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February 28, 2007 


Afghan beheaded for being "U.S. spy" in Pakistan
Wed Feb 28, 3:41 AM ET
TANK, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants in Pakistan beheaded an Afghan cleric they accused of spying for U.S. forces fighting insurgents in  Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday.

The murdered cleric, Akhtar Usmani, 30, had spoken out against militancy in a Pakistani region on the Afghan border where some analysts say the government has virtually handed power to pro-Taliban militants.

Usmani was found dumped beside a road in the South Waziristan region, a hotbed of Islamist support to the west of the town of Tank, on Tuesday evening.

"The body was in a big bag while his head was placed nearby in the open," said the region's deputy administrator, Amin Akbar Khan.

A note found with the body accused Usmani of spying for the Americans, said another official who declined to be identified.

Pro-Taliban militants said Usmani was a prayer leader in a mosque in North Waziristan and who had criticized militancy.

"He recorded several cassettes in which he criticized us and the Taliban," a militant said by telephone. He declined to comment when asked who had killed Usmani.

Militants in North and South Waziristan have killed dozens of people they accused of being Pakistani government supporters or U.S. spies.

Many Taliban and al Qaeda militants fled to Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal lands from Afghanistan after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.

Pakistani forces tried to clear out foreign militants and subdue their Pakistani allies after 2001 and hundreds of people were killed. But the government later signed peace deals aimed at ending the fighting and stopping raids into Afghanistan.

Critics say the deals have given the militants free rein and led to the "Talibanisation" of a region that has become a haven for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The government of President Pervez Musharraf, a major ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, defends the deals and dismisses concern about Talibanisation.
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Taliban launch violent purge
Insurgents blame paid informants for increasingly accurate NATO strikes
GRAEME SMITH - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Taliban fighters say they have executed dozens of suspected informants, as they hunt for the spies who helped NATO target several of their leaders in recent weeks.
Air strikes in the past three months have killed at least three major Taliban commanders in southern Afghanistan, and the insurgents say they're facing an increasingly active infiltration campaign by Western agents.

In a videotaped interview from a hideout in Sangin district of Helmand province, a Taliban commander was asked to explain NATO's recent success at finding the movement's leadership.

"This year they put many spies in our groups, give them lots of money, so they find our bosses," said the young commander, who said he joined the insurgency four years ago. He covered his face, sitting cross-legged in what appeared to be a storehouse for weapons: Kalashnikovs, belt-fed machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

"We have arrested about 60 or 70 spies, and we killed many of them," he told the Globe and Mail researcher who conducted the interview. Other insurgents in Sangin said the executions, mostly by hanging, have reached such a frantic pace that 17 suspected spies were killed in the previous week alone.

One suspect was paraded in front of the camera with his arms tightly bound behind his back and a blindfold covering most of his face. The Taliban accused him of trading information about the insurgents for the equivalent of $3,800. The man denied the allegations. His captors said his fate would be decided by a Taliban shura, or council of elders.

Details of the Taliban's purge are hard to verify, because the insurgents are notorious for spreading false information about their inner workings, and NATO does not discuss its covert operations.

But villagers across Helmand province say they've noticed the result of the insurgents' concern about spies, as bodies of the condemned have been hung from trees.

Muslim custom requires a quick burial after death, but the Taliban told the families of the executed men to leave them hanging for up to three days, as a warning to others who might work for the foreign troops.
Although patrolled by NATO troops, Taliban insurgents control much of Helmand province and operate unchecked in wide swaths of the territory.

One of the latest stories circulating among Taliban fighters in the province describes an elaborate counter-intelligence effort by the insurgents. As the story goes, Mullah Hanan, a commander of perhaps 100 Taliban near the town of Gereshk, was feeling increasingly worried about his safety.

One night in January, he grew suspicious that a spy might have infiltrated his band of fighters, so he decided to sleep in a compound some distance from the main group. He picked five trusted bodyguards to keep watch, and each of them were assigned shifts.

One man requested the final shift before daybreak, and in the predawn hours he sneaked away from his slumbering leader and used a satellite phone to mark his co-ordinates. Then he apparently made a phone call; shortly afterward, air strikes destroyed the mud house where Mr. Hanan was sleeping, along with the compound where most of his fighters spent the night.

According to the version of the tale repeated among the insurgents of Sangin, the treacherous bodyguard returned to Mr. Hanan's ruined compound two or three weeks later. He started chatting with a group of farm labourers nearby, probing for information about whether the Taliban commander had died in the fiery attack. They watched him continue along toward the charred blast site, and one labourer quietly followed him as he stood in the shade of a tree-lined irrigation canal near the ruins. The labourer overheard him speaking on a phone, telling somebody: "Mullah Hanan is dead, I'm looking at his destroyed home."

The Taliban always try to emphasize their popularity. And in their telling of this story, the farmers were outraged by the bodyguard's betrayal, so they tackled him and handed him over to the insurgents.
He was wearing a bulletproof vest under his traditional kameez (a long shirt) and carrying a satellite phone. With a promise of forgiveness from the insurgents, the bodyguard quickly named his intelligence handler, a landowner who ran a large poppy farm.

Like his subordinate, the landowner told the Taliban he would give them all his contacts if they would spare his life. They instructed him to visit a mosque and swear on a Koran that he would stop working against the insurgents. Then they told him to summon his contacts for a meeting that evening, and after a flurry of phone calls his sources had gathered at one of their regular safe houses.

The Taliban said they surrounded the house and captured them all. Despite the Taliban promises, none were spared. A shura was swiftly convened to condemn them all, and their bodies were displayed in several parts of the province, including Gereshk, Sangin and Musa Qala.

Before he was executed, the Taliban said, the bodyguard confessed to receiving $100,000 (U.S.) for the death of Mullah Hanan, and a $25,000 bonus for the foot soldiers killed in the same operation. The insurgents never found the money.
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British foreign minister says no one doing enough against Taliban
KABUL (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Wednesday that no one is doing enough to tackle a Taliban-led insurgency gripping  Afghanistan.

Beckett arrived in Kabul Tuesday just hours after US Vice President  Dick Cheney flew out following a visit marred by a suicide attack at Bagram Air Base outside the capital where he had spent the night.

At least 20 people including three foreigners were killed in the blast, according to the Afghan government.

"I would say in all sincerity that no one is doing enough to tackle the security problems," said Beckett, referring to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Britain, when asked if Islamabad was doing enough against rebels on its soil.

Beckett, who also said during a visit to Pakistan that Al-Qaeda and other terror groups must be tackled jointly, was addressing reporters after meeting President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.

"If we were doing enough then we would have had a great deal more success than we have had so far," she told reporters.

"It is very important for us to do more together and to cooperate together to tackle these problems because they cause such harm whether it be in Pakistan itself or in Afghanistan," she said.

Beckett and Karzai discussed the "war on terror" and British-backed counternarcotics efforts, a statement from Karzai's office said.

Karzai told the minister that drug money was "fueling terrorism" and said his government was committed to fighting the trade in opium. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium.

Karzai Tuesday welcomed Britain's pledge to contribute 1,400 more troops to the international effort to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist allies as a sign of "commitment to the stability of Afghanistan."

The extra forces will take the number of British troops in the  NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from 6,300 to 7,700.

Asked if the increase meant Britain felt there was a stronger Taliban threat, Beckett said "there is a slightly different approach than we had necessarily assumed from the Taliban."

Britain is also the second-largest aid donor to Afghanistan and has spent two billion dollars here since 2001, when the hardline Taliban government was toppled.

NATO commanders have been calling for more troops and equipment for the 35,000-strong force, with warnings of hard fighting this year even though the Taliban suffered heavy losses in 2006.

The extremist movement claimed responsibility for the Bagram suicide blast at an outer security gate manned by US soldiers checking Afghan labourers wanting to enter the facility.

There were conflicting reports of the death toll. The interior ministry said Wednesday 20 were dead, 16 of them Afghan workers. But the US-led coalition based at Bagram said two US nationals and a South Korean were killed, along with six civilians.

ISAF said Wednesday it had prior intelligence that bombing cells were operating near the base but it was unclear if the Taliban had planned Tuesday's bombing to coincide with Cheney's trip.

"We know for a fact that there has been recent intelligence to suggest that there was a threat of a bombing in the Bagram area," ISAF spokesman Colonel Tom Collins said at a weekly media briefing.

But he added: "It would be clearly wrong to say that we knew (in advance) about this attack."
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Afghanistan welcomes extra British troops as FM arrives
Tue Feb 27, 10:39 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett arrived in  Afghanistan Tuesday as President Hamid Karzai welcomed London's pledge to send 1,400 more troops ahead of an expected surge in Taliban unrest.

Beckett flew in from neighbouring Pakistan where she met with a provincial governor who engineered a controversial peace deal with militants that military officials in Afghanistan say has resulted in a spike in crossborder attacks.

She was to meet senior figures in the Afghan government, including Karzai, over the next few days, a foreign office spokesman travelling with her said.

"The purpose of the visit is to underline United Kingdom commitment to Afghanistan in 2007 across the board," he said.

Talks would cover the "next steps, including reinforcement of the UK civilian effort in Afghanistan working on reconstruction and counternarcotics."

Defence Secretary Des Browne said in London Monday that Britain had "no alternative" to bolstering its forces in Afghanistan, despite suffering a growing death toll since spearheading a  NATO push into the volatile south last year.

The extra forces, which will take the total number of British troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from 6,300 to 7,700, will mostly be deployed to troubled Helmand province, where the Taliban has waged a tenacious insurgency.

Karzai said the move was a sign of Britain's "commitment to the stability of Afghanistan," according to a statement from his office.

NATO, which has been calling for reinforcements amid warnings of possible intense fighting this year, also welcomed the extra troops.

They would "help provide the ISAF commander the capability and flexibility that allows his forces to accomplish the tasks NATO has assigned," alliance commander US General Bantz Craddock said in a statement.

In Pakistan, Beckett met Tuesday with Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, the governor of North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

Aurakzai in September engineered a peace deal with pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan, evoking suspicions from Kabul and the commanders of international forces battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Beckett ruled out negotiations with the Taliban.

"I have no inclination to hold dialogue with people with such aims, goals and such intentions," she said when asked after a speech at a diplomats' college in Islamabad if Britain was ready to hold talks with the insurgents.
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NATO: Intelligence suggested bomb threat
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Intelligence reports indicated that the Taliban had the ability to carry out suicide attacks near the main U.S. base in  Afghanistan even before a bloody bombing during a visit by Vice President  Dick Cheney,  NATO said Wednesday.
 
Col. Tom Collins, the top spokesman for NATO's force in Afghanistan, said suicide bomb cells were present in the capital, Kabul, just 30 miles south of Bagram Air Base.

"We know for a fact that there has been recent intelligence to suggest that there was the threat of a bombing in the Bagram area," Collins told reporters. "It's clear that there are suicide bomber cells operating in this country. There are some in the city of Kabul."

Tuesday's bombing killed 23 people, including two Americans, outside Bagram while Cheney was meeting with officials inside. The Taliban claimed the attack was aimed at Cheney, but officials said it posed no real threat to the vice president.

The attacker never tried to penetrate even the first of several U.S.-manned security checkpoints at Bagram, instead detonating his explosives among a group of Afghan workers outside the base.

"The Taliban's claims that they were going after the vice president were absurd," Collins said.

Collins said it was unclear whether the Taliban had really known of Cheney's visit, or if the timing of the attack was a coincidence. The last suicide bombing at Bagram was in June 2006, when an attack aimed at a U.S. convoy wounded two Afghans near a market area outside the base.

U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann said he did not believe the Taliban had responded to Cheney's presence, given that he arrived on Monday and only stayed the night because bad weather forced him to postpone a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"I just have not seen the ability to react that quickly, to grab your handy-dandy latest suicide candidate, who is usually not your brightest fellow around, and get him mobilized and get him up to the gate," Neumann said. "It strains credulity for me."

He said Cheney "could have been in New York for all the threat" the bomb posed.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said a preliminary investigation suggested the bomber was a foreigner. But Collins said there was "not much left" of the man to assess and that there were not yet any indications he was non-Afghan.
___
Associated Press reporter Fisnik Abrashi contributed to this report.
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Afghan blast toll rises to 20: government
Wed Feb 28, 1:28 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Twenty people, including four foreigners, were killed in a suicide blast outside a US base being visited by US Vice President  Dick Cheney, the Afghan government said Wednesday, updating a previous toll.

"Our final reports are stating 20 people are killed," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP about Tuesday's blast at the Bagram base, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Kabul.

"Sixteen are civilian workers. Four are foreign people -- it is not clear if they are all soldiers."

Local media reports said the casualties may include Pakistani truck drivers who had vehicles awaiting security clearance to enter the base.

The US-led coalition, which is headquartered at the Bagram base, said that two US nationals and a South Korean national were killed in the blast. It said Wednesday that six Afghan civilians also died.

An AFP reporter at the site saw 11 bodies brought out in coffins, body bags and makeshift stretchers.

Bashary could not explain the discrepancy in the death tolls, saying his information was based on reports from provincial police.

Seventeen people were treated for injuries, he added.
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Afghan Bombing Sends a Danger Signal to U.S.
By DAVID E. SANGER The New York Times February 28, 2007 News Analysis
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — The audacity of a suicide-bomb attack on Tuesday at the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney underscores why President Bush sent him there — a deepening American concern that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent.

American officials insisted that the importance of the attack, by a single suicide bomber who blew himself up a mile away from where the vice president was staying, was primarily symbolic. It was more successful at grabbing headlines and filling television screens with a scene of carnage than at getting anywhere near Mr. Cheney.

But the strike nonetheless demonstrated that Al Qaeda and the Taliban appear stronger and more emboldened in the region than at any time since the American invasion of the country five years ago, and since the Bush administration claimed to have decimated much of their middle management. And it fed directly into the debate over who is to blame.

The leaders with whom Mr. Cheney met on his mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan have appeared increasingly incapable of controlling the chaos, and have pointed fingers at one another.

Mr. Cheney said the attack was a reminder that terrorists seek “to question the authority of the central government,” and argued that it underscored the need for a renewed American effort.

His critics, on the other hand, said the strike was another reminder of how Iraq had diverted the Bush administration from finishing the job in Afghanistan.

The blast Mr. Cheney said he heard from his quarters deep inside Bagram Air Base took a terrible toll. At least 23 people were killed, including an American soldier and an American contractor, along with a South Korean soldier.

About 20 Afghans died, including a 12-year-old boy. An additional two dozen or so were wounded.

By Tuesday evening, long after Mr. Cheney wrapped up his visit and headed home to the United States, it remained unclear whether the suicide bomber had known that Mr. Cheney was on the base at the time of the attack. One military official at United States Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan, said he strongly believed that the bomber was unaware of Mr. Cheney’s presence.

In Washington, American officials said their intelligence had detected no specific threat against Mr. Cheney, whose entry into Afghanistan had been kept secret after an equally clandestine visit to Pakistan on Monday.

But word of his presence in Afghanistan leaked out on Monday after a snowstorm delayed his meeting with President Hamid Karzai, and Mr. Cheney decided to stay at Bagram Air Base overnight. That fact was widely reported on Internet sites and on radio programs that have significant audiences in Afghanistan. It was possible that the attack outside the gate at Bagram was arranged quickly, or redirected to the air base from another target.

The attack, which occurred between the perimeter of the base and the first American checkpoint, occurred at 10 a.m. Tuesday. An administration official said an initial American review had found that the attack “doesn’t look, at first pass, like something that was carefully planned out.”

The bomber appeared to have made his way past an Afghan-guarded gate. But American military officials in Afghanistan said the suicide bomber detonated his weapon before he got to the first United States checkpoint, at a point where fuel trucks and vehicles carrying other goods park outside the gates to await inspection before being sent in.

Master Sergeant Chris Fletcher, a spokesman for the military operation in Afghanistan, said in a telephone interview that the bomber “did not penetrate the outer ring of security.”

That account suggested that the security around the base had kept the bloodshed of an Afghanistan under attack by both Taliban and Qaeda forces outside the high walls of the base, the hub of American military activity in the country.

But it also suggested a widening spiral of insecurity in Afghanistan, which had nearly 140 suicide bombings last year, including in Kabul, making the conflict and tactics here increasingly reminiscent of the chaotic struggle in Iraq.

Critics have charged that the Iraq war has precluded the United States from sending sufficient forces to Afghanistan. Concerned about a spring Taliban offensive, the United States has increased its force in Afghanistan to about 26,000. More than 20,000 troops from other NATO nations are also deployed there.

The scenes that Mr. Cheney flew over on his way in and out of Bagram — the devastation outside the gate and the bombed-out landscape of Kabul — was a reminder of how far the reality of Afghanistan is from the goals that President Bush set just short of five years ago, in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute. At the time, Mr. Bush repeatedly invoked the memory of Gen. George C. Marshall, the man behind the reconstruction that followed World War II, in expressing confidence that a “stable government” and a “national army” would help to achieve peace in Afghanistan.

But in testimony on Tuesday in front of the Senate armed services committee, the new director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, painted a grim picture of what he called a “pivotal year for Afghanistan,” in which the country’s leaders would have to “confront pervasive drug cultivation and trafficking, and, with NATO and the United States, arrest the resurgence of the Taliban.”

Mr. Cheney’s mission was to figure out how to bolster the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the NATO force, and to try to ease an openly hostile relationship between Mr. Karzai and another American ally, Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Mr. Karzai has argued that many of the attacks in Afghanistan have been launched from Pakistan. Mr. Musharraf has said Mr. Karzai is looking for a scapegoat.

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting.
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Spy chief pushes for action in Pakistan
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 28
More must be done to go after al-Qaida, which is trying to establish
training camps and other operations in some of Pakistan's most ungoverned territory, the new U.S. spy chief said Tuesday.

"It's something we're very worried about and very concerned about," Mike McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing on global threats.

McConnell said the U.S. believes al-Qaida's top two leaders — Osama
bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri — are hiding in the rugged frontiers
of northwestern Pakistan and are attempting to establish an operational base there. He noted that al-Qaida's camps are in an area that has never been governed by any state or outside power.

McConnell's push for action along the Afghan-Pakistani border echoed concerns raised by Vice President Dick Cheney during a face-to-face meeting Monday with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Cheney was accompanied by Deputy CIA Director Stephen Kappes — a sign that intelligence played a strong role in the case made to Musharraf.

Musharraf has insisted his forces have already "done the maximum" possible against extremists in their territory, and he said other allies also shoulder responsibility in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

But U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned about intelligence suggesting the Taliban and al-Qaida plan a spring offensive against allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

They are also worried about the autonomy of al-Qaida and Taliban operatives in Pakistan after the government signed a peace deal with the tribal leaders of the region, North Waziristan, in September.

In that agreement, tribal elders promised to respect the supremacy of the Pakistani government and curtail attacks in Afghanistan. In return, Musharraf gave back some of the tribes' weapons, released some prisoners and withdrew from posts inside North Waziristan.

At Tuesday's hearing, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the tribes have not abided by most of the agreement's terms. And McConnell said U.S. intelligence believes al-Qaida's training and related capabilities increased as a result of the deal.

Lawmakers were skeptical, too. "Long-term prospects for eliminating the Taliban threat appear dim so long as the sanctuary remains in Pakistan, and there are no encouraging signs that Pakistan is eliminating it," said Senate Armed
Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

In his first month as national intelligence director, McConnell said he's been briefed about al-Qaida's efforts to reconstitute itself in Pakistan's northwest frontier. He said the group does not have the thousands of fighters, training in multiple camps, as they did in Afghanistan before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. "That's gone," he said.

But McConnell said U.S. intelligence believes al-Qaida still has volunteers committed to carrying out "heinous attacks" akin to Sept. 11, 2001. And while three-quarters of al-Qaida's leaders have been taken out, they have been replaced by equally committed jihadists.

The upside: McConnell said the new generation doesn't have as much experience.
Pressuring al-Qaida is not without its risks for Musharraf, who faces an election this fall. McConnell acknowledged that efforts to pursue the terror group must be balanced with the desire to keep Musharraf — a moderate and a U.S. ally — in charge of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal.

The testimony from Maples and McConnell was part of the Senate panel's annual review of global threats, including the latest assessments on Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Touching on those hot spots, they said:

_Iraqi troops are taking the lead in securing parts of their country, but much work remains to improve the number and quality of those forces. "They are better today than they were a year ago, but they are still not where we need them to be," McConnell said.

Maples said two of the three brigades promised by Iraq have moved into Baghdad as part of the new security plan, but he acknowledged that those units have only 43 percent to 82 percent of their intended troops, according to ranges he has seen.

_On Iran, McConnell said that the regime could develop a nuclear weapon early in the next decade, but it will more likely take the country's scientists until 2015. But it's not clear whether the country will have a delivery system at the same time.

_Maples said the United States is seeing North Korea take initial steps to comply with the Feb. 13 agreement on its nuclear program, including inspection of its plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear facility. But there are other steps to which the U.S. will have to pay close attention, he said.

McConnell's top adviser on North Korea, Joseph DeTrani, said the U.S. continues to insist that North Korea declare all of its nuclear programs. But he backtracked a bit from a previous U.S. view of analysts, who had "high confidence" that North Korea was buying material for a uranium production program. Now, he said, the U.S. believes the program exists "at the midconfidence level."
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Pakistan and US back on diplomatic tightrope
by Stephen Collinson Wed Feb 28, 9:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Signs Al-Qaeda is regrouping and the Taliban plotting a new onslaught in  Afghanistan are menacing the always sensitive US-Pakistan anti-terror alliance with new strains and scrutiny.

Vice President  Dick Cheney's surprise visit to Pakistan Monday, underscored the delicate maintenance needed in the crucial tie-up forged as the smoke cleared from the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Washington, frustrated that Pakistan has been unable to flush out Al-Qaeda, and gearing up for a new battle with the Taliban, must factor in President Pervez Musharraf's delicate political perch as it applies pressure.

But Cheney's visit to Islamabad, and a flurry of recent statements and warnings floated in the media by the US government are a sign of growing concern, even though they are ritually couched in praise for Pakistan's role so far.

"Many of our most crucial interests intersect in Pakistan, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda maintain critical sanctuaries," new US intelligence czar Michael McConnell told a congressional hearing Tuesday.

"Pakistan is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qaeda leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday "a lot more needs to be done" to combat terrorist elements in Pakistan, though added Pakistan was committed to doing everything possible.

But given the intricate US-Pakistan relationship, top US officials reject the idea Washington is taking a hard, new tone with Musharraf.

"Let me just make one editorial comment here: I have seen some press reporting that says 'Cheney went in to beat him up, that's wrong,'" said a senior Bush administration official traveling with the vice president.

The official declined to detail Cheney's conversations with Musharraf, other than to note the Pakistani leader had already said a deal with tribal factions in North Waziristan region last September supposed to cut the flow of militants into Afghanistan, had not worked out as he hoped.

Washington last year had last year said the deal could work, if properly applied, but now believes its time is up.

"The tribes have not abided by most of the terms of the agreement," Lieutenant General Michael Maples, US Army Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told a congressional committee on Tuesday.

"Al-Qaeda's network may exploit the agreement for increased freedom of movement and operation," he said.

Frederic Grare, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace said Pakistan, which has paid a heavy price in blood for its operations in the region, may always have had a different view of the deal.

"It was never meant to be working anyway on the timeframe the US had in mind," he said. "The gap in expectations was there in the very beginning."

However, an alternative way to fight the Al-Qaeda buildup are not obvious, given political restrictions on US troops openly operating in Pakistan.

The extent to which extremism is burrowed into Pakistani society is also likely to accentuate problems.

Reported threats from the United States to withhold crucial aid to Pakistan without more action against extremists may also be inoperable.

"Relations with Pakistan just can't be a blunt instrument, there is a long history there in which we turned our back on Pakistan and people have long memories and they remember that," said James Carafano, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation which has close ties to the administration.

"On the other hand, this is a serious problem, it is not just a serious problem for Afghanistan, it is a serious problem for Pakistan."

According to an official Pakistani statement, Cheney expressed "apprehensions" to Musharraf about Al-Qaeda regrouping in Pakistan's tribal areas, and serious concerns about the possible Taliban offensive.

A week ago, tensions were set simmering when Islamabad dismissed as "absurd" US claims Al-Qaeda had set up new training camps in the remote tribal area.

A US official had earlier said compounds training 10 or 20 people at a time for possible attacks on the West had been detected over the past year in a semi-autonomous tribal area along the mountainous border with Afghanistan.

The compounds are "small," the US official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They are not like the big camps that they had seen in Afghanistan previously."
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U.S. spy chief says Al-Qaida's efforts to reconstitute in Pakistan must be stopped
The Associated Press Tuesday, February 27, 2007
WASHINGTON: More must be done to go after the al-Qaida network, which is trying to establish training camps and other operations in some of Pakistan's most uncontrolled territory, the new U.S. spy chief said Tuesday.

"It's something we're very worried about and very concerned about," Mike McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing on global threats.

McConnell said the U.S. believes al-Qaida's top two leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, are hiding in the rugged frontiers of northwestern Pakistan and are trying to establish an operational base there. He noted that al-Qaida's camps are in an area never governed by any state or outside power.

McConnell's push for action along the Afghan-Pakistani border echoed problems raised by Vice President Dick Cheney during a face-to-face meeting Monday with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Cheney was accompanied by Deputy CIA Director Stephen Kappes, a sign that intelligence played a strong role in the case made to Musharraf.

Musharraf has insisted his forces already have "done the maximum" possible against extremists in their territory, and he said other allies also shoulder responsibility in the U.S.-led war on terror.

U.S. officials have grown increasingly uneasy, however, about intelligence that suggests the Taliban militia, neighboring Afghanistan's former rulers, and al-Qaida plan a spring offensive in Afghanistan against allied forces.

They also worry about the autonomy of al-Qaida and Taliban operatives in Pakistan after the government signed a peace deal with tribal leaders of the region, North Waziristan, in September.

In that agreement, tribal elders promised to respect the supremacy of the Pakistani government and curtail attacks in Afghanistan. In return, Musharraf gave back some of the tribes' weapons, released some prisoners and withdrew from posts inside North Waziristan.

At Tuesday's hearing, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the tribes have not abided by most of the agreement's terms. McConnell said U.S. intelligence indicates that al-Qaida's training and related capabilities increased as a result of the deal.

Lawmakers were skeptical, too.

"Long-term prospects for eliminating the Taliban threat appear dim so long as the sanctuary remains in Pakistan, and there are no encouraging signs that Pakistan is eliminating it," said Senate Armed Services Committee's Democratic chairman, Carl Levin.

In his first month as national intelligence director, McConnell said he has been briefed about al-Qaida's efforts to reconstitute itself in Pakistan's northwest frontier.

He said the group does not have the thousands of fighters, training in multiple camps, as they did in Afghanistan before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. "That's gone," he said.

But McConnell said U.S. intelligence indicates that al-Qaida still has volunteers committed to carrying out "heinous attacks" akin to those on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Also, while three-quarters of al-Qaida's leaders have been taken out, they have been replaced by equally committed Islamic militants. The upside for the Americans: McConnell said the new generation does not have as much experience.

Pressuring al-Qaida is not without its risks for Musharraf, who faces an election this fall. McConnell acknowledged that efforts to pursue the terror group must be balanced with the desire to keep Musharraf, a moderate and a U.S. ally, in charge of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal.

The testimony from Maples and McConnell was part of the Senate panel's annual review of global threats, including the latest assessments on Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Touching on those hot spots, they said:

_Iraqi troops are taking the lead in securing parts of their country, but much work remains to improve the number and quality of those forces. "They are better today than they were a year ago, but they are still not where we need them to be," McConnell said.

Maples said two of the three brigades promised by Iraq have moved into Baghdad as part of the new security plan, but he acknowledged that those units have only 43 percent to 82 percent of their intended troops, according to ranges he has seen.

_On Iran, McConnell said its government could develop a nuclear weapon early in the next decade, but it probably would take the country's scientists until 2015. It is not clear whether the country could have a delivery system at the same time, he said.

_Maples said the United States is seeing North Korea take initial steps to comply with the Feb. 13 agreement on its nuclear program, including inspection of its plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear facility. But there are other steps to which the United States will have to pay close attention, he said.
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The Problem With Pakistan
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security The Washington Post / February 28, 2007
In the you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us paradigm, the Bush administration has always had a difficult time dealing with Pakistan, a country that just happens to be both with us and against us.

In testimony before the Senate yesterday, the new Director of National Intelligence retired Admiral John M. ("Mike") McConnell, was as careful as all U.S. officials, lauding Pakistan's "ongoing efforts," but also highlighting many of America's concerns and disappointments.

One can't help but read the annual "threat" assessment from the intelligence community and come to the conclusion that for all of the American honor involved in "victory" in Iraq, the real danger of terrorism, and the country with the greatest potential for a world-shattering implosion, is not Iraq or Afghanistan or even Iran: it is Pakistan.

Saying that 2007 will be a "pivotal year" for Afghanistan, as well as raising concerns that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leadership are rebuilding and that the Taliban is in resurgence, retired Vice Adm. McConnell, Director of National Intelligence for just a week, had some special words about Pakistan.

Any new attack on the United States, McConnell said, is "most likely" to emerge from Pakistan, which hosts the al Qaeda leadership and other international terrorists in the ungoverned northwest region, and which serves as the breeding ground for broader Islamic radicalism.

"Many of our most important interests intersect in Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qa'ida maintain critical sanctuaries," McConnell said in his written report. The country, McConnell said "is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qa'ida leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism."

The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, agreed with McConnell. In his written testimony to the same committee, Maples said that the "Afghanistan Pakistan border area remains a haven for al-Qaida's leadership and other extremists."

Maples said that despite a September 2006 accord between Islamabad and North Waziristan tribes to curtail attacks into Afghanistan, "the tribes have not abided by most terms of the agreement," leading to increased "freedom of movement and operation" for al-Qaeda's network.

Pakistan's internal inaction against terrorists and other militants, Maples and McConnell both agreed, also threaten stability in Afghanistan and India. "Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan are strained due to continued Taliban reliance on safe-haven in Pakistan," Maples said. "Pakistan-based militants continued attacks against India undermine Pakistan's ability to make lasting peace with its neighbor," he continued. McConnell spoke of the need to eliminate the "safehaven" that the Taliban and others have found in Pakistan's tribal areas, but he also bent over backwards to explain the country's failure to bring the region under central government control:

"We recognize that aggressive military action, however, has been costly for Pakistani security forces and appreciate concerns over the potential for sparking tribal rebellion and a backlash by sympathetic Islamic political parties. There is widespread opposition among these parties to the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. With elections expected later this year, the situation will become even more challenging--for President Musharraf and for the US."

Democracy in Pakistan, McConnell also said, "has not been fully restored since the Army took power in 1999." It has, he meant to say, not been restored. Upcoming elections are not expected to change Musharraf's status: He will continue to be President and commander-in-chief and head of the Army and hold all of the actual power.

So, here is the American contradiction: Al-Qaeda is the greatest threat to the United States, at least according to the U.S. intelligence community and conventional wisdom. The terrorist organization is headquartered and lodged in northwest Pakistan, where it has virtual impunity. It operates within a country that has nuclear weapons and is labeled "a major source of Islamic extremism."

And yet the United States excuses and explains away a military dictatorship for eschewing a "costly" battle that might weaken it? Isn't the very core argument of the Bush administration in Iraq that we need to accept the cost and sacrifice -- no matter what -- in the name of our future security? But Pakistan doesn't? No wonder the Bush administration's worldview is so questionable.
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War-weary Afghans fear new offensive
By Saeed Ali Achakzai Wed Feb 28, 9:04 AM ET
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Steeling for a spring offensive, the Taliban said on Wednesday they had sent 1,000 suicide bombers to relatively quiet northern  Afghanistan, a day after a suicide blast targeted Vice President  Dick Cheney.

The United States and some  NATO nations, led by Britain, are pouring troops in to battle the offensive and to try to crush the insurgents in what analysts say is the crunch year for both sides after the bloodiest 12 months since the Taliban fell in 2001.

At least 23 people, including an American soldier and a South Korean serviceman, died in Tuesday's suicide car bombing at the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, Bagram, 60 km (40 miles) north of Kabul in an area that has seen little violence since 2001.

"We reacted in a very short span of time to attack the base," Taliban commander Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location on Wednesday.

"They would have launched a major guerrilla attack on the base as the Taliban are prepared for any sacrifice to kill such an important person and a big infidel."

Cheney was never in danger from the attack, which occurred just inside a perimeter gate, and was whisked to a bomb shelter immediately after the blast. He later went ahead with talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul before leaving for Oman.

MORE SUICIDE ATTACKS FEARED
Khan repeated earlier Taliban warnings the insurgents had 2,000 suicide bombers ready -- plus more than that in training -- but this time said 1,000 had been sent to northern Afghanistan, which has seen relatively little violence.

More than 4,000 people died in fighting last year, mostly in the Taliban's southern and eastern heartland, bordering Pakistan.

The Taliban say they will step up suicide bombings as part of their return to conventional guerrilla fighting after suffering heavy losses in pitched battles against NATO in 2006.

Almost unheard of in Afghanistan until 2005 when there were 21 suicide bombings, the number jumped to 139 last year as Afghan rebels copied tactics from  Iraq.

President George W. Bush said this month quashing the Taliban and restoring security in Afghanistan was vital to the United States' own security. He pledged 3,200 more troops and billions of dollars more for reconstruction and Afghan security forces.

Britain, whose foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, was in Kabul on Wednesday, pledged an extra 1,400 troops this week because other NATO nations refused.

Beckett said the extra British troops, which will soon outnumber London's deployment in Iraq, will help stability.

"I would say, in all sincerity, that none of us are doing enough to tackle the security problems," she told journalists.

"Because, if we were doing enough then we would have had a great deal more success than we have had so far."

She said more troops would help bring the security needed for reconstruction -- bringing water, power and healthcare to Afghans -- but some fear more foreign troops mean more fighting.

"This fighting has ruined us. We don't want them," 50-year-old beggar Shafia said in Spin Boldak near Pakistan.

"We lost our children and relatives. When the foreigners came, we thought they would bring peace and prosperity but now the situation is worse than before.

"The Taliban were good Muslims. They used to preach Islam and its laws, but now dacoits (bandits) and thieves are ruling.

"What use are these foreigners and their big tanks and planes when our children can't get enough food?"

But a 38-year-old shopkeeper in Zabul, who did not want to give his name, said more foreign troops were needed.

"It will definitely make a difference if troops also engage in reconstruction work instead of just fighting Taliban," he said.

"Afghan people are more interested in a resolution of their problems, not in fighting."
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Protecting Afghanistan's vital power source
By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Kabul Tuesday, 27 February 2007, 12:32 GMT
A union flag beats and cracks in the strong wind which races across the ridge, the air cold but the sun beating down on the British troops stationed high up on the outpost.

Mortar tubes are surrounded by sandbags and stacks of bombs wait in line on the observation post high over Helmand province.

Ankle-high string, decorated with small white bunting, distinguishes safe paths from minefields.

In the 1980s the Russian army held this ridge in Kajaki and as well as the mines, they also left behind a rusted field gun - a reminder of a different war, with a different army, fighting over the same piece of land.

The British forces had to fight hand-to-hand with the Taleban to win the beautiful view and the military advantage that comes with it.

On one side, where the mortars and guns are pointed, is the valley, flat and surprisingly green, the Taleban frontline just 3kms (two miles) or 4kms away.

And the other panoramic view is filled by a huge lake spreading out into the mountains - well-defined fingers of land that mark the shore are what is left of the hillsides flooded when the reservoir was built.

A 90-metre terraced dam pinches one end, and the glistening Helmand River snakes its way south to irrigate the prime agricultural land where the opium poppies are grown.

But the row of small and delicate pylons gives away why UK forces are here - this is not about water, it is about electricity - and the power to actually make a difference to Afghan people.

US-built

Two roaring jets of water plunge out of the hillside into the narrow gorge at the base of the dam.

A large concrete building perches on the edge of the tunnels, the overhead cables sharply heading up the cliff face and onto the ridge.

A plaque bearing the American eagle says it was built in 1975 - the hydro-electric power station was donated at a time when Cold War nations were pouring money into Afghanistan to buy support at the crossroads of Asia.

And working hard to keep it running is a determined man with a long beard, who has been here since the year after the turbines started turning.

Engineer Sayeed Rasul pointed to the huge gap between the two round power generators: "Turbine one needs repairs and turbine three is working well and when turbine two arrives we will be able to generate much more power," he said.

"We have only one power station in southern Afghanistan and that is Kajaki power station.

"When we have all three turbines working it will be a very big help for us and Afghanistan and our people."

It is estimated that almost two million more Afghans will get electricity when the project is complete.

Job creation

United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Chinese and American companies are doing the work, which involves new and bigger power transmission cables across Helmand and to Kandahar.

The British troops under Nato and Afghan forces are protecting it.

A road will have to be built to bring the turbine to its new home - thousands of jobs will be created in the local area over the two or three years of the project, but it cannot start until the area is secure.

And that is a major drawback for a development which is everything this international mission is supposed to be about.

Since the British forces secured the ridge that is exactly what they have been trying to do.

The Taleban have been pushed back a few kilometres - the Royal Marines now have bases in areas that were once insurgent-held territory.

Litmus test

This week, caves in a hill used recently as firing positions were dynamited to stop them being used again and the fight has moved into the villages out in the valley.

But it is guerrilla warfare and the developers are not even here at the moment as it is deemed too dangerous for them to stay, let alone work on the power station.

The Taleban know how significant the project's success would be - jobs for locals, electricity for southern Afghanistan.

They are likely to use all the insurgent tactics they can to stop it succeeding - the Kajaki Dam will be a good litmus test in the coming months of how the mission is going.
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New Zealand forces complain at US treatment of Afghan prisoners
Wed Feb 28, 2:06 AM ET
WELLINGTON (AFP) - New Zealand forces in Afghanistan were reported Wednesday to have complained about the treatment of prisoners they handed over to the United States.

The elite SAS soldiers were so concerned they called a meeting of other special forces in Kandahar, the New Zealand Herald quoted a Danish military source saying.

Denmark was among the countries that sent special forces to Afghanistan after the September 11 terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Centre and it was among the forces present at the meeting called by New Zealand soldiers.

The forces, also including Australia, Canada, Norway, Germany and Britain, were involved in "snatch-grabs" -- missions to round up terrorist suspects to hand over to the United States for detention and interrogation.

But New Zealand soldiers were said to be concerned that some of the detainees they handed over in 2002 had not been properly registered.

Instead of being identified, photographed and fingerprinted and having their weapons properly registered, they had their heads shaved, no photos or ID taken, and their belongings were thrown into a single pile, the report said.

New Zealand Defence Minister Phil Goff said he was not aware of such a meeting having taken place, although he would not necessarily hear about meetings at an operational level.

But he revealed that after the first deployment of the SAS to Afghanistan the former New Zealand Defence Force chief, Bruce Ferguson, negotiated a deal with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to follow up on any prisoners New Zealand forces helped to capture.

Goff said the New Zealand SAS had been involved in the capture of 50-70 prisoners.

They were held for no more than five hours before being handed over to the United States and Canada.

"We followed up to see what had happened to those people and to the best of our knowledge, none of those people are still in custody in the hands of US authorities."

Asked if the Red Cross agreement pointed to New Zealand being unhappy with the treatment of prisoners, Goff said: "We were uncomfortable with the fact that we didn't have a procedure whereby people could be immediately followed up on and that's why ... that arrangement was made with the ICRC."

Goff acknowledged there was some debate about whether detainees in those circumstances were prisoners of war or not.

New Zealand has had three deployments of SAS in Afghanistan, the last mission ened in 2005, and no new deployment was being considered.

Currently there are 116 New Zealand servicemen in Afghanistan's Bamyan province working on reconstruction projects.
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Afghan civilian shot by Canadian soldiers
The Globe & Mail February 27, 2007 MURRAY BREWSTER Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Frustrated by a spate of civilian shootings, Afghan National Police and the head of the local human-rights commission have recommended to Canadian commanders that military convoys be shepherded by local authorities.

The issue was brought sharply into focus again Tuesday when a civilian driver was gunned down as he approached a broken-down Canadian armoured vehicle. It is the fourth time this month that foreign troops have shot dead an Afghan bystander.

The shootings have put a strain on relations between Canadian soldiers and civilians, who are often caught in the crossfire or hit by wayward warning shots.

“I ask you: Why are civilians being shot?” said Abdul Quadar Noorzai, the regional program manager of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

“It would be better to let Afghan Army or Afghan police handle security on convoys. If they were to let the chief of police know when they are moving between places, it would be great.”

Kandahar police chief Asmatullah Alizai made the proposal in a meeting with Canadian military officers last Friday.

“It is an offer we are giving serious consideration to at this time,” Canadian army spokesman Major Dale MacEachern said Tuesday when asked about the proposal.

The proposal would require the Canadians to share convoy times and routes with Afghan authorities – something that makes the military nervous because of security concerns.

Major MacEachern said “operational security is definitely something we're going to be looking at” while evaluating the offer from the Afghan National Police.

The latest incident happened early Tuesday when an Afghan man driving a white Toyota – the kind favoured by suicide bombers – was shot and killed by soldiers who formed a security cordon around the broken-down armoured vehicle.

Major MacEachern said the driver failed to heed repeated warnings to stop and stay away.

The car apparently drove past one checkpoint manned by Afghan National Police.

“The driver then reportedly accelerated towards Canadian vehicles, which prompted the soldiers to fire on the vehicle, causing it to swerve into the ditch,” Major MacEachern told reporters at Kandahar Airfield.

Army medics attempted to treat the victim but he died a short time later.

No explosives were found in the vehicle.

Co-ordination among foreign troops, Afghan forces and civilians is not very good, Mr. Noorzai said in an interview Tuesday with The Canadian Press. He suggests this is one of reasons why there have been so many shootings.

While careful not to directly criticize Canadian troops who face the daily threat of bombers, Mr. Noorzai expressed frustration over the deadly shooting of civilians.

“Why can't they be shot in the leg?” he asked.

The Canadian army's rules of engagement allow for what is called escalation of force. Troops shout warnings, fire warning shots into the ground or in the air, and only when a person fails to heed the warnings are they allowed to aim at the person.

Earlier this month, an Afghan police officer and a homeless man were shot near the governor's palace after a Canadian convoy had come under fire. Days earlier, a man described by the army as deranged was shot in the village of Senjray on the outskirts of the city.

Two other non-fatal shootings, one of them involving an Afghan army officer, have happened since the beginning of the year.

Most of the shootings involved freshly arrived soldiers. All of the incidents are under investigation by Canadian military police and, in some cases, local authorities.

In 2006, there were five civilian shooting incidents, two of which resulted in deaths, according to figures provided last month by the army. Separately, last August, one Afghan police officer was killed and five others hurt when they sped toward a Canadian artillery position in an unmarked vehicle.

In a separate, unrelated incident Tuesday, a militant with explosives strapped to his chest blew himself up near along a crowded street, injuring three bystanders.

No Canadian troops were in the area.

Elsewhere on Monday, NATO troops fighting in Garmsir, Helmand province, mistakenly killed two civilians and wounded four others. The soldiers inadvertently dropped mortar rounds on the location.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rory Bruce, a NATO spokesman, said the alliance is deeply saddened by the news of the death of civilians.

The incident happened as troops engaged a Taliban position.
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Ruined poppy farmers join ranks with the Taleban
Tim Albone in Panjwayi and Claire Billet in Nad Ali The Times (UK) February 27, 2007
The tractor roared through the field, the plough tearing through the valuable poppy crop as the farmer looked on. A helicopter searched for insurgents and armed police stood watch, their uniforms replaced by robes and turbans to make them less conspicuous.

“The people are unhappy with this eradication campaign; if it goes on they will all join the Taleban,” Dilbar, a poppy farmer in Helmand province, told The Times.

The prospect of such a surge in Taleban numbers is bad news for the 5,000 British troops based in Helmand and 1,400 more heading there after the announcement by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary. The fiercest fighting since the Taleban were overthrown in 2001 came last year, with more than 4,000 people killed, and intelligence reports predict a new offensive this spring.

Poppy eradication is a double-edged sword. Afghanistan provides nine out of every ten grams of heroin sold on the streets of Britain, and officials are determined to stamp out poppy growth. Yet a successful campaign would leave many unemployed as potential recruits for the Taleban.

Afghans, ever the pragmatists, have devised their own solution. “We leave some fields without destroying the poppy so everyone is happy . . . otherwise they will go and support the Taleban,” said Aminullah, 21, a policeman with the eradication force in Helmand.

Although 90 per cent of Helmand’s arable land is turned over to poppy growth, only 550 hectares (1,400 acres) were destroyed in the first week of the campaign. With three months left until harvest the police know that they are fighting a losing battle.

Farmers take huge risks to grow poppy as the market price is 20 times that of wheat. But without aid they have little choice and when the crop is destroyed they are crippled by debt, often having borrowed heavily from landlords to plant the crop. Landlords make no concessions for eradicated crops and the farmers are still expected to pay off their loans.

Smugglers who take the drug out of Afghanistan are also rewarded handsomely for their trade. Very few, if any, smugglers or landlords have been punished, and in southern Afghanistan operate virtually beyond the law. “It will be impossible for us to eradicate the entire poppy. We will need months and months and the poppy will be ready for harvest in only three,” Aminullah said.

In Babaji, a village of mudwalled houses and winding dirt tracks five miles (8km) from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, eradication was meant to be in full swing.

“We are growing poppy because we don’t have any other options,” said Abdullah, a poppy farmer, as tractors ploughed part of his field. Over sweet green tea Abdullah, 35, had persuaded a member of the local shura, or council, to leave some crops. The shura member then spoke to the eradication agents and Abdullah’s most valuable crops were saved.

In the district of Panjwayi, in neighbouring Kandahar province, where Nato troops fought the largest antiTaleban battle last September, the agents are reluctant to leave poppy fields untouched.

In the village of Haji Habib police apologised to farmers as the tractors destroyed fields of poppy. “We started here because the village is a Taleban village,” Bismallah Jan, 35 a policeman, said. “But we still feel bad we are destroying their livelihoods.”
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Coalition Troops Kill 3 Suspected Taliban
(RFE/RL)
February 28, 2007 -- Coalition troops in Afghanistan have killed three suspected Taliban militants in a clash in southern Zabul Province.


District Governor Fazel Bari says the battle took place on February 27.

The fighting came after purported Taliban members claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on the same day on a U.S. air base during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

An Interior Ministry spokesman says 20 people were killed in the attack, including four foreigners.
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Prodi Defends Italy’s Involvement in Afghanistan
February 27, 2007 - By Voice of America  news
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi defended his government’s foreign policy on Tuesday, including its troop commitment in Afghanistan. In a wide-ranging speech to the upper house of parliament, Prodi tried to convince senators of the need for his government to survive. Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome

Less than a week after Prime Minister Prodi submitted his resignation, he addressed the upper house of parliament, stressing the need for the parties of his center-left coalition to respect the government’s common action.

The prime minister resigned last Wednesday after suffering an embarrassing defeat over foreign policy in the Senate, which included the government’s plan to keep Italian troops in Afghanistan. He was asked to remain in office and form a new government.

In his Tuesday evening address, Mr. Prodi defended Italy’s foreign policy and Rome’s troop commitment in Afghanistan, where 1,800 Italian troops are deployed. “The goal of Italy’s presence in Afghanistan,” he said, “is to consolidate the young democratic institutions in the country. Our soldiers in Afghanistan, like on all our missions, he added, bring a culture of dialogue and help, not of clashes.”

Mr. Prodi also said Italy is committed to maintain a channel of dialogue open with Iran. “It is true,” he said, “that the choices made by Tehran have created a very difficult situation with the international community, but we must do everything that is possible to avoid this from turning into a military confrontation.”

On the Middle East, Mr. Prodi said the Italian government would continue to make every effort to ensure that Israel and the Palestinians will live as two people in two states, capable of coexisting in peace and security side by side.

The prime minister also stressed that his government has sought to raise its profile in Europe while maintaining good relations with Washington.On the domestic front, Mr. Prodi pledged a reform of the electoral system, which has been blamed for contributing to political instability by giving too much influence to small parties. He also promised to help families and increase job security.

A vote of confidence in the government led by Mr. Prodi will be held in the senate late Wednesday. Center-left party leaders have said they are confident they will win this time after all coalition parties renewed their commitment to the government. All parties have signed a 12-point plan that the prime minister said would be “non-negotiable” and would serve as the government’s platform.

If Mr. Prodi wins the Senate vote, he will submit his government to a vote in the lower house, where he has comfortable majority. If he loses the confidence vote, the government will have to resign, sparking a political crisis that might lead to the formation of a broad-coalition government or to early elections.
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Prodi government fights for survival in Italian Senate vote
The Associated Press Tuesday, February 27, 2007
ROME: Italian Premier Romano Prodi fought for his political survival as he put his majority to the test in a make-or-break confidence vote in the Senate on Wednesday, a week after a defeat in the upper house led the government to step down.

Prodi — who was asked to stay on by the president following his resignation — faced a tough test as the upper chamber is almost evenly split between the ruling center-left and the conservative opposition, and any defections can swing the vote. The premier asked for the senators' support in a non-confrontational speech Tuesday afternoon meant to woo both Christian Democrats and far leftists in his fractious coalition.

Frantic counting of senators over the past days suggests Prodi will be able to survive the vote, and the premier himself has expressed optimism.

"The coalition has reached a strong, cohesive agreement," Prodi told the Senate shortly before the vote. "We have the firm intention of moving forward."

Coalition allies have put differences aside, at least momentarily, and have vowed to support the premier — largely to avert a return to power of their archenemy, conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi.

Boosting Prodi's chances, a centrist senator who is a former Berlusconi ally, an independent senator elected abroad and at least four of seven honorary senators appointed for life have also assured their support to the government.

If the government loses the vote of confidence, it has to resign, which could mean early elections just as opinion polls are showing that the conservatives would likely win.

But even if the government wins the vote, its long-term stability remains doubtful.

Prodi narrowly defeated Berlusconi in April elections, ousting the conservatives after five years in office. But between the Senate's minimal majority and a divided coalition behind him, the premier has had a hard time mustering the necessary support for key policies.

Last week, in the parliamentary defeat that led Prodi to resign, the Senate failed to endorse the government's guidelines in foreign policy, including its commitment to keep 1,800 Italian troops in Afghanistan. The defeat was blamed on defections from far leftists, as well as opposition by some life senators.

After two days of talks with political leaders following the government's resignation, the president asked Prodi to stay on and put his Cabinet to a new vote of confidence in parliament.

In a sign of continuing difficulties for Prodi, some coalition senators said that while they would support the government in the confidence vote, they maintained their opposition to the country's military presence in Afghanistan and would vote against an upcoming measure to refinance the mission there.

"The question that all Italians are asking themselves is always the same, and it is very direct: when and over what will the Prodi government fall again?" wrote moderate daily La Stampa.

A poll published Wednesday in the country's largest daily, Corriere della Sera, said that almost 40 percent of Italians thought the government would last only a few more months, even if it won the confidence vote. The poll by the ISPO institute had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

The government's five-year mandate expires in 2011.

Prodi's speech to the Senate on Tuesday reflected the fragility of his leadership. The premier acknowledged deep differences within his coalition and stayed away from controversial themes that have created tensions in the past.

"Poor soul, he couldn't do much more than that," said Berlusconi, commenting on the speech.

Earlier, Prodi had boiled down a 281-page electoral program to a 12-point plan that the premier said would be "nonnegotiable" and would serve as the government's new platform.

On Wednesday, the premier did touch upon a controversial theme, a government proposal to legalize unmarried couples. Prodi sought to smooth over tensions by saying that the government had "exhausted its duty" by proposing the legislation, and that it was now up to parliament to "draft a law on which there can be ample agreement."

Assuming Prodi survives in the Senate, he will face a confidence vote Friday in the Chamber of Deputies. The center-left's comfortable majority in the lower house means Prodi runs no risks there. Back to Top
Analysis: Germany debates Afghan security
By STEFAN NICOLA UPI Germany Correspondent
BERLIN, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- German lawmakers have debated for the first time the government's plans to send Tornado reconnaissance planes to Afghanistan, and many lawmakers voiced their opposition to the move.

Ahead of the parliamentary debate Wednesday, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told German television station ZDF he expected to receive "broad approval for this mission."

He said parliamentarians would realize that the forces on the ground needed better reconnaissance means, adding that the security situation had worsened. "It's a risky mission," he said.

The debate comes after the German government had decided to send eight Panavia Tornado reconnaissance planes (six in constant flying, with two back-up planes) and roughly 500 additional soldiers to Afghanistan to aid the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Yet before planes and troops are deployed in April, the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, has to sign off on the move. The government parties are expected to vote for the mission, which will cost Berlin an estimated $45 million. But opposition party members on Wednesday voiced criticism of the mission, mainly because they fear that reconstruction efforts may be suffering due to increasing military engagement in Afghanistan.

"The re-strengthening of the Taliban is not only to be explained by a lack in military force, but also because opium cultivation and the war economy with the warlords continue," Wolfgang Gerhardt, the senior foreign policy expert of the opposition Free Democrats, said Wednesday in Parliament. "If we only send Tornados, that isn't enough. The entire NATO has to understand that we have to take away their support with civil reconstruction efforts."

ISAF has been troubled recently after the Italian government stumbled over the opposition against its Afghanistan mission; several politicians in Italy want to bring their troops home.

While the Tornado planes -- also used by the British Royal Air Force in Iraq -- are able to carry laser-guided bombs and air-to-air missiles, the mandate explicitly cancels out German fighting missions. Yet the opposition fears German soldiers will be involved in the increasingly heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan, where the U.S.-led anti-terror mission Operation Enduring Freedom is battling the Taliban. The Tornados can also, however, support the anti-terror mission. That's why the opposition fears the Tornados will relay coordinates for potential bombing targets, thus involving itself in war actions, potentially killing civilians.

The government argues that better reconnaissance missions will prevent exactly those civilian casualties, as ISAF and Enduring Freedom know better where exactly to attack. The mission will protect civilians "but of course also our own soldiers and the members of the reconstruction teams in the north," Walter Kolbow, a senior foreign policy expert of the governing Social Democrats, Wednesday told German news channel n-tv.

Germany currently has around 3,000 soldiers stationed with ISAF, but they are confined to stay in relatively peaceful northern Afghanistan. Germany has led the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the north, and has been very successful in building up infrastructure, schools and other municipal institutions.

Nevertheless, Germany has in the past come under fire from NATO officials for confining their troops to the north while the death toll in the south is rising. In light of the expected spring offensive of the Taliban, the Tornados are a much-needed support for the U.S., Canadian, Dutch and other soldiers fighting in the south.

Observers say the German government is eager to prove to its allies that it wants to provide additional aid in Afghanistan. The deployment of reconnaissance planes is seen as a relatively safe way to do so, at least when it comes to human casualties. The German 'yes' to the NATO request, however, comes only six months after Berlin turned down a similar request; opposition politicians are now wondering what has changed the government's mind.

The Bundestag will decide on the mission next week, and even within the governing parties, there may be dissenting votes, observers say.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Wednesday's debate fished for support for the mission. He said the international community knew that bringing peace and security to Afghanistan needed "a long breath" and Germany now had to "pass that test of endurance and perseverance."

"Sending the Tornados is a sign of support for ISAF and NATO in doubtlessly harsh times in Afghanistan," Steinmeier said. "We owe this solidarity to (NATO)."
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Canada urged to stop complaints about Afghan burden
CanWest News Service - Wednesday, February 28, 2007
OTTAWA - Canadians should lose the notion their troops are the only ones bearing the brunt of violence in Afghanistan, say two of Canada's biggest players on the international stage.

The two diplomats delivered that message directly to politicians in Ottawa on Tuesday from the NDP, who have called for a troop withdrawal, and the Liberals, who want Canada to serve notice to NATO that it will end its Afghanistan combat operations in 2009.

"The idea that Canada is in the south alone is simply wrong. The idea that other countries are not contributing or increasing their contribution does not reflect the reality," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told the Commons defence committee, one of four public forums where he appeared Tuesday in Ottawa.

Appathurai credited Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff, for raising Canada's clout in NATO by calling on allies to commit more troops to Afghanistan, with fewer restrictions that would prevent them from front-line fighting in southern Afghanistan, where 2,500 Canadian Forces troops are based.

But Appathurai's remarks suggested Canada should stop complaining about whether some of its allies are pulling their weight because the number of troops in the south has mushroomed to 12,000 from 1,000 in the last 18 months.

"Canada is not bearing the burden alone when it comes to casualties," he added. "Over a dozen NATO countries have lost troops in significant numbers. I can tell you we have the flag down in front of NATO headquarters on a regular basis ... These sacrifices are being made by everybody and in all zones, in the north, the west, and the capital and the east and the south."

That remarkirritated NDPdefence critic Dawn Black. "I also have some trouble listening to you talk about the casualties other countries have suffered," she told Appathurai.

Chris Alexander, the UN's deputy special envoy to Afghanistan and Canada's first ambassador to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, challenged MPs to abandon suggestions that NATO countries should withdraw their troops.

The billions of dollars spent in the last five years assisting Afghanistan would "go up in smoke," while the very existence of NATO and the UN would be threatened if the West withdrew, he said.

"And most tragically, none of us around this table would be able to explain to the families of the 44 Canadians who have lost their lives in Afghanistan what the purpose of that sacrifice was," Alexander told the committee. Since 2002, 44 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan.

While neither Appathurai nor Alexander wanted to make specific recommendations on how long Canadian troops should stay in Afghanistan nor offered direct criticism of the NDP's calls for withdrawal, both stressed there would be a role for Canadian soldiers long after February 2009, the extent of Canada's current commitment.

Alexander drew parallels with the reconstruction of the Balkans, which is in its second decade. "If we are rushing for the exit, if we are trying to cut things short, if we are flagging in our commitment to achieving the objectives ... we will be giving comfort to the enemy of this transition and we will, quite frankly, be undermining the achievements and the efforts that are underway today," Alexander told the committee.

Later, Appathurai said the issue of "why" NATO is in Afghanistan is simply not up for debate. "There is no controversy in any serious discussion," he told a luncheon audience of diplomats, military and non-governmental organizations. "Anyone who calls that into question is not being serious."

Alexander said while Afghanistan remains desperately poor, its gross national product and annual per capita income have doubled in the last five years. The extension of health care to 85 per cent of the population and the fact that more than five million children were back in school were indicators of progress.

He said Canada's infusion of $200 million of extra aid spending represented "principled engagement and investment" that would set the bar higher for other countries.

Alexander made clear he was not sugar-coating the challenges that lie ahead, both in defeating the renewed insurgency and rebuilding a shattered country. "Until then, peace is still an elusive goal in Afghanistan."
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AFGHANISTAN: Gov’t steps up fight against bird
KABUL, 28 February 2007 (IRIN) - Chickens are a way of life for 36-year-old Abdul Gaffar. He sells live and slaughtered chickens along a busy street in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where hundreds of chickens, turkeys and pigeons are kept in portable coops by vendors like him.

“These are healthy home-chickens,” touted Gaffar as he defeathered a slaughtered chicken with his hands.

But along busy Pol-e-Khishti street chicken faeces, feathers and blood litter the roadside.

“I have been doing this job [selling and slaughtering chickens] for over five years,” said the owner of a dozen ill-looking chickens who scoffed at the possibility of bird flu breaking out.

On Saturday, the Afghan government confirmed four cases of the H5N1 virus in chickens in the two eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar, both bordering Pakistan.

“We vaccinate thousands of chickens every day in Jalalabad city,” said Dr Azizullah Usmani, director of Afghanistan’s Department of Animal Health and Production at the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).

In the quarantined areas of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, where the virus was detected, hundreds of domestic birds were culled by MAIL workers and in Usmani’s words “owners duly compensated”.

But mitigating the risks of a possible outbreak of bird flu in Afghanistan poses a challenge.

Although the importation of poultry products from Pakistan and other countries where bird flu has been confirmed has been banned, officials doubt the efficiency of the measure.

Infiltration of insurgents

“We cannot stop the infiltration of insurgents from Pakistan,” conceded Dr Abdullah Fahim, advisor to the health ministry, adding that “it is naïve to expect a ban on chickens and eggs to realistically work”.

Chickens and eggs play a crucial economic role among many poor rural families who keep scores of backyard flocks unregistered.

Poultry vaccinators have to knock on every door in a designated area and negotiate entry in order to respect tradition, particularly when the male head of household is away and women are home alone.

Despite these obvious problems, Afghan authorities have confidence in their ability to curb the spread of the virus.

“We started from scratch last year [2006],” Usmani said. “And now we have a well-equipped diagnostic laboratory, a sufficient budget and trained staff.”

The World Bank and other donors have pledged US $13 million to help Afghanistan fight avian influenza over the coming three years.

The package also covers an awareness campaign, informing the public of the risks , means of transmission and prevention of the disease, which was first confirmed in the country in March 2006.

No human case

To date, Afghanistan's health ministry reports that there has not been a single human case of bird flu in the country. This, despite media reports on Wednesday that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Kabul was waiting to test the blood samples of two men in Kunar suffering from bird flu symptoms.

Should those cases be confirmed, treatment is available. “In Kabul and some other major cities hospitals are supplied with the appropriate medicine to treat patients infected with bird flu,” said Fahim, adding that “although treatment is expensive, we can do it”.

According to the World Health Organization, the deadly H5N1 viral strain of bird flu poses two main risks for human health. The risk of direct infection when the virus passes from poultry to human, resulting in a very severe disease and possibly death, and the risk of – if the virus changes form – human to human infection.

Afghanistan is one of the least developed countries in the world. Around half of its estimated 25 million inhabitants live below the poverty line with less than US $2 a day.

When signs of illness appear in chickens, most Afghans slaughter them for consumption because of poverty.

For men like Abdul Gaffar who have no other means to provide for their families, "it’s no big deal" – virus or no virus – despite the risks.
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AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: Afghan refugees given repatriation extension
DUBAI, 28 February 2007 (IRIN) - A voluntary repatriation programme for thousands of Afghan refugees to return to their home country from Iran has been extended for another year following a meeting by the governments of Iran and Afghanistan and the United Nations refugees agency on Tuesday.

An accord has been extended until 19 March 2008, officials at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tehran told IRIN on Wednesday. The current Tripartite Agreement between Iran, Afghanistan and UNHCR, which has been governing the repatriation process, expires on 20 March 2007.

Hosting around 915,000 Afghan refugees and 54,000 Iraqi refugees, Iran has the second largest refugee population in the world after Pakistan. While the repatriation drive has been extended for another year, most Afghans in Iran are reluctant to return.

"Many Afghans have become rooted here [in Iran] and have been here for over 20 years," Dina Faramarzi, a spokeswoman for UNHCR Iran, told IRIN from Tehran. "They are worried about their future," Faramarzi said. "Many Afghans who I've spoken to say they will stay in Iran as long as they can."

UNCHR began its Afghan voluntary repatriation programme in 2002 following the ousting of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. More than 1.6 million Afghans have returned from Iran since April 2002, but the pace reduced significantly in 2006, with only around 5,000 returning.

The Iranian government has long been insisting that all Afghans should repatriate, arguing that the Taliban regime had been removed and the circumstances that forced the refugees to flee their country were no longer there.

Many of those who have already returned have told their relatives remaining in Iran about insecurity and poor living conditions in Afghanistan, the UNHCR official added.

"Most of them [Afghans] are worried that when they go back there will be no security, no health facilities, no accommodation for them. They don't know what their future in Afghanistan will be," Faramarzi said.

Afghans at home in Iran
Unlike in Pakistan, where Afghans mostly live in refugee camps, the majority of refugees in Iran are concentrated in urban areas dispersed throughout the country, with less than 5 percent living in camps. They have shelter and income opportunities. Their children go to Iranian schools and have access to health care.

Almost half of all Afghans in Iran are ethnic Hazaras, followed by Tajiks accounting for some 30 percent, UNHCR estimates. Both ethnic groups speak Dari, a Persian dialect spoken in Afghanistan, and the Hazaras are predominantly Shia - factors making their stay in Shia Iran easier, aid workers say. Tehran province hosts the largest proportion of Iran’s Afghan population - around 35 percent.

"We are hoping that the Afghan government and the Iranian government will find long-term solutions for the remaining Afghans," Faramarzi said.

At the 11th Tripartite Commission Meeting, held on 9 October 2006 in Geneva, the parties agreed that the days of mass return were over and innovative approaches were necessary to sustain the return momentum.

Coinciding with that, an agreement on joint projects was signed between the Iranian interior ministry and UNHCR. The projects are aimed at providing vocational training and educational and medical assistance to Afghan refugees in Iran.

"The idea is to teach Afghan refugees some skills that will enable them to generate income or be self-employed when they go back," Faramarzi said.

There have been reports of refugees who had repatriated to Afghanistan and then returned to Iran as labour migrants in search of jobs.

"Many of my friends who returned from Iran went back there to find work and provide for their families here in Afghanistan. Life is difficult here and there is not enough work, so you don't have any other choice than to go to Iran. It is as simple as that," Mohammad, an Afghan returnee in his 20s, told IRIN in Kabul.

According to UNHCR, there is a significant movement of people between Iran and Afghanistan, with most of those crossing the border being seasonal migrant workers.
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Afghanistan Lacks Capacity to Govern
Council on Foreign Relations, NY
Interviewee:  Said Jawad
Interviewer:  Robert McMahon, Deputy Editor
February 28, 2007
Afghan and NATO forces are bracing for a major springtime offensive from the Taliban, which they expect to be fueled by a flow of weapons and gunmen from Pakistan. Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Said T. Jawad, praised recent U.S. pressure on Pakistan to conduct a crackdown on insurgents based in its territory. But he expressed deep concern about lagging reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, calling for improvements in the way international aid is delivered and projects like the civil-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) are carried out. “Unless we enhance the capacity of the Afghan government to deliver services and provide protection,” Jawad says, “just the military operation alone will not be successful.”

Everybody expects a Taliban offensive this spring. We saw today with the attack during Vice President Cheney's visit the Taliban claiming involvement. How great is the concern in Afghanistan of a very intense Taliban campaign?

We anticipate the offensive, but there is not much concern about it. Because the Afghan security forces, NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], and the U.S. forces are ready to confront that danger. Afghan security forces are working closely with our NATO allies and the United States to increase our capacity to defend the Afghan people, and there's a better realization here in Washington about the magnitude of the problem. NATO has improved its performance in Afghanistan significantly.

At the same time, NATO is facing some challenges. There are divisions within NATO about the rules of engagement of some forces in combat. How concerned are you or Afghan officials about the military commitment of NATO nations?

Since NATO started taking a bigger role in Afghanistan, their performance as far as military fighting capability and political commitment is improving. Frankly, today it performs a lot better in Afghanistan than [it did] six months ago.

How are they improving?

They're improving their tactics. They've received better equipment. And also the number of NATO troops on the ground in Afghanistan has increased.

So the talk about a Taliban offensive is not as worrying as perhaps other challenges facing the country?

We have to be prepared for that challenge that's coming up. We are preparing for this offensive at different levels and on different fronts. First, we are working more closely with Pakistan to make sure the terrorists don't receive the logistical, military, and ideological support they are receiving right now. And we are improving the coordination between the Afghan security forces, NATO forces, and coalition forces. NATO also is acquiring better mobility to allow their limited number of troops to be more agile in response to the upcoming possible Taliban offensive.

You mentioned more engagement with Pakistan. Does that also include the border?

It is a big border, but the border is not where the problem is. We have the same kind of border with Iran, with Central Asian countries, with China. And we have a very small capability of defending along all our borders. So the problem is not so much the border but the existence and operation of the centers where the terrorists are acquiring training, financial support, ideological backing, and logistical support.

Do you think the visit of Vice President [Dick] Cheney will have a positive influence on the situation?

Certainly the visit of Cheney, [U.S. Defense] Secretary [Robert M.] Gates, and a number of high-ranking officials from NATO countries to Pakistan will help it further cooperate in the war against terror and also make sure that the upcoming possible Taliban offensive is not as intense as it could be.

When I was at the United Nations, I remember the Afghan ambassador there saying the problem in Afghanistan is a triangle: It's Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISI [Pakistani intelligence agency]. Is the triangle still there? Or has it weakened or changed location?

The military in Pakistan is a strong institution. They are a very capable institution. So we would like the military to truly deliver and be more cooperative in this fight. I don't want to comment on the internal mechanism of how the military or the intelligence agencies operate in Pakistan. But as a whole, we appreciate what President Musharraf is doing, and we think that unless we have the full and sincere cooperation of Pakistan, we will not have a stable Afghanistan, a secure region, and a safe world.

There's a new report (PDF) from CSIS on the situation in Afghanistan. It calls 2007 a “breaking point year.” And it touches on concerns that Afghans have expressed about not only security but issues such as the performance of the justice system, of delivering basic services, electricity. It also warns of a potential weakening of support for the central government. How concerned are you about reconstruction?

One reason for the security challenges that we're facing in Afghanistan is terrorism, but it's not that the terrorists or the Taliban are very strong. The fact is the Afghan government's capabilities to deliver services and to provide protection are limited. Unless we enhance the capacity of the Afghan government to deliver services and to provide protection, just the military operation alone will not be successful. We can push aside the Taliban from a province. Then they will go to the neighboring province or they will go across the border and then come back.

It's very important that the international community and the United States, our partner, invest in building the capacity of the Afghan government to hold the areas after they have been cleared of the presence of the terrorists. And also make sure there will be no frustration among ordinary Afghan citizens, because it's been five years since the international community came to Afghanistan, but still only 6 percent of Afghans have access to electricity. The Afghans are entitled and are demanding an improvement in their daily lives, in the form of better security, more roads, energy, schools, and health clinics. We hope that as part of the new [Bush administration proposed] package of financial assistance to Afghanistan in the amount of $11.8 billion, some of these concerns are addressed immediately. It's very important that we deliver assistance to the Afghan people and implement some of these reconstruction projects as soon as possible.

Afghan officials in the past have expressed frustration that money donated or contributed to reconstruction doesn't really reach Afghan hands. Is that process improving?

From the entire financial assistance that's been given to Afghanistan, only 5 percent has been given to the Afghan government. Twelve percent of the funds have been given to the Afghan reconstruction trust fund established for Afghanistan. And we can withdraw money under certain conditions. The remaining 82 or 83 percent of the assistance has been spent outside the budget and control of the Afghan government. This is a problem. First, there is a waste in the way the money has been spent in Afghanistan, like many other places. Second, while we are building a political system in Afghanistan by encouraging the Afghan people to participate in that process—86 percent of Afghans participated in electing their president, we have a parliament in place in Afghanistan—yet at the same time, the government and the parliament have not been given the financial resources to address the needs of the Afghan people. The people are saying, “We have played our part, we've played our role. You've asked us to participate in the political process, we did. But we don't see visible improvement in our daily life.”

And so who do you approach then? Do you approach the United Nations, the World Bank, individual governments, the biggest donors—Japan, the United States—to try to cut through that and improve those percentages that you mentioned?

We are dealing with each donor separately. The funding mechanism also has to do with constitutional and legal requirements of the donor countries and communities. So that's why we have to address them individually. Some of the countries and some of the institutions are more flexible as far as recognizing our priorities and being responsive to our needs. Some others, because of the legal requirements or the history of the country, would not provide assistance to the government. Since we're doing state building in Afghanistan, we have to build the capacity of the Afghan government. An argument that's always being made says: “Well, we cannot give the money to the government because the government does not have the capacity.”

Capacity is a commodity on the market, like anything else. Whoever has resources will buy that capacity. So if you don't give adequate resources to the government in Afghanistan or anywhere, other institutions, like NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] or private companies, will take away the limited capacity that exists on behalf of the government. For instance, if you're paying forty-five to sixty dollars in Afghanistan to a university professor, if he leaves his job, he can become a cook or a driver with an NGO and make three hundred dollars a month. It's very difficult for us to keep that capacity. In order to build the capacity of the government anywhere, we have to invest in these governments by first providing training opportunities, but more importantly, enabling the government to pay adequate salaries; otherwise we will lose capacity.

One of the mechanisms to promote or expand central government control is [civil-military] provincial reconstruction teams [PRTs]. How do you assess their performance?

Initially, we wanted to have the PRTs come to Afghanistan under any condition they preferred to operate under. We had a very loose framework because for us, their symbolic presence was important. In the second phase, they got involved in some of the relief operations and also small-scale reconstruction projects, which is important. But I think the most efficient use of the PRTs would be to have them work on increasing the capacity of the Afghan government to deliver services. For instance, instead of digging a well, which could be done by an NGO or someone else, or by the private sector, if they could help the local government by training a few accountants, a few managers, or a few chiefs of police, that would be a lot more beneficial. This way, they create capacity, they help the Afghan government deliver services. And they do something that could not be done easily by a competing NGO or private sector company.

Earlier you mentioned Afghanistan's other borders. Let's look to the west. How helpful has Iran been in reconstruction or repatriation of Afghans?

One of the successes of Afghan foreign policy has been to engage Iran in a constructive manner. Iran has been helpful in building roads in Afghanistan, in the education sector, and in a variety of other projects. They're playing a constructive role. And we would like to keep Iran playing a constructive role in Afghanistan because in our experience in the past, we know that they could also be very destructive if they choose to do so.

Has Iraq become a distraction though in terms of outside help for Afghanistan? Even now it is being called a potential center for terrorism while Afghanistan was already in that role.

There's no doubt the amount of resources—financial, political, and even intellectual—on fighting the war on terror effectively are limited. And some of these resources were diverted to a much bigger crisis, which was Iraq. But if you look back at the history after the Cold War, Afghanistan was neglected, and there was no Iraq then. And we all paid a heavy price for that. So we should look at these countries separately. Afghanistan is the original front in the war against terror. If we do not succeed in Afghanistan, we will fail in winning the war against terror, certainly.
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Pakistan's Musharraf on Thin Ice
SPIEGEL Germany February 27, 2007 By Matthias Gebauer in Peshawar, Pakistan
US Vice President Dick Cheney's recent visit to Pakistan was far from a gesture of friendship. The United States are putting massive pressure on Pakistan to finally take action against the Taliban active on the country's border. But can Musharraf afford it?

If you believe Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, there was nothing unusual to report this Monday. US Vice President Dick Cheney had just arrived in Islamabad for an unannounced visit on his way to Afghanistan and was having lunch with Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf.

Perfectly normal security precautions, a press spokeswoman said in reply to questions as to why the visit has been kept secret. A "normal visit between partners."

But even the few photographs made available from the visit suggest that the speedy stopover by President George W. Bush's right-hand man was not the friendly bonding session the spokeswoman would have one believe. Cheney barely managed an awkward smile when he shook the hand of his host for the camera.

He left Pakistan after just a few hours -- without giving a public statement or even holding a press conference with Musharraf. "Visits between friends look a bit different," one Western diplomat commented. It is likely, he added, that Cheney's had stopped in Pakistan to admonish US-ally Musharraf.

The visit is the clearest indication of just how tense relations between Washington and Islamabad have become. Even as Pakistan remains nominally a strategic partner in the ongoing struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaida, such an explicit hand-slapping -- administered in part publicly but also in anonymously circulated allegations -- is rare.

The accusation is that Pakistan is not doing enough to fight terror groups in the border region near Afghanistan -- and that Islamabad may even be partially responsible for the Taliban comeback. With the Taliban spring offensive imminent, it seems US patience has run out.

Still, the official account of the visit sounded relatively harmless. "Cheney expressed US apprehensions of regrouping of al-Qaida in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat," Musharraf's office said.

The statement also referred to Cheney expressing "serious US concerns on the intelligence being picked up of an impending Taliban and al-Qaida 'spring offensive' against allied forces in Afghanistan."

Musharraf, on the other hand, was reported to have insisted his forces had already "done the maximum" to combat extremists active on Pakistan's territory.

Threats behind closed doors - Once behind closed doors, though, Cheney didn't mince words. With CIA Deputy Director Steve Kappes by his side, Cheney threatened them US Congress, with its Democratic majority, could deny Pakistan its promised aid of $785 million if Musharraf didn't finally take action
against the Taliban.

Congress only recently voted to reconsider aid to Pakistan on an annual basis. Only if Pakistan made good on its promises to fight terror, the message went, would money be forthcoming.

Cheney's visit comes after weeks of similar trips by US officials to Islamabad in recent weeks. But now the tone seems to be shifting and becoming more acrimonious. An unnamed member of the Bush administration was quoted by the New York Times as saying that the administration is tired of listening to Musharraf's promises.

"He's made a number of assurances over the past few months, but the bottom line is that what they are doing now is not working," one senior administration official told the Times. "The message we're sending to him now is that the only thing that matters is results."

But it's not just the Taliban giving the United States a headache. Several Western intelligence agencies suspect that al-Qaida militants are also grouping in the border region and using the territory -- which is only loosely controlled by Pakistan's military -- for training.

US President George W. Bush recently characterized the region as "wilder than the Wild West." Analysts told the Times it has once again become a "hub of militant activity."

So far, solid evidence to suggest the terror network is active in the region remains thin. Those arrested in London last year on suspicion of planning to attack a number of passenger jets are said to have had connections to the border region.

Several Pakistani terrorists who killed a US diplomat with a car bomb in Karachi in March, 2006 are also said to have had contacts to al-Qaida leaders from the North Waziristan border region.

According to the New York Times, intelligence services have even identified an al-Qaida training camp. What has been known for years is that the Taliban use the area as a safe retreat after military operations -- and that the Pakistani troops controlling the border are doing little to prevent it.

"Absurd, biased and unsubstantial" - Pakistan, not surprisingly, denies these allegations. President Musharraf's spokesperson called them "absurd, biased and
insubstantial" in a conversation with SPIEGEL ONLINE. Pakistan's military is doing everything to "recognize and eliminate" Taliban structures, General Shaukat Sultan insisted.

He pointed out the military has stationed 80,000 soldiers along the border, whereas only few soldiers are to be seen on the Afghan side of the border. "We've done our part; now the Afghans should do theirs," the general demanded.

It's not dissimilar from the message the Pakistani has for years tried to disseminate. "We always say the same thing," Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz admits. And then he cites the same numbers given by military officials -- 80,000 soldiers on the border, more than 1,000 manned posts.

But mostly politicians emphasize the military has already suffered 700 casualties in its struggle against the Taliban. "We've suffered more than other states, because of Afghanistan," the Prime Minister says, sounding almost proud.

But it was precisely the high number of casualties that forced Pervez Musharraf's government to go soft on the Taliban last year. A messenger from Islamabad signed a ceasefire with a number of militant groups active in the region -- groups known to openly support the Taliban.

After the peace deal, Pakistan's troops retreated to their headquarters, venturing forth only rarely to attack Taliban positions or camps. The Taliban have been operating in the region "virtually undisturbed" ever since, according to Western intelligence analysts.

The peace deal -- really a ceasefire that was effectively forced on Pakistan -- symbolizes President Musharraf's dilemma. He knows from experience that every military offensive against the Taliban or other militant groups active in the border region will lead immediately to attacks on him or military facilities.

Moreover, his own political survival is based in large part on support from radicals, say observers. Any action taken against the radicals is potentially dearly expensive.

But the US, it seems, is tired of excuses. They're said to have issued a clear threat in the past weeks that if push comes to shove, they will clear up the border region themselves. Such US-led attacks, which have occurred only rarely in the past, would break Musharraf's back politically.

US intervention would be just what both fundamentalist Muslims and more moderate parties in Pakistan are waiting for to be able to attack Musharraf.

From Musharraf's point of view, much turns on when and how the United States make good on their threats. About $300 million of the US financial aid provided to Pakistan goes to the country's powerful military, which also secures the President's own power. No one has a stake in endangering Musharraf's political authority.

As dissatisfied as Washington may be with his efforts to combat the Taliban and al-Qaida, what a new Pakistani government would look like in the event of Musharraf being overthrown is simply too unpredictable. And so a solution to the conflict seems difficult to achieve. But one thing is certain: Musharraf is facing a difficult year.
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Talks with Taleban still the best prospect
The Times, UK 02/27/2007 By Bronwen Maddox
Margaret Beckett is surely right to leave open the prospect of one day talking to the Taleban.

But as she said yesterday on her visit to Afghanistan, right now those prospects look dim. There is no other possible position on a day when a suicide bomber, claimed by the Taleban as one of theirs, tried to kill Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, at Bagram airbase near Kabul. ?We wanted to target Cheney,? Mullah Hayat Khan, Taleban spokesman, told Reuters news agency by phone from an undisclosed location.

The Foreign Secretary said that talks with the former Taleban or sympathisers who were no longer active may be possible in the future. That could be a different matter, but I certainly don?t envisage some form or process of dialogue at present,? she said.

Nothing about this policy can stay clear cut. In the end, it will probably be necessary to deal with the Taleban or their sympathisers (if a distinction can really be made), as the Afghan and Pakistani governments are already doing. Cheney?s sudden trip to Pakistan was prompted by US alarm that al-Qaeda terrorists were returning to the wild borderland with Afghanistan, although not with anything like the numbers or freedom of movement that they enjoyed when Afghanistan was almost entirely run by the Taleban.

He told President Musharraf that if Pakistan did not clamp down on fighters crossing the border into Afghanistan, then the US may be forced to cut off some aid.

President Bush has already proposed giving Pakistan $785 million (£400 million) next year, including $300 million for its military. This threat comes after four months of rising US exasperation, since Musharraf struck controversial deals with some of the tribal leaders on the Pakistani side of the border. If they halted the transit of foreign fighters? (al-Qaeda and Afghan Taleban) then Musharraf would withdraw Pakistan?s army from their territory. US and British
officials agree that the hasn?t worked.

There is little sign of a crackdown, and suspicion that the recent surge in attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan is a sign that the Taleban have been released from pressure on the eastern front.

Musharraf has told the US and Britain than he has done more than is popularly supposed, and that his forces have suffered some 700 fatalities since they began more two years ago to close the border dividing the Waziristan tribal area from Afghanistan. For this reason alone he had to do the deals.

Up to a point. His army is under such strain partly because of the separate tribal unrest in Baluchistan, a patch of trouble Musharraf ought to settle quickly and through political means, answering their grievances about their share of local gas revenues.
The more profound motive for the deals is that Pakistan is losing confidence in the Nato strategy for southern Afghanistan. For a start, the definition of Taleban is much fuzzier than Nato officials imply. Al-Qaeda fighters, often Arabs, and not part of the local Pashtun communities, are certainly identifiable. And it is possible to identify Taleban leaders, organising attacks on Nato forces, as those forces and the Afghan Army have done.

But it is less clear whether the label ?Taleban? should be slapped on those who fight with them, whether out of fear or belief, and communities supporting them.

The Afghan Government and Nato will have to persuade as many of these people as possible to change sides. Beckett is right to leave open the chance to talk to them in the future. The deal Musharraf struck with his tribal leaders was a bad one, but the principle was not outrageous.
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Seoul Committed to Afghanistan Mission
By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter Korea Times
Seoul on Wednesday denounced a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan on Tuesday that killed at least 23 people, including a South Korean soldier, calling it a ``barbarous act of terror.''

The government pledged to increase efforts to support the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan to help bring peace and stability to the war-torn nation.

``We express deep condolences to the late soldier and other victims, and to the bereaved families of all those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack,'' the Defense Ministry said in a statement. ``We strongly denounce such a reckless and barbarous terrorist act.''

The two units of medical and engineering soldiers stationed in Afghanistan will continue their humanitarian and reconstruction mission, it said.

Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, 27, died near the main gate of Bagram Airbase, about 47 kilometers north of Kabul, when a suicide bomber set off improvised explosive devices attached to his body.

Later, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was targeted at U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who was visiting the military base at the time, the Associate Press reported.

Yoon's death marked the first Korean military victim of a terror attack abroad since the Vietnam War in the 1960 and 1970s.

South Korea has maintained about 200 engineers and medics in Afghanistan on a humanitarian and reconstruction mission since 2002.

Yoon's body will be flown back home Friday via Kuwait, ministry officials said. The ministry said Yoon will posthumously be promoted to staff sergeant and his body will be buried at the national cemetery in Taejon, south of Seoul.

Yoon's family will get 231 million