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August 23, 2007 

Bombers target Afghan police chief
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb next to a convoy carrying the police chief in Afghanistan's violence-plagued Helmand province on Thursday, killing three civilians and wounding 13 others.

The blast in the southern province, which supplies much of the opium used in the world's heroin trade, followed an attack Wednesday that killed two Canadian soldiers and wounded a radio journalist.

The bomb was triggered by remote control in the town of Gereshk when Helmand police chief Mohammad Hussein passed by in a convoy of several cars, said Hussein, who was not hurt in the attack. Five of the injured were in critical condition, he said.

Also on Thursday, a German engineer kidnapped by Taliban insurgents more than a month ago was shown pleading for help in a videotape broadcast on a local television station. The man, who identified himself as Rudolf Blechschmidt, was shown lying on a black rug, clutching his chest and coughing.

"I am a prisoner of the Taliban," he said. "We live in the mountains, very high in a very bad condition, please help us.

"The Taliban try to negotiate with the Afghan government but the government not talk with the Taliban and the Taliban tried to get in connection with the embassy to release us. But if the time is over, they want kill us," said Blechschmidt, speaking in broken English.

The video was broadcast on privately owned Tolo TV. The station did not say how it obtained the footage, and there was no indication of when it was shot.

Blechschmidt is one of two German engineers and five Afghans taken hostage on July 18 in Wardak province in central Afghanistan. The other German was found dead of gunshot wounds on July 21, while one of the Afghans managed to escape. The captors have demanded in the past that Germany withdraw its troops from the country.

The German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said it was examining the content of the video.

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 Korean aid workers were taken hostage last month. Two of the Koreans were killed, two were released and the rest remain captive.

Violence in Afghanistan is currently running at its highest level since U.S.-led forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers who were accused of harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Wednesday, the Canadian soldiers were traveling in an armored vehicle that was hit by a roadside bomb in Zhari district of Kandahar province, NATO Brig. Gen. Guy Laroche told reporters at Kandahar Airfield.

Wednesday's casualties — who were from Quebec province's Royal 22nd Regiment — bring to 69 the number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002. Canada has about 2,300 soldiers in the country, mainly operating in Kandahar province, the former Taliban stronghold.

The Afghan mission is unpopular in the French-speaking province and rising casualties have cost Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government support there. Harper has said Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan will not be extended beyond 2009 without a consensus in Parliament.
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German hostage on TV, appeals for help
Thu Aug 23, 4:08 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A German engineer and four fellow hostages held by the Taliban appealed for help in a video broadcast Thursday on private Afghanistan television which showed him slumped over and coughing.

Speaking with apparent difficulty, Rudolph Blechschmidt said that he was a prisoner and in poor health, and urged the Afghan government and German embassy to do all they could to secure his release.

Four Afghans kidnapped along with the German also appeared in the video, and one appealed to President Hamid Karzai's government and the national parliament to help them win freedom.

The 62-year-old German was kidnapped in southern Afghanistan on July 18, one day before a group of South Korean aid workers were also abducted.

"I'm a prisoner. My health condition is not good, I'm in a bad condition," Blechschmidt said in the video shown by Tolo television station, which was less than two minutes long.

"I'm a friend of the Afghan people and I want the government of Afghanistan and the German embassy in Kabul and the German government to help me win my freedom," he said.

Blechschmidt spoke in English with a strong German accent but most of what he said was not audible and was translated into Dari by the television station.

Standing in front of the others, one of the Afghan hostages said "we're Afghans" and called on the government and parliament to help free them.

"We want the Karzai administration to secure our release. They (government officials) should think of our kids," said the hostage, whose name was not mentioned.

He also appeared to be nervous as he made some other remarks which were not intelligble.

The Taliban have demanded the release of 10 of their jailed colleagues in the Afghan prisons in exchange for the German and the four nationals, a demand Kabul had strongly rejected.

The militants have separately demanded the release of some Taliban prisoners in return for 19 South Koreans kidnapped around the same time as the German engineer.

Talks between the Taliban captors and a South Korean delegation over the release of the Korean aid workers from a Christian church have remained deadlocked after the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

The insurgents have already shot dead two of their male hostages to pressure the Afghan government to release prisoners, and have threatened to kill the others if their demands are not met.

According to the Tolo presenter, the Taliban demanded in the latest video that Germany withdraw its 3,000 NATO-led troops from Afghanistan.

The Taliban, ousted from power in late 2001 by US-led forces, have said that Iraq-style kidnappings would be their new tactic to pressure the US-backed government and drive tens of thousands of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan blast kills Canadian troops, interpreter
Thu Aug 23, 2:31 AM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Two Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter were killed, and two Canadian journalists and a soldier injured Wednesday when a land mine blew up under their vehicle in south Afghanistan, the Canadian military said.

Radio-Canada's star reporter Patrice Roy and cameraman Charles Dubois were traveling with the interpreter and the soldiers when their military vehicle hit the device, the military statement said.

The explosion took place some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Kandahar City.

Roy suffered shock, while Dubois was "seriously" wounded in the leg. They and the wounded soldier were evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital in Kandahar, the military said.

The deaths brought to 69 the number of Canadian soldiers killed since 2002 in Afghanistan. Some 2,500 of its soldiers are patrolling there alongside other NATO-led forces to stabilize the country amid an insurgency following the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001.

A 23-year-old Canadian soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday near the southern city of Kandahar.
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Two Afghans killed in Taliban raid on NATO base
Wed Aug 22, 3:02 PM ET
ASADABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms raided a NATO base on Wednesday, killing two Afghan soldiers and injuring 11 NATO troops, capping a day of deadly violence, officials said.

The raid on the base in the mountainous northeastern province of Nuristan, a hotbed of Taliban activity, came after a suicide attack against the governor of eastern Khost province. He survived, but three police guards were killed.

The attacks were the latest in a wave of such incidents blamed on Taliban militants, who have waged an increasingly bloody insurgency since the hardline Islamic militia was ousted from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001.

A total of 15 people were killed in a spate of attacks across the country in the past 24 hours, officials said.

In Nuristan, the raid on the base "resulted in two Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers killed and 11 ISAF soldiers wounded," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

"The Taliban extremists who attacked were wearing ANA uniforms, which allowed them to approach the base," it added.

An ISAF spokeswoman, US Major Christine Nelson-Chung, told AFP that several Taliban fighters were killed in the attack but could not give a precise figure.

More than 50,000 international troops mainly operating under the NATO-led ISAF are based in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban insurgency.

Earlier, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed car into the convoy of Khost governor Arsala Jamal, killing the three guards and injuring more than a dozen others including five police, officials and medical sources said.

The others injured in the attack in the provincial capital Khost were civilians including two teenage boys, Gul Mohammadin Mohammadi, a doctor in the city's hospital, told AFP.

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

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 taken against the life of the governor," she said.

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 Taliban 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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Qaeda training six-year-olds to fight UK troops in Afghanistan
By ANI Thursday August 23, 01:20 PM
London, Aug.23 (ANI): Remnants of al Qaeda and Taliban are recruiting youngsters to fight British troops in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The Sun has video evidence of six-year-old boys handling AK-47 assault rifles.

A video of the child recruits was posted this month on an al-Qaeda website, which has attracted ten million visitors since 2003.

Experts believe it was shot at a Taliban training camp over the border from Afghanistan in Uzbekistan. The camp is almost certainly run by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - which is affiliated to al-Qaeda.
An accompanying message claims they are the next generation of Mujahideen fighters in training.

Military expert Chris Dobson has described this development as very worrying.

"Terrorist commanders are gambling on our troops fatally hesitating before pulling the trigger if confronted with a boy," he added.

Al-Qaeda warlord Osama Bin Laden made his own children take jihad training.

Using child soldiers is a crime under international law.

So far 47 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. (ANI)
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For Afghan women footballers, goal is acceptance
by Masroor Gilani Wed Aug 22, 11:08 PM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Six years ago in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan football looked like a thing of the past, banned for men and unimaginable for women, who were barred from all outdoor sport.

But with the demise of the Islamic extremists -- who also banned music, dancing and kite-flying -- the sport has made such a spectacular comeback that there are now 17 women's football teams in the war-battered country.

And this week in Islamabad, Afghanistan's women players, participating in the third Pakistan National Women's Championship, sprang a major surprise by reaching the final.

In a major upset Afghanistan beat Baluchistan by 1-0 to gate-crash into the final scheduled for Friday.

Captain Shamila Kohistani scored the lone goal in the 11th minute to stun favourites Baluchistan, who had reached the semi-finals after beating last year's runners-up, the Islamabad team.

"Long Live Afghanistan," jubilant players shouted, waving their national flag while supporters danced over a drum beat.

"Yes, I was very confident to win this match and to reach the final. My team has high morale to win the championship," Kohistani told AFP.

Kohistani is proud and thrilled to be leading her squad on its first trip abroad.

She sees it not only as promoting the sport to young Afghan women at home, but fostering friendship between the two countries, which have had a somewhat fractious relationship.

"I am very happy about this," Kohistani said.

"We have never played outside Afghanistan. My players are very happy and our visit to Pakistan will promote goodwill and friendly relations between the two nations," she said.

Their coach Abdul Saboor Walizada said football was gaining popularity among young Afghan girls and many schools were starting to field teams.

"There is no national women's football team in Afghanistan, but Insha Allah (God willing) we are going to have one soon," he said.

The 18 members of the Afghan squad here, aged 15 to 18 years old, wear red and black T-shirts and trousers.

They hope that the kit is baggy enough not to offend anyone who thinks it indecorous, and in contravention of any religious mores, for them to be playing football in the first place.

While many women and girls in Afghanistan still remain behind the veil, cloistered in their homes and denied access to education and sport, things are changing, Kohistani says.

"In Afghanistan we did not face any difficulty to play football," she said of the members of her squad. "My family fully supported me and encouraged me.

"I know women in Pakistan also face same situation and without the support of their families they would not be able to play.

"But it is very important for the future of my country that women take active part in all walks of life, not only sports."

Taking part in Pakistan, she said, was all about gaining experience that will firmly help establish the game among young Afghan women at home.

"Winning and losing is not so important, I always hope and wish to get experience in the game."

Her team was drawn from the best players after competitions between 17 school clubs in Kabul.

Centre forward Sajia Saharfarid, 17, said the team came from different parts of the country, including southern, central and northern Afghan provinces.

"We have played with the ISAF team as well," Saharfarid said, referring to the NATO-led military's women's football team.

In Kabul there was little fear of retribution from the Taliban -- which is waging an increasingly violent insurgency in the country -- and girls were free to enjoy whatever sport they liked.

But for girls in the south, where the insurgency is concentrated, it was a different story, she said, with girls' freedoms strictly controlled.

Nevertheless, team manager Halima Sanger has high hopes for the development of football in Afghanistan.

"I see a very bright future," Sanger said, adding she envied the facilities available to Pakistani teams.

"If we have similar facilities in Afghanistan, we can become the best women's team in the world," she said.
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US military gets training to curb Afghan wildlife trade
Wed Aug 22, 3:37 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - US troops deployed in war-torn Afghanistan have recently undergone training to stem the poaching of the country's wildlife, particularly snow leopards, the military said Wednesday.

Skins, pelts and other animal parts from endangered species, including leopards and Marco Polo sheep, regularly end up in local markets, a US military statement said.

The leopards, from the country's northern highlands, are considered one of the world's most endangered species. But trade in the animal's skin has burgeoned since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The Wildlife Conservation Society said the US Embassy recently "provided training to the US military in Afghanistan to help reduce illegal trade that threatens one of this nations most precious natural resources -- its unique wildlife," in a statement.

"Wildlife Conservation Society joins forces with the US military to curb illegal wildlife trade in Afghanistan," it said, adding that leopards were the chief target for the initiative.

The society, which is based in the Bronx Zoo in New York, said it was working to stop furs from being sold at airbases operated by foreign troops.

In Kabul's markets the furs and other items are said to attract many, mainly Western customers, such as aid workers, diplomats and foreign military personnel.

Afghanistan's wildlife has suffered badly in decades of conflict, including the 1979-89 Russian invasion, when national parks were damaged in bombing raids.

The United Nations began efforts to curb the illegal wildlife trade after the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.
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Canberra boosts Afghan aid by $115m
Mark Dodd | August 23, 2007 The Australian
AUSTRALIA will increase aid to Afghanistan by $115 million over the next two years, with a strong focus on health and education.

The aid will be mainly disbursed in central Oruzgan province where a 385-strong Australian military reconstruction taskforce is based. It brings Australia's aid package since 2001 for Afghanistan to $450 million.

A portion of funds will be earmarked for boosting "governance and security" in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

"The new aid package will reinforce the progress being made by Australia's military-led reconstruction effort in Oruzgan province - one of the neediest parts of Afghanistan.

"It will improve the delivery of essential services such as health and education, strengthen agricultural production and help build security and stability in Afghanistan and adjoining areas of Pakistan."

Education assistance was the most single important means Australia could use to help defeat Islamic fundamentalism, Mr Downer said.

"If we can assist with broadening the quality of education to young people in those parts of Pakistan and of course in Afghanistan, I can't tell you how important that contribution will be in the medium term - not in the short term - in reducing terrorism," he said.

The new aid deal was recognition of the importance of continuing support for the Kharzai-led Government in Kabul.

Australia remained committed to helping defeat the Taliban and preventing al-Qa'ida re-establish a terrorist safe haven, he said.

Australian aid to Afghanistan so far has supported elections, the adoption of a new constitution as well as improving the health, education and governance sectors.

More than 970 Australian soldiers are serving in Afghanistan.
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Photo: NZ soldiers dispose of hundreds of Afghanistan explosives
Thursday August 23, 2007 New Zealand Herald, New Zealand
New Zealand soliders have dealt with more than 1200 individual high explosives during four months in Afghanistan.

The majority are found by local people when planting crops or tending sheep, and they often walk many kilometres to report their finds to the Kiwi base, the NZ Defence Force said.

The New Zealand Explosive Ordinance Disposal (NZEOD) team in Bamyan Province is responsible for the recovery and disposal of landmines, sub-munitions, mortars, rockets, artillery and bombs.

The New Zealand soldiers frequently see locals with missing fingers and limbs, and ridding the country of unexploded ordinance is a daunting task, said team leader Sergeant Craig Harnett.

"Even though we're the tenth rotation of NZDF personnel to Bamyan Province there are still huge quantities of munitions being discovered every day in our area of operations," he said.

"The Russians and the Taleban blanketed this area with explosive items during times of conflict. It's really sad to hear about children being killed while playing and the Afghan people are desperate to make their villages safe.

Advertisement"We educate the people so they do not handle the explosives themselves and they know to come and find us. Every item we dispose of prevents someone being hurt or killed."

There are currently 122 Defence Force personnel involved in the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
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How can this bloody failure be regarded as a good war?
The western occupation of Afghanistan has brought neither peace nor development - and it fuels the terror threat
Seumas Milne Thursday August 23, 2007 The Guardian
Enthusiasts for the catastrophe that is the Iraq war may be hard to come by these days, but Afghanistan is another matter. The invasion and occupation that opened George Bush's war on terror are still championed by powerful voices in the occupying states as - in the words of the New York Times this week - "the good war" that can still be won. While speculation intensifies about British withdrawal from Basra, there's no such talk about a retreat from Kabul or Kandahar. On the contrary, the plan is to increase British troop numbers from the current 7,000, and ministers, commanders and officials have been hammering home the message all summer that Britain is in Afghanistan, as the foreign secretary, David Miliband, insisted, for the long haul.

"We should be thinking in terms of decades," the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, declared; Brigadier John Lorimer, British commander in Helmand province, thought the military occupation might last more than Northern Ireland's 38 years; and the defence secretary, Des Browne, last week confirmed that the government had made a "long-term commitment" to stay in Afghanistan to prevent it reverting to a terrorist training ground. Even allowing for the Brown government's need for political cover if it is indeed to run down its forces in Iraq, that all amounts to a pretty clear policy of indefinite occupation - one on which it has not thought necessary to consult the British people, let alone the Afghans.

All this follows the escalation of Britain's involvement in Afghanistan last year, when Browne's predecessor, John Reid, sent thousands of extra troops to the south to "help reconstruction", hoping they would be a able to leave "without firing a single shot". Two million rounds of ammunition later, what was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission is now an all-out war against a resurgent Taliban that has become an umbrella for Pashtun nationalists, jihadists and all those determined to fight foreign occupation. British casualties have risen sharply - seven have been killed in the past month - along with those of other western forces, while the public at home is increasingly fed a media diet of Kiplingesque deeds of derring-do by "our boys" on the front line. And in a telling echo of the claims that have punctuated each phase of the Iraq disaster, Browne last week said he detected a "turning point" in the British campaign to "bring stability" to Afghanistan.

For Afghans, six years after they were supposed to have been liberated, life is getting worse. As the International Committee of the Red Cross reported two months ago, the humanitarian situation is deteriorating and civilians are suffering "horribly" from growing insecurity and violence in an increasingly dirty war. The fighting in the south has driven 80,000 from their homes, and the civilian casualty rate has doubled over the past year: more than 200 were killed by US and other Nato troops in June alone - far more than are estimated to have been killed in Taliban attacks. The savagery of indiscriminate US aerial bombardments provoked violent demonstrations and is widely seen as having increased support for the Taliban's armed campaign.

Given the manifest failure of the occupation to bring either peace or development to Afghanistan, it's not immediately obvious why it's still considered by some to be a good war - though a majority of Britons, Canadians, Italians and Germans, it should be said, want their troops withdrawn. Partly it must be the fact that the original invasion was launched in response to the 9/11 attacks - which turned out to have been at least partly coordinated from al-Qaida's Afghan camps - and had some measure of UN acquiescence (even if the relevant resolutions didn't actually mention Afghanistan). Added to that is the oppressive and obscurantist record of the Taliban regime and the elite fear that military failure will fatally undermine the projection of western power in future.

But by intervening on one side of an ethnically charged civil war to overthrow the Taliban - rather than, say, targeting special forces against al-Qaida - the US and its allies ended up exchanging warlords for theocrats and turning most of the country into a collection of lawless and brutal fiefdoms. Instead of al-Qaida terror networks being rooted out, they were allowed to migrate to the borderlands, Pakistan and Iraq; Osama bin Laden, whose capture was the first aim of the war, escaped; and the limited expansion of women's and girls' freedoms in Kabul and a few other urban areas was offset by an eruption of rape and violence against women. Western politicians like to describe the Afghan government as democratically elected, when in fact the elections were marked by large-scale fraud and intimidation in polls that gave regional warlords pride of place, while political parties were not allowed to take part. In real life, occupied Afghanistan is, as the UN warned last year, a failed state, which now produces 90% of the world's opium and where corruption and insecurity have sunk reconstruction.

Of course there was a time, in the 1970s and 1980s, when girls were encouraged to go to school and university in Afghanistan, women accounted for almost half the country's teachers and civil servants and the government redistributed land to the rural poor. But the US spent billions of dollars to destroy it in a cold war coup de grace and laid the foundations for the jihadist Frankenstein of al-Qaida in the process. Gordon Brown now claims Afghanistan is "the frontline against terrorism". In reality, the key to the al-Qaida threat lies in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and the dictatorial regimes the west sponsors there, while its support is fuelled by the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.

Britain is now fighting its fourth war in Afghanistan in 170 years, and might have learned by now that you cannot impose a government from outside against a people's will. Earlier this summer the Afghan senate called for a date to be set for the withdrawal of foreign troops and negotiations with the Taliban, as did the Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, this month. There will be no peace or stability in Afghanistan while foreign troops remain, and a wider settlement will surely have to include the Taliban and regional powers such as Iran and Pakistan. Unfortunately, politics dictates that a great deal more blood is likely to be shed on both sides before that comes to be accepted.
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US Says Afghan Violence Hasn't Stopped Reconstruction in East
By Cindy Saine Washington 22 August 2007 Voice of America
U.S. officials say a recent surge of violence in Afghanistan has not hurt reconstruction efforts in the eastern part of the country.  U.S. officials based in Jalalabad briefed reporters Wednesday via satellite about projects to build roads, dams and irrigation channels in one eastern province.  VOA's Cindy Saine reports from Washington.

Four months ago, the United States deployed a special reconstruction team to the eastern province of Nangahar.  The team is staffed by active duty soldiers and airmen, reservists who are farmers and ranchers in civilian life, and specialists from the Departments of State and Agriculture.

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Phillips describes the mission.

"During our missions we assess community needs and in cooperation with the government we build schools, government centers, roads, medical capability and other basic infrastructure projects, using Afghan contractors and labor," he said.  "We also provide economic development opportunities, many designed to aid women and disabled Afghans."

Phillips said the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 50 to 60 percent of the produce that grows in Nangahar's lush river valley is left rotting in the fields.  The reconstruction team is working to build cold storage facilities and local roads so that the produce can get to market.

Asked about how security concerns are affecting projects, Colonel Phillips said there have been no delays for security reasons in Nangahar.

"We have been able to move throughout the entire province and make reconstruction efforts happen," he added.

The Department of State representative, Shawn Waddoups, said the projects are increasingly winning over war-weary Afghans who have been waiting to make up their minds about which side to support.

"What we are seeing is that these individuals are more and more getting off the fence and not submitting to the intimidation that the Taleban is trying to use to keep them on that fence," he explained.  "They are more often coming to us with reports of where IED's have been located, where fighters are moving.  They are helping us and they are displaying confidence, not only in the coalition forces, but in the Afghan national security forces and in the Afghan government."

Neither Waddoups nor Colonel Phillips would provide any figures on the number of tips they have received from Afghans about planned attacks or improvised explosive devices.  But Phillips said Nangahar has seen less violence than other Afghan provinces.
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Army gets new 'enhanced blast' weapon to fight Taliban
Richard Norton-Taylor Thursday August 23, 2007 The Guardian
British soldiers in Afghanistan are being supplied with a new "super weapon" to attack Taliban fighters more effectively, defence officials said yesterday.
The "enhanced blast" weapon is based on thermobaric technology used in the powerful bombs dropped by the Russians to obliterate Grozny, the Chechen capital, and in US "bunker busters".

Defence officials insisted yesterday that the British bombs were different. "They are optimised to create blast [rather than heat]", one said, adding that it would be misleading to call them "thermobaric".

So-called thermobaric weapons have been used by the US against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban underground bases. Combined heat and pressure kill people over a wide area by sucking the air out of lungs and destroying internal organs.
Defence officials described the new weapon as a shoulder-launched "light anti-structure munition".

They said the bombs would be more effective than conventional weapons such as anti-tank missiles which often miss their targets. Even when they hit the damage is limited to a confined area.

The new weapons would be more effective against buildings and structures used by the Taliban, they said.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, described the weapons as a "serious step change" for the British army. He added: "The continuing issue of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has enormous importance in the battle for hearts and minds. If these weapons contribute to the deaths of civilians then a primary purpose of the British deployment is going to be made yet more difficult."

The deployment of the weapons should have been announced to MPs, Sir Menzies said. "We need much more transparency."

The MoD said in a statement that it was buying "a small number of enhanced blast munitions for use on operations". It added: "These have been procured in full accordance with the UK's obligations under international humanitarian law. It is important to us that our forces can choose from a wide suite of weaponry so they can respond appropriately and proportionately to any threat." The weapons would be used "proportionally under specific rules of engagement", the MoD said.

A "legal review" for the weapon - officially the lightweight anti-structure missile (ASM) - considered issues including whether it was prohibited or restricted under international law, whether it could be used discriminately, and whether it would cause unnecessary suffering.
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Afghan military to get Czech helicopters in fall
By CTK / Published 23 August 2007 Prague Daily Monitor, Czech Republic
Moscow, Aug 22 (CTK) - The first transport helicopters the Czech Republic has given to the Afghan military could be transferred to Afghanistan early this autumn, Czech deputy defence minister Martin Bartak told CTK Wednesday.

He said the general repair of the Russian-made helicopters is close to finish in the Czech Republic.

Russia preliminarily consented to their export to a third country at the Czech-Russian Moscow negotiations on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Czech chief-of-staff Vlastimil Picek said the Czech Republic would also like to assist in the training of Afghan pilots.

"The helicopters concerned are Mi-17, which will become part of the nascent Afghan air force," Picek told CTK.

The use of the helicopters will be decided on by the Afghans.

The Czech Republic decided to give the helicopters to Afghanistan in April. The military loyal to President Hamid Karzai's government is gradually to acquire six transport helicopters Mi-17 and six combat helicopters Mi-24.

Bartak recalled that the repairs of the helicopters, before they are transferred to Afghanistan, have been covered by NATO and mainly by the USA. The repair costs are estimated at several hundred millions of crowns.

"These are redundant helicopters of the Czech military," said Bartak.

Russia, the helicopters' producer, must issue consent to their export to a third country.

"We don't have this consent in writing yet, but we've negotiated about it already, with a significant support from the Czech Foreign Ministry," said Bartak.

He said the Russian authority for scientific and technical cooperation has preliminarily promised that the necessary certificates would be provided by the end of September.
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IRC helps refugee apprentices train for their return to Afghanistan
Source: International Rescue Committee (IRC) 22 Aug 2007
Sixty-three young Afghan refugees in Pakistan recently took big strides toward rebuilding their lives. Under the aegis of the International Rescue Committee's Durable Solutions Program, they completed apprenticeships in information technology that will help them establish careers and support their families when they return to Afghanistan.

The program has arranged thousands of apprenticeships with institutes and organizations willing to train young men for four to 15 months in carpentry, bookkeeping, graphic design, Web programming, civil drafting, masonry and other fields. It also provides refugees with knowledge and advice to make informed decisions about repatriation and employment opportunities.

In Pakistan, many Afghans are unwilling or unable to repatriate because they lack information about the security situation in their homeland, as well as the skills that would help them find work. "The results of the apprenticeship program and others like it are vital for giving individuals and their families the self-reliance and confidence to build their lives in their country of origin," says Abdul Haseeb, the program's coordinator in Pakistan.

He and his team identify the IT apprentices based on their education, intentions and individual needs, then link them with Creative Mind Innovator, a resource center in Peshawar with computer equipment and qualified course instructors. "The impact of such programs and activities has been profound," explains Haseeb, "and has provided thousands of Afghans with much-needed expertise for strengthening their future."

Most of the young graduates plan to continue their studies when they return to Afghanistan. They also look forward to establishing software houses and IT training institutes in their native land.
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ISAF soldiers transport 11 kilometers of pipeline
Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Thursday, August 23, 2007
POL-E KHOMRI, Afghanistan – Soldiers from Provincial Reconstruction Team Pol-e Khomri in Baghlan province, in collaboration with Regional Command North soldiers, transported 11 kilometers of pipelines to Dahana-e Ghori district to help bring clean drinking water.

"ISAF provided the helicopters to transport the pipes because there was a lack of roads," said Major Levnete Tabi, Hungarian Civil-Military Cooperation team.

Helicopters airlifted the pipes. Three German air crews flew in from neighboring Uzbekistan to prepare the cargo. The PRT Pol-e Khomri soldiers prepared and secured the site with help from Afghan National Security Forces.

"This project has both a civilian and military side. It was funded with money from the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan," Major Tabi said. Afghans will lay the pipes with contractors from local non-governmental organizations."

Residents in seven villages have no access to clean drinking water and have to walk up to half a day to the nearest well, according to Lieutenant Robert Smidroczki, PRT Pol-e Khomri Public Information Office.

The pipeline should be finished in about three months.
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Troops doing 'fabulous job,' Bush says
U.S. President emphasizes non-combat aspect of Afghan mission, noting Canada is building democratic institutions
ALAN FREEMAN - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail August 22, 2007
MONTEBELLO, QUE. — U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday praised Canadian troops for the "fabulous job" they are doing in southern Afghanistan but gave no hint as to how NATO would cope with the scheduled end of the Canadian combat mission in February, 2009.

Speaking at the closing news conference of an abbreviated North American summit with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Mr. Bush was unstinting in his praise for Canada's military contribution to the Afghan mission.

"Canada has performed brilliantly," he said as Mr. Harper listened intently. "And I thank the mothers and fathers or sons and daughters of those who lost their life in this, for the sake of freedom and peace, for the ultimate sacrifice they paid."

He said Canada was making an "important contribution in this global struggle against extremists," insisting that "we're in an ideological struggle against people who use murder and death to achieve political objectives."

Mr. Bush was clearly anxious to emphasize the non-combat aspect of Canada's mission in the country, noting that Canada was building democratic institutions and helping ensure that Afghan girls are educated and that Afghan women can serve in the country's Parliament. "We don't believe freedom is just confined to our neighbourhood," Mr. Bush said. "We believe freedom is universal in its application. ... We believe people want to be free and if given a chance, they will exercise what is necessary to be free. And that freedom yields peace."

He said that by supporting the mission in Afghanistan, the Canadian people are "laying the foundation of peace throughout the 21st century."

Mr. Harper added his own praise for Canadian troops and said that Parliament would make its decision on whether to extend the mission beyond February, 2009.

The summit was cut short by a couple of hours to facilitate the early departure of Mr. Calderon, who was anxious to assess the damage to the Yucatan Peninsula by hurricane Dean.

While Mr. Harper got the kind of backing from Mr. Bush on Afghanistan that he was probably looking for, he was not as fortunate when it came to Arctic sovereignty.

Mr. Bush said the United States does not question Canada's sovereignty over its Arctic islands and he supports the Harper government's recently announced investment in Arctic icebreakers. But he repeated the long-held U.S. view that the Northwest Passage is an international waterway.

Mr. Harper conceded that there remains a difference of opinion between Ottawa and Washington over the Northwest Passage, but he said that the two governments have learned how "to manage these differences," adding, "We think we'll be able to continue to do that."

The summit also allowed Mr. Bush and Mr. Calderon to continue discussions on what has become known as Plan Mexico, which would see Washington provide hundreds of millions of dollars in financial and military aid to help Mexico tackle the twin problems of drug trafficking and criminal cartels.

Mr. Bush declined to speculate on the value of the package but said that that it would be "robust enough to achieve a common objective, which is to reduce violence on both sides of the border and deal with narco-trafficking."

He also indicated for the first time that the Mexican plan would differ from the long-standing Plan Colombia, which aims to help the Colombian government fight the cocaine trade. Unlike in Colombia, the Mexican plan would not include any U.S. armed presence in the country.
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Hamed Karzai invites Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to visit Afghanistan
Turkmenistan.ru (Turkmenistan) August 22, 2007
Hamid Karzai invited Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to pay an official visit to Afghanistan during a telephone conversation yesterday. As the Turkmenistan.ru's correspondent reports quoting the press service of the Turkmen president, the invitation was accepted with gratitude.

In the course of the conversation the heads of the two neighbouring countries exchanged views on the implementation of bilateral agreements reached during the Afghan president's official visit to Ashgabat on July 5-6.

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov congratulated Hamid Karzai on Afghanistan Independence Day and wished him health and successes in his responsible state work, as well as peace, wellbeing and prosperity.

The two presidents expressed confidence in further strengthening and expansion of Turkmen-Afghan relations in the interests of the two friendly countries' peoples.
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Afghanistan: Young Pakistani poet disappears in Kunar Valley
Karachi, 22 August (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Acclaimed Pakistani Pashtu-language poet, Sajid Afghan, has been missing for over a week in Afghanistan's Kunar Valley, concerned members of his family told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Wednesday.

Sajid, 29, who comes from Pakistan's Dir District has published a well-received collection of poems called “Sharghashi”, after a plant that grows in the mountainous areas populated by ethnic Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The young poet whose verses deal humorously with Pashtun culture and tradition, hasn't been heard from since he travelled to Kunar.

Relatives and fellow poets have appealed to the Afghan authorities to try and discover his whereabouts.

Sajid currently holds the position of joint secretary of ‘Mrastial Likwal’ or the Writer's Gulid, an organisation of poets popularly known as Mal, based in Batkhela, in the Dir District.

Prominent Pashtu poet Gohar Ali Gohar heads Mal which counts amongst it member two other popular literary figures, poets Abaseen Yousafzai and Iqbal Shakir.

Sajid has been invited frequently by Afghanistan's literary fraternity in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar on a regular basis for poetry recitals.

Poetry recitals are popular in the region and even continued to be held under Taliban rule when other forms of public entertainment such as music and cinema were strictly prohibited.
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A Midwife for Every Afghan Mother
Erica Barnett August 22, 2007 5:28 PM WorldChanging.com
Maternal mortality -- death due or related to childbirth or pregnancy -- is the leading cause of death among women in Afghanistan. The maternal death rate in Afghanistan is the second-highest in the world; only Sierra Leone's is higher. For every 100,000 women who go into labor in Afghanistan, about 1,900 die. According to UNICEF, one in nine women in Afghanistan will die during or shortly after pregnancy at some point in her lifetime. (By comparison, the maternal mortality rate in the US and Japan is eight per 100,000 births.) Infants whose mothers die in childbirth have only a one in four chance of surviving, so the high maternal death rate threatens women and children alike.

Most of these deaths are preventable, the product of unsanitary conditions, poorly maintained roads, limited access to health care, forced marriages, lack of education, poor nutrition and sanitation, and a fundamentalist religious regime that, even in the post-Taliban era, prohibits women from seeing a male doctor or health care practitioner and limits them largely to the home.

One glimmer of hope can be found in recent efforts to train hundreds of Afghan midwives. The presence of a midwife has been proven to reduce maternal mortality rates substantially -- one reason the World Health Organization has prioritized international midwife training in its goal of reducing maternal deaths by 75 percent worldwide in the next eight years as part of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Afghanistan has a long way to go; by some estimates, only 14 percent of Afghan births are attended by a skilled professional.

But the tide may be turning. In 2005, Afghan midwives banded together to form the Afghan Midwives Association; by 2006, the organization had been admitted to the International Confederation of Midwives, and had helped to triple the number of trained midwives in Afghanistan. Another program, known as International Midwife Assistance, focuses particularly on rural Afghan women who deliver their babies at home. In 2004, the Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics (JHPIEGO), an international health organization based in Baltimore, Maryland, launched its own training program for Afghani midwives. And earlier this year, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan graduated a class of 20 midwives in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan. The goal of all these and other midwifery programs: To train women about healthy prenatal care and safe childbirth and parenting practices, including sanitation, proper diet, and care of newborn infants.

Two months from now, Family Care International will hold a global conference called Women Deliver in London, with the goal of saving and improving the lives of women, mothers, and infants worldwide. The ambitious-sounding conference will focus on maternal and newborn health, family planning, poverty reduction, freedom from violence, health system reform, building political will for women’s rights, and improving women’s political position in the world.
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Karzai inaugurates reconstruction of Ghazi High School
KABUL, Aug 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzia Tuesday inaugurated reconstruction of Ghazi High School in Kart-i-Char locality of this capital city.

Addressing the ceremony, President Karzai termed the reconstruction of the school as a step forward towards progress and prosperity. He said that would prove beneficial for the future of the country and its coming generations.

"Without assistance from the United States, we will not be able to erect this building for another 10 to 20 years," the president told the participants. On this occasion, work on razing of the old and crumbled building of the school was also kicked off.  

Muhammad Hanif Atmar, Minister for Education, told the gathering that the building would be erected at 13.5 acres of land. The three-storey building would have 72 classrooms, a mosque, two laboratories, a library and a computer room. 

He said the construction work would be completed in May 2009. After completion, the building would accommodate 6,000 students, he informed.

Ghazi High School was founded in 1925. It was shifted to the current location in 1953. The building was destroyed during the civil war.

Without mentioning the exact amount, the minister said the construction cost of the school could run into millions. He said construction and renovation work of 1,050 schools all over the country would begin in the coming two months.
Najib Khelwatgar
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