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August 6, 2007 

Bush, Karzai say they are aligned against Taliban
By Caren Bohan
CAMP DAVID, Maryland (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed on Monday to finish off the Taliban, which Karzai described as a defeated and frustrated force that attacks civilians but is not a threat to his government.

Karzai, visiting the United States amid renewed concern about worsening violence in Afghanistan and the threat from militant hideouts across the border in Pakistan, said he was building up his army and police to finish off the Taliban.

"Our enemy is still there, defeated but still hiding in the mountains. And our duty is to complete the job, to get them out of their hideouts in the mountains," he said after two days of meetings with Bush at the Camp David presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains.

The Taliban, driven from power by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, are "a force that is acting in cowardice by killing children going to school" and posed threats to innocents, including teachers, clergy, engineers and international aid workers, Karzai said.

He added, however: "They're not posing any threat to the government of Afghanistan. They're not posing any threat to the institutions of Afghanistan or to the buildup of institutions of Afghanistan."

"It's a force that is frustrated," Karzai said.

Bush's strategy session with Karzai came as the U.S. president found himself on the defensive over the troubled effort to rebuild Afghanistan and the failure to find al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

With the six-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks approaching, Bush is eager to assure Karzai -- and the American public -- he is committed to shoring up Afghanistan and combating the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Reassuring Karzai of U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, Bush said the two countries' shared Islamic militant foes were "part of an ongoing challenge that the free world faces."

"The real question is whether or not those of us who have the blessings of liberty will continue to pursue policies -- foreign policy, security policy -- aimed at not only protecting our homeland, but aimed at laying a condition for peace to prevail," Bush said.

Bin Laden is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be hiding in the rugged tribal region of Pakistan, an area near the border of Afghanistan that has been a source of concern to Karzai because it is seen as a hotbed of Taliban activity.

U.S. officials have underscored their support for Karzai, whose weak central government faces numerous challenges, including suicide bomb attacks by the Taliban, mounting civilian casualties and a burgeoning opium trade.

Bush and Karzai also discussed the crisis involving 21 Korean hostages seized by the Taliban in July. The kidnappers have killed two of the 23 initially captured and are demanding the release of Taliban prisoners in exchange.

South Korea has appealed to the United States and the Afghan officials to negotiate the release, but Bush and Karzai agreed that they would make no concessions to the Taliban to win freedom for the South Koreans.
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Bush and Karzai discuss security
By Caren Bohan Monday, August 6, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talks on Monday between President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will focus on worsening violence in Afghanistan and the threat from militant hideouts across the border in Pakistan.

Bush's two-day meeting with Karzai at the Camp David retreat in the Maryland mountains comes as the U.S. president has found himself on the defensive over the troubled effort to rebuild Afghanistan and the failure to find al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bush's critics contend those efforts have been hampered by a shifting of resources to the Iraq war.

With the six-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks approaching, Bush is eager to assure Karzai -- and the American public -- he is committed to shoring up Afghanistan and combating the Taliban and al Qaeda.

But Karzai, who arrived at Camp David on Sunday, brought little encouraging news about the hunt for bin Laden, telling CNN's "Late Edition" the United States and its allies were no closer than they were a few years ago to tracking down the elusive mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

"We are not closer, we are not further away from it. We are where we were a few years ago," Karzai said.

Bin Laden is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be hiding in the rugged tribal region of Pakistan, an area near the border of Afghanistan that has been a source of concern to Karzai because it is seen as a hotbed of Taliban activity.

U.S. officials have underscored their support for Karzai, whose weak central government faces numerous challenges, including suicide bomb attacks by the Taliban, mounting civilian casualties and a burgeoning opium trade.

The Afghan president was treated on Sunday at Camp David to a dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, hosted by Bush and his wife, Laura. On Monday, the two leaders were to hold a news conference at 11:25 a.m. EDT.

STRUGGLING LEADER
Despite his strong Western backing, Karzai has been the target of three assassination attempts and has struggled to build a robust central government amid longstanding tribal rifts and strong warlord control in the provinces.

The resurgence of the Taliban has led to the worst violence in Afghanistan since 2001, particularly over the last 18 months.

One issue Karzai wants to raise with Bush is his concern about a rise in deaths of civilians killed in airstrikes by U.S. and NATO-led forces aiming at the Taliban.

And Bush may want to broach U.S. concerns that Iran may be fueling violence by supplying weapons across the border.

However, Karzai on Sunday disagreed that Iran was a source of problems, describing it instead as "a helper" to Afghanistan and a supporter in its quest for peace.

Bush and Karzai also will discuss the crisis involving 21 Korean hostages seized by the Taliban in July. The kidnappers have killed two of the 23 initially captured and are demanding the release of Taliban prisoners in exchange.

South Korea has appealed to the United States and the Afghan officials to negotiate the release. Afghan officials are wary of making concessions for fear they might encourage more kidnappings.

"We are working very, very hard on this question," Karzai told CNN. "We will not do anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism. But we will do everything else to have them released."

White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the United States urged the immediate release of the hostages and called the kidnapping an "an uncivilized and brutal act."
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert)
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Karzai sees no gain in bin Laden hunt
By BEN FELLER Associated Press Sunday, August 5, 2007
WASHINGTON - In the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the United States and its allies have essentially gotten nowhere lately, says Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"We are not closer, we are not further away from it," Karzai said ahead of his two-day summit with President Bush at Camp David, Md. "We are where we were a few years ago."

Karzai ruled out that bin Laden was in Afghanistan, but otherwise said he didn't know where the leader of the al-Qaida terror network was likely hiding. Karzai's comments, in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition," were taped Friday in Kabul and broadcast Sunday.

Bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida network and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is believed to be living in the tribal border region of Pakistan. His ability to avoid capture remains a major source of frustration for U.S.-led forces.

Karzai arrives later Sunday at Bush's Catoctin Mountain Park retreat. The Afghan leader's visit comes as he faces competing troubles at home — civilian killings, surging opium production and steady violence.

All of those matters are expected to be discussed with Bush.

Afghanistan's fragility remains of paramount concern to the United States. Bush is expected to prod Karzai on how his government can exert — and extend — its authority.

"Karzai wants to shore up his ties in Washington," said Teresita Schaffer, a former top State Department official for south Asia. "And I think the U.S. government very much wants to get a stronger sense of how we can develop a common political strategy."

Despite its progress since U.S.-led forces toppled the militant Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan still is dominated by poverty and lawlessness. Stability has been hindered by the lack of government order, particularly in the southern part of the country.

"The security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated," Karzai said in the interview. "There is no doubt about that."

Overshadowing the Bush-Karzai meeting is the fate of 21 South Korean volunteers who were abducted by the Taliban on July 19 and are now believed to be in central Afghanistan. The captors took a total of 23 people hostage and have shot and killed two of them.

The Taliban is seeking the release of prisoners; the Afghan government has refused, and the U.S. adamantly opposes conceding to such demands. The crisis has put considerable pressure on Karzai and raised more doubts about his ability to enforce the rule of law.

Bush and Karzai are also likely to discuss Afghanistan's distrustful relationship with neighboring Pakistan. Karzai said the flow of foreign fighters from Pakistan into his country is a concern he will address soon with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

The two are expected to meet this month as part of a gathering of tribal elders in Kabul.

Karzai said he is investigating reports that Iran is fueling violence in Afghanistan by sending in weaponry such as sophisticated roadside bombs. Yet he also praised Iran as a partner in peace and against narcotics. "So far, Iran has been a helper," he said.

On another front, Afghanistan now accounts for 95 percent of the world's poppy production used to make heroin and profits from the drug trafficking have helped the Taliban.

Violence has been rising sharply in Afghanistan, led by different Taliban groups with various links to tribal leaders and residual al-Qaida forces.

As U.S. and NATO forces target Taliban insurgents, the civilian deaths associated with the attacks have enraged the Afghan population and eroded Karzai's authority. He has repeatedly asked military commanders for more caution and lashed out at foreign forces aiding his nation.

Karzai is likely to seek some reassurance from Bush that "whatever the U.S. is doing is going to result in fewer civilians killed," said Schaffer, now the director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Militants often wear civilian dress and seek shelter in villagers' homes, making it hard to differentiate the enemy from the innocent. Bush "is absolutely satisfied" that the U.S. military is doing all it can avoid civilian casualties, spokesman Scott Stanzel said.
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Afghan demo condemns abduction of SKoreans
Mon Aug 6, 4:32 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Around 300 Afghans demonstrated Monday in the southern city of Kandahar calling for the release of 21 South Koreans held by the extremist Taliban militia for more than two weeks.

The demonstrators moved through the city in pick-up trucks, minivans and cars, distributing leaflets condemning the kidnappers and chanting anti-Talban slogans through loudspeakers.

They especially criticised the holding of female hostages, as 16 of the 21 Christian aid workers being held under threat of death are women.

"Death to those who have abducted the South Koreans, especially the women," the crowd shouted.

Their leaflets condemned hostage-taking, and especially the abduction of women, as cowardly and in contravention of Islam and Afghan culture.

"We demand the immediate release of the South Koreans," members of the group chanted.

"We ask the Afghan government to spare no efforts for the release of the South Korean hostages. Whoever is holding the Korean people do not represent Afghanistan."

The demonstration, organised by a cultural organisation called the Afghan Islamic National Youth Society, was escorted through the city by police, as Kandahar has seen several attacks by Taliban militants.

The South Koreans were kidnapped on July 19. Two hostages, both men, have already been murdered.

The extremists, waging an insurgency against the government, have threatened to kill more unless a number of its captured members are released from jail, a demand the government has rejected.
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Hostage pressure on Karzai, Bush
Monday, 6 August 2007 BBC News
Afghan leader Hamid Karzai is meeting US President George W Bush amid renewed fears for the fate of 21 South Korean hostages still held by the Taleban.

Afghan security is the key issue in the leaders' two-day meeting at Camp David near Washington.

Two South Koreans from the abducted group have already been killed.

Qari Yousaf, who claims to speak for the Taleban, said if there was no prisoner exchange, the hostages' fate would be the leaders' responsibility.

The Korean hostages - Christian aid workers, 18 of whom are women - were seized on 19 July as they travelled on a bus down the Kabul to Kandahar highway.

'Premature'

Mr Yousaf said the Taleban had been told by South Korean negotiators that the South Korean president had asked Mr Bush to help with an exchange for Taleban prisoners.

"We know that Karzai and Bush will discuss this. If the exchange doesn't take place the responsibility of the hostages will be that of Karzai and Bush," Mr Yousaf said.

He also told the BBC that the Taleban would continue its kidnapping policy whether or not there was an exchange.

In Seoul, a South Korean presidential spokesman said the government wanted to "work separately" from the Bush-Karzai summit to resolve the issue.

"It is inappropriate to have any premature expectations or to overly interpret the summit," he said.

About 100 protesters rallied near the US embassy in Seoul on Monday and handed in a letter addressed to Mr Bush.

"The US must assume responsibility for the kidnapping of our people in Afghanistan. The incident was caused by the US war of aggression," it read.

Two of the hostages are said to be seriously ill and a private Afghan clinic said antibiotics, pain killers, vitamins and heart pills had been left in an area of desert in Ghazni province, where the hostages are being held, as specified by the militants.

An official in Seoul said the South Korean government had had its first telephone contact with one of the hostages on Saturday.

The Yonhap news agency said it had also spoken to hostages by telephone and was told they had been split into several groups.

It reported one captive as saying: "We are all sick and want to meet our families again at home... the Taleban point guns at us and threaten to kill us if the Korean government does not accept their demands."

Plans for a direct meeting between negotiators and the Taleban have yet to overcome problems about a venue.

In Washington, Mr Karzai said he would do everything he could to have the hostages released, short of "anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism".

Iran disagreement

Other key items on the Karzai-Bush agenda are likely to be the growing number of civilians killed in coalition military operations, the drug trade and economic development.

Mr Bush is also expected to urge Mr Karzai to root out corruption.

One apparent matter of dispute was Iran.

The US has accused Tehran of supplying weapons to the Taleban.

But Mr Karzai appeared to deny such claims in an interview with CNN.

"Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan," he said.

Mr Karzai also said there was no encouraging news on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

"We are not closer, we are not further away from [finding him]. We are where we were a few years ago," Mr Karzai said.

The Afghan president is also concerned about increasing civilian deaths in coalition military operations. Recently he accused the coalition of "extreme use of force".
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Text of Bush and Karzai
Associated Press
CAMP DAVID, Md. - Text of President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.

BUSH: Good morning. Thank you. Be seated. Welcome.

Appreciate a man I've come to admire, President Karzai, for joining us. Laura and I had the honor of hosting the president for dinner last night. He and I spent a lot of this morning just sitting down, alone, talking about our common interests, common concerns.

President Karzai is an optimistic man. He's watched his country emerge from the days of darkness to days of hope.

KARZAI: Absolutely.

BUSH: I appreciate your stewardship. I appreciate your commitment to empowering your people. I appreciate your strong stance for freedom and justice. And I'm proud to call you an ally in this war against those who would wreak havoc in order to deny people a chance to live in peace.

We're working closely together to help the people of Afghanistan prosper. We work together to give the people of Afghanistan a chance to raise their children in a hopeful world. And we're working together to defeat those who would try to stop the advance of a free Afghan society.

Spent a fair amount of time talking about our security strategy.

You might remember, it was last winter that people were speculating about the Taliban spring offensive and about how the Taliban had regrouped and were going to go on the attack inside Afghanistan.

Well, there was a spring offensive, all right. It was conducted by U.S., NATO and, equally importantly, Afghan troops. And we went on the offense, because we understand that it is in our mutual interest to deny extremists the opportunity to derail this young democracy.

There's still a fight going on, but I'm proud to report to the American people that the Afghan army is in the fight. The government's in the fight, and the army's in the fight.

Afghan national security forces are increasing in strength. There's about 110,000 Afghans now defending their nation. And more Afghans are stepping up to serve.

And it's in the interest of the United States to help you develop that national army and local police that will send a clear message to the people of Afghanistan that the governments can help provide an opportunity for people to raise their children in a peaceful world.

There's a lot of forces there in Afghanistan supporting this government. And our 23,500 troops are proud to stand side by side with 26,000 troops from other nations. And we applaud those countries who have committed their troops to help Afghanistan succeed.

We've committed more than $23 billion since 2001 to help rebuild the country. I think our citizens will be interested to know, for example, that 7,000 community health care workers have been trained, that provide about 340,000 Afghan men, women and children a month with good health care.

I remember talking a lot about how the Taliban prevented young girls from going to school in Afghanistan. American citizens recall with horror to think about a government that would deny a young child the opportunity to have the basics necessary to succeed in life.

Today there are nearly 5 million students going to school in Afghanistan, a third of whom are girls.

Still work to be done. Don't get me wrong.

But progress is being made, Mr. President, and we're proud of you, proud of the work you're doing.

We talked about the need to stem the narcotics trade. I'm sure the president will comment on this. He understands that it's very important for farmers to be incented to grow crop other than poppy and that he knows full well the United States is watching, measuring and trying to help eradicate poppy cultivation.

We spend more than a fair amount of time on it. We spend a lot of time on it. And it's important that we get this right.

Mr. President, I appreciate your commitment to not only dealing with the poppy growers and the poppy crop, but also dealing with corruption. It's very important that our societies emerge in such a way that the people have confidence in the capacity of government to conduct the affairs — conduct their affairs in a way that's above board and honest and transparent.

And finally, I do want to congratulate you on the joint jirga that's coming up.

This is a meeting between President Karzai, President Musharraf and representative elements from parts of their respective countries, all coming together to talk about reconciliation and how we can work together — how you can work together — to achieve a — to achieve common solutions to problems.

And the main problem is to fight extremism; to recognize that history has called us into action, and by fighting extremists and radicals, we help people realize dreams. And helping realize — people realize dreams helps promote peace. That's what we want.

You come from a part of the world, Mr. President, where there's a long history of violence and a long history of people seeking freedom. It's in the interest of the United States to be on the — tip the scales of freedom your way.

We can only do so with strong leadership, and I appreciate the leadership you're providing.

So welcome to Camp David.

KARZAI: Thank you very much. ... Thank you very much, Mr. President, for receiving me in Camp David. You and the first lady are generous and kind hosts. And thank you very much for that.

Mr. President, I'm here today to, once again, thank you and the American people for all that you have done for Afghanistan: for our liberation first and then for our stability and prosperity.

We have gone a long way.

I've been here many times before in America, thanking the American people for what they have given to Afghanistan. I've spoken of roads. I've spoken of schools. I've spoken of clinics. I've spoken of health services. I've spoken of education. I've spoken of agriculture. I've spoken of lots of achievements. I've also had requests for help that you have delivered to us.

But today I'm going to speak about only one achievement that means so much for the Afghan people and surely to you and the rest of the world. That is that Afghanistan today, with the help that you have provided and our other allies have provided, can save, is saving the life of at least 50,000 infants after they are born and the life of 85,000 children under 5.

Mr. President, when you and I begin to think of the mothers who can have their babies safe today, then we know the value and the importance of this achievement. And thank you very, very much for this tremendous help. Afghanistan will have had 85,000 children living today had you not been there to help us, with the rest of the world.

BUSH: Thank you, sir.
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Karzai says Afghanistan has 'deteriorated'
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg International Herald Tribune Monday, August 6, 2007
WASHINGTON: On the eve of his Camp David meeting with President George W. Bush, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan painted a bleak picture of life in his country, saying that the security situation had worsened and that the United States and its allies were no closer to catching Osama bin Laden than they were a few years ago.

"The security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated," Karzai said on the CNN television program "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer," in an interview that was taped Saturday in Kabul and broadcast Sunday while Karzai was en route to Camp David for a two-day meeting with Bush.

"The Afghan people have suffered," Karzai said. "Terrorists have killed our schoolchildren. They have burned our schools. They have killed international helpers."

As for catching bin Laden, Karzai said: "We are not closer, we are not further away from it. We are where we were a few years ago."

The White House had hoped to use the two-day meeting - Karzai's first visit to Camp David, but his seventh meeting with Bush - to showcase what Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council, called both the "progress and challenges" in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan has come a long way since October 2001, when the U.S. first went in, but there is clearly more work to do," Johndroe said Sunday.

Karzai, though, spotlighted the remaining work more than the progress, in what amounted to a cry for help. He is trying to rebuild his war-torn country and strengthen his fragile government while confronting a resurgent Taliban, a booming opium trade, government corruption, mounting deaths of civilians and a Qaeda leadership that, U.S. intelligence officials say, has reconstituted itself in the mountainous border territory with Pakistan.

All of those issues - as well as the pressing problem of trying to free 21 South Korean hostages seized by the Taliban last month - will be on the agenda at Camp David. Karzai arrived by helicopter Sunday afternoon at the presidential retreat, in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland.

Bush, anticipating a spring offensive by the Taliban, sent more troops to Afghanistan earlier this year and also increased government assistance to that country. Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Said Jawad, said in an interview Friday afternoon that Karzai would present Bush with a request for more financial assistance, as well as "specific ideas" for how the aid should be spent, including better equipment and training for the Afghan police, more armored vehicles, more guns and better airlift capability for the Afghan National Army.

The Qaeda threat, and in particular the failure to catch bin Laden, has been a source of frustration not only for Karzai, but also for Bush, who vowed after the Sept. 11 attacks to bring bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, to justice "dead or alive."

The failed hunt for top Qaeda operatives has also created friction between Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, General Pervez Musharraf.

Last September, Bush tried to ease the tensions by bringing the two together for an awkward dinner at the White House.

In the interview Sunday, Karzai avoided saying whether he believed Musharraf was doing enough to track down terrorist leaders. But he speculated - without exactly saying so - that bin Laden must be on the Pakistan side of the border.

"I can't talk about that, whether he is in Afghanistan or in Pakistan," Karzai said, "but I definitely know that he cannot be in Afghanistan."

South Korean diplomats in Afghanistan have contacted at least one of the 21 church volunteers being held by the Taliban, a government official said Monday, as demonstrators at the U.S. Embassy demanded Washington's help in ending the standoff, The Associated Press reported from Seoul.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, declined to give further details about the conversation with at least one of the South Korean captives, citing safety concerns.

Local South Korean media reported that the hostages had been divided into groups and that a number of them were sick, but gave no additional details.

The Taliban have agreed to meet face-to-face with a South Korean delegation, but the two sides have been unable to agree on a venue. A purported Taliban spokesman who expressed concerns that militants could be detained by the Afghan military has proposed meeting in Taliban territory, or that the United Nations host talks elsewhere.

Militants kidnapped 23 South Koreans from a bus in southern Afghanistan on July 19 and have shot two of them to death. They are threatening more killings unless the Afghan government releases insurgent prisoners.
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Afghanistan at odds with US over Iran issue
5 Aug 2007, 2125 hrs IST, AFP
WASHINGTON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key US ally, contradicted US assessments of the threat posed by Iran and insisted in an interview aired on Sunday that Tehran played a beneficial role in his region.

"So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution," Karzai told a private TV channel on the eve of a visit here on Sunday to meet with President George W Bush for talks on the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

"Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan," said Karzai, who became president with US backing in 2002.

His remarks differed markedly from the US stance, which sees Iran as a major menace that bankrolls terrorists, supplies arms to insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, and seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

The position was reiterated on Sunday by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as she defended the US decision to sell tens of billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to thwart Iranian ambitions.

"I don't think anybody doubts that Iran constitutes a major challenge, security challenge, to our friends, our allies, and therefore to our interests in the Gulf region," Rice told CBS television.

But asked about US suggestions that Iranian weaponry was being funneled into Afghanistan, where Taliban fundamentalists were mounting a reinvigorated insurgency six years after their ouster, Karzai was non-committal.

"We have had reports of the kind you just mentioned. We are looking into these reports," he said in the interview conducted Saturday.

He went on to say that Afghanistan and Iran had "very, very good, very, very close relations, thanks in part also to an understanding of the United States in this regard."

"We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if there are any, to arise," Karzai said.

Also interviewed on the channel, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates responded to Karzai's comments by offering that Iran was "playing both sides of the street in Afghanistan."

"I think they're doing some things to help the Afghan government," said Gates, just returned from a Middle East swing with Rice. "I think they're also doing things to help the Taliban, including providing weapons."
via The Times of India
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Iranian bombs smuggled into Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Iranian armor-piercing bombs used with deadly effect in Iraq now are being smuggled into Afghanistan for use by the Taliban, it was reported Sunday.

"It is clear to everyone that Iran is supporting the enemy of Afghanistan, the Taliban," Col. Rahmatullah Safi, the head of border police for western Afghanistan, told The Sunday Times of London.

A Baluch tribesman in southern Afghanistan is believed to be the middle man between Iran and the Taliban, Afghan intelligence sources told The Times. The middle man also uses Iran as the central point for heroin smuggled out of Afghanistan to Europe, the report said.

Col. Thomas Kelly, a U.S. Army commander with NATO, said the armor-piercing weapons crossing the border appear factory made.

"These are very sophisticated (improvised explosive devices) and they're really not manufactured in any other place to our knowledge than Iran," Kelly said.
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Taliban threatens more kidnappings
By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press Monday, August 6, 2007
GHAZNI, Afghanistan - The Taliban will keep kidnapping foreigners in Afghanistan, a purported spokesman for the group said Monday, adding that the Afghan and U.S. presidents were responsible for the fate of 21 South Korean hostages.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the lives of the hostages rest in the hands of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush, who are holding two days of talks at Camp David, Md.

"Karzai and Bush will have responsibility for whatever happens to the hostages," Ahmadi said.

An Afghan doctor who runs a private clinic said he had dropped off almost $2,000 worth of antibiotics, vitamins and first-aid kits in rural Ghazni province Sunday intended for the Koreans, two of whom are said to be extremely ill. Dr. Mohammad Hashim Wahwaj said their Taliban captors told him that they had picked up the medicines.

Karzai said in an interview Sunday with CNN that the Afghan government is working to free the South Korean hostages, but he indicated it would not give in to Taliban demands to release imprisoned militants in exchange for the Koreans' lives.

"We will not do anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism. But we will do everything else to have them released," he said.

Ahmadi said the Taliban will continue with its methods regardless of the results.

"Whether the Kabul administration will do the (prisoner) exchange or not, it will not have any effect on our side. The process of kidnapping (foreigners) will be ongoing," Ahmadi said.

South Korea has asked the international community to be flexible in its policy of non-negotiation with terrorists. A South Korean presidential spokesman said his government was working separately on the hostages' release and cautioned against high expectations over the Camp David meetings. A spokesman for the hostages' families said they had little faith that the talks will end the nearly three-week hostage crisis.

In Seoul, an official said that South Korean diplomats had made contact with the captives. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, declined to give further details about the conversation with at least one of the captives, citing safety concerns.

Ahmadi said that the militants and South Korean officials remain in contact by phone, but have not yet agreed on a location where they can hold negotiations on the fate of the captives.

The husband of one of the hostages posted a video message on YouTube, telling his wife not to give up hope because they will see each other soon.

Ryu Hang-sik's wife, Kim Yun-yeong, was kidnapped with 22 other church volunteers in southern Afghanistan on July 19. The Taliban have killed two men and threatened to kill others, including 16 women, if the Afghan government doesn't release its fighters.

"For the sake of our children, stay strong and healthy. Please, hold on to positive thoughts," Ryu said in the message, read in Korean with English subtitles. "We will see each other soon."

About 150 demonstrators rallied at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, praying for the hostages' release and demanding U.S. help.

Meanwhile, foreign and Afghan troops killed 13 suspected militants in Zabul province after they tried to attack the checkpoint on the main road linking Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, said Ali Kheil, the spokesman for Zabul's governor.
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Associated Press Writer Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea.
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Taleban rule the road in Ghazni
Alastair Leithead BBC News, Ghazni, central Afghanistan Monday, 6 August 2007
Thunder echoed around the wide valley announcing the arrival of a blinding sandstorm that rushed along the roads and down corridors between tall, impenetrable mud compounds.

The dust whipped up around the police - dozens of them, all heavily armed - who accompanied us to the place where the South Korean church volunteers had been kidnapped.

They tentatively showed us where they think the 21 survivors are being held.

In two weeks, two hostages have been killed and their bullet-ridden bodies recovered, but the rest appear to be still alive.

South Korean officials say a diplomat spoke to one of the hostages this weekend by telephone and medicines were dropped off for them in the desert.

The negotiations rumble slowly on and the government has vowed not to bow to demands for a prisoner exchange

For now there is little happening beyond talks about meetings to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion.

Taleban control

A large mud compound by the side of the road now has at least three Afghan flags flying. Gun positions are mounted on the high walls and there are dozens of police accompanying us for security.

It was here in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni that a local bus, chartered by the Koreans, was stopped en route between Kabul and Kandahar and the foreign aid workers were taken away.

It is a two hour drive from the capital to this section of Route One, the main ring road that circles the Hindu Kush mountains that spread out like an open hand across central Afghanistan.

The road was resurfaced and secured by American troops after the Taleban were removed from power in 2001, and it was supposed to be a symbol of the new Afghanistan.

But the Taleban are back. They control the road and many of the villages by night and in places even by day. Their influence is spreading towards Kabul.

Vast area

"You see the mountains in the distance? That is where we think the hostages are being held," one of the local police commanders told me, pointing to a ridge on the horizon we could barely see through the sandstorm and because it was so far away.

The police took us as far as they considered safe towards those mountains: just a couple of hundred metres off the main road.

Despite the heavy machine guns, rocket -propelled grenades and ability to call in Nato or Coalition forces for help, they are afraid of being attacked or being hit by a roadside bomb the Taleban might have left behind.

The police say the roads in and out of the area have been sealed off and there is no escape for the Taleban who are holding the South Koreans, but it is a vast area with 3,000 or more compounds - the huge, fort-like structures that are traditional Pashtun homesteads.

They could be in as many as 15 separate villages and so far the authorities have cautiously searched three, but there's still no sign of the Taleban, or their hostages.

Mixed messages

The hostages have been split up into groups and the negotiations have been made more confused and chaotic by disagreements within the Taleban factions holding them.

And also by the mixed approaches of the Afghan delegation and the South Korean authorities who are now trying to deal directly with the insurgents.

The truth has been hard to come by and the media has been fed inaccurate information as part of the brinkmanship of trying to make a deal.

The Afghan ministry of defence dropped leaflets warning local people to leave for their own safety, and initially did not object to reports that a military operation was being launched to rescue the hostages.

But the area is vast and even with international help a rescue attempt would be incredibly risky both for those carrying it out and for the 21 South Koreans, most of whom are women.

For now, the emphasis is on talking and trying to bring this to an end without bloodshed, and with neither side losing face or being seen to give in.
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Taliban Hits Airwaves in Southeastern Afghanistan
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR
Morning Edition, August 6, 2007 · The Taliban has hit the airwaves in southeastern Afghanistan through a new radio station called "Voice of Shariat."

The station, which broadcasts in Pashto most evenings, can't be heard in Kabul. But it's on the air in parts of American-dominated Paktia province, as well as Paktika, Logar and Ghazni provinces.

The station, which operates out of the back of pickup trucks, is gaining a following, even as the Afghan government is trying to shut it down. Those who've heard it say the programming plays on people's frustrations with the Afghan government and, not surprisingly, omits any reference to suicide attacks.
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Waziristan Elders Drop Out of Pakistani-Afghan Assembly
August 6, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Tribal elders in Pakistan's North Waziristan region today said they will not go to Kabul on August 9 for a grand assembly, or jirga, aimed at building confidence between Pakistan and Afghanistan and dampening support for the Taliban.


Mamur Khan, chief of North Waziristan's Wazir Turikhel tribe, said the absence of Taliban representatives would make the assembly pointless.

Some tribal leaders also want Pakistan to withdraw troops from checkpoints in North Waziristan as a precondition for participation in the assembly.

At the four-day assembly, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf are due to address clerics, politicians, writers, and tribal chiefs from ethnic Pashtun regions on both sides of the border.

The border region has been destabilized by the presence of Taliban-linked militants, accused of crossing the border to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.
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Twenty-One Taliban Reported Killed In South Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
August 6, 2007 -- Provincial officials in southern Afghanistan today said that local and foreign forces killed at least 21 Taliban militants in an operation launched late on August 5.

The operation reportedly began after intelligence suggested a group of Taliban fighters in the Shah Joy district of Zabul Province were attempting to block the key highway between Kandahar and the capital, Kabul.

No casualties were reported among Afghan or coalition forces.

Meanwhile today, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for Germany to take a greater role in the international coalition in Afghanistan, and warned that a withdrawal of German would represent a victory for the Taliban.

In a statement published in the newspaper "Bild," Steinmeier called for broader German assistance in training and equipping Afghan forces.

The German parliament is scheduled to vote in October on prolonging the mandate of the country's mission in Afghanistan, where it has about 3,000 troops.

And in Tokyo today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged his political opponents to reconsider their opposition to extending Japan's non-combat mission in Afghanistan. Laws enacted after September 2001 that allow the officially pacifist Japan to provide fuel and logistical support to the international counterterrorism effort expire on November 1.
(AFP, Reuters)
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Waziristan Elders Drop Out of Pakistani-Afghan Assembly
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
August 6, 2007 -- Tribal elders in Pakistan's North Waziristan region today said they will not go to Kabul on August 9 for a grand assembly, or jirga, aimed at building confidence between Pakistan and Afghanistan and dampening support for the Taliban.

Mamur Khan, chief of North Waziristan's Wazir Turikhel tribe, said the absence of Taliban representatives would make the assembly pointless.

Some tribal leaders also want Pakistan to withdraw troops from checkpoints in North Waziristan as a precondition for participation in the assembly.

At the four-day assembly, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf are due to address clerics, politicians, writers, and tribal chiefs from ethnic Pashtun regions on both sides of the border.

The border region has been destabilized by the presence of Taliban-linked militants, accused of crossing the border to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

(Reuters)
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Afghan victory 'could take 38 years'
Mark Townsend in Sangin, Afghanistan
Sunday August 5, 2007 The Observer (UK)
British troops could remain in Afghanistan for more than the 38 years it took them to pull out of Northern Ireland. That is the bleak assessment by Army commanders on the ground in Helmand province.

In an interview with The Observer at HQ in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, Brigadier John Lorimer, commander of UK forces in Helmand, said: 'If you look at the insurgency then it could take maybe 10 years. Counter-narcotics, it's 30 years. If you're looking at governance and so on, it looks a little longer. If you look at other counter-insurgency operations over the last 100 years then it has taken time.'

His scenario is the starkest assessment yet from a senior officer tasked with defeating the Taliban, tackling the heroin trade and rebuilding the war-ravaged country. Last week troops pulled out of Northern Ireland after 38 years, the longest operation in UK military history. Afghanistan, commanders fear, may take longer.

Lorimer said he could visualise UK forces staying in Helmand after the Taliban and a growing counter-insurgency was defeated. His comments came as British infantry, often fighting for hours in temperatures of up to 50C, pushed north against well-defended Taliban positions.

Scores of soldiers have succumbed to heatstroke while hundreds have battled on despite dehabilitating illness. Almost 50 out of 160 forward troops reported severe sickness and diarrhoea in the forward base at Sangin last month. A number of troops have lost limbs during firefights in the upper Gereshk valley, south of Sangin.

The 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglians, with 650 soldiers in Afghanistan, has used 480,100 rounds since the start of April. Former defence secretary John Reid envisaged operations could be conducted without firing a single bullet.
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Afghanistan's success story: The liberated Hazara minority
Unlike US intervention in Iraq, the fall of the Taliban has helped assuage communal tension in Afghanistan.
By Mark Sappenfield | The Christian Science Monitor from the August 06, 2007 edition
BAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN - The last thing Azi Zula Haideri saw as he climbed higher into the snow-choked passes of the Hindu Kush was the smoke, a signal in ash and soot that the Taliban were nearing, burning and killing as they came.

Less than a year later, in 2001, when the Taliban fell to forces supported by the United States, the world heralded it as a victory for freedom and for women oppressed by the burqa. But Mr. Haideri remembers it as something different: Salvation for himself and his people, the Hazaras.

Haideri had fled into the mountains to escape the Taliban, who butchered Hazaras by the thousands, killing them because they were Shiites and "foreigners" – descended from the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan.

Now, however, Haideri sits at a tea stand in this predominately Hazara city and agrees that there has never been a better time for his people. In contrast with the American experience in Iraq, which has unleashed deep-seated sectarian violence, Western intervention here has ended one of the more brutal chapters in this nation's history of ethnic strife.

In post-Taliban Afghanistan, it is one of the few unequivocal, though often overlooked, successes. After centuries of discrimination, abuse, and even ethnic cleansing, the country's third-largest ethnic group has at last managed to find peace and even prosperity in the new Afghanistan.

"The interim administration [in 2001] was the start of a golden period for Hazaras," says Abdul Ahad Farzam, a human-rights activist in Bamiyan. "Doors opened for Hazaras."

At times, President Hamid Karzai has had as many as six Hazaras as cabinet ministers. The governors of Herat and Bamiyan provinces are Hazaras. And anecdotal information suggests that Hazaras are achieving in higher education: One unconfirmed report suggests that Kabul University accepted 600 students from one Hazara district alone, and a professor of law and political science at Herat University says half his students are Hazaras.

From a Western perspective, the change is welcome. Hazaras "will never be reconciled with the Taliban," says Mohammed Rafiq Shahir, the professor at Herat University. "That is why the international community is building them up."

Moreover, Hazaras are perhaps the most liberal of Afghanistan's Muslim sects. A local human-rights activist remembers trying to convince local Hazara clerics that the Western concept of human rights are in concert with Islam.

"At the beginning they were suspicious, since it was new and it coincided with the US toppling the Taliban – it was seen as a campaign to bring in Western culture," says Musa Sultani, regional director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Yet by the end of the discussion, Mr. Sultani had persuaded the clerics so thoroughly that they issued a written decree supporting every point.

"Hazaras are open to change," says Sultani, who is himself a Hazara. "They are open to new ideas and are not very fanatical."

The head of the Clergy Council of Bamiyan agrees. "I have been to four or five big seminars of all the religious scholars from all parts of Afghanistan, and our clergy are more open," says Baba Mohsini, noting that Hazaras have even followed Sunni rules for prayer in the past simply to keep Sunni rulers happy.

It is this adaptability, say Hazaras and others, that has helped them to take advantage of what they were long denied. Indeed, until the Soviets arrived in the late 1970s, Afghan law kept Hazaras from entering the Army, enrolling in higher education, or securing top government jobs. A century earlier, they were sold in the markets of Kabul as slaves.

It has never been primarily a matter of religion, experts agree. With the exception of Taliban times, the Sunni–Shiite divide has never been strong in Afghanistan.

Unique among Afghans, Hazaras have Oriental features, giving momentum to the belief that the Hazaras – roughly translated as "The Thousands" – are descended from 1,000 Mongol families who stayed behind after Genghis Khan invaded Bamiyan in 1221. The intervening eight centuries have not been sufficient to erase the perception of Hazaras as Afghan outsiders.

These historical prejudices have led to the lowest and most menial of tasks – from pushing carts though the city to house cleaning – being considered as Hazaras' work. When Haideri joined the Army, he says he was asked to sweep the floors and carry large items. Asked why none of the others were given such tasks, he recalls the officer as saying: "You are a Hazara. You are not an Afghan, you are Chinese."

Even since the fall of the Taliban, discrimination lingers. When Mr. Farzam went to the Ministry of Education in 2002 to pick up paperwork for a scholarship to study in Iran, the clerk told him he was glad that "you stupid people are going out of the country to learn how to be a human being." Weeks later, Farzam learned that the scholarship had been revoked and given to someone else.

"Among educated people there has been a change. They are convinced that Hazaras can be like them," says Farzam. "Among uneducated people, they still think that we are second-class citizens."

Still, Farzam is optimistic. In a story common throughout Afghanistan, he says he knows of an old Hazara man in his neighborhood who had written "Tajik" as his ethnicity on his government identity card. But the shame of being a Hazara, Farzam says, "does not exist in the new generation."

• Mr. Sappenfield is the New Delhi correspondent for the Monitor and USA Today.
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UN: Afghanistan's Cereal Production Doubled Since Taliban Fell in 2001
Monday August 6, 12:39 pm ET 
ROME (AP) -- Afghanistan's cereal production has more than doubled in the six years since the fall of the Taliban regime, thanks mainly to good weather and the development work of aid organizations, a U.N. food agency said Monday.

Despite continuing violence in the country, Afghanistan's cereal output is expected to reach 4.6 million tons in 2007, compared with 2 million tons in 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said.

Although Afghanistan is nearing self-sufficiency, it will still need to import 700,000 tons of cereals in 2007-08 to cover its needs, with 600,000 tons being purchased on world markets and the rest provided as food aid, the Rome-based agency said in a statement.

Aside from several consecutive years of generally favorable weather, the statement also credited the increase on projects run by the agency, which employs 400 staff in the country, and by other aid groups.

The agency cited projects including the creation of an Afghan seed industry, restoration of irrigation systems and substitution of the country's huge poppy cultivation, which accounted last year for more than 90 percent of the world's heroin supply.
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Japan opposition risks U.S. ire over Afghan mission
By Linda Sieg Monday, August 6, 2007
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's main opposition Democratic Party and its allies agreed on Monday to oppose extending support for U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, a move that could sour security ties with the United States.

The decision by the opposition -- who won a majority in last week's election for parliament's upper house -- also risks deepening divisions within the Democratic Party, a sometimes fractious amalgam of former ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members, ex-socialists and hawkish younger conservatives.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to extend a law enabling Japan's navy to provide fuel and goods for U.S.-led coalition warships in the Indian Ocean as support for operations in Afghanistan.

On Monday, an embattled Abe, who has vowed to stay in his post despite the drubbing at the polls, called for opposition cooperation, but the opposition appeared unmoved.

"To cooperate in America's war is not necessarily the path to take," Democratic Party Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama told reporters, adding his counterparts in the tiny Social Democratic Party and People's New Party had shared that basic view.

Democratic Party leader Ichio Ozawa had already come out against the extension and, despite calls from his predecessor to rethink that stance, party policy chief Takeaki Matsumoto said switching gears would be tough.

"We aren't saying from the beginning that we won't give approval ... but fundamentally we want to discontinue the law and have them come home," Matsumoto told Reuters in an interview.

The opposition position has sparked concern in Washington, and U.S. ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer is expected to press the case for the mission when he meets Ozawa on Wednesday.

Last week's election deprived the LDP and its junior partner of their majority in the upper house, meaning the Democrats and their allies can reject bills approved by the lower chamber.

"NORMAL NATION"
Bills rejected by the upper house can be returned to the lower house and enacted by the ruling parties' two-thirds majority, but that is a time-consuming process and the law enabling the Indian Ocean operation expires on November 1.

Ozawa, 65, a former LDP lawmaker who bolted the party in 1993, has long advocated transforming Japan into a "normal country" whose security policy is less constrained by its pacifist constitution.

But he has also urged Japan to adopt its own diplomatic course, even when it differs from that of the United States.

"U.S.-Japan relations don't mean doing everything that the United States wants," policy chief Matsumoto said.

The Democrats' most recent election manifesto also calls for all Japanese troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. Ground troops sent to Iraq by Abe's predecessor completed their non-combat mission last year, but about 200 air force personnel are in Kuwait to airlift supplies to the U.S. military in Iraq.

Picking a fight over the Indian Ocean mission, however, could well worsen divisions within the Democratic Party.

Former party leader Seiji Maehara told Reuters last week that he favored extending the legislation, although he ruled out the possibility of leaving the party over the issue.

"The party itself is not really sure what the party stands for on security issues," said Richard Samuels, a political science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"They have been held together by not being the LDP. That may not be enough going forward."

Despite the touch stance, some analysts believe the Democrats are looking for ways to show flexibility, possibly by revising the law to strengthen parliamentary supervision.

"They need to make the point that the LDP has to compromise with them, that the situation is not what it was when the bill was passed," said Gerry Curtis, a Japan expert at New York's Columbia University.
(Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto)
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New scourge of Afghan society
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul Monday, 6 August 2007
Corruption is the new scourge of Afghan society - and it is driving a lot of people into the hands of the Taleban.

Everybody talks about it and is affected by it - from taxi drivers, shop owners and officials - and most agree that corruption is spreading like a cancer through the vitals of society.

The Afghan government says it has launched a holy war against corruption, led by President Hamid Karzai's handpicked Attorney General, Abdul Jabbar Sabit.

The government has sacked, jailed and suspended dozens of officials all over the country for bribe taking.

Openly taking bribes

But all this is not enough - people continue to suffer, and corruption by officials has taken on the shape of public extortion.

One morning recently I took a walk from the BBC bureau and arrived at Kabul's Ansari square. The place was brimming with traffic.

At the square was a traffic officer- wearing the white shirt and hat of the official traffic uniform. He was openly taking bribes - or baksheesh - from taxi drivers.

When he realised that I was a journalist, he pretended nothing had happened.

Kabul taxi driver Noor Agha, 34, has been driving since the fall of Taleban in 2001.

"There is more corruption than ever before, I pay traffic police all the time in Kabul. Nothing gets done without bribes."

Taxi drivers have to pay anything between from 10 to 300 Afghanis (20c to $6) to traffic police in Kabul - other Afghans admit they have to pay thousands of dollars for other things.

In fact, corruption now goes beyond the streets and deep into government offices and ministries.

Take, for example, the interior ministry. When I visited, there was a long queue of people waiting - most of them with papers in their hands.

Among them was 39-year-old Yar Mohammad from the south-eastern province of Paktika.

"I am here to transfer my job from Paktika border police to Khost. Inside the ministry they are asking me for $200. But I didn't join the police force to pay money and I don't have that kind of money."

Haji Daoud, 73, has came to Kabul to solve a tribal feud from Kundoz province.

"I am here to ask for my rights, but the people at the ministry are asking me for $15,000 to provide me with justice. How can this be right?"

Outside Afghanistan's central passport office there is a big queue - most people have come from the provinces.

They complain they have to pay bribes in order to get their passports.

One of them is Ajmal, 29, from Khost province who is here to obtain an Afghan passport to travel to the Gulf.

'Better salaries'

"They are telling me that I am not an Afghan but from Pakistan, so I must pay $300 if I want to get a passport.

"I voted in the elections, I was born here, but because of the war I lived my entire life in (the Pakistani region of) South Waziristan."

A senior official at Afghanistan's interior ministry admits that corruption is a problem, but he blames it on war, lack of capacity and lack of proper support from the international community.

"We have had 30 years of war, police salaries are low, the cost of living very high, and we need better salaries.

"Corruption will only vanish once we deny people the reasons to be corrupt. We also need to fire corrupt officials at the highest level. If we don't, then people will lose more trust in the Afghan government," he says.

Many Afghan officials are not keen openly to admit that corruption is widespread.

But Mirwais Yasini, a Member of Parliament in the lower house of the Afghan parliament is not so reticent.

"Afghanistan has topped the world's list of corrupt countries - it's like Nigeria," he says.

Other Afghans, like office worker Wagma Karimi, agree that corruption is at an all time high.

"In my view corruption and bribes have reached a stage beyond the imagination," he said.

"In the past when someone was asking for bribes he would do so in secrecy - but now it happens openly and no one seems to do any work without extra inducements."

All this is a far cry from 2001, when President Karzai came to power with the backing of International community.

Afghans were promised reconstruction, security and a corruption-free country - for the time being that dream appears to have evaporated at the hands of the fraudsters, pilferers and petty crooks.
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Russia, Afghanistan sign agreement on Afghanistan's Soviet-era debt
via sharewatch.com 6-August-2007 13:53:24
MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - Russia and Afghanistan have signed an agreement on the Central Asian nation's more than 11 bln usd in Soviet-era debt, Interfax reported. Afghanistan accumulated most of the debt through the purchase of Soviet military hardware.
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Ashdown unwilling to take Afghanistan post
Monday, August 6, 2007
SARAJEVO (AFP) - Politician Paddy Ashdown Monday denied media reports about his intention to take up the post of an international envoy in Afghanistan.

"I am not looking for a new job. I don't intend to go to Afghanistan and I do not know anyone who would want that," Ashdown told the Bosnian newspaper Dnevni Avaz.

"I enjoy in my role of grandpa and gardener," he added.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported over the weekend that Ashdown was being lined up to become an envoy in Afghanistan to coordinate international efforts there.

"We're keen to get Paddy on board, but we know he won't do it unless he gets the right mandate," said a Foreign Office official quoted by the newspaper.

Ashdown was the international community's High Representative in Bosnia-Hercegovina from 2002 to 2005.
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Afghanistan Plans CDMA Network
cellular-news.com Monday, August 6, 2007
Afghanistan's Ministry of Communications has outlined the plans for its CDMA network. H. E. Minister of Communications and IT underlined that now they sign an agreement with two Chinese companies (Huawei and ZTE) and plans to sign another agreement with an American company names GSI to equip and supply Afghan Telecom to facilitate their digital mobile phone services within six months in the country.

This project costs nearly ten million dollars that are funding through developmental budget of the Ministry of Communications and IT.

According to the officials of the Ministry of Communications and IT, by implementing and completing of this important project the inhabitants of Afghanistan can carry his/her digital mobile phone across the country and can receive or make their call everywhere through same SIM Card and phone, and through this system subscribers can purchase their credit cards in the market like prepaid system in GSM mobile phones.

They also expect that the competition among the operators will be increase and the cost of the call will cut down remarkably.
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Wolesi Jirga passes draft bill on police reforms
KABUL, Aug 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A draft bill on police reforms was passed after minor changes in five chapters and 15 articles by the Lower House of Parliament on Saturday.

The 16-Article draft bill, prepared by the Internal Affairs Commission of the Wolesi Jirga, was approved following two days of debate. Abdul Azim Mujaddedi, head of the commission, said the Article 10 that contained provisions already made in other chapters was excise from the draft.

He insisted the draft was needed because the reforms proposed by the Interior Ministry were unacceptable to the police force and hence ineffective in revival of security.

"Inputs received from legal experts, lawyers and intellectuals have been incorporated in the draft," Mujaddedi pointed out.

Meanwhile, another measure concerning salaries of top-ranking government officials was presented in the House by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr. Farooq Wardak. Members will debate the 14-article bill in mid-August.
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CIA responsible for training, recruiting Osama: Ghani
KABUL, Aug 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Governor of Pakistan's Balochistan province Owais Ahmed Ghani has said that it is the American CIA that recruited, trained and shepherded Osama bin Ladin during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing conflict.

Hence, he told a discussion, CIA and not Pakistan be asked where Osama Bin Laden is. The speaking engagement was arranged by an American think-tank.

"In fact, Bin Laden always hated Pakistan," said the Pakistani official, who described the province of Balochistan as peaceful and secure, barring the tiny Bugti area where there is "some resistance".

"Ours is a society in transition and we've a rising middle class. We face stiff political challenges and there is class tension," he explained.

There were three kinds of terrorism: Ethnic, sectarian and the pure kind. Global terrorism should be differentiated from the local variety, he suggested. He also proposed renaming the global war on terrorism to the war on global terrorism.

In reply to a question regarding the insurgency in Balochistan, he said dissident elements in that province had their source of weapons in Afghanistan.

Ghani insisting that it was unfair to hold Pakistan responsible for the trouble in Afghanistan. He cited lack of coordination in NATO/Coalition forces, government corruption, lack of law and order, opium and narcotics trade and a disillusioned population as the main causes of insecurity and instability in Afghanistan.

Ninety percent of the worlds heroin originates from Afghanistan, the governor charged, pointing out that the poppy cultivation area had jumped from 40,000 to 400,000 acres.

The Pakistani governor said "there are elements in the Afghan government that want the conflict to continue". At the same time, he denied that the Baloch people in Pakistan were treated as second class citizens.
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Bush signs bill placing curbs on US aid to Pakistan
WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD: Aug. 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President George W. Bush Friday signed into law a counter-terrorism bill making US assistance to Pakistan conditional on progress in the campaign against Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militants groups.

While according consent to the bill that carries out recommendations of the partisan 9/11 commission, Bush said the legislation built upon the considerable progress "we made in strengthening our defences and protecting Americans."

Under the law, the president will have to confirm that Pakistan is making headway in the war on terrorists on its soil at least a fortnight before the United States provides aid to its South Asian ally.

Passed by the US House of Representatives a week back by 317 to 40 votes, the measure requires Pakistan to demonstrate significant and sustained progress towards eliminating terrorist safe havens within its borders.

Additionally, Pakistan will qualify for receiving US assistance by upholding democratic reforms, extending the rule of law and holding transparent parliamentary elections later in the year.

From Islamabad's perspective, the law is reminiscent of the much-maligned 1985 Pressler Amendment that imposed similar curbs on American aid to Pakistan and ultimately forced a suspension of US military and economic assistance to the country in October 1990.

"This legislation makes some progress, but it also authorises billions of dollars for grants and other programmes that are unnecessary or should not be funded at such excessive levels. I will not request this excessive funding in my 2009 budget request," the president said in a statement.

Also on Friday, the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad said Bush told President Musharraf he did not foresee an adverse impact of any of the Pakistan-specific provisions on existing cooperation between the two countries.

He telephoned the general to laud the role Pakistan was playing in bringing peace and security to the region. The US leader appreciated the courage and sacrifices, especially of the Pakistan armed forces, in fighting terrorism.

"Bush spoke to Musharraf this afternoon, at his initiative, to congratulate the president and the people of Pakistan on the countrys 60th independence anniversary," the Foreign Office added.

Bush reaffirmed the US desire to build a strong and long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan as it served the interest of both the countries and the world, the ministry said in a statement

With regard to a string of recent threats from American officials of direct military action in tribal areas against al-Qaeda, the statement quoted Bush as saying: The United States fully respects Pakistans sovereignty and appreciated its resolve in fighting terrorist elements.
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