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August 7, 2007 

Several dozen Taliban said killed in Afghan clashes
07 Aug 2007 13:56:58 GMT
KABUL, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Several dozen Taliban fighters were killed in two separate clashes with Western-led troops in Afghanistan on Tuesday, Afghan and coalition forces said.

Almost two dozen of more than 75 insurgents were killed in a battle after they attacked a heavily-defended coalition base with small and heavy arms fire in the southern province of Uruzgan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Airstrikes were used to destroy the attackers, it added.

In another clash in neighbouring Kandahar province, 15 Taliban were killed after they attacked a police post, provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib said.

Six police were also killed in the Taliban attack, he said, adding Afghan and NATO-led forces were conducting an operation there.

No Taliban member could be immediately contacted about the reported militant losses.

Violence has surged in the past 19 months in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since the removal of the Taliban from power in 2001. (additional reporting by Ismail Sameed in KANDAHAR)
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Taliban launch frontal attack on base
By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press Tuesday, August 7, 2007
GHAZNI, Afghanistan - A group of 75 Taliban militants tried to overrun a U.S.-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a rare frontal attack that left more than 20 militants dead, the coalition said in a statement.

The insurgents attacked Firebase Anaconda from three sides, using gunfire, grenades and 107 mm rockets, the coalition said. A joint Afghan-U.S. force repelled the attack with mortars, machine guns and air support.

"Almost two dozen insurgents were confirmed killed in the attack," the statement said. Two girls and two Afghan soldiers were wounded during the fight in Uruzgan province, it said.

A firebase like Anaconda is usually a remote outpost staffed by as few as several dozen soldiers.

"The inability of the insurgent forces to inflict any severe damage on Firebase Anaconda, while being simultaneously decimated in the process, should be a clear indication of the ineffectiveness of their fighters," said Army Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a coalition spokeswoman.

A direct attack on a U.S. or NATO base by insurgents on foot is relatively rare. More often insurgents fire rockets at bases and flee. Military officials say that Taliban fighters know they can't match Western militaries in a heads-up battle, which leads the insurgents to more often rely on roadside and suicide bombs.

Meanwhile, South Korean officials and Taliban leaders were expected to agree Tuesday on a meeting place to negotiate the release of 21 South Korean hostages, an Afghan politician said.

The South Koreans and Taliban representatives have been talking by phone for several days and planned to determine a location for their first face-to-face talks by the end of the day, said Gov. Marajudin Pathan, the leader in Ghazni province, where the Koreans were kidnapped.

"There will be one of our government officials in the talks as well," Pathan told The Associated Press.

Pathan said that the meeting is likely to take place in Ghazni province, but could not provide any further details. South Koreans embassy officials were not immediately available for comment.

In South Korea, relatives of the hostages expressed disappointment Tuesday that meetings Sunday and Monday at Camp David between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush failed to produce concrete measures to bring the captives home.

The Afghan and U.S. presidents ruled out making any concessions to the Taliban militants during their meetings.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon cautioned that the country should be prepared for a protracted ordeal, noting that other hostages in Afghanistan had been held an average of 35 days.

Song also said none of the captives were suffering from critical health problems.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the meeting between Karzai and Bush had "no result," and that militant prisoners must be released in exchange for the lives of South Korean hostages or there will be a "bad result."

The militants kidnapped 23 Korean aid workers traveling by bus from Kabul to Kandahar on July 19. Two male hostages have been killed.

Taliban militants clashed with police in two separate incidents in southern Afghanistan, leaving five militants and two officers dead, officials said Tuesday.

The militants attacked police at a checkpoint in Zabul province on Monday, and the ensuing clash left five suspected militants dead, said Ali Kheil, the spokesman for Zabul's governor.

Also Monday, militants attacked a police vehicle just outside Kandahar city, killing two officers and wounding eight others, said provincial police chief Syed Agha Saqib. The attackers escaped and police are hunting for them, he said.

Insurgent attacks and military operations have killed more than 3,600 people so far this year, most of them militants. Much of the violence has been concentrated in the former Taliban stronghold in the south.

Also in southern Afghanistan, Dutch soldiers fatally shot a motorcyclist who approached their convoy and failed to heed warning signals and shots, the Dutch Defense Ministry said.

International forces are often the targets of suicide bombers, and they repeatedly warn Afghan civilian motorists to slow down or steer clear of convoys so they are not mistaken for attackers. Several civilians have been killed in such incidents.
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Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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Pak-Afghan jirga not to discuss Taliban
By ANI Tuesday August 7, 02:14 PM
Peshawar, Aug 7 (ANI): The seven-point agenda of the three-day Pak-Afghan jirga starting on August in Kabul would not discuss the Taliban-linked insurgency, but the delegates would devise a bilateral mechanism between the two countries to combat terrorism.

A copy of the agenda said that the jirga would also seize any opportunity to strengthen bilateral relations between the two bickering neighbours, the Daily Times reported.

"Appraisal of factors and circumstances that contribute to the growth of terrorism and extremism," was the second point with the first being a discussion on strengthening bilateral relations.

Critics say the Afghan side will use the second point to complain about Pakistan's alleged involvement or role in the factors contributing to the growth of terrorism and extremism in the country.

The third point is to develop mutual understanding to "deny sanctuaries, training and financing to terrorist elements involved in subversive activities".

The jirga will also discuss ways to eliminate poppy cultivation, the paper reported.

No exact timing for the inaugural session of the jirga has been mentioned for security reasons. (ANI)
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Afghanistan: New demand for hostage exchange
Kabul, 7 August (AKI) - The Taliban has proposed exchanging female South Korean hostages for an equal number of detained female Taliban prisoners.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi made the fresh offer of an exchange in a telephone interview with Korean news agency Yonhap, even though he did not know how many female members of the Taliban were detained.

"We do not know the exact number of Taliban women imprisoned by the Afghan government, but if (Kabul) lets them go, we will release the same number of female hostages," Ahmadi said.

He said the jailed women were supporters, convicted for providing food or shelter to Taliban fighters.

"The Taliban do not have any female ministers or female fighters," he added.

The proposal came as Afghan president Harmid Karzai and US president George Bush adamantly refused to meet the rebels' demands, amid reports that two of the South Koreans were seriously ill.

The South Korean government is under growing pressure to free the 21 hostages taken almost three weeks ago on their way to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar from Kabul. Two of them have already been killed by the insurgents.

African Union chairman Alpha Oumar Konare on Tuesday added his voice to international condemnation of the kidnappings and urged the Taliban to release the South Korean hostages.

"The South Koreans went to Afghanistan to help the poor," he told South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun. "The entire African countries condemn the Taliban captors."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week said it was shameful and "un-Islamic" to kidnap females while some 300 Afghans in the southern city of Kandahar on Monday called for the immediate release of the South Koreans in a street rally.

Seoul reportedly opposes a military operation to free the hostages and is pursuing diplomatic channels to prevent further loss of life.

Eight senior South Korean legislators flew to Washington last week to lobby for support.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon has also had meetings at the US state department.

A top-level delegation, including the South Korean ambassador to Kabul, is continuing negotiations with the Taleban.
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South Korea denies report hostages seriously ill
By Jon Herskovitz Tue Aug 7, 2:21 AM ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's foreign minister on Tuesday denied reports that two of the 21 Korean hostages held by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan were dangerously ill.

"The hostages can't be perfectly healthy after nearly 20 days in captivity," the ministry quoted Song Min-soon as telling local reporters.

But he added: "There are no signs of health problems that could pose a threat to their safety."

Taliban officials have said two of their 18 female hostages are seriously ill. They have killed two male hostages and are still holding another three men.

The kidnappers are demanding Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. President George W. Bush, who met at the Camp David retreat in Maryland on Monday, free jailed rebels or be responsible for the deaths of the Korean hostages.

In Seoul, their families issued a plea to Bush and Karzai to help free the hostages.

"We do not want world order and principles to be undermined for the sake of the release and safe return of the Koreans. Saving these people, however, will also serve as an opportunity to reaffirm the precious values of humanity as a whole," they said.

"We sincerely ask you, with tears in our eyes, to understand the noble intention of the Korean volunteers who, despite all the dangers and difficulties, wanted to spread sharing and love in a place battered by poverty and conflicts."

CHURCH CRITICISED
The hostages were all members of the same Christian church who had gone into Afghanistan to provide aid. The church leaders have been criticized at home for taking young and inexperienced members into a known danger spot.

The South Korean government is under intense domestic pressure to secure the release of the hostages but concedes there is little it can do to meet the kidnappers' demands in the face of a blunt refusal by both the Afghan and U.S. governments to meet the Taliban demands.

"Both leaders agreed that in negotiations for the release, there should be no quid pro quo for the hostages. The Taliban are brutal and should not be emboldened by this," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

South Korea has proposed holding face-to-face talks with the Taliban as a way of breaking the impasse, but the two sides have not been able to agree on a venue for the discussions.

There have been numerous rallies and candlelight vigils throughout South Korea since the kidnapping, some calling for the United States to intervene.

About 100 peace activists held a rally in central Seoul on Tuesday.

"I feel concerned that people are getting cynical on the issue because they think this crisis is based on religious or political differences. However, the most important thing is to gather our hearts to free the hostages," said Choi Seung-kook, secretary general of Green Korea United, one of the organizers of the rally.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Jonathan Thatcher and Reuters Television)
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Taliban hold Afghanistan hostage
By Haroun Mir Asia Times Online Tuesday, August 7, 2007
KABUL - Hostage-taking in Afghanistan has become a business for both the Taliban insurgents and criminal bands. In addition to foreign hostages - the most recent being a group of South Korean missionaries still in captivity - a number of Afghan businessmen and their family members have been kidnapped for ransom, but they don't make the international media.

Twenty-three South Koreans were kidnapped by the Taliban on July 19 while traveling from Kabul to Kandahar. Two male hostages have since been executed as the Taliban's demands for the release of 23 Taliban prisoners have not been met.

On Monday, a Taliban spokesman was quoted as saying that more foreigners would be captured. He added that the fate of the Koreans rested with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US President George W Bush, who are meeting in the United States.

The Korean abductions follow several others in the past few months that have gained the Taliban widespread publicity - and rewards. As one Taliban commander was quoted as saying, "It's a very successful policy." Clearly, the Taliban have come to understand the value of public opinion in democracies.

This year Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo was seized with two Afghans - his driver and an interpreter. The Italian was swapped for five senior Taliban prisoners; the Afghans were beheaded. Mastrogiacomo become famous overnight, but he gave Afghans the impression that his life was worth more than those of his Afghan employees - and he also provided the Taliban with the incentive to focus more on hostage-taking.

Looking for trouble ...

Mastrogiacomo and the Koreans either misunderstood or ignored the highly volatile situation in southern Afghanistan. This reckless behavior had obvious repercussions for them, but also endangers Afghans and, most important, foreign experts who work for reconstruction and development projects throughout the country.

After the Mastrogiacomo incident, in which the Afghan government was pressured by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to concede to the Taliban demands, Afghan authorities should also have become more vigilant about the free movement of foreigners in the conflict zone.

The Korean missionaries fell into the hands of Taliban who were making a routine check of vehicles on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. It's impossible to say why the Koreans chose to go on this road in insurgent-infested territory when they could have flown, or organized better protection.

The church with which the hostages are affiliated - a large Presbyterian congregation in the Seoul suburb of Bundang - is fully aware of the dangers of kidnappings in the Taliban-dominated areas of Afghanistan. Last year, several hundred South Korean missionaries came to Afghanistan and wanted to travel by road to various parts of the country. But the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) expelled all of them before they could fall into danger. This time, a relatively smaller group might have escaped the scrutiny of the NDS.

From their perspective, the missionaries obviously wanted to spread the word of God, as well as aid. But they have ended up jeopardizing their lives (two already dead) and, crucially, in undermining the efforts the North Atlantic Treaty Organization coalition fighting the insurgency and reconstruction projects financed by the international community. For example, the Japanese government plans to remove all of its aid workers from Afghanistan.

This plays right into the Taliban's hands, as their short-term objective is to stall reconstruction projects and prevent much-needed economic development in the southern part of the country so that they can win over the hearts and the minds of the masses themselves.

In future, those who want to take the risk of traveling to dangerous spots in Afghanistan should bear the consequence of their acts. It is unfair to jeopardize the destiny of a nation with one's personal agenda.

Without the presence of NATO forces and generous financial support from the international community, Afghanistan will fall once again into chaos and misery. The presence of NATO forces is closely related to the barometer of public opinion of their countries back home. The Taliban and their foreign backers are well aware of this and will try hard to manipulate it even further.

Haroun Mir was an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's former defense minister. He works as a consultant and policy analyst in Kabul.
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Taliban repudiate sexual assault on Korean women
Sher Ahmad Haidar 
GHAZNI CITY, Aug 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Hostage-takers in the troubled Ghazni province Tuesday confirmed receiving some of the medicines delivered by a team of private doctors two days back.

Head of Wahaj Clinic Dr. Muhammad Hashim Wahaj told a news conference in Kabul they had sent a few bags of medicines through a third person to the ailing South Koreans in Taliban captivity.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday, Dr. Wahaj said only one bag of medicines had reached the Taliban hitherto.

Abdullah Abu Mansoor, a Ghazni-based Taliban commander, informed this scribe over the telephone that a small quantity of the medicines had been received.

A colleague of the commander - introducing himself as Masoom - said health condition of two hostages was serious. He added the government should either arrange exchange of prisoners for the sick Koreans or send them emergency medical assistance.

Meanwhile, Taliban strongly rejected allegations regarding sexual assault on four female Korean captives. Militant spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi told Pajhwok they were waging jihad against obscenity, immorality and un-Islamic acts in Afghan society. He said the hostages would tell the world everything at the right time.

Regarding the meeting between President Hamid Karzai and his US counterpart George W. Bush, Ahmadi said they had agreed on eliminating Taliban. The United States, he alleged, wanted to kill Afghan children and raze their houses once again.

On the other hand, Qarabagh district chief Khwaja Muhammad Siddiqi said they had sent all the medicines to the address given by the Taliban. Taliban received all the medicines, but they were telling lies to denigrate the government, he added.

The Koreans were abducted on July 19 in Qarabagh district. Two of them, both males, have so far been killed by the captors.
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Bush Differs With Karzai on Iran
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG August 7, 2007 The New York Times
CAMP DAVID, Md., Aug. 6 — President Bush and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, close allies in fighting terrorism, found much to agree on as they completed a two-day meeting here on Monday, with one major exception: the role of Iran in Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai characterized Iran as “a helper” in a CNN interview broadcast Sunday. But when the two men greeted reporters here on Monday, Mr. Bush pointedly disagreed, saying, “I would be very cautious about whether the Iranian influence in Afghanistan is a positive force.”

Iran has sent workers to Afghanistan to provide aid to villages, but American officials contend that Tehran is also funneling weapons into the country. Mr. Bush has long viewed Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, and is deeply suspicious of its nuclear ambitions, a view he reiterated Monday even as he said he was “willing to listen” to Mr. Karzai’s position.

“The president knows best about what’s taking place in his country, and of course, I’m willing to listen,” Mr. Bush said. “But from my perspective, the burden of proof is on the Iranian government to show us that they’re a positive force.”

It was a rare moment of daylight between the American and Afghan leaders. President Bush has been trying to shore up Mr. Karzai, who faces a host of challenges, including a resurgent Taliban, a booming opium trade, government corruption and the threat of Al Qaeda. A recent national intelligence estimate concluded that the Qaeda network had reconstituted itself in the mountainous territory along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The unsuccessful hunt for Al Qaeda’s operatives, including Osama bin Laden, has disappointed Mr. Bush, and has created tension between Mr. Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Mr. Karzai and General Musharraf are expected to meet this week at a jirga, an assembly of leaders from their nations.

Mr. Karzai said the session would focus on “how we can carry on the fight against terrorism in both countries.”

Mr. Bush, meanwhile, declined to answer directly on Monday when asked about his strategy for hunting down Qaeda leaders, and whether he would consult General Musharraf before deploying the military to pursue “actionable intelligence” against them. “I’m confident, with real actionable intelligence, we will get the job done,” Mr. Bush said.
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SKorean hostage's husband posts tearful YouTube video
Tue Aug 7, 1:53 AM ET
SEOUL (AFP) - The husband of one of 21 South Korean hostages held by the Taliban has posted a tearful YouTube video to his "dearest wife," saying he hates himself for sleeping while she suffers in Afghanistan.

Rhyu Haeng-Shik, 36, appealed tearfully for her release in the first of a series of home videos made by relatives of the hostages.

"You must be very sick and in hard conditions and I disgust and hate myself for eating and sleeping," he said, according to the caption in English.

His wife Kim Yoon-young, 35, and 22 other Korean aid workers were seized on July 19 while travelling by bus in insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban are demanding the release of jailed insurgents in exchange for the Koreans and have already killed two male captives.

"I earnestly hope you can get over this difficult time with healthy and positive thoughts (of meeting again) while keeping your dear children in mind," Rhyu said in the two-and-a-half minute video entitled "To my dearest wife in Afghanistan."

Families of the hostages plan to post the videos on major Internet sites at home and abroad in an appeal to the Taliban and the world.

"We have announced appeals several times but they were not enough to convey our anxiety," Cha Sung-Min, a representative of the families, told the Korea Times.

A former programme director from a TV company is helping with production of the clips, which will have subtitles in Korean, English and an Afghan language.

Apart from the appeals, the footage will also focus on the ordeal of the hostages' families, who gather daily in a basement room at the Saem-Mul church on the outskirts of Seoul desperately awaiting news.
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Taliban ambush kills two Afghan police
Tue Aug 7, 4:12 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants ambushed an Afghan police patrol in southern Afghanistan, killing two officers and wounding eight, police said Tuesday.

The insurgents attacked a convoy Monday night south of Kandahar city, provincial police chief general Sayed Aqa Saqib told AFP.

"Two police were martyred and eight police were wounded in the ambush," he said.

Police returned fire but Saqib said the militants managed to flee. He could not confirm casualties on the Taliban side.

Rocket-propelled grenade and automatic weapons fire could be heard in Kandahar city, an AFP reporter said.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the militants had carried out the attack.

Southern and southeastern Afghanistan are in the throes of a resurgence of Taliban-led violence, but attacks around Kandahar city are rare.

In a separate incident, militants attacked a police post in eastern Laghman province overnight in which an insurgent was killed and a police officer wounded, provincial spokesman Nizamudin Mangal told AFP.

The Islamist Taliban fighters who were forced from power in late 2001 by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan have since waged a bloody insurgency which has claimed thousands of lives.
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Killing of de-miners suggests change in Taliban tactics
KABUL, 7 August 2007 (IRIN) - The bullet-riddled bodies of three de-miners shot dead on 5 July in Panjwai District in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar were brought to Kabul on a UN flight on 7 August, officials told IRIN.

Abdul Hassib, Mirwais and Meva Gul, who had been working for Mine Detection and Dog Centre (MDC), were abducted on 4 August and reportedly sentenced to death by a Taliban court.

"A man [speaking for the Taliban] called our office and said a Taliban judge would determine the fate of our colleagues," said Mohammad Shohab Hakimi, head of MDC.

The unidentified caller also asked whether the organisation would be ready to buy back a vehicle, two sniffer dogs and other equipment seized.

"We asked why we should buy back our own equipment," said Hakimi, adding that the kidnappers had not given them a chance to negotiate the release of the de-miners.

Nomad families who had set up tents near the insurgency-hit Panjwai District witnessed two Toyota trucks packed with armed men dropping off three handcuffed men who were then riddled with bullets, district police officials said.

De-mining suspended

Mine clearance has temporarily been suspended in Kandahar Province, an official who preferred anonymity told IRIN.

"We are shocked," said Nazar Mohammad, a de-miner in Kandahar. "They were murdered mercilessly," the young man said, reacting to the killing of his colleagues.

Officials say there are no special security measures in place for current mine clearing activities, even in volatile areas.

"Obviously we do not want to risk the lives of our staff. We will discuss de-miners' security with local elders, provincial authorities and other stakeholders and will make a final decision on whether to continue our operations or not," the head of MDC said.

Increased attacks

On 17 June, 18 MDC workers were kidnapped in Ghazni Province.

After nine days of extended negotiations between Taliban commanders, local elders and other influential mediators, the kidnapped de-miners were released. No ransom was paid for their release, the MDC's Hakimi said.

However, the kidnappers did not surrender five vehicles and other equipment (valued at about US$100,000) taken from the abducted de-miners, according to MDC.

In another incident in July, MDC's Kandahar office was plundered by unidentified gunmen. Six vehicles and office equipment - worth over $100,000 - were stolen in the incident.

In the growing violence in Afghanistan in 2007, 10 de-miners have died and 17 have been injured in different armed attacks, according to several de-mining non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Changed Taliban stance on de-mining?

Before his ouster from power in October 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar issued a two-page decree in which anti-personnel landmines were proscribed as un-Islamic weaponry, while de-miners were praised as Mujahedin (Muslim fighters).

Sharing a copy of the decree with IRIN in Kabul, the director of MDC said: "I wonder if the Taliban have now changed their own rules and old leadership?"

It is still unclear why de-miners have been dragged into Afghanistan's armed conflict.

Millions of anti-personnel landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) have been planted or dumped in Afghanistan since the Soviet Army invaded in 1979.

Since 1989, mine clearing NGOs have cleared one billion square metres of over 8 million pieces of UXO and landmines of various kinds, the Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan (MAPA) reported.

Some 150,000 Afghans live with disabilities inflicted by landmines, and every month 50-60 people become casualties of mines or UXO, MAPA said.

Afghanistan is a signatory to the Ottawa Convention against the Production, Stockpiling and Use of Landmines, and is committed to clearing its 647,500sqkm territory of landmines by 2013.

"Should insecurity continue and de-miners face more threats, Afghanistan will not meet its targeted goal in the seven years ahead," warned the director of MAPA.
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Des Browne visits southern Afghanistan
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
KABUL (AFP) - Defence Secretary Des Browne arrived in troubled southern Afghanistan Tuesday for a two day visit, a British military spokesman said.

Browne travelled directly to the British military base near Gereshk district in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province to meet soldiers stationed there, said a defence ministry press statement.

Britain has about 7,100 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and plans to boost that figure to 7,800 by October.

The soldiers are providing reconstruction services in the troubled province as part of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), as well as fighting a Taliban insurgency alongside Afghan army and police.

"There is no military solution on its own here, which is why we have adopted a joint approach, delivering security hand-in-hand with development and representative governance," the statement quoting Browne as saying.

"I am heartened to see that tangible development is taking place on the ground. This shows that the government of Afghanistan offers a future where the Taliban offer none," he said.

Helmand province has seen the worst of an intensifying Taliban insurgency including suicide attacks, roadside bombings and guerrilla tactics against Afghan and foreign troops. It is also the country's top opium-producing region.

"Helmand remains a challenging, complex environment, and it will take time to make the progress we all seek in security and development," said Browne.

The defence secretary also met with local Afghan leaders in Lashkar Gah to discuss security and reconstruction issues, Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Mayo told AFP.

Browne was due to travel to the capital Kabul on Wednesday for a "series of meetings" with Afghan authorities, said Mayo without giving details.

It is the second visit to Afghanistan by the British defence secretary in four months.
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Pakistan army strikes tribal area
Tuesday, 7 August 2007 BBC News
Pakistani troops, backed by helicopter gunships and artillery, have launched an attack on a militant base in North Waziristan, army officials say.

The operation was in the Degan area, 27km (17 miles) from the main town of the region, Miranshah.

Fighting lasted up to four hours but there was no word on casualties.

The US says North Waziristan, a tribal region that borders Afghanistan, is a safe haven for the Taleban and al-Qaeda but Pakistan denies the claim.

Violence has escalated in Pakistan and more than 200 people have been killed since troops stormed the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.

Pakistan anger

The security forces targeted the militant compound in Degan after receiving "credible intelligence that miscreants were present there", Maj Gen Waheed Arshad told the Associated Press news agency.

Witnesses in Degan told Reuters news agency that helicopters destroyed three houses. They said the army was using mortars and artillery too.

A Reuters reporter in Miranshah said he had seen eight helicopter gunships heading in the direction of Degan.

At least three civilians were hurt in the shelling but most people had left the affected area, having feared an assault.

The attack came as President Pervez Musharraf called for a comprehensive strategy to deal with radicals.

Gen Musharraf was meeting a visiting US senator, Richard Durbin, in the southern port city of Karachi.

Pakistan has been angered about recent statements coming out of the US, particularly from presidential candidate Barack Obama, who said he would consider direct attacks against militants within Pakistan.

Gen Musharraf said: "The president pointed out that certain recent US statements were counter-productive to the close cooperation and coordination between the two countries in combating the threat of terrorism."

On Monday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said the issue could threaten relations.

"There is no al-Qaeda or Taleban safe haven in Pakistan," she said.
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Tales of Afghanistan aim to help students heal
Written by Canadians, the series contains lessons about post-traumatic stress disorder, ethnic tolerance and dispute resolution
JILL MAHONEY EDUCATION REPORTER August 7, 2007 Globe and Mail, Canada
The book begins with Jameela waiting in the garden for her little brother to return from school. Life at home has not been happy since "that bad day" when her uncle died and her father lost part of his leg in a land mine explosion.

The story of 10-year-old Jameela and her family is the story of Afghanistan's children. In the course of a year or so, the farming clan is devastated by the land mine, their village is bombed and they flee to a displaced person's camp before finally returning home.

A Journey of Peace, a 16-part series about the family's struggles to cope with the trauma of war, will soon be introduced to all Afghan students as part of a school-based healing and peace-building program. The series was developed, written and illustrated half a world away in Hamilton, by a group of mental-health experts, peace activists and Afghan refugees.

"We've never had stories this rich here," Susan Wardak, an adviser to Afghanistan's minister of education, said in an interview from Kabul. "It's really reflecting the Afghan reality; it's really meeting their needs."

The books, which are illustrated with soothing watercolours and come with hand puppets, convey a positive, Afghan-centred message. Behind the stories, which are dotted with references to Allah and depict girls and women in head scarves, are lessons about post-traumatic stress disorder, ethnic tolerance, non-violence, equality and dispute resolution.

As part of a pilot program, Ms. Wardak read the books to a group of youngsters in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and asked one girl what she thought. "She told me about the effect of communication in reducing conflict and violence, which to me is quite shocking because an 11-year-old girl really got the message," said Ms. Wardak, an Afghan-Canadian whose husband helped develop the series.

A Journey of Peace was designed to extend far beyond the schoolyard. Many Afghan adults have lived their entire lives amid war, which has dominated the past 30 years. Teachers will use the books with students of all ages and will assign home and community activities, such as recounting the stories to their families, talking about their feelings, helping others and planting peace gardens.

"In a way, it's kind of trying to raise peace literacy in a population in the hope of having that contribute to sustaining peace," said Joanna Santa Barbara, a retired child psychiatrist and one of the books' four authors.

Mary-Jo Land, another author, trained teacher-educators in the curriculum last month in Kabul and said she was met with "absolute overwhelming gratitude for bringing this to them."

"One woman ... at the end of the workshop, she just took my hand and her eyes just welled up," said Ms. Land, a child psychotherapist, play therapist and McMaster University psychology student, as tears formed in her own eyes.

Afghanistan's education system is still ravaged by the war. Many schools are closed or damaged. An estimated two million primary-school-age children - especially girls - do not attend class. Literacy rates are low. Resources are scarce, and some teachers have up to 70 pupils of varying ages.

The books, which can be downloaded at http://www.journeyofpeace.ca, are part of a larger focus on bringing peace to the country by the Hamilton group, which is associated with McMaster's Centre for Peace Studies.

The team began developing the books before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and finished them in 2002. Although Unicef soon agreed to fund an initial print run in Afghanistan of 42,000 sets in both Dari and Pashto, it took until February to produce them because of the continuing instability and limited electricity. (The group is seeking funding to print more books and pay Afghan widows to sew additional puppets.)

As the books start arriving across Afghanistan in the next couple of months - each school is slated to receive three sets - supporters hope they will soon begin sowing seeds of peace.

"With some healing of the emotional status of the entire population," Ms. Land said, "then the capacity for peace-building will be growing from the children up."
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Japan opposition chief says "No" to Afghan mission
Tue Aug 7, 5:30 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - The head of Japan's main opposition party reiterated his opposition to extending support for U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan and said his party might submit a bill to scrap Tokyo's mission to help rebuild war-torn Iraq.

The policy put forward by Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, could sour Tokyo's security ties with Washington.

"The Afghan war was started by (U.S.) President (George W.) Bush, who said it was a war to be fought by the United States," Ozawa told reporters on Tuesday.

"Therefore it had nothing to do with the United Nations or the international community," Ozawa said.

He said his party may also propose withdrawing Japan's air force personnel dispatched to help with reconstruction work in Iraq. But such a bill would most likely be overturned by the lower house, which is dominated by the ruling coalition.

Ground troops sent to Iraq by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's predecessor completed their non-combat mission last year, but about 200 air force personnel have remained in Kuwait to airlift supplies to the U.S. military in Iraq.

Abe also 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.

While Ozawa opposes this, he said his party would leave open the possibility of Japan taking part in Afghan operations sanctioned by the United Nations.

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

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

Ozawa said Japan should forge a "military and non-military" alliance with the United States on an equal footing.

"I do not think that supporting the Bush administration's policy on Iran and Afghanistan is everything for Japan-U.S. relations. There are many other important issues."

"As long as we call it 'the Japan-U.S. alliance', we must have relations on an equal footing."

Ozawa, 65, a former LDP lawmaker who left the party in 1993, has long advocated making Japan's security policy less constrained by its pacifist constitution.

The DPJ position has prompted concern in Washington, and U.S. ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer is expected to press the case for continuing Japan's Afghan mission when he meets Ozawa on Wednesday.
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In Afghanistan, 900-foot Sleeping Buddha eludes archaeologists
By Mark Sappenfield Tuesday, August 7, 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
BAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN - After the Taliban fell, France sent Zemaryalai Tarzi to this Afghan valley on a quest bordering on the mythological. His goal: to find Sleeping Buddha, the reclining sculpture that, at 900 feet long, would be nearly 10 times the size of the Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

He brought the ultimate treasure map – the journal of a 7th- century Chinese pilgrim who recorded every major monument in painstaking detail.

But six years later, there's no Sleeping Buddha. When it comes to this prize, the journal is frustratingly vague. And, Dr. Tarzi freely acknowledges, he has been otherwise occupied as he and other archaeologists have found, preserved, and worked to understand Afghanistan's other ancient riches, starting right here in Bamiyan.

What he has found are the remnants of the culture that built the Buddhas – one of the most lavish and powerful kingdoms of ancient Central Asia.

Recently Tarzi's colleague, archaeologist Mickaël Rakotozonia, stood in a steady drizzle, surrounded by mud-brick houses, and gestured to two ancient towers almost lost amid the jigsaw of earthen walls here.

Between these two towers, he speculated, might have been a gate into the Kingdom City of Bamiyan, home to the creators of the two stone Buddhas carved from a nearby cliff some 1,500 years ago and destroyed by the Taliban.

But the Buddhas are only the most obvious example of this country's ancient riches.

"My new discoveries have put old discoveries in the background," says Tarzi.

He and Mr. Rakotozonia will continue searching for the Buddhist's Kingdom City this summer and autumn and the team will perhaps also begin excavating test pits near Shar-e Gholghola, the citadel capital of the Ghorid Empire, which followed the Buddhists.

The white hill city, encrusted with the ruins of centuries past, was destroyed in the 13th century when Genghis Khan conquered Bamiyan. According to legend, he was so furious that his son was killed in the siege that he killed even the mice of the city, leading to the name Shar-e Gholghola, which means the City of Screams.

To the north, archaeologists are excavating the city of Balkh, supposed birthplace of the prophet Zoroaster and location of Alexander's marriage to Roxana in 327 BC.

But archaeology in Afghanistan makes for some peculiar working conditions. There are still mines on Shar-e Gholghola from 20 years of war. The same is true of the Red City, a three-tiered, 3rd century BC palace complex hewn from red stone and clinging to a cliff 1,500 feet above the floor of the Bamiyan Valley.

Sayed Nasir Modaber of Bamiyan's Department of Monuments says demining projects should begin this month.

Also conspiring against them is open warfare in much of the country and – perhaps worse – a decades-old network of smuggling that is systematically looting the relics of Afghanistan's past, sometimes to finance warlords and insurgents.

"If we add up the values of numerous objects looted and illegally sold these past two decades, it amounts to several billion dollars worth of art objects belonging and constituting Afghanistan's wealth and national heritage," said Abdul Wasey Feroozi of Afghanistan's Institute of Archaeology at a 2004 seminar.

More unusual, still, is the practice of refilling every site with dirt after an excavation is finished.

Indeed, when Rakotozonia stood beneath the two ancient towers of what could be the Kingdom City, there was no hint that he stood on last year's work.

He helped excavate this patch of ground last year, finding what appeared to be a warehouse for the Buddhist kingdom that ruled this valley from the 3rd to the 10th centuries AD. Now, it's as flat as a courtyard.

It is better than the alternative, though. Mir Zaka has become synonymous with the perils facing Afghan archaeology. During the civil war of the early 1990s, the treasure of the 5th century BC Greek fort was sold to finance warlords.

Mohammad Rasuli, director of the Institute of Archaeology in Kabul, remembers visiting the site, disguised as a businessman, and seeing bags of historical coins so heavy that two men needed to lift them. Ornaments, statuary, and stamps were packed away in containers and protected not only by men with machine guns, but also with antiaircraft guns.

In all, he estimates, some 4.5 tons of archaeological artifacts were lost, some of them even popping up in local markets. But even from such calamity, Mr. Rasuli draws optimism: "Afghanistan has hope that we have lots of Mir Zakas."
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Bamyan shrines pillaged by gunmen, PRT: Residents
Hadi Ghafari 
BAMYAN CITY, Aug 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Residents have accused gunmen and the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) of stealing ancient objects from shrines in Yakawlang district of Bamyan. But the PTR rejected the charge as groundless.

Muhammad Daud (40), who visited Pajhwok Afghan News office in Bamyan City along with a group of people, claimed on Tuesday Khwaja Ghar and Atlas shrines - south of Yakawlang - were dug and valuable artifact stolen.

He believed the New Zealand-led PRT officials who took pictures of the shrine could be involved in thieving the items of historical value. However, he offered no evidence in support of the allegation.

Bamyan's poor residents - deeply conservative and superstitious as they are - frequent the shrines, pray for recovery of patients and place money at the tombs.

A Yakawlang dweller, who did not want to be named, confided to this news agency at least seven shrines had been robbed of artifacts by unknown gunmen. He too suspected the PRT of involvement in the scandalous business.

But a PRT spokesman, scorning the allegation as totally baseless and malicious, said: "We heard during the construction of a five-kilometer road that an ancient dish had been found from a grave."

He explained the road was constructed by a local NGO and PRT was not involved in the project. "We have come here for reconstruction and restoration of peace, not digging and pillaging historical sites."

Yakawlang district chief Noor Muhammad said a team had been appointed to investigate the allegations. He gave no more details, however.

But Information and Culture Director Wakil Ahmad Ahmadzai, acknowledging the illegal activity, said they had been able to prevent unauthorised digging and stealing of such objects from the shrines.

Around 200 troops of the New Zealand-led PRT under ISAF are stationed at the Bamyan airport for reconstruction and restoration of security.
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President Karzai leaves for home
Lalit K. Jha 
WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai left for Kabul from the Andrews Air Force Base after his two-day visit to the United States.

Afghan diplomats stationed in Washington said President Karzai left the US a satisfied man, more confident than ever - more so after Bush praised him for his courageous and visionary role in rebuilding and reconstruction of the country.

Sources familiar with the deliberations told Pajhwok Afghan News the two sides discussed civilian casualties, abduction of foreign aid workers, increase in poppy cultivation, the upcoming peace jirga, situation on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, strengthening of the Afghan security forces, governance and corruption in the administration.

"It was a mission accomplished," a senior Afghan diplomat said soon after Karzai and his delegation members left for Kabul.

Aid effectiveness to improve

Meanwhile, diplomatic sources told Pajhwok Afghan News that the Bush administration was believed to have assured the Afghan president ot improve "effectiveness" of the massive aid that flows into Afghanistan from the United States of America.

This is said to be one of the major achievements of the Camp David summit for Karzai and his team, which had been working on the issue for more than a year which would give more financial powers to the Afghan government.

The sources said the Bush administration would now look into ways and means how to route the multi-billion aid through the government which is presently given through NGOs and private sector.

Though there are couples of legal and legislative issues which restricts the US to directly route aid through the government, President Karzai left assured and confident that from now onwards the Afghan government would have a more positive role to play and would have a major say in utilizing the foreign aid. "This would enhance the legitimacy of the government," officials said.
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Cross border polio campaign targets 40 million children
ISLAMABAD, 7 August 2007 (IRIN) - The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan - in collaboration with their partners at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) - have launched parallel campaigns aimed at vaccinating over 40 million children in both countries against polio.

"Polio is silent and doesn't respect international borders," Melissa Corkum, a spokeswoman for UNICEF's polio eradication programme in Islamabad said.

"Given the high cross border movements between the two countries, it is critical that the campaigns are synchronised," she said, adding that teams of vaccinators had been positioned at border posts, as well as transit areas such as train stations, bus stations and airports, as part of the effort.

Both are comprehensive nationwide campaigns, with vaccinators travelling house-to-house, Corkum said, adding that campaign planners in the border districts had met ahead of the campaigns to ensure synchronised planning and mobilisation of communities.

On 7 August Pakistan launched its third nationwide immunisation drive this year, targeting 33.5 million children under the age of five and employing almost 86,000 vaccination teams.

The three-day effort comes at a time when the Afghan campaign, aimed at reaching 7.3 million children under the age of five and employing 42,000 vaccinators, is set to conclude.

Synchronised

"The last day of our campaign will be the first day of the Pakistan campaign," Dr Tahir Pervaiz Mir, head of WHO's polio eradication drive in Afghanistan, told IRIN from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. "This is the time when we will be focusing on the border populations together."

Such efforts are far from new but the collaboration serves as further proof of both governments' resolve in eradicating the debilitating disease.

Health experts have long viewed the countries as one epidemiological block, given the large number of people that traverse across the porous 2,400km common frontier.

"People travelling between the countries can easily carry the virus across the border and there is evidence of virus sharing between the two countries. Therefore it is critical to immunise those children on the move between the two countries and to ensure strong cross border coordination during the supplementary immunisation campaigns," Corkum said.

Insecurity threatening Afghan campaign

"Our efforts are always synchronised," Mir of WHO said. In addition to issues of migration that inhibit the ability of vaccinators to reach all children, Mir noted that insecurity in Afghanistan, particularly in the southern region, continues to remain a challenge.

"As in similar vaccination rounds, we're still not able to reach around 100,000 children there," he confirmed.

According to WHO, global efforts in eradicating polio depend on four countries where the virus remains endemic - India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2006 there were 40 confirmed cases of polio in Pakistan and 31 in Afghanistan.

This year, there have been 11 confirmed cases in Pakistan, including four in Sindh Province, two in Balochistan and four in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

In Afghanistan there have been five confirmed cases; three in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, as well as two in the eastern provinces of Laghman and Nangarhar, close to the border with Pakistan.
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Russia to write off Afghanistan debt
MOSCOW, August 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia will write off Afghanistan’s 11 billion U.S. dollar debt.

Russia and Afghanistan signed a respective agreement on Monday. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin signed it for Russia, and Finance Minister Anwar Ul-Haq Ahadi for Afghanistan.

Earlier, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said the agreement called for a “deep” remission of the Afghan debt to the former Soviet Union in accordance with a multilateral agreement on debt relief for Afghanistan within the Paris Club of creditors.

Ahadi said earlier that Afghanistan’s 11.1 billion U.S. dollar debt to Russia had been discussed at the Paris Club talks. In his words, 10.5 billion of this sum have to be written off and the rest “included in the HIPC programme to be implemented within 3-3 years”.

The programme has been launched by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as a debt relief measure for the poorest nations.
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German Prosecutors Resume Afghanistan Assault Case
By Karin Matussek
Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- German prosecutors resumed a probe into allegations that soldiers assaulted a man held in Afghanistan after being given a possible new lead.

German-born Turk Murat Kurnaz accused two German soldiers of abusing him while detained in a U.S. camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in January 2002. Kurnaz's attorney provided the names of two witnesses who were also held in Kandahar, said Walter Vollmer, a spokesman for the prosecution office.

Kurnaz, who was later held in the Guantanamo prison camp, said he was abused behind a truck, while members of the German army testified that trucks weren't used in the camp at the time. The U.S. army didn't disclose any information, according to the prosecution office.

Prosecutors in the German town of Tuebingen will try to interview the two men who currently live in the U.K. and who may have witnessed the events, Vollmer said in an interview. ``If they can testify that a truck was there at a time, we certainly have a new lead to follow up on,'' he said.

Bernhard Docke, Kurnaz's attorney, wasn't available for comment. His office said he will return on Aug. 20.

Prosecutors had closed the case in May because there wasn't enough evidence to charge the men, even though they still had ``concerns,'' the office said on May 29. The identities of the two soldiers accused of the assault weren't disclosed.

Kurnaz's case is subject to two parliamentary investigations in Germany. One is looking into allegations that German soldiers mistreated Kurnaz. The other explores whether Germany refused Kurnaz entry in the fall of 2002 when the U.S. offered to release him, prolonging his imprisonment in Guantanamo by four years.
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Unhappy Afghan villagers say police, not Taliban, are giving them trouble
Tue Aug 7 11:55:08 CDT 2007
SHAWALI KOT, Afghanistan (CP) - Villagers in Afghanistan have complained to Canadian troops about the way they've been treated by their own police.
The villagers say Taliban insurgents are not in their area. They told Canadians patrolling the Shawali Kot area that they have had more trouble from members of the Afghan National Police.

They accuse the police of theft and demanding money from farmers.

Canadian military officials say it's difficult to know whether the allegations are true.

Warrant Officer Hani Massouh says the best the Canadian military can do is to help the Afghan National Police become more professional and effective.
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Herat bank robbery: Police say 17 suspects detained
HERAT CITY, August 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Police have claimed arresting 17 people, including officials of a government-owned bank and civilians, on suspicion of involvement in last months robbery of six million afghanis.

Muhammad Shafiq Fazli, police chief of the western Herat province, told a news conference here on Tuesday the nine officials of Bank-i-Milli and six civilians were detained after completion of investigations into the case.

The detainees had confessed to their crime, the police chief claimed, explaining the money was yet to be recovered. Money-changers and banks have been a soft target for armed robberies in the border province.
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Iran keeps up but slows Afghan expulsions: UNHCR
by Stuart Williams Mon Aug 6, 3:00 PM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran is deporting thousands each week in a drive to expel unregistered Afghan refugees but the numbers have diminished since the scale of initial expulsions sparked concern, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.

Judy Cheng Hopkins, the UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, said on a visit to Iran that the Islamic republic had expelled around 160,000 unregistered Afghan refugees since starting the drive on April 21.

The UNHCR's Kabul representative Salvatore Lombardo had said two months ago on June 5 that Iran had deported around 100,000 Afghans without residency papers in the crackdown.

However Cheng Hopkins emphasised that the speed and manner of the deportations were now much milder than in April, when Iran was heavily criticised for expelling tens of thousands of Afghans in just days.

"Since the time when we did express some concern, the numbers have reduced drastically," she told reporters in Tehran.

Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi had said Iran wanted to expel some one million unregistered Afghans by March 2008. However Cheng Hopkins said no such figure was mentioned in her meetings with Iranian officials.

The UNHCR has been helping repatriate hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Iran over the last years in coordination with Kabul and Tehran. However this programme only applies to Afghan refugees with proper papers.

There are believed to be around 910,000 registered Afghan refugees living in Iran. However there are at least another one million more who have no papers and it is these people who are the targets of the crackdown.

Jean Claude Forget, the deputy head of the UNHCR mission in Tehran, said that in the early stage of the operation the agency had sent a letter to the Iranian authorities expressing concern about "mistakes" by the security forces.

"This was brought to the attention of the authorities in a formal letter we sent expressing our concern about the dignity of the deportees," he said.

"But we are grateful to the authorities as these concerns are no longer mentioned by deportees arriving on the other side of the border."

Cheng Hopkins said she would now like to see the Iranian government allow random checks by UNHCR staff on the deportees to ensure no Afghans with valid residency papers are expelled.

"We are hoping to persuade the government to do this (the expulsions) in a more gradual way and make sure that those with documents... do not get caught up in the rush," she said.

However the UNHCR officials emphasised that around only 20 Afghan refugees with valid documents had been deported in the crackdown.

Millions of Afghans, mostly Shiite Hazara or Sunni Persian-speaking Tajiks, fled to the security of Iran from the wars that devastated their country from the Soviet invasion to the Taliban. At the peak, Iran was hosting around four million Afghans.

Cheng Hopkins acknowledged that repatriating the 3 million registered Afghan refugees remaining in Iran and neighbouring Pakistan was a major challenge, as the numbers going home had now dropped to "negligible levels."

In 2004, 377,564 registered Afghan refugees left Iran with the assistance of the UNHCR but so far this year only 4,449 have done so.

The people remaining "are not sure if they wanted to return. All those who were very sure have gone... Now the question is what policies do we discuss with the governments," she said.
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Afghan national killed in Moscow
12:23 | 07/ 08/ 2007
MOSCOW, August 7 (RIA Novosti) - An Afghan national was stabbed to death in eastern Moscow, a police source said Tuesday.

The attack occurred Monday, when an unidentified assailant stabbed the 32-year-old Afghan in the stomach, the victim was rushed to hospital for urgent surgery, but died later in intensive care.

Policemen are searching for the attacker and criminal proceedings have been launched.

People with non-Slavic features have been victims of frequent attacks in apparently racially motivated crimes in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and in many cases in the Central Russian city of Voronezh, which are home to numerous universities with foreign students.
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UN chief asks for Iran's help to resolve hostage crisis in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn  2007-08-06 23:59:11
TEHRAN, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General BanKi-moon on Monday called for Iran's assistance to resolve the hostage-taking crisis in Afghanistan, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The UN chief made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, IRNA said.

"The United Nations is doing what it can to help resolve the crisis and secure release of the South Korean nationals," Ban said.

For his part, Mottaki offered Iran's full cooperation with the United Nations and the Afghan government in order to help release the hostages, IRNA reported.

Mottaki condemned the Taliban for taking hostage the South Korean nationals and killing of two of them as inhumane and terrorist act.

He also sympathized with families of the two slain South Korean nationals and called on the UN secretary-general to do his best to help release the hostages from Taleban custody.

Ban thanked Mottaki for his sympathy with the bereaved families of the South Korean victims.

Taliban militants, who abducted 23 South Koreans on July 19, have shot dead two of them so far and vowed to execute the remaining if the Afghan government fails to meet their demand which includes the release of their eight Taliban comrades.
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Exclusive Interview: Former Interior Minister Ali A. Jalali on Afghanistan’s security
Tue, 07/08/2007 - 12:53 — Source: Afgha.com
Former Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali has said the ANP is woefully under-equipped and ill-trained and implies the European Union’s skimpy effort to aid the beleaguered force will not be enough. In an exclusive interview with Afgha.com, Mr. Jalali also showed cautious optimism that the Coalition’s approach against Taliban leadership elements is having an effect on the way the insurgency is being waged. “However, Afghanistan can hardly achieve peace merely by fighting and killing the insurgents. Nor development projects alone are likely to win hearts and minds of the people as long as the threats emanating from militia commanders, drug traffickers, corrupt provincial and district administrators and government incompetence are not removed.”

Mr. Jalali fielded several questions about Afghanistan’s security woes in an Afgha.com interview that concluded on August, 3. Below is the official transcript of the interview.

Question: Is the Taliban insurgency truly gaining in strength or is their recent attacks against ‘soft targets’ like the South Korean Christian aid workers in Ghazni and the German civilians in Wardak a sign of desperation?

Answer: Having suffered heavy losses in their traditional guerrilla attacks, the Taliban increasingly rely on roadside bomb attacks, kidnapping and suicide bombings which they see more effective in pursuance of their campaign. Domestically, such attacks spread fear among the people and erode government legitimacy. Internationally they are intended to influence the people of troop providing countries and wear down their support for the deployment of their troops in Afghanistan. In current insurgencies the battlefield extends far beyond the valleys and mountains of Afghanistan into a virtual space where the hearts and minds of the people are targeted.

Question: Occasionally Taliban spokesmen claim seizing remote districts throughout the country such as Helmand’s Musa Qala district which they still hold almost six months after the fact. What strategic importance are these districts and how devastating is it when Taliban militants overrun and occupy such city centers?

Answer: Generally speaking an insurgency is won strategically not tactically. No matter how many tactical achievements are made the war can not be won unless the insurgents win the hearts and minds of the people. The government can not fail by losing control of a few districts but it could lose if it fails to maintain its legitimacy and win the hearts and minds of the people. Although the insurgents are not yet capable to overthrow the Afghan government, increased violence creates a sense of insecurity, hinders economic reconstruction, and weakens government influence in remote areas. This may eventually lead to a much stronger insurgency capable of challenging the government. In many districts, the resurgence of Taliban violence is caused more by the lack of government presence than the ability of the insurgents.

Question: Some reports indicate the Taliban are increasingly targeting Afghan police and ‘auxiliary police’ units because they are ill-equipped and less trained than the ANA and are the first line of defense in rural areas. The European Union has crafted a police training program for Afghanistan but it has less than 180 police advisors for the entire country. How detrimental is reorganizing and better training and equipping the national police force? What should the international police training program really look like?

Answer: The Afghan National Police (ANP) has been seen more as a counter insurgency force than a law enforcement institution. Even in its role as a counter insurgency force the police is weakly trained, inadequately armed, poorly paid and not regularly supplied to respond effectively to the challenge. . It lacks mobility and its ranks are infested with corrupt leaders and officers who are more loyal to their non-state networks than to the ANP institution. The ANP has been vulnerable across an extended deployment area spanning the country’s porous border to troubled highways, from remote security posts to city streets. As a result, the ANP has lost far more men than the ANA, Coalition forces and ISAF in fighting insurgency and criminal activity across the country during the past five years. In many clashes with insurgents police officers were killed because of incompetent leadership, lack of ammunition, poor mobility or their ineffective weapons and equipment. Had the police been better trained, equipped and armed, they would have suffered fewer casualties, and made better contributions to stability operations.

The Afghanistan Compact recognizes that security can not be provided by military means alone but requires good governance, justice and the rule of law, reinforced by reconstruction and development. This is a challenge that can be dealt with only through a balanced and coordinated effort on all fronts. Despite the consensus among stake holders on the importance of this approach neither a viable guiding mechanism nor standardized procedures are in place to facilitate implementation.

Question: Due to the seemingly high turnover rate of Afghan policemen, the Karzai administration has deployed ‘auxiliary police’ units and tribal militias to help protect villages from militants. Is this a good idea? Is it working?

Answer: Faced with an upsurge of insurgency the Karzai government sought utilization of some local tribal militias to help in local policing. Kabul views the move as a way to mobilize local and tribal communities to assist in fighting insurgents. Critics see the move contravening the program of disarming the militias. Currently the plan has been activated in a few insurgency-infested provinces where security can not be achieved merely through the deployment of poorly trained local police.

Question: Has the Coalition’s effort in disrupting the Taliban’s leadership by killing and arresting over 40 senior commanders having any effect on the insurgency?

Answer: The change of Taliban tactics and their heavy losses indicate that the loss of their commanders is having an effect on the insurgency. However, Afghanistan can hardly achieve peace merely by fighting and killing the insurgents. Nor development projects alone are likely to win hearts and minds of the people as long as the threats emanating from militia commanders, drug traffickers, corrupt provincial and district administrators and government incompetence are not removed. This also applies to the operation of Coalition forces and ISAF in fighting terrorism and insurgency. Over-focus on force protection at the expense of creating durable security, picking and choosing discredited allies in fighting terrorism and, indiscriminate and unwarranted searches of peaceful villages without consideration for local culture, or detaining inhabitants who have no known connection with hostile armed groups provokes resentment and indignant protests that hinders stabilization effort.

So efforts to defeat the insurgents, build peace and development should be sought through the establishment of the rule of law that guarantees human security. This means that security operations by international forces, Afghan army and police, the military and police operations should be seen as a subset of the rule of law and not the other way around. Security and peace is achieved through wining the hearts of the people and not only through military operations.

Question: How responsible is poppy farming and the subsequent smuggling of opium to the instability of Afghanistan? What measures can be/should be enacted to marginalize this effect?

Answer: The drug production and trafficking is the single most destructive factor in destabilizing Afghanistan. It supports insurgency and terrorism, funds illegal armed groups and militias, sustains non-state illegitimate networks, corrupts the government and society and destroys legitimate economy. The illicit drug trade is a low risk activity in a high risk environment. In order to eliminate it, the situation needs to be reversed: the illicit drug trade must be a high risk activity in a low risk environment. This entails the development of human security and firm establishment of the rule of law.

Eradication without meaningful alternative livelihood is not sustainable. Reduction of poppy cultivation takes more than targeted alternative livelihood or more forcible eradication program. Eradication does not hold promise for a near-term solution and forcible eradication can be counterproductive. Poverty and eradication should be attacked simultaneously. Elimination of poppy cultivation should be sought through developmental approaches. The development of alternative livelihood is a key to achieving long-term counter-narcotic goals. However, the effort should aim at broader development targets that include building effective governance, a strong civil society and the creation of a social protection system. The creation of alternative livelihood must be linked to sustainable economic recovery. Alternative livelihood should be considered as the goal rather than the means.

Given the multi-dimensional nature of opium production in Afghanistan, counter-narcotic efforts should be mainstreamed into all aspects of development: Security, economic growth and governance. There are no quick and simple solutions. Destroying one third of Afghanistan’s economy without undermining stability requires enormous resources, administrative capacity and time. Attempts to simplify the problem, in order to make it manageable and appealing to domestic policies of the donor countries, do not lead to sustained progress.

Question: Coercing adolescents and handicaps for suicide bomb attacks, executing civilians and the shooting of school girls in Logar are only a few of the recent atrocities allegedly committed by the Taliban and largely dismissed or ignored by the global media. Why are these incidents so under-reported in the West and what damage is being caused to the stabilization efforts by the media’s masking of such incidents? Has the West turned a ‘blind eye’ to Afghanistan?

Answer: I don’t believe that the acts of terrorism and insurgency in Afghanistan are under-reported both in Afghanistan and abroad. The availability of multimedia and free access to global news networks make intentional cover ups almost impossible. On the contrary there is a reluctance to cover the good news. Recently, press headlines on Afghanistan have been negative. The country is faced with a revitalized Taliban-led insurgency, a record rise in drug production, a deterioration of the rule of law and a weakening grip of the national government over many districts in the south and south-east. But, despite these troubling developments there is also good news that unfortunately becomes “no news.”

Question: Some analysts believe the insurgency is a diverse array of combatants, some of which are described as ‘blue collar’ insurgents who participate in militant operations for financial gain only. What can be done to prevent suffering civilians from joining militant ranks?

Answer: The Taliban-led insurgency is not rooted in a popular ideology. The people of Afghanistan rejected the leadership, the ideology and the political vision of the Taliban and other militant groups long ago. The new Taliban-led insurgents are an assortment of ideologically motivated Afghan and foreign militants, disillusioned tribal communities, foreign intelligence operatives, drug traffickers, opportunist militia commanders, disenchanted and unemployed youth, and self-interested spoilers. It is more of a political alliance of convenience than an ideological front. The challenge to deal with this insurgency is to separate the insurgents from terrorist-minded militants. This can be achieved through an integrated strategy of military and non-military operations.

Question: Will it come down to direct negotiations or some form of talks with Taliban representatives to eventually marginalize the raging insurgency?

Answer: Negotiation with whom and at what cost? There is a minority of foreign-supported militants who plan not only to overthrow the government but also to turn Afghanistan into a hub of global terrorism. Obviously no peace or negotiation is possible with them. They are to change their minds or be destroyed. The majority of insurgents who are mostly not against the political system but are opposed to the government can be won through the ongoing process of national reconciliation. However this is possible only if they can be successfully separated and protected from the radical elements in the insurgency.
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Ali A. Jalali formerly served as Afghanistan's Interior Minister from Jan. 2003-Sep. 2005. During his term he took charge of the National Police Force and created, trained and deployed a 50,000 strong ANP force with an additional 12,000 Border Police. He also led the central government's drive to establish government authority in all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces and 365 districts.

Since his resignation he has become a distinguished Professor as the National Defense College in Washington DC.
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German Minister Worried About Copy-Cat Afghan Kidnappers
Deutsche Welle, Germany
As the government fights for the life of a German hostage in Afghanistan, Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler expresses the fear in a Deutsche Welle interview that the current debates could encourage copy-cat criminals.

DEUTSCHE WELLE: What is the current situation regarding the efforts to release the German hostage in Afghanistan?
 
Gernot Erler: Unfortunately I can't give you any good news: the efforts of the emergency task force in cooperation with the Afghan authorities continue. We hope for a positive conclusion soon.
 
You said in another interview that the contact to the hostage-takers was indirect. What does that mean?
 
It's been public knowledge for some time that the direct contact is being cultivated above all by the Afghan government.

In recent weeks, people have gotten the impression that the German government has abandoned its stance. To what extent is that the case?

It is rather a reaction to the Taliban's approach. We are increasingly seeing that attempts are being made here to influence the discussion in Western countries through disinformation campaigns, in Germany, too, in relation to the Afghanistan mission. We had to respond to that. We have to correct false reports for example.

Is there a debate within the federal government about how to deal with the kidnappings?

There is no difference between the chancellery's and the foreign ministry's outlooks regarding approach. The confusion emerged because the foreign ministry and the foreign minister had to respond to the disinformation attempts that came from the Taliban.
 
Is there a debate within the governing coalition about how one should in general deal with the kidnappings and ransom demands?
 
This public debate cannot be averted. It crops up, but it can't bring us any further. Every sort of explanation, as is usually given, potentially brings copy-cat criminals to life. That's why it's clear that we have to stick with a case-by-case treatment here. That's why the federal government is also not getting involved in this public debate about ransom payments.
 
Foreign Minister Steinmeier said he could imagine extending the deployment in Afghanistan. Is that also a reaction to the hostage-taking in Afghanistan?
 
I think it's important that there's a change in the orientation of our public discussion. Away from the question of what may possibly have the basis for a consensus in the German Bundestag to the question: How can one make the Western world's mission in Afghanistan a genuine success? There were several worrying developments here over the last two years. In this context, one always returns to the conclusion that there's a backlog demand when it comes to training the Afghan army, but also the police.

The EU already responded with its new police-training mission in Afghanistan. We're now considering whether, within the framework of what is doable, we can do more toward training the Afghan army. That is truly a contribution toward making the situation better on the ground, without any tactical ulterior motives.

Extending the mission doesn't necessarily mean deploying more battle troops, but it does at least mean more German soldiers or police will be in Afghanistan?

To start with, the issue is expanding the mandate. Whether that will have to involve a change to the upper limit -- that still has to be examined. It's also conceivable that with a different division of tasks we can do more for training the Afghan army within the realm of the current upper limit, but for that, conclusive examinations must be completed.

The debate was intense about whether German troops should also be deployed to the Afghanistan's volatile south. Now one gets the sense from certain comments that it is at least conceivable.
 
It's at least conceivable that in resolving the question of how training can truly be noticeably improved such geographical restrictions may have to be deemed less important than they have been so far. But that, too, is still speculative, since details must first be resolved as to the how the training can be most effectively strengthened.

Jens Thurau interviewed Gernot Erler (ncy).
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It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan
Simultaneously stressed and bored, U.S. soldiers are turning to the widely available drug for a quick escape.
By Shaun McCanna Salon.com
Aug. 07, 2007 | Just outside the main gate to Bagram airfield, a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, sits a series of small makeshift shops known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar. For Afghans, it is the place to buy American goods, but the stalls that make up the heart of the bazaar are also well known for what they provide American soldiers stationed at Bagram. Walking through the bazaar it takes less than 10 minutes for a vendor in his early 20s to step out and ask, "You want whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell him. He ushers me into his store with a smile.

The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and miscellaneous beauty supplies. As we enter, a teenager is visible at the back, seated in a chair next to a collection of American military knives and flashlights. The shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The teen stands and heads for the door, where he stops and asks my Afghan driver a question. My driver translates, "He wants to know how much you want? Twenty, 30, 50 dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I have arranged this same transaction a dozen times in a dozen different Bagram Bazaar shops, I know that the $30 bag will contain enough pure to bring hundreds of dollars on the streets of any American city. Afghanistan, after all, is the source of 90 percent of the world's heroin. I say 30 and the teen jogs off.

The true extent of the heroin problem among American soldiers now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknown. At Bagram, according to a written statement provided by a spokesperson for the base, Army Maj. Chris Belcher, the "Military Police receive few reports of alcohol or drug issues." The military has statistics on how many troops failed drug tests, but the best information on long-term addiction comes from the U.S. Veterans Administration. The VA is the world's largest provider of substance abuse services, caring for more than 350,000 veterans per year, of whom about 30,000 are being treated for opiate addiction. Only preliminary information for Iraq and Afghanistan is available, however, and veterans of those conflicts are not yet showing up in the stats. According to the VA's annual "Yellowbook" report on substance abuse, during Fiscal Year 2006, fewer than 9,000 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) sought treatment for substance abuse of all kinds at the VA; the report did not specify how many were treated for opiate abuse.

Experts think it could be a decade before the true scope of heroin use in Iraq and Afghanistan is known. Dr. Jodie Trafton, a healthcare specialist with the VA's Center for Health Care Evaluation in Palo Alto, Calif., says it takes five or 10 years after a conflict for veterans to enter the system in significant numbers. The VA has recently seen a surge in cases from the first U.S. war in Iraq. "We're just starting to get a lot of Gulf War veterans," she explains. For the first few years after a conflict, it's hard to gauge the number of soldiers who've developed a substance problem. Young soldiers especially, says Dr. Trafton, tend not to seek treatment unless pushed by family members. Left to their own devices, "usually people don't show up for treatment till much later."

The anecdotal information, however, suggests there may be a wave of new patients coming, and it will include many heroin users. I'm a filmmaker, and I have been to Afghanistan several times to research a film about a soldier who died there under murky circumstances. Before his death, the soldier, John Torres, had told friends and family of widespread heroin use at Bagram. Based on my own experience, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the Bush administration has spent on opium poppy eradication, Torres was right. I asked to buy heroin a dozen times during two trips a year apart and never heard the word "no"; I also saw ample evidence that soldiers were trading sensitive military equipment, like computer drives and bulletproof vests, for drugs. Other soldiers who have served at Bagram agree: Heroin, they say "is everywhere." And although they haven't shown up in the statistics yet, reports from methadone clinics suggest the VA's future patients may already be back in the States in force. Much like the caskets that return to the Dover Air Force base in the dead of night, America's new addicts are returning undetected.

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Back in the States, it is not difficult to find a soldier who has returned from Afghanistan with an addiction. Nearly every veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom I have spoken with was familiar with heroin's availability on base, and most knew at least one soldier who used while deployed. In June, I spent a week in Southern California talking to veterans who had used while in Afghanistan. Getting one of them to talk to me on the record, however, was tougher.

When I ask soldiers and veterans to go public about their experiences, they are wary. "No, I'm still in the reserves," said one. "I don't want you to write about me," said another. "I'm still in." Some soldiers from Bagram I've spoken with in the past several years I can no longer find. Maybe they're in jail, maybe on the street. Others may have redeployed. "I heard their unit was getting sent back to Afghanistan," I'm told, "so maybe they're over there."

The soldiers keep quiet because they're concerned about their fellow soldiers. As a veteran of Afghanistan told me, "These are my brothers. I wouldn't want to say anything that would bring disrespect down on them."

But they also don't want to get in trouble with the military for talking to the media. They believe that tarnishing the military's image would bring far more consequences than actually getting caught for using.

"They don't do anything to you [for using]," a reservist tells me. "Two from my unit were sent home after they got caught more than once." What happened to them? "Nothing. They're still in the unit. Just got sent home." Are they still using? "Don't know. I never asked."

According to Maj. Belcher, soldiers are "subject to drug-testing procedures and if they test positive for illegal substances, they are dealt with appropriately by their chain of command under the Uniform Code of Military Justice." But in a military stretched thin, with reservists a significant portion of the forces being deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, the threat of such disciplinary measures has little bite. As long as soldiers themselves refuse to speak out there is no reason for action.

I made arrangements to speak with three young men about their heroin problems. All were veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and outpatients of the methadone clinic at the West Los Angeles VA hospital. They had all become addicted during their deployments.

When the time came to meet, however, one of the men had disappeared. The other two said their VA counselors had told them not to do the interviews. Realizing there are stages of recovery, and there might be a clinical reason for the enforced silence, I contacted the methadone clinic directly. I was referred to a social worker, who said she would be happy to speak with me after clearing it with her superiors. She referred me to the hospital's press person for permission.

The hospital's press person referred me to VA headquarters in Washington. The Washington office told me a VA representative would have to sit in on any interviews -- and I would also need to get approval for the interviews from the physician who supervises the clinic, the doctor who supervises the counselors who had scotched the interviews in the first place. I gave up on getting on-the-record interviews.

The VA also declined, through a spokesperson, to provide any national estimate of the level of heroin use among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. What numbers are available from the military, meanwhile, do not point to a significant problem. A spokesperson for the Pentagon referred Salon to the individual service branches for data on heroin use by military personnel. Air Force Capt. Tom Wenz emphasized that the number of Air Force personnel serving in Afghanistan is quite small, and said there had been no reports of positive drug tests for heroin among Air Force personnel in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Maj. Cheryl Phillips of the Army, which accounts for the bulk of the Afghanistan and Iraq forces, said that in 2006 not one of the Army soldiers in either theater tested positive for heroin, and that all positive drug-test results are in line with historic norms. "The Army randomly tests soldiers for use of illicit/unauthorized drugs on a regular basis and, on average, has maintained a 98 percent 'clean' rate ... over the past 20 years, including the periods of OEF and OIF." The Navy's level of positive drug tests for all personnel worldwide was less than 1 percent as of 2005. A representative of the Marine Corps did not respond by deadline to an e-mailed request for information on levels of heroin use, if any, by Marines.

My own experience among young veterans in Southern California, however, suggests that drug tests do not tell the story. New Directions, situated on the grounds of the West Los Angeles VA hospital, is an organization offering programs for homeless veterans. It has a 24-bed detox unit. In the past year, according to outreach director Anthony Belcher (no relation to Maj. Belcher), New Directions has seen approximately 15 Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, six of them "needing a methadone detox."

The methadone clinic in the West Los Angeles VA hospital itself has seen significantly more. An individual familiar with the methadone program at the hospital says they are "lined up 50 or 60 deep each morning." While the source does not know the service record of the patients, the source says, "These are young guys." The VA has 250 substance abuse centers nationwide.

Belcher of New Directions expects the caseload to pick up later, echoing Jodie Trafton's words about a delay between addiction and treatment. The Afghanistan and Iraq veterans Belcher's group has been seeing have been discharged about two years on average. "That's how long it takes for them to be forced into a detox unit by family, or law enforcement, or circumstances."

Greg Spencer, a representative of the nonprofit National Veterans Foundation, calls the phenomenon "lag time." "We won't know the enormity of this problem for some time," he says, because "there is a period between the beginning stages and the so-called bottom out, where one seeks treatment. We are just starting, in the past two years or so, to see OEF/OIF vets coming to treatment facilities for heroin addiction."

Both Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are coming home with substance problems. But the reasons behind their addictions are frequently different.

Because the deployment to Iraq is so much larger than the deployment to Afghanistan, with more than five times as many troops in country at any given time, the VA is likely to be treating more Iraq veterans than Afghanistan veterans for substance abuse. Anecdotally, addiction among veterans returning from Iraq seems largely linked to post-traumatic stress disorder. Overall, more than a third of the VA's 350,000 substance abuse patients from every era also suffer from PTSD. For soldiers suffering from PTSD, the use of heroin and other illicit drugs is frequently a form of self-medication, and a way to keep their stress and trauma at bay.

Many of the addicts returning from Afghanistan, however, point to sheer boredom as the reason for their use. "I had to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, but half the time there was nothing to do," one reservist who served at Bagram complained. Another expressed frustration at the number of contractors sharing their positions. "It really pissed us off that we were there doing the same job as KBR guys who were making three or four times as much. It sucked." Bored and disillusioned with the process and mission at hand, many soldiers turn to heroin to pass the time and escape the monotony. While heroin is available in Iraq, it is that much easier to obtain in Afghanistan, a source country.

But both conflicts have something in common with a prior war -- Vietnam. Whereas the first Gulf War involved a long deployment by troops inside the austere, puritanical nation of Saudi Arabia, followed by a short war and a relatively rapid return home, both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are protracted occupations of countries where heroin has long been available. Afghanistan is a source country, à la the nations of Southeast Asia. As Mark Benjamin reported in Salon last December, combat in Iraq also shares certain features with combat in Vietnam -- constant patrols punctuated by ambushes, a deteriorating sense of mission -- that are likely to produce high levels of PTSD.

About 2.4 million Americans had served in Vietnam before the U.S. pulled out in 1973. In 1971, while the war was coming to a close, the media reported that the level of heroin addiction was 10 to 15 percent of lower ranking enlisted men. Contemporary researchers concurred, putting the figure at 14 percent.

Those figures were later revised sharply downward, with true addiction now thought to be closer to 4.5 percent. Researchers still believe, however, that 20 percent of all soldiers who served in Vietnam used opiates at least once. More than half of the veterans now being treated for substance abuse by the VA served during the Vietnam era, but the percentage of opiate addicts who served during the Vietnam era was unavailable.

The number of troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan recently passed 1.5 million early this year. No expert has yet ventured an estimate of what percentage will come home addicted to heroin. For now, Anthony Belcher is going with his gut. "You can make analogies to Vietnam ... Afghanistan and Iraq, especially Iraq, seem to be another Vietnam."

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At the Bagram Bazaar, as I stood waiting for the teen courier to return with my order, I compared shopping for junk in Afghanistan in 2007 to shopping for junk in 2006. In May of 2006, I had toured the shops for the first time with Juan Torres and Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi, who served as guide and translator. Juan Torres' son, Spc. John Torres, was found dead of a gunshot wound while serving at Bagram in July of 2004. At the time Spc. Torres' family, and some members of his unit, believed he may have been killed for speaking out about heroin use on base. John's death turned out to be attributable to another cause, which became the subject of the film I am now completing, but his accusations about the ready availability of heroin, and similar claims by other Bagram soldiers, had prompted me to investigate how heroin was making its way to U.S. soldiers.

When I visited the shops that line the main road to the Bagram base back in 2006, they didn't look like much. The bazaar was a jumble of small, improvised, windowless structures of mud brick, corrugated tin and wood. Once inside the shops, however, a startling array of American goods came into view, many of them military issue -- bulletproof vests, hydration packs, helmets, knives, CD and DVD players, video game controllers and more. They were all goods that had either been traded by U.S. soldiers for contraband, or stolen by Afghans working on base and then sold to the shops. The goods the soldiers most wanted to receive in return -- heroin, liquor and Viagra -- were all available and on hand. It was easy and quick to get a shopkeeper to produce a $30 baggie of pure heroin.

A year later, the more startling American goods are out of site, and, though I still never get no for an answer, the heroin is no longer kept in the shop. In 2007, I have to wait for the heroin to be brought to the store from off-site.

The shopkeeper apologizes for the delay in the courier's return, lights a cigarette, and tells me to call ahead next time. He offers me his cell number. "I can have it ready then, no wait. But now you have to wait 10, 20 minutes. OK?"

I ask why he doesn't have any heroin ready to sell, that last year shops had heroin on hand. He apologizes again, and says the district governor has cracked down. "They are sweeping the shops now, because of the Cheney bomb."

The "Cheney bomb" is how locals refer to the suicide bomber who struck near Bagram's main gate during the vice president's visit in February of 2007. Following the blast the military either better enforced existing procedures, or implemented new regulations pertaining to the search of locals coming on and off base. In his written statement to me, Maj. Belcher said that in the first four months of 2007 such procedures had stopped roughly "20 attempts to bring illegal drugs through the gate at Bagram airfield, all committed by either local national or third country national truck drivers." The random sweeps currently being carried out against merchants are believed to be an attempt by the local governor to placate the American military following the blast. But sweeps and intimidation are nothing new, and "don't last long," a shopkeeper says. "Last year they threatened to close us after the computer problem."

In April of 2006 a foreign journalist bought a flash drive containing classified documents from the bazaar, documents that according to published reports contained "base defense information" and "names of allegedly corrupt Afghan officials" among other sensitive information. It was not known whether the flash drive had found its way to the bazaar via sale, theft or barter, but it was not the only piece of sensitive computer equipment available for purchase. The military's embarrassed response to the scandal was to attempt to buy back any flash drives and discs found in the shops.

The publicity surrounding the disc disclosures caused embarrassment to base leadership and resulted in threats against the bazaar. "The Americans wanted to bulldoze our shops," a vendor said. "But local leaders warned there would be violence. So they backed down." The result was a temporary increase in scrutiny. The Cheney bomb has created a similar, but more severe crackdown.

Now shopkeepers have moved big ticket items off-site for safety. Bulletproof vests, DVD players, military gear and other items stolen or traded for on base have been relocated to protect against confiscation. Heroin, hard liquor and Viagra, meanwhile, have been moved to locations within a 10- to 15-minute radius of the bazaar.

While waiting for the teen to return I browse the items on display and ask if business on base is still good. Until now the vendor has been speaking with me directly in broken English, but the question prompts him to switch to Dari and engage my driver in a heated discussion. After a few moments, Hakimi says, "He is worried you are an American from base to get him in trouble, but I told him no, you just want to know about the heroin." "No trouble. Just wondering," I tell him. He seems unsure, and scans the area in front of his shop. What he sees, or doesn't see, sets him at ease.

"So how are you getting drugs on if they are checking?" I ask. He picks up a matchbox, opens it and points inside. "Put drugs, or with tobacco, then over." He then tosses me the box. He sees I am confused. He speaks to my driver. My driver translates: "He says they put money or drugs in the matchbox, or with cigarettes, and pass it over the fence, so they don't have to carry it in the gate, that or they pass it to soldiers while they are off the base." I ask what part of the fence. "Different places. It's big," the shopkeeper responds. And he is right. The base is large and portions of the fence are remote from activity. Despite bans on photographing or filming near the base, in 2006 I filmed for nearly two hours along stretches of the fence line without being confronted.

Because the base is surrounded in part by small farms and villages, it is common to see locals and children walking or working in the fields near the fence. Young boys are hired to work as runners. They linger in the fields near the fence and make contact with soldiers, who pass them money and instructions. The boys then run and fill the orders at a location nearby, returning to the spot and delivering the drugs, usually within 20 to 30 minutes.

An Afghan translator who works at Bagram confirmed that much of what is currently making its way on base is arriving this way. "It is hard to get things through the gate right now, so the fence is good," he said. "At the back, by the construction areas, there are some spots, but lots of places work." I ask him if he has been asked to bring drugs on base. "Yes, they ask me for heroin or liquor, sometimes hashish. But I say no. I make too much to get caught. It is the workers who don't make much money who do it. It is a better thing for them."

Children have long been used to pass contraband. During his 2006 trip, Juan Torres was granted a tour of the base, and allowed to see where his late son, John, had worked and lived. During his visit I stayed in the staging area between the two gates that serve as the main entrance. The first gate is manned by Afghans, the second, some 200 to 300 yards away, is manned by U.S. soldiers. Before the Cheney bomb a number of vendors were allowed to operate in the space between the two gates, and serve the needs of truck drivers and workers waiting to enter. The area was similar to the bazaar, with small makeshift shops and food vendors.

The day of Juan's visit the staging area was crowded. Dozens of trucks were lined up waiting to enter the base, and truck drivers and Afghan workers were milling about. Children were ubiquitous. Dozens of young children ranging in age from 7 to 14 were wandering the area freely, helping vendors, and talking and playing with the U.S. military personnel manning the second gate. The ease with which they moved through the area, and the familiarity they were shown by the U.S. soldiers, illustrated their usefulness to dealers. A vendor had told me the children are beyond suspicion, so they pass contraband unnoticed. More than one child asked, "You need something? Give me money and I will get it."

Though there is no threat of arrest for a local caught smuggling contraband into Bagram, the consequence of being stopped is still high. In his statement, Maj. Belcher confirmed that individuals who are intercepted with contraband are "investigated and banned from entering Bagram again." As dealers point out, since there are countless ways to get drugs to soldiers, risking a local's access to base by trying to send a courier through the gates is unnecessary. But many also believe the added scrutiny at the gates is a temporary inconvenience. "They won't check hard forever," a shopkeeper tells me. Like others, he believes the base will eventually ease up, and goods will once again flow through the gates.

Ten minutes and the teen has not returned. A crowd has begun to gather outside the shop. A group of children are standing at the entrance, waiting to steer me toward their family shops. Two old men, curious or waiting for a handout, stand behind them, watching and listening patiently. The shopkeeper tells them to leave, which they fail to do. He then becomes agitated once again. He speaks to my driver who translates: "He doesn't want any trouble." I buy a few items to thank him for his time and prepare to leave. He apologizes and tells us to come back in a little while and he'll have the heroin ready, with no crowd.

As we step outside, the kids and old men vie for our attention as we walk toward the entrance to the base. The bazaar has changed, but it has also stayed the same. The method of distribution has fluctuated, service is slower, but the flow of contraband has gone unchecked. Across the road I see the teen making his way back to the shop.
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The Nation Institute Investigative Fund provided research support for this article.
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