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Afghan-Pakistani Bond Steadily Deteriorating
Bombs target NATO convoys in Afghanistan
Canadian soldier wounded in Afghanistan roadside bomb
Dutch aim to beat Taleban by inviting them round to tea
Pak journos get the taste of all-pervasive hostility against Pakistanis in Kabul
Aghans ban Bollywood film made in Afghanistan
Taliban leader's powerful vanishing act
Saudi Arabia donates furniture for schools
Fire erupts at foreign restaurant in Kabul
Policemen detained for involvement in robberies
Afghan Kurash federation awarded as the best of 2006
Afghan-Pakistani Bond Steadily Deteriorating
Plan for Border Fence, Mines Seen Deepening Distrust
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, January 7, 2007; Page A16
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 6 -- A proposal by Pakistan to plant land mines along the border with Afghanistan, aimed at preventing Islamic insurgents from using Pakistan as a sanctuary, has aroused angry protests by Afghan leaders who say the mines would endanger innocent travelers and divide tribal lands whose inhabitants do not recognize the border.
The contretemps is the latest sour note in a deteriorating relationship between the neighboring Muslim governments, both staunch U.S. allies that are linked by the common threat of terrorism but divided by bitter cross-charges of failing to curb a growing Islamic insurgency that operates on both sides of the border.
On Thursday, after a lengthy meeting in Kabul with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said there was still an increasing "lack of trust" between the countries. The plan to mine and fence the border, Karzai said bluntly, "will not prevent terrorism, but it will divide the two nations."
The tension has persisted despite a series of high-level meetings between Karzai and senior Pakistani officials, including the two-day visit by Aziz to the Afghan capital this week and a private session with President Bush at the White House in September that brought Karzai together with the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Taliban insurgents have spread across southern Afghanistan in the past year, battling NATO troops and launching hundreds of attacks, including suicide bombings against government facilities, military convoys and schools. Afghan and Pakistani officials have repeatedly blamed each other for failing to control the violent groups.
Karzai and his aides accuse Pakistan of allowing Taliban leaders and their sympathizers to seek refuge across the border, especially in the semiautonomous tribal districts. Recently, U.S. officials have made the same claim after months of defending Musharraf as an important partner in the war against terrorism.
"The Taliban have been able to use those areas for sanctuary and for command and control and for regrouping and supply," Richard A. Boucher, a senior State Department official, said during a visit to Canada two weeks ago, although he noted that Pakistani authorities had historically not "held sway" in the tribal regions.
Pakistani officials, in turn, maintain that they have tried every possible means of reining in the Islamic fighters, first sending about 80,000 army troops to the restive border areas and then negotiating agreements with tribal leaders who pledged to control or eject armed Islamic groups. Both efforts have met with major problems.
"We have been the target of a whisper campaign that we are not doing enough, but no one has yet defined what enough is," Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan's minister of state for information, said in an interview Saturday. "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."
Pakistan's latest proposal, to lay mines and string barbed wire along parts of the 1,500-mile border, has struck some observers as either cynical or far-fetched, but officials here insist that they are serious about it and that the work will begin sometime this month. They said they have made careful plans to avoid areas of heavy legal cross-border traffic and focus on others where clandestine crossings occur.
"If people take the legal routes, there will be no problem. They will be clearly marked," the information minister said. "Our intention is to go after those who want to move illegally," he said, comparing Pakistan's plan to the strenuous efforts made by U.S. authorities to stop illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico.
The minister noted that in addition to insurgent fighters, drug traffickers use hidden routes to bring opium out of Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world's heroin supply. He suggested that drug-related groups, who are powerful in southern Afghanistan, could be using their influence against the border-sealing plan.
But Afghan reaction to the proposal has been negative for other reasons. Many Afghans have echoed Karzai's assertion that it would arbitrarily divide the Pashtun tribes that live on both sides of the border, while insurgents would continue to slip across.
Moreover, Afghanistan has endured terrible human suffering from hundreds of thousands of land mines laid during 25 years of military conflict, first by the occupying Soviet army in the 1980s and then by warring Afghan Islamic militia factions in the 1990s. The United Nations and other aid groups have spent millions of dollars on mine clearance, but many areas are still infested with the deadly devices.
"We are against planting mines on the border because we have many bad memories of mines in Afghanistan," Mir Wali Khan, a member of Afghan's parliament from Helmand province, said in a telephone interview Saturday. "This cannot possibly stop the terrorists, and it's not even clear where the border is. Pakistan always lies about trying to help us. They don't want a stable Afghanistan, they are just interfering in our affairs."
The information minister and other Pakistani officials insist that it is very much in Pakistan's interest to have Afghanistan become stable and peaceful, in part because Pakistan is tired of hosting several million refugees from years of Afghan conflict and is worried that renewed turmoil could send a new flood of people fleeing across the border. During his visit to Kabul this week, Prime Minister Aziz stressed Pakistan's determination to begin registering and returning all remaining refugees.
Taliban officials, for their part, have sent contradictory signals about their relations with Pakistan. Some have boasted that they can move freely in the tribal areas and also in the southern border city of Quetta, Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership council is widely reported to be based. But a statement this week attributed to Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, insisted that the entire movement was based in Afghanistan and was not receiving any foreign assistance.
Omar and other Taliban officials have vowed to step up their attacks against the Afghan government, its civilian collaborators and the 40,000 NATO troops stationed in Afghanistan, whom they condemn as infidel occupiers. They have rejected recent proposals by Karzai for tribal meetings or peace negotiations.
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Bombs target NATO convoys in Afghanistan
Sat Jan 6, 4:27 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb struck a NATO vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, wounding one soldier, while a suicide bomber in a car wounded four soldiers in the country's east, officials said.
The roadside bomb hit the NATO vehicle in Zhari district in Kandahar province, wounding one soldier, said Capt. Andre Salloum, a spokesman for the NATO-led force. He did not disclose the nationality of the wounded soldier.
A suicide bomber, meanwhile, plowed his car into a NATO convoy in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province on Friday, wounding four soldiers, said Mohammad Akram Akhpelwak, the province's governor.
The bomber struck the convoy, which also included Afghan security forces, in Bermel district, he said.
A NATO spokesman confirmed the blast and said some soldiers were wounded but he did not disclose the number. Most of the troops in that region are American.
The Bermel region borders Pakistan, and a U.S. base there sees frequent rocket attacks. Afghan and Western officials say that militants cross the border to launch attacks against Afghan and foreign troops in the country.
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Canadian soldier wounded in Afghanistan roadside bomb
Sat Jan 6, 6:10 PM ET
MONTREAL (AFP) - A Canadian soldier was wounded in southern Afghanistan when a bomb exploded next to his vehicle during a patrol, a defense ministry spokesman said.
The incident took place near Howz-E-Maddad and the soldier was airlifted to the military hospital of Kandahar, said Captain Richard Langlois.
"The soldier was wounded when an explosive device blew up near the vehicle in which he was riding," Langlois told AFP.
Since 2002, 44 Canadian soldiers and a diplomat have died in Afghanistan.
About 2,500 Canadian military personnel are deployed in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, the birthplace of the extremist Taliban movement that was ousted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The Canadians are part of the 33,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a 37-nation NATO-led force.
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Dutch aim to beat Taleban by inviting them round to tea
Jeremy Page, Tarin Kowt The Times (UK) January 06, 2007
Military HQ is run as open house
Single soldier lost on Afghan mission
Two months after Dutch troops arrived in southern Afghanistan, Colonel Theo Vleugels established a hilltop outpost on the fringes of Taleban territory.
The conventional strategy would have been to build a "platoon house" surrounded by sandbags, razor wire and machinegun posts, as the British did in Helmand province.
However, Colonel Vleugels, commander of the Dutch force in neighbouring Uruzgan province, was convinced that that would antagonise the local population. So he built a qala - a traditional Pashtun home with mud walls and a large reception room where guests are greeted in the local fashion with tea, nuts and dried fruit.
It is designed as a base for Dutch soldiers and as a place for local people - including those close to the Taleban - to air grievances and talk politics.
"You don't want it to look like a fortress - there has to be a balance between accessibility and defensibility," Colonel Vleugels said. "You have to be among the people to influence them. By offering them help and work, they can make a choice. If they then decide to fight, we'll fight back, but that should be a last resort."
Whereas the British pushed deep into enemy territory in Helmand, only to be surrounded by the Taleban, the Dutch have held back to secure Tarin Kowt and Dihrawud, the two main towns in Uruzgan. They keep their troops on a tight leash and form alliances with tribal leaders.
Most controversially, they are backing Abdul Hakim Munib, the new Governor of Uruzgan, in his efforts to negotiate with the Taleban - something that Nato officially opposes.
"Whenever I find water flowing in the wrong direction, I try to turn it towards ours," said Mr Munib, 36, a mullah and former Taleban official who is still on the UN Security Council wanted list. "I did work with the Taleban and I'm proud of it - I was working for the stability and prosperity of the nation," he told The Times. "I don't want to kill my people. I want to do something for them." Mr Munib became governor last March. Dutch forces began deploying in August and reached their full strength, of 1,400 troops, in October.
Since August, the Dutch have carried out more than 400 patrols. They have lost one soldier, who committed suicide, and suffered four injuries in combat. Civilian casualties have also been very low, the governor said.
By comparison, British troops lost 36 men in southern Afghanistan last year and the Canadians lost 35 soldiers and one diplomat. President Karzai publicly wept over the number of civilian casualties last month.
Nato officials bristle at the idea that there is a "Dutch model" that might be applicable to Helmand or any other province. "The Dutch are doing what we'd all like to do - we just don't have the opportunity," one said.
Some say that the Dutch simply had good luck in their first few months in Uruzgan. Others attribute the relative stability in the south to American special forces who have pinned down the Taleban in the mountainous north of the province.
Some critics accuse the Dutch of surrendering most of Uruzgan to the Taleban without a fight. "Go 5km from the governor's house and you're in Taleban territory," said Naimatullah, 32, who runs a telephone shop in Tarin Kowt. "The old governor used to fight the Taleban. The new one just talks."
Dutch commanders admit that they are moving slowly - not least because of their bitter memories of peacekeeping in Bosnia, where, in 1995, a Dutch force with poor equipment and a flimsy UN mandate was unable to prevent the massacre of more than 8,300 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.
That led to fierce debate in parliament before the Dutch joined the Nato mission in Afghanistan. As a result, Dutch troops have facilities, equipment and rules of engagement that are the envy of their Nato partners. They eat, sleep and work not in tents but in blast-proof reinforced-steel containers. They have their own air support of eight Apache helicopters and seven F16 fighters. They have wi-fi internet access throughout their base at Camp Holland. They patrol Tarin Kowt once a day and when their reconstruction teams venture out they are well protected by escorts.
The Dutch have studied closely the the complex tribal, political, family and financial ties that govern Afghan society. Each soldier has a course in Afghan culture, including a visit to a mosque and dinner in a Dutch Afghan's home. Dutch commanders display an understanding of Afghan society that is rare among their Nato partners.
"Everything has been done with great respect for local culture, traditions and tribal leaders - that has had a positive impact," Mr Munib said.
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Pak journos get the taste of all-pervasive hostility against Pakistanis in Kabul
via newkerala.com
Islamabad, Jan 6: Pakistani journalists recently got the taste of all pervasive hostility for Pakistanis in Afghanistan.
While accompanying Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to Afghanistan, the journos from the neighbouring country were asked to go through a strict security drill before entering the hall where a press conference to be addressed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the Afghan president was held.
Then, after they had entered the hall, the security men asked them to vacate the first row of seats for local journalists.
Barbs flew between the Pakistani journalists and the security personnel who insisted that if the Pakistanis were interested in attending the press conference, they would have to go through a security check, reported the Dawn.
Pakistani journalists, however, proved a hard nut to crack, threatening to return to their hotel instead of undergoing the humiliating search. The security men were however persuaded by an astute presidential palace media coordinator to drop the idea altogether.
But, more hostility awaited the visiting journalists when they entered the press conference hall. The media coordinator brusquely asked them to vacate a row of seats for the local media.
Pakistani journalists were joined by a diplomat in confronting the officials, who appeared to be itching to humiliate the guests.
However, sanity prevailed and the abrasive officials were told to show restraint. --- ANI
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Aghans ban Bollywood film made in Afghanistan
Sat Jan 6, 9:53 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has banned an Indian Bollywood film about journalists in the war-ravaged country because parts of it were deemed offensive to one of Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, a government official said on Saturday.
"Kabul Express" charts a 48-hour journey by three journalists in post-Taliban Afghanistan. It opened to mixed reviews in India last month.
"The film has some sentences which were very offensive toward one of Afghanistan's ethnicities, namely the Hazara," said Minister of Culture adviser Najib Manalai.
"For this reason it has been banned."
Hazara people are believed to make up about 10 percent of the Afghan population. A Shi'ite Muslim minority, Hazaras are thought to be descended from remnants of Genghis Khan's invading army and have at times faced persecution.
"Kabul Express" was filmed on location in 45 days under heavy security provided by the Afghan government. It was inspired by director Kabir Khan's numerous trips to the country after the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.
Some Indian critics called it a muddled political documentary while others welcomed its insights into post-Taliban Afghan society.
Afghans involved in the film including the actors who uttered the sentences deemed offensive would be questioned by a prosecutor, Manalai said.
The prosecutor would decide if further action would be taken.
The Indian producers of the film had apologized, he said.
"Even if it's fiction, some phrases are hurtful to some people. It's playing with people's feelings and pride," he said.
Very few people in Afghanistan have seen the film.
Bootleg film sellers in the Afghan capital said authorities had confiscated their copies.
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Taliban leader's powerful vanishing act
Mullah Mohammed Omar may be hiding in Pakistan, where his elusiveness has created a cult-like devotion.
By Laura King The Los Angeles Times January 5, 2007
KUCHLAK, PAKISTAN - Where's Mullah Omar?
It has been more than five years since the Taliban's supreme leader, a onetime village cleric, vanished into the trackless terrain outside his fallen Afghan stronghold, Kandahar. And his likeliest source of sanctuary is thought to be the belt of rugged tribal territory straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the law of no nation prevails.
In Kuchlak, a dusty desert crossroads in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, Mullah Mohammed Omar still is referred to by the title he assumed in 1996, when he and his puritanical Islamist movement seized power in Afghanistan: Amir al-Muminin, or Commander of the Faithful.
Omar's feat of eluding a long manhunt by the Americans and their allies, even with a $10-million bounty on his head, is celebrated here as proof of his mystical powers.
"With all their sophisticated satellites that can see a single needle from high in the sky, they cannot find him," said Fazil Mohammad Baraich, a district amir, or chieftain. "It is no surprise that God almighty protects him, and this increases our faith."
Rumors of Omar sightings abound, and are repeated by locals with an air of satisfied certainty.
"I, myself, have heard on good authority that he is living in a camp" in the military enclave outside Quetta, said Mohammed Ashiq, head of a merchants association in that provincial capital.
"And," Ashiq said, leaning forward conspiratorially, "I hear that he has gotten fat. Very fat."
During the Taliban's rule, it was Omar who ordered such stringent measures as the banishment of women from schools and public life, and the destruction of one of Afghanistan's greatest cultural treasures, the giant Buddha statues at Bamian.
He outlawed simple pleasures such as music and kite flying, even as he decreed, disastrously for his country, that the Taliban would provide aid and shelter to Osama bin Laden, who likewise has remained at large.
A Taliban presence
In tribal communities such as Kuchlak, sympathy for the toppled militia is defiantly undiminished. Many townspeople are of the same Pashtun clan as Omar, who by most accounts has never flown in an airplane and has rarely strayed from his homeland.
The cult-like devotion to Omar in the mosques and makeshift classrooms of the tribal territories helps ensure a steady supply of Taliban fighters. The militia's white flags flutter over Kuchlak's small, desolate graveyard, where the names of slain fighters are scratched into bare rock.
Little boys trudge through the town's rutted streets, bearing bags of bread donated to the town's many madrasas, or Islamic religious schools. On Kuchlak's edge, single tracks, equally suitable for wandering goats or militants on motorbikes, fade into a horizon the color of khaki, the Pashto word for dusty.
Across the border in Afghanistan, allied military commanders say they are putting increasing pressure on the Taliban leadership, most notably with a precision airstrike on Dec. 19 on a lonely road in Helmand province that killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Osmani, a senior deputy to Omar.
Tracking Omar "is certainly a priority, and this kind of success shows we have the potential to reach those at his level," said Maj. Dominic Whyte, a spokesman for North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.
But if Omar has taken shelter in Pakistan, he may be out of the reach of coalition guns. An airstrike in October on a madrasa in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajur, which left dozens dead, triggered a heavy anti-American and anti-government backlash.
For that reason, a strike on a madrasa or village thought to be harboring Omar would be politically explosive unless American forces were absolutely certain that he, or a similarly high-profile target, was present.
Kuchlak, 10 miles north of Quetta, is a convenient way station for anyone looking to move surreptitiously in and out of the tribal belt.
One road out of town leads north to the Afghan border and continues to Kandahar. Another, with only a single police checkpoint in more than 100 miles, leads northeast to the tribal area of Waziristan, where Pakistani authorities have struck controversial truces with tribal elders that prevent troops from pursuing militants.
Because of Omar's longtime aversion to being photographed - a policy he was said to have adopted on religious grounds - few in the border hinterlands would be in a position to positively identify him. His missing right eye was his most recognizable characteristic, but allied military reports say he may have been fitted with a glass eye.
In any event, many observers believe that betrayal from within Omar's tribal milieu would be unthinkable. For one thing, it would violate the rigid Pashtun code of behavior, which places a premium on clan honor and the unquestioning protection of guests. For another, any traitor probably would pay with his life, and with the lives of his family.
Political questions
Omar's role in the Taliban leadership, whether as figurehead or active military commander, is widely debated among analysts.
Last week, before the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Western news agencies received a statement from a purported spokesman for Omar, in which the Taliban leader boasted that his fighters would drive foreign troops out of Afghanistan.
The possibility that Omar has been sheltered in Pakistan raises thorny political questions for President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan became a crucial U.S. ally after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the motives and loyalties of its government are under increasing Western scrutiny.
The Taliban movement, in its early days, was nurtured by Pakistan's intelligence service, and some observers doubt that Omar could have survived this long without its continued help. But others say no hard-and-fast proof has emerged that Omar is hiding on the Pakistani side of the border.
"He could be in Afghanistan, or he could be in Pakistan," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a longtime Taliban watcher based in the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar.
To admirers, the near-completeness of Omar's vanishing act after fleeing his gaudily appointed compound outside Kandahar in late 2001 is a triumphant rebuttal of the allies' characterizations of him as a simpleton.
"If that is the case," said Baraich, the amir, "then why has he been able to hide so well, and for so long?"
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Saudi Arabia donates furniture for schools
Sayed Jamal Asifkhel
GARDIZ, Jan 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has donated chairs and desks worth two million afghanis to schools in the southeastern Paktia province.
Islamuddin Mangal, deputy head of the education department, told Pajhwok Afghan News the donation consisted of 10,000 chairs and desks. He said it was handed over to the provincial government by officials of the Saudi embassy in Kabul.
Mangal said the education departed had started distribution of the furniture to various schools in the province. Only those schools will get the chairs and desks which had proper buildings.
Addressing a gathering organised in this connection, Paktia Governor Rahmatullah Rahmat assured the provincial government would allocate funds for construction of school buildings.
He thanked the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the assistance and said the embassy had promised more aid in the future. Majority of schools in Paktika and other backward provinces have no buildings and students are either studying under trees or in tents.
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Fire erupts at foreign restaurant in Kabul
KABUL, Jan 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A foreign restaurant caught fire early Friday morning in Qala-i-Fathullah locality of the Kabul, but did not cause any casualties or serious damages.
A worker at the Chinese restaurant, Escalades, said the fire was caused by a capsule of liquefied petroleum gas used in the kitchen, spreading quickly to other parts of the restaurant. He said the restaurant building suffered small loses, estimated around $2,000.
Chari, a witness residing in a compound opposite to the restaurant, told Pajhwok Afghan News that fire fighters reached the site after half an hour and extinguished the fire before it result more harms.
The restaurant workers and the Chinese guests fled the area after the fire started, he said.
Head of the crime branch of the Kabul police Gen. Alishah Paktiawal said the fire caused due to carelessness of the restaurant workers.
Many foreign guest houses and restaurants have been opened in Kabul in recent years in Kabul to provide secure accommodations for foreigners.
Mustafa Basharat
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Policemen detained for involvement in robberies
KABUL, Jan 5, (Pajhwok Afghan News): Three policemen allegedly involved in robberies were arrested in Kabul.
Head of the crime branch of hte Kabul police Alishah Paktiawal told Pajhwok Afghan News Friday they detained the three cops when robbing money from a driver last night in the Eighth Police District of the capital.
He said these policemen were involved in regular robbing of money and possessions of residents and drivers by force under various excuses. The police headquarters had earlier received various complaints from people about the three, all saying the policemen had forcibly robbed their belongings.
The 'plunderer' policemen were being questioned and will be dealt in accordance with the law.
Some one and half a month back, two policemen of the interior ministry were arrested in the west of the city for taking bribes from a taxi driver.
Habib Rahman Ibrahimi
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Afghan Kurash federation awarded as the best of 2006
Zarghona Salihi
KABUL, Jan 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The International Kurash Association (IKA) has awarded the Afghanistan Kurash federation as the best of the year 2006, officials said.
Sayed Mahmood Zia Dashti, head of the Afghanistan Kurash Federation (AKF), told Pajhwok Afghan News on Wednesday that the Afghan Kurash athletes showed great performances during the games held among four Asian countries in Kabul and the international competition held in Kazakhstan.
"We learned through e-mail that the International Kurash Association has awarded us as the best Kurash federation of the year," he said, adding that the award was a great achievement for Afghan athletes.
The Afghan Kurash athletes won five gold medals, seven silver and 10 bronze medals during the four-country competition in Kabul. Besides this, they own one silver and three bronze medals during international Kurash competitions earlier 2006, said Dashti.
Based in Tashkent, IKA had 93 members and Afghanistan joined it in 2002.
Dashti added that Kurash was a traditional Afghan sport played by Afghans in the northern parts of the country in the past, especially during the new year celebrations.
Originally, Kurash is the native ancient type of upright jacket wrestling practiced in Uzbekistan. It is a member of Turkish wrestling arts.
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