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February 4, 2007 


McNeil takes over command of NATO troops
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The highest-ranking U.S. general to lead troops in  Afghanistan took command of 35,500 strong  NATO-led force Sunday, putting an American face on the international mission after nine months of British command.

Gen. Dan McNeil replaced British Gen. David Richards at the helm of NATO's International Security and Assistance Force at a time of increased violence and just before an expected uptick in fighting as spring settles in.

McNeil, who served as coalition forces commander in Afghanistan in 2002-03, told several hundred people gathered for a change-of-command ceremony that ISAF's mission was to facilitate Afghanistan's reconstruction so the "Afghan people might enjoy self-determination, education, health and the peaceful realization of their hopes and dreams."

"We will quit neither post nor mission until the job is done or we are properly relieved," McNeil said.

The appointment of McNeil, one of only 11 four-star generals in the U.S. Army, raises the profile of the American mission here two weeks after the U.S.  Department of Defense extended the tour of 3,200 10th Mountain Division soldiers.

There are now 26,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the highest number since U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001 for hosting  Osama bin Laden. About 14,000 American forces fall under NATO command; 12,000 troops focused on training Afghan forces and special operations fall under the U.S.-led coalition.

During his nine months as commander, Richards oversaw the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since 2001. About 4,000 people died in insurgency-related violence in 2006, according to an Associated Press count based on numbers from U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

Richards also was a prominent backer of a controversial peace plan in the southern town of Musa Qala. Under that October deal between the government and village elders, NATO, Afghan and Taliban soldiers were not allowed into the town. But that agreement apparently fell apart on Wednesday and Thursday, when an estimated 200 Taliban fighters overran Musa Qala.

Only 90 minutes before the handover ceremony on Sunday, a NATO airstrike killed a Taliban leader riding in a car near Musa Qala, spokesman Col. Tom Collins said.

Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 3-mile zone with the approval of the Afghan government. He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.

Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.

Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

Richards also oversaw NATO's largest-ever ground battle, a fight in southern Afghanistan in September to oust between 1,000 and 2,000 Taliban fighters who had massed for an assault on Kandahar city, the Taliban's former stronghold.

"There was last year some skepticism about NATO," Richards said at the ceremony Sunday. "Today that has gone."

The Taliban made a "good attempt" at an offensive last fall but failed and won't again try to take on NATO troops in a mass battle, Richards said in an interview on Saturday.

Richards in September warned that Afghanistan was at a tipping point and that if life did not improve for Afghans over the winter many would switch their allegiance to the Taliban.

He said he is now optimistic NATO will succeed and that he was "delighted" that his warning may have spurred the U.S., Britain and Poland, among other nations, to commit more troops and money.

Along with the additional 3,200 troops, the Bush administration last month said it would ask Congress for $10.6 billion to train and equip the Afghan army and for reconstruction.

___

Associated Press Writer Noor Khan contributed to this report.
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Taliban warn of bloody spring as U.S. takes NATO reins
By Terry Friel
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban promised a spring offensive of thousands of suicide bombers as the United States, doubling its combat troops in  Afghanistan, took over command of the 33,000-strong  NATO force in the country on Sunday.

As U.S. General Dan McNeill took over the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO said the Taliban leader in a key southern district was killed on Sunday as part of an offensive to recapture the key town of Musa Qala from the rebels.

The Taliban warns 2007 will be "the bloodiest year for foreign troops," saying they have 2,000 suicide bombers ready for a spring offensive when the winter snows melt in a few months.

"We have made 80 percent preparations to fight American and foreign forces and we are about to start war," Mullah Hayatullah Khan, a 35-year-old black-bearded guerrilla leader, told Reuters at a secret base in the east on Saturday.

Khan says the 2,000 are just 40 percent of fighters preparing to become suicide bombers, a tactic almost unheard of here until last year as militants copied  Iraq.

"Now there is great enthusiasm for suicide attacks among the Taliban and these attacks will increase," he said.

Analysts say McNeill takes over ISAF at a pivotal time.

"The first 3-5 months of 2007 are absolutely crucial to the entire Afghan effort as the mission has been defined -- that is, in bringing security to the southern provinces," Sean Kay, a security expert and professor of international relations at the Ohio Wesleyan University, told Reuters.

"From the beginning, the United States did not put sufficient forces in Afghanistan in order to prevent a counter-insurgency from re-emerging.

'NOT ENOUGH SOLDIERS'

"NATO continues to suffer from this -- there are simply not enough troops to carry on a successful counter-insurgency campaign in the south. As the Taliban get further entrenched, the public there gets further drawn into their grip.

"And when we don't have enough troops to accomplish the mission, those that are taking risks do not have adequate reinforcements other than heavy airpower, which when applied doesn't exactly fit into a successful hearts and minds strategy."

Last year was the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government in 2001. More than 4,000 people died, a quarter of them civilians and 170 foreign soldiers.

Outgoing NATO commander, charismatic British General David Richards, saw his force grow from just 9,000 as it expanded into the Taliban's southern heartland during his nine-month command.

"2006 was a year of ISAF and ANSF (Afghan security forces) success and Taliban failure," he said, dressed in light brown desert camouflage fatigues and a black beret.

"The Taliban did not achieve a single objective.

"We have proved that NATO can and will defeat the Taliban militarily and, come the spring, an ISAF offensive -- not a Taliban offensive -- will set the conditions to defeat the insurgents again when, inevitably, their cynical leaders will launch young men against us to do their dirty business."

The United States has effectively doubled its combat troops on the ground by extending the tours of duty for some soldiers by four months, which will also provide a rapid reaction force Richards long demanded but was never given.

President George W. Bush is asking Congress for an extra $10.6 billion over two years for the Afghan army and police, and Washington has been pressing its allies for more troops and an end to restrictions on how and where their soldiers can fight.

But so far, only Britain and Poland have committed more men and women and France is pulling its special forces out.

The Taliban seized Musa Qala in the key opium-growing province of Helmand on Thursday night, four months after British troops withdrew following a peace deal with tribal leaders to keep the insurgents out, a deal criticised by the United States.

NATO forces launched an offensive to retake the town, killing the local Taliban chief in an air strike on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai in Spin Boldak, Sayed Salahuddin and Yousuf Azimy in Kabul)
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Taliban leader killed in NATO airstrike
Sun Feb 4, 2:42 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan -  NATO-led troops killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
 
Col. Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.

Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.

The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 3 miles of the town center.

Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 3-mile zone with the approval of the Afghan government. He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.

Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.

Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western  Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall. The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.

British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.

Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told the AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
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Afghanistan could become exporter of terror, says NATO chief
Sun Feb 4, 1:58 AM ET
MADRID (AFP) -  Afghanistan runs the risk of becoming an exporter of terrorists if a  NATO mission in the country fails, the organisation's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

"We are in Afghanistan to fight the faceless threat that wants to destroy our society," Hoop Scheffer said in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo, days before a NATO summit in Seville.

"If we fail in Afghanistan the country will collapse and become a state that will export terrorists to the West."

Around 33,000 soldiers from 37 countries currently contribute to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the troubled country, with an additional US-led taskforce of up to 10,000.

Hoop Scheffer, speaking before the summit that will look at the question of military reinforcement, said that a "global" and "civil" response rather than a "military" one was needed in Afghanistan.

If in Seville "we think we need reinforcements then we will ask all the allies here," he said, adding that Spain had just announced it was sending 500 more troops to Afghanistan.

"Last year was difficult but the US and Britain announced essential increases and other countries are in the process of increasing their contributions," he said.

Last week NATO's foreign affairs ministers met in Brussels where US Secretary of State  Condoleezza Rice presented a new 10.6-billion-dollar US aid package for Afghanistan's infrastructure, and promised to keep US troops there for two more years.

An ISAF statement late Friday said there were reports that "an unknown number of Taliban" had entered the town of Musa Qala in southern Helmand province after a confrontation with NATO troops days earlier.

On Saturday the Afghan defence ministry said the radical Islamist militia had taken control of the town -- however NATO forces said the situation was still unclear.
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AFGHANISTAN: Grave concern over impunity plans for war lords
04 Feb 2007 09:35:05 GMT
More  KABUL , 4 February (IRIN) - The United Nations and a leading human rights group in Afghanistan have expressed concern over a draft law that seeks to grant impunity to Afghans accused of committing war crimes during 25 years of conflict in the country.

On 31 January, the 249-seat lower house (Wolesi Jirga) of Afghanistan's National Assembly approved and voted in favour of a draft law granting impunity to all those who committed war crimes during the Soviet occupation, from 1979 to 1989; the civil war that followed until 1996; and during the Taliban rule until late 2001. Some members of the lower house said that the motion would boost reconciliation in Afghanistan.

The bill also calls on opposition groups such as Hezb-e-Islami of Gul Buddin Hekmatyar and the Taliban, who are waging a deadly insurgency against the government, to join the peace process.

The draft bill still needs to be endorsed by the 102-member upper house (Meshrano Jirga) of parliament and then signed by President Hamid Karzai before it is enforced as law.

"In order to bring reconciliation among various strata in the society, all those political and belligerent sides who were involved one way or the other during the two and half decades of war will not be prosecuted legally and judicially," the motion passed by the lower house says.

Some analysts say the bill was passed by the lower house of parliament because warlords and ex-communist officials are the majority in it.

Rights groups say, if accepted, it will excuse war criminals involved in nearly 30 years of conflict which have cost the lives of more than 1 million Afghans and forced millions of others to leave the country.

"Only victims and the people of Afghanistan, who suffered decades of war and human rights violations, can make the decision about giving amnesty to war criminals in our country," Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told IRIN in Kabul.

"AIHRC welcomes efforts for promoting reconciliation, but at the same time we believe granting blanket amnesty will only permit impunity in our country," Nadery said.

In a statement issued on 1 February, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) agreed with the concerns expressed by rights groups.

"For any process of national reconciliation to succeed, the suffering of victims must be acknowledged and impunity tackled. No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves," the statement read.

It added that the proper implementation of the Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation and Justice - a three-year plan launched by President Karzai in December last year - was essential for addressing post-war justice in Afghanistan.

The plan contains five key elements: acknowledgment of the suffering of the Afghan people; strengthening state institutions; finding out the truth about the country's bloody past; promoting reconciliation; and establishing a proper accountability mechanism.

In implementing this plan, the Afghan people have the full backing of their international partners, including the UN, the UNAMA statement said.

Some government officials supported the new bill. "All Afghans, including those who are currently fighting against the government, can join the reconciliation process," Khalid Farooqi, an MP from the south-eastern Paktika province, said.

Others spoke out against it. Shukaria Barakzai, a leading women's rights activist and member of the lower house, said the bill contradicted the current constitution of Afghanistan. "It was only a clear attempt by warlords to bury their atrocities and crimes," Barakzai, who protested against the bill, said.

"According to our constitution, everyone has equal rights. It is not the responsibility of parliament to make such decisions about war crimes but it is only the duty of our judiciary," she added.

In a December 2006 report, the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said President Karzai and his international backers failed to address post-war crimes in Afghanistan. It said several high-ranking officials of the current Afghan government had been implicated in war crimes during the factional war in the early 1990s in Kabul.

HRW listed parliamentarians Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Burhanuddin Rabbani, Minister of Energy Ismail Khan, Army Chief of Staff Abdul Rashid Dostum, and current Vice President Karim Khalili as major human rights violators.
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Pak Jirga Commission to invite Afghanistan for peace discussions
Sunday February 4, 02:13 PM
Islamabad, Feb 4 (ANI): The Pakistan Jirga Commission (PJC) has decided to invite the Regional Peace Jirga Preparatory Commission of Afghanistan this month to discuss options to stabilise and restore peace along the country's shared border areas with Afghanistan.

Following a meeting with federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, the PJC has decided to invite Pir Syed Ahmad Gillani, the chairman of the Afghan jirga commission to Islamabad and work out modalities for holding a series of Pak-Afghan jirgas to stabilize the agency areas.

The commission said the peace initiative would help fight off violence and militancy in the region.

Commission members said a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan was in the interests of Pakistan and the region, adding, meetings would be held meetings frequently to remove hurdles towards this end.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have decided to convene a series of jirgas in an effort to stabilise and bring peace to the tribal agency areas.

Under an understanding reached at the White House last year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President General Pervez Musharraf will jointly attend jirgas with tribal elders in a bid to employ armed tribesmen on both sides of the border to cut down on insurgent raids into bordering Afghan regions.

According to the Daily Times, NWFP Governor Lt Gen (retd.) Ali Jan Orakzai, Balochistan Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani, minister for culture, Dr Syed Ghazi Gulab Jamal, and minister of state for frontier regions, Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind attended the meeting. (ANI)
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Residents flee Taliban-occupied Afghan town, NATO prepares for possible assault
Sat Feb 3, 8:33 PM By Jason Straziuso
KABUL (AP) - Hundreds of villagers fled a southern Afghan town overrun by Taliban militants, fearful of a NATO attack on the insurgent fighters who have hoisted their white flag over the town's ransacked government centre, residents said.

NATO's outgoing commander, Gen. David Richards, said "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used if needed to solve the crisis in the town Musa Qala and Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said: "If there is a need for an operation, there will be one."

Col. Tom Collins, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said Saturday that NATO was watching the situation but no forces were in Musa Qala. NATO troops pulled out of the town in October after the government and village elders signed a peace agreement.

"It is only a matter of time before (the) government re-establishes control," Collins said.

However, he said NATO had reports Taliban militants had reinforced their defensive positions.

Abdul Baqi, a villager who fled Musa Qala with five family members Saturday, said residents fear a bloody clash is imminent after the Taliban fighters swarmed the town Wednesday and Thursday, temporarily taking village elders hostage.

"I'm going to stay with my relatives and will return only if the situation gets better," Baqi said while sitting in his pickup truck in the nearby district Gereshk.

Resident Mohammad Wali said Taliban fighters hoisted a white flag over the damaged government compound and villager Lal Mohammad said hundreds of residents fled.

British troops fought intense battles with Taliban fighters in Musa Qala in the second half of last year. The clashes caused widespread damage to the surrounding town of about 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to flee.

British forces left Musa Qala in October after elders and the Helmand provincial governor struck a truce that turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the Taliban took over the town in response to NATO attacks he said violated that agreement - an apparent reference to a NATO air strike outside of Musa Qala that killed a senior militant leader and a number of his deputies late last month.

But NATO said the Taliban were never party to the agreement and "by their actions, the Taliban have ended over four months of peace in Musa Qala which, until now, had seen a return to normality with reconstruction and development getting under way."

"It is very clear that the Taliban are acting against the wishes of the people of Musa Qala," a NATO statement said.

Richards, a strong supporter of the British-backed peace agreement, said the Taliban move proved the agreement's success.

"These mechanisms to drive a wedge are an absolute classic part of any counterinsurgency," he said.

"Far from being a failure, it shows what a success this can be and how upsetting it can be to the Taliban."
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Afghan paper slams Govt.`s move to limit freedom of expression
Sunday February 04, 2007 (0349 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
KABUL: An editorial published by independent daily Pagah has criticized the government`s recent move to limit media activities, impose control over the state-run media and dismiss the director-general of the National Radio and Television.

The editorial said the decision would "upset" donor countries and organizations and was a clear infringement of the Constitution. It added that the government had now a "coherent policy" to control journalistic activities in the country, even though this would affect its reputation.

Although the Afghan government used to be proud of the free media in the past, it has been strongly seeking to influence the National Radio and Television. Both the national and the foreign media have so far been sharply criticizing the country`s deteriorating security situation as well as the government`s poor management.

It is said that the current information and culture minister [Karim Khorram], who enjoys Hamed Karzai`s support, has been endeavouring to retain his ministry`s control over activities of the National Radio and Television and other state-run media. A slogan that says the government needs the state-run media to express its views has now become a coherent policy.

The recent changes at the National Radio and Television, among them the restrictions imposed on its director- general [Najib Roshan] - who resigned from his post recently - and reviewing the law on the media necessarily indicate that the government is now pursuing a different policy towards the media. Nevertheless, such policy will not be effective and we have clear reasons for our claim.

Firstly, the government was reluctant to give freedom to the media, particularly the state-run media. This was simply due to the fact that key government officials had not experienced freedom of expression and normally did not believe in the value [of freedom of expression].

What they believe and have been trying to carry out has been to publicize their programmes unilaterally and control the National Radio and Television`s broadcasts.

Secondly, officials at the Information and Culture Ministry [now called Ministry of Culture and Youth] did not want to or feel responsible for granting freedom of expression. Nevertheless, they were obliged to do so thanks to the pressure applied by foreign organizations.

These officials conducted even an international conference on media reforms in collaboration with foreign donors. At this conference, they promised to nationalize the state-run radio and television within two years. However, they did not perceive the importance of the issue. The promise satisfied the western donors and UNESCO, who mainly invest in cultural projects. These donors widely and generously filed reports on the project.
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Pakistan vows not to allow action against Afghanistan
People's Daily Online, China
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Saturday that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used for any activity which would impact the security of the entire region, and that the selective fencing of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan would help prevent illegal movement across the border.

Pakistan has always wanted a strong, stable and vibrant Afghanistan and return of refugees, Aziz said in a press release.

He said that Pakistan supported a "Marshal-plan" type approach for Afghanistan's reconstruction, elimination of drug production and improved security which will enable sustainable development in the country.

He said that Pakistan had contributed about 350 million U.S. dollars for building roads, schools, hospitals and other much- needed facilities for the people of Afghanistan.

On Pakistan's tribal areas, Aziz said peace, security and development in the federally administered tribal areas (FATA) was a priority for the government as this would help the people of the areas to improve their standard of living and rearise their true potential.

He said that the government would continue providing more funds for increasing the pace of development in those areas with particular focus on health and education sectors to bring them at par with other parts of the country.

Aziz said that the government had launched a number of initiatives for the development of the tribal areas. Economic Opportunity Zones are being set up in these areas which will expedite industrialization, create jobs, create economic opportunities and lead to overall uplift of the area, he said.

He hoped that the tribal elders of FATA would help the government by playing a constructive role in changing the complexion of tribal areas and improving the standard of living of their people.
Source: Xinhua
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Afghan schools take on the Taliban
'Defense committees' have been formed to fend off the insurgents' attacks, which some fear will rise in the spring.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 4, 2007
WACH TANGI, AFGHANISTAN — Even before the winter wind had scattered the ashes of their village school, the people of this poor hamlet in eastern Afghanistan decided they had to fight back.

On a bitterly cold night last month, suspected Taliban militants set fire to all five "classrooms," housed in canvas tents donated by a humanitarian agency. It was one of nearly 200 schools across the country burned in the last year by Islamic insurgents.

Four hundred more schools were closed by threats and intimidation, driving more than 130,000 students from their classrooms and dealing a harsh blow to massive international efforts to rebuild an education system ravaged during the years of Taliban rule.

Over the last three months, however, the rate of attacks has fallen dramatically, with fewer than half a dozen schools believed to have been targeted. Education officials attribute the decrease at least in part to a nationwide drive to create local "defense committees" for schools, enlisting the help of tribal elders, Islamic clerics and, in some cases, homegrown militias.

The people of Wach Tangi, which lies about 10 miles north of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, believed their village was too remote and their tent school too rudimentary to attract the notice of any Taliban militants in the area.

The road leading to the village of 1,800 people resembles a dry riverbed: winding, pitted and stone-strewn. So arid and forbidding is the landscape that in the Pashto language, Wach Tangi means "valley without water."

But on the night of Jan. 6, arsonists took the trouble to make the journey, and methodically set each tent ablaze. Villagers raised the alarm within moments, but it was too late. The classrooms vanished in a whoosh of flames that scorched the stone foundations and charred the metal support poles.

"We realized right away that we had made a big mistake by not doing more to protect ourselves, to protect our school," headmaster Wali Mohammed said.

A posse of village men took to the dry hills, trying unsuccessfully to track the arsonists. The next day, virtually all of Wach Tangi's families, even the poorest, agreed to chip in what they could to have armed men guard the school at night once it reopened.

Within two days, the village had organized a protection committee made up of its most influential citizens, charged with the task of keeping the school, its pupils and its teachers safe.

The school is up and running again, in UNICEF-donated tents. Students still have the schoolbooks that were home with them when the old school was burned, and more are on the way from donors.

But the fire remains fresh in everyone's mind.

"Those who did this to our school are enemies of our country," said Abdul Wahed, a white-bearded tribal elder. "We won't allow this to happen to us or to our children."

Afghanistan's Education Ministry has encouraged grass-roots school-protection initiatives in recent months, even though the central government has no money to fund them. There are no reliable figures, but the ministry believes more than half the country's 9,000 schools are under some form of locally organized protection, whose effectiveness remains to be seen.

"There just aren't enough police to watch over every school in the country," said Zuhoor Afghan, a ministry spokesman. "But the local people know their own towns and villages best. They know who is a stranger; they know who has business there and who does not."

Villagers are aware that their vigilante methods could cost them their lives. The Taliban, whose name means "students," see Western-style education as a threat to their concept of a pure Islamic state. Their followers regard modern education as a force for Western colonialism.

Wahed, the elder in Wach Tangi, said he did not know what would have happened if villagers had caught up with armed men on the night of the fire.

"We had only a few old guns," he said with a shrug. "But we would have done our best against them."

Likewise, the night watchmen hired by the village are equipped only with handguns, little match for the automatic rifles carried by Taliban fighters.

Still, the villagers believe their newfound watchfulness will be a deterrent. And the school-protection committee members are trying, each in his own way, to help stave off attacks.

The mullah on the committee has been using mosque sermons to emphasize that nothing in the Koran forbids girls from receiving an education, as they do in Wach Tangi, where about half the nearly 500 pupils are girls. Boys study in the morning and girls in the afternoon.

One of the tribal chieftains on the committee is calling in favors from kinsmen nearby, asking them to keep their ears open for word of any threat. Another committee member has lobbied the police to mount more frequent patrols, winning a sympathetic hearing from a commander who grew up in the area.

Many of those associated with the school remain deeply fearful. Teacher Gul Anar said that after the fire, she considered abandoning her work. Dozens of teachers have been killed in Afghanistan, and she was afraid of becoming a victim too.

"I was terrified," she said. "And losing our school was such a very sad moment. But then I thought of my students, how eager they are to learn, and I decided I must continue."

Some educators believe that the recent lull in school burnings and other attacks is only partly due to the establishment of protection committees. Violence traditionally decreases during the coldest months, and they think the insurgents will become more active again during the spring.

Other school officials believe that the Taliban, after initially underestimating the strength of the country's education ethic, may have discerned that the school-burning campaign was backfiring.

"People hated it during the time of the Taliban, when their daughters could not study and when nothing was taught in the schools but theology," said Mohammed, the Wach Tangi headmaster. "Attacking schools is not going to make them popular again. Even they can see that."

In what may have been a concession to that sentiment, a Taliban spokesman in the country's south announced last month that the movement would begin opening schools of its own, at which girls "eventually" would be welcome.

Educators and Western military officials scoffed at the notion.

"What's the curriculum going to be — suicide bombings?" asked Mark Laity, the chief spokesman in Afghanistan for NATO.

"We don't believe for a moment that education is a genuine goal of these people…. They don't want Afghanistan to have a functioning government or civil society."

"It's only a ruse," said Afghan, of the Education Ministry. "If they did open schools, they wouldn't teach anything but religion — no mathematics, no language, no history."

In the classroom tents of Wach Tangi, teachers said, they still had not been able to adequately explain to their pupils why their school had been a target.

"After the fire, they asked me over and over again, 'Why? Who would do this?' " said teacher Shoiabullah, who uses one name.

"We didn't have a real answer for them. We said only that we would try our best to keep it from happening again."
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Afghanistan: Foreign Minister Discusses Relations With Iran, Pakistan
February 2, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta has dismissed recent reports suggesting that Iran is interfering in Afghan affairs. In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Salehe Eshaghzay Khaleghi, Spanta also insisted that Kabul is eager to resolve differences with Pakistan through dialogue.

RFE/RL: There have been recent reports alleging increased Iranian efforts to influence events in western Afghanistan, in addition to other Iranian activities there. You have in the past very positively assessed Afghanistan's ties with Iran. Are concerns about Iranian interference in Afghanistan baseless?

Rangin Dadfar Spanta: I first have to say in this regard that the president [Hamid Karzai], as the head of the Afghan government, and I, as the minister of foreign affairs, are in total agreement over relations with Iran. The main lines of these policies have been decided jointly. We believe that Afghanistan should not do anything that could threaten [our] national interests. We are thankful to Iran for its help in creating security in Afghanistan and also for strengthening government bodies. And they are continuing their help. We'd like to strengthen our relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

MORE: In November 2006, RFE/RL spoke at length with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.RFE/RL: In a recent interview with Radio Free Afghanistan, a [former] senior official from one of Afghanistan's southwestern areas claimed Iranian interference in Afghanistan. He even said a number of displaced person who live in the Shamsabad region of Farah Province [in Afghanistan] are being goaded by the Iranian government against Afghanistan. A senior government official presumably can't make such accusations about a neighboring country without proof. What is your reaction to this?

Spanta: I [articulate] the foreign policy of Afghanistan, and I think I am competent to speak about this. The national interests of Afghanistan are important for us, and in this regard the Islamic Republic of Iran has supported the government of Afghanistan in order to strengthen it; we don't have any documents or reasons that prove the contrary. Moreover, let's not forget that Iran benefited enormously from the fall of the Taliban [in 2001] because one of its main enemies, the Taliban, was ousted from Afghanistan. In Afghanistan's multilateral policy, strengthening ties with Iran is a primary aim, regardless of the two countries' different political structures or ideology.

RFE/RL: The Afghan government has accused Pakistan of interfering in Afghan affairs and has also accused some groups in Pakistan of supporting terrorist groups. At the same time, Pakistan has come under pressure lately from the United States and NATO. Do you think this pressure will have a positive result and Pakistan will give up its [alleged] support for militants?

Spanta: We hope that Pakistani leaders -- and especially the ISI [Inter-Service Intelligence agency] will know that Afghanistan wants friendship with Pakistan. We are ready to resolve any differences with Pakistan through talks. We'd like to give Pakistan the opportunity to invest in Afghanistan, to use Afghanistan's roads. Central Asian energy could be transported through Afghanistan and Pakistan -- our economic exchanges could increase. We are ready for all of this, but the precondition for this deep friendship with Pakistan is that they should stop using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy.

RFE/RL: Pakistan has always rejected those allegations. But another issue is being brought forward now -- the issue of a regional security jirga [council meeting]. Afghanistan has taken some steps in this regard, but Pakistan does not appear to have made any concrete steps -- or maybe it's more correct to say that Pakistan has moved slowly. In your opinion, why hasn't Pakistan taken serious steps in this regard?

Spanta: We want to demonstrate our good will. The president is always ready to organize regional-security jirgas by Afghanistan. He has named a commission to organize jirgas. We believe the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan have a right to sit and talk to each other about the reasons for terrorism and its sources. So far, the efforts between [our] governments haven't produced any results. We will continue this work. The results of the meeting are not important; what is important is that the representatives of two nations will have the opportunity to talk to each other.
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A ruined culture on display
In a poignant metaphor for the country itself, staff at the National Museum struggle to put thousands of shards of its shattered relics back together
Oakland Ross Toronto Star February 03, 2007
KABUL–If ever there were a metaphor for a land of broken dreams, it resides here in the haunted corridors of this memorial to the past – a museum of shattered things.

"We have broken pieces," says Omara Khan Masoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, whose empty halls, darkened vaults and frigid temperatures put a visitor more in mind of a vast morgue than a living, breathing institution dedicated to the preservation of a country's cultural legacy.

Bundled in an overcoat, Masoudi draws closer to the tinpot, wood-burning stove that provides a flicker of heat amid the winter cold that pervades his high-ceilinged office. "Our staff," he says, "is quite busy putting these pieces together."

After all, they fix statues – don't they?

They do if they can. But it can be a wretched business, this piecing together of broken antiquities – painstaking, time-consuming, politically controversial and dauntingly expensive.

From time to time, it can be flat-out impossible.

As they puzzle over the fragments of what once were objects of art, the 35-member curatorial staff at this country's leading museum seem to be engaged in a task that parallels in many ways the ongoing efforts of others in this war-ravaged country to cobble together a future for their broken land.

"Definitely, people here have lost contact with their cultural history," says Masanori Nagoka, a Kabul-based program specialist with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. "We don't know how much we have in the museum."

There is likely no country on Earth that better appreciates the terrible cost of broken statues than this mountainous republic teetering high in the arid hinterlands of Central Asia.

Once upon a time, the National Museum of Afghanistan was a distinguished repository of this country's spectacular past.

In her Historical Guide to Afghanistan, published in 1977, author Nancy Hatch Dupree details the institution's remarkable possessions: "frescoes from the Bamiyan Valley; the Surkh Kotal inscription; the Islamic finds from Ghazni and Lashkari Bazaar; ethnic items from throughout the country ... a superb collection of coins including the exquisite works of art from the Greco-Bactrian period; an interesting collection of weapons from the last century; the latest additions to the collection from Ai Khanoum."

Few of these treasures remain today.

"For two years, we could not come to the museum," says Masoudi. "It was too dangerous."

He is speaking of the period from 1992 to 1995, when religious warriors known as the mujahideen battled among themselves for power and all Afghanistan twisted in the throes of civil war.

For much of that time, the country's premier museum was commandeered to serve as a military barracks and came under direct rocket fire on more than one occasion. By Masoudi's estimate, only about 30 per cent of its collections survived the turmoil of those years. The rest was destroyed or stolen.

But that was merely the beginning of the end. In 1996, fundamentalist Islamic zealots known as the Taliban took the country by storm. Once in control, they promptly set about imposing a sclerotic brand of rule that outlawed the playing of music, the flying of kites, the education of women and any other deviation from their own rigid view of what constituted the correct way to live.

But, for workers at the national museum, the ensuing years were relatively benign, at least until March 2001, when Mullah Omar – the Taliban's one-eyed chieftain – suddenly decreed the statues were an affront to Allah and must therefore be destroyed.

The Taliban's order was denounced, not only by secular governments in the West, but by the leaders of many Islamic states, faithful Muslims who found nothing in the Qur'an to authorize such an assault upon a country's history.

"We were responsible to protect these pieces," says Masoudi. "We raised our hands. We explained to these people that these are a part of our history."

But Mullah Omar and his scowling acolytes refused to listen, and the destruction was unleashed.

The single act of wreckage that most shocked the outside world was the demolition of the towering twin Buddhas at Bamiyan, northwest of Kabul, in April of 2001.

Dating from the early 5th century, the Bamiyan statues were truly monumental, in scale and significance. One stood 55 metres in height; the other, 38. They occupied a pair of niches carved into the surface of a cliff face near the town, once an important way stop on the ancient Silk Road that traversed Central Asia. Currently, Afghan and international authorities are conducting a piece-by-piece inventory of the blast sites at Bamiyan to determine whether to reconstruct the Buddhas in some fashion.

Assuming the money can be found, it certainly would be possible to construct replicas of the statues in their original sites, using entirely new material and construction techniques.

It might be feasible, if extremely expensive, to refashion the Buddhas using a combination of new material and as many original pieces as can be salvaged from the rubble. Finally, officials might decide not to rebuild the Buddhas at all. In that case, the great stone niches where once the statues stood would be left empty, and the stone fragments of the figures might be removed to a museum that could be constructed near the site.

"The final decision must be made by the Afghan authorities," said Nagoka of UNESCO.

Especially in the absence of international tourism, a revenue source Afghanistan will not be tapping any time soon, the choice of what to do about the destroyed Buddhas inevitably will be shaped by financial considerations.

But money is a delicate subject in a country that is among the world's poorest and that has many desperate needs that perhaps seem more compelling than the fate of sundered stones.

Meanwhile, in a sunlit room on the second floor of the national museum in Kabul – a building that was itself rebuilt only recently, thanks to the generosity of the government of Greece – restoration specialists pick through the detritus of what once were treasures.

"I hope within one or two years we can complete our displays," says Masoudi.

Just one showroom of modest proportions is open to the public, containing an assembly of eerie wooden statues from the northeastern province of Nuristan, all restored with the help of Austrian experts. On a nearby landing, five wood and glass display cases present a variety of small pieces of pottery and jewellery, dating from various periods of Afghan history.

But the task of salvaging this country's cultural patrimony seems never-ending. Like sand rushing through the cracks in a broken hourglass, Afghanistan's past continues to slip away, even as Masoudi and others scramble to preserve it.

Every day, more and more relics of this country's past are pilfered from illegal excavation sites. The plunder is then spirited abroad and sold on the international black market for stolen antiquities, the same fate already suffered by thousands of museum-quality artefacts that once resided here.

"This is the problem: how to find these pieces," says Masoudi.

And, if ever they are found, how to bring them home?

Such are the riddles of Afghanistan.

Clad in an overcoat against the winter chill, the white-maned curator huddles alone in his office, warming his hands at a wood-burning stove as he broods about the past and the future, in a museum of shattered things, in a land of broken dreams.
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Afghan Art Undergoes a Revolution
After Decades of War and a Repressive Taliban Regime, Afghan Art Is Undergoing a Revolution
By ALISA TANG The Associated Press via ABC News
KABUL, Afghanistan - For 25 years, Mohammed Akbar Salam painted the style that he and his colleagues knew realism. Under the ultra-restrictive Taliban regime, depictions of the human figure were forbidden, and their work shriveled to an austere repertoire of calligraphy and still life.

Now, Afghanistan is emerging from decades of war and Taliban rule to a new world and the information age, and its art is undergoing a revolution to find an identity that is both fresh and distinctly Afghan.

"After the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan's borders opened up, and we had access to the Internet. We could connect with people abroad, so everyone is now looking for a new style," Salam said as he served tea huddled next to an electric heater in his small, cold studio.

"We're part of the 21st century. Realism is done by cameras. An artist should do something new," said Salam, 50, who teaches painting at Kabul University.

The flood of images and ideas from the outside have triggered a new wave of art and paintings that resemble European works from the early 20th century, but that are a radical change for Afghanistan. This art with its distinctly Afghan themes war, corruption and violence provides a rare glimpse of the country's creative psyche.

Salam's work shifted from dry, realist images of street scenes and landscapes into sad and often angry critiques of life through Afghan eyes, in a color palette and style evocative of Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse and their contemporaries.

His most striking painting, which was part of an exhibit in neighboring Iran, depicts a Chinook helicopter commonly used by the U.S. military flying menacingly above a pair of scared, fleeing chickens. Military aircraft and American and NATO forces are common sights in this war-torn country.

One of Salam's colleagues at Kabul University, 40-year-old Eaniyatullah Niazi, portrays the violence through the traditional Afghan game of buzkashi, in which players on horses wrangle for a headless goat carcass.

"It's a very hard, cruel game. It is a kind of tyrant's game the poor goat is beheaded and everyone tries to grab for it," Niazi said, sitting on cushions in a red carpeted, sunlit room in his apartment where he displays his paintings. To him, the game symbolizes the violence in Afghan society today.

Niazi, whose work has been published by UNESCO in a book called "Refugee Painters," turned sharply away from realism to abstraction.

A buzkashi painting from 2004 is a frenzy of curved black lines, with horse's heads, men and a carcass in the fray. He work has become increasingly abstract, and now, though the subject is still buzkashi, the figures are barely discernible.

His work is appreciated and purchased mainly by foreigners, and his asking prices for two of his buzkashi paintings are $350 and $500 a fortune for most Afghans, who earn only about $50 a month.

Compared with the collection at Afghanistan's National Gallery, the work of Salam and Niazi are apparently entirely new genres here.

The National Gallery's collection includes blatant copies of Western masterpieces such as a wood-chip mosaic of the iconic "Liberty Leading the People" by Eugene Delacroix. Works by Afghanistan's best known 20th-century painters, two of whom were trained in Germany, show European pastoral scenes. One painting shows a Tudor cottage.

Several artists adopted this classical style, without adding any personal interpretation or expression, for more than half a century, said Rahraw Omarzad, founder of the Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan.

During the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, Afghan artists were encouraged to create propaganda posters, he said. Artists fled the country during the ensuing civil war. Then, in the mid-1990s, came the Taliban which infamously destroyed two ancient Buddha statues at Bamiyan despite an international outcry.

A display case tucked away under a staircase on the ground floor of the National Gallery contains the torn up remains of hundreds of figurative artworks that were also destroyed by the hardline militia.

"They wanted to stop art completely," said Omarzad, who is also a photographer and video artist. "They were against art. Artists were allowed only to do calligraphy and nonfigurative paintings, like still life."

Omarzad hopes the contemporary arts center will nourish and encourage budding artists through workshops with foreign artists and exhibits of Afghan artwork abroad. The center has helped organize shows in New York, Istanbul and Frankfurt, he said.

His recent photos document the rough lives of Afghan children or simple everyday scenes that symbolize the shaky Afghan leadership. In one photo criticizing the government, an old wall has been painted over with another layer, crumbling because the old paint underneath was not removed.

But continuing fear of the government and warlords constrain these artists from going beyond the metaphorical when it comes to commentary on Afghan politics.

Salam's Chinook painting lashes out at the U.S. military, but his criticism of local power brokers is more cryptic. He disguises corrupt Afghan politicians as two balloons in one painting; Afghans' distrust of their leaders is depicted in a video that shows people joining a man under his leaking umbrella, only to get wet and leave.

"The government says there is freedom of speech, but if a journalist does something, he is jailed," Salam said, as he bemoaned the government's lack of support for the arts. "If I do something, the gunmen can come and take me away."
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Pakistan Says Taliban Activity Is Hard to Stop
By SALMAN MASOOD The New York Times February 3, 2007
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Feb. 2 — Faced with mounting criticism that Pakistan is not doing enough to thwart incursions into Afghanistan by Pakistan-based Taliban militants, the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said Friday that securing the porous border was not the sole responsibility of this country.

He also insisted that despite some lapses, Pakistan’s security forces were fully behind him in an effort to root out the resurgent Taliban.

“Pakistan will not be allowed to be made a scapegoat,” he said, adding that securing the border was also the responsibility of Afghanistan and American and NATO forces.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded accusations in recent months over who bears responsibility for enabling the Taliban to regain strength and mount attacks on NATO and allied troops in Afghanistan.

While General Musharraf acknowledged that the Taliban were getting support from within Pakistan, he denied accusations that his security agencies were abetting the insurgency. “This is so preposterous I do not even want to comment,” he said. Maintaining that the Pakistani military is a professional force, General Musharraf said there was “no question of anyone abetting.”

A correspondent for The New York Times, Carlotta Gall, recently reported that she had found anecdotal evidence in and around Quetta to support charges by Western diplomats and Pakistani opposition figures that the Pakistani intelligence agencies were encouraging the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

General Musharraf said fighters had been able to slip over the border in part because Pakistan’s border guards were poorly armed and were up against “well-trained, well-armed and well-motivated people.” He said he would arm the guards better and provide them with security.

The president also denied allegations that some Taliban leaders were taking refuge in Pakistan. Last month the Afghan Intelligence Service announced that it had detained a Taliban spokesman who said the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was in Pakistan. General Musharraf said he was “500 percent sure” that Mullah Omar was in Afghanistan. He said Mullah Dadullah, a top Taliban commander, and other top leaders were also in Afghanistan.

The president did say Mullah Dadullah had escaped arrest three times in Pakistan, though he did not mention when.

General Musharraf also defended the peace deal reached late last year with tribal militants in North Waziristan, a semiautonomous tribal area straddling the border with Afghanistan, calling it “a partial success.”

Diplomats and intelligence officials from several countries have said Islamic militants are using the peace deal to consolidate their hold in northern Pakistan and are openly flouting the terms of the accord, in which they agreed to end cross-border help for the Taliban. But the president said that his government was trying to wean the local population away from the militants and that using military force was not the answer.

General Musharraf provided details of plans to fence the porous and craggy Pakistani-Afghan border — a solution to curb cross-border movement that Pakistan has advocated but Afghanistan has rejected.

He said Pakistan would selectively fence 22 miles of the border in North-Western Frontier Province and would later erect a 155-mile fence in Baluchistan Province. He said plans to mine the border had been suspended, “due to sensitivities of the international community.”
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A political curtain-raiser for the Taliban
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online February 3, 2007
KARACHI - The Olsi Jirga, the Afghan lower house of parliament, has granted immunity to all Afghans involved in the country's 25 years of conflict, despite calls by human-rights groups for war-crimes trials.

The decision will cover fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now heads his own militant group. The decision is just another dent in the US-led "war on terror" campaign at a time when the Taliban-led spring uprising is imminent and the Taliban show no desire to initiate dialogue for peace.

As the temperature has risen in Kabul to 1 degree Celsius - from minus-13 only two weeks ago - reconciliatory efforts on the part of Kabul have gained momentum.

The purpose of the initiative is to split opinion within the Taliban-led resistance, which has increasingly drawn in warlords across the country. From the tone of President Hamid Karzai's statements, though, it is clear that he does not intend to go as far as power-sharing; he talks of dialogue with "an enemy who is after our annihilation and is shedding our blood".

The amnesty decision, nevertheless, is significant. The overwhelming majority in the Olsi Jirga is former mujahideen, including Speaker Younus Qanooni and Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf. The single largest group is Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami, besides a sizable presence of former Taliban, including diehards such as Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, whose "defection" from the Taliban was made under considerable duress.

In early 2006, politicians in Kabul would have learned of the jump in support for the Taliban and their planned spring offensive for that year, which many believed would be successful. As a result, politicians drew up a political blueprint premised on the Taliban capturing Kabul and other key cities. In effect, they were acting as the Taliban's political wing. The latest act of granting immunity can be viewed as a continuation of this, and it sends a very strong message to all segments of Afghan society.

Spring sprung

The Taliban's plan for a mass uprising has now become an issue of honor, and this year it is many times better prepared than last year.

It is estimated that last year the Taliban were able to draw from a pool of about 40,000 foot soldiers, many of them secure in the Pakistani tribal areas of North Waziristan and South Waziristan. This year, the number of fighters has risen by many thousand, many of whom have already been launched from Pakistan into the Gramsir district of Helmand province across the border.

Thousands of others are ready to go from Pakistan's Bajaur agency into Kunar, Nooristan and then up the northeastern valley of Tagab to besiege Kabul.

In addition, there is a strong presence of Taliban in the Afghan provinces of Paktia, Paktika, Khost and Ghazni - possibly as many as 100,000. The Taliban have also regrouped in the western provinces of Faryab, Herat, Ghor and Baghdais, where they have sizable forces.

Within the next few weeks, Mullah Omar is expected to make major decisions on the appointment of new commanders and also make changes in command structures.

The roadmap for 2006, which centered on the fall of Kandahar and mobilization of Taliban forces to Kabul, is also likely to be altered, possibly allowing for an assault on an eastern city. This happened in 1991 when Khost was the first city to fall to the Taliban, followed by Jalalabad and finally Kabul in 1996.

Nonetheless, whether the Taliban move first on the east or the southwest, Kabul is clearly reading the signs, and preparing for the possibility of the Taliban entering Kabul.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Another honeymoon almost over?
Legal eye By Babar Sattar The News International (Pakistan) February 3, 2007
The Pakistan-US relationship seems to be coming full circle yet again. Last week the US Congress passed the Implementation of 9/11 Commission Recommendation Act, 2007, which provides a sneak preview of tumbling Pakistan-US relations in the not-too-distant future. The draft bill does two things that will result into Pakistan-battering by successor US administrations: A, it requires the US president to certify that Pakistan is making all possible effort to prevent the Taliban from operating within its territories to be eligible for US military and financial assistance; and B, it states that from 2008 onward "waivers of foreign assistance prohibitions with respect to Pakistan…should be informed by the pace of democratic reform, extension of the rule of law, and the conduct of parliamentary elections currently scheduled for 2007."

This legislation brings back memories of the infamous Pressler law, which was enacted in the 1980s and required the US president's certificate stating that Pakistan was doing all it could to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. The waiver was issued as a routine matter so long as the US invested in the region during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As soon as the Cold War ended, US interest in Afghanistan dissipated and President Bush senior determined that he could no longer certify, in good conscience, that Pakistan was doing all it could to halt nuclear proliferation. Consequently the US plugged all future assistance and went further by refusing to deliver already purchased F-16s, which was mean to the point of provocation. After being dumped unceremoniously Pakistan cried hoarse over US iniquitousness and fair-weather friendship for almost a decade.

Pakistan and the US became close allies in the 1950s when the two countries signed treaties (SEATO and CENTO) as part of the US strategy to ring-fence Soviet Union sponsored communism. It nevertheless sat on the fence when hostilities broke-out between India and Pakistan in 1965 and1971. The public perception was that the US sold Pakistan out despite the unqualified obedience offered by the Ayub regime. The bilateral relationship remained tense during the 1970s with Bhutto asserting more independence than was expected from a client state during the Cold War era. Many in Pakistan still believe that Bhutto could not have been hanged, had the US not acquiesced in General Zia's decision. (While public perceptions matter in inter-state relations, the US is certainly accredited with more influence in shaping domestic political events within Pakistan than it deserves.) The relationship warmed up again when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s and Pakistan once again became the closest US ally. The US was happy to look past the lack of democracy and the strong religious bent of the Zia regime as the CIA and the ISI fought together to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. However, no sooner was that war over, the US concerns with regard to democracy, corruption, terrorism and nuclear proliferation were back in the forefront. The 1990s were marred by estrangement and Pakistan struggled not to be declared a terrorist state. In early 2000, on his way back from a tour of India and Bangladesh, President Clinton stopped-over in Pakistan for a few hours, refused to meet General Musharraf at his office and instead addressed the nation from the presidency to preach the virtues of democracy by quoting Iqbal and Jinnah.

And then 9/11 happened. The world changed and so did the US priorities in the region and its relationship with Pakistan. After the initial intimidation and alleged threats of bombing Pakistan back to the stone ages (if the Musharraf regime refused to take up arms against the Taliban) the relationship kindled and Pakistan became the closest ally in the war on terror: the barriers to military and financial assistance vanished; democracy was termed an internal issue for Pakistan; General Musharraf got photo-ops at the White House and Camp David and was hailed as the best thing that happened to Pakistan. Even when the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation scandal broke out, the official US response was amazingly calm. The Bush administration accepted the Musharaf regime's explanation that the state was not involved and that proliferation was the handy work of a private network put together by Dr. A.Q. Khan.

Post-9/11, the Bush administration acknowledged the public perception in Pakistan that the US was not a reliable friend, swore to have learnt from the past and promised a long-term strategic partnership. But the mood in Washington seems to be changing again. Last week John Negroponte, the homeland security chief, declared to the US Congress that Pakistan was offering critical sanctuary to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This testimony was telling not for its wisdom or for disclosing critical information, but for being reflective of the fact that Washington is going into its audit-mode: review priorities, goals and players involved in the war on terror in Afghanistan, reformulate the priorities and goals, hire new players if need be and identify scapegoats to dump blame.

The Implementation of 9/11 Commission Recommendation Act apart from requiring annual presidential certification of good behaviour for Pakistan, identifies an amazingly comprehensive laundry list of potentially explosive issues in Pakistan-US relationship: curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons; combating poverty and corruption; building effective government institutions especially secular public schools; promoting democracy and the rule of law; addressing the continued presence of Taliban and other violent extremist forces throughout the country; maintaining the authority of the Government of Pakistan in all parts of its national territory; securing the borders of Pakistan to prevent the movement of militants and terrorists into other countries and territories; and effectively dealing with Islamic extremism.

History is important for it puts the present and the future in perspective. The boom-bust cycle in the Pakistan-US relationship is not the product of erratic US policies, but a consequence of Pakistan's failure to understand this multi-faceted policy. America's immediate-term strategic, national security and financial interests in the region always take priority over all other interests and policy objectives. Curbing the expansion of communism in the region and defeating Soviets in Afghanistan during the Cold War, rooting out Al Qaeda in the post-9/11 era, and securing uninterrupted oil supplies from the Middle East are examples of such interests.

In the event that there are no immediate-term national security or financial interests at stake, the long-term soft policy interests that the US has publicly committed itself to come to the forefront i.e. checking proliferation of nuclear weapons, censuring autocracies and promoting democracies, championing human rights etc. The policy can be considered consistent or hypocritical, depending on how passionately or objectively you critique it. There is no gainsaying that the US foreign policy is shamefully self-serving and devoid of moral content. Like cases are not treated alike and pragmatism trumps principle. But what is so shocking about that? Machiavellian realism is the rule in politics rather than the exception. We witness it in domestic politics all the time. Why hold inter-state politics to a higher moral standard?

The new draft legislation will act as a bridge between the immediate-term US interests in the region and its long-term priorities, affording the Bush administration the flexibility it needs in dealing with Pakistan at the moment but also laying out a policy framework that will enable future administrations to squeeze the noose when the services being offered by Pakistan's armed forces in the war on terror are no longer crucial. When that happens the then US administration will reject charges of duplicity and about-face, by pointing to this 2007 legislation as making US policies and intentions unambiguous. US might be culpable of taking Pakistan for a ride every few decades. But more importantly why are we so gullible?

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes Scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School.
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Kandahar cops making progress in street-survival skills, says RCMP
February 3, 2007 - 15:00 By: MURRAY BREWSTER
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Afghan National Police are making progress towards standing on their own two feet, despite a recent series of ambushes and targeted assassinations of officers in Kandahar province, say RCMP trainers.

Over the last few weeks, more than a dozen police have been killed in at least three separate attacks in which Taliban militants have claimed responsibility.

The death toll might have been higher had not been for the training provided by Canadian police based at the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) base.

"We try as best we can to improve their survivability by teaching the in-service skills we do here," said Supt. Dave Fudge, whose unit has spent over a year mentoring local cops.

"I think we are progressing. The sentiment on the street is the security situation in Kandahar is improving. That's very positive."

Fudge said he's seeing a more-disciplined force emerging, especially when it comes to handling roadside bomb attacks, but noted they still have a long way to go.

Canadian police officers have provided training in survival skills, tactics, policing, public safety skills and suspect search, among other things.

"They're being more disciplined at IED (improvised explosive device) sites regarding scene management and actual evidence gathering," he said.

This time last year, as Canadian troops were first deploying to this volatile region, the Taliban were on a killing spree, targeting lightly armed police checkpoints. In the course of 52 days last winter and spring a total of 41 officers were killed.

Fudge said it's too early to say whether the recent deaths of 13 officers, including two senior commanders in Kandahar and one in Panjwaii, constitute a trend similar to 2006 - or simply a spasm of unfocused violence.

"It's certainly raised our eyebrows," he said in an interview. "It's a concern, but we have no indication right now that they're related."

But the police commander in the Zhari district, a former Taliban stronghold, had no hesitation in calling the attacks a trend.

Col. Akarasool said he has been targeted in the past and fully expects to remain in the cross-hairs of militants.

"They don't want me to be safe (and) they try to kill me and other police commanders," he said through a translator.

"I have been bombed by Taliban. My hands were hurt. I was injured by Taliban, so I hope I catch Taliban. They are my enemy."

Asked if he feared for his life, Akarasool said with a bravado laugh: "Almost."

The day he was interviewed, the chief had just returned from sweeping the road between this tiny, arid village and nearby Sangiser. After receiving reports that insurgents had laced winding gravel lane with mines, Akarasool took a dozen of his 200 officers in three pickup trucks and went for a drive, but found no explosives.

The brazen patrol, conducted without the benefit of military escort or even mine detectors, highlighted for Fudge the difference between western methods and expectations of policing and the Afghan way.

"Civilian policing as you and I know it does not exist in Afghanistan," he said.

"It is a very dangerous occupation. Here many times these officers are put on the front line. They're a paramilitary force."

Canada's Foreign Affairs Department recently invested $10 million in the Kandahar police, providing them with better equipment and support. Military engineers at the PRT are currently surveying checkpoints to determine which ones can be improved.

Kandahar province currently has 1,800 Afghan National Police officers and there are plans to recruit another 1,000.

One of the biggest obstacles facing the force is winning public trust in communities they're asked to protect.

Stories of corruption among the officers are legion, fuelled by underpaid cops sometimes establishing illegal checkpoints and shaking down civilians. There is a level of mistrust in the tightly-knit villages because most police officers are from elsewhere in the country and often transferred between provinces.

"There are problems," said Fudge. "There is corruption, a byproduct of the pay, a byproduct of 30 years of strife, finding a way to survive."

In order to improve security, the government last year authorized the creation of an auxiliary police force, which has its recruits serve in their own community.
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Rebuilding the house of Pashtunistan
By Michael Shank The News International (Pakistan) February 3, 2007
"O Pathans! Your house has fallen into ruin. Arise and rebuild it, and remember to what race you belong," uttered by one of Islam's exemplary non-violent leaders. This quote is relevant now more than ever before, one-hundred years after Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan pleaded with his people. Estimated at 40 million, the 'house' to which Khan refers to is the world's largest patriarchal lineage tribal group, stationed within Afghanistan and Pakistan's border regions. Ethnically homogenous, the house split in two in 1893 by the Durand Line, the two countries' 1610-mile border, resulting in geographically specific identities, Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pathans in Pakistan.

Ironically, Khan's analysis remains relevant; the house is indeed falling into ruin. But the ruination is not resulting from recent Pashtun or Pathan malfeasance. Rather, the responsibility lies with governments near and far -- specifically Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States -- who have used this region as a political dumping ground. Now it is time for Pashtuns and Pathans to throw off the yolk of their assigned nation-statehood. The war on terrorism has awarded Pashtuns/Pathans unwelcome notoriety. Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States all consider this mountainous region the home of Taliban and Al Qaeda's infamous leadership and consequently, innocent tribesmen are frequently caught in the crossfire, killed or jailed without legal access.

Ironically the blame for this assumed Taliban-and-Al-Qaeda harbouring is accorded only when politically expedient. Afghanistan blames Pakistan. Pakistan blames Afghanistan. The US blames Pakistan. Washington would blame Afghanistan if it could, but because of the Bush invasion it would simultaneously reflect badly on the US. So US finger-pointing remains Pakistan-specific. And the sad irony facing Pashtuns and Pathans: none of these governments seem to care remotely for their welfare.

Afghanistan's disregard for the Pashtun perspective is perhaps the most egregious. Kabul's governance fails to aptly reflect the voice of the Pashtun ethnic majority. The Pashtun people remain deprived of a representative voice within President Karzai's administration and harbour deep resentment towards Karzai and the US government for its role in establishing a near Pashtun-free government. Thusly, the motivation among Pashtuns to remain law-abiding citizens within an Afghanistan that perpetually disregards the needs of its ethnic majority is, not surprisingly, minimal. That is why the Pashtun-heavy southern Afghanistan continues to be characterised by violence. Kabul's refusal to bring Pashtun leaders to the political table concurrently undermines Karzai's ability to achieve security. As long as Pashtuns are excluded from the government, violence will be their loudest voice.

Pakistan is no better neighbour. At one point in history, Pakistan was aiding and abetting the US by arming tribesmen to fight the Russians. And now the present government is bombing the same tribes to convince US patrons that the Islamic Republic is active in the war on terror. At one point in history, Pakistan was cavorting with Pashtuns to ensure a strong ethnic presence in Kabul. Not long after, the officials of a successive government were cavorting with the Americans to shell tribal villages. Undoubtedly, Pakistan's president is in a delicate situation since the alignment with the US secures financial security for his country and substantial weapons' deliveries.

Though geographically very distant, the United States is ever-present, pitting Pashtuns and/or Pathans in Afghanistan and Pakistan against each other within the rubric of the war on terror. The near entirety of Washington's policymaking community believes that the indisputable source of all Talibanism and Al Qaeda is the border region. Since US efforts to locate the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been largely unsuccessful, consensus on a Pashtun/Pathan source is not only critical but also convenient for several reasons.

Firstly, the border regions are vast, impassable and remote, making it difficult for international observers to repudiate or corroborate US claims. Secondly, Pashtuns/Pathans are a notoriously proud people with a history of increasing resistance when pushed by external forces (visible in resistance to Britain's colonialist agenda in South Asia). The US knows that by vociferously backing them into a corner, much like what is happening with Iran, the cornered victim will eventually strike back, thus providing justification for a response attack by the US. Thirdly, the Pashtuns offer the US a necessary scapegoat to justify Afghanistan's near failed-state status. Without Pashtuns to blame, the US is solely accountable and responsible for the tenuous, post-invasion status of Karzai's country.

In short, neighbours appear untrustworthy. Consequently, Pashtuns/Pathans should consider rebuilding their house to withstand outside pressures. There is a strong likelihood they would be better off by doing so. Such a move, of course, would be loudly boycotted by Karzai and Musharraf and would invariably disrupt the century-long dispute over the Durand Line. The boundary, of which a 99-year old treaty expired in 1993, demarcated borders between Afghanistan and then-British India and afforded Pakistan the eventual right to rule over Pathans. This is why Pakistan supported a Pashtun presence in Kabul, to win favour with the Pashtuns and eventual acquiescence perhaps for a Pakistan-controlled Pathan homeland. Now with the treaty defunct, Pashtuns/Pathans remain vulnerable against a possible remapping of the borders or a fencing of existing borders -- either of which would have adverse impacts.

In order to pre-empt that vulnerability and possible remapping, Pashtuns/Pathans should consider local, sovereign systems of governance. Tribes demanding autonomy is not a new phenomenon. It mirrors a global trend by unrepresented voices who, feeling disenfranchised by their ruling capitals, go it alone. What happened to East Timor and what may happen in southern Sudan or west Papua, is perhaps what is needed in and around the Durand Line. The Pashtuns are under-represented in Kabul, many Pathans are perpetually under attack from Islamabad, and Washington vilifies both. Pashtuns/Pathans need to find their own voice.

The writer is a PhD student at George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
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Farah fighting: Taliban & officials make contradictory claims
FARAH CITY, Feb 2 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Taliban fighters and local police engaged Friday morning in a heavy fighting in the western province of Farah with both the sides claiming infliction of more than 20 fatalities to the opposite side.

Gen. Muahmmad Daud Ahmadi, a border police commander in Farah told Pajhwok Afghan News 27 Taliban fighters were killed during the severe clash. The fighting in Bakwa district erupted after the Taliban ambushed a police convoy this morning, said Ahmadi He added 20 bodies of the fighters were left on the battlefield and seven were taken by their colleagues.

Regarding casualties to the police, Daud Ahamdi said only three of his cops were wounded, two of them seriously in the attack. Some light and heavy weapons were also captured from the Taliban after they escaped, he said.

However, the Taliban rejected suffering any casualties and claimed inflicting heavy casualties to the police. The militia's spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told this agency 23 cops were killed in the fighting that lasted for two hours. He said three vehicles of the police convoy were also destroyed in the ambush.

Two policemen were killed in the same area on Wednesday in 'friendly-fire' of their colleagues.

Farah has been the most volatile province in the west with a high surge of the Taliban attacks on government forces since about a year.
Saeed Zabuli
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New five-star hotel in Kabul soon
NEW YORK, Feb 2 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Nearly four years after signing of a memorandum of understanding, a five star luxurious hotel in the Capital Kabul, funded by the U.S, now appears, would soon be a reality. But, not before a substantial increase in its construction cost from $39 to $ 60 million and changes in its construction and management companies.

Scheduled to be up and running in early 2005, it would have been the first five star hotel in Kabul. But not now, as one has already come up.

At its recent meeting, the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation gave its consent to fund $60 million for the construction of a 209-room five-star hotel in Afghanistans capital Kabul.

An agency of the US government established in 1971 to help American businesses invest overseas, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation or OPIC had signed a memorandum of understanding on Feb 27, 2003 with the then Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah to fund $35 million for the construction of this hotel in Kabul. The rest of $4 million was to be funded by others.

As per the MoU, the 200-room deluxe hotel to be constructed by the Afghan Reconstruction Company and three Turkish construction companies Tepe Group, Yuksel and Limak -- was to be called the Hyatt Regency Kabul. But things have changed now.

The hotel, which is now being billed as a major foreign exchange earner for Afghanistan when operational, would now be constructed by the General Systems International (GSI), a Delaware-based company. The hotel would now be managed by Marriott International, which runs a chain of hotels world over. It would now have 209 rooms.

A statement issued by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) after the board of directors approved $60 million for the project, said the hotel would generate permanent employment opportunities for 270 Afghans and the Marriott would implement a training program for all the hotel employees.

However, documents available with the Pajhwok Afghan News indicate that as per initial MoU, the hotel to be constructed as an estimated cost of $39 million was expected to give permanent employment to about 300 Afghans. Of these $35 million was to be funded by the OPIC.

Construction of this hotel will provide significant support for Afghanistans economic growth, not least by helping Kabul to modernize accommodations and meeting facilities for the foreign investors engaged in that effort, said OPIC President and CEO Robert Mosbacher, Jr in a statement after the board of directors approved the project.

It will also introduce Marriotts world-class management practices to Afghanistans hotel industry.

He said the project sends a message of confidence in Afghanistans future development to other prospective investors. It is our expectation that it will catalyze further foreign direct investment in the country, he said.
Lalit K. Jha
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Work permits for two telecom companies
KABUL, Feb 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Ministry of Communications has issued work permits to two new telecom companies to start operations in four provinces.

This was announced by the Minister for Communications Amirzai Sangin during a press conference held here on Thursday.

The minister said the two local companies included the Shaheen and Irtibat telecom companies. He said those companies would provide services in Herat, Logar, Khost and Paktia provinces.

"The two companies were issued licenses to extend easy and quality communication services to people in distant areas and villages," opined the minister. According to the contract signed with the ministry, Shaheen Telecom Company would invest $3.9 million, while Irtibat $6.1 million in the coming one year.

Sangin said work permit had also been issued to a third company in the name of Wasil Telecom to provide services to people in the northern province of Kunduz.

Dr Abdul Ghani, head of the Irtibat Telecom Company, said the move would create jobs for 46 people at the moment. The number of their employees would increase to 200 in the coming four years, he added.
Mustafa Basharat
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