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February 16, 2007 


Taliban deploy 10,000 fighters for attack: commander
By Saeed Ali Achakzai Fri Feb 16, 2:47 AM ET
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Taliban have deployed 10,000 fighters for a spring offensive of "bloody attacks" against foreign troops in        Afghanistan, a rebel commander said on Friday.
 
More than 4,000 people, a quarter of them civilians, were killed in fighting last year, the most violent year since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.        NATO commanders and analysts warn this year could be just as bad or worse.

As the harsh winter snows melt, the insurgents have resumed their attacks, mostly in the south, where they have captured a major town and have threatened a key hydroelectric dam.

Mullah Abdul Rahim, the Taliban's operational commander for southern Helmand province -- the opium center of the world's major producer -- said militants would step up attacks in spring.

"As the weather becomes warm and leaves turn green, we will unleash bloody attacks on the U.S.-led foreign troops," Rahim told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.

"Our war preparations, especially in southern Afghanistan and in Helmand province, are complete and for this our 10,000 fighters are ready to take up arms the moment they are ordered."

Ater attempts at conventional pitched battles failed last year, the Taliban are expected to return to more conventional guerrilla tactics against government forces and the roughly 45,000 foreign soldiers in the country.

A key tactic is expected to be suicide bombings, which rose dramatically last year, killing more than 200 people, but which still remain much rarer than in        Iraq. The Taliban say they have 2,000 suicide bombers ready and another 3,000 in training.

Rahim said the focus of attacks will be southern areas, where the Taliban was born.

Afghanistan's government says the militants are still sponsored by Pakistan, their main backer until September 11 attacks on the United States.

Islamabad concedes there is some border infiltration by the militants along the porous and largely lawless frontier, but denies supporting the rebels, who have ethnic roots on both sides of the British-drawn border. Pakistan says the insurgency is Afghanistan's problem.
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Al-Qaida releases video of Afghan attack
By JASPER MORTIMER, Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida posted a video Friday showing what it claimed to be an insurgent attack on U.S. and Afghan forces in        Afghanistan, in an apparent attempt to disparage American claims of winning the war against the Taliban.

The video argues that the Afghan people support the insurgents and assist their attacks on U.S.-Afghan forces, and it comes as the United States and Britain deploy more troops to the country after the worst year of insurgency-related violence since the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001.

The 24-minute video carries the logo of the al-Qaida media company, as-Sahab, and was posted on an Islamic Web site known for hosting extremist material. It was titled "Holocaust of the Americans in the land of Khorasan, the Islamic emirate: Capture of an American post, Arghandab." Khorasan refers to Afghanistan.

The tape begins with the deputy leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, ridiculing        President Bush's claim to have deprived al-Qaida of a safe haven in Afghanistan as a "barefaced lie."

Al-Zawahri, who speaks in Arabic with an English translation in subtitles, seems to be referring to Bush's speech on Jan. 10 when the president said that U.S. forces "took away al-Qaida's safe haven in Afghanistan — and we will not allow them to re-establish it in        Iraq."

With a narrator speaking in American-accented English, the tape shows video film of a purported attack on a military position in Arghandab, a district 100 miles northeast of the city of Kandahar.

The narrator, who sounds like the American al-Qaida member Adam Gadahn, claims that the position is "liberated" by the insurgents. The film does not show the insurgents capturing the target — a compound of mud-plastered buildings in a valley — during the nighttime battle. It only shows the insurgents walking through the compound in daylight.

"It is very likely that this base was voluntarily abandoned by coalition and Afghan forces, and that this (tape) is al-Qaida trying to capitalize on a coalition tactical retreat," said Evan Kohlman, an analyst at the U.S.-based globalterroralert.com.

The authenticity of the scenes shown could not be verified. When asked about the video, the district chief of Arghandab, Fazel Bari, told The Associated Press that the only recent clash in that area was last month when suspected Taliban militants ambushed a        NATO and Afghan force on the road between Arghandab and Qalat.

Bari said the NATO and Afghan troops suffered no casualties, but they detained one man after the battle, which ended with the Taliban retreating.

The video was first obtained by IntelCenter, a U.S. group that tracks extremist messages. IntelCenter said the tape represented a "significant step up" in al-Qaida's video marketing. It was more than twice as long as previous operational videos, and it was distributed in two versions — Arabic with English subtitles and another with an English voiceover.

An Afghan with a white beard and black turban tells the camera that local residents suffered under the foreign "devils."

"No one could leave his house, not even for absolutions and prayers. We couldn't even light a lamp at night ... The people are very happy about the coming of the Taliban," he says.

Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province which includes areas where many Taliban and al-Qaida militants fled after the 2001 war, claimed Friday that local populations are increasingly supporting the Taliban, frustrated by lack of influence in Kabul and insufficient economic aid.

"Today, they've reached the stage that a lot of the local population has started supporting the militant operations and it is developing into some sort of a nationalist movement, a resistance movement, sort of a liberation war against coalition forces," Aurakzai said at a news conference.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and some U.S. military officials have suggested that Pakistani security forces are secretly aiding militants crossing into Afghanistan to mount attacks.

Pakistani Pervez Musharraf has rejected the charge as "preposterous," pointing to the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani soldiers in operations against militants on its side of the mountainous frontier.

____

Associated Press writers Maggie Michael in Cairo; Noor Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan; and Stephen Graham in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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U.S.-led troops detain 6 in Afghan raids
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 16, 1:30 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led troops killed one suspected militant and detained six others, including one with alleged links to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in a string of raids in eastern        Afghanistan, the American military said Friday.

Troops from the U.S.-dominated coalition and Afghan soldiers detained two of the militants in a raid on Wednesday near the eastern city of Jalalabad, a coalition statement said.

The pair had "ties to suicide attacks and heroin production," the statement said. "At least one suspect is believed to have ties to reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and has been involved in anti-government and anti-coalition activities in southern and eastern Afghanistan."

It did not give their names or elaborate on the link to Omar.

Further south, coalition and Afghan troops killed a man and detained four other suspected militants "after they refused requests for peaceful surrender" during a raid in Paktika province on Wednesday, a separate statement said.

The man was shot and killed for "displaying a hostile intent toward the combined force," it said.

Raids in three eastern provinces also turned up three weapons and ammunition caches, containing rockets, mortars and 11 cases of anti-aircraft artillery rounds, the coalition said.

Afghanistan is bracing for a renewed fighting season as warmer weather melts snow in the mountains, making it easier for militants to move around.

Last year some 4,000 people died — mostly militants — in clashes with U.S. and other        NATO forces, particularly in Afghanistan's south and east. It was the worst bout of violence to rock the country since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in 2001.

The new violence and incidents came as        President Bush said that NATO allies need to supply more soldiers to Afghanistan and be willing to send them into the most dangerous areas.

"When our commanders on the ground say to our respective countries 'We need additional help,' our NATO countries must provide it," Bush said in a speech Thursday.

Officials in countries including Canada, Britain, the United States have been irked by the reluctance of some European allies to commit extra troops to the 35,500-strong NATO-led force, and in particular to allow their troops to be deployed in the dangerous south and east.

"Allies must lift restrictions on the forces they do provide so NATO commanders have the flexibility they need to defeat the enemy wherever the enemy may make a stand," Bush said.
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Afghanistan forgotten as U.S. focuses on Iraq
By Andrea Hopkins Fri Feb 16, 9:00 AM ET
WILMINGTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Brian Spurlock is in        Afghanistan with the U.S. Air Force but his wife, Eileen Brady, relies on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. rather than CNN for news of America's forgotten war.

Her reliance on Canada, which sent troops to Afghanistan but not to        Iraq, for news is testament to how much the Afghan war has faded next to the daily death toll in Iraq.

"That's how I get my daily news fix -- The (Toronto) Globe and Mail and the CBC," said Brady, a stay-at-home mother and sometimes journalist living in central Ohio.

While the U.S. public rallied behind the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the start of the Iraq war 17 months later quickly stole the spotlight -- and has kept it ever since.

"I think people believe the fighting's over in Afghanistan, that we're just hanging out there as some kind of noble presence," said Brady, 36.

Her husband is a nurse stationed at Bagram Air Base, treating the injured from all sides in the war. "When I tell people he's been deployed, they assume he's gone to Iraq."

While a grim death toll keeps Iraq in the news, Afghanistan is far from peaceful.

More than 4,000 people were killed in violence last year, the bloodiest since the Taliban was toppled in 2001.

On Thursday,        President Bush said the United States and        NATO would increase in troops in Afghanistan in preparation for an expected spring offensive from Taliban fighters.

"The situation has actually declined significantly," said Sean Kay, a security expert and professor of international relations at Ohio Wesleyan University. "Some of the combat in the south has been even more intensive than in Iraq."

Some 27,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, compared with 140,000 in Iraq. More than 350 U.S. troops have been killed, about a tenth of Iraq's 3,100 death toll. The civilian death toll has also been much higher in Iraq.

Kay said Afghanistan needs more than a return of media attention -- it needs money and troops, a big ask in a political climate where Bush plan to increase troops in Iraq is under attack from all sides.

"If you really want to make a case for a surge in military forces where it could make a difference, then the argument is actually much stronger for Afghanistan right now than Iraq," Kay said, dismissing recent small increases in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan as insignificant.

While some U.S. presidential candidates, including Democratic Sen.        Hillary Clinton, have argued against sending more troops to Iraq in part because it would siphon off military strength in Afghanistan, Kay is not optimistic that political focus can be shifted.

"It may be too late before any real action is taken," he said.

GLAD TO GO TO AFGHANISTAN
In 2005, with two wars on and troops being shipped off every day, Maj. William Ewing was waiting his turn to be deployed. He didn't lobby the Kentucky National Guard to send him to one war over another, but the father of three said he was happy when it wasn't Iraq.

"I was glad to be going to Afghanistan, but wrongly so. Americans tend to think ... that soldiers going to Afghanistan have it easier or better, or it's not as dangerous there," said Ewing, a Marine veteran of the 1991        Gulf War. "But I soon learned that was not the case."

Ewing, 39, spent a year from mid-2005 to 2006 teaching Afghan soldiers to use computers and improve communications. The base came under rocket attack, but Ewing was lucky and said no one he knew personally was killed.

Now back in Kentucky, Ewing said he doesn't feel like Americans are less supportive of the war in Afghanistan -- it's simply less noticed because it's a smaller deployment.

He gets his news about Afghanistan from military news services, after scrolling past stories about Iraq.

"At the bottom of the page there's always two or three stories about Afghanistan, after 10 or 15 on Iraq."

Back in Ohio, Brady exchanges regular e-mails with her husband and he phones most days to talk to their daughter Pearl, 4.

Husband and wife have pledged to be honest with each other about what they are facing: the attacks on his base, Pearl's grief at his absence. But Brady can't bring herself to tell him everything.

"I don't tell him: 'People don't even know we're in Afghanistan, honey.' I can't tell him that."
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Afghan leader in key Rome talks
Friday, 16 February 2007, 04:50 GMT BBC News
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to meet Italian PM Romano Prodi to discuss the fight against militant groups and drug traffickers in his country.

Italy has 2,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).

But Mr Prodi has resisted calls to increase the number of troops.

A BBC correspondent in Rome says Mr Prodi will reassure Mr Karzai that Italian troops will remain in Afghanistan until 2011.

But our correspondent says he is unlikely to agree at Friday's meeting in Rome to allow Italian soldiers to be moved south to Helmand province to support Nato troops in their fight against the resurgent Taleban.

Reluctance
The governor of southern Helmand province said this week up to 700 insurgents had crossed from Pakistan and were preparing to fight Nato.

The reluctance of Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Turkey to provide more troops in southern Afghanistan has frustrated those nations on the front lines.

Last week the Italian Foreign Minister Massimo d'Alema complained about an open letter that was signed by six Rome-based ambassadors, including the US and Britain, which urged Italy to stay in Afghanistan.


US President George W Bush has called on other Nato members to step up their battle against Afghanistan's Taleban.

There are currently around 33,000 troops from 37 nations in Afghanistan. Their objective is to strengthen the remit of the weak central government and provide the necessary levels of security for reconstruction to take place.

Separately, Afghan and US-led coalition forces arrested two suspected terrorists with ties to suicide attacks and heroin making during an operation late Wednesday near Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, a coalition statement said.

The statement said that at least one suspect is believed to have ties to reclusive Taleban leader Mullah Omar.
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AFGHANISTAN: PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI THANKS ITALY FOR SUPPORT
Rome, 16 Feb. (AKI) - The Afghan president Hamid Karzai has expressed his gratitude to Italy for its continued support to Afghanistan. Karzai was speaking at a conference in the Italian capital Rome on Friday on the role of women in Afghanistan with Italy's foreign minister Massimo D'Alema. Karzai said Afghanistan wished "to express gratitude to the people of Italy for being with us in the most difficult moments and for continuing to be with us today."

Karzai's visit comes after the Italian government recently agreed to extend funding for Italy's peacekeeping missing in Afghanistan by another year. This decision came after fierce criticism from the far-left members of Prodi's centre-left coalition government. The decision still has to be ratified by parliament in what will be seen as a key test for the government's foreign policy as Prodi has only a wafer-thin majority in parliament.

Italy currently has 1,938 soldiers in Afghanistan who are not involved in regular combat and operate mainly in western Afghanistan and east of the capital Kabul.

Karzai said that Afghanistan does remember Rome's help and support in the past and confirmed that the country is now working on "building a better and more secure future for [its] people".

Italy's foreign minister Massimo D'Alema stressed that Rome would continue to "do its part" in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, adding that this would include contributions both to the military plan and the civilian plan of reconstruction.

Rome is planning to host an international donors' conference on Afghanistan in May and foreign ministry officials have said that the conference will focus on justice, security, human rights and the country's battle against drug trafficking.

Speaking at the conference in Rome on Friday entitled "Afghanistan: Democracy, Justice and Development: the role of women", the Italian undersecretary of foreign affairs, Gianni Vernetti, said that Italy has a "long term commitment" to Afghanistan.

"They need more resources, more donors and the international community must be more present. They need more concrete action," he said.

The conference was attended by Afghan women including some members of the Afghan parliament. Karzai noted the successes that women have achieved in Afghanistan in the past five years after the rule of the hardline Taliban regime, in particular the fact that more than 20 percent of the parlimentarians are women.

The Afghanistan president is scheduled to meet his Italian counterpart Giorgio Napolitano and prime minister Romano Prodi later on Friday.
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AFGHANISTAN: LAWMAKERS CONCERNED ABOUT PAKISTAN'S PLAN TO MINE BORDER
Rome, 16 Feb. (AKI) - Female Afghan lawmakers meeting in a conference in the Italian capital Rome on Friday, have expressed serious concerns about Pakistan's proposal to mine it's border with Afghanistan in order to prevent militants from crossing the border. "Any instrument used in the fight against terrorism has to be based on international standards and today these standards require that landmines be eliminated from the world," Fawzia Koofi, the vice-president of the Wolesi Jirga, Afghanistan's lower house of parliament, told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"Any state that plants landmines on any territory represents a problem for humanity," said Koofi on the sidelines of the conference entitled ""Afghanistan: Democracy, Justice and Development: The Role of Women", organised by the Italian foreign ministry.

Koofi stressed that it was necessary for Pakistan and Afghanistan to reach concrete agreements on the issue and begin "talks between the democratically elected bodies such as the Afghan parliament and that of Pakistan."

"It is necessary to take into consideration the problems of the population and decide if this border should be recognised at an official level or less," she said referring to the Durand Line, which was demarcated as the border in 1893 by the British in order to divide the its then colony India from Afghanistan.

"As activists defending human rights, we condemn any decision that puts human lives in danger," said Hangama Awari, the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in an interview with AKI. "A mined border would represent a risk to many people and this is our main fear," she said.

"We are also worried about what will become of the ties between the population that live on either side of the Durand Line. There are families that live on both parts of the frontier and if the border is mined they will not be able to move freely," said Awari who added that she hoped that "our Pakistani friends will understand the situation."

For female Afghan parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai, however "the real problem is represented by the Pakistani policies with regards to Afghanistan" and the lack of "honesty" on the part of Islamabad.

"What's important is the will of the people," Barakzai told AKI.

Last December, when Islamabad announced its plan to mine the Pakistan-Afghan border under pressure from the international community which had asked Pakistan to do more to fight terrorism, the authorities in Kabul strongly condemned the idea to build a fence along the border and the lay landmines on the divide.

Afghan officials also called on the United Nations to block Pakistan's plans which Kabul said would not serve to conatin the activities of terrorist but simply divide the communities that live on either side of the Durand Line.

Pakistan's plan was condemned by the United Nations and various other international organisations that called it a "total violation of all the norms of human rights".
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Bush eulogises Musharraf role in war on terror
NEW YORK, Feb 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Reiterating that the Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf was a key to the success in war against terrorism in Afghanistan, US President George Bush said Thursday his administration would help him defeat terrorists and extremists operating inside Pakistan.

In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Bush said the United States was helping Musharraf equip Pakistani security forces that were patrolling the porous border with Afghanistan.

"Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters do hide in remote regions of Pakistan - this is wild country; this is wilder than the Wild West.  And these folks hide and recruit and launch attacks," Bush said adding that the US was funding construction of 100 border outposts and providing high-tech equipment to help Pakistani forces locate terrorists attempting to cross the border.

"We are also funding an air wing, with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, to give Pakistan better security and surveillance capabilities," he said.

Lauding the role of Musharraf in fight against terrorism and the key role played by him so far, Bush said: "People say, well, do you think President Musharraf really understands the threat of extremists in his midst?  I said, yes, I do.  You know how I know?  They've tried to kill him."

Referring to several assassination attempts on him by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Bush said Musharraf understands that extremists can destabilise countries on the border, or destabilise countries from which they launch their attacks.  "So he has launched what they call a frontier strategy, and that is to find and eliminate the extremists and deliver a better governance and economic opportunity," he said.

With the Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, having just returned from Islamabad, Bush said: "President Musharraf is going to better be able to deal with this problem.  Gates went out and visited with him recently, had a good response.  He's an ally in this war on terror and it's in our interest to support him in fighting the extremists."

Addressing the issue of cross-border terrorism and infiltration - one of the main concerns of Afghanistan - Bush referred to the efforts being done by him so that the two countries can work together.

"In the coming year, presidents Karzai and Musharraf will work to improve intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan and expand trade links between these two nations," he said.

Bush said: "The US will support them in these efforts and one way we can do so is by establishing Reconstruction Opportunity Zones on both sides of Pakistan -Afghanistan border to give residents the chance to export locally-made products to the United States duty-free."
Lalit K. Jha
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US to fund construction of 100 posts to check terrorists' movement at Pak-Afghan border
New Kerala - Feb 16 1:10 AM
Washington, Feb 16: US President George Bush has reportedly announced funding of the construction of around 100 security posts along the Pakistan-Afghan border, in a bid to provide Pakistan better access to this remote region and check the movement of terrorists through the porous border.

Bush said that the US was also providing Pakistan air support to help fight the terrorists operating in the tribal belt.

"We've given him high-tech equipment to help the Pakistani forces locate the terrorists attempting to cross the border. We're funding an air wing, with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, to give Pakistan better security, better swift response and better surveillance," the Dawn quoted Bush as saying.

Bush said that the part of US strategy was to "help Musharraf defeat the terrorists and extremists who operate inside of Pakistan and for that we're going to work Pakistan and Afghanistan to enhance cooperation to defeat what I would call a common enemy."

Speaking at Washington's conservative American Enterprise Institute, the US President expressed strong support for his Pakistani counterpart, saying: "People say, well, do you think President Musharraf really understands the threat of extremists in his midst? I said, yes, I do. You know how I know? They've tried to kill him," he said.

"Al Qaeda has launched attacks against the President of this country. He understands. He also understands that extremists can destabilise countries on the border, or destabilise countries from which they launch their attacks. And so he's launched what they call a frontier strategy and that is, to find and eliminate the extremists and deliver a better governance and economic opportunity," Bush said and added that with the US' support Musharraf was going to better be able to now deal with this problem.

The US President further said that during his recent visit to Pakistan his defence secretary received "a good response" from President Musharraf, "an ally in this war on terror and it's in our interest to support him in fighting the extremists".

Recalling the dinner he had hosted for Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai on Sept 28, Bush said that on the occasion he had urged the two leaders to put aside their differences and "strategise together" on ways to defeat the common enemy of terrorism.
--- ANI
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Afghanistan's proxy war
The Boston Globe By Xenia Dormandy | February 16, 2007
THE PAPERS ARE full of the slow demise of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are to blame; no, the Afghans; no, the United States. America didn't do enough or did too much. NATO isn't stepping up to the plate, or is it the Germans, or the French people. Is it the Taliban, Al Qaeda , or Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence that is pulling the strings? Is President Karzai powerless, or is he boosting the warlords, or is he a puppet for Americans , or all three? The blame is widespread.

But a large part of the problem is being missed. There's talk about the U S -Pakistan-Afghanistan tripartite, but it's the wrong one. The focus should be on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle.

In the 1980 s and early 1990 s, Afghanistan was a proxy battleground for the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. One could argue that America was the winner in that battle (the Soviet Union and Afghanistan certainly weren't), except that US actions then created the threat from the Taliban today. There were no winners.

America and the Soviet Union brought two other neighbors into that Cold War fight: Pakistan and India. India stood by the Soviet Union as it quietly did in many other areas. Pakistan and its intelligence service became the middleman between the United States and the mujahedeen (later to form the Taliban).

When Soviet forces pulled out in 1989, Pakistan continued to support the rebels; India supported the forces that years later became the North Alliance. Now, 15 years later , the battle over influence in Afghanistan has not stopped. India is working on hearts and minds, opening consulates and providing over $750 million in infrastructure and training support, while Pakistan is trying to bridge the hostility existing since the Afghan and Pakistan governments ended up on different sides. And so the proxy war continues with a different cast.

There is more to this unacknowledged war than merely emotion and history. As long as India and Pakistan remain hostile to each other , Afghanistan is strategically important to both. It is vital to Pakistan that it not have unfriendly powers on both its east (India) and west (Afghanistan) borders, just as from India's perspective, Afghanistan would provide a good strategic high-ground to squeeze Pakistan. Economically, too, Afghanistan holds great promise. The United States last year tied Afghanistan and Pakistan together through the creation of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones along their mutual border which would get American tax exemptions. Afghanistan also is the l inch pin of the trade routes and energy pipelines to Central Asia. So, if the United States is going to reverse this sad decline in Afghanistan, it will need the support of both India and Pakistan. These two great nations should learn from past mistakes -- fighting over Afghanistan is not the solution. The costs are too great for all parties. The United States and Afghanistan need to find ways to invest both nations in helping to make this country a success; they clearly need all the help they can get.

This is going to require a fundamental change in attitudes in both the Indian and Pakistani governments. But there are some concrete efforts that could start the process.

First and foremost, a quadrilateral group composed of India, Pakistan, the United States, and Afghanistan should be created (in addition to the ongoing tripartite group that excludes India). This would put both India and Pakistan in a position where they would need to engage together on solutions to Afghanistan's problems.

Second, Pakistan should start to allow Indian goods to travel over land through Pakistan to Afghanistan, significantly reducing the costs of much of the assistance that India currently provides. Third, the four countries should put more effort into renewing the long-discussed pipeline through the three nations, providing much needed energy to the region and an alternative to the Iranian pipeline. Eventually, India, Pakistan, and the United States shouldconsider a joint Provisional Reconstruction Team in the northwest of Afghanistan, away from the Pakistan border. All these efforts are going to be hard and long in coming. But, unless a way to mitigate the underlying Pakistan-India tension in Afghanistan is found , this country will continue to be a battleground for this largely unspoken war. What's more, the benefits of building cooperation and trust in Afghanistan will help address the wider India-Pakistan conflict and enhance security across the region.

Xenia Dormandy is executive director for research at the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She was previously director for South Asia at the National Security Council.
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AFGHANISTAN: Maternal mortality in northeastern Afghanistan among worst in world
KABUL, 16 February (IRIN) - Sangima watched her sister-in-law Mastbegeen die trying to give birth to her seventh child. The baby was born prematurely and there was excessive bleeding during labour. There were no doctors or trained midwives near her village in the northeastern Afghan province of Badakshan to help so her family had to watch her life ebb away; the child did not survive either.

Such is the reality in many remote villages of the Wakhan corridor in Badakshan, where there is little or no access to healthcare. In this rugged area in the Pamir Mountains it takes between four and six days on horse-back or by yak to reach the nearest medical facility, provided bad weather has not blocked the roads.

Abdul Haq, a resident of Big Pamir village, also endured his 29-year-old wife dying during delivery. "We don't have clinics, schools or [government] offices here. Who do we go to with our problems?" he asked.

"When women or children get sick there are two ways [here]. Either Allah makes them well or they die," he said. Haq expects to remain a widower. The area is sparsely populated and there are not enough women to marry.

Ilyas Bai is another widower in the Small Pamir village. His 20-year-old wife died six years ago giving birth to their first child. "We do not have doctors and medicines. We cannot take the patients to other places. When it snows no one can move around," he said.

With 6,500 maternal deaths per every 100,000 live births, Badakshan province has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

"Badakshan province has been identified as the worst anywhere in terms of maternal mortality," said Abdul Momin Jalali of the public health provincial department in Badakshan.

The reason, says Hajera Zia Baharestani, a gynaecologist with the Faizabad maternity hospital, is a combination of a "lack of awareness, lack of access to healthcare clinics and lack of doctors and midwives in the health centres".

According to a recent study by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), only 3.3 percent of the women in the area had given birth in a medical facility. Many of the locals interviewed by IRIN said the women gave birth by the river bank during the summer and in the animal sheds during the winter.

As in many parts of the country, women are expected to do all domestic chores right up to childbirth. Even where there is access to health services, these are often inadequate or overburdened. "Building clinics is not enough," said Baharestani. "What is needed [more] are trained doctors and midwives."

Women in the area are more likely to face problems arising from poor nutrition, lack of dietary supplements and a high fertility rate. The widespread practice of child marriage contributes to the high mortality. More than 40 percent of women in Badakshan are married before the age of 15, according to UNFPA.

While Badakshan fares the worst, the situation throughout Afghanistan remains dismal. UNICEF officials in Kabul say that Afghanistan has the second-highest maternal mortality rates in the world - 1,600 per 100,000 live births - after Sierra Leone.

am/mp/at/ar/mw

Facts:

Every 28 minutes a woman dies in Afghanistan during childbirth.
54 percent of Afghan children are born stunted.
The fertility rate in Afghanistan is the world's second highest at 7.5 children per woman, according to UNDP's 2006 Human Development Report.
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Afghans remember civil war massacre and call for justice
KABUL (AFP) - About 200 people gathered to remember one of the worst massacres of        Afghanistan's 1992-1996 civil war, calling for justice days after parliament voted for an amnesty for war crimes.

Speakers at the tearful ceremony in the Afshar neighbourhood in west Kabul recalled the killings, rapes and abductions in 1993 when factions from Pashtun and Tajik ethnic groups attacked a Hazara community.

Hundreds of people -- up to 300, according to the        United Nations -- were killed when militia, including those loyal to current parliamentarian Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, attacked the village in the middle of the night.

More, including boys and girls, were raped, abducted and tortured.

Weeping villagers at the ceremony called on the authorities to try those responsible, including those in top government jobs.

"I can never forgive those people. I want them to be tried," said 55-year-old mason Mohammad Hassan, who said he had lost eight members of his extended family and most of his possessions.

Another villager, 28-year-old Hebatullah, said he had been taken hostage for several weeks at the age of 14 and was only released when his family paid a bribe.

Asked about a possible amnesty for those responsible, he told AFP: "It is not acceptable for us who have suffered. I want them to be tried and to pay for killing people."

The warlord-filled lower house of parliament late last month approved a draft bill that would rule out court action against the many men accused of rights abuses during Afghanistan's 25 years of conflict, including the civil war.

The bill prompted widespread criticism and officials said it was unlikely to get past President Hamid Karzai, who would have to give his approval for it to become law.

Afghan and international rights groups have been calling for a South African-style truth and reconciliation process that would see perpetrators of abuse face their victims and be held accountable.

Karzai's government formally adopted in December a five-year plan on reconciliation that includes the establishment of a justice and accountability mechanism.

The civil war, which followed the Afghans defeat of Soviet occupiers, ruined once-beautiful Kabul and left up to 80,000 people dead.

It ended with the 1996 takeover by the extremist Taliban, responsible for its own atrocities, who were expelled in a US-led raid in 2001 and now wage a vicious insurgency.
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Afghanistan: Winning or losing?
By Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent, BBC News website Wednesday, 14 February 2007, 20:26 GMT
Sharp disagreements over the conduct of the war against the Taleban in Afghanistan emerged at a seminar in London timed to coincide with a visit to Britain by the Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

An international think-tank, the Senlis Council, called for major changes in tactics, including the licensing of poppy growing, to be used for medicines.

The British Medical Association also advocated such a policy recently.

But a senior strategist on counter-terrorism in the US government said that both the strategy and the current counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan were correct.

'Reality check needed'

Criticism of the anti-Taleban campaign came in a 187-page document from the Senlis Council, whose subtitle "Losing Friends and Making Enemies" summed up what its researchers have concluded.

The lead researcher (and president and founder of the Council) Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer, told the meeting: "We are winning the battle but losing the war."

She said that the international community had reached the "tipping point" in Afghanistan. "The military has done an excellent job but, despite our good intentions, our policies are having a negative effect."

She said that Nato, which is leading the fighting, needed a "reality check and a frank assessment".

"The international community has failed to convince local people, especially in the south, that it is there to help them," she claimed.

She castigated the failure to provide decent hospitals in the main towns of Kandahar and Lashkar Gah, even though civilians were being wounded by Nato bombings. Both cities were in Taleban sights for their expected spring offensive.

She attacked the current counter-narcotics policy, which relies in part on eradication of the poppy fields.

Noting that the United States already manufactured morphine and codeine from poppies grown under license in Turkey and India, she called for a similar approach in Afghanistan.

Otherwise, she warned, the Taleban would gain in support.

"Our policies are failing President Karzai."

'Toughest enemy'

After this onslaught, the audience at the International Institute for Strategic Studies might have expected a defensive display from Dr David Kilcullen, Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism at the US State Department.

A former Lt Colonel in the Australian army, Dr Kilcullen has become influential in counter-insurgency thinking.

He presented a very different view of Afghanistan.

"The fundamentals, the bones of the situation, in Afghanistan are quite sound," he said.

"Challenges remain and will have to be tackled but the prospect for success remains good."

He said that the Taleban offensive of last year had failed. It had a narrow base of appeal and most Afghans supported the Karzai government.

He conceded that the Taleban were "the toughest enemy anywhere and I have seen the enemy up close. They are professional as a military force and also as a subversive force."

He also rejected the suggestion that opium production should be licensed.

A "hearts and minds" strategy, he said, did not mean that you simply had to be nice to the civilian population.

"You have to persuade their hearts that it is in their interest that you win but their minds that you will win. Gratitude does not work in Afghanistan. You have got to get them to make a choice.

"The Taleban has a political strategy of defending the poppy fields, in order to detach the people from the government and we have to counter that."

It was at times difficult to accept that the speakers were talking of the same country but Dr Kilcullen declared to a sceptical questioner: "I am not painting a rosy picture but simply the facts."

The main address of the day came from a senior British military figure who has had close knowledge of the situation in Afghanistan.

He spoke off the record so cannot be directly quoted but it would be fair to say that he, too, expressed some optimism about the future and seemed somewhat irritated that the media did not always share this.

However he also cautioned against over-optimism and pointed to a gap in Nato troop deployment along the Afghan side of the frontier with Pakistan, which allowed the Taleban to come and go.

The meeting gave a glimpse of the issues being discussed at about the same time by President Karzai with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

More than five years after the war that removed the Taleban from power, they have again become a force to be reckoned with.
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PM says Afghanistan aid will help overall mission
Fri. Feb. 16 2007 12:23 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Prime Minister Stephen Harper applauded the opening of an aid centre Friday that will focus on sending medical supplies to Afghanistan -- a move that he says will help the overall mission.

The Health Partners International of Canada (HPIC) distribution centre plans to send up to $4 million worth of supplies to Afghanistan by the end of 2007.

"This place is far more than a state-of-the-art warehouse," said Harper. "These pallets, stacked with pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, represent better health and hope for tens of thousands of people in the developing world."

Harper said providing basic health services to the Afghan people will help to gain their support.

"Our soldiers made great progress last year in securing large sections of Kandahar province," said Harper. "This year to consolidate those gains we'll need to move ahead with reconstruction, humanitarian assistance and development in those areas."

Canadian Forces, diplomats and development officers are currently involved in more than 100 rebuilding projects in the Kandahar region, said Harper.

Harper also reaffirmed Canada's commitment to success in Afghanistan as military brass anticipate a renewed spring and summer offensive in Kandahar.

Also serving as a reminder of the danger, a new al Qaeda video surfaced Friday on the Internet, claiming to show an insurgent offensive on U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.

The video, which begins with the deputy leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, claims the people of Afghanistan support the insurgents.

The HPIC
The HPIC helps deliver medical aid to people in 116 countries.

The Canadian humanitarian organization sent its first shipment of medical aid in 1990 and has provided more than $210 million (wholesale value) in donated medicines, vaccines, medical supplies and devices.

The organization partners with Canadian companies and individuals from across the country to provide medical aid.

"(The) smaller donors, the small businesses, church congregations, community groups and individuals. They may not have as much to give, but the ocean of suffering in the developing world has touched their hearts, so they give what they can," Harper said of the effort.

Harper will remain in Toronto and will attend a Chinese New Year festival later this evening.
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Bolster the Afghan National Army
Haroun Mir  February 16, 2007 International Herald Tribune
KABUL: Media coverage of the fighting in Afghanistan fuels perceptions in the West that NATO forces are facing an eventual debacle, but in reality the situation on the ground is not quite so grim. Indeed, the war against the Taliban is winnable, provided NATO reconsiders its current military strategy and grooms the Afghan National Army to take over the fight.

Compared to the past three decades of continuous conflicts, Afghans are better off today. Most people here recognize that fact. They broadly support the presence of NATO and do not view the American and European troops as an occupying force.

Still, the country's future remains uncertain, partly because of the failure of the United States and its allies to set realistic priorities for Afghanistan's long-term stability following the ouster of its Taliban rulers in 2001.

One of the gravest mistakes made at that time was the decision to build only a small and relatively weak Afghan National Army. Because of their presumed loyalty to warlords rather than the new Karzai government, many veteran fighters with extensive experience in battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda were ousted from their units.

Now, more than five years after the Taliban's initial defeat, the Karzai government and NATO are feeling the effects of that mistake. The Afghan National Army, which should have been able to stand up to the Taliban, numbers only between 30,000 and 35,000 men. Many are young and inexperienced, compared to the Taliban veterans. Their units are not equipped with heavy arms; they are forced to rely on NATO for air and artillery support.

Today in Opinion
 Indonesia's avian flu holdout The pain of U.S. autoworkers Soldiers' emotional illsMoreover, the United States, Britain and their NATO allies have overlooked the main source for the long-lasting problems in Afghanistan — they have underestimated foreign support for the insurgents. The Taliban and their allies enjoy three advantages that help sustain their guerrilla operations: Their Pakistan bases can't be targeted by coalition forces, they have access to logistical and armament supplies, and they have nearly unlimited recruitment sources in the madrassas of Pakistan.

It is not difficult to turn a religious student into a religious fighter, capable of using light weapons. It takes only a few weeks and does not require special instructors. Handling improvised explosive devices and preparing for suicide attacks, however, does require extensive training. In Pakistan, Al Qaeda runs secret workshops to instruct more advanced recruits in how to use explosives with remote controls.

Since it is difficult to attack the Taliban leadership or their training camps and terrorist workshops inside Pakistan, NATO aims at targeting low- level guerrillas in Afghanistan, which has only a limited impact on the guerrillas' long-term fighting capacity.

The Taliban and their foreign allies understand that the West cannot commit its forces indefinitely because Western public support will only diminish. The Taliban know that once NATO forces leave the country, they can easily overwhelm the Afghan Army, if it remains in its current, weakened state. Because of this, many Afghans who support the Kabul government in principle are afraid to do so openly, knowing that they might have to switch allegiance at a moment's notice in order to survive.

The Soviet invasion showed that religiously motivated guerrillas will not succumb to military pressure alone. Many observers argue that, in order to win, NATO needs to increase pressure on the military government of Pakistan — one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid — to disrupt support for the Taliban. But along with this policy, the allies must empower the Afghan National Army to take up the burden of defending Afghanistan. Using only a fraction of NATO's multibillion dollar budget for its forces in Afghanistan, the alliance could staff the ANA with experienced fighters.

Taliban guerrillas would lose some of their motivation if they were to face an Afghan Army rather than NATO forces. Moreover, fighters sitting on the ideological fence might be convinced to join the Afghan Army if they thought it more likely to win — and if the pay were better. Afghan soldiers earn about $70 a month, less than of what Taliban fighters get. Compare that to the $4,000 it costs NATO daily to keep one soldier in Afghanistan.

If the West is willing to make the investment, a secular, well-equipped Afghan National Army, based on the Turkish model, might be molded into becoming the guardian of democracy in this volatile region of the world.

Haroun Mir was an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's former defense minister. He is now an analyst for SIG & Partners, Afghanistan.
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Russia’s soldiers hear eerie echo in news of U.S. and Afghanistan
By MATTHEW SCHOFIELD McClatchy Newspapers Fri, Feb. 16, 2007
MOSCOW — Eighteen years after the Soviet army pulled out of Afghanistan in a humiliating defeat that hastened the collapse of an empire, many soldiers who fought there believe they’re seeing history repeat itself.

The United States — then the force behind the Afghan resistance — now appears trapped in a similar downward spiral in Iraq, besieged by a collection of forces not unlike those it trained and equipped to cripple the Soviets two decades ago.

For many, the similarities go beyond the symbolic. Retired Capt. Vladimir Vshivtsev was blinded by an improvised roadside bomb 20 years ago in Afghanistan. He shudders every time he hears about a U.S. soldier killed or wounded by a similar device in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said.

“They’re fighting the same war again,” he said. “Sure, the political stuff is different, but the military result is going to be the same: failure.”

The political reasons for the two invasions were as different as the governments that launched them. The United States went to war in Iraq ostensibly to disarm a dictator of suspected weapons of mass destruction, then set its goal as establishing democracy. Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union mounted its invasion in 1979 ostensibly to save communism in a place where it had never taken root.

But Russian soldiers, officers and experts point to many parallels. The Soviets also arrived to flowers and smiles, fought with a similar sized force (by the mid-1980s) of about 120,000 men and lost about 1,300 dead each year. They arrived a superpower, full of hubris, and departed humbled. Their political leaders never really understood the war.

The Soviet invasion also resonates today because of its unintended consequences. The United States and Saudi Arabia funded the Afghan resistance as means to curb Soviet expansionism, and volunteer fighters flocked to the scene from around the Islamic world. One volunteer, Osama bin Laden, stayed to found al Qaida and declare his own jihad, this time against the United States and Saudi Arabia.

For the Soviets, Afghanistan was a total disaster. It remained a dirty secret for over a decade and still isn’t mentioned in polite conversation. The first Russian feature movie dealing with the experience came out only last year.

Alexander Konovalov, head of the Institute of Strategic Assessments, a Moscow-based military research center, said the Soviets were trying to spread socialism, the United States, democracy. But both arrived in losing situations, facing popular uprisings that grew with support from the Muslim world. And both confronted people used to fighting foreign occupiers. Afghanistan had never been conquered, and Iraq was an unnatural state, a remnant of colonial England.

For former Soviet soldiers, the U.S. war in Afghanistan evokes memories of the geography and the battles, Konovalov said, but most agree that Iraq is to the United States what Afghanistan was to the Soviet Union.

Retired Gen. Victor Yermakov headed the Soviet 40th army’s efforts around Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in the mid-1980s. He can’t decide whether to shake his head or scream when he hears talk about how to improve the situation in Iraq and how to control Afghanistan, he said.

“All the future holds for American forces there are dead soldiers, and they will die for nothing,” he said. “There is nothing positive to be accomplished in Iraq. My advice is simple: Leave. Leave now.”

He cited the U.S. offensives in Tora Bora as an example.

“I was very impressed by the Americans,” he said. “Gaining control of Tora Bora is a great accomplishment. I should know. I did it three times.”

He shook his head ruefully, then added: “Unfortunately, the second I turned my back on the place, I needed to conquer it again. It is the same now. It will never change.”

Still, he said, “every nation believes it is more clever than those who came before.”

Alexander Golts, who covered the Soviet-Afghan war as a journalist, said the war was clearly a failure from early on, but Soviet leadership insisted on portraying it first as a minor operation and later as a struggle that ultimately would bring peace and prosperity.

In villages throughout the Soviet Union at the time, “mystery coffins” would arrive, containing soldiers who kept dying in a reportedly peaceful area. Soviet leaders tried to direct attention away from the coffins. Golts said Soviet leadership prohibited reporting on the war.

“A general stopped me one day to say, ‘I read that our soldiers are doing nothing here but building schools and planting trees, so please explain, how do my boys keep dying?’” Golts said.

Capt. Vshivtsev recalled a conference he attended in Prague a few years back, where he bumped into a Czech Republic soldier who’d recently returned from Afghanistan, where he’d fought as part of the NATO coalition force. As they swapped war stories, he said he soon forgot they were talking about different wars and different armies. They’d walked the same ground, fought the same enemy, faced the same threats.

Today, when Vshivtsev hears President Bush say progress is being made and success is possible, it reminds him of Soviet statements from that time.

“The longer the conflict goes on, the more established become the methods for recruiting new fighters, the routes for smuggling weapons,” Vshivtsev said. “The enemy will only get better and better over time, their weapons more and more advanced. By now, the chance for victory — which was never good — has certainly passed.”
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Govt asked to put off privatisation process
Makia Monir 
KABUL, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The lower house of parliament on Wednesday voted to put off privatisation of the state-owned enterprises till the approval of the relevant law from the House.

The decision was taken during the session after majority of the members voted in favour of postponement of the privatisation process for the time being.

Speaker of the House Younus Qanuni said that law regarding privatisation of the state-owned enterprises had been forwarded to the parliament for approval. He said the government should wait till the approval of the law from the parliament.

The MPs presented the issue for discussion in the backdrop of the recent announcement by the Finance Ministry regarding privatisation of more than 50 state-owned enterprises.

During the debate, some members voice concern over the privatisation process and said it would further increase unemployment in the country and harm the interests of employees of the target units.
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Kidnapping of women on the rise in Takhar
Abdul Matin Sarfaraz 
TALUQAN, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Gangs of women traffickers were operative in the northern province of Takhar, officials said on Wednesday.

Members of the gang, mostly women, first kidnap women and then use them in drug trafficking, said Razm Ara Hawash, head of the women affairs department in the province.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, she said members of the network dupe simple women through false promises of handsome earnings and then forced them into drug trafficking.

She said they had received reports about abduction of many women in this way. The drug mafia use them for trafficking of narcotics to the neighboring Tajikistan, she informed.

A mother of seven was recently kidnapped by two female members of the gang from her house, said Hawosh. She said husband of the beguiled woman Ghulam Hassan had reported the incident to the women affairs department.

After coming to know about the incident, Hawosh said they had informed the local police to search and arrest the gang, but nothing had been done so far. She demanded of the law-enforcement agencies to recover the kidnapped women and arrest the people involved in the crime.
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34m saplings to be planted this year
Zainab Mohammadi 
KABUL, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): More than 34 million saplings would be planted during the spring tree plantation campaign across the country, officials said on Wednesday.

Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation Obaidullah Ramin told a news conference here the government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the public would take part in the tree plantation drive, scheduled to begin next month.

Ramin said the saplings included 22 million fruit-bearing and seven million non-fruit-bearing trees, which would be planted at specific locations all over the country.

In addition, five million more trees would be planted by farmers independently at the beginning of the spring season commencing from March. The minister said the countrywide drive would be kicked off two weeks ahead of the beginning of the new Afghan year.

He said 35 million trees had been planted across the country over the previous two years, while the number had been increased to 34 million during the current year. The saplings had been produced domestically and not imported from abroad, he informed.

Decades of war and civil strife had destroyed greenery in most parts of the country. However, the government, with the help and cooperation of NGOs and other partners, had launched concerted efforts over the previous few years to grow more trees in the country.
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Dutch Defence Minister visits Uruzgan
KANDAHAR CITY, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kamp on Wednesday visited the southern Uruzgan province to meet his country's troops stationed there as part of the NATO's counter-insurgency operations.

He was accompanied by a delegation of the Defence Ministry to Uruzgan, where he promised construction of a police training centre and launching of several other reconstruction projects.

Kamp also attended a meeting participated by provincial officials, members of the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) and tribal elders.

Gul Qayum Qayumi, spokesman for Uruzgan governor, told Pajhwok Afghan News provincial officials informed the visiting dignitary about the problems faced by them. They also demanded increase in salaries of police officials.

Addressing the meeting, chief of the ulema shura in Uruzgan Maulvi Hamdullah asked for more reconstruction projects for the province.

The minister, in his speech, assured that his country would soon start work on construction of a training centre for police in Tirinkot, capital of the province.

He said besides other reconstruction projects, his country would also provide financial assistance for construction of the road linking the provincial capital of Tirinkot with Chora district.

The Dutch minister had arrived in Kabul on Tuesday. He was decorated with Ghazi Mohammad Akbar Khan medal during a ceremony.

Holland has contributed 2,200 troops for the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. The Dutch forces are presently stationed in the southern province of Uruzgan.
Saeed Zabuli
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Afghan general says Canadian who shot convoy driver should be punished
Thu Feb 15, 3:00 PM By Murray Brewster
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - A Canadian soldier who opened fire on an Afghan National Army convoy wounding a military driver should face some kind of discipline in his own country, a senior Afghan commander said Thursday.

Lt.-Gen. Rahmatullah Raoufi said he understood the mistakes that led up to the incident, which has increased strain between the allies since it happened east of Kandahar on Monday.

The 23-year-old Afghan officer driving the lead vehicle missed the warning sign demanding that he stop, the general said. The Afghan vehicle was peppered with a blast of 7.62-millimetre machine-gun fire from the turret of a Canadian RG-31 Nyala vehicle.

"The incident was a mistake," Raoufi, the commander of all Afghan forces in the south, said in an interview with The Canadian Press through a translator.

"(But) the Canadian who shot our man must be punished according to Canadian army law."

The Canadians have apologized three times, he said.

There was some confusion about the wounds the man received. The adjutant at the Afghan army hospital where the soldier was first treated said Monday the victim was hit in the arm and leg and suffered a series of cuts from flying glass. But the Canadian army, who gave him further treatment at the Kandahar Airfield hospital, described the injuries on Tuesday as less serious, saying doctors only operated on a leg wound.

The injured officer, Lt. Abdul Hadi, was reported in stable condition Thursday and seemed well enough to be taken outside for some late morning sun.

Raoufi said he was pleased and grateful for the medical treatment Hadi was receiving at the NATO base.

A series of unintentional civilian shootings over the last year has increased tension between Canadian troops and the Afghan population, who have taken to complaining openly about the violence.

Just after sunrise Monday, a convoy of Afghan army pickup trucks - the primary means of transportation for this emerging military force - approached a security cordon around a disabled Canadian Nyala.

The line of vehicles was waved through an initial checkpoint by a Canadian light armoured vehicle crew but came under fire when it approached the inner defensive perimeter.

Raoufi said Hadi, who as an officer was not a regular driver, mistook some hand signals as he tried to pass around the cordon.

A spokesman for the Canadian Forces would not comment on where the investigation stands.

"We're in the middle of an ongoing investigation and hopefully that investigation will bring to light what happened," said Lt. (Navy) John Nethercott.

"At this point, I'm not allowed to talk about anything to do with the investigation. There is a process that has to be followed."

Nethercott did confirm the Canadian soldier involved in the shooting remains on duty and was new to the theatre and convoy duty. At the moment, soldiers from the 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment are being replaced with fresh troops from Atlantic Canada.

Meanwhile, a village shura - or meeting - in neighbouring Helmand province, involving NATO and Afghan army forces and village elders in Haji Amin Kalay, was hit with extremist mortar fire. One woman was killed and her child suffered shrapnel wounds.

The village is located west of the town of Garmsir.

NATO and Afghan troops immediately started to evacuate the village and returned fire, said an alliance statement.

The child and his father were evacuated to the nearest NATO medical facility for treatment. The child's condition was not immediately known.

"Once again, this demonstrates the complete disregard the enemy has for lives of local people," said Lt.-Col. Rory Bruce, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand.
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