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June 26, 2007 

Afghanistan's opium battle will take years: govt
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's government said there is no silver bullet to halt the country's booming opium production, which is financing the Taliban insurgency.

But the country's counter-narcotics minister, speaking at an event to mark the United Nations day against drug use and trafficking, vowed that the police and judiciary would soon start to effectively tackle the problem.

The UN released overnight its 2007 World Drug Report, which revealed a 49 percent leap last year in Afghanistan's production of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin.

It also reiterated that the country supplied 92 percent of the world's opium.

"The issue of narcotics is a problem that cannot be solved in a year or two," said the minister, Habibullah Qaderi.

"Afghanistan is a war-torn country," he said. "There is no proper infrastructure, there is no proper roads... each and every thing has fallen apart."

But he added that "as development takes place, as police reform grows (and) the judicial system improves, I can guarantee that there will be certainly in the future a reduction in the drugs problem."

The government was not considering using chemicals to eradicate opium poppy fields, he added.

"Aerial and ground spraying were discussed last year and the Afghan government refused. There has not been discussion about it again," he said.

The United States has been pushing such methods but the Afghan government has resisted, in part because of concerns about its implications for peoples' health and livelihoods.

US ambassador William Wood told the event that about 10 percent of the heroin in his country was from Afghanistan and if this increased, Washington would consider a more "forceful response".

He did not elaborate but said this would be "based on consensus with the government of Afghanistan and international community."

According to the UN report, about 62 percent of Afghanistan's opium crop, worth about three billion dollars a year, comes from the south of the country, where Taliban insurgents are the strongest.

"Narcotics are directly linked to terrorists. Drugs provide part of terrorists' expenses," presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi told journalists at a separate briefing.

"Taking into consideration the demand and supply, the issue of drugs is an international problem and not only Afghanistan's," he said.
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Afghan Helmand province becoming main drug supplier
By Karin Strohecker
VIENNA (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Helmand province, heartland of Taliban guerrillas fighting NATO forces, is about to become the world's largest drug supplier, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Helmand, a province in the south of Afghanistan, cultivated more drugs than entire countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even Colombia, the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) said in its 2007 World Drug Report.

"Helmand province, severely threatened by insurgency, is becoming the world's biggest drug supplier. In Afghanistan, opium is a security issue more than a drug issue," UNODC Director Antonio Marias Costa said in the report's preface.

"Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic, and go a long way to bringing security to the region."

While the amount of land under illicit poppy cultivation fell by 10 percent globally between 2000 and 2006, global opium production soared by 43 percent to a record high of 6,610 tons in 2006 from a year earlier.

This was due to a shift in output from inferior Southeast Asian fields to more productive ones in Afghanistan -- which in 2006 produced 92 percent of all opium in the world.

Other worrying signs came from Africa, suggesting the impoverished continent could find itself at the crossroads of international drug crime.

AFRICA "UNDER ATTACK"
"There are warning signs that Africa is also under attack, targeted by cocaine traffickers from the west -- Colombia -- and heroin smugglers in the east -- Afghanistan," the report said.

"This threat needs to be addressed quickly to stamp out drug-related crime, money-laundering and corruption, and to prevent the spread of drug use that could cause havoc across a continent already plagued by other tragedies."

The cultivation, production and abuse of almost every kind of drug around the world -- cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants -- had stabilized overall.

"Progress made in some areas is often offset by negative trends elsewhere," wrote Costa. "But overall, we seem to have reached a point where the world drug situation has stabilized and been brought under control."

With some 160 million annual customers, cannabis provides the largest illicit drug market by far. According to U.N. estimates, global cannabis herb production eased by some 6 percent to 42,000 tons in 2005 from a year earlier.

"For the first time in years, we do not see an upward trend in the global production and consumption of cannabis," Costa said.

Cocaine production has remained largely stable over the past few years. It was estimated at 984 tons in 2006 amid signs of a drop in cultivation in Andean countries, especially Colombia.

Global output of amphetamine-style stimulants was estimated to have nudged down by 2 percent to 478 tons in 2005.
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Record Afghan Opium Harvest Drives Global High
June 26, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says illegal opium production in Afghanistan increased by nearly half in 2006 compared to the record harvest of a year earlier.

In a report released today in Vienna, the UNODC says Afghanistan accounted for practically all the world's illegal opium production during 2006.

The report says Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by almost 50 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high.

The authors say that the Afghan increase boosted global opium production from 3,800 tons in 2005 to 6,600 tons in 2006. Opium is the main ingredient for heroin.

'Weak Link'

UNODC research expert Thomas Pietschmann says Afghanistan is clearly a black spot in the world when it comes to cultivation of the opium poppy.

"The really serious problem we face in the world, this is Afghanistan," Pietschmann says. "Ninety-two percent of the world's [opium] production is in Afghanistan. We have seen a dramatic increase in production in the year 2006 -- 49 percent in production in Afghanistan -- mostly in southern provinces. And there is no question that Afghanistan is the weak link at the moment."

UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa warns that within Afghanistan, the insurgency-plagued southern province of Helmand is becoming the center of supply, with illicit cultivation larger than in the rest of the country put together.

Costa says that if the opium production in Helmand could be curbed, it would rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic. He blames the endemic poverty, corruption, and warfare for creating the right conditions for such massive production of illegal drugs.

"The situation in Afghanistan is not acceptable, but not only because of the drug situation -- because of the poverty, because of instability, because of the corruption, because of the insurgency," Costa says. "The great increase in drug cultivation and [drug] processing which we have seen in the last couple of years is a consequence of that. It's not necessarily the trigger of all that."

Poppy Density

The report says that no other drug in the world is produced in such a concentrated, single area.

Pietschmann says that what is needed to wean farmers away from poppy cultivation is to end the insurgency and give local farmers an alternative with which they can earn money. He says that, at present, the link between the Taliban-led insurgency and the cultivation of opium poppies is clear.

"What has to be done is a combination of strengthening the rule of law -- there's a lot of insurgents in the south of the country, precisely in these areas where you have the highest levels of cultivation and production in the country -- but in parallel, you have to strengthen alternative development assistance going to the farmers," Pietschmann says. "At the moment, because there is such an insurgency, all of the alternative development programs are not working in the south of the country. So you have to break this vicious circle."

Another significant change in the illegal drug market is that laboratories inside Afghanistan are now converting 90 percent of the opium into heroin and morphine before smuggling it around the world. AFP news agency quotes UNODC officials as saying in Kabul that until two years ago, Afghanistan exported almost exclusively raw opium.

The report says that even if the outlook in Afghanistan is bleak, there has been success in curbing opium production in the so-called Golden Triangle, where Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet. There, the cultivation of poppies has fallen by almost 80 percent in the last decade.
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Boy: Taliban recruited me to bomb troops
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 25, 4:34 PM ET
FORWARD OPERATING BASE THUNDER, Afghanistan - The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders.

The account from Juma Gul, a dirt-caked child who collects scrap metal for money, left American soldiers dumbfounded that a youngster could be sent on such a mission. Afghan troops crowded around the boy to call him a hero.

Though the Taliban dismissed the story as propaganda, at a time when U.S. and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties, both Afghan tribal elders and U.S. military officers said they were convinced by his dramatic account.

Juma said that sometime last month Taliban fighters forced him to wear a vest they said would spray out flowers when he touched a button. He said they told him that when he saw American soldiers, "throw your body at them."

The militants cornered Juma in a Taliban-controlled district in southern Afghanistan's Ghazni province. Their target was an impoverished youngster being raised by an older sister — but also one who proved too street-smart for their plan.

"When they first put the vest on my body I didn't know what to think, but then I felt the bomb," Juma told The Associated Press as he ate lamb and rice after being introduced to the elders at this joint U.S.-Afghan base in Ghazni. "After I figured out it was a bomb, I went to the Afghan soldiers for help."

While Juma's story could not be independently verified, local government leaders backed his account and the U.S. and NATO military missions said they believed his story.

Abdul Rahim Deciwal, the chief administrator for Juma's village of Athul, brought the boy and an older brother, Dad Gul, to a weekend meeting between Afghan elders and U.S. Army Col. Martin P. Schweitzer.

Schweitzer called the Taliban's attempt "a cowardly act."

As Deciwal told Juma's story, 20 Afghan elders repeatedly clicked their tongues in sadness and disapproval. When the boy and his brother were brought in, several of the turban-wearing men welled up, wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs.

"If anybody has a heart, then how can you control yourself (before) these kids?" Deciwal said in broken English.

Wallets quickly opened, and the boys were handed $60 in American and Afghan currency — a good chunk of money in a country where teachers and police earn $70 a month.

Afghan officials described the boys as extremely poor, and Juma said he is being raised by his sister because his father works in a bakery in Pakistan and his mother lives and does domestic work in another village.

"I think the boy is intelligent," Deciwal said. "When he comes from the enemy he found a checkpoint of the ANA (Afghan National Army), and he asked the ANA: 'Hey, can you help me? Somebody gave me this jacket and I don't know what's inside but maybe something bad.'"

Lt. Col. George Graff, a father of five who attended the meeting, also teared up.

"Relating to them as a father and trying to fathom somebody using one of my children for that kind of a purpose, jeez, it just tore me up," said Graff, a National Guard soldier from St. George, Utah. "The depths that these people will go to get what they want, which is power for themselves — it's just disgusting."

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, denied the militant group uses child fighters, saying it has hundreds of adults ready for suicide missions.

"We don't need to use a child," Ahmadi told the AP by satellite phone. "It's against Islamic law, it's against humanitarian law. This is just propaganda against the Taliban."

However, a gory Taliban video that surfaced in April showed militants instructing a boy of about 12 as he beheaded an alleged traitor with a large knife. U.N. officials condemned the act as a war crime.

Fidgety but smiling during all the attention, Juma told the AP that he had been scared when he was surrounded by Taliban fighters. He cupped his hands together to show the size of the bomb, then ran his hands along his waist to show where it was on his body.

A fan of soccer, Juma said his favorite subject in school is Pashto, his native language, but he also showed off a little English, shyly counting "1, 2, 3" before breaking out in an oversize smile.

Raised in a country where birthdays are not always carefully tracked, Juma said he is 4. But he looks older and Afghan officials said he is about 6. His brother appears to be a year or so older.

Their village lies in Ghazni province's Andar district, a Taliban stronghold targeted this month in a joint Afghan-U.S. operation. The region remains dangerous and Afghan elders worry for Juma's safety.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said he was "a bit skeptical" about Juma's story at first, "but everything I've heard makes me more and more comfortable."

Thomas said the case would force soldiers to think twice before assuming children are safe.

"This is one incident. We hope it doesn't repeat itself. But it gives us reason to pause, to be extra careful," he said. "We want to publicize this as much as we can to the Afghan people so that they can protect their children from these killers."

Col. Sayed Waqef Shah, a religious and cultural affairs officer for the Afghan army, wiped away tears after seeing Juma. "Whenever I see this kind of action from the Taliban, if I am able to arrest them, I'll kill them on the spot," he said.

Haji Niaz Mohammad, one of the elders at the gathering, said he hoped "God makes the Afghan government strong" so it can defeat the Taliban.

"They are the enemy of Muslims and the enemy of the children," he said, shaking his fists in anger.
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Pakistan condemns NATO civilian killings
Tue Jun 26, 1:50 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan condemned civilian killings by NATO forces in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and said it would not allow foreign troops to hunt militants on its territory.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan has protested after International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) weapons hit a building near the Afghan border on Saturday.

Pakistan military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad earlier put the toll at 10 dead and 14 wounded, seven of them seriously.

"We have protested against this incident and we condemn the killing of civilians," Aslam said.

"And I must repeat it again that any action to be taken inside Pakistani territory has to be taken by Pakistani forces."

Aslam said ISAF and Pakistan coordinate their pursuit of "undesirable elements" criss-crossing the rugged border area.

"But this incident underscores the need for better coordination, care and restraint by NATO forces, especially when they are operating close to the border," she said.

ISAF has said it regretted the incident.

"We have reports that one of our weapons hit a building which may have had a number of civilians in it and that building may have been a home or way-station or some hotel facility," ISAF spokesman Major John Thomas told AFP.

"We regret the loss of innocent life," he said.

The force had reported up to 60 militants were killed in the operation, which spanned the border in Afghanistan's southeastern Paktika province and Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area.

A day before the incident, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused ISAF and the separate US-led coalition of causing civilian casualties in the battle against insurgents through "indiscriminate and unprecise" operations.
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Iran condemns killing of innocent people in Afghanistan
Tehran, June 26, IRNA
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini here Tuesday condemned killing of innocent people in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

Hosseini was speaking to IRNA on bombardment of southern Afghanistan's Helmand province by NATO forces and killing of students.

"Targetting innocent women, men and children is condemned," he said.

"It is regretful that five years after (collapse of Taliban), we still witness massacre of innocent people in Afghanistan by blind attacks of Western states," he added.

He stated, "Nearly 100 innocent children and individuals were massacred in Afghanistan over the past week."

On news reports that Abdolmalek Rigi, leader of the terrorist group Jundollah had been wounded, Hosseini said, "Local Pakistani officials as well as our local officials have confirmed he has been wounded."
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Alleged Afghan abuse investigated
Tue Jun 26, 2:46 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. military officials opened an investigation into allegations that American and Afghan soldiers threatened to drag an Afghan detainee from a car earlier this month, NATO said Monday.

The German news magazine Focus reported Sunday that two of its journalists embedded with troops from the 82nd Airborne Division in Ghazni province witnessed the alleged incident on June 10.

The magazine said the suspect was detained during the search of a village by a patrol led by an Afghan soldier. When the suspect refused to talk, the platoon leader tied one end of a rope to the his foot and the other end to a vehicle, then threatened to drag the man, the magazine said.

Focus said the Afghan soldier had an American soldier start the motor. After idling for two minutes, it was shut off and the suspect was set free, the magazine reported.

U.S. and Afghan military officials are conducting a formal investigation into the allegations, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

"This alleged behavior goes against everything the U.S. military stands for and believes in," said Army Col. Martin P. Schweitzer, commander of U.S. forces in the region where the alleged incident occurred. "We take these accusations very seriously."

The U.S. soldier in question has been removed from his post, pending the outcome of the investigation, ISAF said.
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Bond between Canadian, Afghan soldiers grows with mentor relationship
Mon Jun 25, 4:56 PM By Stephanie Levitz
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - On the first night Capt. Bryce Morawiec met his Afghan National Army counterpart on the rocky hillside of Ma'sum Ghar, he pulled out a tattered photo of his family that he kept in the pocket of his military uniform to show his new colleague.

Capt. Safiullah admired it, then offered to show Morawiec a picture of his own. He reached into his pocket and whipped out a cellphone, flipped it open and pressed play on a digital movie.

"I just sat back, and I thought, oh the irony, this is great," said Morawiec, a member of the Operational Mentor Liaison Team working alongside the Afghan soldiers in Afghanistan.

"I am going to have a great time here."

Four months later and the two soldiers are thick as thieves, throwing parties for the birth of Morawiec's son, and grieving together the loss of both Afghan and Canadian troops.

The growing bond between the liaison team and the Afghan troops under its tutelage has come about since Afghan President Hamid Karzai complained of a communication breakdown between coalition and Afghan soldiers, a problem he holds responsible for the mounting civilian death toll over the last two months.

The point of this unique collaboration - a first for Canadian troops abroad - is for the mentor liaison team to be the link between Afghan soldiers and Canadian battle groups, using the local knowledge of the former and the power of the latter to fight insurgents on the ground.

"How it looks on the ground is sometimes pretty confusing, but it works," said Capt. Stephen Good, who acted as the liaison between the Afghan army's second battalion and India Company during the recent Operation Season, a joint effort to route out insurgents targeting police checkpoints in Zhari district.

Video of the four-hour firefight of Operation Season shows Afghan and Canadian troops squatting in wadis, planning the phases of the operation. Air strikes were eventually called in to end the battle. Fifteen Taliban were killed and the operation was heralded as a success by the military.

Good says he doesn't see the communication problems raised by Karzai.

"It's always two-way communication," he said. "Almost every day I'm in with the company commander; we're talking future operations, where they see everything going."

Members of the mentor liaison team and the Afghan army live, eat, and sleep together when they work at Ma'sum Ghar, about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar. But all are aware it's a tenuous bond, thanks to the constant motion of army life. New Canadians rotate in every six months. Afghan soldiers get transferred. Soldiers from both sides get killed.

"I was going to write a letter to Canada to ask if Col. Eyre could stay another year, but I was worried about his family," joked Gen. Khair Mohammad of the 1st Brigade of the Afghan National Army.

Lt.-Col. Wayne Eyre, commanding officer of the liaison team, and Mohammed have worked together for three months, since Canada took over mentoring brigade headquarters from the Americans. They meet almost daily, going over upcoming operations and discussing concerns.

Eyre called it an increasingly rewarding and fascinating job, one that requires him to draw upon all he knows of Afghan culture and history, coupled with his Canadian military training.

"We can't mirror-image ourselves," he said.

"To try and create an army in our own image, exactly like us, with the same sort of western standards, thought processes and the like, is not going to work here."

Safiullah, the weapons commander being mentored by Morawiec, said the benefits of learning battle tactics and operations from Canadians has been immeasurable, but it's the larger picture he's glad to have seen.

"We are all human beings," he said through an interpreter. "Canadians love their families, they love their children and wives. And we too love our children and our wives."

The state of Canada's mission in Afghanistan rests on a eventual parliamentary decision on whether to leave on the NATO-mandated deadline of February 2009, or remain in the country in some form.

Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of Canada's defence staff, has said that training the Afghan army as the deadline approaches has become Canada's top priority.

"What we need are people," said Eyre. "Robust mentoring. At the end of the day, we equip the man, not man the equipment."

Five kandaks, the Afghan term for battalion, currently make up the Afghan National Army command for Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces, 1st Brigade. In July, Uruzgan will receive its own.

A full brigade of five kandaks would have 3,200 soldiers, but the fighting force of 1st Brigade now sits at around 2,300.

Eyre is optimistic the number will rise to at least 3,000 by 2009.

The numbers don't mean much to some local Afghans, who are skeptical about the Afghan army's ability to fight on its own, now or by 2009.

"If an operation is going to be started at any village, if the ANA takes the support of NATO or ISAF, then they can operate that village," said Noor Ahmed, 32.

"The ANA at least has to get training for 10 to 15 years more, then they could stand up at their feet."

Mohammad, the commander of 1st Brigade, is keenly aware of the shortcomings facing his soldiers.

"We have a lot of training experts, all the soldiers being trained by OMLT, but we have some problems," he said.

"We don't have modern vehicles, weapons, air support. If we had these things we'd be able to conduct operations."

Canada isn't responsible for outfitting the Afghan army. That falls to the Americans, though Hillier has opened the door to providing some supplies.

"I don't think we'll be able by (2009) to provide security by ourselves to the people of Kandahar," said Mohammad.

"Myself and the people of Afghanistan are asking the people of Canada to stay for longer in Afghanistan."
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Aid failings 'hit Afghan progress'
By David Loyn BBC developing world correspondent, Afghanistan Tuesday, 26 June 2007, 09:14 GMT 10:14 UK
More than five years after the defeat of the Taleban in Afghanistan, the failure of international aid to make a difference to Afghanistan is now having serious security consequences.

A recent Red Cross report showed that the worsening conflict in the south is now spreading to the north and west, alongside an upsurge of suicide bombing in Kabul.

The amount of money promised per head for Afghanistan was far lower than in other recent post-conflict countries, and too little of it has gone into increasing the capacity of the Afghan government to run things for itself.

In a report more than a year ago, the World Bank warned of the dangers of an 'aid juggernaut', a parallel world operating outside the government economy, with Afghans not even able to bid for major infrastructure contracts, such as roads.

The quality of much of what has been delivered remains very low. In schools where lots of money has been spent and the project signed off as functioning and open, girls are still being taught in tents in the mud.

There have been some successes. President Hamid Karzai often reminds audiences that 40,000 Afghan babies would not be alive today but for improvements in Afghan health care.

And some aid is successfully going through the state for basic services.

One in 10 Afghan teachers have their salaries paid by British taxpayers, but to the teachers their pay packets are not earmarked as 'foreign aid' - they come from the Afghan Education department.

Similarly, some small rural schemes - drainage, clinics, small power projects and schools are now being built through the National Solidarity Programme. That is a fund managed and distributed through the Afghan government, with almost all of the money coming from international donors.

Slow process

There have recently been some indications that the Americans, the biggest spenders in Afghanistan, are beginning to see the sense in these kinds of programmes, and planning to put more of their aid money through the government.

Changing policy in this direction is a slow process, although the theory at least is now US doctrine.

Building up the institutions of the state is after all a central part of fighting insurgencies, according to the new counter-insurgency manual being used by US forces - the first written since the end of the Vietnam War.

The manual even emphasises that the new state does not have to do things especially well: "The host nation doing something tolerably is normally better than us (the United States) doing it well."

But the doctrine has not yet worked through to changing the culture of how to spend aid money, either through USAid, or the Pentagon which runs its own aid programme.

Most international officials, aid workers and consultants in Afghanistan live a hermetically sealed life - advised not to step outside by armed security guards, and often working at very high salaries on very short-term contracts.

So too much of the money earmarked for aid to Afghanistan actually goes straight back to donor countries.

The Chief of Staff at the Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry, Abbie Aryan, condemned the culture of "champagne and caviar consultants" who come to Afghanistan and "deliver nothing".

There is still no internationally agreed strategy on how to tackle the drugs problem.

Britain plays a lead role in trying to stop the cultivation of opium poppies, and Mr Aryan says that large amounts of British money have been wasted on things that the Afghans do not need.

'Unwanted luxuries'

He agreed to talk to the BBC on the record because of a growing concern in the Afghan government that the international community is only paying lip service to the idea that Afghanistan should determine aid priorities for itself.

Rather than responding to Afghan concerns, and helping to fund an eradication coordination unit, when the Counter Narcotics Ministry wanted to set one up, the British government is instead funding a project for aerial photography that will cost more than $10m.

The Director of Survey and Monitoring at the ministry, Engineer Mohammad Ibrahim Azhar, told the BBC that when the project was first proposed, the Minister Habibullah Qaderi asked the British why they could not use a local plane, or at least provide equipment that would still be there when the project finished.

Instead the contract is with a British firm, with two British engineers running it in Kabul.

Mr Aryan said: "Our minister is concerned about this. We are constantly telling the British that you are supposed to be providing us with tools to fight narcotics, rather than all this luxury stuff, which we didn't ask for and didn't need."

Concern
The minister is reported to have asked the British why they could not have made the money available for Afghanistan to employ people to survey the poppy-growing areas on the ground.

The Deputy Minister of Counter Narcotics, General Khodaidad, is very supportive of the British position, but several other sources in the ministry have expressed concern about British priorities.

Mr Aryan says that the aerial photographs replicate material already available from the US, UN and British systems: "We can just look at the photo and say 'Wow, a five million dollar photo'."

Other concerns have been raised over a fund designed to provide alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers.

Of $70m earmarked for this project, little more than $1m has actually been spent.

Afghan officials blame bureaucratic obstacles put in the way of spending the money. The UK Foreign Office admitted that there have been "teething problems", for a fund that is operating "in a challenging environment".

Behind the criticism over spending lies a more serious concern that the counter-narcotics policy is not working.

Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is on the increase again, and rising fastest in areas under British control. A number of officials believe that the problem is now out of control, and that the international community has lost the war on drugs.

British policy towards Afghanistan is now undergoing its most radical review since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. There is a big increase of staff in Kabul, including a doubling of diplomats on the political side, directly engaged in relations with the Afghan government.

The review will include security, drug control policies, and development spending under a new ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. He told the BBC that Afghanistan is now "one of Britain's top foreign policy priorities".
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Afghan DPs resist closure of Jungle Pir Alizai camp
The News International (Pakistan)
JUNGLE PIR ALIZAI: The 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 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 engaged in intensified uprising in Afghanistan, and wants to close four of several camps this year, including Pir Alizai.

The UN 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 a humanitarian camp by UNHCR standards, as there was trafficking of arms, drugs and miscreants were living there,” said the official, who declined to be identified. But closing the camp will not be easy. Afghans say they do not want to go 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, Ahmadullah, 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?” a 16-year-old shouted as he stood among a crowd of youngsters outside a grocery shop in the camp. He said: “Give us peace and we will go home.”

Most of the Afghans living in small houses along dusty lanes, 50kms from the Afghan border, come from the Afghan south where over the past 12 months or so the heaviest 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 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.

Another problem facing the authorities hoping to close the camp is that many of the inhabitants say they are Pakistanis, not Afghans at all. According to a 2005 UN 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.

Some residents said up to 80 per cent of the inhabitants were Pakistani Pashtuns, who live on both sides of the largely unmarked border that was drawn during British colonial times through their lands. “I have as much right to be in Pakistan as you have. Why are you forcing me out 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 Pakistan,” 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 Quetta.

Kakozai, a heavy-set Pashtun with a big turban wrapped around his head, also denied there was any al-Qaeda or Taliban guerrilla 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 of us,” he said, referring to the 25-member committee.

More than 4.6 million Afghans have gone home from Pakistan and Iran since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. But about three million Afghans are still in Pakistan. Iran recently forced out to Afghanistan about 100,000 of the two million Afghans. The UN, meanwhile, has urged Pakistan not to send its refugees home. 
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15 militants, seven Afghan security forces dead in clashes, blast
Outlook India - Jun 25 9:23 AM
Kandahar, June 25, Gun-battles and a bomb attack across Afghanistan killed seven Afghan security forces and 15 suspected militants, while police recaptured a district that had been taken over by the Taliban in the volatile south, officials said today.

Afghan forces supported by NATO troops took control of Kandahar province's Ghorak district from Taliban militants last night after fierce gun battles that left some Taliban casualties, said provincial Gov Asadullah Khalid.

The Defence Minister said three Afghan soldiers were killed in the operation and 11 others wounded. Troops have set up checkpoint and are conducting regular patrols in the area, it said.

It was not clear how long the Taliban had controlled the district but insurgents in contested areas of the south frequently attack villages and drive police out for a few hours or days. Police reinforcements later return with support from foreign troops to retake the area.

Attacks and military operations have killed nearly 2,700 people across Afghanistan so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally based on reports from Western and Afghan officials.

Meanwhile, NATO spokesman Maj John Thomas said today that NATO forces battling Taliban insurgents near the Pakistan border had bombed a building in Pakistan early Saturday, killing around nine civilians. NATO was still investigating the number of people killed, as the death toll might have been a little higher than nine, he said.

"It's a response to an attack by insurgent forces," Thomas said. "That means the decision process is more rapid and distinguishing targets is made under the heat of receiving fire from that position.
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Italian medical agency to reopen hospital in Kabul
2007-06-26 12:01:10 Xinhua
ROME, June 25 - An Italian medical aid agency said on Monday that it would soon reopen its hospital in the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, two months after its quit over the arrest of its staff member.

The Emergency agency said in a statement that it was looking for international personnel in preparation for the reinstating of the Kabul hospital and two others in Afghanistan.

In April, the Emergency withdrew from the war-torn Asian country after one of its Afghanistan staff, Rahmatullah Hanefi, was arrested by police on charges of links with the Taliban
 
Hanefi was reportedly released last week to end the dilemma. The Emergency said on Monday that Hanefi might go back to his work in July. Before his three-month detention, Hanefi was the head of personnel and security of the agency's hospital in the southern city of Lashkar Gah.

The Emergency, which was founded by Italian war-zone surgeon Gino Stada in 1994, began its mission in Afghanistan in 1999. It says it has ever since given medical treatment to more than 1.5 million people.
Editor: Song Shutao
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New Afghan party full of strange bedfellows
Former Communist interior minister joins forces with old enemies to fight Taliban
GRAEME SMITH From Monday's Globe and Mail June 25, 2007 at 4:29 AM EDT
KABUL — Said Mohammed Gulabzoy has been accused of war crimes for the horrors that his police inflicted on Afghan rebels in the 1980s, when he was interior minister.

Now, in one of the most unlikely political alliances to emerge in the new Afghanistan, Mr. Gulabzoy has joined forces with the former rebel commanders, saying his old enemies should be given support to fight the Taliban.

"Not every commander is a bad guy," Mr. Gulabzoy said. "If they were allowed to fight, maybe the Taliban wouldn't gain so much territory."

The former Communist is just one of many strange bedfellows in Afghanistan's first true opposition party, the United National Front, which announced itself to a puzzled audience of journalists in March.

Commentators wondered aloud how such an eclectic group could become a coherent political voice. Most of the UNF leaders have confronted each other on the battlefield at some point during Afghanistan's three decades of war, as warlords, strongmen or mujahedeen - holy warriors.

Their ideological backgrounds range from Communist to firebrand Islamist.

One of the few things that the UNF's leadership shares, in fact, is a history of violence. Many of them have led armies of various stripes, and some are accused of atrocities. That's one of the reasons why some analysts dismiss the new front, saying its members have banded together only in hopes of escaping prosecution, as Afghan politicians debate whether to grant a sweeping amnesty for past war crimes.

Three months after its birth, however, diplomats say President Hamid Karzai is taking the front seriously. Its leaders represent some of the major armed factions that have supported his government, especially in the north, and losing their political backing places him in a difficult position as he fights a war against insurgents in the south.

"The Western view is, generally, these are a bunch of disgruntled old warhorses who want to get back in the game," a diplomat said. "We don't see them doing much. But they've certainly frightened Karzai."

Mr. Karzai was on a visit to a regional conference in India when the UNF announced its creation. The Afghan President reacted angrily to the surprise, blaming outside influences for organizing the group. "We have information that some foreign embassies have a hand in it," Mr. Karzai said at the time.

Pakistan would benefit from part of the front's policy platform, which calls for Afghanistan to accept the Durand Line as an international border. The line, drawn by British colonists more than a century ago, is widely recognized as the border between the two countries but remains a source of bitterness among Afghans, who claim vast swaths of Pakistan's border lands.

But the main beneficiaries of the UNF's proposals, observers say, would be the UNF leaders themselves. Many of them were regional warlords who toppled the Taliban in 2001 under the banner of the Northern Alliance, but in the following years they've watched their influence wane as successive government programs attempted to disarm the northern warlords and bring them into the political system. The UNF platform seems aimed at reversing their decline, calling for a switch from a presidential to a parliamentary system; for elected mayors and provincial governors; and for a new voting system that would strengthen political parties.

All such changes would decentralize power, to the advantage of UNF members with regional bases of support: First Vice-President Ahmad Zia Masood in the Panjshir Valley; Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Ismail Khan in the western province of Herat; General Abdul Rashid Dostum in his northern enclave of ethnic Uzbeks; Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim in his ethnic Tajik territories; and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani in the northeastern province of Badakhshan.

The UNF also suggests giving back the weapons to their militias, saying only experienced fighters such as themselves are capable of tackling the southern insurgency.

"We have thousands of potential soldiers and police sitting jobless," Mr. Gulabzoy said in an interview at his well-appointed compound in Kabul. "The mujahedeen who opposed the Russians were very good with fighting and should be allowed to fight the Taliban."

If the statement seems incongruous coming from a former Soviet client who speaks fluent Russian, it sounds more natural on the lips of Fazal Karim Aimaq, a UNF member of parliament closely aligned with Mr. Masood.

"Most of us are experienced warriors," he said after a recitation of his own battle glories. "The government now doesn't know how to fight any more."

One of the looming battles for the UNF will be an internal struggle, however, as the party tries to choose a candidate for presidential elections scheduled for 2009. With many forceful personalities at the table, it's expected to be a fight.
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HRW to Bush: Close Gitmo today, not tomorrow
WASHINGTON, June 24 (Pajhwok Afghan News): An international human rights group has urged the Bush administration to close immediately the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, where hundreds of terror suspects including Afghans are detained without charge.

Senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch (HRW) Jennifer Daskal said on Saturday: Guantanamo has hurt the United States far more than it has hurt its enemies.

In a letter addressed to President George Bush, Daskal observed: Its closure would help restore the moral authority America needs to effectively fight terrorism and promote the rule of law. 

In the letter, HRW renewed its demand for the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. The continued detention of hundreds of men without charge had weakened Washington's campaign against terror, it argued.

Without showing any sense of urgency, White House officials have broadly hinted at shutting Guantanamo. They indicated several steps - including the creation of military commissions in the US and the repatriation of the detainees already been cleared for release or transfer - had to be taken ahead of the closure. 

But the rights watchdog viewed neither of the measures as a legitimate reason for delaying the closure of the infamous detention facility. Federal courts in the United States had proven far better equipped to try terrorists than military commissions, the group reasoned.

"In the past five-and-a half years, the federal courts have successfully convicted hundreds for terrorist offenses, including dozens for terrorist acts committed abroad," HRW pointed out.

By comparison, it continued, the military commissions had secured just one conviction by guilty plea in the case of Australian David Hicks, who received a nine-month sentence that he is serving at home.

"Moreover, there is no reason why the detainees who have been cleared for release or transfer cannot be repatriated from the United States, rather than from Guantanamo," HRW concluded.

On Friday, a Pentagon spokesman said that a senior commander of the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), led by Gulbadin Hekmatyar, had been shifted to the military detention centre in Cuba.

The first Afghan among a total of 16 captives transferred to Guantanamo since September, Haroon al-Afghani had previously been held at a US military detention centre in Afghanistan following his arrest in Nangarhar.
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UNSC stresses protection of civilians in armed conflict
NEW YORK, June 24 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has underlined greater protection for civilians, who continue to bear the brunt of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic, Northern Uganda and Somalia.

The Security Council voiced grave concern at the suffering of civilians and stressed parties to armed conflict were accountable for making efforts to ensure that ordinary citizens were adequately protected.

After an open debate, Council president Ambassador Johan C. Verbeke of Belgium read out a statement that highlighted the obligation of parties under international humanitarian law to shield civilians from harm.

He urged all parties to conflict to allow full, safe and unimpeded access by humanitarian personnel to civilians in need of assistance.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, addressing the UNSC, said: If there is one thing we need to do above all, it is to end the culture of impunity which underlies so many abuses.

Listing the rule of law and judicial redress as the key to civilians' protection, he noted that greater participation by women in all aspects of protection including peacekeeping would substantially improve attitudes regarding sexual violence.

In particular, he referred to Somalia, where hostilities between March and early May killed 400 civilians and wounded more than 700. He went on to cite the fighting in the occupied Palestinian territory and violence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Civilians are too often deliberately targeted in order to create a climate of fear and to destabilise populations, he said, mentioning Janjaweed attacks on innocent villagers in Darfur and Chad as examples.
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Secondary school, private maternity home inaugurated
MAHMUD RAQI, June 24 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A secondary school was inaugurated in this capital of the central Kapisa province on Sunday, a senior education department official said.

Education Director Abdul Zahoor Hakim told Pajhwok Afghan News the single-storey school building, bankrolled by the government of Poland, cost 115 thousand dollars.

With a capacity for 770 students, the Maulana Muhammad Sediq School has 18 rooms including 14 classrooms. Constructed in six months, the school is spread over one acre of land.

In the eastern Nangarhar province, a private maternity home started functioning in Jalalabad. Owner of the hospital Dr. Rafiqullah Zraswand said he had spent 800,000 dollars on the health facility.

The three-storey hospital, with well-equipped gynecological and maternal wards, has 60 rooms. Public Health Director Dr. Ajmal Pardes hailed the maternity home as good stride towards resolving pre- and post-natal problems of women and easing pressure on government hospitals in the province.
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320 uplift plans on the anvil for four northern provinces
KABUL, June 24 (Pajhwok Afghan News): As many as 320 uplift projects will be executed in northeastern provinces of Kunduz, Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan under a five-year development plan as part of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS).

Each of the four provinces would have 80 projects in line with the plan, whose overall cost works out at more than $10.5 billion, including assistance from the international community pledged at the London Conference in 2005. The implementation process will be set in motion next year.

Muhammad Yousaf Ghaznavi, provincial coordinator of ANDS, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday consultations on the strategy had been launched in Kunduz, Baghlan, Takhar and Badakhshan.

Currently heading a delegation comprising officials from 14 ministries to Kunduz, Ghaznavi revealed the consultation process would be completed in a week. A reported based on the deliberations will be submitted to the government for further action.

In Kabul, a new seven-storey building of the Science Academy was inaugurated at the Bobo Jan Palace - located behind the Interior Ministry. Academy Director Abdul Bari Rashid said the building would be completed in two years at an estimated cost of $1.4 million.

Also on Sunday, Public Health Minister Dr. Syed Muhammad Amin Fatemi inaugurated a 150-bed hospital for children in the western Herat City. The $0.7 million hospital has been built by the Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

Children under the age of 14 years would be treated at the hospital in Shedayee area, said Fatemi, who thanked the PRT for its contribution to Afghanistans health sector.

The hospital has several departments including health education, vaccination, dermatology, an intensive care unit (ICU), a blood bank, laboratories and an operation theatre.
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