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June 25, 2007 


Cars, not war, may finally topple Afghan minarets
By Mark Bendeich Mon Jun 25, 9:10 AM ET
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They survived three decades of war but risk being toppled by road traffic -- the last five mediaeval minarets of Herat are being slowly shaken to dust.

The minarets are all that remain of what was once a wonder of art and architecture, a brilliantly decorated complex of Islamic learning and devotion on the Silk Road in western Afghanistan.

Little more than a century ago, more than a dozen of these minarets peered over the ancient city of Herat, part of a madrassa-mosque complex built in the 15th century by the daughter-in-law of the all-conquering mogul emperor Timur.

War and neglect have since toppled most of the camel-colored mud-brick towers, which were once sheathed in sparkling blue, green, white and black mosaic tiles, reaching heights of more than 100 feet and shining out across the desert.

But after U.S.-led forces evicted the Taliban from national power in 2001, a relative amount of both peace and prosperity has returned to Herat and there are hopes that they can be preserved.

But there is one big problem: traffic.

Trucks and cars rumble along a busy road that runs right through the middle of the group of remaining minarets, shaking the ground and sending tremors through their foundations.

If it is not closed, there are fears that any of the minarets could crumble or fall in the coming years and decades. One of them is already on a dangerous tilt.

"In the past five years, we tried to block the road going close to the minarets. Fortunately, we succeeded and blocked the road -- for a little bit," said Ayamuddin Ajmal, who runs the Culture Ministry's historical monuments office in Herat.

But residents objected and the provincial government, unable or unwilling to invest in a road diversion, backed down, he said.

The road reopened.

"The government has also a commitment regarding preserving the minarets, but still we see that the government has not blocked the road," said Ajmal, who keeps a small office in a niche of another of Herat's treasures, the Friday Mosque.

WORLD HERITAGE
The Afghan government has submitted the old city of Herat, including the minarets, as a candidate for listing as a World Heritage site. This would put Herat in the same class as China's Great Wall, the pyramids of Egypt and the Acropolis of Athens.

In theory, both central and provincial governments support the closure of the road to preserve the minarets, but in reality there is insufficient political will to do so.

The road has not only remained open, it has actually been widened in the past few years, said Brendan Cassar, a culture consultant for UNESCO, the U.N. body that works with national governments to preserve sites of world cultural significance.

"There has to be some kind of will to preserve the heritage, some kind of expression of interest that this is important to Afghanistan's cultural heritage and therefore important to world heritage," Cassar said at UNESCO's tiny office in Kabul.

The old city of Herat is already on the tentative list for inclusion on UNESCO's register of World Heritage sites. Eventual inscription on the register could help ensure more funding to preserve Herat's antiquities and put the city on the tourist map.

But both the Culture Ministry's Ajmal and UNESCO staff in Kabul say local authorities are undermining the old city's character, not only by refusing to close the road through the minarets complex but also by allowing unchecked development.

In Afghan terms, Herat is a boom town, thanks largely to blossoming trade across the nearby border with Iran, less than a two-hour drive away on a sealed highway.

New shimmering buildings of glass and concrete are sprouting up, overlooking the old city and challenging the minarets' command of the skyline for the first time in six centuries.

"Many high buildings have been built in Herat city which is against UNESCO rules," Ajmal said. "The height of the buildings inside (old) Herat should not be more than seven meters."

Across the road from the tilted minaret, there is a modern building going up that is already well over seven meters tall.

The minaret itself is held up by two spans of cable, bracing it against seemingly imminent collapse onto the road. It is only a temporary measure, until the road is closed and the entire site can be secured for preservation and archaeological works.

There is a gaping hole about half way up the tower, exposing the stairwell inside, the legacy of a rocket or artillery attack in the 1980s, when Soviet occupiers were fighting mujahideen.

The Culture Ministry and UNESCO are continuing to work on a submission for World Heritage status, and UNESCO says it is channeling more than $360,000 of Norwegian money into preservation work into the old city this year alone.

But if Afghan authorities at local or national level cannot even close a road, or enforce a building code, UNESCO questions their commitment to protecting their own cultural heritage, despite the economic benefits of creating a tourism drawcard.

"This is a historical site that can contribute to people's livelihoods for decades to come," Cassar said. "It's jobs."
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Sixteen dead in Afghan clash
Mon Jun 25, 6:50 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Afghan and NATO forces killed 13 Taliban militants in a day-long battle in southern Afghanistan, in which three policemen also died, a provincial police chief said.

The Taliban fighters attacked a police post in Zehri district of Kandahar province early Sunday, killing three policemen and leaving two others wounded, Sayed Aqa Saqib told AFP on Monday.

A gunfight erupted and "13 Taliban were killed including a Taliban commander after Afghan and NATO forces went to support the police post under attack," said Saqib.

The fighting finished late Sunday, he said.

Kandahar, the birthplace of the hardline Taliban movement, has been among the areas hardest hit by a wave of militant attacks which have killed thousands of people.
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Afghan forces retake captured district
Mon Jun 25, 3:27 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan security forces have retaken a troubled southern district that was overrun and captured by Taliban militants almost a week ago, a provincial governor said Monday.

Police last Tuesday made what Afghan authorities described as a tactical withdrawal from the remote Ghorak district of southern Kandahar province after insurgents stormed it that same day.

"Afghan forces recaptured Ghorak district from the Taliban on Sunday night," Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid told reporters.

He said Afghan forces did not suffer any casualties and added that he had no information about whether any rebels were killed.

The Taliban also took the nearby district of Myanishen last weekend when a small police contingent fled. It was recaptured by government forces within days.

The Taliban, whose five-year Islamic regime was toppled by US-led forces in late 2001, have overrun several under-policed district centres in the south and west but have usually been pushed out after a few days.

Authorities play down the significance of these "captures", saying the targeted districts are remote and have weak security.

The militants however have held for months Musa Qala district in Helmand province, which adjoins Kandahar, and are said to control several others in the area.
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British open fire in Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 24, 7:59 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb hit a convoy of British troops Sunday, wounding one soldier and prompting them to open fire in a civilian area in insurgency-plagued Helmand province, killing one man, police said.

Also in the south, militants executed the kidnapped son of a police officer, reneging on a deal to free him in exchange for the release of a Taliban commander, while the latest violence killed more than a dozen suspected militants, a U.S.-led coalition soldier and four Afghan troops.

A remote-controlled bomb hit a NATO convoy, wounding one British soldier Sunday morning and prompting British troops to open fire south of Helmand's main city of Lashkar Gah, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain.

Hussain said the British gunfire killed one man, but it was not clear if the victim was a civilian or a militant involved in the attack.

Raz Mohammad Sayed, director of a local hospital, said one man was killed, and another man was wounded by British gunfire. He referred to both victims as "civilians."

At the hospital, Saad Mohammad, the brother of the man killed, said he was with his brother when the British forces opened fire in different directions, including at houses in the area.

On Saturday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused foreign soldiers of carelessly killing scores of Afghan civilians and warned that the fight against resurgent Taliban militants could fail unless foreign forces show more restraint.

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such," Karzai said in an angry rebuke that drew a contrite acknowledgment from NATO that it must "do better."

In the past 10 days, more than 90 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery fire targeting Taliban insurgents, Karzai said. The mounting toll is sapping the authority of the Western-backed Afghan president, who has pleaded repeatedly with U.S. and NATO commanders to consult Afghan authorities during operations and show more restraint.

Asked about the attack on the British forces and subsequent shooting, the press office of NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed violence with NATO casualties in the south. It did not give any further details, saying it was looking into incident.

Separately in the Sangin district of Helmand, militants executed the kidnapped son of a police officer Saturday, reneging on a deal to release the hostage in exchange for a Taliban commander, said deputy district police chief Abdullah Khan.

The Taliban had initially demanded the release of the Taliban group commander, but after he was freed, they changed the terms of the deal, demanding that the district police chief — the father of the hostage — step down.

The militants killed the police chief's son Saturday night in Musa Qala, and handed his body over Sunday morning, Khan said. It was not clear how old the victim was.

In March, the Afghan government released five senior Taliban militants in exchange for the freedom of a kidnapped Italian journalist. The prisoner swap was heavily criticized and sparked fears that the deal would give the Taliban incentive to carry out more kidnappings.

Also in Helmand, insurgents opened fire on joint Afghan and coalition troops, who returned fire and called for airstrikes on the militants' position Saturday in Langar village, said a coalition statement.

Coalition helicopters and aircraft bombed "positively identified enemy positions," killing more than one dozen enemy fighters, the statement said.

The battle also left one coalition soldier and an Afghan soldier dead, and there were no reports of Afghan civilians wounded, it said.

In other violence Sunday:

• In western Farah province, a roadside bomb hit an Afghan army convoy, killing two soldiers and wounding three, one of them seriously, said Gen. Abdul Wahab Walizada, the western region army corps commander.

In central Wardak province, a bomb hit an Afghan army convoy, killing one soldier and wounding two others, a Defense Ministry statement said.
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Nato confirms shooting of Afghans
By Charles Haviland BBC News, Kabul Monday, 25 June 2007
The Nato-led force in Afghanistan, Isaf, has confirmed reports that its soldiers shot two Afghan men on Sunday morning, killing one of them.

It said the men ignored warnings to stop at a barrier in the southern province of Helmand set up after the death of a British soldier.

The provincial police chief has said that the two men were civilians.

Isaf said the shooting was being investigated. It did not confirm or deny if the men were civilians.

'Measures exhausted'

According to Isaf, the two Afghan men drove their motorcycles towards the cordon, ignoring Isaf soldiers' warnings to stop.

It said its forces opened fire only after exhausting all reasonable measures.

One of the two men was killed and the other wounded in the incident near the Helmand capital, Lashkar Gah.

On the issue of whether the men were civilians, Isaf spokesman Lieut Col Charlie Mayo of the British army said: "This was a rural area with very few civilians around and we were supported by the Afghan National Police."

It has been confirmed that the soldier who had died in a blast at the site shortly the shooting incident was British. Four of his colleagues were injured.

Their armoured Land Rover had been escorting a military team surveying the site for a new road project.

Two Estonian Isaf soldiers died on Saturday in a missile attack in the same province.

After the death of an estimated 25 civilians in an air strike called by British forces on Thursday, President Hamid Karzai accused Isaf and the US-led coalition here of "extreme" and "disproportionate" use of force.

There are now several incidents each week of foreign forces killing civilians in Afghanistan.

He said the foreign forces had to start working in accordance with his government's wishes.

Nato said he had a right to be angry but added that no Isaf soldier intended to kill civilians.
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Most opium now processed inside Afghanistan: UN
Mon Jun 25, 6:57 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Sophisticated laboratories inside Afghanistan are now converting 90 percent of the country's opium into heroin and morphine before smuggling it around the world, the United Nations said.

Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer of opium, had until two years ago exported the illicit drug almost exclusively in its raw form, said the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

"The amount of the opium being processed (in Afghanistan), I think, is around 90 percent -- at least the lion's share," UNODC representative Christina Oguz told reporters in Kabul.

Oguz said that anyone flying over the major opium producing areas "would see a lot of small fires in the mountains. These are heroin labs."

"A couple of years ago, most of the drugs that were trafficked out of this country was opium," Oguz said.

"Now more and more of the opium is being processed into morphine and into heroin. And this indicates sophistication that we didn't have in this country before," she added.

War-shattered Afghanistan accounts for 92 percent of the world's heroin supply despite vast internationally-backed efforts to eradicate its opium poppy fields.

Oguz said the annual income from the drugs trade -- more than three billion US dollars -- helps finance the Taliban-led insurgency plaguing mainly southern and eastern Afghanistan.

"The drugs have to be fought together with the insurgency," she said.

Afghanistan produced a record 6,000 tonnes of opium last year and officials fear that with a surge in opium cultivation in the southern provinces, this year's harvest could top even that.

"I fear we'll be faced with at least the same amount as the last year, perhaps even more," Oguz said, adding that good weather conditions had also contributed to the increase.

Oguz also downplayed international efforts to eradicate poppy crops, saying that it was more important to provide cash-strapped opium farmers with alternative livelihoods.
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Afghan refugee gives birth to quintuplets in Pakistan
QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) - A 32-year-old Afghan woman living in southwest Pakistan has given birth to quintuplets, in what is thought to be the first such case for the country's huge refugee population, doctors said Monday.

The four boys and a girl were doing well with their mother, identified as Amna Bibi, after they were born on Sunday in a hospital in Quetta, said gynecologist Marvi, who goes by one name.

The proud father, who runs a small grocery shop in a suburb of Quetta, said the couple already had two older daughters while another son had died some time ago due to illness.

"I prayed to God to give a son to me, and he gave me four sons and one daughters at the same time instead of one," said Maulvi Anees Ur Rahman.

The couple fled war-shattered Afghanistan with their families more than 20 years ago during the Soviet occupation and settled in Pakistan.

Pakistan is trying to get most Afghan refugees to return home, saying that some are involved in the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan.

Hundreds of thousands living in four camps in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province have been asked to either go home or to move to new camps further from the border.

More than 2.8 million Afghans who fled a quarter-century of instability in their homeland have returned since 2002 under a United Nations-assisted voluntary scheme, but almost the same number remain in Pakistan.
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Afghan civilians reportedly killed more by U.S., NATO than insurgents
June 24, 2007 via USA Today
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have killed at least 203 civilians so far this year — surpassing the 178 civilians killed in militant attacks, according to an Associated Press tally.

Insurgency attacks and military operations have surged in recent weeks, and in the past 10 days, more than 90 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery fire targeting Taliban insurgents, said President Hamid Karzai.

On Sunday, another civilian may have been killed when British troops opened fire in a populated area after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, officials and witnesses said.

Separate figures from the U.N. and an umbrella organization of Afghan and international aid groups show that the numbers of civilians killed by international forces is approximately equal to those killed by insurgents.

After a seething speech by Karzai on Saturday — in which he accused NATO and U.S. forces of viewing Afghan lives as "cheap" — NATO conceded that it had to "do better." Coalition spokesman Maj. Chris Belcher suggested that some civilians reportedly killed by foreign forces may in fact have been killed by insurgents.

"One of the problems is sometimes determining who exactly caused the casualties. It's not always clear if a civilian casualty is caused by an extremist or coalition forces," Belcher said.

Accurate figures for civilian death tolls are hard to come by in Afghanistan, where militants often wear civilian dress and seek shelter in villagers' homes. Furthermore, after a quarter of a century of civil war and conflict, it is not unusual for Afghans to have weapons in their homes.

Much of the violence takes place in remote areas that are too far or too dangerous for independent observers or journalists to reach for verification of the reports.

The AP count of civilian casualties is based on reports from Afghan and foreign officials and witnesses through Saturday. Of the 399 civilian deaths so far this year, 18 civilians were killed in crossfire between Taliban militants and foreign forces.

The U.S. and NATO did not have civilian casualty figures. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has counted 213 civilians killed by insurgents in the first five months of this year — compared to 207 killed by Afghan and international forces.

ACBAR — the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief — has counted 230 civilians killed in U.S. and NATO operations, basing their figure on reports from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Afghan NGO Security Office and the U.N.

The number of civilians killed in militant attacks was approximately the same as those killed by foreign forces according to ACBAR's latest figures from about a month ago, said Anja de Beer, director of ACBAR.

"The international forces are here to support the Afghan government, the purpose is to get a better and safer life for the Afghan people," de Beer said. "If in doing so, they're causing more civilian deaths than the people they're fighting against, that doesn't look very good, to put it mildly."

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, blamed the insurgents for hiding in areas populated by civilians, who are then killed during attacks against militants, but he said "that does not absolve ISAF of the responsibility of doing all it can to minimize civilian casualties."

On Saturday, Karzai accused NATO and U.S.-led troops of carelessly killing scores of Afghan civilians and warned that the fight against resurgent Taliban militants could fail unless foreign forces show more restraint.

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such," Karzai said angrily.

The mounting toll is sapping the authority of the Western-backed Afghan president, who has pleaded repeatedly with U.S. and NATO commanders to consult Afghan authorities during operations and show more restraint.

Karzai also denounced the Taliban for killing civilians, but directed most of his anger at foreign forces.

In one of the recent incidents lamented by Karzai, police said NATO airstrikes killed 25 civilians along with 20 militants who fired on alliance and Afghan troops from a walled compound in the southern province of Helmand.

On Sunday, Helmand provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain said British gunfire killed one man after the troops were attacked, but it was not clear if the victim was a civilian or a militant involved in the attack.

Raz Mohammad Sayed, director of a local hospital, said one man was killed, and another man was wounded by British gunfire. He referred to both victims as "civilians."

NATO blames the insurgents for hiding among civilians, and insisted that troops had the right to defend themselves.

"If someone's firing at me, he's a combatant," Thomas said.

Another NATO spokesman, Nicholas Lunt, said, "We need to do better than we have been doing so far. But unlike the Taliban, we do not set out to cause civilian casualties, and that is a critical difference."

In Helmand's Langar village, Afghan and coalition troops clashed with insurgents and called in airstrikes Saturday, killing more than a dozen militants, one coalition soldier and an Afghan soldier, the coalition said.

Other violence around Afghanistan Sunday killed three policemen and wounded six. Roadside bombs killed three soldiers and wounded five, officials said.
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Britain's Brown urged to take new approach on Afghanistan
Mon Jun 25, 9:50 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - An international think-tank urged Britain's incoming prime minister Gordon Brown to take a new approach over Afghanistan to prevent a resurgence of the hardline Taliban.

"Gordon Brown must make changing the policies in Afghanistan his first priority in the early days of his mandate," said Norine MacDonald, president of the Senlis Council, in a statement.

"If Brown continues to follow (US President George W.) Bush-style policies in Afghanistan, he will soon find himself confronted with the same unmanageable chaos that is now seen in Iraq."

The organisation said Brown, who takes over from Tony Blair on Wednesday, should recognise that despite good intentions, Afghans were accumulating "legitimate grievances" and more action was needed to win hearts and minds.

It said Afghans were concerned over the numbers of civilians killed in NATO bombing raids and a lack of food aid while Afghan farmers were dissatisfied at the forced eradication of poppy crops to curb the lucrative trade in opium.

In particular, it highlighted US policy of eradicating poppies but not offering any alternative crop for farmers.

"The Taliban are taking advantage of our errors and are using these grievances to become an increasingly legitimate political movement in southern Afghanistan," said MacDonald, a lawyer who lives and works in Afghanistan.

"We are winning the local military mission, but not the strategic political mission.

"Incoming prime minister Brown must move quickly with new approaches or (Afghan) President (Hamid) Karzai will lose southern Afghanistan."

Brown took over from Blair as leader of the governing Labour Party Sunday but gave no indication of his future policy on Afghanistan, where about 6,700 British troops are based, mainly in the restive Helmand province in the south.

A total of 61 British service personnel have died in Afghanistan since military action began in November 2001 to oust the Taliban.
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Taliban turn gunsights to Afghan police
About 300 Afghan police officers have been killed in the past three months, making 2007 the worst year ever for the country's undertrained, underpaid police force.
By JASON MOTLAGH | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
Col. Muhammad Hussein could not hide his frustration with the new recruits.

It was the penultimate day of a 10-day training crash course for a rag-tag batch of auxiliary police. The fledgling Afghan government needs the new recruits to enforce the law amid a mounting guerrilla insurgency, and the men were far from ready for the mean streets of this former Taliban capital.

Colonel Hussein barked at one young man for not keeping his red simulation weapon trained on a suspect vehicle during a search exercise. But training difficulties were only half of the problem. Today, Hussein says, there is no guarantee the cash-strapped state will be able to replace the recruit's fake gun with a real one.

"The real threat is now against [the police]," says Hekmat Karzai, head of the Kabul-based Center for Conflict and Peace Studies, which focuses on security and terrorism analysis. "Strategically, it makes sense to attack Afghan security forces where morally it gives people a complex about whether it is worth joining."

The growing strength of the Afghan National Army, which has inflicted heavy casualties against the Taliban this year with robust NATO support and improved training and equipment, has prompted a resurgent Taliban to target the poorly equipped police officers, who each receive only slightly more than half a soldier's pay.

Meanwhile, the lack of funds has left the police virtually empty-handed in the fight against guerrillas armed with heavy weapons such as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, says Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary.

The Taliban's hit-and-run tactics have killed more than 300 police in the last three months, according to the Interior Ministry, making this the worst year ever for police casualties.

"What the police have to face them [with] are AK-47s, and, at the maximum, PKMs. That's it," Mr. Bashary opined, referring to a higher-caliber Soviet-made machine gun.

Critical posts in areas beyond the reach of multinational forces are harder to fill as a result, while many wearing a badge engage in graft and other criminal activities to make ends meet, eroding public faith.

In some districts with more than 100,000 people, there are just 25 to 30 police stretched thin by daily law enforcement demands – battling insurgents when necessary and lending a hand in drug eradication, something that makes them easy targets, say Afghan officials.

In what amounted to both a literal and symbolic blow to state authority, the June 17 bus bombing in the capital – the deadliest since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 – left at least 35 people dead on the doorstep of police headquarters – most of them police trainees.

In the span of one week earlier this month, a Taliban ambush in southern Zabul Province left 16 officers dead; a district police chief in eastern Paktika Province was killed when a roadside bomb exploded his vehicle; and militants attacked another officer's house in southern Ghazni Province and killed five members of his family, indicating the threat to relatives or those who cooperate with the police. Many officers have reported finding it difficult to return to their home villages because their police work has marked them as government sympathizers.

"Police working in remote places are in trouble. The ones here cannot feed their family or help themselves either," Hussein says, noting that the paltry $70 monthly wage policemen are supposed to earn is often $10 less once it passes through the bureaucracy. "A bag of flour costs nearly [$35]. How can we solve any problem with this?"

Such dire circumstances have the inevitable backlash of fueling drug-related corruption and predatory tendencies among police forces. The World Bank says low-paying police chief posts are bought and sold in bidding wars that allow the holder to tax poppy farmers and drug traffickers. In these situations, farmers who can't afford to pay bribes must often see their crops destroyed.

To compensate, some provinces have seen the formation of traditional tribal policing systems. The Ghazni provincial police chief, for example, has said he could summon at least 500 militiamen to combat insurgents if needed; similar claims have been made by community leaders in other troubled provinces.

The government is also establishing a 5,000-man reserve force known as the Afghan National Civil Order Police. It will be deployed to central provinces where it can provide "quick-response support wherever regular police are attacked," says Bashary, adding that the first 300 recruits have arrived in Kabul for the final phase of training. "They will go in and pound the enemy, and then withdraw."

Adding to that, the European Union has taken over police training duties from Germany, dispatching 60 advisers to restive districts to improve capabilities, with another 100 on their way. More are expected to arrive as the Afghan government seeks to boost police forces by 20,000 men from the current level of about 62,000 over the next couple of years, the spokesman said.

The United States, for its part, is providing armored vehicles resistant to mines and attacks from improvised exposive devices, and Afghan officials are optimistic that a large slice of the $8 billion security package Congress approved earlier this year will be spent on police reform.

"All of the international community now understands that the police are the main factor for security and stability in the provinces," says Bashary. "They are directly engaged on the front lines … and should at least be paid equal to the Army, since they are doing very much more."

Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, head of the Combined Security Transition Command, which is tasked with carrying out police reform, says he expects salaries to be raised to Army level within a month. To address internal problems, police have also set up their own system for investigating corruption in the ranks, including a toll-free number installed three months ago that has reportedly received dozens of complaint calls on matters ranging from pay distribution to mistreatment at the hands of superiors.

So in the meantime, what are the incentives to wear a uniform?

"We love our country and are working almost without salary," says Ahmed Haidari, a soon-to-be graduate from the Kabul Police Academy. "Our country has known war for many years, and we will not back down now from the Taliban."

But, he adds, "If I get married, I might have to find a different job. Women and children are expensive."
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NATO-led force to probe Afghan detainee abuse report
Mon Jun 25, 10:23 AM ET
(Following official correction to original U.S. military statement, this repeats to change headline and first paragraph to make clear that ISAF, not U.S. military, is conducting probe)

KABUL (Reuters) - The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) has began an investigation into a report that says U.S. and Afghan soldiers were involved in abusing a suspect, the military said.

The U.S. soldier in question has been temporarily removed from his post pending an investigation, the U.S.-military said in a statement.

Wolfgang Bauer, a correspondent with the German magazine Focus, reported this month that along with a magazine photographer he witnessed an incident by U.S. and Afghan soldiers he believed amounted to torture.

Focus reported that during a search of a village for Taliban fighters, a patrol apprehended a suspect in a house in Ghazni, southwest of Kabul.

When the suspect refused to talk, the magazine said, an Afghan platoon leader tied one end of a rope to the suspect's foot and the other to a vehicle and then threatened to drag the man unless he told the truth.

Focus reported that the platoon leader then had an American soldier start the motor. The magazine printed a picture of what it said was the prisoner tied to the vehicle, with a soldier standing nearby.

After idling for two minutes, the vehicle's motor was shut off. The man was not dragged, the magazine reported, and the suspect was set free.

The U.S. soldier, a "fighter against terrorism, is suddenly, according to international law, a criminal," Bauer wrote.

Additionally, the article said that family members of the suspect were threatened.

"U.S. military officials have initiated an investigation in response to an article," the U.S. military said.

"This alleged behavior goes against everything the U.S. military stands for and believes in," it said quoting Army Colonel Martin P. Schweitzer, a commander for foreign troops in the region of the incident.

The Afghan army has also initiated an investigation, the U.S. military said.

U.S. soldiers form the bulk of nearly 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. They are hunting Taliban and their al Qaeda allies and have arrested hundreds of militant suspects since the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001.

Many former detainees have made allegations of mistreatment or torture while in detention and there have also been a number of unexplained deaths.
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Will PM become a casualty of Afghanistan?
By James Travers Toronto Star Ottawa (Jun 25, 2007)
How many is too many? How long is long enough?
Those troubling questions central to any Afghanistan exit are tumbling into the vacuum that politics abhors and politicians are leaving behind in their hungry rush to the barbecue circuit. On their own, or as part of a parliamentary consensus that Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion sparred over last week, they demand answers sooner rather than later.

With deaths rising to 60, the prime minister is now publicly recalibrating an unknown. Eventually casualty and war opposition trend lines will intersect where the mission becomes so politically costly that compromise becomes essential.

That point creeps closer as prospects of shaping Afghanistan into a model democracy hurtle toward the horizon. Even as NATO's secretary-general begged Ottawa to extend its military role beyond 2009, Britain's new ambassador to Kabul measured the rescue as a 30-year marathon.

That's problematic even for Brits accustomed empire's obligations. It certainly won't work here for a minority government trying to keep its majority dreams from turning to dust.

What makes the prime minister's foreign priority particularly slippery is the absence of domestic traction. His hollow 2007 achievement is a budget written for an election that never happened and now has three premiers screaming broken promise.

True, dyspeptic Liberals and the constant bridesmaid NDP aren't taking full advantage of Conservative drift. But Harper is on course for voter punishment, a route best changed by returning to a solid ground agenda and by making other parties -- and more voters -- fellow travellers on the road to Afghanistan.

The latter is most challenging. Conservatives who rode five easy campaign priorities close to the opinion poll summit continue to stumble over explanations for a difficult mission that wander from retribution for 9/11 to Samaritan reconstruction.

No matter how long it takes Afghanistan to run away from feudalism, Harper is in a sprint. With the deadline for any post-2009 combat extension approaching fast, there's no time to lose finding a winning position -- or at least the election cover a consensus would provide.

Staying in harm's way with most NATO partners safely out of range is not politically acceptable. But retreating after such wrenching losses and with the job unfinished makes nonsense of Canada's commitment.

If the Taliban and its al-Qaeda parasites were North American security threats in 2001 then surely a stable Afghanistan is in Canada's 2007 interest. Self-evident as that seems, the equation is as suspect as the objective is elusive.

Foreign boots on Islamic soil is no terrorism panacea. Equally germane, history suggests long Afghanistan stays come to a sorry end.

Harper now has an opportunity to move beyond jingoism and come clean with Canadians about what can realistically be achieved. At additional cost in blood and money, Afghanistan might just be edged a little closer to modernity and a little farther away from extremism.

But Conservatives aren't fully comfortable with modest goals. And Harper has yet to say Canadians won't continue paying so much more than their allies.

Shifting those positions is difficult and requires a compelling new narrative. The alternative is worse.

A prime minister who made this war his own must cope with it or become one of its casualties.

Growing with every death and doubt, Afghanistan is expanding into the space that Harper must fill this fall with new priorities and renewed purpose.

Conservatives need that elbow room so desperately that their rivals will keep crowding them on Afghanistan.
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Dutch court acquits Afghan of war crimes in pre-Taliban era
The Associated Press Monday, June 25, 2007
 THE HAGUE, Netherlands: A Dutch court Monday acquitted a former high-ranking Afghan military intelligence officer of war crimes, citing insufficient evidence.

The suspect, identified by prosecutors as Abdullah F., 57, was accused of torturing and overseeing the torture of suspects while he was acting chief of the agency Khad-e-Nezami during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989.

He fled his country in 1994 and was refused asylum in the Netherlands, but he remained illegally in the country.

He was arrested in October 2006 as part of a push by the Dutch government to prosecute potential war criminals under the "universal jurisdiction" principle, which says that every country has a duty to prosecute crimes against humanity regardless of where they took place.

In 2005, the same court convicted the agency's chief, Hesamuddin Hesam, and the head of its interrogation department, Habibullah Jalalzoy, of torture as a war crime and sentenced them 12 and 9 years.

But judges said in their written ruling Monday that testimony against Abdullah F. by two alleged victims was unreliable. In addition, they said he could not be held responsible for the actions of subordinates at times he temporarily headed the agency since it wasn't proved he had "effective control" over them.
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Landslide kills 8 children in northern Afghanistan
Monday June 25, 6:35 PM
(Kyodo) _ A landslide in northern Afghanistan has killed eight children, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

The children aged 6 to 14 were playing in a wedding party when a landslide struck Sunday evening in Kunduz Province, the ministry said in a statement.

Earlier this month, a landslide triggered by melting snow killed eight members of a family in neighboring Takhar Province.

In Afghanistan, natural disasters such as landslides and floods often occur at this time of the year when snow on the mountains melts.
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FEATURE - Afghans resist closure of their Pakistani camp
Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:27 AM IST By Zeeshan Haider
JUNGLE PIR ALIZAI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities want to close down the Jungle Pir Alizai refugee camp and send its residents to Afghanistan because they say the camp is infested with militants, guns and drugs.

A desolate settlement of mud-walled homes sprawling across a desert ringed by distant mountains, the camp in southwest Pakistan was first set up after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Pakistan now wants to close the refugee camp and send its inhabitants home, or resettle them in another camp.

Pakistan says its Afghan refugee camps have become havens for the Taliban, who are fighting an intensified insurgency in Afghanistan, and it has earmarked four camps for closure this year, including Pir Alizai.

The U.N. refugee agency, which is running a voluntary repatriation programme for Afghans, gave up on the camp in 2005 after it lost its "humanitarian value", an agency official said.

"It could no longer be considered, by UNHCR standards, a humanitarian camp. There was trafficking of arms, drugs and miscreants were living there," said the official, who declined to be identified.

But closing the camp won't be easy.

Afghans say they don't want to go home to a country at war, while many inhabitants of the camp say they are not even Afghans, but Pakistanis -- and they have the papers to prove it.

One resident, Ahmedullah, has spent his whole life in Pakistan as a refugee and says he desperately wants to go home. But the unrelenting war is stopping him.

"Can you tell me anyone on earth who does not love his home, and does not want to live in his home?" the lanky 16-year-old shouted as he stood among a crowd of youngsters outside a grocery shop in the camp.

"Give us peace and we will go home."

Most of the Afghans living in small houses along dusty lanes, 50 km from the Afghan border, come from the Afghan south where over the past 12 months or so the heaviest Afghan fighting has raged since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001.

Abdul Ghani, a bearded 65-year-old, said many people had been killed, including hundreds of Taliban militants, by NATO forces in his home region of Panjwai, in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

The inhabitants of Pir Alizai have already demonstrated their opposition to the closure of their camp.

Last month, two people were killed and five wounded in a shootout after security forces demolished houses in the camp.

"WE'RE PAKISTANIS"

Another problem facing the authorities hoping to close the camp and send its residents to Afghanistan is that many of the inhabitants say they are Pakistanis, not Afghans at all.

According to a 2005 U.N. census, the camp was home to 35,000 Afghans. But thousands of Pakistani villagers fleeing drought and tribal feuds have moved to the camp, raising its total population to more than 100,000, residents say.

Some residents said up to 80 percent of inhabitants were Pakistani ethnic Pashtuns. Pashtuns live on both sides of the largely unmarked border that was drawn during British colonial times through their lands.

"We're Pakistanis. I have as much right to be in Pakistan as you have. Why are you forcing me to Afghanistan?" said Haji Zardad Kakozai, head of a 25-member residents' committee that manages camp affairs.

As Kakozai spoke, other members of the committee took out Pakistani identity cards and held them up for inspection.

"All of us have decided that if the government wants to send us to jail, we will go to jail. If it kills us, we will die, but we will not leave," Kakozai said.

Pakistani officials say many Afghans have acquired identity cards and some have mingled into the population through marriage. Many Afghans live and run businesses in Pakistani cities and towns across the country.

"They carry both identities. They show their Afghan cards when they get aid meant for refugees, otherwise they show themselves as Pakistanis," said a government official in the provincial capital, Quetta.

Kakozai, a heavy-set Pashtun with a big turban wrapped around his head, also denied there were any al Qaeda or Taliban guerrillas hiding out in the camp.

"I have told authorities 2,000 times that if you find a single al Qaeda man or training camp for militants you should slaughter all 25 of us," he said, referring to the committee.

More than 4.6 million Afghans have gone home from Pakistan and Iran since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. But about 3 million Afghans are still in Pakistan and 2 million in Iran.

Iran recently forced about 100,000 Afghans back and the United Nations has urged Pakistan not to send its refugees home, saying impoverished Afghanistan was already swamped by the people evicted from Iran.
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Attack plotted against German minister in Afghanistan
Sun Jun 24, 1:43 PM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - German authorities learned of a plot to attack Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung when he visited Afghanistan earlier this month, the defence ministry said on Sunday.

Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe told reporters Jung's delegation was warned of a possible attack just after the minister had paid a visit to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on June 6.

"When the minister was due to travel from the president's palace to the airport, we received a tip-off that an attack could take place on the road," he said.

He said the German army then changed the minister's travel route.

"We also took several other safety precautions which I do not want to divulge. We took the tip-off very seriously," he said.

Raabe's statement confirmed a report published on Sunday in Germany's top-selling newspaper Bild.

Jung also visited German troops stationed in Afghanistan during the trip, which was not officially announced for security reasons.

Germany has around 3,000 troops in Afghanistan serving under NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them in the relatively calm north of the country.

On May 19, a suicide bomb killed three German soldiers and six civilians in a crowded market in the town of Kunduz, 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Kabul, in Germany's biggest loss in Afghanistan since 2003.

A few days after Jung's visit, a newspaper said a foreign ministry report had warned that more attacks on German troops were to be expected.
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Arab militants join fight in Afghanistan
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 24, 2:30 PM ET
JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Arab Islamic radicals who fled Afghanistan in the U.S.-led invasion are coming back, eager to support suicide bombers in their increasingly frequent and effective attacks on Western and Afghan forces.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, young militants feel that "Allah's victory seems to be drawing near" and see parallels with the stalemating of the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and its ultimate withdrawal, said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official who until 2004 headed a team that searched for Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaida is bringing back fighters it sent home after the post-9/11 invasion, he said. Al-Qaida leaders have written that "it would take three or four years to get the insurgency restarted. They seem to be pretty much on schedule and are bringing more fighters back into the theater," he said.

Seth Jones, counterinsurgency expert at the U.S.-based Rand Corporation, said the influx is in the dozens or low hundreds, but is increasing, along with a fervor reminiscent of the 1980s, when Arabs such as the Saudi-born bin Laden flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

Attacks have surged. From Jan. 1 to May 31, 2006, 11 suicide attacks took 63 lives. In the same period of this year, 42 attacks killed 171 people, according to AP compiled statistics.

The AP figures only cover incidents in which deaths were reported. The actual number of suicide bombings is likely higher, as many incidents go unreported or uncounted. The AP tally is compiled from hospital, police and military officials cited in news stories, as well as accounts from reporters and photographers at the scene. The security personnel include Afghan military, police and bodyguards.

Battles in Afghanistan are on a smaller scale than in Iraq. However, Afghanistan's importance to Islamic radicals is great. Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Andrew Black, co-founder of Thistle Intelligence Group, an independent security studies group based in the U.S. and Britain, says the fight in Afghanistan has an alluring clarity for Arab militants compared with Iraq, where war against the West is mixed up with sectarian strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

"With the Iraqi insurgency beginning to show signs of fissures ... recruits will be more readily enticed to travel to Afghanistan, where the enemy is well defined," said Black. "Should the internecine fighting in Iraq become prolonged, the Afghan venue, and indeed other venues as well, will reap the benefits of added recruits."

Afghan Army Gen. Ghulam Mustafa Ishaqzai, who has 350 troops patrolling near the Pakistan border, said the Arab influx has been going on for more than a year.

Ishaqzai, a veteran commander who was shot and lost the use of his left arm fighting the Soviets, said suicide bombings were once rare in his command area, eastern Nangarhar province. Since the beginning of the year, there have been a half-dozen, all targeting Western or Afghan forces, he said.

The new Arab recruits usually arrive in groups of four or five, Ishaqzai said, and are led to training camps by an Arab veteran of Afghanistan who dresses like an Afghan and speaks Pashtu.

"The guy who brings them ... has been here for years, during the jihad and after. He speaks Pashtu like I speak Pashtu. He doesn't have to sneak in. He can just walk in. He can drive in on this road right here," he said, pointing to the highway from the mountains that run along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At his headquarters three miles from the border, Ishaqzai fidgeted with his useless left arm as he explained the allure of Afghanistan to the Arabs.

The battles today, like those against the Soviet occupiers, are also fought with religious verve. The Taliban and al-Qaida fight under a black flag connoting the participation of Islam's prophet in their battle for Khorasan, the ancient name for the region centered around Afghanistan.

Khorasan increasingly features in the militants' videos and the name was taped to the leg of a suicide bomber who killed 24 people in Pakistan's Northwest Province this spring.

"One should not underestimate the theological importance of Khorasan to aspiring mujahedeen; particularly those who are only able to initially view the conflict through the Internet," said Black.

Brian Glyn Williams, author of a report for the U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation on Afghan suicide attacks, also said the senior Arab militants are the recruiters and trainers who indoctrinate young men, most of them Afghans, to sacrifice their lives to kill Westerners and their Afghan allies. No Arab has yet been found to have been a suicide bomber.

"Nothing in the Taliban-al-Qaida arsenal seems to have been as effective as a shock weapon against the militarily superior Afghan National Army and (Western) troops as suicide bombers," he said.

After interviews with Western and Afghan intelligence sources, a former deputy intelligence chief under the Taliban regime, and an occasional spokesman for the Taliban, a grainy picture of the al-Qaida camps emerges.

At camps in Burmal and Zirooki in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province, Abu Yahia al-Libi, from Libya, who escaped U.S. custody in Bagram in 2005, trains suicide bombers along with an estimated 150 Arab militants. He too is releasing videos through al-Qaida's As Sahab company.

In Pakistan's Waziristan tribal area, terrorist training camps are being operated by Arabs in Shawal and Lawara, two districts tucked away in mountains so forested that local people say even the sun can't be seen.
___

AP Researcher Monika Mathur in New York contributed to this report.
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Taliban expected to free deminers, official says
Mon Jun 25, 2:19 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban were expected to free 18 mine-clearing experts they seized at the weekend, an official for the group said on Monday.

The 18 Afghans were taken on Saturday along with four specialist mine-sniffing dogs in the Andar district of Ghazni province, part of the eastern and southern areas where the Taliban are at their strongest.

The Taliban threatened at the time to kill them if investigations showed they were working for U.S.-led or Afghan forces in the country.

"Through our contacts and mediation in this issue, we have been assured that all will be released soon," Shohab Hakimi, head of the non-governmental Mine Detection Dog Centre (MDC), told Reuters.

Nine MDC staff and 9 others from the Mine Clearance Planning Agency made up the seized group.

Afghanistan remains one of the mostly heavily mined countries in the world, a legacy of decades of conflict as well as the 10-year Soviet occupation.

A number of non-governmental bodies have mine-clearing operations in the country, and their activities have been well supported at home and in the West following the international campaign spearheaded by Britain's late Princess Diana.

Taliban fighters have executed a number of Afghans and several foreigners they have accused of spying or working for the U.S.-led foreign forces since their overthrow in 2001.

The rebels scattered after they were driven from power but have now re-grouped in the south and east -- the poppy-producing regions responsible for over 90 percent of the world's heroin -- and are engaged in daily clashes with U.S-led and Afghan troops as summer heralds an increase in fighting.
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UK to send new armed vehicles to Iraq and Afghanistan
Reuters - Monday, June 25 02:35 pm
LONDON (Reuters) - The Ministry of Defence said on Monday it would buy new British-built armed vehicles for use on patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The MWMIK will deliver a new level of power ...with more firepower and a better range and mobility. It will be fast for a 4 tonne vehicle, with a potential top speed of 80 mph (128 km/h)," the ministry said in a statement.

It can be fitted with a range of firepower including a .50 calibre machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher and a general purpose machine gun, as well as carrying up to four troops with their own weapons.

The ministry said it planned to acquire a fleet of 130 of the vehicles for delivery through 2008 and was doing so under the ministry's "Urgent Operational Requirement" provision for delivering supplies to troops quickly.

The vehicle is designed by Supacat and manufactured by Devonport Management Ltd (DML), which Babcock International agreed to buy in May.
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Afghan refugees convert in Norway
OSLO, Norway, June 25 (UPI) -- Several Afghan refugees fighting deportation from Norway have converted to Christianity.

Norway won't deport people whose lives would be in danger and converting to Christianity would result in death threats for the Afghans at home, Aftenposten reported.

Norway rejected asylum applications from 45 Afghans and the refugees were expected to be deported over the weekend. The deportations were put on hold after Oslo Lutheran Bishop Ole Christian Kvarme told immigration officials that several had converted to Christianity, Aftenposten reported.

Other refugees, meanwhile, said they are setting up an "asylum academy" outside an Oslo church.
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ARTF provides grant support to enable government pay wages and improve utilization of government and donor resources
Source: The World Bank Group 25 Jun 2007
Over 200,000 civil servants, mostly outside the capital, receive monthly salaries without any delay

KABUL, June 25 2007 - The Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) Management Committee approved a US$80 million package of grant assistance for Afghanistan, of which US$70 million will help the Government pay wages of non-uniformed civil servants and US$10 million to improve the utilization of government and donor resources.

The US$70 million grant, which is out of the US$270 million recurrent costs approved in the national budget for 1386, finances salaries and wages of over 200,000 non-uniformed civil servants, mostly teachers and doctors, and the Government's operating and maintenance expenditures outside of the security sector. Between May 2002 and March 20, 2007, the ARTF provided nearly US$1.2 billion to the Government of Afghanistan for recurrent cost financing, of which US$1.06 billion had been disbursed.

The Government is gradually improving its own revenue base, through customs and taxation, so it can pay its recurrent costs fully in the future. Improvements are being made, and in 1385, revenue collection was 40 percent above the previous year. However, it will be some time before the Government is fully able to support its recurrent costs.

"Over the past five years, Afghanistan's capacity to absorb donor assistance has improved much," said Alastair J. Mckechnie, World Bank Country Director for Afghanistan. "However, many challenges remain to build government capacity, particularly at sub-national level where it is hard to find professional and experienced civil servants. Moreover, the government needs to build a more accountable and transparent systems in place to convince donors to channel their assistance through government budget."

The US$10 million grant for the Management Capacity Program will help ministries to temporarily improve their capacity in key managerial areas. This should enable the government to manage resources more effectively and deliver results faster on the ground. The program will fund qualified Afghan staff, currently working in NGOs and international agencies, to work in critical positions in government in areas such as financial management, procurement, human resource management, policy and administration. A priority will be given to positions in sub-national offices of line ministries.

About ARTF:

The multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was set up in May 2002 to provide support to Afghanistan in two areas. First, it provides for the recurrent costs of the government, such as the salaries of teachers, health workers, civilian staff in ministries and provinces, operations, and maintenance expenditures; and bulk purchases of essential goods for the government. Second, it supports investment projects, capacity building, feasibility studies, technical assistance, and the return of expatriate Afghans.

The ARTF is administered by the World Bank under the supervision of a Management Committee comprising the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank. Government representatives (mainly from the Ministry of Finance) also participate in the monthly

Management Committee meetings as observers. A monitoring agent has been recruited to assist in ensuring proper fiduciary management for the recurrent cost financing done under ARTF.

As of June 13, 2007, 27 donors had pledged US$2.22 billion to ARTF, of which more than US$1.85 billion had been received. Over US$1 billion had been disbursed to the Government of Afghanistan to help cover recurrent costs, and US$420 million has been disbursed for investment projects.

The ARTF has emerged as one of the main instruments for financing the country's recurrent budget deficit, and is set to evolve into a major source of technical assistance and investment support for Afghanistan.

For more information on:

- The World Bank's work in Afghanistan - http://www.worldbank.org.af

- The ARTF - http://www.worldbank.org/artf

Media Contacts in Kabul:
At the World Bank
Abdul Raouf Zia 0700 280 800 Azia@worldbank.org
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World Bank to help build 14 schools in Nuristan
JALALABAD, June 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Fourteen schools will be constructed in three districts of the eastern Nuristan province with financial support from the World Bank.

Provincial Governor Tamim Nuristani told Pajhwok Afghan News on Saturday the schools would be set up in Dowaba, Nangraj and Wama districts by the Education Ministry in a period of eight months.

Nuristani added each school - cost $32,000 - would have six to eight rooms. The education sector in the remote province was in a shambles, the governor acknowledged, hoping it would get better with the constriction of the new schools.
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Gen. Azimi says Taliban considerably undermined
KABUL, June 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A Defence Ministry official Saturday rejected Talibans claim of adopting tactics used by fighters in Iraq as mere propaganda and said the militants had considerably weakened.

Speaking to reporters after a conference here, Gen. Zahir Azimi said: We believe it is psychological warfare that Taliban have always employed; the enemy has no capacity to copy Iraq war tactics."

The Defence Ministry spokesman insisted that Kabul was not Baghdad and most Afghans were supportive of the system that had been put in place in their country.

Earlier, President Hamid Karzai said in an interview the situation in Iraq was hugely different from conditions obtaining in Afghanistan. Considerably undermined, Taliban and al-Qaeda posed no long-term threat to his country, he added.

Azimi was reacting to a statement from Taliban spokesman Zabeehullah Mujahid that guerrillas, in a shift of war tactics, would increase attacks on Kabul.

The ministry spokesman argued counter-insurgency operations, mounting pressure on funding sources of militants and speedy development of the Afghan National Army (ANA) had weakened Taliban to the extent that they had halted face-to face fighting.

In the ongoing Operation Maiwand, the Afghan forces were facing fewer enemies, Gen. Azimi maintained, saying propaganda, roadside bomb blasts, suicide attacks and limited ambushes were what Taliban had to rely on.

Azimi earlier addressed a conference on coordination on reconstruction in the embattled provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan and Helmand. Also in attendance were deputy ministers of education, public health, rural rehabilitation and development, defence and interior.
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Steps on to address Afghan traders' concerns: Minister
KABUL, June 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Minister for Commerce and Industries Mir Muhammad Amin Farhang Saturday said strenuous efforts were being made to further strengthen the countrys war-hit economy.

Although the infrastructure sector had seen significant development over the last five years, the minister admitted traders faced several problems and a number of hurdles remained to fast-paced economic growth.

Addressing a news conference at Afghanistan's Central Bank here, Farhang cited an inadequate network of roads, a deficient power supply system, the absence of small business loans, high income tax rates, administrative corruption and insecurity as the main challenges facing Afghan traders.

In an attempt to deal with the challenges, he said, more than 3000-kilometer roads had been asphalted during the last five years back. Routes linking Afghanistan with neighbouring countries would be completed soon, he assured.

Simultaneously, the commerce minister continued, work was also underway on several electricity projects and industrial parks to address the concerns of entrepreneurs.

Farhang pointed out that import duties on goods also produced in the country had been raised while income tax on import of equipment and raw material - not domestically available - had been lowered.

They were in talks with the Finance Ministry on further reform in the Customs Department to resolve genuine problems of businessmen, who often complain of bribes extorted from them on transit roads. He revealed a committee headed by Vice President Karim Khalili had been set up to sort out such problems.

Farhang said the Afghan government was holding negotiations with international finance institutions (IFIs) and lenders on providing loans to traders.

Afghanistan's exports reached $500 million last year, registering a five-fold increase, said the minister, who acknowledged the trade deficit was still very high. In 2006, the countrys imports stood at $3.5 billion, he said while stressing improved quality of local products.
Zainab Muhammadi
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