Lalit K. Jha
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Pro-Taliban cleric terms Jirga a practice in futility
KABUL, Aug 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): While governor of Pakistan's North Western Province termed the Afghanistan-Pakistan Jirga as the 'most serious attempt' to resolve the contentious issues between the two countries, another leader from the same province and a pro-Taliban cleric said it was a practice in futility.

Chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who declined to attend the four-day grand meeting in Kabul early this month, said the event was bound to fail as the Taliban were not engaged in the peace talks.

Addressing a ceremony at a seminary, the pro-Taliban cleric said the Taliban or religious students were a key player and they must be engaged by the two sides in the Jirga to bring peace to Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan.

He believed that lasting peace could not be restored to Afghanistan without the involvement of Taliban. Maulana Fazl also criticised the Pakistani intelligence agencies of hatching conspiracies to sow seeds of discord among religious parties.

About the war on terror, he alleged the US-led war on terror had increased insecurity around the globe, and claimed that the US had "launched a crusade" to protect its own economic and strategic interests.

Earlier, addressing the Independence Day ceremony of Afghanistan organised by the Afghan consulate in Peshawar, NWFP Governor Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai had said that the grand Jirga in Kabul was the most serious attempt by the two countries to resolve contentious issues in a democratic way and in accordance with their people's aspirations, customs, traditions and culture.

A retired officer of the Pakistani army and a tribal himself, Aurakzai hoped efforts of the Jirga would bear positive results and the two countries would work out strategies with mutual consultation.
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Farmers' delegation from Maidan Wardak visit Turkey
KABUL, Aug 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Turkish provincial reconstruction team in the central Maidan Wardak province has sent a nine-member team of local apricot growers to learn about apricot species and drying and packaging facilities.

Civilian coordinator of the Turkish PRT Hakan Abaci said the delegation, comprising orchard growers from different districts, was headed by director of the agriculture department.

They would visit a famous apricot growing Turkish city where they would learn about different apricot species, apricot drying and packaging facilities, said a press release issued here on Monday.

Based upon the results of their visit, the PRT will develop several projects to improve apricot production and processing in the province.

The visit of a second delegation of apple growers was also on the cards, said the PRT official, who added apricot and apple orchards made up the largest sources of income for Maidan Wardak.
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President urges youth to focus on education
KABUL, Aug 19 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai has urged upon his countrymen to focus on education to enable the country to stand on its own feet instead of relying on foreign aid.

"I've no other word to say, but to ask the younger generation to concentrate on education if they want to bring progress and prosperity to their homeland," said the Afghan leader while addressing a mammoth gathering at the capital's sole Ghazi Stadium in connection with the 88th Independent Day of the country on Sunday.

In his 20-minute speech, the president mostly addressed the younger generation and stressed the need for achieving 100 percent literacy rate to steer the impoverished country out of the mess of poverty and deprivation.

"We've a long route ahead to tread on and we've to remain steadfast to achieve our goal," said the president who asked the audiences to reply in affirmative if they agree to accept his message.

Thousands of people, present in the stadium, rose to their feet, waved hands and cheered with a single voice "Balay" (yes) to reply to their leader's call. 

The president said their forefathers had performed their duty by achieving freedom for the people. But it was now the duty of the younger generations to maintain that freedom and work for the progress and prosperity of the country.

"The progress of this land is your progress. You will get respect all over the world if your country is strong, stable and prosperous. This is why, I ask you to work day and night to push your country towards a better, more better, more better and more better future," said the president in his passionate speech.

The country, he said, could construct its roads, clinics, schools, provide clean drinking water and electricity to its people, but that all were dependent on education.

"Only foreign aid will not do the job. We've to rely on ourselves and help the country to achieve self-reliance," he stressed.

Referring to the two recent suicide attacks in Kandahar, Karzai said like every year, the enemies of this land and their supporters had given us gifts for this Independence Day as well.

He said the enemies of Afghanistan were intent upon to stop the country from its journey towards peace and prosperity, reconstruction and self-reliance.

He asked his countrymen to enable themselves to get rid of foreign interference. "Taliban, their supporters, al-Qaeda and other terrorists did not want peace on this land, but the people of Afghanistan must have the determination to foil all their ill intentions," he added.

Earlier, President Karzai highlighted the importance of the Independence Day in the history of Afghanistan and greeted the countrymen on the 88th Independence Day.

Besides thousands of people, cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, former jihadi leaders, tribal elders, ambassadors, representatives of various missions and NGOs and large number of civil and military officers were present on the occasion.

The Ghazi Stadium was decorated with banners and buntings bearing slogans in favour of freedom, peace and unity.

Portraits of Ahmad Shah Baba, the founding father of modern Afghanistan, former king Amanullah Khan, known as Ghazni Amanullah, President Hamid Karzai and former defence minister and jihadi leader Ahmad Shah Masoud were installed on all corners of the stadium.

Tight security measures were adopted inside and outside the stadium as well as on all roads and alleys leading to the venue of the gathering.
Daud Khan 
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