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India announces $100 mln more aid for Afghanistan
Allow transit to Afghanistan, India asks Pak
Fugitive warlord claims U.S. facing Soviet-style defeat in Afghanistan
Harsh Winter Has Afghans Struggling For Survival
Suicide bomber kills 10 in Afghanistan
Stop denying seriousness of Afghan threat
From Pakistan, With Jihad
Pakistan protests over cross-border fire
Canadian troops involved in another civilian shooting
UK doctors back licensing Afghan opium trade
Canada expresses reservations about Afghan proposals to spray poppy fields
Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war
Heavy Afghan fighting expected: U.S. ambassador
Eikenberry ends tenure as head of CFC-Afghanistan
Eight MPs in Kandahar to assess Afghan mission
Italy to stay in Afganistan but no more troops - PM
Karzai to visit Italy
Half a million Afghan refugees may fail to register
Afghan Security Forces Make Impressive Professional Gains
Afghan Paper Sees Broadcasting Trends Damaging Country's Cultural Values
Lack of barbers has Armed Forces scratching heads
UN sends medicine to fight cold-related infections in Afghanistan
Residents flay home-search in Ghazni
Karzai hails help by Islamic, neighbouring countries
Canal inaugurated in Nangarhar
India announces $100 mln more aid for Afghanistan
23 Jan 2007 11:22:55 GMT
More KABUL, Jan 23 (Reuters) - India is to give Afghanistan another $100 million in aid, taking its total assistance to Kabul to $750 million since 2001, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday.
Bilateral relations have blossomed since the Taliban regime fell just over five years ago, and this has caused some concern in Pakistan, Afghanistan's neighbour and India's old rival.
"Indian-Afghan bilateral relations are fast developing into a partnership which is very special to us," Mukherjee told a news conference with his Afghan counterpart, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.
"We are glad to be able to contribute to the reconstruction and rebuilding of Afghanistan," he said.
Mukherjee said he would extend an invitation from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to attend a south Asian summit in New Delhi this year.
The seven-member South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation has agreed to make Afghanistan its eighth member.
The two countries also announced new projects under which India will help establish small projects of less than $1 million and train civil servants.
Both Mukherjee and Spanta said better relations between India and Afghanistan were good for peace in the region.
Asked about Pakistani concern over warming Indian-Afghan ties, Mukherjee spoke of talks he held in Islamabad this month.
"During my last visit to Pakistan I emphasised the need of India and Pakistan coming closer together so that we can provide peace and stability to the whole region," he said.
He said he had asked Islamabad to extend land transit facilities to Indian goods and services going to Afghanistan. Pakistan had yet to allow the movement.
New Delhi is providing help to Kabul in a number of fields including health, education and infrastructure.
India is also helping Afghanistan build a new parliament which Spanta said symbolised India's commitment to human rights and democracy in his country.
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Allow transit to Afghanistan, India asks Pak
AJAY KAUL, KABUL, JAN 23 (PTI) Outlook India
India today asked Pakistan to allow land-based transit facility to Afghanistan as it announced a USD 100-million additional aid and other initiatives for the assistance of the war-ravaged country.
After his talks with his Afghan counterpart Rangin Dadfar Spanta, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India remained committed to helping Afghanistan in reconstruction and development and hoped that the people of this country will overcome the challenges faced by them.
Addressing a joint press conference with Spanta, Mukherjee said allowing of transit facility by Pakistan was essential for connecting Central Asia with Asia.
Mukherjee said during his recent visit to Islamabad he had stressed that Pakistan should provide transit facility to Afghanistan through land.
Spanta hoped that in the long run Pakistan, Afghanistan and India will overcome the problem of "disconnect" and connectivity will be re-established.
Underlining that India's policy was to improve relations with all its neighbours, he stressed the need for India and Pakistan coming together so that peace and stability could be provided to the region.
Mukherjee, who arrived here today to invite President Hamid Karzai to the SAARC Summit to be held in April, announced an increase in aid by USD 100 million from the current level of USD 650 million.
Mukherjee also announced the launch of small social projects which will cost USD one million.
A trilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between India, Afghanistan and United Nations Development Project (UNDP) in the field of capacity building.
Under the MoU, India will provide USD 1.08 billion with UNDP providing an equal amount.
Afghanistan was included in SAARC as its eighth member at the Dhaka Summit in December 2005 and it will be attending the upcoming meet for the first time.
After the Taliban was rooted out from Afghanistan in 2002, India has been assisting the country in reconstruction.
Afghanistan's emergence as a democratic nation is also being helped by India which is constructing the Parliament building here in this connection.
During the talks with Afghan leaders, Mukherjee will try to assess how New Delhi can help energise democratic forces in Afghanistan.
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Fugitive warlord claims U.S. facing Soviet-style defeat in Afghanistan
The Associated Press January 23, 2007 via International Herald Tribune, France
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The United States faces a Soviet-style humiliation in Afghanistan, a fugitive Afghan warlord claimed in a video message, and taunted Pakistan for aiding U.S.-led counterterrorism operations.
In a recording obtained by The Associated Press in Pakistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar also accused Washington of fomenting conflict among Afghan ethnic groups on a scale comparable with the strife in Iraq.
"Everyone knows that the American aggressors are faced with defeat in every part of the country," Hekmatyar said. "They were unable to achieve their goals by bombing innocent Afghans, their villages and homes. They are preparing to leave like the Soviet troops."
He said that foreign troops should pull out of Afghanistan - at least as far as neighboring countries.
Hekmatyar leads a militant faction blamed along with Taliban and al-Qaida fighters for an intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan, despite the presence of an expanding number of foreign troops.
The 24-minute recording, the third from Hekmatyar to surface this month, was undated. It was also unclear where it was recorded. However, Hekmatyar refers to the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha at the turn of the year.
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Harsh Winter Has Afghans Struggling For Survival
5 Years After Invasion, Many in Kabul Lack Central Heat, Water, Power
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 22, 2007; A12
KABUL -- It was well below freezing in Raza Khan's tiny concrete apartment late one recent night. Half a dozen children huddled under blankets on the floor, coughing in their sleep. The fire in the rusty stove had faded to ashes, and there was no more wood to stoke it. Sometime before dawn, Khan's 3-month-old granddaughter, breathing raggedly from pneumonia, grew still and died.
"There are 18 of us, and we only have three blankets. It is not enough," said Khan, a gray-bearded man of 75 who earns about $2 a day pulling handcart loads in city streets. The baby had been treated at a city hospital and sent home, but she was not strong enough to recover. "It was just too cold," the old man said.
Winter across Afghanistan is a season of majestic beauty, with distant snowcapped mountains rising in all directions, icicles forming on orchard branches and midday sunlight sparkling on iced-over irrigation streams that meander across a thousand fields.
But in the capital, it is a season of unrelenting harshness for tens of thousands of poor families, focused on the struggle to survive. People spend their days scrounging to buy a few chunks of coal or firewood, and their nights huddled under common blankets around braziers called sandali, praying for dawn to come.
More than five years after the U.S.-led overthrow of Islamic Taliban rule and the advent of an internationally backed civilian government, the country is still so destitute and undeveloped that most inhabitants have no central heating, electricity or running water. Even in Kabul, some desperate families remain beyond the reach of foreign aid agencies that provide cold-weather assistance such as free coal and blankets in impoverished rural provinces.
Winter is the time that most starkly sets apart Kabul's nouveau riche from its permanent poor. The cozy, generator-heated homes and winking shop lights of central neighborhoods such as Wazir Akbar Khan and Shar-i-Nau, home to Afghan officials and international agency employees, seem far removed from the pitch-dark alleys and frigid rented rooms of suburban slums such as Chelsitoon and Char Qala.
Worst off are thousands of former refugees such as Khan and his family, unskilled people who returned to Kabul after years of wartime exile in Pakistan. Unable to find stable jobs or shelter, they survive on the margins of a chaotic, crowded capital that has quadrupled in population since the U.S.-led invasion. Some live in tents on vacant lots or squeeze into alleys, squatting on narrow bits of frozen land.
"All my children are sick. When I cook dinner, the room becomes a little warm and I put them under a blanket. But it gets cold soon, and they wake up and start crying," said Roya, 25, a laundress with four children who lives in a single cavelike room with patched tent cloth forming a flimsy fence around her tiny front yard outside.
Two winters ago, the Afghan Ministry of Migration offered to move several hundred refugee families from their tents into empty, rent-free apartment buildings on the southern outskirts of Kabul. Roya said she refused to move, because the location was too far from affluent homes where she can walk to wash and iron clothes. The customers also give her food, and earlier this month her tiny room was hung with strings of drying beef, special donations distributed to the poor during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Khan and many of his neighbors took up the government's offer and moved to Teknikom, a five-story concrete college dormitory built by the Soviet Union in the 1980s and later abandoned. Today it is home to about 3,000 people, but in many ways it is still a ghost building.
The corridors are windy and dark, with blankets hung across open doorways and plastic taped over gaping windows. Small children, many of them barefoot, play in the halls. The original heating and plumbing systems have not worked in years, so older boys collect sacks of scrap paper and donkey dung to use as fuel.
"This is worse than the tents," said Yar Mahmad, 25, an unemployed driver whose ailing 10-month-old son also died of cold this month. Neighbors had each lent him $2 for medicine for the boy and then helped bury him, lighting a fire to warm their hands while they dug in the frozen ground. "Now I owe $400, and I lost my son, too," Mahmad said glumly.
No one knows exactly how cold it gets here, because there is no national weather service. Afghan television stations report the local weather based on forecasts by faraway foreign meteorologists, conveyed via the Internet. But aid workers said the temperature had recently dipped to 5 degrees Fahrenheit at night.
Even for residents with slightly better incomes than Mahmad's, a Kabul winter such as this one, which struck earlier than usual, brings hardships unimaginable in the West. The city's overloaded, war-damaged power system is still near collapse despite extensive repairs since 2001. Homes typically receive electricity only a few hours every other night, assuming that they're wired at all. Water must be heated in buckets, and bathing can be an excruciating ordeal.
Because much of the capital's commercial life takes place outdoors, in sidewalk stalls and workshops, winter weather shuts down much of the economy. Only a few kinds of business thrive in the cold weather: the used-clothing sellers who hang sweaters and jackets from roadside fences, and the coal and wood sellers who chop and stack their wares on frozen lots.
Rabbani, an elderly man who sells firewood in the Old City district, waits for customers by the stove in his toasty plywood hut, keeping an eye on a mountain of chopped logs. Often poor families send their sons to buy a few kilograms of wood at a time, and Rabbani sometimes adds a couple of sticks to the meager pile on his ancient scale.
"I think I am the only happy man in Kabul, because when it gets cold, everyone comes to me," he said. "It is so hard for people. They ask for three kilos, and I know it will only burn for an hour. If they earn $2 a day, they have to choose between buying bread and wood."
Cold-related deaths usually come one or two at a time, but occasionally poverty and bad weather conspire to produce large numbers in one place. Last month, 80 women and children perished in central Logar province when they were trapped in several remote hillside villages after a heavy snowfall.
Afghan and international aid officials said they began planning last summer to help people in the most vulnerable regions get through the coldest months. The U.N. World Food Program, working with the Ministry of Rural Development, trucked 21,000 tons of donated oil, wheat, lentils and salt to warehouses in more than a dozen provinces.
Nevertheless, they said, the deliveries were delayed by bad security and red tape at the Pakistani border. On top of that, winter arrived early, making it hard for trucks to reach some remote spots. In some cases, officials resorted to airdropping supplies by helicopter.
"This year has been very challenging, with millions of people at risk, but we have avoided a crisis," said Ebadullah Ebadi, a spokesman for the World Food Program here. "In some provinces with heavy snows, the roads are cut off for three to four months. Because of the drought, places that used to be breadbaskets are now asking us for food."
One wealthy private philanthropist, Ehsan Bayat, has also been delivering emergency food and supplies to families in many parts of the country. He sends fleets of private trucks to needy regions and then personally flies there in Afghan army helicopters to inspect and distribute the supplies.
Bayat, an Afghan American entrepreneur who owns one of two major cellphone companies and a private TV station in Kabul, has also been taking winter supplies to needy families in the capital. Residents at the Teknikom building said that he had brought them a load of blankets and coal but that what they really needed were permanent homes.
"There is nothing here for us: no jobs, no land. In the summer we can work as laborers, but in the winter all we do is wait in the cold," said Nader Mohammed, 38, the unofficial leader of the Teknikom families. "We thought we would be welcomed home when we left Pakistan. Now we just sit here by the stove, asking ourselves why we came back."
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Suicide bomber kills 10 in Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - A bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of workers outside a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing as many as 10 and wounding more than a dozen others in the deadliest suicide attack in four months, officials said.
The attacker triggered explosives strapped to his chest as he stood among the workers who were lined up outside the base in the city of Khost, said Jamal Arsalah, the governor of Khost province.
Arsalah, who visited the scene shortly after the explosion, said 10 men were killed and 14 others injured. However, officials with the NATO-led force that includes the U.S. base said eight Afghans, including two policemen, were killed and five others wounded. It was not clear why the tallies differed.
Maj. Matt Hackathorn, a U.S. military spokesman, said there was no immediate word of any U.S. military casualties.
The governor said the Afghan casualties were among hundreds of workers waiting to enter the base, known as Camp Salerno, through its main gate.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said the attacker detonated an explosives-filled vest when he reached the point where people entering the base are searched.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman saw the bodies of five men, drenched in blood, in the city's military hospital. Relatives of the dead and injured mobbed the hospital seeking news of their loved ones.
Suicide attacks have become much more frequent as Taliban militants have intensified their insurgency against Afghan government and foreign troops backing them. According to U.S. military figures, there were 139 suicide attacks during 2006, up from 27 in 2005.
Tuesday's attack was the deadliest since Sept. 30, when a suicide bomber killed 12 people outside the gates of the Interior Ministry in Kabul.
Khost, south of the capital, is a former al-Qaida stronghold on the mountainous Pakistani border that has been a focus of militant activity. Camp Salerno is the U.S. military's main base in the east and includes an airfield.
Afghan and Western officials say that insurgents use the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan as sanctuaries from where they organize and launch operations in Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan argues that only remnants of Taliban and al-Qaida remain on its side of the border and complain that it gets too little recognition for deploying thousands of troops in the border region. On Monday, a suicide car bomber killed four Pakistani soldiers in North Waziristan, across the frontier from Khost.
Senior U.S. officials have warned that fighting in Afghanistan is likely to surge again this spring, as warmer weather clears snow from mountain passes and militants try to weaken the grip of President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
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Stop denying seriousness of Afghan threat
By Anthony Cordesman January 22 2007 02:00 The Financial Times
The situation in Afghanistan is still far from grim, but Nato may well be on a track that will cost both it and the Afghan government victory.
The Taliban and other extremist groups have increased their area of operations by more than four times between 2005 and 2006, acting as the de facto government once again in parts of the south and east. Direct fire attacks increased from 1,347 in the first 11 months of 2005 to 3,824 during a similar period in 2006. Suicide attacks increased from 18 to 116. Attacks on Afghan forces increased by more than 300 per cent. Attacks on Nato forces increased by over 270 per cent. A big offensive against Nato and Afghan forces is expected this spring.
Nato's current forces would be inadequate even if all Nato countries were fully in the fight. There are roughly 30,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan, plus some 12,000 remaining US troops that still operate independently. Compare this to the total of 162,000 coalition troops in Iraq. Yet Afghanistan, in many ways, poses as big a challenge. It has a population of more than 31m, compared with some 27m in Iraq, its territory is 50 per cent larger and its transportation and communications infrastructure is far more primitive. The enemy in Iraq has no major sanctuary outside the country; al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin all use sanctuaries in Waziristan in eastern Pakistan.
To make matters worse, only US, Canadian, British, Danish, Estonian and Dutch forces are really in the fight. Important Nato partners such as France, Germany, Spain, Turkey and Italy do not provide troops, except for French special forces.
Elsewhere, British weakness in the south has forced a political compromise that has allowed a big increase in the Taliban presence. Britain needs substantial additional forces to hold the south and prevent the slow growth of a Taliban presence that could end in the loss of Kandahar. Much of Helmand and Kandahar provinces are already at risk. Canada, the Netherlands and Romania play an important role in combat and Poland is coming. All these forces need heavier equipment and weapons. Indeed, Canada is introducing main battle tanks, the first country to do so. US commanders recognise that US troop strength is too weak in the east. America needs to increase forward deployed infantry battalions from two to at least three and probably four; more special forces are needed, too.
Moreover, studies by the International Security Force, the Nato command in Afghanistan, indicate that the Nato force needs six more battalions - especially another battalion in the south; a rapid expansion of military trainers for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police; and extra troops and specialists in other areas.
Nato needs integrated operations with common rules of engagement. It needs a truly integrated command with continuity of service and adequate tour lengths. Countries need to provide adequate armour, artillery, tactical mobility and air support. More effort is needed to integrate US advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets into Nato and Afghan operations. Nato also needs an integrated structure for using advanced US air and IS&R assets in the Combined Air Operation Center in Qatar, and a comprehensive, workable strategy for dealing with battlefield detainees.
Nato needs to put pressure on Pakistan to end the sanctuary it gives to the enemy. Nato has not addressed the weakness of the Afghan government and the scale of the problems created by a dependence on a narco-economy. It will be years before the central government in Kabul can create an effective presence and services in most local areas, particularly those under threat.
All Nato countries need to make a commitment to provide sustained military and economic aid at the required levels. Stronger efforts are needed to create effective military and police forces. The Afghan army is just beginning to be effective and has big pay, equipment and morale problems. Some key battalions have less than a quarter of authorised strength and retention is low. Germany wasted years training the wrong kind of police at inadequate levels. Effective police now have to be created virtually from the ground up and Nato/International Security Assistance Force aid is needed to build the capacity of the ministry of interior and in training, equipping and basing the Afghan National Police.
At the same time, Nato needs to restructure counter-narcotics efforts to focus on near-term economic development, anti-corruption and law enforcement, and phased eradication. It needs to broaden its aid efforts to support the government and help provide education, clinics and other local services.
It is time to stop denying how serious the threat has become, stop issuing empty political assurances and stop saying that far too little is enough. Nato needs realistic and honest assessments, it needs urgent short-term reinforcements. All of its forces must be in the fight all over the country. It needs to make immediate increases in aid and to create a fully resourced long-term plan to fight a long war.
The writer holds the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and has recently returned from a visit to the military forces in Afghanistan
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From Pakistan, With Jihad
The New York Times January 23, 2007 Editorial
To learn why a resurgent Taliban is fighting American and NATO troops to a military draw in Afghanistan, you have to go to the frontier region on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Our colleague, Carlotta Gall, did just that last month and what she learned led to a physical assault on her by Pakistani intelligence officials and five hours in custody for her photographer, Akhtar Soomro. The Pakistani agents broke into her hotel room and copied her notes and computer files. They then tracked down and questioned everyone she had interviewed in Quetta, a border city.
We now know why. Ms. Gall's reporting has determined that Quetta is an important rear base for the Taliban, and that Pakistani authorities are encouraging and perhaps sponsoring the cross-border insurgency. That is a role that Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, denies. But residents of the border area, opposition figures and Western diplomats point to specific cases of Pakistani involvement. Americans need to know more about this collusion and to demand better answers from General Musharraf.
There are many reasons that things are now going badly for the American-backed Afghan government. America shortchanged Afghanistan's security in its rush to invade Iraq. European allies have inexcusably failed to provide NATO with enough soldiers to carry out the expanded Afghan security mission it took on last year and have imposed hobbling restrictions on the activities of those they did send. The government of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is rife with corruption, and the regional warlord allies it depends on to control outlying areas are even more thieving as well as shockingly brutal.
These problems all need to be addressed. But the positive results will be limited as long as Afghanistan's much more populous and powerful neighbor, Pakistan, provides rear support and sanctuary for the Taliban insurgency.
It is simply impossible to believe that this support takes place without the approval of the Pakistani military, the country's dominant institution for a half-century.
Pakistan is now the third-largest recipient of American foreign aid. Yet more than five years after 9/11, the Bush administration has still not been able to secure Pakistan's active and consistent support against the Taliban. The very least Washington should be demanding of President Musharraf is that he enforce an immediate halt on Pakistani military support for the Taliban insurgents who are crossing the border and killing American troops.
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Pakistan protests over cross-border fire
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan formally protested to the United States and Britain on Tuesday over cross-border fire by international forces in Afghanistan that killed one of its soldiers and wounded two.
The foreign forces apparently mistook Pakistani paramilitary troops in their traditional shalwar and kameez tunics for militants and fired on them at Zangota checkpost in the North Waziristan tribal region on Monday.
Summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, the American and British ambassadors were told "the coalition authorities should investigate the incident and ensure that such incidents do not occur in future," the ministry said in a statement.
"Both expressed deep regrets and said that the incident was being investigated."
Afghanistan's NATO force said the incident happened following an insurgent rocket attack near a NATO base on the border.
"Shortly afterwards a group of insurgents was identified moving east toward the Pakistan border," NATO said.
A NATO aircraft attacked the insurgents and NATO said it believed "all ordnance fired landed on the target and one insurgent was killed and another injured."
"ISAF deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained by Pakistani forces, although the cause of these casualties, and who is responsible, is as yet unclear," the NATO force, known as the International Security Assistance Force, said in a statement.
A joint NATO-Pakistani investigation had been convened, it said.
Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism but the United States and other western countries have been urging it do more to curb growing cross-border infiltration by militants from its territory.
This month, NATO and Afghan forces killed about 130 militants in a ground and air attack in southern Afghanistan after they infiltrated from Pakistan.
Pakistan acknowledges that some militants are slipping into Afghanistan, but says the insurgency is mainly an Afghan problem, feeding on poverty and anger with the government over corruption.
(Additional reporting by Robert Birsel in KABUL)
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Canadian troops involved in another civilian shooting
MURRAY BREWSTER Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - An unidentified Afghan male was being treated in the military hospital at Kandahar Airfield Tuesday after being shot in the leg by Canadian troops returning from the field.
The man was riding a motorcycle and apparently refused several orders to stop as he approached a security cordon set up near a disabled Canadian armoured vehicle late Monday night.
"The motorcycle driver was asked to slow down in [the local language] Pashto, with both voice and hand signals," said Lieut. Sue Stefko, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Forces.
"He failed to do so. Three warning shots were fired. After that, the motorcycle still refused to stop and therefore a single shot was aimed at the motorcycle."
The man was hit in the leg and fell off his motorcycle.
Lieut. Stefko says the man was treated by army medics on the scene and was evacuated to the airfield, where he was treated by doctors at the NATO base. There's no word on his identity or the extent of his injuries.
"All I know is that he's in stable condition," said Lieut. Stefko.
The shooting happened on a dirt road south of Kandahar as a convoy of soldiers from the 1st battalion Royal Canadian Regiment was returning to the airfield after spending weeks in the field fighting Taliban militants. They were headed back for a rest and relaxation period.
It was not known Tuesday how far away the man might have been at the time of the shooting and whether there will be an investigation.
Canadian troops have faced a series of suicide attacks, including one involving a motorcycle last fall, but they have also been involved in a series of civilian shootings, two of which have resulted in fatalities.
In the spring of last year, an Afghan mechanic and tin pot-maker, Nasrat Alli Hassan, was shot and killed while riding home with his family in a three-wheel Kandahar taxi. Their vehicle came suddenly upon a parked Canadian patrol at a traffic circle.
Soldiers opened fire after the taxi driver refused to stop.
Last fall, an elderly man, riding a motorcycle was shot and killed by troops as he approached a security cordon set up around an area where Afghan President Hamid Karzai was holding a meeting with local Kandahar officials. The dead man was apparently a teacher and had wanted to see Mr. Karzai, his former student.
Local residents often complain about indiscriminate shootings by NATO soldiers, who are put in the unenviable position of trying to figure out who is and who isn't a threat in a place where militants pass themselves off as civilians.
Elsewhere, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The blast killed 10 people and wounded 14 others, according to Afghan authorities.
The bomber, who was also killed in the blast, approached a group of Afghan men who were waiting outside the base in the city of Khost before triggering explosives strapped to his chest. The civilians were lining up for work at the base.
Unlike Iraq, where civilians working with western militaries or government authorities are routinely targeted, direct attacks on ordinary Afghans have been limited. Most civilian casualties have been innocent bystanders in attacks on NATO or U.S. forces.
The Taliban claims to have gone out if its way to limit civilian casualties.
It wasn't clear Tuesday whether the attack on the base workers represented a shift in tactics by insurgents, who until a few years ago had never carried out Iraqi-style suicide bombings.
According to U.S. military figures, there were 139 suicide attacks in Afghanistan during 2006, up from 27 in 2005.
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UK doctors back licensing Afghan opium trade
Tuesday January 23, 02:05 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - British doctors said on Tuesday that opium grown in Afghanistan could be used legally to deal with a chronic shortage of pain killers.
The British Medical Association added its voice to those of critics of Western anti-narcotics policy in Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world's illegal opium despite efforts to stamp it out.
BMA said the opiate-based drug diamorphine could be produced legally from Afghan poppies, helping to solve a supply crisis in Britain, where it is used to relieve pain.
Afghanistan's pro-Western government opposes any cultivation and favours destroying the crops, although only after farmers have access to other livelihoods. Britain is the lead Western donor nation supporting Afghanistan's anti-drugs policy.
"While we have such a dramatic shortage of diamorphine, it does seem that, as the crop is there, rather than destroy it let's at least harvest it and use it medically," Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of science and ethics, told BBC radio.
Nathanson said the shortage stemmed from a global move, led by the United States, to avoid diamorphine, although medics in Britain and other European countries favoured it to other pain killers.
However the Department of Health said the shortage was due to limited production and not a lack of the raw product. It said supply should improve in 2007.
The Foreign Office said the idea had been considered in the past by the Afghan government and rejected. "Illicit cultivation is not the way forward," a spokesman said.
Officials say last year saw a record harvest for opium production in Afghanistan as efforts to combat the drugs trade showed little signs of success.
Much of Afghanistan's illegal opium comes from the southern Helmand province where British troops are fighting a revival of the Taliban-led insurgency as part of a NATO force.
Almost 50 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001, most during a recent upsurge in violence.
Afghanistan's Western allies say the drugs industry fuels the Taliban, but acknowledge it also provides livelihoods for millions of Afghans.
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Canada expresses reservations about Afghan proposals to spray poppy fields
Mon Jan 22, 12:34 PM By Murray Brewster
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian diplomats are quietly trying to steer Afghan counter-narcotics agents away from a proposal to use chemical spraying to destroy opium-producing poppy fields, says a senior Canadian official.
Responding to international pressure, particularly from the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government is seriously looking at instituting an aerial spray program to combat the explosion in the illegal narcotics trade.
"The Canadian position on eradication . . . is that it is one of the pillars of the Afghan national drug control strategy," said Gavin Buchan, the political director of the provincial reconstruction base in Kandahar.
"As such, we believe it has a role to play in the overall context. However, we have significant reservations about the advisability of chemical spray."
Ultimately, the decision is one for the Afghan government to make, he said.
Whatever the Afghans choose to do, it will have a significant impact on the 2,500 Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar province.
It's widely felt that a mass eradication effort against dirt-poor farmers, who have no other crops or livelihood, would drive them back into the arms of the Taliban, fuelling the deadly insurgency that took the lives of 36 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat last year. Many of the militant fighters who attacked Canadian troops last fall in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts were, in fact, local farmers, coerced into fighting for the extremists.
But a go-slow approach has its pitfalls as well, given that militants draw funding from the illegal opium and heroin markets, plowing that money back into weapons and explosive which are used to attack NATO troops.
Aside from the military concerns, Buchan said he worries about the public reaction to the use of chemicals.
"I've had Afghans tell me, 'Oh, I remember what happened when the Russians used chemicals,' he said referring to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. "They blamed them for a series of diseases and ill effects. There's that aspect to be considered."
Buchan wouldn't say whether he believed a mass eradication effort would drive farmers take up arms against NATO.
Canada is not involved in the elimination of poppies, and army commanders in the field issued strict orders last spring to units to avoid destroying fields. It was a measure intended to win the trust of local farmers and to convince them NATO wasn't there to take away their livelihood as the Taliban claimed.
After a record crop in 2006, initial surveys suggest that there is less poppy planting going in Kandahar and Helmand province this year, but Buchan cautioned that the evidence is only anecdotal at this point.
"To the best of our knowledge, yes, but this is very early in the growing season, you'll need to leave it for another couple of months before we have a really good handle on what's out there," he said in an interview.
While Canada does not participate in the burning of fields, the Canadian International Development Agency is spending $18 million over the next two years to support alternative livelihood programs for farmers across many districts in the province.
Many of those projects involve building irrigation systems wrecked by years of fighting, said Adrain Walraven, a development officer at the Canadian provincial reconstruction base.
"Water is essential for alternative crops," said Walraven.
"Poppy cultivation has many driving factors, as I'm sure you are aware, but one of them is that poppy does not require a lot of access to water."
Over the last few weeks, Walraven said, most of the proposals Afghans have come forward with are so-called "water-based projects."
People are asking for base wells and irrigation canals to be built, which tells Canadian development officers that farmers are willing to grow crops other than illicit poppies.
Before decades of war engulfed this region, farmers used to grow grapes, melons and apricots - "products farmers here were proud to grow," said Walraven.
"People here have a sense of honour about some of the products that in the years of war have been pushed to the side. And they're very interested, with proper access to water and agricultural fundamentals, in re-establishing some of these tree fruit plantations."
But convincing them to switch crops is going to be difficult, especially when a farmer can earn 75 per cent more per field growing poppies than wheat. And then, there's the upfront cash payments provided by the drug lords.
Buchan said farmers are also weighing the risk given the threatened stepped up eradication efforts.
"You may make 75 per cent more with poppy, or you may make nothing at all because the government came and burned down your field," he said.
"Individual farmers make quite rational, calculated decisions about whether to grow poppy, and risk is an important consideration for them."
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Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war
Air and sea patrolling is slashed on southern smuggling routes.
By Josh Meyer Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 22, 2007
WASHINGTON ¬ Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts.
Since 1989, Congress has directed the Pentagon to be the lead federal agency in detecting and monitoring illegal narcotics shipments headed to the United States by air and sea and in supporting Coast Guard efforts to intercept them. In the early 1990s, at the height of the drug war, U.S. military planes and boats filled the southern skies and waters in search of cocaine-laden vessels coming from Colombia and elsewhere in South America.
But since 2002, the military has withdrawn many of those resources, according to more than a dozen current and former counter-narcotics officials, as well as a review of congressional, military and Homeland Security documents.
Internal records show that in the last four years the Pentagon has reduced by more than 62% its surveillance flight-hours over Caribbean and Pacific Ocean routes that are used to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and, increasingly, Colombian-produced heroin. At the same time, the Navy is deploying one-third fewer patrol boats in search of smugglers.
The Defense Department also plans to withdraw as many as 10 Black Hawk helicopters that have been used by a multi-agency task force to move quickly to make drug seizures and arrests in the Caribbean, a major hub for drugs heading to the United States.
And the military has deactivated many of the high-tech surveillance "aerostats," or radar balloons, that once guarded the entire southern border, saying it lacks the funds to restore and maintain them.
The Department of Defense defended its policy shift in a budget document sent to Congress in October: "The DOD position is that detecting drug trafficking is a lower priority than supporting our service members on ongoing combat missions."
Members of Congress and drug-control officials have said the Pentagon's cuts and redeployments have hamstrung the U.S. drug interdiction effort at a time when an estimated 1,000 metric tons of inexpensive, high-quality cocaine is entering the country each year.
It's hard to gauge the precise effect of the pullback because authorities say they only know the amount of narcotics they are seizing, not how much is getting through ¬ especially with fewer surveillance planes and boats to gather intelligence.
In the budget report to Congress, the Pentagon estimated recently that it detected only 22% of the "actionable maritime events" in fiscal 2006 because it "lacks the optimal number of assets."
Even when they did detect suspected smuggling vessels, U.S. authorities had to let one in every five go because they lacked the resources to chase them, Pentagon officials conceded in their report.
"We have not stopped trying to fix that gap. We're very much concerned about it, and working very hard to try and fix these problems," Edward Frothingham III, acting deputy assistant Defense secretary for counter-narcotics, said in an interview. "DOD is in no way lessening our support" for the war on drugs, he said. "But in the post-9/11 world, some of these assets are needed elsewhere."
With Pentagon support dropping, the Coast Guard and other Homeland Security agencies such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection are trying to play a greater role in the interdiction effort. But current and former officials within those agencies say they do not have the resources to do the job because they, too, have had to dramatically redistribute resources since the sweeping post-Sept. 11 reorganization that made Homeland Security the front line in keeping terrorists out of the United States.
"I can't stand here and tell you drugs aren't coming into the U.S. by sea. It happens," said Cmdr. Jeff Carter, a Coast Guard spokesman. "There are huge challenges, but we are making a dent."
(The Justice Department, through the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, also has a central role in the drug war, but it is more focused on arresting narcotics traffickers in the U.S. than on interdiction.)
The cutbacks continue at a time when the Pentagon has officially reclassified the drug interdiction effort as part of the broader war on terrorism, citing intelligence showing growing ties among terrorists, drug dealers and organized-crime syndicates.
"In the post-9/11 world, where both securing and detecting threats to our nation's borders have become critical national security objectives, we cannot continue to neglect the fact that narco-traffickers are breaching our borders on a daily basis," according to a report that was quietly issued last month by the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.
At a November 2005 hearing before another House subcommittee, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said the lack of available military assets and the amount of drugs getting through "just boggled my mind."
"The spike in narcotics shipments via Central America we ignore at our own peril," said Burton, who at the time was chairman of the international relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. "They could be carrying weapons, terrorists and other things that could destroy not only the youth of America, but American cities."
The weakening of the U.S. drug interdiction effort comes just as U.S. authorities have had some major successes in the drug war, led by the Pentagon's Joint Interagency Task Force-South, based on Key West, Fla. Authorities have seized increasing amounts of cocaine since 2001, including a record 300,000 pounds in 2005, although records show that seizures dropped off sharply in 2006, to 230,000 pounds.
Counter-narcotics officials, including some in the Pentagon, acknowledge that the large recent seizures are only masking more fundamental problems caused by the sharp decline in drug interdiction assets.
The recent successes were due in part to improved interagency cooperation and U.S. efforts to bolster the Colombian government's counter-narcotics program. They were also aided by a windfall of intelligence gained from a program known as Operation Panama Express, which allowed authorities to pinpoint major shipments of drugs, documents show. That intelligence has largely dried up as Colombian drug lords have tightened their operational security, making the Pentagon's detection and monitoring assets in the so-called transit zones ever more crucial, according to U.S. documents and officials.
"What you've had is a significant downsizing of the counter-narcotics effort in the transit zones, and that has very direct national security implications," said Robert B. Charles, assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs from 2003 to 2005. He said the loss of resources threatened to "consign future generations of young Americans to a deluge of cocaine and heroin."
Perhaps the most important link in the drug interdiction chain is the Pentagon's aerial patrols. Without them, a U.S. military ship can detect only about one out of every 10 suspected drug vessels (one out of five if the ship has a helicopter on board), according to statistics from the Joint Interagency Task Force-South. With the planes, whose radars can cover hundreds of miles, the military's odds improve to seven out of 10.
Department of Defense aerial patrol-hours in the transit zones declined from 6,062 hours in fiscal 2002 to a low of 1,432 in 2005. They rose to 2,296 in the most recent fiscal year, which ended in October, but since then, the Pentagon has grounded much of its fleet of P-3s for long stretches because of a lack of pilots, money for flying time or maintenance issues, documents show.
Military officials say the aerial surveillance situation is dire, and likely to get much worse. That's because most of the Pentagon's drug planes are Vietnam-era P-3s that were mothballed for years before being brought back into service for the drug war. Many of them have been redeployed to war zones or for use in counter-terrorism operations, Frothingham said. Those remaining have such severe wing corrosion that they're in the shop much of the time, U.S. documents and officials say. Many of them have no working radar. But their replacements won't be ready until at least 2012.
The Pentagon has also redirected other planes used to spot smugglers ¬ including fighter jets and high-flying reconnaissance planes ¬ toward other missions, and turned down requests to use unmanned drones in the drug war.
Things aren't much better at sea, where there is a continuing lack of Navy resources to intercept drug runners who are using "go fast" multi-engine boats that are often 40 feet long, travel at up to 40 knots, and can carry several tons of cocaine.
In the Eastern Pacific transit area, four U.S. ships are dedicated to patrolling an area larger than the continental United States.
Two years ago, U.S. authorities discovered that smugglers were easily avoiding military boats by navigating far into the eastern Pacific Ocean with the help of at-sea refueling vessels. In comparison, for every four days of patrol, U.S. military ships spend an average of eight days traveling to and from the transit zone to refuel, said Rear Adm. Jeffrey J. Hathaway, director of the JIATF-South.
Frothingham's tiny counter-narcotics office at the Pentagon is still looking for a solution because the department's leadership won't commit military tankers for the task. A senior Pentagon budget official said the British government recently pledged to provide a tanker in the Pacific, but only temporarily.
Homeland Security agencies, the Coast Guard in particular, have moved boats and planes to the region to intercept smugglers, but documents show that in most cases, the U.S. presence remains far below what it was before Sept. 11, 2001.
In May, the Pentagon decided to withdraw its Caribbean-based Black Hawk helicopters for use elsewhere.
The Justice Department protested, calling the helicopters a linchpin in the U.S. counter-drug effort because they ferried law enforcement agents among the thousands of islands that cocaine traffickers use as transshipment points.
That opposition has pushed back the withdrawal of the Black Hawks until October, but counter-narcotics officials say the larger problem is that no other agency has received funding to keep them operating.
As the U.S. fortifies its border with Mexico, counter-narcotics officials warn that smugglers could simply move east and penetrate the vast Gulf Coast.
In response to such threats, various U.S. agencies had for years been using radar-equipped tethered aerostats to provide continuous and long-range monitoring of smugglers by land, air and sea.
The Pentagon took over the Tethered Aerostat Radar System, or TARS, in 1992 and shut down three of the balloons in the Bahamas in 1994.
Then, in 2001 and 2002, it shut down three others in Texas, Louisiana and Florida, leaving virtually the entire Gulf Coast uncovered ¬ from Florida to east Texas, and part of the Caribbean as well.
The Pentagon won't put the radar balloons back up because it believes the money is better spent elsewhere, Frothingham said.
In November 2005, the Government Accountability Office raised serious concerns about the shortcomings in the interdiction effort, and said it was particularly troubled by the lack of strategic planning by the Pentagon and Homeland Security to deal with a major redeployment of drug war assets that it believed would only get worse, not better.
The GAO, the independent investigative arm of Congress, requested that the Pentagon and Homeland Security Department devise comprehensive plans on how to maintain the drug interdiction effort with dramatically fewer resources.
More than a year later, the GAO's Jess T. Ford said in an interview that he had seen few signs of progress.
"If that trend continues," he said, "it just means we are going to miss more and more opportunities."
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Heavy Afghan fighting expected: U.S. ambassador
January 22, 2007
CHARIKAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said on Monday he expected heavy fighting with the Taliban this year but the government was growing stronger which made him optimistic about the country's prospects.
Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since U.S.-led troops drove the Taliban from power in 2001.
The violence, particularly in southern and eastern provinces near the border with Pakistan, has eased since a bitter winter set in but it is expected to intensify again when the weather improves.
"Yes, I do expect there will be some heavy fighting in the spring, both in the south and the east," U.S. ambassador Ronald Neumann told reporters during a visit to a town north of Kabul.
"I believe the Taliban now feel that time is not on their side anymore, that there's an expansion of the army, there's an expansion of NATO, there is an expansion of government authority."
"I think the Taliban has to try to fight and therefore it will," Neumann said.
There are more than 40,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about half of them American, the most since 2001.
Neumann, visiting the town of Charikar 60 km (40 miles) from Kabul for the opening of a U.S.-funded road project, said he was confident the Taliban would be tackled but it was important to be realistic about the danger.
"I believe that we will be strong and be pushing them back but I think we have to be honest with people and tell them that there may be some hard fighting," he said.
President Bush last week nominated William Wood to replace Neumann as ambassador to Afghanistan as part of the changes Bush is making in his foreign policy team heading into his last two years in office.
Neumann said he was more optimistic now about Afghanistan than he was when he arrived in July 2005.
"I'm seeing better governors ... there has been a considerable change in the leadership of the police forces," he said.
"None of these things are perfect or complete or quick, but when you add them up together, there is a considerable element of progress."
"Year by year the government is ... becoming stronger," he said. "That's why I'm feeling more optimistic as we go into a year in which I also expect heavy fighting."
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Eikenberry ends tenure as head of CFC-Afghanistan
Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition, Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The man who is likely the last commander of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan officially ended his tenure Sunday, with officials saying the command will be folded under the larger NATO leadership in coming weeks.
Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry has been commander of CFC-A since May 2005. He is headed next to serve as deputy chairman of the NATO Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium.
In remarks during his departure ceremony, Eikenberry said that despite recent changes in command structure, the U.S. military will remain the largest single foreign troop presence in Afghanistan.
"The U.S. is a member of NATO. NATO's success is the U.S.'s success, which is Afghanistan's success," he said.
"We are fighting a very different war. In this war, we are trying to build schools and clinics, we are trying to build roads, and we are trying to help the Afghan people reclaim their middle ground of civil society. What do we need most to succeed here? We need more time, more patience, and more commitment."
There are more than 23,000 American servicemembers in Afghanistan, the highest number in the past six years. Twenty-six NATO countries and 11 other nations also are contributing troops and resources.
Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan will inactivate "in the coming weeks," officials said.
Combined Joint Task Force 76, with a two-star U.S. general in command, will then become the highest American command in the country. A second command, the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, also with a two-star American general in command, trains Afghan National Security Forces.
U.S. forces are currently training about 1,500 new Afghan troops per month, and hope to raise an army of 70,000 and a police force of 82,000 by 2009, Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, who is in charge of training and equipping Afghan troops and police officers, said recently.
In recent weeks, with the Taliban mounting a widespread, sustained offensive, U.S. commanders have repeated requests for more troops, predicting more heavy fighting to come.
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Eight MPs in Kandahar to assess Afghan mission
Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - Eight members of the all-party Commons defence committee, including an outspoken opponent of the war, have arrived in southern Afghanistan to assess Canada's role there.
They arrived at Kandahar Airfield early Tuesday amid tight security aboard a Canadian Forces transport plane.
The army has a series of briefings prepared for them on all aspects of the war and reconstruction effort.
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett says she's looking forward to seeing the Conservative government's so-called three-D approach - defence, development and diplomacy - in action.
But it remains to be seen how much MPs, including New Democrat Dawn Black, get to see because the committee will not be allowed outside of the airfield to view reconstruction efforts.
Ms. Black, whose party has called for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, says she doesn't think soldiers will give her a hard time and adds she's keeping an open mind about the mission.
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Italy to stay in Afganistan but no more troops - PM
By Robin Pomeroy
ANKARA, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Italy will keep soldiers in Afghanistan but will not increase their number, Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Monday, insisting he would not give in to hard-left government factions demanding a pull-out.
Pacifists in Italy's centre left have threatened to vote against re-financing the 1,900-strong force in Afghanistan -- something parliament must do every six months. That would be a potentially fatal blow to Prodi's 9-month-old government.
Prodi pulled Italian troops out of Iraq last year, a conflict he said Italy should never have entered, but he insists Italy should remain part of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Speaking to reporters during an official visit to Turkey, Prodi dismissed suggestions from coalition left-wingers that his administration was blunting the centre left's 'peaceful' 2006 election message.
"It's not being blunted. The (Afghanistan) undertaking isn't an undertaking of war," he said, pointing out Italian troops were not deployed in the cities of Kabul and Herat, not in the battlefields against the Taliban, and that would not change.
Prodi said Italy, whose post-World War Two constitution rejects war as a way of solving international conflicts, had a duty to take part in military missions aimed at peace and stability.
The commander of the 32,000-strong NATO force, General David Richards, told the Guardian newspaper on Monday that he needed more troops to be able to win the Afghan conflict within a year.
But Prodi said these would not come from Italy. "There will be no increase in troops, but we will respect our undertakings."
It is the second time in less than a week that Prodi has taken a tough stance with his pacifist Communist and Green allies. Last Tuesday, he defied their calls to block plans to expand a U.S. military base in Vicenza, northern Italy.
Prodi has a majority of just one seat in the upper house, and a pacifist revolt over Afghanistan would force him to seek support from the centre-right opposition of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
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Karzai to visit Italy
Kabul, Jan.22 (ANI): Afghan President Hamid Karzai will pay an official visit next month to Italy.
The Italian foreign ministry said Monday that Karzai would be arriving in Rome on February 16-17 and would have discussions with Prime Minister Romano Prodi's Government.
Italy is scheduled to hold a conference on Afghanistan, even as the pro-Left is threatening to vote against refunding Italy's military contribution to ISAF, the NATO force in Afghanistan.
The threat is in response to Prodi's decision to allow the United States to enlarge a US military base in northeastern Vicenza, honoring a commitment by his pro-American predecessor Silvio Berlusconi.
Foreign Minister Massimo d'Alema reaffirmed at the weekend that Italy would not withdraw its nearly 2,000 troops deployed in western Afghanistan, saying a pullout would be tantamount to Rome "giving up its political role."
Prodi met late Sunday with D'Alema, Defense Minister Arturo Parisi, the leaders of the two communist parties in the ruling coalition, and the Greens to discuss the refunding of the Afghan mission, a local news agency reported.
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Half a million Afghan refugees may fail to register
The News International (Pakistan)
PESHAWAR: Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are feared to be left unregistered in the ongoing process of enrolling refugees from across the country as the exercise is going to end next week and a million people still remain to be enlisted.
Some 1.7 million refugees, sources told The News, have been registered so far at over 50 centres set up by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) while around one million are yet to be registered.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Commissionarate for Afghan Refugees (CAR) are assisting Nadra in the exercise that started on October 16 last year.
The registration process, which will cost $6 million, was supposed to be concluded by the end of last year. However, as only 1.3 million refugees could be registered till the end of 2006, the deadline was extended first up to January 19 and again till February 2, in a bid to enrol more refugees living in Pakistan for the past three decades.
"Though over 25,000 Afghan refugees are coming to register everyday, it is feared that hundreds of thousands of refugees from all over the country will be left unregistered for showing least interest towards the process," a senior official associated with the process feared.
Approximately 2.6 million Afghans are living in Pakistan since they left their homeland after invasion by the Russian forces. Besides hundreds of thousands of those settled in different refugee camps, a huge majority comprises of those who own property and run businesses in different parts of the country. A large number of the refugees are avoiding registration for having certain reservations.
"These people are not in favour of going back home. They consider registration as first phase of their repatriation and for that reason they did not go for it," sources remarked. In the beginning many of the Afghan families avoided registration of females due to the condition of placing a photograph on the Proof of Registration Cards (PoR). The condition was later withdrawn but still a huge population is yet to enrol their families.
The PoR carries basic information along with photos of its holder, non-compulsory in case of females. Those who have not enrolled their names in last year's census are not entitled to appear before the registration centres in the ongoing exercise.
"After the end of the registration process, Afghans without PoRs will not be considered refugees and the laws of the land will not protect them," a senior official, requesting anonymity, told this correspondent.
He, however, avoided answering when asked whether the refugees without PoRs will be deported for illegal stay in the country. Afghans in the country are already under fire by the law-enforcement agencies. In Peshawar, the entry of Afghans into the urban areas has been strictly banned and their mourners also will not be allowed to join Muharram processions.
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Afghan Security Forces Make Impressive Professional Gains
Afghan, U.S. officials say steadfast international support is key to success
By Jacquelyn S. Porth USINFO Staff Writer U.S. Department of State - Jan 22 2:45 PM
Afghan National Army soldiers wait in formation to meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Afghanistan January 16. (DoD)Washington - Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reviewing the training of the Afghan national army, recently said not only is he very impressed, but the army's progress exceeds U.S. expectations.
Gates and Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were in Kabul for a three-day visit in mid-January on the secretary's first trip to Afghanistan. Although gains have been made, he said during a January 17 press conference in Washington that Afghan and U.S. officials still are hoping to accelerate the process in training and equipping the army. (See related article.)
There are now 36,000 soldiers in the Afghan army that has been assembled since the U.S.-led mission to oust the Taliban from Afghanistan five years ago. The goal is nearly to double the size of the force so that the army can defend its territory, deal with insurgents and establish conditions that will allow the nation to succeed economically without relying on resources derived from the narcotics trade.
The mission to create the army and to reform Afghanistan's police force is a collaborative project involving members of the international community including the United States and Pakistan as well as from NATO. The alliance's International Security Assistance Force is essential to the strategic security partnership in Afghanistan and the effort to stem anti-government challenges from the Taliban and associated al-Qaida insurgents.
The United States and Germany have been at the forefront of reforming the police which now number around 50,000 trained officers. During a recent visit to Washington, Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Hadir Khalid said the national police, which fall under his command, have made tremendous progress in recent years, but there are still challenges to surmount especially in ongoing efforts to eradicate corruption in the ranks.
He said the establishment of an Internal Affairs Department has created a mechanism "to hold police accountable for their actions." A new police code of conduct also is helping reinforce the professional, legal and ethical requirements of police regulations as well as Afghanistan's Constitution and penal code.
Better initial screening of police recruits also has helped weed out common criminals and those connected to insurgents, Khalid said during a January 9 press conference at the Pentagon. "The police are being rebuilt, growing and improving every day," he said, as the trainers push toward a goal of having 82,000 trained police that represent the nation ethnically and regionally.
RULE OF LAW, HUMAN RIGHTS, COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS
Army and police training include emphasis on the rule of law and respect for human rights. The Afghan government hopes to meet its training and recruitment goals by 2008. (See related article.)
The United States is funding purchases for the Afghan security forces that will help meet requirements for rifles and artillery as well as airplanes and helicopters. A considerable amount of equipment was bought in November 2006 and will be flowing into the country through the spring so that the Afghan forces can become increasingly independent.
Khalid also cited stepped up plans to eradicate opium production and associated smuggling in 2008. A special force of 2,600 counternarcotics police is at the forefront of this effort, he said.
Army Major General Robert Durbin, who reviewed Afghan progress January 9, told reporters at the Pentagon press conference that reform is being achieved against the backdrop of illiteracy, tribalism and without infrastructure. "[W]e're producing an Afghan national security force that is competent and capable of defeating a determined insurgency," he said, "while setting the stage for social and economic progress."
Afghan security forces already are fighting alongside their international partners and in some cases leading combat operations. This serves to instill confidence and a sense of professionalism among the Afghan forces, Durbin said.
The U.S. goal, he said, is to "assist the nation by building Afghan capacity and capability to secure Afghanistan's territory and provide an Afghan shield for the nation's continued development." While this transition, after decades of strife, will take time, he said with "steadfast U.S. and international support - it will happen."
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Afghan Paper Sees Broadcasting Trends Damaging Country's Cultural Values
Monday, 22 January 2007, 09:00 CST RedNova - Jan 22 8:29 AM
Excerpt from editorial published by Afghan newspaper Pagah on 18 January
Normally the mass media should recognize and fulfil their duties in order to improve a society's culture. In undemocratic communities, the media are usually under the government's control. Although most of the media sources in such societies are state-run, it is hard to believe that [even an undemocratic] government is likely to affect its society [through the media]. On the other hand, the freedom of expression and media are observed where democratic governments have been established. Nevertheless, such a freedom can be harmful and risky in communities with a high rate of illiteracy.
With a quick glance at the media in our country over the past few years, we can see that they have failed to carry out their responsibility in rebuilding the society's cultural structures. In general, we are now observing anarchy in activities of the mass media. These sources, particularly the television channels, have abused democracy and freedom of expression and tried to increase the number of their viewers and commercials. To that end, they have started broadcasting various programmes which run counter to our Islamic and cultural beliefs and traditions but strengthen foreign cultures.
Indian serials have been broadcast and publicized on many television channels recently, and the number of these serials is on the rise. We should not generally describe these serials as commonplace and humdrum, but such broadcasts will have a negative impact on a society whose cultural identity has been severely affected by long years of crisis. [Passage omitted: an example]
Who will be accountable for all these harmful products? The media officials argue that the media law has not been standardized.
As a result, it is down to the current government to answer why it has not prevented the trend which is affecting our valuable, old culture. Should we convince ourselves by forming a Ministry of Culture and Youth? It would be better to see what this ministry has done so far. Well, if we ask this question from the respectful officials, they would say they are proud of an increase in the number of media in the past few years. They may even expect the people to grant them a medal for their activities!
Dear officials!
Do you have a reasonable answer for the people? You must realize that this trend has a more catastrophic impact compared to the war! You should bring it to an end; otherwise neither God nor the people will forgive you.
Source: BBC Monitoring Media
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Lack of barbers has Armed Forces scratching heads
By Doug Schmidt, Windsor Star Monday, January 22, 2007 Ottawa Citizen
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - If you're a barber, your country needs you.
The Canadian military is so hard-pressed to lure to Afghanistan those skilled in traditional warrior haircutting that it's been forced to place advertisements for new clipper recruits.
"It's an art, trust me," Linda Sylvester says of her chosen field, which she terms "combat barber."
Just don't call this military mom a hairdresser.
"Hairdressers are very good at what they do, but it's not barbering. They can't cut like we do," says the Cape Breton native who is nearing the end of her second tour in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately for the Canadian military, there are no more schools for barbers, only hairdressers - and that's making it difficult to attract barbers to Kandahar Airfield (KAF), war-zone home to more than 2,000 Canadians in need of flat tops, tapers, square backs, brush cuts and cleanups.
Soldiers here want their hair cropped neat. Styles aside - and short can look sharp - less hair means less dust that can accumulate on top, something that's an inevitability here where desert winds blow and dry grit gets onto and into everything.
There are three barbers at KAF and another barber/cashier posted with Canada's provincial reconstruction team based in nearby Kandahar City. The pay is good, the basic living expenses add up to zero and someone else does all the cooking and cleaning, but the military is having difficulty finding barbers to fill the six-month Afghanistan postings.
"Young lads don't want to be barbers anymore," sighs Barry Proulx, who works with Sylvester at KAF after having re-entered the workforce.
"I was supposed to retire - I guess this is my retirement," says Proulx, who was a military base barber at home. He decided to come to Afghanistan because "I got pretty attached to them at Petawawa ... so I'm here to support them."
Working for the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency, the barbers are among a host of civilians who staff and implement morale and welfare programs on base designed to make life a little easier for the deployed troops.
For the six-month posting starting anywhere from May to September, a barber will earn up to $19,000 working 10-hour days. On top of that, there's approximately $1,800 per month in additional pay in the form of "non-taxable allowances," a euphemism for what might once have been termed danger pay. There is still the occasional rocket lobbed at KAF, but the base is vast and the Taliban notoriously lousy shots.
To find out more about the latest barber postings, contact the CFPSA, whose motto is "serving those who serve," at http://www.cfpsa.com. The deadline is Friday.
Sylvester, who normally lives at CFB Gagetown, N.B., and whose son and daughter are both in the military and scheduled for upcoming Afghanistan tours, not only cuts and trims hair but also serves as surrogate mother to the troops and always has a sympathetic ear.
"I call them my boys and they do talk ... about shrapnel in their butt or legs, about friends killed. Some of the poor little buggers will be breaking down," says Sylvester, adding she'll occasionally shed her own tears at some of the stories.
She remembers one flight out to a forward operating base, sharing a helicopter ride with a local boy who had his broken leg fixed by Canadian medical staff. On her return trip, she learned of the death of one Canadian soldier whose hair she had trimmed just the day before.
"They don't send us out anymore - it's too dangerous," said Sylvester.
"Unless you're here, you don't understand. People in Canada don't understand what our soldiers are doing ... they're making a difference," she says.
Both Sylvester and Proulx said it's a rewarding experience and the soldiers, who get their cuts for free, show their appreciation.
Proulx recalls serving beer at Canada House over the holidays: "I had 600 people come up who knew me, and from everybody it's: 'Good day.'"
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UN sends medicine to fight cold-related infections in Afghanistan
Tuesday, 23 January 2007 Assocaited Press of Pakistan
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 (APP) - Responding to a rise in pneumonia, bronchitis and other acute respiratory infections in Afghanistan following record cold temperatures, the U.N. health agency is sending antibiotics for thousands of people and putting in place a system to protect many more from catching the illnesses.
"Early recognition and prompt treatment are essential if we are to save lives," UN spokesman Adrian Edwards told a press briefing in Kabul, according to a press statement issued at UN Headquarters in New York. He noted that acute respiratory infections account for 20 per cent of all deaths among children under five.
Portions of the country are experiencing their coldest winter in more than 70 years, mirroring other South Asian States, such as Bangladesh, India and Nepal, which are also facing freezing temperatures. In Afghanistan, eight major provinces: Kabul, Nangahar, Paktia, Kandahar, Herat, Balkh, Badakshan and Bamiyan have been hit particularly hard, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
The agency is creating a Disease Early Warning System by sending surveillance teams to the affected areas and distributing medical kits with 120,000 doses of antibiotics for the most vulnerable, the statement said. It has also issued simple hygiene measures to prevent the spread of respiratory infections during the winter.
Also Monday, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced a $50 million project to bolster healthcare and education for children in conjunction with the Government.
The health portion will target child survival, maternal health, nutrition and HIV/AIDS by training provincial health caregivers on treating malnourished children. It will also fund programmes to increase
polio immunizations and vaccines against measles and tetanus.
The UNICEF project also aims at building 246 new schools, develop textbooks for students in grades 7 to 9, train 11,500 newly-recruited female teachers, start literacy courses for 215,000 men and women, and de-worm almost 6 million children.
Meanwhile, in the southern province of Helmand where there is heavy fighting, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing over 233 tons of emergency food supplies, including wheat, lentils and cooking oil, to 2,700 displaced families.
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Residents flay home-search in Ghazni
GHAZNI CITY, Jan 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Residents and elders in the southern Ghazni province have expressed deep concern over the mistreatment by foreign and Afghan forces in their respective areas.
NATO and Afghan troops have launched home-search operations in Andar district in the past two weeks to secure release of the remaining four engineers of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD). The engineers were kidnapped in mid-December by the Taliban.
Raza Khan, a resident of Oshnun village in Andar, said police broke into their homes and forced the people to leave their homes and started searching.
Sayed mohammad, a resident of Mullah Nooh Baba village, said a group of Afghan and foreign forces were searching their homes for a week and were also mistreating the residents.
Military officials in Ghazni have confirmed that they had launched operations for searching the MRRD kidnapped engineers, but have rejected entering into people's homes without permission.
Lt Col Mohammad Nasar, commander of the Battalion No 2 of the Thunder 203 Army Corps, told Pajhwok Afghan News his forces did not search homes as this was police job.
Governor of Ghazni Javed Alami said they would never allow law enforcers to search people homes without prior permission from court and the homes owners. The operation was launched in the area, after the rumours of deal between the Taliban and government over release of the hostages was in progress. Taliban killed one of the engineers after government did not fulfil Taliban demand on release of their fighters from various jails in Kabul.
Sher Ahmad Haidar
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Karzai hails help by Islamic, neighbouring countries
KABUL, Jan 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai, on Sunday, thanked some Islamic and neighbouring countries for their help in bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan and defusing tension with the neighbouring Pakistan.
Pointing to the uneasy relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the near past, the president said he was thankful to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Turkey and China for their role in mollifying the tension between the two countries and bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan.
Addressing the joint session of parliament on the opening of the new parliamentary year, Karzai he said besides fighting terrorism, his government was struggling to achieve political stability in the country.
In his 50-minute speech, the president pointed to the surge in insurgency and recalled the killing of a number of officials, religious scholars, social workers, teachers and common citizens during the previous year.
To name few of them, Karzai recalled the assassination of Paktia governor Hakim Taniwal, chief of women affairs department in Kandahar Safia Amma Jan and the recent killing of an engineer Najeebullah by the militants.
He said the disruptive activities in parts of the country were carried out in connivance with the outsiders. "Afghans are burning in the fire due to the conspiracies of foreigners," he added.
He said the upcoming Peace Jirga between tribal elders belonging to Afghanistan and Pakistan would be used as a forum for launching joint struggle to fight terrorism in the region. "We will not succeed in overcoming terrorism without joining hands together," said Karzai while stressing the need for collective efforts by Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan had two options in the anti-terror war, said the president. "To surrender before the terrorists or defend our independence."
The president said the previous year also marked considerable increase in attacks on schools. He said 182 schools were set on fire and destroyed in an attempt by 'enemies' to push the new generations of the country into darkness.
Touching the issue of drugs, President Karzai said poppy cultivation, terrorism and administrative corruption were interlinked. He said the terrorists were forcing farmers to grow poppies and they were responsible for the recent boost in poppy production.
He welcomed the progress achieved by the parliament in the previous parliamentary year and said the summoning of 321 times of government officials, giving vote of confidence to the new cabinet and the approval of the members of the Supreme Court were some of those achievements.
Mohammad Noman Dost
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Plot foiled to target Afghan, foreign troops
PUL-I-ALAM, Jan 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Following the claim by security agencies about the arrest of 11 would-be suicide bombers in Kandahar, officials said they had detained another suspect in the Mohammad Agha district of the central Logar province on Sunday.
The 22-year-old detainee is a Pakistani national, who wanted to carry out a suicide attack. He was arrested with an explosive-packed motorcycle in the Mohammad Agha district of the province, police said.
Colonel Amin Gul, district police chief, told Pajhwok Afghan News the potential bomber was arrested this morning on the basis of an intelligence report they had received earlier.
He had been identified as Masood, son of Asghar, resident of Peshawar city of Pakistan's North-Western province. He wanted to target Afghan or foreign troops in the Waghjan market of the district.
The officer said they had sought help from the bomb disposal squad of the foreign troops to defuse the explosives fitted on the motorcycle.
He said the Kabul - Logar Highway had been closed for traffic for security reasons. A day earlier, intelligence officials in the southern province of Kandahar disclosed that they had arrested 11 would-be suicide bombers from different areas of the province.
Logar province is situated southwest of Kabul and was considered one of the peaceful provinces. However, in the previous few months, incidents of suicide bombings and attacks on foreign and Afghan forces in the province point to the deteriorating law and order situation in that province.
Shahpur Arab
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Canal inaugurated in Nangarhar
KABUL, Jan 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The US-led provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Nangarhar province, has helped the provincial government in digging a canal to irrigate land in Goshta district of the province.
The inauguration ceremony, attended by local officials, police chief of the district, local elders and commander of the PRT Lt Col David Naisbitt, was held in the district the other day, said a press release issued here on Sunday.
The project, which provided jobs for more than 150 locals, was completed in eight-month period.
Elders from different areas of Goshta district, who attended the ceremony in large number, said many more farmers in the area would benefit from the newly-inaugurated canal. They were also appreciative of the provincial irrigation department and the PRT for digging the canal.
Prior to the opening ceremony of the canal, the press release said, the US soldiers donated rice, cooking oil, beans, blankets and coats to the district officials for onward distribution among the deserving people.
Separately, the PRT in the central Maidan Wardak province, in collaboration with the local administration and provincial education department, distributed foodstuff, firewood, blankets, teaching materials and Holy Books to some 2,000 students of 16 religious seminaries in the provincial capital of Maidan Shahr and three districts of the province.
During their visit, the PRT officials asked the in charge of unregistered schools to register the seminaries with the education department so that they could get salaries and other benefits provided by the government.
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