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U.S. officials say Taliban attacks surge
US defense secretary in Afghanistan as Pakistan strikes militants
US defence secretary to meet Afghan leader
Pakistan strikes Taliban, al Qaeda camp
Kabul bombing thwarted as Gates visits
Purported Taliban spokesman arrested in Afghanistan, intelligence service says
Pakistan will close four camps to foil Afghan terror
UN Envoy Hails Naming Of New Police Officials In Afghanistan
Burial of Afghan insurgents taking place in Pakistan
Egypt, Afghanistan to boost bilateral cooperation
AFGHANISTAN: Children work the streets to support families
UNHCR shelter kits reach more than a million Afghan returnees
Afghanistan's efforts to boost women falter
AFGHANISTAN: MORE AID TO 15,000 FAMILIES DISPLACED IN SOUTH
"Fencing Durand Line aims to divide Pashtun tribes"
Al-Qaeda Leaders Have No Haven in Pakistan, Prime Minister Says
Second Cooperative Dairy Union is established in Afghanistan
Private sector wants One Chamber of Commerce
Peace Jirga next month: Wardak
Afghan rugs to be displayed in US exhibition
Burial of Afghan insurgents taking place in Pakistan
The West should buy Afghanistan’s opium crop
New Kabul police chief takes charge
Lucky Dutch in Afghanistan
Aid to Afghanistan is well accounted for
U.S. officials say Taliban attacks surge
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban fighters seeking to regain power in Afghanistan are taking advantage of a recent peace deal with the Pakistan government to dramatically increase attacks on U.S. and allied forces in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan, several American military officials said Tuesday.
Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview that Taliban attacks surged by 200 percent in December, and a U.S. military intelligence officer said that since the peace deal went into effect Sept. 5 the number of attacks in the border area has grown by 300 percent.
Eikenberry did not explicitly criticize the peace deal with tribal leaders in the border area and he said he is confident that U.S. and NATO forces are going to dominate on the decisive battlefields.
But he predicted, "It's going to be a violent spring," and other officials said it has become commonplace for the Pakistani military at border outposts to turn a blind eye to infiltration of Taliban fighters.
Col. Thomas Collins, the chief spokesmen for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the Pakistan peace deal has backfired.
"The enemy is taking advantage of that agreement to launch attacks into Afghanistan," Collins said.
Meanwhile, Pakistani officials in Islamabad said Pakistan's army destroyed suspected al-Qaida hideouts in an airstrike near the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing 10 people.
They said the raid was in South Waziristan, close to North Waziristan, where the government in September signed a controversial peace deal with tribal elders to halt military operations against militants.
Eikenberry spoke to a group of U.S. reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was receiving closed-door briefings from military officials on the resurgence of the Taliban in recent months. Gates was accompanied by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gates has publicly expressed concern that a resurgent Taliban could put areas of Afghanistan in danger of reverting to a haven for terrorists. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to oust the Taliban, and although gains have been made to stabilize the country, the Taliban has recently made inroads.
"The enemy does use both sides of the border, inside Pakistan as well," with senior Taliban leaders directing insurgent operations in some cases from sanctuaries on the Pakistan side, Eikenberry said.
Other U.S. military officers who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because the information included sensitive intelligence, painted an even bleaker picture of the result of the September peace deal, which the Pakistan government portrayed as a vehicle for assisting U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials recently gained firsthand evidence that Pakistani forces at a border control point opposite Afghanistan's Khowst province turned a blind eye to infiltration of a substantial number of Taliban fighters. U.S. troops at a base known as Forward Operating Base Tillman urged the Pakistanis to block the infiltrating fighters but nothing was done, one U.S. military intelligence officer said.
"This is common," another intelligence officer said.
The U.S. military intelligence officer disclosed for the first time full-year statistics on insurgent attacks in Afghanstian. Suicide attacks in 2006 totaled 139, up from 27 in 2005, and the number of attacks with roadside bombs more than doubled, from 783 in 2005 to 1,677 last year. The number of what the military calls "direct attacks," meaning attacks by insurgents using small arms, grenades and other weapons, surged from 1,558 in 2005 to 4,542 last year.
The officer noted that some of the increase can be explained by the fact that U.S., NATO and Afghan forces conducted more offensive operations in more areas last year, but the officer said the insurgents also have begun to launch more sophisticated — and in some case, more coordinated — attacks.
Eikenberry said it appears the Taliban will focus its spring offensive in areas of southern Afghanistan, particularly in the city of Kandahar and other urban centers.He also said he believed the Taliban would make renewed efforts to "get inside Kabul" and to attack border posts held by NATO and Afghan national forces.
He asserted that despite the Taliban's resurgence, "The enemy is not strong militarily. A lot of this has to do with the attempt to get psychological effects" — to persuade ordinary Afghans that the U.S.-backed government cannot deliver necessary services.
"Although it's going to be a violent spring and I would expect that we're going to have more violence into the summer, I'm absolutely confident that we're going to be able to dominate," Eikenberry said. He is leaving his post this month.
There are nearly 24,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which Eikenberry said was the highest number since the war began in 2001. About 11,000 of those troops are part of a NATO-led force that totals about 31,000 troops from many nations. The rest of the American troops are engaged in counterterrorist operations, and other efforts like training the Afghan army.
Eikenberry said he sees no prospect of reducing the U.S. troop presence during 2007 and he held out the possibility of adding some troops. He also noted that he has asked the Pentagon to extend the deployment of a battalion of the Army's 10th Mountain Division that was originally sent to Afghanistan for a four-month stint to bridge a gap in forces. That unit, the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, is scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this year.
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US defense secretary in Afghanistan as Pakistan strikes militants
KABUL (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was briefed in Afghanistan on efforts to defeat the Taliban, as Pakistan -- stung by accusations of being a militant base -- destroyed three suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts in a dawn strike.
Gates met top military commanders and was due later to meet President Hamid Karzai to assess the battle to tackle a resurgent Taliban militia, which was driven from government in a US-led campaign five years ago.
While the newly appointed defense secretary prepared for his round of talks, the military in neighboring Pakistan announced a dawn strike on five suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
Seven helicopters attacked the camps after reports of 25 to 30 local and foreign militants there, spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said.
"I can't give you the exact number of casualties but most of them were believed killed," Shaukat told AFP, adding three camps were destroyed.
Officials said the precision strike targeted a complex in South Waziristan where local and foreign extremists had been training.
Islamabad was angered by statements last week by US intelligence director John Negroponte that top Al-Qaeda leaders who had been harbored by the Taliban had found "secure hideouts" in Pakistan from where they were regrouping.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz firmly rejected the complaints on Sunday but admitted his government was struggling to stop Taliban insurgents moving across the porous border.
The Afghan government welcomed Negroponte's statement and similar ones from other top officials as acknowledgement of its long-held assertions that the roots of the insurgency are in its neighbor.
"The president of Afghanistan has constantly emphasized over the past several years the need for targeting the roots of terrorism. We are getting closer to this goal," the president's spokesman, Karim Rahimi, said Tuesday.
Once "the roots of terrorists are dried up, there'll be no need to fight them elsewhere," he told reporters in Kabul.
Bickering over the dragging Taliban insurgency -- which was at its deadliest last year with more than 4,000 people killed, most of them rebels -- has soured relations between the Islamic neighbors.
Gates expressed concern about a Taliban revival during a stopover in Brussels to meet the NATO force leading nearly 40,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.
"One of the subjects we've been discussing was the increased level of violence last year and some indication that the Taliban want to increase the level of violence in 2007," he said.
In Afghanistan, he was pressed by the senior US commander Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, in charge of about 10,000 soldiers, for more troops to confront a surge in Taliban attacks expected once winter eases.
"I would expect that the enemy will have its main effort against southern Afghanistan and what we'll see is more violence in the south," Eikenberry told reporters afterwards.
The general pointed to a doubling in the last month in the number of cross-border incidents along a stretch of border opposite a Pakistani tribal area where the Islamabad government struck a peace agreement with tribal leaders last September.
He said the separate 33,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was 10 percent short of the troops promised by NATO. A US military official said it was also short of aviation support, logistics and intelligence elements.
Eikenberry said one reason the Taliban have been able to mount their biggest offensive since their ouster in December 2001 is that they have been able to establish a command structure inside both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"And they need to be interdicted," he said.
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US defence secretary to meet Afghan leader
by Jim Mannion Tue Jan 16, 3:30 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top military officials to determine the best way to tackle a Taliban resurgence in the war-wracked country.
Gates flew into Afghanistan on Monday after a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he discussed the situation with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and General Bantz Craddock, NATO's supreme commander.
"Success in Afghanistan is our top priority," he told reporters after the Brussels meeting.
The new US defense chief has expressed concern that a Taliban revival in southern Afghanistan and the slow pace of reforms and economic reconstruction under Karzai threatens gains made since the Taliban's ouster in December 2001.
"One of the subjects we've been discussing was the increased level of violence last year and some indication that the Taliban want to increase the level of violence in 2007," he said.
He said they discussed how to respond to that "and perhaps to try to act to avert it".
NATO forces have remained active through the winter, traditionally a dormant period for Afghan insurgents because of the heavy snows that prevent movement in the mountainous border areas.
Scores of insurgents were killed in air and ground attacks last week trying to infiltrate from Pakistan, NATO officials have said.
On Tuesday, Gates will meet Karzai, the top US commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, and the commander of the 33,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), British General David Richards.
His visit comes less than a week after President George W. Bush announced plans to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, further stretching US forces.
But Gates will query US and NATO commanders on whether they have enough troops and other resources to deal with the surge in Taliban activity, a senior US defence official said.
The United States has 22,000 troops in Afghanistan, about half of them with ISAF and the other half dedicated to counter-terrorism missions and training the Afghan army.
In his talks with Karzai, Gates is expected to reaffirm US commitment to Afghanistan's central government and discuss ways it can extend its reach and influence beyond Kabul.
How to deal with Taliban safe havens in Pakistan's tribal border areas is another issue that is almost certain to be discussed.
Karzai has bitterly blamed the government of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf for the Taliban's comeback and relations between the two governments have been strained by the upsurge in attacks.
On Tuesday a military spokesman in Islamabad said Pakistani soldiers had attacked and destroyed three militant camps in a dawn operation on a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing up to 30 fighters.
Major General Shaukat Sultan said helicopter gunships swooped on the camps in the tribal district of South Waziristan after reports that 25 to 30 local and foreign militants were there.
The strike came days after unusually frank criticism from US intelligence director John Negroponte that top Al-Qaeda leaders had found "secure hideouts" in Pakistan from where they were regrouping and leading new operations.
Pakistan furiously rejected the complaint but admitted it was struggling to stop insurgents loyal to the Taliban regime moving back and forth across the porous border.
Gates's last involvement with Afghanistan was as a senior CIA official in the 1980s, at a time when the US spy agency was funding and arming an Islamic insurgency that drove the Soviets from Afghanistan.
Now in his fourth week on the job after an extended absence from government, he is taking charge of the US armed forces at a time when the US position in the Middle East is under pressure from Islamic militants and Iran.
In Brussels, he defended a US decision to send a second aircraft carrier battle group and Patriot missile defence to the Gulf as a move meant to show US commitment to the region.
He said that as recently as 2004, when he co-authored a report on US policy towards Iran, he believed diplomatic engagement was worth trying with Tehran because it was doing some constructive things in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"None of those conditions apply any longer," he said. "The Iranians believe that they are in a position to press us in many ways. They are doing nothing to be constructive in Iraq at this point."
"In addition they have supported Hezbollah's efforts to create a new conflict in Lebanon, and so the Iranians are acting in a very negative way in many respects," he said.
"My view is when the Iranians are prepared to play a constructive role in dealing with many of these problems, then there might be opportunities for engagement," he said.
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Pakistan strikes Taliban, al Qaeda camp
By Kamran Haider Tue Jan 16, 5:35 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Pakistan army launched an air strike on Tuesday killing up to 25 to 30 militants living at a camp close to the Afghan border, in a tribal region regarded as a hotbed of support for the Taliban and al Qaeda.
"The operation was carried out at around 6:55 a.m. (0155 GMT) in Zamzola in South Waziristan, based on information that 25 to 30 miscreants, including foreigners were present there," Major General Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's military spokesman, said.
Sultan said there was a precision air strike, and helicopter gunships mopped up. No ground troops were used. A military statement later said three out of a cluster of five mud-walled compounds housing the militants were destroyed.
"I can't tell you the exact number of casualties, but most of them were killed," Sultan said.
The attack came hours after Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Kabul for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
A resident of Zamzola raised the possibility that U.S. drone aircraft helped identify the target in the forested mountains, 60 km (40 miles) north of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, and close to the boundary with Afghanistan and North Waziristan.
"It is a small forest where the bombing took place. We noticed a drone hovering early in the morning and then a few helicopters came and bombed three houses there," villager Mohammad Ali told Reuters.
A Reuters reporter in North Waziristan saw seven helicopters including at least two U.S.-built Cobras leave from Tochi Fort's helipad in Miranshah less than an hour before the attack and returned shortly after.
An intelligence official in Wana, South Waziristan's administrative headquarters, said 10 bodies had been found at the attack site, two of them appeared to be local men but the others were too badly damaged to identify.
UNDER PRESSURE
The army launched a campaign in late 2003 to clear out nests of al Qaeda from South Waziristan, but when it later struck a peace deal Taliban militants grew in influence in the semi-autonomous tribal region.
They have been actively recruiting men and boys, including suicide bombers, to fight in Afghanistan.
Although it is routinely praised by U.S. officials for its efforts in counter-terrorism, Pakistan is under constant pressure to do more to stop Taliban fighters crossing the border to fight, though Pakistan says the insurgency is largely Afghan-based..
Last September, another peace deal was struck with tribal elders in neighboring North Waziristan, but U.S. officials say infiltration levels into Afghanistan remain at high levels.
Pakistan has lost hundreds of troops fighting in Waziristan, and has sought political ways to isolate the militants, to reduce the risk of sparking a wider conflict in the tribal areas.
Most of the foreign militants in Waziristan are from Central Asia, but Chechens and Arabs have also been captured and killed.
U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte stirred controversy last week in written testimony to a Senate committee, in which he said al Qaeda leaders were based in Pakistan and rebuilding their network, and he described the country as a "major source of Islamic extremism."
But Negroponte also noted the dangers President Pervez Musharraf faced in using force in tribal areas, as well as the political risks of a backlash from Islamist political parties, especially as national elections are due in Pakistan this year.
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Kabul bombing thwarted as Gates visits
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 16, 7:08 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO-led troops thwarted a bombing at their base in Kabul on Tuesday after a man with an explosive-laden car attempted to enter inside, an alliance spokeswoman said.
The bomber was arrested and NATO ordnance experts destroyed the vehicle outside the base, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of alliance rules. No further details were available.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was meeting Tuesday with U.S. commanders and Afghan officials in central Kabul. The site of the foiled bombing in eastern Kabul was several miles away.
In southern Helmand province, Ghulam Nabi Mulakhail, the province's police chief, reported that 13 suspected Taliban militants were killed and 17 others were wounded during a clash with NATO troops on Monday.
NATO had reported Monday that one British soldier was killed and several wounded in the clash when its forces attacked a militant base. The alliance had not given an estimate of militant casualties.
Over the past year, the Taliban have launched a record number of attacks, and some 4,000 people, most of them militants, have died in the insurgency-related violence, according to a tally by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials.
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Purported Taliban spokesman arrested in Afghanistan, intelligence service says
The Associated Press Tuesday, January 16, 2007 via The International Herald Tribune
Afghan intelligence agents arrested a purported Taliban spokesman after he crossed into the country from Pakistan, a spokesman for the agency said Tuesday.
Dr. Muhammad Hanif, who often contacted the news media claiming to speak for the hard-line militia, was arrested at the border town of Torkham on Monday, said Sayed Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. Two people traveling with him were also detained.
Hanif initially told investigators that his name was Abdulhaq Haqiq, Ansari said.
"But during the investigations we discovered that he is Dr. Hanif," Ansari told The Associated Press. "He also confessed to it himself."
Ansari would not say where Hanif was being held.
U.S. military and NATO officials said they were not aware of the arrest and could not immediately comment on it.
Hanif was one of two spokesmen who often contacted journalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban. His phones were not responding Tuesday, and the other spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Hanif would convey purported statements from Taliban chief Mullah Omar, and was the reported liaison for an e-mail interview conducted by a Pakistani newspaper with the fugitive leader and published earlier this month.
In the interview, Omar was quoted as saying that he has not seen Osama bin Laden since the Taliban lost power in Afghanistan five years ago.
Hanif would also comment on militant attacks and fighting in the north, center and east of the country. As recently as Thursday, Hanif had contacted an Associated Press reporter by text message to deny a NATO claim that it had killed as many as 150 insurgents in a battle near the Pakistan border.
Another purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Hakim Latifi, was arrested by Pakistan's police in 2005 in that country's southwestern Baluchistan province.
After the Taliban were ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, many of its leaders left Afghanistan and some are suspected to be living and operating in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Pakistan will close four camps to foil Afghan terror
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES January 16, 2007
Pakistan's government will close four refugee camps near its border with Afghanistan to help prevent Afghan insurgents from gunrunning and seeking safe haven in the country, Islamabad's ambassador to the United States said yesterday.
Mahmud Ali Durrani said the residents of two of the camps will soon be sent back to Afghanistan as part of a new program to better control the 1,550-mile shared border.
Agreement on the plan was reached Sunday with national and local leaders in what Pakistan calls the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Baluchistan section of the country, Mr. Durrani said at a meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
"We had seen some level of activity [and so] we thought we need to strengthen our systems," he said. "It is a porous border; it is a very difficult border."
About 20,000 Pakistanis and Afghans cross the border in both directions every day, making it difficult to weed out insurgents who come to Pakistan for medical treatment or a respite from the fighting in Afghanistan.
The four refugee camps hold tens of thousands of the 3 million refugees in the country. Two will be closed around March and the other two later, the ambassador said, adding that arrangements would first be made to receive the refugees in Afghanistan.
In the meantime, Mr. Durrani said, his government will beef up security around the camps, a measure that he said was welcomed by most of the refugees.
Other security measures agreed to Sunday include adding to the 938 border posts strung out through the mountainous region, increasing intelligence activities and tightening central government control over parts of Baluchistan. The government will go ahead with previously announced plans to fence parts of the border.
"We have wanted to do this for a long time," Mr. Durrani said, noting that the refugee camp closure was delayed by the United Nations because of a lack of funds, and that many refugees opposed being returned.
"But after this recent spate of criticism that has come toward Pakistan, we got fed up. We said, 'If this is the problem, then let's remove it.' "
Pakistan has about 70,000 troops in the border region and says Afghanistan's weak central government is not doing enough to secure the border against terrorist activity. Kabul, however, accuses Pakistan of inadequate efforts to seal the border.
Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in written testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, "Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan are strained due to continued Taliban reliance on safe haven in Pakistan."
Gen. Maples also said an agreement reached in September between Pakistan's government and tribes in North Waziristan is not being honored. "Al Qaeda's network may exploit the agreement for increased freedom of movement and operation," the general said.
Early today, Pakistani troops destroyed three suspected al Qaeda hide-outs near the Afghan border, killing several fighters, the army said.
The military carried out the operation in the South Waziristan tribal region after receiving information that 25 to 30 al Qaeda members were hiding there, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
Mr. Durrani said Pakistan's government has no sympathy for al Qaeda or the ousted Taliban regime. "They are our sworn enemy," he said.
He reiterated Islamabad's objection to statements made last week by Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte that Pakistan, while a key ally in the war on terrorism, was being used as a "secure hide-out" by al Qaeda leaders.
Mr. Negroponte's statements "grossly exaggerated" the level of al Qaeda activity in Pakistan, Mr. Durrani said.
Asked about the U.S. debate on pulling out troops from Iraq, Mr. Durrani said any "abrupt" pullout would be "dangerous."
"I think it would be devastating to pull out abruptly," he said. "I think it would be equivalent to having just exploded a little bomb in Iraq and then walked away. I don't think you can afford to do that."
He said U.S. forces should be withdrawn over several years.
In an earlier interview, Mr. Durrani said he was angered by reports from the United Nations and NATO that Pakistan was not doing enough to stop Islamic extremists.
"I think Pakistan had done everything that is possible. If there is a genuine feeling that Pakistan has to do X, Y and Z, then we will talk it out," he said.
Chris Alexander, the deputy U.N. representative in Afghanistan, said recently that Taliban leaders identified by the United Nations in 1999 were still active in the region, including Pakistan.
The leaders, he said in Kabul, "continue to organize, plan and carry out terrorist activities in this country and in this region." Some of those key players "were in Pakistan for at least a part of 2006," Mr. Alexander said.
•Sharon Behn contributed to this report.
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UN Envoy Hails Naming Of New Police Officials In Afghanistan
January 16, 2007 6:21 a.m. EST
Siddique Islam - All Headline News South East Asia Correspondent
New York, NY (AHN) - The senior United Nations envoy to Afghanistan has welcomed a Presidential decree confirming the appointment of 40 new police officials to the country's national force as a step towards stability.
"Strengthening the rule of law across Afghanistan needs to be a priority for all our efforts in 2007, reform of the Afghanistan National Police is central to this if we are to build a police force able to serve the people of Afghanistan with professionalism and integrity," Tom Koenigs said in a statement released in Kabul on Saturday.
All of the officials had been selected based on "merit, integrity and experience," he said, voicing confidence that "their skills, experience and commitment to public service will serve them well as they continue the work of cementing much needed peace and stability across Afghanistan."
Koenigs heads the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), a political operation with some 1,000 personnel. The vast majority of those staff members - 80 percent -- are Afghan nationals, reflecting UNAMA's focus on building capacity within the country rather than hiring expatriates.
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Burial of Afghan insurgents taking place in Pakistan
By ANI Monday January 15, 04:51 PM
Washington, Jan 15 (ANI): Pakistan's role in fuelling insurgency in Afghanistan has received new evidence with the reported burial of close to two dozens al Qaeda and Taliban elements in the restive North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The Taliban leaders have called for giving the insurgents killed in a clash with NATO and Afghan army a 'martyrs' funeral, and villages in NWFP got readied for the burial ceremony, The Washington Post reported quoting local newspapers.
According to NATO, 150 Afghan insurgents that comprised both Pakistanis and Afghans were killed in a counter insurgency operation in Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The report has bolstered allegations of Pakistan's deep involvement in causing instability in Afghanistan, which the former has always been refuting. Pakistan Foreign Office officials and Interior Ministry have denied that their country was offering shelter to extremists. A Pakistani military spokesman said that the country's army force had fired on trucks carrying Islamic insurgents toward the Afghan border and that Pakistan was "keen to stop" such cross-border infiltration, the paper reported.
The tribal province of Pakistan's North West along the border with Afghanistan have provided a haven for Islamic militia groups seeking to destabilize the Western-backed government of Afghanistan, and in September 2006, the Pakistan Government had entered a truce with the tribal leaders of the province. (ANI)
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Egypt, Afghanistan to boost bilateral cooperation
People's Daily Online, China
Egypt and Afghanistan seek to boost bilateral cooperation as visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta held talks with senior Egyptian officials on Monday.
Spanta met with Egyptian Interior Minister Habib Ibrahim el- Adli to discuss ways of promoting bilateral cooperation in the security sphere, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.
During the meeting, el-Adli briefed the top Afghan diplomat on the security situation in Egypt, stressing the importance of cooperation in combating terrorism and citing Egypt's experience in countering extremist thought tarnishing the true image of Islam.
He welcomed the proposal of training Afghan police cadres in Egypt in support of the Afghan Interior Ministry's efforts to secure stability in the country.
Also on Monday, Egyptian Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Rachid Mohamed Rachid met with Spanta on economic cooperation.
Spanta arrived here Saturday on a four-day official visit to Egypt.
Source: Xinhua
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AFGHANISTAN: Children work the streets to support families
16 Jan 2007 13:55:09 GMT
More KABUL, 16 January (IRIN) - Ahmad Wali, 9, is combing the rubbish dump for soda cans to sell as a way to support his 11-member family in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Thousands of children work the streets to help their households through the harsh winter.
"They [empty soda cans] are easily available everywhere and more profitable than other metals which we collect and then sell in the city," Wali told IRIN, as he shivered with cold.
"The price of 1kg of these [aluminium] cans is equal to 7kg of other metals that we collect and sell. That is why many children are trying to find more soda cans and earn more money for their families," said Wali, who is making up to US$3 a day.
"I have to work hard as my father lost his job and it has become very difficult for us to get by and pay the monthly rent for our house," he explained.
There are no accurate figures on how many children work in Kabul but aid workers fear the number is rising. Some estimates put the number of youngsters working as labourers or beggars in Kabul at about 37,000 in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available.
"Unfortunately, the number of street children is increasing day by day in our country because of the widespread poverty and a lack of proper work opportunities for people," Mohammad Yousef, director of ASCHIANA, a local NGO supporting working children and their families, said in Kabul.
Afghanistan is ranked 173rd out of 178 on the Human Development Index calculated by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which estimates that 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line of $2 a day.
A survey released by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in May 2006 revealed that 60 percent of families surveyed stated that almost half their children were involved in some kind of labour.
A report by the UK-based charity Oxfam in November 2006 warned that seven million children, almost half the total in the country, were missing out on education. Oxfam said about six million were stunted due to malnutrition.
"Educating Afghanistan's children is crucial in improving their lives and in the rebuilding and development of the country. But poverty, crippling fees and huge distances to the nearest schools prevent parents from sending their children to school," Grace Ommer, head of Oxfam GB in Afghanistan, said.
In an effort to help working children, ASCHIANA has opened seven vocational centres in Kabul and three in different provinces where more than 7,000 street children are learning about carpentry, tailoring, computers, music and theatre.
Almost 15,000 street children have attended ASCHIANA classes since it started operating in Kabul in 1995, and hundreds have found jobs so far, Yousef explained.
Wali is just one of the children benefiting from the classes. "During the afternoon I study English, Maths and other subjects at ASCHIANA to learn something and find a good job in the future," the boy said.
Abdul Karim Hamid, head of labour law at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, said it had established 16 vocational training centres in different provinces. About 12,000 street children and unemployed youths are being trained in various trades ranging from carpentry, tailoring, carpet weaving to English language and computers. The programmes, which began in 2003, last six months to one year.
Officials of the MLSA said they were planning to enroll 150,000 unemployed and impoverished youth in training centres by 2010.
"We are trying to establish more well-equipped vocational training centres across the country but our major problem is a lack of funds," Hamid said.
Aid workers say more funds are needed to tackle the problem and the Oxfam report called on international donors to channel funds through the Afghan Ministry of Education and requested the international community invest $563 million to rebuild 7,800 schools across the country.
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UNHCR shelter kits reach more than a million Afghan returnees
16 Jan 2007 13:31:35 GMT
More CHURCHURAK, Afghanistan, January 16 (UNHCR) – More than one million people have benefitted from the UN refugee agency's shelter project in Afghanistan, alleviating a pressing need for one of the most vulnerable groups in the war-torn country.
The project was launched in 2002 to assist some of the millions of displaced Afghans flocking home. Some 160,000 returnee and internally displaced families, or more than one million people, have since received help to build their homes.
Only the most vulnerable returnee families qualify for shelter assistance after their needs are assessed by government officials and UNHCR staff. Those selected must build the walls of their homes before receiving timber for the roof, and frames for the doors and windows. They also get cash ranging from US$50-US$100 to support them in the building process.
Valued at more than US$100 million, the shelter project has brought tangible changes to the lives of needy Afghans who had to restart their lives after decades of exile in Pakistan and Iran.
"No one can understand the problems of a homeless person, particularly in the cold winter of Afghanistan, unless he lives in a similar condition," said Mohammad Agha, 47, who returned with his family of 10 last year after spending 18 years in Pakistan.
Their home village of Churchurak, a slum area outside the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, was a battleground between the Taliban and the former Northern Alliance in the late 1990s. Depopulated by the fighting, the village north of Kabul is changing its face as inhabitants rebuild their houses and gardens.
Mohammad Agha received shelter assistance from UNHCR last year. "Now I have no worry as I have built my house and am living an honourable life," he said, adding that having his own home enabled him to enjoy the recent Eid ul Adha Islamic holiday with his family, relatives and friends.
Shelter is the first concern of returnees, acknowledged Austad Mohammad Akbar Akbar, the Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation. He said the government was determined to tackle the problem and added that he pays particular attention to landless returnees.
"The government land allocation scheme offers potential to assist landless returnees who so far have not been able to rebuild their lives in Afghanistan," said the minister. More than 30,000 plots have been distributed to returnees in 29 of the country's 34 provinces.
Not far from Churchurak village, a group of nearly 150 families have recently received plots of government land after living in makeshift shelters in the poor areas of Kabul. Everyone is busy building their houses, but shelter is only one of their many needs.
Among them is returnee Jan Agha, who lost his leg during the conflict in 1993. He said he was very happy to start a new life at home, but complained that as a cripple with no regular income, he could not juggle between building his house, supporting his family and sending his children to school.
His daughter Mughgan, 11, said she hoped to be enrolled in school next year so she can study to become a teacher. "I am satisfied with the development but I wish a school could be built as early as next year close to our home so that I don't miss my next year of education," she said.
Jan Agha added, "We need schools, clinics, mosques and more facilities, including the construction of streets to connect our village to the main road."
Other returnees bemoaned the lack of jobs back home. "Improving living conditions in Afghanistan will take time as the reconstruction process is slow and finding a job is difficult," said one.
Hashmat Khan, who returned from Pakistan two years ago, said that in exile "it was easy to earn enough money daily and properly feed my children. But I have not had a regular job since I came home."
While the UN refugee agency will continue to meet the pressing shelter needs of vulnerable returnees – it plans to provide some 10,000 shelter units countrywide this year – much more needs to be done with the support of the government and donor countries to promote longer-term rehabilitation and development in Afghanistan, allowing its diaspora to come home for good.
More than 3.7 million Afghans have returned home with UNHCR assistance since 2002. Another half million Afghans displaced within the country have also been assisted to return to their areas of origin.
By Mohammed Nader Farhad
In Churchurak, Afghanistan
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Afghanistan's efforts to boost women falter
Ministry created to right wrongs has upped awareness, but achieved little else
By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent January 16, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sharifa Hamrah does not go to work much anymore. Her job is just too dangerous, considering the rocket attacks, the threats on her life and the would-be suicide bomber who disguised himself as a woman in an attempt to get to her office.
She is no soldier. She carries no gun. Yet Hamrah, 48, a short woman with a sly smile and a head scarf, has become an unwilling participant in a war, a potential target like the other women who work for the Women's Affairs Ministry in Afghanistan.
"Our problem is we cannot go out," said Hamrah, who is head of women's affairs in troubled southern Paktika province but spends much of her time in Kabul. "We cannot go to the districts. We cannot go to the villages. We cannot talk to village elders. We cannot even talk to women."
The Women's Affairs Ministry, charged with defending women's rights in a country where they have few, cannot cite many accomplishments. It has no executive power. It cannot enforce any laws. But it has increased awareness of the problems women face, with anti-violence campaigns on radio and billboards. And it is now known as a place where women can vent their complaints, which is more than they could do during the harsh regime of the Taliban.
But the ministry, created by the post-Taliban government, is in trouble. The head of women's affairs in Kandahar province, who had criticized the Taliban's treatment of women, was gunned down in front of her home in September. Some women working for the department started staying home. And the Taliban, which claimed responsibility for that attack, is hardly the only threat.
Parliament backlash
In its last session, the fledgling Afghan parliament discussed dismantling or downgrading the Women's Affairs Ministry, saying it was not effective. The move to get rid of the ministry, along with others deemed unnecessary, failed late last year. But several members of parliament are threatening again to abolish the ministry in the upcoming session.
"It's not a good idea to have a ministry with a gender in the name," said Mohammed Khan, one of the parliament members who voted to get rid of it. "The Women's Affairs Ministry has not done anything so far. It's just for the name. It's nothing else."
After the Taliban regime fell in late 2001, Afghanistan's new government vowed to improve the lives of women. The Taliban forced women to quit their jobs and made them wear all-encompassing burqas when they left home.
But the Taliban was only the harshest embodiment of the oppression of women in Afghanistan. Under earlier regimes, women were considered subservient to men. Girls were forced to marry old men; outside of major cities, women did not work away from home.
Now, women have more freedom, more jobs. In the streets of Kabul, many women have stopped wearing burqas, favoring business jackets, long skirts and head scarves. They work in government offices. More than 25 percent of the parliamentary seats are reserved for women.
But one outspoken female lawmaker sleeps in a different house every night or two, to make sure her enemies cannot find her. Only one out of 25 Cabinet ministers is a woman--and she runs the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Of the 4,600 teachers in Afghan colleges, only 600 are women. The head of women's affairs in the troubled southern province of Zabul won a chance to go to India for training; her husband, a doctor, forbade it.
Hamrah, in charge of women's affairs in Paktika, used to hold seminars. But last March 8, at an event marking International Women's Day in Paktika, eight rockets were fired nearby.
In the last two months, insurgents have left two leaflets threatening Hamrah. She said police have warned her four times of potential suicide bombers. In December, a man, hidden under a burqa, tried to get in to see Hamrah. Police searched him because his high-pitched voice sounded fake, Hamrah said. The man was strapped with explosives. He was arrested and the bombs were defused.
"They've said they can easily kill me," Hamrah said. "Why should I doubt them? They killed the secretary of the governor. They killed the provincial judge. They killed many people."
A report last fall by Womankind Worldwide, an international women's advocacy group, said millions of Afghan women and girls face discrimination and violence, and many are victims of human trafficking.
The Ministry of Women's Affairs has pushed back against efforts to close it, but it is difficult to prove that it is effective when it has little power. Officials want to promote a new bill to prevent violence against women.
The new women's affairs minister, Hosn Banu Ghazanfar, said she is trying to work with the Health Ministry to develop more services for women, and with the Higher Education Ministry to persuade colleges to hire more female teachers. She also wants to educate Afghanistan about why child marriages are bad and why it's important for girls to go to school.
With the help of a foreign relief agency, the ministry in late November put up fancy billboards in Kabul trying to educate people about violence against women. One shows a woman with a tear trailing down her face. Another shows women in head scarves, pounding their fists into the air. "May the hand of aggression against women shorten," it says.
"We know some of our suggestions have not been accepted," Ghazanfar said. "We are not receiving good signals. We've lost some people. Women have been warned. Offices have been closed. There are some conservative forces, who do not want things to change."
Every morning at the ministry is a litany of abuse tales, a line of sad women crouching in burqas in the cold corridor, and pockets of men, who insist that their women be returned to them. Judge Fawzia Aminiy, the head of the legal department, hears almost 30 cases a week, but she has limited power.
Safra, who did not want her last name used, pulled back a dirty blue burqa, revealing a bruise below her left eye. Bruises lined her arms. Her unemployed husband of 13 years had beat her for hours, stopping to rest several times, because she refused to work as a prostitute to pay the bills. Safra had walked out, leaving her four children behind. She wanted to leave him unless he promised to never again ask her to sell her body.
`I have no one'
"I cannot complain to anyone," said Safra, who did not know her age but is likely in her late 20s. "I have no one. I cannot find my way. I cannot go anywhere in Kabul. I wish I was a city girl, but I'm a country girl."
"You need to go to the Kabul courts," Aminiy told her. "Your husband needs to be asked questions. And if he is guilty, he should be punished."
So Safra left, bewildered, clutching a letter in a plastic bag, unsure of how to take a bus, unable to afford a taxi.
She was not the worst case Aminiy would see that week, nothing compared with the pregnant woman who survived being stabbed 28 times. But she was a typical example, and in all likelihood, she would eventually end up back home, like most of the other women who come here, resigned to their fate, unable to figure out how to leave.
"It's just not our job to find her a shelter," said Aminiy, rubbing her forehead. "And we don't have one, anyway."
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AFGHANISTAN: MORE AID TO 15,000 FAMILIES DISPLACED IN SOUTH
Kabul, 16 Jan. (AKI) - United Nations agencies have launched a month long emergency operation to provide humanitarian aid to more than 15,000 Afghan families displaced by the insurgency in Kandahar province. "We are glad to report that this operation is currently running smoothly and there have been no security or weather concerns so far," UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) spokesman Aleem Siddique told a news briefing in Kabul, the capital, on Monday.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing nearly 1,500 tons of mixed foods including wheat, rice, cooking oil and pulses, while the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the intergovernmental International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are providing 4,000 blankets, 2,000 plastic sheets, and 2,000 family kits with cooking stoves, kerosene lamps and other cooking utensils.
Also on Monday, UNHCR announced that, together with the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, it had helped over 1 million returned refugees to build their own homes since 2002, as part of initial reintegration efforts to help the most vulnerable returnees.
Since Afghan voluntary repatriation started in 2002, more than 160,000 returnee families have received UNHCR construction kits and have completed building their homes. Despite security constraints in the south and south-eastern provinces, UNHCR has provided more than 24,000 shelter units to build homes for nearly 170,000 Afghans. Some 18,000 shelters countrywide were completed ahead of winter in 2006 alone.
Overall some 4.7 million Afghans, who fled the country during more than two decades of Soviet occupation and subsequent factional fighting, have returned home since the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime in 2001. There are still an estimated 3.5 million Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan.
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"Fencing Durand Line aims to divide Pashtun tribes"
Washington, Jan 15 (ANI): The planned fencing and mining of the Durand Line by the Pakistan Government has aroused angry protests among the Afghan leaders, who see it as a ploy to divide the Pashtun tribals inhabiting the region, says eminent journalist Pamela Constable.
Many Afghan leaders have echoed Afghan President Hamid Karzai's assertion that the fencing would arbitrarily divide the Pashtun tribes, who do not recognize the border, while insurgents would continue to slip across the border.
"We are against planting mines on the border because we have many bad memories of mines in Afghanistan. This cannot possibly stop the terrorists, and it's not even clear where the border is," she quoted Mir Wali Khan, a member of Afghan's parliament from Helmand province, as saying.
"Pakistan always lies about trying to help us. They don't want a stable Afghanistan; they are just interfering in our affairs," Khan added.
Karzai and his aides have accused Pakistan of allowing Taliban leaders and their sympathizers to seek refuge across the border, especially in the semiautonomous tribal districts of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
However, Pakistani officials serious to go ahead with the fencing drive have said that they have become a victim of a "whisper campaign" accusing them of "not doing enough" to rein in the Islamic fighters.
"We have gone the extra mile, and we have lost many troops. This is a joint fight and a joint struggle, but we can only look after our side of the border. The Afghans have to look after their side, too," the newspaper quoted Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan's minister of state for information, as saying.
Comparing the border fencing plan with the US fencing its border along Mexico to stop illegal migrants, Azim Khan said, "If people take the legal routes, there will be no problem. They will be clearly marked. Our intention is to go after those who want to move illegally."
Noting that the illegal movement is carried out by the drug traffickers also, apart from insurgents, the minister suggested that drug-related groups, who are powerful in southern Afghanistan, could be using their influence against the border-sealing plan.
Pakistan had in December announced its plan to fence and mine parts of its border with Afghanistan to prevent cross border movement of terrorists.
Afghanistan also doesn't recognise the 1491 mile long Durand line as the international border demarcating the ethnic Pashtoon dominated areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Al-Qaeda Leaders Have No Haven in Pakistan, Prime Minister Says
Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda's leaders have no haven in Pakistan, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said, rejecting remarks by John Negroponte, the U.S. director of national intelligence, that the terrorist network has its base in the country.
``There is no institutional support at all from our government to provide safe haven to anybody,'' Aziz said in an interview yesterday with Cable News Network, according to a transcript. ``Any aspiration or any doubts about Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism, we totally reject.''
Al-Qaeda is expanding its connections and relationships ``that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan,'' Negroponte said Jan. 11 in remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington.
Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism in 2001, arresting more than 600 suspected terrorists since then. Afghanistan has accused its neighbor of failing to control their border and allowing al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters to operate from camps in the northwestern tribal district, a charge Pakistan's government denies.
Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader, may have fled into the border region from Afghanistan in 2001. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al- Qaeda's No. 2, said he escaped a U.S. air strike in January 2006 on the village of Damadola near the border with Afghanistan, according to a videotape broadcast at the time by al-Jazeera television.
``The fact is, nobody knows where they are,'' Aziz said on CNN's ``Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer'' program. ``If any of these or other individuals are in our territory, we will go after them, and we have no information. In fact, if the world knew where these people are, they would collectively come and go after them wherever they are.''
Pakistan's mountainous 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border with Afghanistan is ``porous'' and many of the estimated 3 million Afghans living in camps in the region go back and forth across the border, the prime minister said. Pakistan is taking steps to better control the border. Aziz, during a visit earlier this month to Afghanistan, agreed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to speed up the return of refugees.
Civil wars and droughts over the past 25 years in Afghanistan created the world's largest refugee population with more than 6 million people fleeing their homes during that time, most of them going to Pakistan and Iran. About 1 million Afghan refugees are living in Iran, the United Nations said last month.
Afghans, including about 600,000 in and around the Pakistani city of Quetta, go back and forth across the border and may include supporters of the Taliban, Aziz said. The Taliban, ousted from power in 2001, sheltered al-Qaeda leaders.
``The Taliban and al-Qaeda are very different,'' he said. ``The demographics of al-Qaeda people are not what the Taliban represent. In the case of the Taliban, these are Afghans.''
Pakistan is ``committed to fighting terrorism because it's in our national interest and we want to be part of the coalition in the whole world which is fighting this scourge,'' Aziz said.
Pakistan must better coordinate the work of its security agencies in order to combat terrorism, Aziz said last week at a security conference in Islamabad, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported at the time. Pakistan's army has 90,000 soldiers deployed in the border region.
The government's anti-terrorism operations include the arrest of alleged al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Mohamed Abdullah Binalshibh, both accused of helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.
Pakistan has told its 13,000 Islamic schools, known as madrassas, to register with the government. Karzai has accused such religious schools of inciting people to join the Taliban insurgency in his county.
President Pervez Musharraf in 2005 ordered the expulsion of non-Pakistani students at madrassas after an investigation in the U.K. into bombings in London in July 2005 showed that at least one of the suicide bombers visited a Pakistani madrassa.
Islamic parties in Pakistan oppose Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Thousands of people demonstrated in the Bajur tribal region two days ago, marking the Jan. 13 2006 air strike on Damadola that killed 18 civilians, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The raid sparked anti-U.S. protests in Pakistani cities a year ago.
Pakistan's improved border controls will prevent terrorists coming into Pakistan and setting up havens, Aziz told CNN.
The government will reconsider a plan to mine areas of its border with Afghanistan to stop terrorists crossing the frontier, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said last week, according to APP. Afghanistan and the United Nations were among those who criticized the proposal.
Pakistan will consider proposals by Canada for an effective system without the use of mines, Kasuri said after meeting Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay in Islamabad.
Canada has long experience managing its border with the U.S. and is willing to provide technical support, including improving aerial surveillance, training for border guards and satellite telephones, MacKay said.
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Second Cooperative Dairy Union is established in Afghanistan
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 15 Jan 2007
Kabul 15 January 2007 - The Kunduz Dairy Union which is the second dairy union in the country established on 11th November 2006 by joint efforts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture and dairy farmers. The union has four milk producers’ cooperative societies with 208 members and has been registered under the Agricultural Cooperative Department of Ministry of Agriculture on 13th January 2007.
The purpose of the establishment of union is to sustain and build the capability of dairy cooperative society’s members on how to operate the business under the cooperative ownership. It is expected that by the end of this project, the dairy cooperative society’s members would be trained and prepared to take over the processing facilities set up under FAO’s Trust Fund assistance. The project is funded by the Government of Germany. Soon, Kunduz Dairy will be upgraded with modern milk processing facilities, to produce pasteurised milk, yoghurt, ice-cream and other indigenous products.
Thus, the overall FAO Dairy Project impacts can be summarised as below:
- Increased access to regular and dependable raw milk market for the farmers;
- Increased women participation in the livestock production;
- Increased household income from livestock production;
- Increased level of employment at grassroots level; and
- Contribution in part import substitution, and increased level of food security.
The first dairy union in Afghanistan was Kabul Dairy Union which was established on 30th November 2006 and has seven cooperative societies with 416 members. Similarly, dairy union formation and registration is in process in Balkh (Mazar).
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Private sector wants One Chamber of Commerce
KABUL, Jan 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Commerce Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang Sunday expressed the private sector wanted establishment of One Chambers of Commerce.
Addressing a news conference here in Kabul, he said the decision for establishment of One Chambers of Commerce was the outcome of voting from traders of private sector conducted through out the country.
The minister comment comes after the reports said that government wanted to control the chambers of commerce.
There are two chambers of commerce at the present, one as Afghanistan International Chambers of Commerce (AICC) that belongs to private sector and the government-run Afghanistan Chambers and Commerce and Industries in the country.
The voting was conducted from 350 traders across the country on the formation of chambers of commerce and on the same day 250 traders voted for establishment of One Chambers of Commerce.
However, officials of Afghanistan's international chambers of commerce while branding establishment of international chambers of commerce as their right, described establishment of One Chambers of Commerce as controlling it by government. He also said some fraud had taken place in the voting.
However, the commerce minister said there had been some allegations about fraud in voting on this issue, but none provided any documents to prove the fraud in the last five months.
With the establishment one chambers of commerce, Afghanistan chambers of commerce would be dissolved and Afghanistan international chambers of commerce can operate as an association, Farhang added.
Zainab Muhammadi
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Peace Jirga next month: Wardak
KABUL, Jan 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Farouq Wardak Sunday said about 250 Afghans would participate in the joint Pak-Afghan council with the same number from Pakistan.
In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, he said the process of nominating members for the Jirga would be completed soon. Wardak said 11 categories of people were asked to submit their representatives for the jirga.
They include members of the parliament, heads of the provincial councils, representatives of the civil society organisations, traders,
the disabled, refugees, Kuchi nomads, Sunni and Shia Ulema, university deans, members of the jirga commission and two people nominated by governor, provincial council and people of each province.
He said all the concerned sides had already been told to present their list of nominees and that all the names would be received by the end of the week. "So far, list of 90 per cent of the nominees have been submitted to the commission and all will be received by end of the current week and we will nominate them from the beginning of next week," said Farouq.
The number of the Jirga members from the Pakistani side would be the same. The Jirga was due to be held in beginning of this winter, but has been delayed further. Wardak said his commission was doing all-out efforts to hold the jirga in mid-February.
As work is underway to convene the council next month, relations between the two neighbours have recently been stained after Pakistan announced last month its plan to fence and border the joint border. The move is aimed at ending accusations of the Afghan government about cross-border movement of militants.
To a question that will the border plan hinder the joint Jirga, Wardak said the council, a rational way for solving disputes, will not stop and will be held despite the tense relations over the border plan. The venue of the Jirga has been specified to be in the Loya Jirga's tent in the Kabul's Polytechnic University. Its budget, Wardak said, will be given by the government.
Makia Monir
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Afghan rugs to be displayed in US exhibition
KABUL, Jan 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghan-US joint rug show will begin on January 18 to January 23rd in Atlanta city of United States.
Jawad Omar, press officer at the Ministry of Commerce and Industries, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday the exhibition was launched with joint collaboration of Afghan-US Commerce and Industries Ministries to find market for Afghan rugs, which has lost market value during the years of war.
He said the exhibition would be inaugurated by Afghan- US Ministers of Commerce and Industries and Afghan rugs would be displayed in 500 meter square of land. Suliman Fatimi, head of the Afghan export promotion, said about 60 various types of rugs were sent to US for the show.
Afghanistan rugs which are an important component of its export are three types, classic or red rugs, silky and woody or modern rugs. Zarif Yadgari, deputy of rugs association, said besides several exhibitions in the country were arranging of shows in the foreign countries such as Germany, India, and UAE. He said Afghan rug industry was still facing many problems.
Mustafa Basharat
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Burial of Afghan insurgents taking place in Pakistan
Washington, Jan 15 (ANI): Pakistan's role in fuelling insurgency in Afghanistan has received new evidence with the reported burial of close to two dozens al Qaeda and Taliban elements in the restive North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The Taliban leaders have called for giving the insurgents killed in a clash with NATO and Afghan army a 'martyrs' funeral, and villages in NWFP got readied for the burial ceremony, The Washington Post reported quoting local newspapers.
According to NATO, 150 Afghan insurgents that comprised both Pakistanis and Afghans were killed in a counter insurgency operation in Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The report has bolstered allegations of Pakistan's deep involvement in causing instability in Afghanistan, which the former has always been refuting. Pakistan Foreign Office officials and Interior Ministry have denied that their country was offering shelter to extremists. A Pakistani military spokesman said that the country's army force had fired on trucks carrying Islamic insurgents toward the Afghan border and that Pakistan was "keen to stop" such cross-border infiltration, the paper reported.
The tribal province of Pakistan's North West along the border with Afghanistan have provided a haven for Islamic militia groups seeking to destabilize the Western-backed government of Afghanistan, and in September 2006, the Pakistan Government had entered a truce with the tribal leaders of the province.
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The West should buy Afghanistan’s opium crop
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent The Herald (UK) / January 15, 2007
Cheap heroin is beginning to appear on Britain's streets just a few months after a record crop of opium poppies was harvested under the noses of the UK's beleaguered garrison in Afghanistan. The sticky resin scraped into packages by the farmers in Helmand sells for £55 a kilo at source. At the user end of the chain it can fetch up to £100 a gramme - but the glut available now means street prices have fallen to just £28 a gramme, increasing the prospect of more youngsters becoming hooked.
The illegal narcotics trade accounts for up to 40% of the Afghan gross national product, and is often the only viable source of income in drought-stricken rural communities. The Taliban does not grow it: the insurgents leave that to ordinary people scrabbling to make a living. The only real winners, say the UN, are about 30 powerfully connected drug lords in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Albania and Kosovo.
The entire precarious Nato mission in the country is underpinned by the need to divest Afghanistan from its role as the world's leading narco-state. The Kabul government's answer, backed by US policy, is to defoliate poppy fields and prosecute the occasional low-level trafficker. Doing so, however, merely pushes communities deprived of their livelihoods into the arms of the Taliban.
But there is an alternative that would satisfy both the needs of the farmers and help undermine the powerful cartels that control the business. The world is suffering from a shortage of medical diamorphine, the opium-based painkiller marketed as codeine and morphine. The 6100 tonnes of raw Afghan opium harvested in the last year would produce 600 tonnes of medicine. All that is needed is the political will and the finance to make it happen by licensing the poppy-growers and diverting their efforts into legitimate pharmacology rather than into the veins of Europe's addicts.
British government figures show that waging war in southern Afghanistan cost taxpayers £1.48m every single day in 2006. All that has been achieved is a bloodletting on both sides and the expenditure of ever-scarcer Ministry of Defence treasure. If the UK and US governments can invade Iraq against almost universal international diplomatic opposition, they can surely overcome the far more localised objections to undercutting Afghan drug-barons, however well-connected they might be.
Kabul's dilemma is that many of the main players who hold the balance of internal power are heavily involved in trafficking. It feeds and equips their private armies. The West's solution would be to license and buy the crop for medical purposes, removing the source of finance for insurgents and warlords - and to use its military muscle to enforce the strategy against all-comers. The farmers would no longer need the protection of the Taliban, and the West might even turn a legitimate profit on the global medical market.
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New Kabul police chief takes charge
KABUL, Jan 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Major General Esmatullah Daulatzai, the newly-appointed police chief of Kabul, formally took charge of his office on Sunday.
Daulatzai was appointed as police chief of the central capital on Saturday replacing the former chief Amanullah Guzar, who was appointed in May last year in the backdrop of the worst-ever riots in Kabul since the ouster of Taliban in 2001.
In this connection, a ceremony was held at the Kabul police headquarters which was attended by senior officials of the Interior Ministry and police department.
Speaking on the occasion, Daulatzai said he would try his level best to strengthen security in the central capital. His appointment as Kabul police chief is part of the reforms in the police department.
He said providing security to each individual was the foremost duty of police. However, the goal could not be accomplished without the help of the people. He said the public should cooperate with police in maintaining security.
Before taking charge of the Kabul police headquarters, Esmatullah Daulatzai was serving as regional commander of the Kandahr zone.
Under the reforms programme, another police officer Zalmay Oryakhel, who was serving as chief of the fifth police district, was alleviated as deputy chief of the Kabul police headquarters.
The government had issued a list of 40 officials, including 16 provincial police chiefs, who were removed and reshuffled under the third phase of the reforms programme in the police department.
Habib Rahman Ibrahimi
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Lucky Dutch in Afghanistan
by Vanessa Mock - 15-01-2007 Radio Netherlands
The Dutch troops fighting in Afghanistan have a new nickname: the Lucky Dutch. This is what they are reportedly being called by their British and Canadian NATO partners because the Dutch have suffered far fewer casualties in their operations against the Taliban, despite being involved in heavy fighting as they were last week.
The Dutch say this is thanks to their different approach to fighting the insurgency, focusing on reconstruction and winning the hearts and minds of civilians. Critics of the so-called 'Dutch approach' say they've been doing too much talking to the Taliban and not enough fighting and they'll have to pay the price later.
The idea of winning hearts and minds as part of fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan is nothing new. It's the reason why NATO forces in the country have been so busy with development and reconstruction, as well as with fighting the Taliban. But it's a strategy that Dutch troops on the ground appear to be taking one step further than their British and Canadian counterparts. And if the low number of casualties is anything to go by, it's been a success.
Over 4,000 people died in fighting in Afghanistan last year, with the British and Canadian contingents losing at least 35 soldiers each. But so far the Dutch haven't lost a single soldier in combat and civilian deaths have also been very low. So what are the Dutch doing that's so different? Frank van Kappen is a former major general and an advisor to Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kamp:
If you spend all your energy fighting the Taliban and you forget all the population that's watching what you're doing, then you are wasting your energy. You're first job is to first convince the majority population, about 70 percent that sits on the fence, that you're then to protect them. The second thing you have to show them - very important in medieval and tribal society like Afghanistan - is that you are able and willing to fight if you are attacked. But that's not your first purpose. And that's what the Dutch have done.
Some 1,400 Dutch troops are trying to restore peace in the southern province of Uruzgan. In the six months since they arrived, they've tried to speed up reconstruction in the province and immersed themselves in Afghan culture and customs in a bid to engage with the local population. Instead of being holed up in remote, high-security military compounds all the time, the Dutch have also opted to build Pashtun-style houses with mud walls, where they receive tribal leaders with tea and dried fruit. And while having a talk over a cup of tea might not sound like the toughest military approach, Frank van Kappen says it definitely pays off:
If the Taliban wants to talk and drink tea with you, do it and talk to them. And try to convince the majority of the majority of the Taliban who are NOT hardcore Taliban that there is a future, another future than joining the Taliban and running around in the mountains.
Dutch generals have tried to limit the fighting and have reportedly opted instead for forming alliances with tribal leaders. Most controversially, they are even supporting the new governor in Uruzgan in his efforts to negotiate with the Taliban. That's strictly against official NATO policy. And NATO spokesman James Appathurai bristles at the suggestion that the Dutch have gone his own way:
I have not seen any indication of a new strategy not least because there is only one NATO strategy. It's a NATO strategy that all 26 NATO partners have signed up to. But all operations have their ups and downs. Afghanistan right now is in the cold, winter season when traditionally hostilities go down. It's also true that we had a spike in hostilities under the Canadian lead because the Taliban massed forces and tried to cut off Kandahar. And NATO had no choice but to fight them. They have been defeated in that battle and now we have to the opportunity as an Alliance, under the Dutch lead by pure coincidence, to focus more on reconstruction and development - and that's what's happened.
Military analysts say the fact that the Dutch have suffered so few losses in Uruzgan is because much of the hardest fighting had already been done for them, especially by American troops. But that was before the recent heavy fighting from which the Dutch emerged without any losses. And some have accused them of allowing the Taliban to tighten their grip on the province. The Taliban says they are lying low right now because are gearing up for a major offensive in the spring. James Appathurai of NATO again:
If there's going to be a spring offensive (from the Taliban), there is going to be a spring offensive from us. NATO is going to use this winter and spring to step up its activities and that means denying opposing forces the opportunity to deny the democratic process and investing ever more in reconstruction and development. So you will see a spring offensive. If the trends continue, there's going to be more fighting.
So it looks like the real test for the Dutch is yet to come in the spring. That's when it will become clear whether the Dutch strategy of trying to win the support of tribal leaders really has paid off.
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Aid to Afghanistan is well accounted for
JOSÉE VERNER (Jan 15, 2007)- Waterloo Record -
A Canadian Press article that ran in The Record on Jan. 11, unjustly and irresponsibly attacked the integrity of hundreds of dedicated workers delivering Canadian aid in Afghanistan.
As I outlined in my interview with the Canadian Press reporter, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) accounts for every dollar spent to help the citizens of Afghanistan rebuild their lives.
Already, Canada's aid program and the results it is achieving -- helping girls go to school, delivering small loans to women, supporting community projects such as water wells and roads -- have won praise and gratitude from the Afghans themselves.
Ehsan Zia, Afghanistan's minister of rural rehabilitation and development, said during a visit to Canada in December that the targeting of Canadian aid in his country was "perfect," and he added that Canada "has been very helpful in assisting the government of Afghanistan deliver services to its citizens."
Criticism of Canada's approach to delivering aid through the World Bank, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations is either misinformed or disingenuous. Donor countries provide aid this way because it is effective. Pooled funds enable donors to have more impact on development, while they ease the administrative burden for recipient governments, enabling more money to reach the poor for whom it is intended.
Accountability is extremely important to Canada's government, including CIDA. We continually work with our partner organizations to track, monitor and ensure the effective use of Canadian development funds. CIDA does due diligence on the initiatives it undertakes in Afghanistan. These include, among others, contributions to the World Bank-managed Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, the Mennonites Economic Development Associates, Montreal-based Rights and Democracy, and the Aga Khan Foundation.
Canadians can be proud of our $100-million annual funding to Afghanistan, which is not only enabling Afghans to build better livelihoods and communities, but is also helping the elected government of Afghanistan make progress toward developing its national budget, and establishing accountability procedures of its own. It is shameful that this effort -- and the honest, hard-working people making it -- should be so unfairly maligned, and your readers so badly misled.
Josée Verner - Minister of International Cooperation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages
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