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June 27, 2007 

US dismisses reports on Afghan deaths
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 26, 3:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Despite rising civilian deaths in Afghanistan's counter-terror war — and rising criticism — a U.S. general suggested Tuesday that coalition commanders do not need to change the way they operate.

"We think the procedures that we have in place are good," Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel told a Pentagon press conference. "They work, they help us minimize the effects" on civilians, he said.

A count by the United Nations and an umbrella organization of Afghan and international aid groups shows that in the first five months of this year, the number of civilians killed by international forces was roughly equal to the number killed by insurgents. An Associated Press count for 2007 based on figures from Afghan and international officials found that while militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23, Western forces killed 203.

Speaking by videoconference from Bagram, Votel said the assertion that coalition forces are killing more civilians is "absolutely not true," and that those deaths caused by insurgent forces are "significantly greater."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly pleaded with foreign troops to exercise caution and work more closely with Afghan forces, who might be able to minimize civilian casualties because of their knowledge of the terrain. On Saturday, he denounced the Taliban for killing civilians but directed most of his anger at foreign forces for being careless and viewing Afghan lives as "cheap."

Karzai said Saturday that in the previous 10 days more than 90 civilians have been killed in U.S. or NATO operations. He did not say how many had been killed by the Taliban.

The U.S. and NATO say they don't have civilian casualty figures.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it is difficult to know which side caused casualties in an engagement where civilians also are present.

Votel, commander for NATO troops operating in eastern Afghanistan, defended what he said are "extensive measures" taken to minimize harm to civilians.

He described them this way:

• With every operation, commanders look closely at the area involved and identify areas where civilian population may be affected.

• In areas where there will be some civilians, they use a "collateral damage estimate process" to see where collateral damage may occur, then try to figure out how to mitigate it.

• Whenever possible, they work with local government leaders to let them know troops are in the areas so they can communicate that to the population.

Although troops use "an accepted U.S. and ... NATO process," there is "a very low tolerance" for collateral damage in Afghanistan, Votel said.

"And so, in most of those cases, we choose to use other methods — we will try to go work with local Afghan authorities to help us identify those persons that we're interested in" rather than going in and using force, he said.

"Increasingly...we are partnered with Afghan forces," Votel said.

Asked if any new procedures are being used in light of the most recent civilian deaths, Votel said: "No, there's no particularly new procedures that we are using right now."

He said "dozens and dozens and perhaps hundreds of other operations" are done across his command area that are in and around civilian populations "with no negative collateral effects on the people."
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AFGHANISTAN: Floods kill 17 across seven regions
KABUL, 26 June 2007 (IRIN) - Unusual flash floods, and a landslide, have killed at least 17 people, mostly women and children, in seven provinces of Afghanistan, the country's disaster management authority and provincial officials said on 26 June.

On 25 June, torrential rain led to a wave of floods in the eastern Kunar Province that resulted in human losses and inflicted damage.

"We have identified seven individuals who died in the flooding. Three other individuals are missing," Shalezai Deedar, the governor of Kunar, told IRIN from his office.

According to Deedar, floods have also destroyed tens of houses, as well as fruit trees, bridges, roads, power dams and agricultural land.

"People are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, including foodstuffs, tents and medicine," said Deedar.

Flash floods

In the north of the capital, Kabul, three children and two women were killed by flash floods that hit Qara Bagh and Farza districts, Afghanistan's National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA) said.

Strong waves also damaged dozens of houses and killed tens of farm animals in the area, ANDMA added.

Elsewhere in Kapisa Province, to the north of Kabul, the administrator of Nejrab District reported three deaths and one person missing due to the flooding.

In Wardak, Logar, Nangarhar, Panjshir and Parwan provinces flooding destroyed crops, trees, farms and livestock, causing further hardships to many poor farmers.

On 24 June, a landslide caused by heavy rain took the lives of six children in the northern Kunduz Province, local official said.

Families evacuated

In the Kama District of eastern Nangarhar Province, about 40 people were stranded in a remote location for more than six hours, provincial authorities told IRIN.

"We called upon the Ministry of Defence to evacuate those people by helicopter," said Shukrullah Ehsas, an official from ANDMA in Nangarhar Province.

The affected people had been taken by military helicopter to a safe location, Ehsas said.

Humanitarian response

"We have called for an emergency meeting to be chaired by Second Vice-President Karim Khalili at which we will consider all necessary actions such as evacuation operations and aid delivery - should any be needed," the director of ANDMA, Matin Adrak, said.

Officials in most of the flood-affected provinces have called on the UN and international humanitarian aid organisations to assist them in managing the consequences of the recent spate of natural disasters.

Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said: "When we get reports like this we have to assess as quickly as possible what the needs are. Once we know those needs we will be in a position to act, or to make sure that others are responding."

Vulnerable to natural disasters

So far in 2007, heavy rain, flooding and avalanches have killed scores of people and destroyed hundreds of houses across Afghanistan.

The country, with its mostly rugged terrain and poor transport infrastructure, has been considered acutely vulnerable to natural disasters.

A UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) mission that visited Afghanistan in July 2006 recommended the "revitalisation" and "modernisation" of the country's weak disaster response and management capacity.

In April 2007, IRIN reported that most of the 73 recommendations set forth by UNDAC mission had seen little or no progress.
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Women attacked or killed in Afghanistan
By The Associated Press Tue Jun 26, 3:00 PM ET
• June 26, 2007: Farida Nekzad, editor of Afghanistan's independent news agency Pajhwok, receives death threats on her cell phone during the funeral of a fellow female journalist, Zakia Zaki, who was slain by gunmen earlier in the month.

• June 6, 2007: Zaki, owner and manager of Peace Radio in Afghanistan, is gunned down in front of her 8-year-old son inside her house in northern Parwan province. Zaki had been critical of local warlords, who had warned her about the station's content.

• June 1, 2007: Shokiba Sanga Amaaj, a newscaster for private Shamdhad TV, is shot in the back inside her house in Kabul.

• May 21, 2007: Afghanistan's lower house of parliament votes to oust outspoken female lawmaker, Malalai Joya, who enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government when she compared the parliament to a stable full of animals in a TV interview. In May 2006, Joya said she couldn't keep track of the number of death threats she'd received since her first speech to the constitutional council in 2003.

• Dec. 9, 2006: Taliban militants break into a house and fatally shoot two female teachers and three other family members, bringing to 20 the number of educators slain in attacks in Afghanistan at that point in 2006. The teachers, who were sisters, had been warned in a letter from the Taliban to quit teaching.

• Sept. 25, 2006: Safia Ama Jan, the southern provincial head of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs, is slain outside the front gate of her Kandahar home as she is walking to her office. Ama Jan was known for being an active proponent of women's rights and education.

• July 3, 2006: A small explosion goes off in a women's English class at Herat University, wounding eight female college students.

• June 23, 2005: Armed men break into a girls' school south of Kabul and set it on fire.

• May 18, 2005: Shaima Rezayee, 24, who replaced her burqa with Western-style dress and became a host on an MTV-style music show, is shot in the head at her Kabul home.

• June 26, 2004: A bomb tears through a bus carrying female election workers on their way to register women for the country's first post-Taliban vote, killing two of them and wounding 13 others.
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Musharraf for 'peace with Afghanistan' to oust 'foreign forces' 
By IANS Wednesday June 27, 12:18 PM
Islamabad, June 27 (IANS) Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has sought help from Pakistani tribesmen along the Afghanistan border to evict foreign Islamic mercenaries so that the NATO-led forces also 'vacate that country'.

To achieve peace with Afghanistan, it was necessary first to oust the mercenaries who have made the rugged tribal areas of Pakistan their home for many years, the Daily Times Wednesday quoted him as saying.

'They have outlived their hospitality,' Musharraf told a tribal 'Loya Jirga' (grand assembly) in Peshawar.

He made it clear that the Pakistan government would be able to eject the 'foreign elements' from tribal areas only with the support of the people living in the areas.

'We have been housing (foreign elements) and providing them hospitality for 28 years but now they are becoming a threat for our solidarity,' he said.

Islamic fighters from around the world flocked to Pakistan following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. Many of them subsequently joined forces with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan.

Musharraf, who is under relentless attack from the West for not doing enough to crush Islamic militancy, said the elements of terror were misusing the name of Islam and that there was no threat to the religion in Pakistan.

He added that suicide attacks, bomb attacks and 'other terrorist acts' did no service to Islam.

The Daily Times said several tribal leaders, including MPs, boycotted the tribal assembly saying they were not consulted.

Musharraf's address comes amid frequent reports of firing from across the border by NATO-led forces that have caused casualties on the Pakistani side.

The president said that a joint Loya Jirga of the tribals from Afghanistan and Pakistan would be held soon.
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U.S. Ambassador Says Drug Trafficking is a Threat to Afghanistan
Voice of America
PRESS RELEASE -  Washington, D.C., June 26, 2007 - Ambassador William Wood, the new U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, told the Voice of America (VOA) in an exclusive interview today that "as long as the Taleban can continue to sustain itself from outside the country, and as long as it meets with some level of cooperation among the drug trafficking, criminal, and corrupt community inside Afghanistan, it will continue to be a threat."

During the interview, Ambassador Wood acknowledged that the Taleban has long been a threat to the stability of Afghanistan, but that it is "getting weaker every day." He added that, "if the Taleban were the only threat facing Afghanistan, I believe we could put Afghanistan in the win column right now."

When asked about the continuing concern over civilian casualties, Ambassador Wood told VOA that "we have been and continue to work closely with the government of Afghanistan to avoid civilian casualties." He added, however, that the Taleban often tries to divide the Afghan government from the Coalition by targeting civilians and including them in their operations.

The Ambassador is confident that the Coalition can accelerate the rate of improvement in the Afghan army and police and emphasized that Coalition forces are working closely with both the army and police.

VOA's Afghan Service broadcasts TV Ashna in Dari and Pashto to Afghanistan from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily on National Afghan TV and by satellite on Asiasat Channel 24 and for Europe on IOR Channel 409. VOA broadcasts 12 hours combined of Dari and Pashto programming daily on radio.

The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people. Programs are produced in 45 languages.

For more information, call the Office of Public Affairs at (202) 203-4959, or e-mail publicaffairs@voa.gov.
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AFGHANISTAN: Demand for narcotics outstrips available treatment for drug addicts
KABUL, 26 June 2007 (IRIN) - For Hedayatullha, 35, Kabul is the only place to treat his heroin addiction. A fellow addict who underwent treatment at Kabul's Nejat Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) told him that it was one of the very few places able to help him.

"He [the treated addict] encouraged me to come here [to Kabul] to get rid of my addiction," Hedayatullha told IRIN.

Leaving his wife and five children behind in Urozgan Province, he headed north to Kabul. It took him four days to reach his destination.

He said he had been taking heroin and hashish for over 13 years and begged the hospital to treat him. However, the NRC said it had no beds available.

"We have only 10 beds, but the number of addicts who should be hospitalised is very, very high," said Tariq Suliman, the NRC director.

About two dozen drug addicts visit this small rehabilitation centre each day to get free treatment and help.

UN report on drugs

The World Drug Report 2007, a study by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released on 26 June, said there had been "significant and positive changes" in narcotics production and use almost everywhere in the world.

"Recent data show that the run-away train of drug addiction has slowed down," the report said.

In Afghanistan, however, the situation has been found to be quite the opposite. The country produces about 92 percent of the heroin consumed in the world, UNODC said.

"Opium production in Afghanistan remains a major problem," said the executive director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, in a statement on 26 June.

About one million people - or 3.7 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 27 million population - are considered to be addicted to different kinds of narcotics, including heroin, opium and hashish, according to UNODC.

Lack of treatment centres

According to Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN), there are 36 treatment and rehabilitation facilities for drug addicts in 22 of the country's 34 provinces.

"Eighty percent of drug addicts live in rural areas where there is a huge scarcity of drug addiction treatment facilities," Christina Gynna Oguz, UNODC representative for Afghanistan, said at a press conference on 25 June.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health and the UN have now turned to donors to fund a pioneering project - the treatment of drug addicts within the country's primary healthcare system, thus enabling drug users to access rehabilitation services at provincial hospitals.

Addicted women, children

The UNODC report found that women made up 2.1 percent of all drug addicts in Afghanistan.

In some rural parts of the country, where access to basic health services is limited, women use locally produced opium as a painkiller, to ease insomnia, or to make their children sleep.

"Women who weave carpets or do other jobs at home tend to give opium to their children to make them sleep, thereby enabling themselves to work undisturbed," Lotfullah Lotfi, a counter-narcotics official in the northern Balkh Province, told IRIN.

At least 60,000 children are addicted to narcotics in Afghanistan, the World Drug Report said.

Addicted females find it even harder than men to access treatment. Many men do not permit their female relatives to seek external drug addiction treatment due to conservative customs.

"We send our female staff to treat addicted women and young girls at their homes," said the NRC's Suliman. But for those in volatile regions even this approach is not possible for security reasons.

Ban Ki-moon's message

In his message to mark the international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on all member states to intensify efforts to reduce the demand for drugs worldwide.

"Combating drug abuse is a collective effort. It requires political leadership and sufficient resources - particularly for more and better treatment facilities," the Secretary-General's statement read.
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Harper's J-turn on Afghanistan
Andrew Coyne National Post  Wednesday, June 27, 2007
What did it mean, that little offhand comment of the Prime Minister's the other day, to the effect that he would want "to see some degree of consensus" before renewing the Canadian Forces' current mission in Afghanistan?

Did it mean, as the defeatist chorus in certain sections of the media triumphantly proclaimed (triumphalist defeatists?), that Stephen Harper had buckled to his critics? Was the Toronto Star's Tom Walkom right to claim, on the strength of this one statement, that "Canada's Kandahar adventure is effectively finished," that "Canadian soldiers will continue to die in Afghanistan's south until the mission reaches its official end, 19 months from now," but after that it's back to the barracks? Should we trust The Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin's judgment that "these were code words for the end of our war mission," that "in a year and a half, other North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners can take their turn at the combat role."

I don't believe it. That's not what the Prime Minister said, and it doesn't fit with anything else we know about him. I know he's reversed himself before, sometimes spectacularly. But this is something that goes to his very core. I do not believe that the same man who not a month ago, on his second visit to Afghanistan, declared that "our work is not complete," that "we cannot just put down our arms and hope for peace," that "we can't set arbitrary deadlines and simply wish for the best," would suddenly have decided to do just that.

What in fact did the Prime Minister say? He said "I would hope that the view of Canadians is not to simply abandon Afghanistan. I think there is some expectation that there would be a new role after February, 2009, but obviously those decisions have yet to be taken." He said "this mission will end in February, 2009. Should Canada be involved militarily after that date, we've been clear that would have to be approved by the Canadian Parliament." And he said this: "I would want to see some degree of consensus around that. I don't want to send people into a mission if the opposition is going to, at home, undercut the dangerous work that they are doing in the field."

Perhaps my decoder ring is not working as well as Lawrence's, but I don't see any U-turns in this. What I see, rather, is a J-turn. It's straight out of Jean Chretien's playbook. You run into too much resistance with a given policy thrust, you take a couple of steps back. Lacking a flashpoint, the issue subsides, your opponents relax their guard -- only to see it come crashing back months or even years later, when the time is right.

It's a much subtler strategy than simply attempting to run straight over the opposition, not least in a minority government. By declaring that he will seek consensus on any future deployment, the Prime Minister shifts the focus from his own intransigence to the opposition's. He implicates them in the decision, and in so doing puts the onus on them to explain their position.

And explain it they must. The NDP's at least has a kind of coherence. They are against fighting the Taliban, preferring to negotiate-- though what incentive the Taliban would have to negotiate after we had declared we would not fight them would be interesting to hear. The Liberals, on the other hand, would seem to believe that the Taliban should be fought, just not by us; that our troops should be there, but not use their weapons.

All right, I'll bite: who should fight them? Whom do the Liberals nominate to replace us, among the countries that have refused to fight thus far? The French? The Italians? How are they to be compelled to step forward, even as we retreat? The reality is that, should Canada pull out of the fighting, the gap will have to be filled by the countries that are doing it now -- the British, the Americans and the Dutch. Their mission won't end in February, 2009. Only ours will.

And for what purpose? To whose benefit? The Afghans? No, it is quite clear they want us there. The troops? No, they are equally adamant, in every interview I have ever seen: they want to be there. Our NATO partners? Obviously not. The only agenda served by the opposition's demands is ? the opposition's.

There's another sense in which it is a good thing to seek "consensus" from the opposition. Read the last part of the Prime Minister's remarks: "I don't want to send people into a mission if the opposition is going to, at home, undercut the dangerous work that they are doing in the field." Translated: that's exactly what's happening now.

The Taliban read the Western press. They are looking for the weak link in the NATO chain, and having found it, they will exploit it -- by killing as many soldiers from that country as they can. If critics of the war should not be accused of supporting the Taliban, neither should critics of the critics be accused of suppressing debate if they point out that there are consequences to their fecklessness. The Prime Minister has invited them to grow up. They should accept.
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US House takes first steps on long-term food aid
WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives committee approved a bill on Tuesday to boost food aid for the world's poor, adding a $600-million minimum for long-term hunger programs lawmakers say are needed to prevent future famines.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee by a wide margin passed the Food Security and Agricultural Development Act of 2007, which authorized funding for emergency donations of up to $2.5 billion a year from fiscal 2008 to 2012.

"It is an effort to address the long-term food needs of the chronically hungry," one committee staffer said after the vote, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The legislation will be rolled into the 2007 farm bill, the five-year law lawmakers hope to complete by fall, but it remains unclear what shape the final funding package will take.

If Congress moves to fund the food plan, the measure would be a leap from food aid appropriations around $1.2 billion in recent years.

But officials have been forced at the same time to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in supplemental funding to handle acute shortages in places like Afghanistan and Sudan, bringing the annual food aid total to about $2 billion.

The committee did not act, though, on the Bush administration's proposal to change food aid programs by allowing up to a quarter of emergency aid to come in the form of crops purchased in other countries instead of mandating U.S. commodities.

That proposal is unpopular with agriculture and shipping groups, and with some charities that sell U.S. food aid on developing country markets to fund development work.

Instead, the bill increases the funding ceiling for the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which purchase crops abroad to deal with food emergencies.

The amount, and kind, of food aid that the United States, the world's largest provider of food aid, is just one of the issues lawmakers, interest groups and civil society are fighting out as Congress prepares the new farm bill.

"It's an incredibly strong statement on the importance of food aid, both for development and emergencies. It's not just about handing out food aid," said Ellen Levinson, who heads a group of nonprofit organizations like World Vision.

She said the requirement to spend at least $600 million on longer-term programs would provide amounts of food for nonemergency programs not seen since 2002.

The bill also increases contributions for the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, which funds food aid response to emergencies.
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Taliban turn gunsights to Afghan police
The Christian Science Monitor 06/26/2007 KANDAHAR
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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Fast and furious with the Taliban
Asia Times 06/26/2007 By Jason Motlagh GERESHK
British Captain Jeff Lee takes pride in his battalion's ability to "get in, get out" of sticky situations.

On patrol, khaki-colored vehicles bristling with firepower, roll bars and camouflage netting recall the desert pirate esthetic of Mad Max movies. And they travel equally fast and loose, sacrificing extra heavy armor plates for mobility to battle Taliban militants in this remote province, one of the hardest to tame in Afghanistan.

"We're a light, mobile, fast-reacting force," said the veteran of counterinsurgency campaigns from Iraq to Northern Ireland, noting that only one of his men has been lost this year. "Get in, get out, and call in the air power to light the ground up if necessary."

But insurgents have adopted a similar approach to keep North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces on edge. After the bloody aftertaste of head-on confrontations across the southern provinces over the past year, they are increasingly shifting toward remote-detonated bombs, suicide attacks and other hit-and-run tactics in areas where they have regrouped. This reporter's first scheduled trip into Gereshk city was delayed by an early-morning suicide strike that killed two Afghan police officers at a bridge checkpoint.

Drugs are largely to blame. Gereshk sits next to the Helmand River, whose banks are straddled by two fertile strips of land where hardcore Taliban fighters, farmers and a troublesome combination of the two have dug in to protect their opium-poppy cash crop. The British have dubbed it the "Green Zone", but welcome they are not. World opium production in 2006 was 6,000 tonnes, 92% of which came from Afghanistan. In turn, most of Afghanistan's production comes from Helmand province.

"Just about every time we go into the area we engage [the Taliban]," said Lee. "Of course, the fighting tends to be most intense wherever opium cultivation is concentrated. You could say it's more like the 'Red Zone'."

Poring over a map at the British forward operating base 3 kilometers from the river, he said nearly every village on the banks of the river has a Taliban presence. With the opium-poppy harvest now over - and expected to exceed last year's record haul - hostilities have intensified from Gereshk up to the Sangin Valley, scene of fierce clashes in recent weeks.

NATO forces are trying to drive militants out of the valley to make improvements on the Kajaki Dam that could provide electricity for hundreds of thousands more Afghans, by far the biggest aid project the West has planned for the country. To do so, the road that runs parallel to the river must first be held to allow delivery of two massive transformers and a turbine for repairs.

"Clearing the valley has been one of our main objectives," said Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Mayo, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand. "There are still sporadic attacks, and that's to be expected because [the Taliban] want this area as much as we do."

The British strategy in the south has been to push up the Green Zone and force militants to engage. Typically this plays out as a brief, heated gun battle with bands of four to eight militants who then recede into fields and adobe warrens, though officers say Taliban clusters appear to be swelling in some areas.

Lieutenant Aaron Browne, a platoon commander who regularly sweeps north, said that during one recent patrol his men were ambushed by more than two dozen foot-soldiers; a gun battle broke out and they quickly dispersed.

Like their compatriots fighting around the Kajaki Dam, he said, troops in the Gereshk region want to secure agricultural tracts to allow civil development teams to carry out projects such as irrigation ditches and wells. This has proved difficult even in areas where they have ousted the Taliban; faced with a skeptical population, holding the ground is another matter.

Lee insists British forces have a "powerful influence" over most of the upper Gereshk Valley, estimating that of 300 or so core Taliban fighters in his theater of operations, about 140 have been killed. However, he concedes that numbers are an "illusion", since insurgents have shown a deft capacity to "inflate and contract" when they are pressured.

An Afghan police guard at the sun-baked prison fort that commands a clear view of the Green Zone from the heart of Gereshk swore the Taliban are in control of the upper valley. What appear to be Taliban roam freely in plain view of Afghan and NATO security forces in the markets below, but for the time being a tense calm prevails.

Looking to hold the initiative, British officers held a shura (council) with community elders last month to determine what was needed most to win them over. A school was asked for, and soon built. Other projects, including a bus station and a city park, are in progress.

"They give us their grievances, and we remind them of what we've done," said Lee, also noting the refrigerated morgue his men have just installed in the local hospital. "The more they see they've got, the more likely they are to reject the Taliban. Gereshk is a success story."

But errant NATO air strikes continue to take their toll on Afghan civilians, undoing hard-earned public trust. Last Friday, another attack on suspected Taliban militants about 14km north of Gereshk killed nine women, three infants and a mullah, according to local authorities.

Civilians in the line of fire This week, an agitated President Hamid Karzai reprimanded foreign troops for unnecessary civilian deaths, writes Najiba Ayubi from Kabul in a report by Inter Press Service in association with the The Killid Group.

As civilian deaths spiral in the widening conflict in Afghanistan, there is anger on the streets against the government and foreign forces. Anti-US and NATO protests have rocked Kabul, and the eastern and southern provinces.

While militants have killed 178 civilians in attacks, Western forces have killed 203, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and international officials.

Last week, public resentment erupted on the airwaves. An independent radio network stopped regular transmission to go live with a spontaneous, two-hour discussion after a suicide bomb in Kabul on June 17. At least 30 police instructors were killed when the bus taking them to work at the Kabul Police Academy exploded in front of the heavily fortified police headquarters.

Furious listeners who phoned Radio Killid, a station that broadcasts from Kabul and Herat, forced Karzai's spokesman to come on air to defend the government over the second attack on a police bus in Kabul this year.

"I blame the government of Karzai," said a caller who identified himself as Abdul Gulbahari. "I am a truck driver and have visited 31 provinces, including many of the districts. I see no positive changes in those provinces. The government has done nothing to solve the people's problems."

Afghan and foreign security forces have constantly claimed Kabul is safe from Taliban fighters seeking to topple the Karzai government. But successive suicide attacks have nailed the lie, according to political commentator, Dad Noorani.

"I think that security forces are unable to control the situation, including the US-led coalition and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] forces. And when attacks happen, the government loses people's confidence," said Noorani, a well-known Radio Killid journalist. "We have troops from so many nations ... in order to secure our country but insecurity increases day by day," he lamented over the radio.

Security has sharply deteriorated in Afghanistan since late 2004 when many US troops were evacuated to Iraq. A resurgent Taliban have made deadly strikes on government facilities including schools, and on foreign troops. The nearly daily attacks, which began in the southern provinces along the country's border with Pakistan, have spread to the east.

Civilians, increasingly, are caught between the warring sides.

Zia Syamak Herawi, the president's spokesman, defended Karzai. "The Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police and the National Directorate of Security, under the leadership of the president, are all trying their best to prevent such activities, but suicide attacks are a little hard to control, and after three years the incidents are on the rise," he told Radio Killid.

Jason Motlagh is deputy foreign editor at United Press International in Washington, DC. He has reported freelance from Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for various US and European news media.
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Female journalists targeted as violence surges in Afghanistan
The Associated Press Tuesday, June 26, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan: Farida Nekzad began receiving menacing calls on her mobile phone a half hour after arriving at the funeral of a fellow female journalist assassinated by gunmen.

"'Daughter of America! We will kill you, just like we killed her,'" she quoted the man on the phone as saying even as Nekzad was mourning Zakia Zaki, the owner of a radio station north of Kabul.

Zaki's maimed body lay nearby, part of her face blown away by three attackers who entered her home and shot her seven times with pistol and automatic rifle fire in front of her 8-year-old son earlier this month.

"'At least people can recognize her from one side of her face. We will shoot your face, and nobody will recognize you,'" the caller warned the 29-year-old Nekzad before she hung up.

The lives of Afghan women and girls have improved vastly since the fall in 2001 of the Taliban, which stripped women of most rights and made them virtual prisoners in their own houses.

In cities and some rural areas, they can now go to school and work outside the home. But this month has seen a rising number of attempts to quash these advances with threats and violence.

Manizha Naderi, director of the rights group Women for Afghan Women, believes the recent attacks reflect a Taliban resurgence and spike in militant violence across the country. Afghan women journalists in particular are being targeted because of their high profiles.

"They (militants) want to make news, and targeting the journalists is a way to make news," Naderi said. "They're showing the world, 'We're here and we're still in charge of this country.'"

Women have played a large role in the country's media advances the past six years, and several women work on TV news programs as readers and reporters. They are typically modestly dressed, with their hair and necklines carefully hidden under scarves.

Still, some Afghans think it is inappropriate for women to appear before the public.

When Afghans today talk about Shaima Rezayee, a popular music video show host shot to death in 2005, they speak in hushed tones — about the racy, un-Islamic way she dressed or behaved on TV, as if this justified her death.

And it appears Zaki may have been targeted because of her radio programming.

The radio host had been critical of local warlords who warned her to change the programming on her station. Two suspects being held for her murder are connected with the militant group Hezb-e-Islami, officials said.

In a second killing of a female journalist this month, Shokiba Sanga Amaaj, a newsreader for private Shamshad TV, was shot in her home in Kabul on June 1. Two family friends have been detained in the case.

Authorities say they do not know the motive for the killings of Zaki or Amaaj.

Threats in this war-torn and corrupt country are not uncommon.

Nekzad, who works for the news agency Pajhwok Afghan News, forwarded an e-mail to an Associated Press journalist that warned her, "We will kill you as soon as possible INSHA ALLAH" — if Allah, or God, wills it.

The message, dated June 8, accused her of sexual impropriety and of working for NATO. It was signed from Habib from Hezb-e-Islami, the same militant group authorities suspect in Zaki's death. The authenticity of the e-mail could not be verified.

Nekzad said Afghans began paying attention to her fears only after she told foreign journalists, who took the dangers she faced seriously. She said she wondered if her role as a journalist could somehow have saved Zaki.

A year ago, Nekzad assigned a reporter to interview Zaki about death threats she had received. Zaki later decided against airing the story, so the Pajhwok reporter scrapped it and erased the videotape.

"If it were published, maybe the international community would have taken it more seriously, but after her death, it has no meaning," Nekzad said. "Nobody paid attention, not even the international community or the government."

Meanwhile, Nekzad has become sick with worry, changing her work schedule each day so potential attackers cannot track her routine. She sleeps in a different room of her house every night. She goes without sleep for days, and her speech is punctuated by a cough that she says is caused by stress.

"Maybe they will kill me after six months, after six days, after six minutes," she said in a quiet room at the Pajhwok office. "We know that one day we will leave this world, but if you are informed that you will be killed, it is very, very bad. Every second kills you."
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Afghan ministry gives foreigners three days to register
KABUL, June 26 -(Pajhwok Afghan News)-The Interior Ministry Tuesday asked all foreign citizens, especially those from neigbhouring working in Afghanistan to register with nearest police stations in three days.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zmaray Bashary told Pajhwok Afghan News the move was aimed at ensuring safety of the foreigners in Afghanistan and helping in times of emergency.

The spokesman explained embassy staffers, international NGOs employees those with diplomatic passports were excluded from registration. The foreigners working with construction companies, NGOs and other local companies need to be registered.

Many citizens of Tajikistan, Iran, Korea, India , Turkey, Nepal, the Philippines and Pakistan are currently working in Afghanistan and they are required to meet the formality by Thursday.
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Afghan Ministry Suggests Steps To Minimise Civilian Deaths
KABUL, June 26 Asia Pulse - The Afghan Defence Ministry, in cooperation with other Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), has proposed measures aimed at minimising civilian casualties in operations conducted by foreign troops.

A spokesman for the ministry said on Monday the steps had been suggested in compliance with orders from President Hamid Karzai, also commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces.

The views of Afghan security forces would be considered in all phases of operations including collection assessment, analysis and evaluation of intelligence information, as well as planning, implementation and after-action review in cooperation with international forces.

In a statement mailed to Pajhwok Afghan News, the spokesman said the mechanism for joint coordination of air, ground and fire-support operations would be further improved. Participation of the Afghan forces is deemed essential in all conventional and special operations.

Coordination between the ANSF and international forces would be improved and executed immediately at provincial, regional and central levels, the statement added.

Senior leaders of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and international forces are very sensitive about civilian Afghan casualties and have shared this concern with us. They committed full cooperation in minimising and preventing these incidents, the ministry continued.

Based on the ministry's four-step proposal - pre-mission preparations, pre-mission combat planning, mission execution and after-action review - brisk work is going on with the international forces to prepare detailed procedures for implementation.

Conducting military operations to eliminate terrorists is necessary, according to the statement that said efforts to ensure the safety of the civilian population was the ministry's top most priority.

As its combat capability grew, the ministry said, the ANSF would take the lead in conducting these operations. It cited Operation Maiwand as an example of the ANA leading crackdowns.

"Having in mind the terrorists have a desire to use innocent and defenseless people as humans shields as part of their principle tactic, it is our earnest expectation from the Muslim people of Afghanistan to prevent them taking shelter in their localities and to inform the ANSF with regard to their presence."
(Pajhwok Afghan News)
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German defence minister in Washington for talks on Afghanistan 
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:48:01GMT EARTHtimes.org
Washington - German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung was in Washington on Tuesday to meet with top US officials for talks on Afghanistan and the international plan for the eventual independence of Kosovo from Serbia. Jung met with US President George W Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, and was to meet with Defence Secretary Robert Gates later Tuesday.

The meeting comes amid increased fighting between NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban. Some US lawmakers have criticized the German government for refusing to send German soldiers to the heavy fighting in the southern part of the country, instead restricting them to relatively safe areas on peacekeeping missions.

Jung and Gates were also expected to discuss controversial US plans to deploy a missile defence system to Poland and the Czech Republic. 
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Majority of Poles oppose Afghanistan mission
Jun 26, 2007, 12:15 GMT South Asia News
Warsaw - Nearly 80 per cent of Poles oppose the deployment of some 1,100 Polish troops as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, according to an opinion poll published Tuesday.

Seventy-eight per cent of respondents opposed the dangerous mission, compared to only 17 per cent who voiced support, the independent Warsaw-based CBOS pollsters found.

A 71-per-cent majority of Poles also doubt the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan will bring peace to the country.

Public opposition to the presence of some 900 Polish troops in the US-led multinational forces in Iraq also remains strong at 81 per cent, according to CBOS' findings. 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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Training Pakistan's police in refugee rights
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 25 (UNHCR) – At a time of feared deportations, refugee camp closures and generally high tension among Afghans in Pakistan, it is important the police know about refugee rights.

Last week, UNHCR completed a three-day training course for police officers in Pakistan's largest refugee-hosting area, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The workshop, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday, touched on human and refugee rights, the refugee agency's mandate and the status of Afghans after the government's recent registration exercise in Pakistan.

"This is a good initiative to train police officers on the concept of human rights, UNHCR's core functions, and the Pakistan government's policy towards refugees, especially in the post-registration period," said Alhaj Mazhar Sajjad, the Deputy Secretary (Police) of the Home Department of NWFP, which helped to organize the training. "There is a need to continue the training, particularly for police officers from districts that have to deal with refugees on a day-to-day basis," he added.

Conducted in the local languages of Urdu and Pashto, the workshop drew police officers from across NWFP, home to 64 percent of the 2.15 million registered Afghans in Pakistan. The participants' ranks ranged from assistant sub-inspectors to the deputy superintendent of police.

Inspector Legal Sher Ahmad Khan, who came from the far-flung mountains of Chitral, said, "I am glad to be here and to have a chance of learning so much about refugee issues, especially under the current circumstances."

Fawad Aamir, UNHCR's associate protection officer and one of the workshop's facilitators, agreed: "It is the right time to hold such trainings and disseminate information on the government's and UNHCR's policies towards Afghan refugees, to sensitize the police department on the Proof of Registration (PoR) cards and the process of de-registration before they repatriate."

The registration of Afghan citizens in Pakistan from last October to February this year by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) changed the landscape for Afghans in Pakistan. More than 2.15 million Afghans were registered and all those above five years of age were given PoR cards valid till for three years. PoR card holders are allowed to stay in Pakistan till the end of 2009, while unregistered Afghans with no PoR cards are considered illegal migrants subject to the Foreigner's Act.

More than 200,000 unregistered Afghans were able to voluntarily repatriate with UNHCR assistance during a government-declared grace period from March 1 to April 15. Starting April 16, only registered Afghans can be assisted home in a process that involves deregistering them from the NADRA database and physically invalidating their PoR cards.

In addition, the government plans to close four camps for security and development reasons this year. Afghans in Katchagari and Jalozai camps in NWFP and Jungle Pir Alizai and Girdi Jungle camps in Balochistan have been given two options – to voluntarily repatriate with UNHCR assistance averaging US$100 per person, or to relocate to an existing camp in Pakistan. The authorities have promised not to use force to close the camps and are negotiating with the Afghan elders to do so peacefully.

Still, tensions are high as many Afghans in the four camps feel the situation back home is not conducive to return, but at the same time, worry that they will not be able to find jobs if they move to the relocation camps.

In the longer term, the Pakistan government plans to repatriate all Afghans within the next three years at a rate of 800,000 per year – a target UNHCR feels is not sustainable under Afghanistan's available absorption capacity.

Amid these uncertainties, the role of the police is crucial. They must be able to distinguish between registered and unregistered Afghans, to respect the value of the PoR card and the voluntary nature of return. They must also know how to tell the difference between a valid card and a fake or invalid one belonging to someone who repatriated but has come back again to Pakistan.

Most of all, the UN refugee agency hopes to promote more understanding and tolerance for refugees among the law enforcement authorities. The impact is clear: "Whenever I heard the word refugee, I only thought of Afghans living on our land, depleting all our resources for so many years," said a police officer who declined to give his name.

"But after the training, I can feel their problems and why they are still in Pakistan. Before the training, we would detain the Afghans at any time simply because they were refugees. I am sure I will not do this in future and will think about them in a more humane way."
By Rabia Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan
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ECHO to spend 24 million euros in Afghanistan
KABUL, June 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) will spend 24 million euros on disaster management, health facilities and refugees' welfare this year in Afghanistan.

Laurent Saillard, ECHO representative for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, told reporters here on Monday the money would be spent by the World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Red Cross to provide food and health services to the needy.

"Aid and support for returning refugees will be a priority, said Laurent, who revealed that ECHO granted 215million euros to Afghanistan through international NGOs since 2003.

Abdul Ghani Kazmi, secretary-general of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, announced the formation of two disaster management teams and training of 300 volunteers for dealing with emergency situations. ECHO had granted one million euros for the purpose, he added.

Kazmi said the volunteers would be trained in Maidan Wardak, Kunar, Bamyan and Nangarhar provinces and two teams would be set up in Kabul and Balkh provinces.
Zarghona Salehi
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