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June 19, 2007 

Taliban overrun southern Afghan district
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 19, 3:55 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants overran a district in southern  Afghanistan and are pushing for control of another key area, sparking fierce clashes with  NATO and Afghan forces that have left more than 100 people dead over three days, officials said Tuesday.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters launched raids on police posts near the strategic town of Chora in Uruzgan province Saturday, forcing NATO, backed by fighter jets, to respond. Fighting was continuing Tuesday, and some officials reported there have been dozens of civilian casualties.

Also late Monday, Taliban occupied Miya Nishin district in neighboring Kandahar province, said provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai. Authorities were planning an operation to retake the remote area, he said.

The insurgent push in the south appears to be the biggest Taliban offensive of the year and marks a change in tactics.

Until now, militants have relied largely on suicide and roadside bombings this year as NATO forces have escalated their operations to root them out. Violence has swelled, claiming about 2,400 lives during 2007, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western military and Afghan officials.

Maj. Gen. Jouke Eikelboom, director of operations with the Dutch military, said Monday that Karzai and the Uruzgan governor sought military support after the attack on the police posts.

"It has been a contested area for some number of months," said Maj. John Thomas, a NATO spokesman. "(The Taliban) are making an effort right now to establish control in that area," he said, predicting more fighting in coming days.

Thomas said he could not pin down the number of fighters that NATO troops were up against but that the battle was not over. "There's reason to believe that the situation on the ground is still unstable," he said.

Precise casualty figures were not available because of the continued fighting, though two Afghan officials said more than 100 people have been killed, including at least 16 police. A Dutch soldier also died, and three others were wounded.

A summary of fighter jet activity from Sunday sent out by the U.S. Central Command hinted at the ferocity of the battles, detailing at least eight aircraft dropping bombs or firing on the area.

Afghan officials said Taliban fighters sought shelter in civilian homes and that NATO bombers targeted them.

Nearby in Kandahar, Taliban occupied the district of Miya Nishin late Monday, said provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai. Authorities were planning an operation to retake the remote area, he said.

Thomas said that NATO-led troops stand ready to help Afghan government actions in the area.

Reports of civilian deaths in from the fighting in Uruzgan were coming from various quarters.

One wounded man, Janu Akha, at the main Uruzgan hospital told The Associated Press that 18 members of his family had been killed.

Mullah Ahmidullah Khan, the head of Uruzgan's provincial council, estimated the clashes in Chora killed 60 civilians, 70 suspected Taliban militants and 16 Afghan police.

"I have talked to President Karzai and asked him to send helicopters to ferry the wounded to Kabul," he said.

An official close to the governor who asked not to be identified when talking about preliminary estimates, said 70 to 75 civilians were killed or wounded, while more than 100 Taliban and more than 35 police were killed.

Thomas said he doubted that Afghan officials could tell the difference between civilians and militants, suggesting some of the wounded who claimed to be civilians were insurgents.

The death toll in fighting in the south through Monday was part of a spike in violence over the last several days that has led to a mounting number of civilian casualties that are sapping support for foreign troops and Karzai's government.

Even though most civilian deaths are caused by attacks initiated by the Taliban, Afghan anger over civilian casualties is often directed toward U.S. and NATO-led troops. Such killings have prompted Afghan authorities to plead repeatedly for international forces to work more closely with Afghans.
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Associated Press reporters Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Mike Corder in  The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
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Ten civilians, 60 Taliban killed in Afghan fighting
KABUL (AFP) - Taliban killed 10 civilians in clashes in southern  Afghanistan in which up to 60 rebels also died, the government said Tuesday after local officials said dozens of civilians were feared dead.
Four policemen were also killed in days of fighting in the Chora district of the southern province of Uruzgan, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

"Police resisted the enemy, as a result of which 50 to 60 enemy elements were killed, which includes a provincial-level Taliban commander," Bashary told AFP.

"Unfortunately, 10 civilians were also killed by Taliban and 18 others are wounded. Four police have also been martyred," he said.

Uruzgan provincial council chief Mawlawi Hamdullah told AFP late Monday that accounts from the district suggested around 60 civilians may have been killed, most of them in bombing raids by foreign forces, in the fighting that started Saturday.

"We may be able in course of days to determine the exact number of dead and wounded. Now we can only talk about estimation," he said.

About 100 people wounded in the fighting were in hospital in the provincial capital Tirin Kot, he said. The bodies of about 50 Taliban had been left in the area.

A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had received no reports of civilian deaths from ISAF action but a "large number" of Taliban were dead.
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White House deplores 'tragedy' of Afghan child deaths
Mon Jun 18, 1:55 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House on Monday deplored the "tragedy" of seven Afghan children who were killed a day earlier in a US-led coalition air strike and denounced the Taliban tactic of using "human shields."

"Any time innocents are killed it is something that is a tragedy, and certainly we grieve for those who are lost," said spokesman Tony Snow.

"We also understand that as a matter of tactics, the Taliban and other terrorists sometimes also try to transform innocents into human shields," he said.

The children were killed in an air strike on an Afghan religious school being used as an alleged Al-Qaeda safe house, the US-led coalition said, adding it had no idea children were in the compound in southeast Paktika province.

The same day, the deadliest insurgency suicide attack since the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001 killed 35 people in Kabul.

"What it indicates, again, is that terrorists are certainly willing to go in and take innocent human lives. This is what we are facing in the war on terror," Snow said.

"And it is one of the reasons why it is important everywhere to maintain vigilance about these kinds of things."
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Germany Should Resist Calls to Leave Afghanistan, Jung Says
By Patrick Donahue
June 19 (Bloomberg) -- German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said the government should ``decisively resist'' calls by a majority of Germans to pull its forces out of Afghanistan because the country may revert to a training camp for terrorists.

``Afghanistan can't go back to being a training center for terrorism from which the attacks on Sept. 11 were carried out,'' Jung said yesterday in a speech in Berlin on Germany's security needs.

German skepticism about the country's involvement in the mission to stabilize Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai has risen after a suicide bomber killed three German soldiers in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on May 19. A TNS Emnid poll for the N24 television channel released two days later showed the number of those opposing Germany's presence in Afghanistan rose to 68 percent from 44 percent.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats have promised to keep troops in Afghanistan following the attack. German personnel in the country form part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led force and reconstruction teams. The opposition Left Party, which has been eating into support for Merkel's co-ruling Social Democrats, has called for an end to Germany's deployment.

Germany's parliament voted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. to allow German special operations troops to support the U.S. in Afghanistan. Six Tornado jet fighters were dispatched April 2 to help identify targets for NATO forces. The parliament may vote on renewing the mission in October.
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AFGHANISTAN: ALMOST ONE IN FOUR CHILDREN 'FORCED TO WORK'
Kabul, 19 June (AKI) - Poverty, lack of educational opportunities and the demand for cheap labour are helping to fuel the prevalence of child labour across Afghanistan, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned. Nearly one quarter of Afghan children between the ages of seven and 14 are working, with more girls working than boys and the problem worst in rural areas, Noriko Izumi, head of child protection for UNICEF in Afghanistan, said at a press conference in Kabul.

“Poverty and low family income levels force children to work to support their family,” said Izumi.

While some types of work serve to teach children new skills that can help them become responsible and productive adults, she said work that interferes with the education of children and affects their mental, physical and social well-being is considered child labour.

“It is those jobs which are detrimental to children’s development that we are talking about.”

Lack of educational opportunities also pushes a child to work, as did the demand for cheaper labour, she stated, adding “children are cheaper to employ than adults and easier to manipulate. It is easier to hire and fire children.”

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 218 million children worldwide, from 5 to 17 years old, are engaged in some kind of labour, with 126 million children engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

UNICEF is working on several fronts to tackle child labour in Afghanistan, which already has a number of legal and policy instruments to protect children, including a national strategy for children at risk and a child labour law defining the legal age of employment.

At the same time, it urged the Afghan government to sign and ratify two important ILO conventions – one concerning the minimum age of employment and the other one regarding hazardous work.

Among the challenges for UNICEF is difficulty verifying a child’s age because of the low birth registration rate in the country, which has emerged from decades of conflict.

“It is also difficult to regulate informal sectors like agriculture where we know many children are employed in Afghanistan,” Izumi added.

UNICEF’s interventions in the country include non-formal education, which it hopes will help transit the child to formal schooling, and vocational skills training for older children. It is also supporting children “associated with armed forces and other war-affected children.” Since 2003, over 12,600 children have been supported in 29 provinces with literacy classes and vocational training.

Izumi noted that while there are fewer children now involved in child labour globally, that does not seem to be the case in the Asia-Pacific region. “So we still have lots of work to do in this region.”
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A political revival in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief
KABUL - About four decades ago, a group of teachers and students, inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, joined forces in Kabul University to launch Muslim Youth, a movement for an Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. This later became a national movement and a major regional vehicle of resistance against Soviet hegemonic designs.

By the 1990s, these ideological mercenaries had defeated the Soviet superpower, but the outcome was not an Islamic revolution but factional fighting and bloodshed that divided the north and the south of Afghanistan between what were seen as power-hungry goons.

The Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996 and the fractious mujahideen scattered, many finding sanctuary in Iran and Pakistan.

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 once again placed them at a crossroads. About half of them chose the path of armed resistance and the remainder chose to begin their political careers afresh, right in front of Kabul University, where the dream of an Islamic revolution had been envisaged in the 1960s.

The Kabul administration and its Western backers see these reborn politicians as Islamabad's trump card in Afghanistan, after Pakistan lost the Taliban when it entered the United States' "war on terror".

Veteran mujahid Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, loosely aligned with the Taliban-led insurgency, recently proposed dialogue with Kabul, and this coincided with a sudden surge in the political activities of his Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (The Islamic Party - HIA). This caused some consternation in the capital, already worried because of the growing insurgencies in the country and the gathering of northern warlords under a new umbrella called the United Front.

In the past few months, HIA has opened new offices and relaunched its newspaper, Shahadat. Questions have been raised about HIA's financing, with some pointing to Islamabad once again supporting its favorite group in Afghanistan.

"So far we have only opened three offices, but people are alarmed. One office was in Kabul and two opened [in the past 15 days] in Jalalabad and Herat. To me it is a very slow development, but people are talking too much about the opening up of these offices," said Abdul Hadi Argundwal, the new president of HIA and a former powerful commander against the Soviets in the 1980s in the province of Paghman.

"There is one thing, however. After September 11 [2001], we were blamed as being al-Qaeda, and hundreds of our innocent members were rounded up as suspects. Several still are languishing in Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] prison. People thought that the HIA had vanished from the Afghan horizon. But when recently I inaugurated the Herat office, 3,500 people attended the ceremony.

"We didn't invite anybody, but the message went across by word of mouth that HIA is being relaunched and people voluntarily came forward. Of 3,500 people, 400 were women, fully covered in hijab. Journalists questioned me about whether we had changed our position on the question of women participating in politics. I replied that women are part of society and they have an equal right to participate in politics, but they should have a separate sphere in which to act," said Argundwal, speaking fluent English with an American accent.

"Since it was a big gathering, their participation in a separate corner was permissible. The government cannot gag us in opening up these offices because we are a registered political party."

Many observers believe HIA will provide the country's next president. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, HIA was banned from contesting as a party, so it members stood as individuals. HIA has subsequently been accepted as a party and has about 35 to 40 members in the 249-seat Parliament.

"The HIA has always been the single largest group among all ethnic sections of Afghan society," Argundwal said. "Once we went to our old constituencies, our supporters provided us with money and we were able to open up our offices. We will open more offices in the coming days in Khost, Mazar-e-Sharif and in Kunar. We already have a network of sub-offices and have started emerging in the province of Nangarhar."

Undoubtedly, HIA has stirred the political climate in Afghanistan, with the temperature raised even further by the recent assassination of HIA member and former interim premier Ustad Farid. Farid was a member of the Meshrano Jirga - the Upper House.

"There is quite a story behind the killing of Ustad Farid," Argundwal said. "There is some propaganda that the HIA is only popular among Pashtuns, but we have popular leaders like Farid, a Tajik, in Kapisa and Kohistan [north of Kabul]. Once Brother Hekmatyar announced the offer for dialogue with the Afghan government, the players who consider northern Afghanistan as their fiefdom on an ethnic basis really felt threatened.

"They assumed that if Hekmatyar came back to Kabul, he would immediately win influence, not only in the south but also in the north. So the killing was a part of a campaign to deprive the HIA of local leadership," Argundwal said.

The decision by the administration of President Hamid Karzai to allow HIA into politics was a ploy to encourage Hekmatyar loyalists, still engaged in guerrilla warfare against foreign forces, to shun violence and become part of the mainstream. But this has become a double-edged sword.

Information coming from the border areas of southeastern Afghanistan suggests a strong regrouping of military commanders under the banner of Hekmatyar, especially in Ghazni, Logar, Khost, Kunar and Gardez. HIA is also spreading its political wings in these regions.

Argundwal believes that peace is the need of the hour and the government should work hard to bring disaffected factions together, including the Taliban and individuals like Hekmatyar, to form a national consensus government.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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Report: Afghan suicide squads being sent to Canada, other countries
Canadian Press June 19, 2007 at 4:40 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — There's a report that suggests large teams of newly-trained suicide bombers are being sent from Afghanistan to try to get into Canada, the United States and other countries.

ABC News is reporting the recruits were introduced at an al-Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony in Afghanistan earlier this month.

According to the network, a Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions.

There was no independent confirmation of the report.

But the network has posted a video on its website, which it says shows Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah introducing and congratulating the team members as they stood.

Mr. Dadaullah's brother was killed by U.S. forces last month.

ABC quoted Mr. Dadaullah as saying, “These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places. Why shouldn't we go after them?”

CTV News quoted an unnamed Canadian official as saying that Canadian and western intelligence have known for some months that the Taliban leadership had ordered its commanders to take the fight out of Afghanistan to western countries.

The threat of Taliban operatives is being treated as a serious threat, the source told CTV.

The report comes at a time when resurgent Taliban fighters are stepping up attacks on coalition and Afghan forces inside the country.
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How to lose Afghanistan
Guardian Unlimited, UK
Air strikes against a counter-insurgency should be a last resort. But the US is undertaking them - and creating more enemies.

A headline like Seven afghan children killed in US-led airstrike, which I read in Monday's New York Times, can't help but make you angry. Angry about the dead children, of course, but also angry about the knowledge that there are bound to be others out there angrier over their deaths than I am. They'll have brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, uncles and fathers, mothers, and cousins.

Many of them, naturally enough, will become America's enemies.

And with enough such enemies, we'll lose in Afghanistan. We'll lose because, at the end of the day, even wars that aren't fundamentally unjustified and infeasible can still be lost if they're prosecuted in a sufficiently inept manner. And that's just what seems to be happening in Afghanistan today. As the New York Times reported, the dead children "may well add to the growing anger many Afghans feel about civilian casualties from American and Nato military operations," anger stoked by the deaths of more than 130 civilians at American hands over the past six months.

Of course, any military operation carries some risk of civilian casualties and other forms of collateral damage that can doom a counterinsurgency operation. Air strikes are, however, especially risky in this regard. That's why the US army's highly touted new field manual on counterinsurgency warns that the "employment of airpower in the strike role should be done with exceptional care":

Bombing, even air strikes, should be weighed against the risks, the primary danger being collateral damage that turns the population against the government and provides the insurgents with a major propaganda victory. Even when justified under the law of war, bombing a target that results in civilian casualties will bring media coverage that works to the benefit of the insurgents. A standard insurgent and terrorist tactic for decades against Israel has been to fire rockets or artillery from the vicinity of a school or village in the hope that the Israelis would carry out a retaliatory air strike that kills or wounds civilians - who are then displayed to the world media as victims of aggression. Insurgents and terrorists elsewhere have shown few qualms in provoking attacks that ensure civilian casualties if such attacks fuel anti-government and anti-US propaganda. Indeed, insurgents today can be expected to use the civilian population as a cover for their activities.
But while military leaders clearly know this on some level - it's right there in the manual - they obviously aren't acting on their knowledge. Indeed, even in Iraq itself where David Petraeus, the author of the counterinsurgency manual quoted above, is in command, we're deploying more air strikes, not fewer. The first four and a half months of 2007 have already seen more air strikes than in all of 2006.

As William S. Lind observed on June 11, the rise in strikes is indicative of the ongoing failure of the "surge" on the ground. After all, "calling in air is the last, desperate and usually futile action of an army that is losing" its ground-based counterinsurgency efforts. "Worse," he writes, "the growing number of air strikes shows that, despite what the Marines have accomplished in Anbar province and General Petraeus's best efforts, our high command remains as incapable as ever of grasping 'fourth generation' war."

As far as Iraq goes, I'd just as soon see the United States give up as try to further perfect our techniques. Afghanistan, however, is still worth getting right. And who knows what will come up in the future. But if anything, things are moving in the wrong direction. Afraid of being left out of the counterinsurgency game, the US Air Force is writing its own manual, and we can bet it'll find plenty of room for air power. And when that air power gets used, you can bet we'll make two new enemies for every one we kill.
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Afghan villagers answer your questions
Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 07:13 GMT 08:13 UK BBC News
Nearly two years ago, BBC News website readers put their questions to people in a village north of the capital, Kabul, where the Taleban had destroyed many homes during the civil war.

Since we met the villagers in September 2005, international aid pledges to the country have risen to more than $10.5bn (£5.9bn). But corruption has got worse, and the Taleban have been fighting back.

Our reporter Soutik Biswas revisited the village of Asad Khyl to find out how life has changed during the last two years. Here, villagers answer questions sent to them by readers.

Are things improving? Is there safety, shelter, enough food and water? Roy, Kansas, US

RAHMAT GUL, teacher: In our village, security has actually improved a bit. But living conditions haven't changed much. People are poor, there are no jobs and the crop is poor because of lack of water.

I have a job as a teacher and my salary is about US$60. It is not enough to maintain my family.

In my opinion, one good way to improve our lives is to provide us opportunities to export our grapes and raisins because they are of a very good quality.

MOHAMMED SHARIF, village chief: Rahmat is right, but I think a better way to bring prosperity to our village is to set up factories, which make fruit juices.

We can sell our good fruit to these factories, and residents can get jobs there. So it will solve the problem of unemployment and our farmers can make money too.

RAHMAT GUL: Unfortunately, not much has been done in our village. Out biggest problem is water. We just don't have enough water to irrigate our land.

We had two wells when you last visited us. Since then, the government has dug out two more wells.

Inflation has gone up and food costs more in the market.

A bag of flour used to cost 900 Afghanis ($19) two years ago, today it costs 1400 Afghanis (US$30). Five kilograms of vegetable oil used to cost 200 Afghanis (US$4) two years ago, now it costs 340 Afghanis (US$7). Beef costs more too - from 120 Afghanis (US$2.5) for a kg of meat two years ago, it has now gone up to 200 Afghanis (US$4).

We need more water to irrigate our fertile land. With enough water we can have two crop seasons - one to grow paddy (rice), and the other - to grow grains and fruits. Do you know that we can easily grow peach, apricot, pomegranates, apple, pears, watermelons, cherries and grapes?

This used to be a very fertile area before the Soviets bombed our irrigation canals. I had apple trees full of the fruit, my brother had two dozen peach trees at home. Now things are different.

MOHAMMAD SHARIF: There was a time before the Soviets invaded us Asad Khyl was so prosperous that we used to feed poor people coming to the village.

RAHMAT GUL: The government did build a canal, which passes through the village, but it does not help irrigate our land. The water is of no use to us - there is no way we can channel it from there to our lands.

There have been a few minor achievements though - when you visited us last, we did not have electricity. Now a generator has been installed in the village, which supplies us with electricity for five hours between 7 pm and 11 pm every day. We have to pay 75 Afghanis ($1.55) for every light bulb a month.

With electricity available, 60% of the people in the village have television sets and have more entertainment, compared to only listening to the radio.

Television has made us more aware, and better informed. When we see TV, we realise how backward we are. At the same time, we want to preserve our Islamic values.

SHUKRULLAH, student: I love watching educational programmes and music programmes on TV. TV has helped me understand mathematics better and has taught me some English.

Shukrullah, what kind of changes happened in your life since last time? What is your most urgent need now? Kamran, Birmingham

SHUKRULLAH: I am 20 years old now, I am studying in the sixth grade. I study Dari, geography, geometry, mathematics, English, Pashtun and history four hours a day at school. These days I also go to the local madrassa [religious school] in the morning.

I still want to become a civil engineer. I still help my father to weave carpets in my free time. We earn $170 for a carpet but it takes two months to weave one.

The one change that has happened is that I have become a football trainer at school. I always played football, but now I teach the game to the youngsters.

What scares me is the joblessness that I see around me. Factories and new towns need to be built so enough jobs are created. I worry a lot when I see people hanging around with no work.

It is often argued that Afghanistan was peaceful during the Taleban rule, and that after their fall, the country has not enjoyed the same level of peace and stability. Do you agree? Do you see the presence of foreign forces important for the future of Afghanistan or should the Taleban be invited to participate in a broad national government? Farid Mamundzay, Birmingham, UK

RAHMAT GUL: You are partly right. People did enjoy peace and stability. But Taleban laws were harsh and draconian. Now the laws are within the framework of a democracy and if we implement them we could have more peace and security.

To your second question - I think foreign forces should coordinate their operations with Afghan forces in a bigger way to avoid civilian casualties.

The thing is that if you invite the Taleban to join a broad-based national government, there will be no need for foreign troops in the country at all. It would not be such a bad idea, though I wonder how the Taleban would react to such a proposal.

It would be a good idea to declare an amnesty for all the indigenous Taleban and bring them into the mainstream of politics. The foreign Taleban should be kept out.

What are your hopes for an end to corruption and fighting? Anne Thorpe, Conder, Australia

RAHMAT GUL: Corruption has become a big problem in Afghanistan. It openly mocks the laws. I haven't been affected personally, but I keep hearing stories of how deep-rooted and wide-spread it is.

MOHAMMAD SHARIF: I can tell you some stories about how corruption is ravaging our society.

Two months ago, a judge in Qarabagh district [Asad Khyl is in Qarabagh] was caught taking a 10,000 Afghani (US$210) bribe from a man in return for forging some land documents. The man complained to the shura [village council] and the judge was caught and sacked by the villagers.

When I became village chief last year, I went to Kabul to get a letter of approval about my position from authorities. The officer made me wait for a couple of days, and then he demanded a bribe for the letter.

Whenever you visit government offices, employees are telling you, 'shirni bee', which means 'give me sweets.' 'Sweets' is a euphemism for a bribe. So 'shirni' has become a dreaded word in Afghanistan now.

The only way to curb corruption is to punish officials. But the salaries of government workers should also be increased. They are paid too little, so there is a lot of incentive to take bribes.

Are you happy by the efforts by the government to improve the condition of the people? Ritesh, Hyderabad, India

RAHMAT GUL: I think that the government has done a fairly decent job. They have built some roads and schools, provided some electricity. Twenty four new schools have been opened in the Qarabagh district alone.

But the progress is very slow, and a lot more needs to be done.

The international community should help more. They should give aid directly to the government, and not through NGOs to help us. I know that people working with NGOs have very high salaries, so most of the aid actually goes back to the foreign countries as pay and prerequisites.

The government should set up an independent commission, which will be responsible for receiving aid and allocating it to various departments. The commission should have honest, patriotic people at the top so that the money is not stolen or misused.

How passionate do you feel about your right to vote and about building a democratic Afghan society? Savannah, Houston, Texas

RAHMAT GUL: Democracy only in name is nonsense. It should be put into practice. Democracy alone does not deliver much. People should work hard and be honest.

Yes, I am passionate about my right to vote. I use my vote carefully - I must know the person and his work well enough to vote for him. I voted for Hamid Karzai in the presidential election. I also voted in the parliamentary election.

What do you see as the biggest threat to the future of Afghanistan - the Taleban, the West, corruption, illiteracy, poverty, drought or something else? Kate Mather, London, England

HAJI ABDULLAH SALEH, village elder: The Taleban is the biggest threat to the future of Afghanistan. They are not powerful enough to topple the government, but they are a big problem. Pakistan and Iran are supporting them with arms and funds.

They don't want the country to stand on its own feet, prosper and become peaceful. They destroyed most of the country, and their legacy is all about burning schools, gardens and houses. This is unacceptable and it is against Islamic law.

The Taleban have made a comeback in the past year, they have re-grouped. You can even see them in the north of the country these days. They have begun using suicide attackers. This is another big worry. Recently, they killed some schoolgirls. All this is all very worrying.

It seems people are supporting the Taleban on the pretext that the Taleban are defending Islam against Western values. Do you agree? Ezra Kaimukilwa, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

HAJI ABDULLAH SALEH: The Taleban has trampled upon the good name of Islam. They don't observe Islamic values and laws. They are against education.

If they served Islam, people would not have hated them, and they would have succeeded. They don't even have the power to defend Islam, let alone protect it. They get outside support to create trouble.

Do you still think Americans can establish democracy in Afghanistan? Is President Hamid Karzai acting independently or as a puppet of US? Saran , Bremen, Germany

HAJI ABDULLAH SALEH: American style democracy is not going to work in Afghanistan. Our democracy has to be moulded by ourselves, not any outsider.

As for Karzai - yes, he cannot act independently. He had to release people who worked against Islam because of pressure from foreign powers - the Muslim man who converted to Christianity was released.

He could not secure the release of the kidnapped Afghan translator of an Italian journalist, who was also taken hostage by the Taleban. The journalist was freed, but the translator lost his life.

Karzai should be the puppet of the Afghan people, instead he is the puppet of the US.

Has support for the Taleban risen due to lack of improvements in daily life? Karen DeBiase, Chester, VA

HAJI ABDULLAH SALEH: Support for Taleban is coming from countries like Pakistan.

There is a big rumour these days that the US is actually helping the Taleban to keep the war going. The Taleban were created by the US and the US has all the powers in the world, so people here find it very difficult to believe that the US can't take them out. It just doesn't make sense.

Would you like to see the grandson of the previous king back in power and would he able to unite the country? Simon, London, UK

HAJI ABDULLAH SALEH : It is possible. People are still fond of the royal family. The grandson of the former king is a member of a coalition of parties opposed to the government. It is possible for the royal family to reunite the people. They will get a lot of support from the people.

Shaista, have you been able to carry on going to school and do you still plan to be a doctor? Thone, Liege, Belgium

SHAISTA: I am in grade seven in school. I want to reach my dream and still wish to become a doctor and help my people.

There are still a lot of difficulties I am facing - I don't have shoes, I don't have proper school clothes, I don't have enough books.

I bought eight books for school recently. I needed more, but I could afford to pay only for eight. Each book cost 20 Afghans (US$0.40). This was from my own money that I had saved.

Now we have electricity for few hours in the evening, and I watch TV, some educational programmes and Indian serials.

I've never missed a class.

But my father tells me these days that I should stop going to school from next year.

My father and other people say girls don't go to school, only boys do. But I want to continue, study medicine and graduate. It is my dream to become a doctor.

Are there more opportunities for women to work and support themselves? What kind of education opportunities do they have? Tammy Georgeson, Salt Lake City, US

LAL BIBI, widow : There are no opportunities for women to work here. Women always stay home.

If men are jobless at least they can go to bazaar and find work there. But for women like us there are no opportunities.

I have tried a lot to find some work for myself, but I have not succeeded.

I need to do some tailoring, embroidery and literacy courses, which would be helpful to earn a living.

There is absolutely no opportunity for education for women. We have not received any aid from foreign NGOs.

In fact no-one is helping women here. If the government or the NGOs that are working for women establish some courses in tailoring, embroidery and literacy, that can help women to make a living.

I did a month-long training course last year, conducted by a Dutch NGO on how to keep cows and livestock.

I passed the training, borrowed some money and bought a cow. I collect fodder for the cow from the gardens.

I sell the milk in the market to buy sugar, tea and basic food.

That is not enough for me. Everything is expensive.

I can work as a tailor, embroider, carpet weaver. But there is no such opportunity. Life is too difficult for me.
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Refugee numbers up for the first time in five years - UNHCR
Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 19 Jun 2007
GENEVA - The number of refugees in the world has increased for the first time since 2002, largely as a result of the crisis in Iraq, the UN refugee agency said today.

UNHCR's "2006 Global Trends" report, released today, shows the number of refugees under the agency's mandate rising last year by 14 percent to almost 10 million, the highest level since 2002. At the same time, the share of other categories of people under the agency's different mandates also grew sharply, in most cases as a result of improved registration systems and more accurate statistics.

"As the number of those uprooted by persecution, intolerance and violence around the world increases, we must face the challenges and demands of a changing world, while remaining faithful to our mandate of defending the rights of refugees and other people we care for," said High Commissioner for Refugees Antðnio Guterres.

According to the UNHCR report, the increase in the number of refugees is largely due to the situation in Iraq, which by the end of 2006 had forced up to 1.5 million Iraqis to seek refuge in other countries, particularly Syria and Jordan.

In 2006, the main group of refugees under UNHCR's mandate continued to be Afghans (2.1 million), followed by Iraqis (1.5 million), Sudanese (686,000), Somalis (460,000), and refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi (about 400,000 each).

UNHCR figures do not include some 4.3 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Occupied Territories, who fall under the mandate of a separate agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). If added, the total number of refugees under both agencies' mandates is over 14 million

In addition to refugees, for a number of years UNHCR has also been helping specific populations of internally displaced people (IDPs). These are people who have also fled their homes because of threats to their safety but who have not crossed any internationally recognised borders. At the end of 2006, the total number of conflict-related IDPs worldwide was estimated at 24.5 million by the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

As part of a strengthened collaborative effort to address the needs of IDPs, the United Nations assigned specific sectoral functions to various UN agencies last year. In that context, UNHCR assumed lead responsibility for protection, emergency shelter and camp coordination and management in IDP situations in a number of countries, including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Somalia.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced within their own countries by the conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste and Sudan. By the end of 2006, the number of IDPs protected or assisted by UNHCR as part of the collaborative UN effort reached a record high of almost 13 million (more than half of the estimated IDP population in the world). This is almost double the previous year's figure and is the single biggest reason for the sharp increase in the overall number of people under UNHCR's mandates -- from 21 million in 2005 to almost 33 million in 2006.

"We are part of the collective response by the UN system and the broader humanitarian community to the plight of the internally displaced," said Guterres. "At the same time, faced with a situation like Darfur, the role of organizations such as ours is severely constrained. That may seem intolerable, yet our desperation is nothing next to that of the millions of victims of forced displacement."

Stateless people - those who do not have any nationality, and therefore in extreme cases do not officially exist -- are another group that have benefited from a more focused approach by UNHCR, in concert with host states and donors.

As a result of an ambitious survey of states, launched in 2003, a more comprehensive view of the scale and complexity of this issue has been emerging. By 2006, the total number of stateless people identified had more than doubled to 5.8 million. This increase does not reflect new situations of statelessness but, rather, is the result of improved data coverage.

"Paradoxically, big increases in the numbers of stateless people may represent a sign of improvement -- rather than deterioration -- in their situation," High Commissioner Guterres said. "Recognition that stateless people exist is a vital first step towards finding a solution to their predicament. And, indeed, after years of slow progress, an increasing number of states have implemented, or are seriously contemplating implementing, lasting solutions for some of the world's forgotten stateless people."

The full "2006 Global Trends - a statistical overview of refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless persons" report, produced by UNHCR's Field Information and Coordination Support Section, is available on UNHCR's website: www.unhcr.org
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Canadian U.N. anti-drug adviser to Kabul gets four years in jail for minuscule hashish possession
The Associated Press Tuesday, June 19, 2007
 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: A Canadian U.N. official who advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops was sentenced on Tuesday to four years in prison for smuggling and drug possession.

Bert Tatham, 35, of Vancouver, British Columbia, was arrested April 23 during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai International Airport, after being caught with 0.6 grams (0.02 ounces) of hashish, and two poppy bulbs. He pleaded not guilty during an arraignment last week.

The judge said Tatham must serve his full sentence and then be deported from this Gulf country, known for its "zero tolerance" policy on narcotics.

Tatham was arrested en route to Canada from the Afghan city of Kandahar, where he worked as a consultant for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and as an adviser to the Afghan government's poppy elimination program.

The program aims to convince Afghan farmers to stop growing poppies, which are used for production of opium and then heroin.

Sharif Emara, a member of the Dubai-based legal team defending Tatham, expressed disappointment at Tuesday's verdict.

"We had good defense and he got the full punishment," Emara said. Emara added that Tatham's lawyer, Saeed al-Gailani, will appeal the sentence within 15 days.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, al-Gailani said he was hopeful that the judge "will understand that drugs are part of Tatham's job."

Al-Gailani argued in court last week that his client inadvertently carried the near-microscopic amount of drugs because his job involved burning and disposing of tons of seized Afghan opium crops.

But Dubai courts have handed down harsh penalties to travelers caught with even smaller amounts of drugs. An Italian citizen was sentenced to four years in Dubai prison for possession of a hundredth of a gram of hashish last month. And last week a British citizen was handed the same sentence for carrying 0.7 grams of marijuana.

Earlier this month, al-Gailani argued that part of Tatham's job was to collect "tons of drugs every day" in Afghanistan and that his client had attended the burning of five to 10 tons of poppies daily.

"His trousers must have mistakenly picked up the tiny quantity of hashish," al-Gailani said.

Traces of hashish found in Tatham's urine were inhaled by Tatham as "secondhand smoke," the lawyer said. Hashish is produced from marijuana plants rather than opium poppies.

As for the poppy bulbs, al-Gailani said Tatham was taking them to Canada "for experiments and education."
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Iran deporting 2,000 Afghans a day in crackdown
The Associated Press Monday, June 18, 2007
AFGHANISTAN-IRAN BORDER: Dumped at this frontier outpost alongside hundreds of weary Afghan laborers, Khalil Jalil stepped out of Iran and back into Afghanistan only days after he said the Iranian authorities beat him, threw him in the trunk of a car and locked him in a detention center.

The 23-year-old's violent ejection is part of a broad Iranian crackdown on illegal Afghan migrants that has pushed more than 100,000 deportees across the border in the past two months, leaving hundreds of Afghan families stranded without shelter and straining the resources of the impoverished country.

Like Jalil, many of the deportees come with stories of abuse: men beaten so badly that their legs and collarbones were broken, and legal refugees whose government-issued cards were cut into pieces by the police.

Iran denies the allegations of abuse and says it has forced laborers back home because the 1.5 million undocumented Afghan migrants are an enormous burden on its economy.

As a result, about 2,000 Afghans a day are being sent out of Iran, where many sought better jobs or a stable home outside of war-torn Afghanistan. Most are men, but entire families are being kicked out as well.

At the Islam Qala border crossing, about 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, west of the Afghan city of Herat, 1,200 people flow back into Afghanistan a day. Some carry suitcases, but several wear their work uniforms and are penniless, not having had a chance to collect their salaries or savings.

One man had only crumbling bits of stale bread, a small bottle of water and another of soda tied up in a tattered black scarf.

Iran has sent undocumented Afghans home every year and announced these deportations in advance. But the numbers have been staggering. The more than 100,000 deportations of the past two months compare with 146,387 deported in all of 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.

Jalil entered Afghanistan wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, the only possessions he could grab after two men in army uniforms and two in plain clothes woke him up with kicks and punches.

"They yelled at us, 'Get out, Afghan trash!' " Jalil said, describing how he was handcuffed to another laborer and thrown in the trunk of a green sedan.

He had lived in Iran for seven years, and his parents and siblings were still there. They had entered with passports and visas but stayed on after their documents expired.

Like many interviewed here, Jalil said he paid his own $11 bus fare to be deported. Others said they bribed the authorities to be deported immediately rather than be locked up in filthy, overcrowded detention centers.

"It is not how humans treat other humans. The rooms were full, so they put us in the bathrooms," said Nabiullah Jamshidy, 28, who had been deported after living in Iran for 14 years.

Noor Ahmad Mohammadi, who performs medical checkups at the border, said that in the past month he has seen about seven deportees severely beaten, with broken collarbones, legs and arms, and stitches on their faces.

The Iranian authorities "are behaving very badly with the deportees," said a UNHCR official in Islam Qala, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and his role on the border. "Maltreatment is common, and abuses for all of them."

The Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan dismissed the allegations as "propaganda and rumors" but said the government would respond to any documented claims.

"We believe there are huge rumors inside Afghanistan, because many Afghan refugees don't want to return to their country. They mention many things, but most of them are not reality," Ambassador Muhammad Bahrami said.

About 1.5 million illegal migrants live in Iran on top of 950,000 registered Afghan refugees, he said. Some go legally and carry on with their lives after their passports expire, while others pay to be smuggled by human traffickers.

The enormous number of Afghan refugees and undocumented migrants takes a huge chunk out of Iran's subsidized health care and basic infrastructure, Bahrami said.

Iran originally had planned to deport 5,000 illegal migrants a day but scaled that back at the request of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Bahrami said deportations would continue until a "suitable conclusion to our project."

Once back in Afghanistan, deportees receive assistance from UN agencies and aid organizations and move on to larger cities or home. But many have been living in Iran for decades and have nowhere to go.

Hundreds of Afghans, including several families, are living "in the open air" without shelter, UNHCR said.

The deportations have infuriated Afghan lawmakers, who last month voted to dismiss the repatriation and refugee minister, Muhammad Akbar Akbar, for mishandling the issue.

UN and Afghan officials have found that some refugees with documents issued by the Iranian government have suffered the same ordeals as the illegal migrants.
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Solana offers condolences to Afghan President
Xinhua / June 18, 2007
European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana sent on Sunday a personal message of condolences and support to President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, after a suicide bomb attack against civilians and policemen in Kabul.

"I want to convey to you my shock and support after the attack today in Kabul that left many people killed and injured, mostly civilians as well as policemen," Solana said.

"The EU is engaged in supporting your country and the efforts being made by you and the international community to stabilize Afghanistan, including in the field of police, which was targeted today," he added.

Earlier on Sunday morning, a powerful bombing attack killed at least 35 people and injured over 30 others in the center of Kabul, the Afghan capital.
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Taliban fighters back in caves of Tora Bora
By Tom Coghlan / The Telegraph (UK) / June 18, 2007
Insurgents backed by al-Qa'eda have opened a new "front" on the eastern border of Afghanistan, re-occupying the Tora Bora cave complex from which Osama bin Laden escaped the closing net of US forces in 2001.

The "Tora Bora Front", as Taliban propaganda calls it, borders the province of Nangahar and has been active for about three weeks. The complex of deep caves, which proved impervious to US bombing in 2001, sits on an infiltration route from the Spin Ghar mountains between Nangahar province and Pakistan's lawless Tribal Areas, where bin Laden is still thought to be hiding.

Western officials and local government authorities confirm that Taliban insurgents backed by al-Qa'eda have reoccupied the complex.

They believe that one of the group's leaders could be Amin ul-Haq, a close associate of bin Laden. One western official also named Maulvi Anwar ul-Haq Mujahed as a commander of the group. He is the son of Younis Khalis, one of the most famous Islamist leaders in the Afghan jihad against the Soviets.

Initial estimates of the Tora Bora force by local Afghan officials put the number at between 200 and 250, including Arab, Chechen and Pakistani fighters.

"They have reoccupied the old base," said Haji Zalmai, the district governor of Khogiani, which borders the Spin Ghar mountains at Tora Bora.

"We feel the effect directly here. They want to extend this front and to establish their control in these two or three districts on this side of the border in the way that they did in parts of Uruzgan, Helmand and Kandahar."

Khogiani district is a dusty plain dominated by the imposing rampart of peaks that make up the Spin Ghar mountains and the border with Pakistan. Governor Zalmai survived an assassination attempt two weeks ago that blew up his car and the district, which has never been secure, has experienced a recent rise in insurgent activity.

The area, which is also notorious for poppy production and smuggling, has had three governors in a year. Zalmai's predecessor was killed and the governor before him was injured and swiftly left the post.

A Taliban propaganda blitz across southern Nangahar has led to "night letters" being dropped in villages boasting of the new front. They warn Afghans of the dire repercussions for supporting the government or western forces.

Officials in Kabul believe that the move is part of a more general strategic shift in the focus of Taliban operations away from their previous epicentre in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, where a series of offensives by British troops supported by US and other Nato forces has left the Taliban with a battered command structure and weakening morale.

The death of the notorious Mullah Dadullah Akhund in May was only the most high-profile success of a little-publicised campaign, largely conducted by both British and American Special Forces, to decapitate the leadership of the Taliban in the south.

There also appears to be a shift in tactics, with the insurgents turning more to terrorist tactics such as yesterday's suicide bombing in Kabul.

Al-Qa'eda has been retrenching its influence in Pakistan's tribal belt since the signing of a peace deal between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in South Waziristan in September 2006.

The area has proved a heartland of support for al-Qa'eda's brand of religious extremism and western officials in Kabul are concerned by the spread of Talibanisation from across the border in Pakistan into Afghanistan.

One senior western diplomat in Kabul told The Daily Telegraph that Gen Dan McNeill, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, was reviewing whether to shift Nato's "Theatre Reserve", which is made up of troops from the US 82nd Airborne division, from Helmand and Kandahar provinces to areas along the eastern border.
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Afghanistan: 'vested interests' irk India
Press Trust Of India / New Delhi, June 18, 2007
In a veiled reference to Pakistan, India on Monday accused "vested interests" for scuttling role of New Delhi in rebuilding war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Expressing concern over the resurgence of Taliban in Afghanistan, Defence Minister AK Antony said "certain vested interests are trying to scuttle our role in rebuilding Afghanistan."

"We are committed to support this (rebuilding) process and help Afghanistan to emerge as a stable, democratic state," the Defence Minister said while inaugurating the two-day Unified Commander's-in-Chief conference in New Delhi.

India has already despatched a fresh batch of commondos to Afghanistan from the Indian Tibetan Border Police to protect the Indian projects and those working there.

During his address to the top brass of Army, Indian Air Force and the Navy, Antony delved on the security scenario in the immediate neighbourhood and beyond. "The most crucial challenge facing is in the near future is growing instablity in our neighbourhood."

He said the rising tide of religious fundamentalism and cross border terrorism continued unabated and this had affected "our regional securty environment too."

The conference has been called to draw a roadmap for the transformation of the Forces to meet the varied security challenges. "The transformation plan must be developed under the overreaching principle of jointness for highest efficacy," he said while expressing confidence that the plan was not only "efficient and cost effective but also keeping in pace with the changing times."
via Hindustan Times
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Afghanistan: Bilqees, Afghanistan "I found my daughter's body soaked in blood"
LOGAR, 18 June 2007 (IRIN) - On 12 June two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a crowd of female students coming out of high school in the central province of Logar. Three schoolgirls were killed and five wounded. Bilqees' 13-year-old daughter, Shukria, was one of the three killed. The bereaved mother gave IRIN an account of the day her daughter was killed.

"That morning she recited the holy Koran longer than usual and told me she wanted to drink two glasses of milk, instead of one. Before leaving she looked back several times and asked me whether I needed anything - I said 'No'.

"It was about 10am when my younger daughter burst into the house screaming 'Shukria has been martyred!'

"I do not remember how I got out of the house to inquire what had happened, but I recall I ran outside, barefoot, to find my daughter.

"On my way to the school I found Shukria's sandal, but could not find her. There were small pools of blood in front of the school gate. As I was crying and screaming somebody pointed to a parked car and said my daughter had been taken there.

"I threw myself towards the car and there in the boot I found my daughter's body soaked in blood. Her beautiful eyes were open and her right hand was clutched to her stomach where she was shot. I was told later that she was shot three times - in the stomach, heart and back.

"That afternoon she was buried in the village cemetery.

"I miss my daughter very much. Shukria was a very intelligent girl. She was always telling me about her enthusiasm to become a doctor in the future. Last year I banned my daughters from going to school after a rocket was fired at it. But Shukria insisted and made me change my mind.

"I will let my younger daughter, Zarmina, continue going to school only if it is safe for her to do so. I want my daughter to be educated and serve her country, but I do not want to lose her, too."
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Taliban fighters back in caves of Tora Bora
By Tom Coghlan The Telegraph (UK) June 18, 2007
Insurgents backed by al-Qa'eda have opened a new "front" on the eastern border of Afghanistan, re-occupying the Tora Bora cave complex from which Osama bin Laden escaped the closing net of US forces in 2001.

The "Tora Bora Front", as Taliban propaganda calls it, borders the province of Nangahar and has been active for about three weeks. The complex of deep caves, which proved impervious to US bombing in 2001, sits on an infiltration route from the Spin Ghar mountains between Nangahar province and Pakistan's lawless Tribal Areas, where bin Laden is still thought to be hiding.

Western officials and local government authorities confirm that Taliban insurgents backed by al-Qa'eda have reoccupied the complex.

They believe that one of the group's leaders could be Amin ul-Haq, a close associate of bin Laden. One western official also named Maulvi Anwar ul-Haq Mujahed as a commander of the group. He is the son of Younis Khalis, one of the most famous Islamist leaders in the Afghan jihad against the Soviets.

Initial estimates of the Tora Bora force by local Afghan officials put the number at between 200 and 250, including Arab, Chechen and Pakistani fighters.

"They have reoccupied the old base," said Haji Zalmai, the district governor of Khogiani, which borders the Spin Ghar mountains at Tora Bora.

"We feel the effect directly here. They want to extend this front and to establish their control in these two or three districts on this side of the border in the way that they did in parts of Uruzgan, Helmand and Kandahar."

Khogiani district is a dusty plain dominated by the imposing rampart of peaks that make up the Spin Ghar mountains and the border with Pakistan. Governor Zalmai survived an assassination attempt two weeks ago that blew up his car and the district, which has never been secure, has experienced a recent rise in insurgent activity.

The area, which is also notorious for poppy production and smuggling, has had three governors in a year. Zalmai's predecessor was killed and the governor before him was injured and swiftly left the post.
A Taliban propaganda blitz across southern Nangahar has led to "night letters" being dropped in villages boasting of the new front. They warn Afghans of the dire repercussions for supporting the government or western forces.

Officials in Kabul believe that the move is part of a more general strategic shift in the focus of Taliban operations away from their previous epicentre in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, where a series of offensives by British troops supported by US and other Nato forces has left the Taliban with a battered command structure and weakening morale.

The death of the notorious Mullah Dadullah Akhund in May was only the most high-profile success of a little-publicised campaign, largely conducted by both British and American Special Forces, to decapitate the leadership of the Taliban in the south.

There also appears to be a shift in tactics, with the insurgents turning more to terrorist tactics such as yesterday's suicide bombing in Kabul.

Al-Qa'eda has been retrenching its influence in Pakistan's tribal belt since the signing of a peace deal between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in South Waziristan in September 2006.
 
The area has proved a heartland of support for al-Qa'eda's brand of religious extremism and western officials in Kabul are concerned by the spread of Talibanisation from across the border in Pakistan into Afghanistan.

One senior western diplomat in Kabul told The Daily Telegraph that Gen Dan McNeill, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, was reviewing whether to shift Nato's "Theatre Reserve", which is made up of troops from the US 82nd Airborne division, from Helmand and Kandahar provinces to areas along the eastern border.
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Most Unstable Countries
The Washington Post 06/18/2007 By Robin Wright
Iraq now ranks as the second most unstable country in the world, ahead of war-ravaged or poverty-stricken countries such as Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti and North Korea, according to the 2007 Failed State index issued today by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace.

Despite billions of dollars in foreign aid, and the presence of more than 150,000 American troops, Iraq has been on a steady decline over the past three years, according to the index. It ranked fourth last year, but its score dropped in almost all of the 12 political, economic, security and social indicators on which the index is based.

"The report tells us that Iraq is sinking fast," said Fund for Peace President Pauline Baker. "We believe it's reached the point of no return. We have recommended -- based on studies done every six months since the U.S. invasion -- that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up."

In a parallel series of reports, the Fund for Peace, a research and advocacy group, suggests a policy of managed partition for Iraq.

Sudan, largely because of the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, is the world's most unstable country, the group concluded. More than 200,000 Sudanese have died, and another 2 million to 3 million have been displaced.

"There were only marginal differences between Iraq and Sudan, and Iraq is worse then Somalia, which is already a failed state," Baker said.

There are two basic driving forces behind Iraq's escalating problems, Baker said. The first is fragmentation internally, marked by the proliferation of militias and other groups that the United States and Iraqis have been unable to control. The second is interference of external forces in the country.

"Both are filling the vacuum at the center created by a weak government and a failing state," Baker said.

The organization reported that Africa is the continent with the most significant downward slide. Eight of the 10 most unstable countries are now in Africa, the report concludes.

In addition to Iraq, the other is Afghanistan. The two are countries where the Bush administration has made enormous military and financial commitments since 2001. Their experiences show that billions of dollars in development and security aid may be futile unless accompanied by a functioning government and plans for peace-keeping and economic development, Foreign Policy reports in its July/August issue, which includes the index.

Afghanistan ranked eighth, Haiti 11th, North Korea 13th and Burma 14th. Pakistan and North Korea, which both have nuclear weapons, are in world's top 15 most unstable countries, according to the report.
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Disabled stage protest demo, warn of self-immolation
Pajhwok 06/18/2007 By Rohullah Arman
KUNDUZ CITY - Scores of disabled persons staged a peaceful protest demonstration in the northern Kunduz province on Saturday.

Demanding shelter for themselves and their families, the protestors blocked the Kunduz-Sherkhan Bandar road for general traffic. Some of them warned of self-immolation if the government failed to pay heed to their demand.

They said the protest would go on till the resolution of their problems. They also chanted slogans against the provincial governor dubbing him as an inefficient administrator.

Ebadullah, one of the protestors who had lost one of his legs during the war, told Pajhwok that he had a seven-member family. He said he had returned from Pakistan three years back and had not found shelter here since then.

"I have been paying 2,000 afghanis per month as house rent. But now, as I'm unable to pay the amount, the owner asked me to vacate the house," said Ebadullah.

He warned of committing suicide by self-immolation if the government failed to provide him an immediate relief in term of shelter.

Muhammad Barat, head of the disabled union in the province, said five years back the government had promised provision of houses to disabled, but it had yet to be materialised.

He said those who were now struggling to find roof for their families were the same people who had fought the foreign troops under the command of those who were now enjoying luxurious lives.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, provincial Governor engineer Muhammad Omar said the process of allotment of plots to disabled had been halted under a presidential decree since last year.

Two years back, plots were distributed to almost 300 disabled persons in a township named Sar Dawra in the province, said the governor, adding those who had not received plots so far should approach the Ministry of Martyrs and Disabled.

The governor said a high-level delegation from Kabul was expected to visit the province to identify the deserving persons and recommend allotment of residential plots in their names.

According to official figures, there are around 12,000 disabled and heirs of martyrs in Kunduz. Of them, 1,500 are living in rented houses or having not shelter.
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