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June 13, 2007 

NATO to review Afghan mission after civilian deaths
By Mark John Wed Jun 13, 9:15 AM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -  NATO defense ministers will review procedures in  Afghanistan on Thursday as part of efforts to halt a wave of civilian casualties threatening to undermine public support for foreign peacekeepers there.

NATO peace efforts in Afghanistan, vital to the credibility of the 49-year-old Western alliance, will be the centerpiece of talks in Brussels where U.S. defense Secretary Robert Gates will also sound out his Russian counterpart on a surprise Kremlin offer of help for a U.S. missile shield plan.

U.S. forces on Tuesday mistakenly killed seven policemen in an air strike in the east of Afghanistan and the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that Western forces must do more to prevent civilian casualties when bombing insurgents.

NATO commanders say some of the incidents are the result of poor coordination with Afghan forces and a separate, U.S.-led coalition. But they recognize procedures must be tightened, accidents investigated more quickly and humanitarian help offered to victims.

"Broadly speaking we think the necessary arrangements are in place now. It is a question of making sure they are working," said one senior alliance diplomat before ministers discuss the issue on Thursday.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Monday that dozens of recent casualties risked hitting Afghan and European public support for the presence of some 50,000 NATO and U.S.-led troops at a critical time in the battle against Taliban and other insurgents.

Allies with soldiers on the ground say they are doing all they can to avoid such casualties but insist that some are inevitable given insurgent tactics, citing for example the use of civilians as human shields.

"We are not in the same moral universe as them. They are trying to draw civilian casualties to break our will and weaken the support of the Afghan people," a senior U.S. official said.

MISSILE SHIELD
Gates will call for others in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to offer army trainers to be directly inserted into Afghan units in a bid to boost the efficiency of the Afghan army. Some pledges are expected at the Brussels talks, with others to follow.

NATO allies are also expected to agree to explore options for complementing a U.S. missile shield in eastern Europe aimed at pre-empting missile threats from  Iran and the Middle East, but which would not protect a swathe of southeast Europe.

Some NATO nations want agreement by an alliance summit next April to build so-called "bolt-on" shield components to plug those gaps, but there is no consensus yet on how much it would cost and who would pay.

Gates will meet his Russian counterpart but diplomats doubt there will be an early agreement on President  Vladimir Putin's offer to share a Russian-controlled radar in Azerbaijan for missile defense.

U.S. officials said they see the offer, which took the West by surprise at a Group of Eight (G8) summit last week, as a sign Putin wants to end months of corrosive attacks on the shield plan and recognizes scope to work jointly on missile threats.

They have avoided detailed public analysis of the offer, although some experts say the Azeri radar is simply too close to any missile threat to effectively pre-empt it, and have proposed expert-level discussions with Russian officials.
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US prisoner leaves Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An American imprisoned in  Afghanistan for running a private jail for terror suspects has left the Afghan prison where he was held for almost three years and departed the country, the warden said Wednesday.

Jack Idema, a former Green Beret, was pardoned by President Hamid Karzai in late March as part of a general amnesty. Rahim Ahmadzai, Idema's Afghan lawyer, said the American left the prison outside Kabul on June 2 and flew out of Afghanistan. He did not know Idema's destination.

Shamir, the warden of Policharki prison where Idema was held, said Idema had wanted to stay in Afghanistan but couldn't for legal reasons. Shamir, who like many Afghans goes by one name, said he transported Idema and his dog, Nina, to the Kabul airport for the flight out.

"He wanted to stay in Afghanistan, but there was no way for him to stay," Shamir said.

Edward P. Birsner, the consul at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said in court documents filed in Washington this week that Idema had left for "an unknown destination."

The documents were filed in a case in which Idema accused the  FBI and State Department of ordering his torture and manipulating the Afghan judicial system.

Idema's U.S. attorney, John Tiffany, would not say where Idema flew to but said he does not believe he was immediately heading to the United States.

"At some point, he'd like to come back to the United States," Tiffany said. "He's an American. He loves his country."

Idema was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Kabul court in September 2004 on charges of entering Afghanistan illegally, making illegal arrests, establishing a private jail and torturing their captives.

Two other Americans were also convicted. Brent Bennet was sentenced to 10 years but was released in September. Freelance cameraman Edward Caraballo was sentenced to eight years; he was released in April 2006.

Some of the Afghans Idema imprisoned claimed they were beaten and their heads held under water. However, Idema says he never mistreated prisoners and the prosecution offered scant evidence at his sometimes chaotic Kabul trial.

Idema, who has maintained that his activities in Afghanistan were sanctioned by the U.S. government, claims to have fought with the Northern Alliance forces that toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. He was featured in a book about the Afghan war called "Task Force Dagger: The Hunt for bin Laden."

The U.S. military acknowledges accepting prisoners from Idema in Afghanistan in 2004 and the separate  NATO-led force there helped him with raids near Kabul.

However, the military soon denounced him as an imposter and he was arrested only a few months after entering the country.

Abdul Wahab Jwinda, an Afghan army commander who said he saw Idema off at the Kabul airport, said several Afghan military and two U.S. personnel accompanied Idema to the plane.

Jwinda said he and Idema fought against the Taliban together in eastern Afghanistan shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Idema had tears in his eyes while saying goodbye, Jwinda said.

"I may be leaving Afghanistan, but my heart will stay in Afghanistan," he quoted Idema as saying.

Tiffany said Idema flew out of the country from the main U.S. base at Bagram. It wasn't clear if the plane flew from Kabul then to Bagram before leaving the country.

"If this individual truly was convicted and truly did all the things they say he did, how could he leave from Bagram Air Force Base, a military airport?" Tiffany said.

Idema, who served three years in U.S jail for fraud in the 1980s, told The Associated Press by cell phone from Policharki last month that he had stayed in prison even after being freed because he risked arrest by Afghan intelligence agents. He said that departing would harm his chances of recovering documents, tapes and computer files that show his alleged relationship with U.S. officials.

A U.S. federal judge in April said the United States had to respond to a lawsuit by Idema alleging that the State Department and FBI illegally kept him imprisoned, directed his torture and destroyed evidence. Idema said he has audio recordings and documents to back up his claims.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul responded by saying that since Idema had been freed by Karzai, his claims no longer had merit.

The U.S. has said it secured Idema a passport and helped him with travel information for him and the dog he adopted.
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Associated Press reporter Matt Apuzzo in Washington contributed to this report.
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Coalition says soldier may be missing in Afghanistan
by Nasrat Shoaib
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - The US-led coalition said Wednesday it was investigating reports that a soldier was missing in  Afghanistan, as the Taliban claimed to have captured a foreign trooper.

If confirmed, it would be the first time a foreign soldier in Afghanistan has been captured by the Taliban, who have previously abducted foreign journalists and aid workers.

"We have unconfirmed reports that a soldier is missing. We are investigating," coalition spokesman Major Chris Belcher told AFP. He could not give any details.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the movement had captured a foreign soldier in uniform in the Sangin district of volatile southern Helmand province on Tuesday.

"One  NATO force soldier with a uniform and gun was captured by our mujahedeen (holy warriors)," Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.

He could not yet give the nationality and the name of the captured soldier.

The US-led anti-terrorism coalition of around 15,000 members works alongside the separate 37,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

An ISAF spokesman referred all inquiries to the coalition.

The Taliban has previously claimed to have captured foreign soldiers but these claims have never been confirmed.

The extremist group has released most of its foreign civilian hostages, reportedly for ransoms and in one case in exchange for Taliban prisoners.

It, however, claimed responsibility for the killing of a British engineer in September 2005.

It has also beheaded several Afghan hostages, accusing many of them of spying for foreign forces.

The coalition led the invasion that toppled the conservative Taliban government in late 2001 for sheltering the Al-Qaeda leaders behind the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Its main task in Afghanistan today is to hunt down fighters in a Taliban-led insurgency that is backed by Al-Qaeda and copies tactics used in  Iraq, where rebels have captured and killed US soldiers.

US defence officials said Wednesday US Defence Secretary Robert Gates would press European allies for more troops and equipment for Afghanistan at a two-day NATO meeting in Brussels starting Thursday.

"There certainly is a need for more combat forces," one official said. "There is also a need for more enablers. Helicopters is one of them. Equipment is another."

The shortfall includes three to four battalions that can be deployed at short notice and more than 3,000 trainers for the Afghan security forces, the officials said.

There are almost daily clashes in southern Afghanistan between militants and troops from the Afghan security forces and their foreign partners.

Fifteen Taliban and a young girl were reported killed Wednesday in the latest clashes.

Twelve militants were killed in the southern province of Zabul in fighting Tuesday to which the Afghan army called in foreign warplanes, the army's southern commander, Rahmatullah Raufi, said.

Another battle erupted in the province overnight when Taliban attacked a police post nearby, the Mizan district chief said.

The fighting lasted two hours and three Taliban were killed and five wounded, Mohammad Younus said.

A rocket-propelled grenade landed on a civilian house during the battle, killing a girl aged about seven, he said.
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Afghan Taliban say have missing foreign soldier
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - A foreign soldier went missing on Wednesday in  Afghanistan and the country's Taliban movement said it had kidnapped him.

A spokesman for the U.S. military, Major Chris Belcher, said the soldier belonged to the U.S.-led coalition forces and was missing in an area of the southern province of Helmand, part of the Taliban's main bastion.

He said he had no further details. If confirmed, then this is apparently the first kidnapping of a coalition soldier by Taliban since the force overthrew the movement's radical Islamic government in 2001.

Speaking from an unknown location, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, told Reuters that members of the group had kidnapped the soldier, though he said the man belonged to  NATO-led forces, and the Taliban were establishing his nationality.

Earlier on Wednesday, a United Arab Emirates government official said a member of a team providing security for a UAE aid mission had gone missing in Afghanistan.

"We can confirm that a UAE citizen who is involved in providing security for UAE humanitarian aid in Afghanistan is currently unaccounted for," the official said in Dubai.

No other details on the disappearance were immediately available.

The UAE has been providing aid -- including setting up a field hospital, schools and mosques -- under an agreement with Afghanistan's government since 2003.

Helmand is the main drug producing region of Afghanistan, the world's major heroin producer, and has long been a stronghold of the Taliban guerrillas fighting Western forces and President Hamid Karzai's government.

The Taliban have kidnapped several Westerners and Afghans in recent months from Helmand and an adjacent province.

The group freed an Italian journalist, whom it had kidnapped in March, after Kabul released five Taliban members in a widely criticized deal. It beheaded the journalist's interpreter and his driver.

It also freed two French aid workers, though it was not clear if there was any ransom involved in that case.
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UAE security guard goes missing in Afghanistan
(AFP)13 June 2007 via Khaleej Times
ABU DHABI - An Emirati security guard working with a United Arab Emirates humanitarian mission in Afghanistan has gone missing there, a UAE official said on Wednesday.

‘A member of a security team in charge of a UAE humanitarian mission in Afghanistan has been reported missing,’ the official said, without saying when and where he disappeared.

The official said the man was an Emirati, but did not give his name. He promised a fuller statement later in the day.

He was speaking following rumours that a doctor from the UAE had gone missing in the Sangin district of the volatile southern Helmand province.

The official said the mission was involved in the building of a field hospital, schools and mosques in Afghanistan.

Earlier Wednesday, the US-led coalition said it was investigating reports that a soldier was missing in Afghanistan, as the Taleban claimed to have captured a foreign trooper.

Taleban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the movement had captured a foreign soldier in uniform in Sangin on Tuesday.

‘One NATO force soldier with a uniform and gun was captured by our mujahedeen (holy warriors),’ Ahmadi said.

If confirmed, it would be the first time a foreign soldier has been captured by the Taleban, who have previously abducted foreign journalists and aid workers.

The hardliners have released most of their foreign hostages, reportedly for ransoms and in one case in exchange for Taleban prisoners. However, they claimed responsibility for the killing of a British engineer in September 2005.
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U.S.: NATO has intercepted Iranian arms
By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer
PARIS -  NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to  Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, providing evidence  Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. "It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government."

Speaking separately to The Associated Press, Burns said NATO must act to stop the shipments. The Iran-Afghanistan frontier is "a very long border. But the Iranians need to know that we are there and that we're going to oppose this."

"It's a very serious question," he said, adding that Iran is in "outright violation" of  U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns' assertion the Iranian government was directly involved in the transfers but stressed Washington has proof that weapons from Iran were being sent to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

"We absolutely are certain that there are Iranian-origin weapons flowing into Afghanistan to the Taliban," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"We do not know the extent of any Iranian government involvement at this point, but given the nature of the regime and also some of its past behaviors elsehwhere — whether in the Palestinian areas or in  Iraq — it certainly raises very serious questions and we are quite concerned about it," he said.

Tehran, which is also in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program, denies it is aiding the Taliban, calling the accusation part of a broad anti-Iranian campaign. Iran says it makes no sense that a Shiite-led government like itself would help the fundamentalist Sunni movement of the Taliban.

Burns acknowledged that it was "curious" that Iran would aid the Taliban.

"It's quite surprising," he told CNN. "The Iranians had said that they were the mortal enemies of the Taliban in 2001 and '02."

Burns did not give details on the scope of the alleged Iranian shipments, although he appeared to indicate that they were limited. "I don't think it's made a substantial difference in the greater theater of the war," he said.

"It is not going to turn the tide against us, but it is very troublesome, it is illegal under international law ... and the Iranians need to stop it," Burns told the AP.

Burns, who was holding talks in Paris, first accused Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

In Afghanistan last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons were falling into the hands of anti-government Taliban fighters, but he stopped short of blaming Tehran.

Iran's possible role in aiding insurgents in Iraq has been hotly debated, and last month some Western and Persian Gulf governments alleged that the Islamic government in Tehran is also secretly bolstering Taliban fighters.

In an AP interview Monday, U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill said Taliban fighters are showing signs of better training, using combat techniques comparable to "an advanced Western military" in ambushes of U.S. Special Forces soldiers.

"In Afghanistan it is clear that the Taliban is receiving support, including arms from ... elements of the Iranian regime," British Prime Minister  Tony Blair wrote in the May 31 edition of the Economist.

On the Iranian nuclear issue, Burns claimed that sanctions already leveled against Tehran were being felt and reiterated the threat of more if the country refuses to suspend uranium enrichment — which the West fears could be meant for the production of nuclear weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday dismissed the possibility that a third set of Security Council sanctions would harm Iran.

Burns disagreed. "I think most people would say that the Iranians are experiencing considerable economic difficulties because of the financial sanctions that have been taken outside the Council and because of Security Council sanctions," he told CNN.

While diplomatic solutions are preferable, "they will get sanctions if they choose confrontation," Burns said. "All of us want to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power. That's the policy of the entire world."
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Will United States Sacrifice Afghanistan For Iran? [Op-ed]
NEWSPost India, India
Wednesday 13th of June 2007 This is what Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary Of State today told reporters in Paris:

" ..Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan.. "

" ..It's a country that's trying to flex its muscles, but in a way that's injurious to the interests of just about everybody else in the world.."

Now, Iran has been long accused by the West and Pro West countries of the Middle East of aiding Shia militias in Iraq. That to me, makes sense. Iran is indeed capable and willing to aid Shia and Anti American terrorists in Iraq.

But why should Iran aid the Sunni Extremist Taliban? Especially considering the fact that Iran, along with India, Russia and Tajikistan, has been fighting the Taliban and aiding the Northern Alliance long before 9/11.

If Iran is doing it to keep U.S. Forces "engaged" then it better reconsider as there is a NATO and ISAF presence in Afghanistan, that too a negligible presence considering the terrain and enemy.

Furthermore it is a known fact that Taliban is thriving in the regions of FATA which was given up by War On Terror Ally - Pakistan. This map from Bill Roggio illustrates prevailing situation on the Pakistani side of the Durrand Line.

Side Note: Bill Roggio's The Fourth Rail is a factually accurate and wise source to keep abreast with the unfolding security challenges in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Back to topic, anybody who's been following West Asia for any length of time would know of the Shia-Sunni rivalry for dominance in the Islamic World. Extremist Shia's and Extremist Sunni's are mutually exclusive, so much so that they'd rather bomb each other than suicide bomb a Kaffir.

Iran does see a Talibani Afghanistan and Pakistan as Saudi Arabian client states furthering the agenda of Sunni Islam. If the Iranian Regime were now to make a U-Turn and support Taliban, it wouldn't be taken lightly by the Shi'ite Clerics in Iran to say the least.

One could however argue that anti U.S. Groups in Afghanistan and Iran now have a common enemy, so it is a partnership of convenience. And yes, that does make sense.

I'm not denying that Iran could be supporting some anti U.S. militias in Afghanistan, I'm doubting they'd support the Taliban. Even among Talibani Pushtuns tribes, the militia's aren't united; so it would be inaccurate to assume that all groups challenging the U.S. in Afghanistan are the Taliban.

Farsiwan's are ethnic Iranian tribes living on the Iran-Afghan border. They are Shia and their strength is estimated to be greater than 900,000. They have been pro Iran and were used by Iran against the Sunni Taliban in the mid-to-late 90's. They could have been used again, this time against the Allies.

You'll ask me, what's the point whether it is "Taliban" or not, as long as Iran is aiding a group fighting the U.S. Well, I think it is important because the Taliban is the only group capable of seriously challenging the U.S. in Afghanistan. And Pakistan's role in letting the Taliban thrive is yet again going ignored as United States picks up the rhetoric against Iran.

I'm in no way defending Iran, and its comments against Israel prove that it isn't lead by a civilized Government. A defense pre-emptive war may even be justified. But I'd just like to point out that not Iran at the cost of Afghanistan. Pakistan is back to its old pre 9/11 ways of promoting terror in India and "strategic depth" in Afghanistan.

The Civilized World has made so much ground in Afghanistan, surely it mustn't be given up now. And if the United States believes that by handling Iran the situation in Afghanistan will improve, it will be just another gross miscalculation at par with the U.S. decision of trusting Pakistan in the WoT.
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Recruiting Taleban 'child soldiers'
By Syed Shoaib Hasan BBC News, Tank Tuesday, 12 June 2007
Children in Tank, a remote town at the centre of Taleban activity in north-west Pakistan, are going missing.

It is a disturbing phenomenon that Tank shares with other towns on the edge of Pakistan's tribal belt.

Reports says the children - some as young as 11 - are being kidnapped by pro-Taleban militants.

Most people in Tank are unwilling to admit it is happening and few will talk about it.

Pro-Taleban militants in the region deny they are recruiting children, blaming the region's troubles on government policy.

'Adventure'

When people in Tank can be persuaded to talk about the missing children, most appear to guard every word.

"They don't really kidnap the children," says a local teacher.

But he is hesitant and thinks his words through.

"The Taleban convince them it is their duty to carry out jihad [holy struggle]."

But then he admits what he's left unsaid.

"How much convincing does a child need? ... Especially when promised adventure."

The trouble is that in most cases, the "adventure" the Taleban offer usually results in no possibility of return.

"They are being trained as fidayeen," the teacher half whispers.

"Fidayeen" literally means "those who sacrifice their lives".

In Afghanistan today, the term has a new meaning - suicide bomber.

The tale of a local school administrator in the town is typical of what is happening.

"The purpose of their visit [in January] was clear from the start," he said.

"The militants came to town with a mission, and wanted to convert us to their cause.

"They said that jihad was obligatory and those who heed the call are rewarded," the principal said.

"As many as 30 students from each of the four government schools in Tank 'enlisted'.

A similar number have also joined from private schools. The ages of those taken are between 11 to 15 years.

Battle for influence

Asked why the school administration has not simply refused, the staff appear flabbergasted.

"Do you want me to lose my neck?" one asks bluntly.

"The Taleban don't ask for permission - they just tell us."

Even so, not everyone has given way to the militants.

At the private English medium school, Oxford High, an extraordinary battle for influence over the pupils was recently fought.

"They came on 23 March but the children had left," said a school teacher.

"The Taleban said they would be back later."

They did indeed return three days later, while an exam was taking place. The militants agreed for the exam to finish before they tried to take them away.

"They went outside to wait at 1000," the teacher said, "and an hour later all hell broke loose."

Local police and security forces had been monitoring the militants' activities.

"The first sound we heard was of a helicopter flying in low and then a loud explosion," a local explained.

This was at 1100. Over the next two hours the militants and security forces fought pitched battles.

The militants suffered greater losses in the earlier exchanges. But they were soon back in greater numbers, and rolled through the town attacking anything or anyone connected with the government.

Some of the fighters were children as young as 12, eyewitnesses told the BBC.

Hopes 'harboured'

The security forces were also attacked, and now keep a low profile.

Since then, the militants have had a free hand in the town.

But the authorities are not willing to admit anything is amiss.

"I have been here just two months," says Muhammad Idrees Khan, the town's deputy chief of police.

He argues that the parents should come forward if there is a problem.

But locals says that parents are extremely scared.

"They harbour hopes of their children returning if they keep quiet," explains one.

"But if they open their mouths, the whole family would suffer the Taleban's wrath."

On the streets of Tank, students coming out of the local college have ambivalent feelings about the situation.

"We are not extremists... we are liberal people," says a student who has just appeared for his physics paper.

"But our identity is Islamic."

Others are highly critical of the government.

"They are the ones who should be protecting us," said one, "and yet there is not much sign that they are even half-prepared to do so."
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Killings prompt call for protection of Afghan women
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - The killings of two female journalists and two school girls in  Afghanistan prompted a government ministry on Wednesday to call on authorities to provide security for women in schools and at their workplace.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings in the past fortnight, but women have often been the victims of attacks by ultra-conservative forces, not just the Taliban.

"It seems a wave of hostility against women has renewed recently and the targets... have been educated women or school students," the Women's Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

It called on the government to provide security for women and girls at the workplace and in the classroom.

On Tuesday, two girls were shot dead outside their school just south of Kabul.

In the past two weeks a female journalist was shot in the capital, and a colleague was killed on its northern outskirts.

On Wednesday, people in the southeastern province of Paktia, close to where the students were killed, received warnings against sending their children to schools, and civil employees against working with the government, the interior ministry said.

"Enemies of Culture and Learning gave a warning to noble people of Paktia... to stop sending their children to school and (that) civil workers and teachers should quit their jobs," the ministry said.

Afghan government officials usually use the term "Enemies of Afghanistan" to describe Taliban and their al Qaeda allies.

Defying the warning, Paktia residents staged a protest several hours long, the ministry said.

The Taliban movement, which banned women from most outdoor work and barred females from education when it was in power, has already distanced itself from the students' killings, but could not be reached immediately for comment about the warning in Paktia.

The Afghan education minister had said on Tuesday he was concerned about further attacks on school girls.

Although the situation of women has improved since the days when the Taliban ruled the country, they still face hardships in Afghanistan's male-dominated, tribal society.

While more women and girls have been able to go to school and get jobs since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, they still face threats, either from family members or from factional forces, even in areas where the Taliban have no influence.

One of the journalists killed had been an outspoken critic of some factional commanders.

Last month, the country's lower house of parliament expelled a woman lawmaker who had described the assembly as worse than a stable.

Malalai Joya, 28-year-old women's rights activist, won her parliamentary seat in 2005 elections, and had been an outspoken critic of some mujahideen (holy warrior) leaders and commanders.

Twenty-five percent of seats in the Afghan parliament are reserved for women. There are 68 women among the 248 members of parliament.
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The defiant Afghan women promised a better life who refuse to be victims
By Terri Judd in Lashkar Gah The Independent (UK) 13 June 2007
In a filthy corner of a clinic in Lashkar Gah, a heavily pregnant 12-year-old lies wailing at a curt, dismissive doctor. Down the road some of the thousands of widows in the area beg in the mud. In the local hospital, women lie recovering from the horrific burns of failed suicide attempts. The brave new world promised by Tony Blair, President George Bush and Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, appears not to have reached the women of Helmand.

When asked whether life was better now than under the Taliban, Fowzea Olomi, 40, the director of the women's centre, laughs: "The Taliban have gone?"

Life now, she says, is worse. Pointing to her burkha flung to one side, she added: "I never used to wear that before, just a scarf. But now we are all scared of the Taliban because of kidnappings and suicide bombers and shooters." Ms Olomi, who defied the extremist regime to keep teaching in secret, believes that fewer girls are now receiving an education. Most girls in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, go to school but in remote towns and villages, many parents are afraid to send children to classes.

Teachers, like doctors, are being kidnapped and beheaded with impunity. Only yesterday, a gunman sped past a school on a motorbike firing into a crowd of female pupils, killing two girls and wounding six.

Wounded girls risk being abandoned; in Afghanistan women are seen as a commodity to pay off debts or to settle disputes. Take the story of Malay, eight. An Afghan army vehicle ran over her arm and she was flown to the British field hospital at Camp Bastion where doctors explained to her uncle that she might have to have it amputated. He turned to leave. He no longer wanted his niece because without an arm she could never be married off.

Malay is still at the base, and her arm has been saved. "She is adorable. The staff love her and she has learned to say 'cheeky monkey'," said Lt Gill Pritchard, 25.

Across Afghanistan, the statistics make desperate reading for women. There are about two million widows with no rights or state support. Despite a new law passed recently that girls should not be married off until they are 16, it has made little difference. They are still forced into wedlock as young as nine, pregnant with the first of a dozen children within a few years, of which 20 per cent are likely to die before their fifth birthday.

But while the women of Afghanistan are most certainly victimised, they are not victims. In Lashkar Gah, which is also known as Bost, Ms Olomi and her friends battle on despite endless death threats, either by phone or by the now-infamous night letters.

Norzia Mahboobsami, the head of the women's council, receives threatening telephone calls daily. "I simply tell them they have a wrong number," she explained matter of factly. Last year, Ms Olomi's driver dropped her off at the women's centre and then set off on another errand. He was shot through the car window as policemen stood by. Ms Olomi, who still carries his picture in her purse, was not deterred and the centre reopened in the governor's compound.

It is an oasis in a desert of oppression. Beautiful, big-eyed young girls learn their ABCs, while their mothers are taught everything from English to computer training.

But the past five years have proved an endless journey of broken promises for Afghani women. Near the British camp, an ice-cream factory lies empty. Last year an NGO promised to fund a project to open it up and provide jobs for the widows, which would have been a vital lifeline for the 4,000 women around Lashkar Gah whose alternative was to beg on the streets.

The funding for the project never materialised and now the wafers bought to go with the ice cream are about to go out of date.

It is just one example, Ms Olomi explained, of hope created and dashed. And one of the reasons why aid workers - now too frightened themselves to enter the province - believe that the practice of self-immolation is increasing.

At Bost Hospital, where suicide bombers have been thwarted twice in the past year, Dr Abdul Aziz Sediqi said at least a fifth of the 150 patients admitted each month were women who had set themselves on fire. Countless others never make it to hospital.

Afghan women may have a ministry dedicated to their affairs, but so far as they are concerned it is making little difference outside Kabul. Women fall far below security and counter-narcotics when it comes to funding priorities. Yet with the few dollars that have reached them, small projects have sprung up. Among the British-funded schemes is a sewing school in the sprawling internally displaced camp at Mukhtar.

Squashed cheek by jowl in a couple of mud huts, widows work away at old-fashioned, hand-wound sewing machines, creating beautifully embroidered clothes to sell at market. For an investment of £4,400 over three months, the British/Danish-funded project has trained the women. And graduates keep their machines, allowing them a revenue stream and a way to feed their children.

"It is just a drop in the ocean," said Capt Rebecca Moran, a trained midwife and British officer who has spent the past nine months working with the women of Helmand. "But when you think that each of the 60 women has 10 to 15 mouths to feed, you see the difference it makes."
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Gates wants more trainers in Afghanistan
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 13, 8:01 AM ET
STUTTGART, Germany - Defense Secretary Robert Gates, still frustrated with  NATO's commitment in  Afghanistan, will press allies in meetings this week to provide significantly more trainers for the Afghan National Army and police.

Senior U.S. officials en route to Germany with Gates on Wednesday laid out the secretary's expectations for the two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers that will begin Thursday in Brussels. In the nearly six months since the NATO leaders met and promised to fill troop and equipment needs for the Afghan war, there have been only incremental increases.

The U.S. officials said Gates will "make a pitch" for countries to send more trainers in an effort to get the Afghan government better able to control its own security.

The officials, who requested anonymity so they could preview the secretary's plans for the session, said coalition forces in Afghanistan still need up to four battalions — or as many as 3,000 combat troops, along with about an equal amount of trainers. Gates has said he would like some NATO and non-NATO nations to contribute some of the training forces.

In addition, NATO allies are also trying to put together training teams that can be embedded with Afghan units. And those also have been slow to come together.

In February and again in April, Gates exhorted NATO allies to bolster their troop commitments in Afghanistan so the alliance could launch its own offensive against the Taliban, and pre-empt what has been an annual spring increase in insurgent attacks.

That offensive was launched, with the aid of additional U.S. troops. And, during a visit to Afghanistan early this month, Gates said the NATO push was making progress. But he also warned that Iranian weapons — which have been responsible for widespread violence and U.S. troop casualties in  Iraq — are now increasingly showing up in Afghanistan.

For months, Gates has expressed concern about possible reversals in Afghanistan, which still lacks a self-sustaining military and suffers from the unmet expectations of building an effective central government.

In particular, NATO officials said they have found armor-piercing roadside bombs — known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs — in Kabul.

The struggle to pressure NATO countries to live up to their commitments has also prompted Gates to question whether the alliance should continue to mount a 25,000-troop response force.

The NATO response force has been developed as quick reaction troops who could respond to emergencies in the region. But Gates is questioning whether that is an appropriate way to use the hard-to-muster military resources, considering that the allies are having so much trouble coming up with the forces for an ongoing war.

The U.S. currently has 26,000 troops in Afghanistan, including some 14,000 in the NATO-led force.

Another issue likely to come up during the meeting is the ongoing controversy over the U.S. proposal to site missile defense radars and interceptors in eastern Europe. Russian President  Vladimir Putin, in a recent meeting with  President Bush offered up an alternative, that would allow joint use of a radar station in Azerbaijan.

Russia has strenuously opposed U.S. plans to put the missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Gates is expected to meet with the Russian defense minister. And one senior defense official said that while they don't believe the session will provide a great deal of detail on the Russian counterproposal, "we would be very receptive to any clarification the Russians would have."
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Fifteen Taliban, young girl killed in Afghan clashes
Wed Jun 13, 7:43 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Fifteen Taliban and a young girl were reported killed in clashes in  Afghanistan as US defence officials said  NATO needed more soldiers and equipment to fight the insurgents.

Twelve militants were killed in the southern province of Zabul in fighting Tuesday to which the Afghan army called in foreign warplanes, the army's southern commander, Rahmatullah Raufi, said. Four more were arrested.

Another battle erupted in the province overnight when Taliban attacked a police post nearby, the Mizan district chief said.

The fighting lasted two hours and three Taliban were killed and five wounded, Mohammad Younus said.

A rocket-propelled grenade landed on a civilian house during the battle, killing a girl aged about seven, he said.

A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, confirmed both clashes but not the death tolls.

The battles came amid almost daily clashes in southern Afghanistan between militants and troops from the Afghan security forces, a US-led counterterrorism coalition and a separate NATO-led contingent.

There are around 50,000 foreign troops assisting Afghanistan's efforts to put down the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilise the fractured country, about 37,000 of whom are with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. But the unrest has grown steadily.

Senior US defence officials said Wednesday that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates would press European allies for more troops and equipment for Afghanistan at a two-day NATO meeting in Brussels starting Thursday.

"There certainly is a need for more combat forces," one official said. "There is also a need for more enablers. Helicopters is one of them. Equipment is another."

The shortfall includes three to four battalions that can be deployed at short notice and more than 3,000 trainers for the Afghan security forces, the officials said.
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Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan unite to fight drugs traffic
Wed Jun 13, 6:20 AM ET
VIENNA (AFP) -  Afghanistan,  Iran and Pakistan said Tuesday they had agreed to strengthen their joint efforts to prevent cross-border drug trafficking.

Ministers of public security and counter-narcotics from the three countries said in a joint statement issued here that they would act to reduce the threat posed by Afghanistan's opium.

"This transnational threat requires a cooperative solution," they said following a meeting in Vienna hosted by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

The three countries also agreed to take steps to improve border management, the statement said.

These will include building more physical barriers, boosting law enforcement capacity, launching joint counter-narcotic operations, better communication, and increased intelligence-sharing, for example about trafficking routes, traffickers and suspicious shipments.

There was also a call on countries to which the drugs are sent, in particular the  European Union and Russia, to seek to curb demand.

In addition, the three countries called on states where chemicals essential for producing heroin from opium poppy are produced to tighten up their procedures.

As the opium problem is best controlled at the source, chemical precursors should likewise be controlled first and foremost where they are produced, the statement said.

Opium from poppies grown in Afghanistan is the source of 90 percent of worldwide heroin production.
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Afghanistan grapples with drug addiction
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Dost Mohammad was just eight years old when he began taking drugs while living across the border in Iran.

Over the next two decades he fed his addiction in part by robbing motorists at gunpoint, he explained, raising his hands to mime holding a rifle.

"I couldn't do any work. I would just live off my family," he said.
 
It was fear for his three sons and two daughters that scared him straight. He is now being treated in a rehab ward at a small narcotics clinic in Lashkar Gah, southern Afghanistan.

"I looked at my children and saw that the future would be dark, and decided to get treatment."

Afghanistan produces the opium used to make 90 percent of the world's heroin. But until recently, says Dr. Rozatullah Zia, head of the drugs treatment clinic, most Afghans thought drug abuse was someone else's problem.

A spiraling epidemic at home is changing perceptions.

"A few years ago, when you went to an area and did a survey, maybe in every 25th family you would find an addict. Now, maybe it's one in 10 families," he said.

"In the past some people had the idea that we grow (opium) and we will send it to Western nations; nobody in Afghanistan is taking it. Now we know."

The epidemic is worst in the south, where opium production has soared in the years since the strict Islamic Taliban were ousted in 2001, Zia said.

He estimated addiction now afflicted up to five percent of the adult population of Helmand province, which accounts for about a third of Afghanistan's opium crop.

In the nearby mountains, fighting still rages between NATO troops and Taliban guerrillas. There is little security and scarce resources for public health projects. But Zia's clinic fights the epidemic one addict at a time.

FIRST TASTE
The clinic has 20 beds for male patients, and also treats about 30 patients, many female, in their homes. A rehab course takes a month. There are 800 addicts on the waiting list.

"We speak to women who tell us: 'For the first time we are growing poppy. And when we collected the harvest I had opium on my hands. That was when I first tasted it'," he says.

"When the children are crying, women put opium in their milk or in their tea."

A small packet of powdered opium can cost as little as 50 afghanis, a bit more than a dollar. But an addict may smoke five or 10 packets a day. Few have access to such cash without stealing, Zia said.

"You can buy it from anyone. Even from the general store."

Zia's clinic boasts a 70 percent success rate. The rate is higher among those whose family members come for visits on twice-weekly family days.

When it opened a year ago, only about half the patients received visits. Today, closer to 90 percent do.

Thirty-year-old patient Allauddin dandled his four-year-old son Iqbal on his knee.

Allauddin's brother, Alakhan, 20, had brought the boy to visit his father in the clinic, where he had passed through the initial detoxification program and was now in recovery.

"I am very happy and proud of my brother for crossing this step," he said. "When he's cured, then we will be happy."

(To read Reuters reporter Peter Graff's blog from southern Afghanistan, go to: http://blogs.reuters.com/category/from-reuterscom/embedded-in-afghanistan/)
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Pakistan says fence curbs militant movements
by Masroor Gilani Wed Jun 13, 2:30 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has defended a controversial anti-insurgent fence that it is building on the Afghan border, saying that it has curbed the movement of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels.

Pakistan said last month it had erected the first 20 kilometres (12 miles) of barbed wire fencing in the North Waziristan tribal area, where US officials have alleged that Al-Qaeda is running terror camps.

Afghanistan has objected to the fence because it does not recognise the porous border between the two countries, which are already at loggerheads over tackling Islamist violence.

"It is quite beneficial and wherever we have erected the fence in Waziristan, I think it is paying dividends," interior ministry spokesman Javed Cheema told reporters.

Cheema said the fence was only effective because Pakistani forces were monitoring the area that it covers.

"I am sure it has helped us a great deal in reducing the cross-border movement in those particular areas," Cheema added, without giving details of how many militants had been stopped or whether any had been arrested.

Pakistan has said it will erect another 15-kilometre stretch of the fence in neighbouring South Waziristan. It earlier dropped plans to mine the frontier.

Military ruler President Pervez Musharraf has said the fence is the only way of meeting demands from US and Western allies to stop insurgents crossing the border to attack foreign and Afghan troops.

Pakistan says it also has 90,000 troops along the frontier.

Pakistani authorities on Tuesday, meanwhile, issued a fresh appeal to tribesmen in North Waziristan to expel Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels and their supporters.

Local administrator Pirzada Khan told 500 tribesmen and Islamic clerics in Mir Ali, the main town in the region, that he was bringing a message direct from Musharraf and the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

"Pakistan is under tremendous pressure from foreign countries over militant activity," Khan told the jirga, or tribal assembly. "To find a solution we shall have to expel those who are not with the nation."

Pakistani troops carried out several bloody offensives against militants in North Waziristan before signing a controversial peace pact there in September 2006.

Khan praised tribesmen for their "commendable role" since but said that "some people are siding with the enemy for little money and they want to create misunderstandings between tribes and government."

One senior tribesman at the meeting said they would do all they could to keep the peace deal intact, but accused the United States of wanting to "end Pakistan and the tribes."

"We will not let it happen," Maulvi Abdul Rehman said.

US officials have said that the leadership of  Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network has rebuilt itself in Waziristan since the Saudi fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.
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Pakistan puts off plan to shut Afghan refugee camp
By Zeeshan Haider Wed Jun 13, 2:28 AM ET
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have put off plans to shut down one of the oldest camps for Afghan refugees, saying its inhabitants have refused to go home or to be relocated, a government official said.

Pakistan had set June 15 as the deadline for the closure of Jungle Pir Alizai camp, in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, set up after the Soviet invasion of  Afghanistan in 1979.

But Khalid Mahmood, commissioner for refugees in the province, said the deadline would be missed.

"As far as the deadline is concerned we are definitely not going to meet that," he told Reuters late on Tuesday.

Two people were killed and five wounded in an exchange of fire between Pakistani security forces and refugees at the camp in May when authorities tried to demolish some of its houses.

Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghans for more than 25 years but now wants to close camps after complaints from Western and Afghan officials that Taliban militants launch cross-border attacks from bases on Pakistani soil.

Pakistani authorities say the refugee camps have turned into havens for the Taliban.

Nearly 3 million Afghans have gone home from Pakistan since 2002 but many remain.

Pakistan has a plan for the voluntary, gradual repatriation of about 2.5 million refugees over the next three years in line with an agreement with Afghanistan and the U.N. refugee agency.

It had aimed to close four camps this year, including Jungle Pir Alizai, 60 km (40 miles) west of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

But observers say it is an uphill task to persuade Afghans to go because of insecurity at home and also because a large number have set up small businesses in towns and cities across Pakistan.

The  United Nations urged Pakistan last week not to force Afghans back, saying Afghanistan was already swamped with about 100,000 people recently evicted from  Iran.

Despite missing this month's deadline, Mahmood said authorities still hoped to shut down Jungle Pir Alizai and the other three camps earmarked for closure, and would try to persuade the inhabitants, through peaceful means, to get out.

"Now through the political process ... the government is trying to close these camps as soon as possible this year."

According to a 2005 census by the U.N. refugee agency, the Jungle Pir Alizai camp is home to 35,000 Afghans.

But thousands of Pakistani villagers fleeing drought and tribal feuds later moved to the camp, raising its total population to more than 100,000, residents say.
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Afghanistan bans passenger vehicles from Pakistan over security concern
People's Daily - Jun 13 5:05 AM
Afghanistan has banned the entry of passengers' vehicles including motorcycles from Pakistan due to security concerns, transporters in the Pakistani border region said Wednesday.

Announcements were also made through loudspeakers, asking Pakistanis not to cross the border in vehicles, the private News Network International news agency reported, quoting correspondents in southwestern Pakistani border town of Chaman.

Afghan authorities however allowed Pakistanis to cross the border on foot.

According to local TV channels, Afghan Border Police have said that a total ban will be enforced from June 14 and no Pakistani vehicle will be allowed to enter Afghanistan.

Denying that this step was aimed at creating difficulties for the people, Afghan police pointed out that the action was directed against possible terrorist acts.

However, the ban would not apply to the vehicles transporting goods to Afghan.

Thousands of people and vehicles enter into Afghanistan daily from Pakistan for business and other purposes.
Source: Xinhua
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A Taliban surrender and a mass attack
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / June 12, 2007
HERAT, Afghanistan - With the focus of the Taliban's spring offensive turning increasingly toward the northwestern provinces adjoining Iran, rather than on the southwest, the next few months could prove pivotal in the ongoing insurgency against North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led forces.

"The Taliban's new focus is the northwestern region, and there will be many surprises in the coming days," Taliban spokesman Qari

Yousuf Ahmedi told Asia Times Online by telephone.

Indeed, within the space of a few hours the surprises included the surrender of 40 Taliban and a mass Taliban attack on district police outposts.

On Saturday morning in Herat, this correspondent witnessed the surrender of 40 Taliban under the government's Takhim-e-Solh - Program for Strengthening Peace and Reconciliation (PTS) - which is aimed primarily at the Taliban and members of the Hizb-i-Islami of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

All of those handing themselves over hailed from Badghis province, Herat province's immediate northerly neighbor. Under tight security, the Taliban were accommodated in a guesthouse, after which they handed over their weapons. These included mortars, light machine-guns, AK-47 rifles, shells and rockets.

The PTS now has 11 regional offices, and more than 2,500 former Taliban fighters and other insurgents have left the battlefield and joined the program.

The Herat provincial head of the PTS, Mohammed Sharif Mojadidi, told Asia Times Online that in the past year and a half, about 800 Taliban and fighters loyal to Hekmatyar had surrendered their weapons to his office.

Those who are qualified enough are given government jobs and others are simply given an amnesty and allowed to return to their towns and villages in peace.

The Taliban surrendering on Saturday were reluctant to speak, let alone give their names or details, so it is difficult to say what motivated them. Certainly many of them looked positively terrified, presumably thinking of what might happen to them should the Taliban find out about them.

Even the PTS staff wanted to stay in background and they let Mojadidi do all the talking; clearly they, too, don't want to be targeted by the Taliban.

"Well, here we have 40 people who have come to surrender their weapons, but I know the Taliban have gathered a force of 4,000 people," one official whispered as I was leaving the PTS office. He was right.

By evening, news filtered in that at about 4pm, masses of Taliban had flooded into the Ghurmach and Balamurgh districts of Badghis province and fierce fighting had broken out with the Afghan National Police. The Taliban often choose late afternoon and evening for their activities to minimize the effects of NATO air power. Some sources told Asia Times Online that the Taliban had seized control of both districts.

Fighting reportedly went on for hours and NATO forces and contingents of the Afghan National Army were rushed in to help. According to official figures, 30 Taliban were killed, as well as three policemen.

In such incidents the Taliban never expect to hold on to an area for long. In this case they were giving a clear signal that after instigating violence in Farah province (immediately to the south of Herat province) they were spreading their wings to other northwestern provinces.

Farah has been restive for about a year, but Taliban activity in Badghis only began this year with attacks on government convoys and on district police such as the one on Saturday.

NATO had expected to meet the brunt of the Taliban's spring offensive in the southwestern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Urzgan and had concentrated its forces there.

However, to the surprise of all, many of the Taliban simply slipped away into the northwest, where they have quickly regrouped with the local Taliban in the Persian-speaking region of western Afghanistan.

The press information officer of the Italian forces in Herat province refused to comment when contacted by Asia Times Online.

The Taliban's maneuver to preserve their strength in the southwest and open up a new front in the northwest is well timed as Iran is apparently content to see a low-level insurgency in Afghanistan keep NATO busy. However, Iran does not favor Sunni hardliners such as the Taliban. Instead, there have been unconfirmed reports that it is arming independent Shi'ite groups in the northwest to take on some warlords.

Even this, though, will help the Taliban as they can exploit any unrest that the Shi'ite groups might stir up to garner support for their fight against foreign forces.

Assisted by such Iranian intrigues, including Tehran sending back thousands of Afghan refugees, the Taliban's new insurgency in the northwest is gathering pace.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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AFGHANISTAN: Police casualties high due to lack of training, equipment
KABUL, 12 June 2007 (IRIN) - Under-equipped and poorly trained Afghan police are paying a high price in their fight against an intensifying armed insurgency.

In the last three months alone, over 210 police officers have been killed and 330 wounded, according to Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior (MoI). In such circumstances it is difficult for humanitarian aid workers to feel secure as they go about their jobs.

Afghanistan has one of the highest police casualty rates in the world, Zemarai Bashari, a spokesman for MoI, told IRIN in Kabul, on 12 June.

A large number of attacks on police occur in the volatile south and southeast of the country where Taliban insurgents have been hindering rebuilding and development efforts and have indiscriminately used force against whomever they perceive as an enemy.

"They [the police] are increasingly coming under attack," Bashari said.

In the latest attack on 9 June, the head of a police-training centre in Kandahar Province was shot dead by gunmen associated with the Taliban, according to a government press release.

In another incident, 16 police officers were killed by Taliban fighters in Kandahar's neighbouring province of Zabul in late May, government officials said.

Recently, Taliban insurgents reportedly started targeting the families of police officers.

On 1 June, gunmen attacked the house of a senior police official in eastern Ghazni Province killing all five members of his family, the media reported.

Poorly-equipped

The 62,000-strong, but poorly-equipped, Afghan police force fights insurgents, tries to keep law and order throughout the country, and implements an extensive counter-narcotics strategy.

"We do not have a single helicopter to undertake emergency operations," Bashari said, adding: "We lost a post to the enemy in Helmand Province only because we could not supply our surrounded troops by air".

Abdul Sattar, a police officer in Lashkargah, capital of the insurgency-hit Helmand Province in the south, said his 1980 Russian made AK-47 had stopped working over a month ago.

"It is only a symbol of a gun, but only we [police soldiers] know about this," said Sattar.

Government officials in Kabul have urged the US military and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to provide the Afghan police with new light and heavy weapons.

"Our enemies attack with RPGs [rocket propelled grenades], missiles and other sophisticated weaponry, while our police defend themselves only with old Kalashnikovs," a MoI official who did not want to be identified said.

Low salaries

Afghan police receive an average monthly payment of US$70 through a Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA) funded by international donors.

"It is very difficult to find a professional police officer who will risk his or her life for only 70 dollars a month - the Taliban pay their fighters at least $200," Gen Sideequllah Rahmani, a senior police official said.

Afghan officials say they have asked many donors to increase police pay to at least $100 a month, but donors have shown little interest.

Poorly trained

Afghanistan has prioritised the establishment of a police force with a planned strength of 80,000. Over 80 percent of its targeted numbers have now been achieved but most police have only had one to two weeks training, MoI said.

According to Bashari, inadequate professional knowledge is one of the reasons why Afghan police have a high causality rate.

In the last four years German, American and some other countries have contributed to the training of the new Afghan National Police (ANP).

The European Union has agreed to a police-training project for Afghanistan which will bring more than 160 international trainers to "train, mentor, monitor and advise" Afghan police for a period of three years starting from 17 June.
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Pro-Taliban militants gain ground, drain life from once prosperous Pakistani city
The Associated Press Tuesday, June 12, 2007
 TANK, Pakistan: Pro-Taliban militants have transformed a once-bustling community in northwestern Pakistan into a desolate city under siege.

After militant raids on government buildings, businesses and a school, Tank's dusty streets and bazaars are largely empty and gunfire rings out at night. A tribal elder and opposition politician estimates that one-third of residents have fled to other areas.

"The government has lost its writ in Tank," said Sardar Ahmed Gul, who keeps a loaded Chinese-made pistol at hand. "Every evening there is shooting and people cannot go out."

The government's crumbling authority over towns like Tank in the North West Frontier Province suggests that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is failing to rein in extremism as Islamic militants broaden their influence beyond the lawless regions that border Afghanistan.

It also raises questions about the prospects of success for Washington's anti-terrorism efforts in the region, where al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding.

Observers blame the uptick in violence in Tank, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) from the Afghan border, on fighters filtering in from South Waziristan, a militant stronghold on the frontier where the government has little control.

On March 28, scores of militants attacked government buildings and businesses for several hours, killing one soldier and kidnapping a high school principal who had tried to stop them from recruiting students. He was freed, but the violence persisted — last month, about 100 militants attacked a government official's house, killing 13 people.

Pakistan's army also has come under attack; three bombings since January have killed at least six soldiers.

Now, Tank is becoming a virtual no-go zone, even for its 150,000 residents, and the fear is that it and other nearby districts are slipping into the orbit of Islamic fundamentalists who have issued Taliban-style social edicts and set up their own courts in the tribal areas.

Extremists have warned barbers not to shave customers' beards and bombed shops selling Western music or films.

At a meeting of his National Security Council last week, Musharraf told authorities that "the militants must be taken head on, security of vital places be beefed up and activities of suspected elements be strictly monitored."

He pledged to provide the provincial government with more police, vehicles and equipment. But there are doubts about both his willingness and ability to clamp down on the militants.

Musharraf relies heavily on Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a religious party that leads the provincial government and helped secure the release of the abducted principal, to mediate with militant groups in the region.

Samina Ahmed, a South Asia expert at the International Crisis Group think tank, views Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam as a "political front" for the militants. The party shies away from criticizing the militants' activities in Tank, Ahmed said, blaming the government instead for stirring up a hornets' nest by launching counter-terrorist operations in the area at Washington's behest.

"'Talibanization' is a term created by the U.S. and the West to blame and defame Muslims and Pashtuns," said Maulana Saleh Shah, a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam lawmaker in Tank. "Anywhere something happens against their agenda they label it as Taliban."

However, others suspect that the party is losing control of hardcore extremists.

"There is a serious rift between these militants and the JUI," said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a Pakistani reporter and expert on the region. "Some of them had links with the JUI in the past, then they were radicalized and they want the JUI to be more radical, too."

Asfandyar Wali, head of the secular Awami National Party which competes with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam for the loyalty of ethnic Pashtuns, accused Musharraf of deliberately allowing the violence. That way, he said, Musharraf can send a message to his foreign backers that "if I am not here, these are the sort of people who will rule nuclear-armed Pakistan."

Shopkeepers in Tank are merely worried about their safety.

"No one wants put his life at risk in such an uncertain situation," said Qibla Khan, who supports a family of 10 by selling fruit and vegetables. "We all are worried about our and our kids future. We cannot live in such a constant state of fear and worry."
___

Stephen Graham reported on this story from Islamabad, Riaz Khan from Tank.
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Afghan foreign minister 'to stay'
By Daud Qarizadah BBC Pashto service, Kabul Tuesday, 12 June 2007
The Afghan cabinet of President Hamid Karzai has backed Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar-Spanta in a row with MPs over whether he should stay in office.

It agreed with an earlier Supreme Court ruling that he was the legitimate foreign minister of Afghanistan.

But just hours earlier, the speaker of parliament ruled that the decision to remove him was final and that there was no way they would back away from it.

The foreign minister was impeached and sacked a month ago by parliament.

The disagreement reflects a growing divide between the mainly former mujahideen-dominated parliament and the Western backed-government of President Karzai.

'Illegitimate'

Parliament found that Dr Spanta, a Western-educated technocrat, did not do enough to stop 52,000 refugees from being forcibly deported from Iran back to Afghanistan last month.

But President Karzai opposed the voting and referred the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the sacking should be over-turned.

The court said that the refugee issue was not directly related to the foreign ministry and the no-confidence vote against the minister was unconstitutional.

But the Afghan parliament has ignored the ruling.

It argues that it still considers Dr Spanta, who is perceived to have a Maoist background, to be an "illegitimate" foreign minister.

Since taking over from the pro-mujaheedin Dr Abdullah Abdullah as foreign minister, Dr Spanta has widely been seen as a reformist, dealing with sensitive issues like replacing senior diplomatic posts at home and abroad.

Many observers see the court decision as a blow to parliament, and the beginning of more intense political differences in the country.

It is very likely that the announcement will spark a heated debate when parliamentarians are back from their six-week recess.

Observers believe the impeachment and sacking of the outspoken foreign minister by parliament was all part of the same power struggle.

Dr Spanta was strongly critical of the former mujahideen, and opposed an amnesty bill passed by parliament which gave immunity to all those involved in the past two and half decades of civil war.
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Jirga to discuss security situation in FATA
PESHAWAR, June 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A grand tribal jirga will be convened in this provincial capital of Pakistan's north-western province to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the tribal areas.

Scheduled to be held on June 14, elders from all the seven agencies and six Frontier Regions of the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) will attend the grand assembly. 

Speaking to elders from the tribal areas, Senator Hamidullah Afridi said that the participants would discuss the prevailing law and order situation in the region.  

The elders and professionals belonging to the remote region would discuss the situation and provide suggestions in this regard, said Afridi.

He said the tribesmen should launch a struggle for their rights, adding that the jirga would focus on the role tribal people would be playing in the proposed Pak-Afghan Loya Jirga to be held in Kabul in August this year.
PAN Monitor
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Powell lends his voice to calls for Gitmo closure
WASHINGTON, June 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell has lent his voice to growing calls for the immediate closure of the infamous US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like a military commission," the outspoken ex-secretary of state told a TV channel on Sunday.

Holding terror suspects detained in Afghanistan, the notorious jail currently has a population of about 385 inmates from different countries, with no right to file habeas corpus petitions under a law signed by President Bush in 2006.

Legal objections to their annual status review by a military commission are steadily mounting, as two judges on the panel - itself open to question - ruled last week the first trials of detainees could not move ahead on the ground that they had not been declared unlawful enemy combatants.

While supporting the prisoners' right to hire defence lawyers and challenge their detention, Powell believed they should be transferred to the United States in line with its federal legal system. "That's what our system is all about," he argued.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," the then secretary of state went as far as to say he would wind up the Guantanamo Bay "this afternoon" - not least in that it had battered Washington's image globally.
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Tribal elder shot dead in Paktika
SHARAN, June 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Unidentified armed men, believed to be Taliban militants, gunned down a tribal elder and kidnapped his son in Saroza district of the southeastern Paktika province Sunday night.

Juma Khan, 50, was sprayed with bullets by the assailants as he approached the outer gate of the house knocked at by some men awaiting outside, said Nek Bibi, wife of the deceased.

"My husband died on the spot as a result of fire opened by armed men standing outside the main gate," said the shell-shocked wife of the slain elder.

She said the attackers also taken away her 16-year-old son, who is studying at the high school in the district, with them.

Pir Muhammad, dweller of the district and another tribal elder, told Pajhwok Juma Khan was member of the tribal shura and was active in resolving disputes among locals.

Neither he was a government employee, nor he had some personal grudge with any group or individual in the area, said Pir Muhammad who would not say as who was responsible for the attack.

Governor Dr Akram Khpalwak, however, blamed Taliban for killing the elder. In a chat with Pajhwok, Khpalwak said the rebels wanted to harass people through such misdeeds.

Restive as has been, several tribal elders have complained of threats from unknown people through night letters in the province recently.

An elder, Haji Barat Shahid was gunned down by armed men in Sharan, capital of the province, about a fortnight back.
Obaidullah Srozawal
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Child bride seeks bust-up with 50 years old
BAMYAN CITY, June 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Led down the garden path by crafty in-laws, a preteen has been dragooned into marrying a 50-year-old man in Afghanistan's northern Bamyan province, where primitive customs have long been the bane of women's lives.

Going by only one name like most of her compatriots, Wazir was waiting for the big moment in her life - to tie the knot with 9th class student Muhammad. Instead she ended up getting hitched to a dude closer to her fathers age in a windswept village of Waras district.

Forcibly solemnised this last winter, the nuptials have expectedly been on the rocks right from the world go. A fortnight back, the girls relatives went to a district court in quest of a split-up. Much to their dismay, no relief is forthcoming any time soon.

Neighbouring women, seeking my betrothal to a boy in their family, hoodwinked me into marrying an old widower with three children, sobbed Wazir, firmly averse to what she called an unnatural union.

For months at a stretch, the child bride was coerced into silence by her in-laws, who warned her she might be killed by brothers if she fled her hubby - no matter how old and frail.

Wazir was thrashed and made to stand in biting cold outside the entrance to her home almost every night when she spoke her mind on the ill-starred wedding. In order to keep my bare feet from freezing cold, I would doff my shirt to stand on and beseech my spouse after a while to let me in.

In a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, she averred: At that point in time, I didnt even understand what marriage meant. Abdul called a cleric from another village to formalise our wedding. The elderly man would often subject me to naked threats and virtual aggression.

Unfamiliar with such spousal intricacies as dowry, she was all at sea what the other half would have to give her in case she walks out of the relationship. Little bothered about the post-divorce subsistence allowance, the shell-shocked Wazir is intent upon parting ways with her partner.

Before the thinkable mismatch, the girls elder brother Muhammad Raza recalled, their ailing mother had been to Kabul for medical treatment. Wazir strolled into nearby farms to bring fodder for her cattle.

In the fields, according to her brother, three neighbouring women instigated his unsuspecting sister to get spliced with the school student and thereby put an end to dependence on her sister-in-law.

Raza charged the women sweet-talked Wazir into accompanying them to their house. The flighty ladies would remind Wazir that she had crossed the Rubicon by entering their residence.

If Wazir was unhappy to wed Muhammad, the housewives cautioned, authorities would transfer her back in parental custody on the plea that the boy was nonage. And in such an eventuality, she would run the risk of being stoned to death by her brothers.

I went straight to the neighbours house. At the doorstep, I was asked why Im walking in. I have come to take back my sister was my reply. But they turned me away, saying Wazir was not abducted, Raza maintained.

At once the girl made up her mind to go with her brother as soon as she heard his voice. But a weeping sister-in-law clung to my apron to prevent me leaving home; she convinced me by warning my brother would kill me if go with him, said the bride in trouble.

As Raza returned empty-handed, he pleaded with his younger brother to bring back his sister. But he too was frustrated by Wazirs in-laws. Consequently, the brothers complained to district administration officials. A team comprising government functionaries and tribal elders was tasked with probing the case.

Recoding a statement before the delegation, Wazir recounted her wrenching plight including threats hurled at her by in-laws. Despite her troubles, the unfortunate youngster was too scared to rejoin her parents.

For a settlement of the dispute, the government-appointed delegation ordered Abdul to make a solatium payment to Wazirs family. The old man slighted us by offering a donkey priced at 15,000 afghanis, a cow and four goats, explained Raza.

Unsatisfied with the delegations decision, Wazirs mother paid several visits to Abduls house and asked him why her daughter was kidnapped. The woebegone lady was abused and jostled, nonetheless.

Later, the aggrieved family filed with the provincial police headquarters an application for the redress of their grumble. As a result, the forlorn couple was clapped into prison some days back.

With the district courts having no judge at present, the matrimonial dispute is likely to linger on for months. Uncertain about her future, Wazir wants to have her marriage dissolved at the earliest possible.

Human rights activist Muhammad Zahir Nazari characterised the case as extremely shocking. He said the inhuman treatment meted out to Wazir was worth condemning from a human rights perspective.
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Minister puts a positive spin on draft media law
KABUL, June 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistans information and culture minister, wounded in a suicide attack in the restive Kandahar City, Sunday had his first encounter with journalists since May 17.

Abdul Karim Khurram was injured along with three others - including Kandahar Information Department Director Abdul Majeed - in a bomb blast targeting his vehicle in the southern city.

At least three civilians were killed as the car bomber rammed into the ministers convoy in the Hazrat Jee Baba locality. Taliban claimed responsibility for the explosion, the third on that day.

The minister, both his hands still bandaged, spoke of a media bill that was recently referred to the Senate after being amended by the Wolesi Jirga. The minister hoped media work would improve as a result of what he called positive changes in the measure.

He said his detractors were angered by attempts to prevent some private TV channels screening vulgar movies - used as a weapon against the government.

The amended bill, when signed into law by the president, would be used to reform TV transmissions, the minister added.

With regard to the Kandahar suicide bombing, Karim Khurram said: Afghanistans enemies are targeting the people who block their propaganda.

Before the amendments, the bill fuelled concerns that it may open independent private media content to more intense scrutiny and government control.

It also listed broad-ranging restrictions on media content that could be widely interpreted open to misuse. Thanks to a hectic campaign by the journalist community, the bills harsher parts have been removed.
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Afghan clerics support anti-polio campaign
KABUL, June 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Imams, or prayer leaders, would help the authorities in an anti-polio drive to be launched in Helmand, Kandahar, Paktia and Nangarhar provinces from June 17, the public health minister said on Sunday.

Dr. Syed Muhammad Amin Fatimi told journalists the mullahs - apart from accompanying teams of volunteers and medics - would persuade locals to administer polio drops to their children during the three days door-to-door campaign in the border provinces.

The prayer leaders would convince unwilling parents that polio drops would protect their kids against the contagious, crippling disease, the minister said, hoping the clerics involvement would prove useful.

Public Health Ministry officials say 33 polio cases have been reported in the southern provinces over the last couple of years. The campaign will cover 1.2 million children under five.

Four months back, a similar anti-polio effort failed to cover the targeted number of kids due to constraints, notably insecurity that deterred volunteers from venturing into restive areas.

Less than two percent of all polio infections result in flaccid paralysis, say researchers. Paralytic symptoms generally begin one to 10 days after prodromal symptoms and progress for three days.

Normally, further paralysis does not occur after the temperature returns to the average level. Signs and symptoms of the disease may include a loss of superficial reflexes, initially increased deep tendon reflexes, severe muscle aches and spasms in the limbs or back.
Zarghona Salihi
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Fatimi off to Malaysia to attend OIC ministerial moot
KABUL, June 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Public Health Minister Dr Muhammad Amin Fatimi Sunday left for Malaysia to participate in the first-ever OIC health ministers conference, scheduled to commence from June 12.

Dr Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the ministry, told Pajhwok Afghan News participants from Islamic countries would discuss ways of containing the spread of various diseases affecting their peoples.

At the four-day moot, the OIC health ministers will confer on how best they can fight influenza, AIDS, tuberculosis, high blood pressure, cardiac problems and cancers.

The four-day moot will focus on immunisation to combat preventable diseases and vaccine production among Organisation of Islamic Conference states.

Meeting at Hotel Sunway Lagoon Resort, the conferees will also discuss measures for reduce infant mortality rates in the Islamic countries.
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