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June 4, 2007 

Karzai wants body exchanged for hostages
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai ordered that the body of a slain top Taliban commander be exchanged for the release of five Afghan health workers kidnapped in the country's south, an official said Monday.

Karzai told "relevant authorities" to exchange the body of Mullah Dadullah, killed last month in southern        Afghanistan, for a doctor, three nurses and a driver kidnapped March 27, said Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the Public Health Ministry.

The order followed an exchange demand from Dadullah Mansoor, the brother of the slain commander, who now heads the militant operations in southern Afghanistan, Fahim said.

Mullah Dadullah, a one-legged militant who orchestrated Taliban suicide attacks and beheadings, was killed in a U.S.-led military operation in Helmand province. Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid has said that Dadullah was buried at a secret location near Kandahar.

The health workers were kidnapped by suspected Taliban militants in Kandahar's Zhari district after they had administered vaccines and other treatment at a refugee camp, officials said.

"We hope that they will release our workers safe and secure," Fahim said. "Now it is up to local authorities in Kandahar ... to hand over the body (to the family)," he said.

It was not immediately clear when the swap would be made.

Mullah Dadullah was the second top-tier Taliban field commander to die in six months, after a U.S. airstrike killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani in December.
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Feared Afghan warlord has governor in sights
Juma Khan Hamdard by Sylvie Briand Mon Jun 4, 5:55 AM ET
SHIBIRGHAN, Afghanistan (AFP) - From his fiefdom in Shibirghan, northern Afghanistan's most feared warlord is trying to oust a governor in a show of power that plays on ethnic tensions and threatens to undermine the already weak government.

Tempers are high in the town, capital of Jawzjan province, after a demonstration a week ago that left 11 of warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam's supporters dead.

Hundreds tried to storm the offices of provincial governor Juma Khan Hamdard, demanding his resignation, police said. Police opened fire to control the crowd.

The protests continued for four days and spread to nearby towns, with officials saying Dostam was behind them. The national government sent two commissions to investigate.

Residents of Shibirghan, where portraits of Dostam eclipse those of President Hamid Karzai, have threatened new protests if the governor is not removed.

Police chief Mohammad Khalil Amiraza says Dostam has "massed more than 1,000" of his armed and uniformed militiamen around the small town, which has since received a discreet reinforcement of US soldiers.

One of the allegations against the governor is based on his ethnicity: he is Pashtun in an area dominated by Uzbeks, of which Dostam is one.

"He is an incompetent. He only works for the Pashtuns," says Uzbek shopkeeper Abdul Wahid.

The Pashtun minority in the north has long been accused by other ethnic groups of being a "fifth column" of the Taliban, rooted in the Pashtun-dominated south, or the radical Hezb-i-Islami party of Pashtun commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

The northwards advance of the Taliban in the late 1990s, when they swept to power, was accompanied by inter-ethnic massacres. Now the extremist group, which controls several areas in the south, is threatening to increase attacks in the north.

"Certain Pashtuns supported the Taliban in the north of the country," says Sayed Nourrullah, the leader of Dostam's Jumbesh-e-Melli Islami (National Islamic Movement) party.

"This government is incapable of ensuring security and ethnic equality," he adds. "What we want is a federation."

He complains that Dostam has been sidelined by Karzai, who in 2005 made him the largely symbolic Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces.

"It is not normal that a man like General Dostam, who took a million votes in the 2004 presidential election, has been given nothing other than a symbolic post," Nourrullah says. Dostam's tally was 10 percent of the poll.

Surrounded by bodyguards, governor Hamdard says that Dostam is bitter that he himself does not have an important position in the government.

The commander and his men, who control substantial oil and gas reserves in the north, want a governor who "obeys them" and does not touch the revenues from the gas fields, Hamdard says.

"And the international forces are happy to watch what is happening."

In Mazar-i-Sharif, a city 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Shibirghan, the head of a pro-Pashtun party, Afghan Mellat, says the accusations against Hamdard are baseless.

Dostam is trying to "reign by fear with the support of Russia and Uzbekistan," says politician Zafer Khan. "If Hamdard is removed, that will show again the weakness of the government."

For Abdul Malik Pahlawan, a former general of Dostam's who sided with the Taliban before himself being betrayed, the problem is simple.

"We have a government that is submissive to the warlords and which will collapse the day the international forces leave," he says.
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Gates: Iran weapons found in Afghanistan
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer Associated Press / June 4, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan - Iranian weapons have begun flowing into Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday, but he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed involvement by Tehran cannot yet be proved.

Gates told a news conference at the presidential palace that he and Karzai had discussed the Iranian weapons issue.

"There have been indications over the past few months of weapons coming in from Iran," Gates said. "We do not have any information about whether the government of Iran is supporting this, is behind it, or whether it's smuggling, or exactly what's behind it."

The Iranian weapons are being supplied to the Taliban insurgents, he said, adding that some may also be headed to criminals involved in Afghanistan's drug trade. Gates did not specify what types of weapons were involved.

A NATO spokesman told reporters last week that a powerful type of roadside bomb like those used in Iraq, was found recently in Kabul. The bomb, never before seen here, is known as an EFP, or explosively formed projectile. It was notable for its level of sophistication and has characteristics similar to the type in Iraq that have borne Iranian manufacturing markings.

Asked separately whether he believed Tehran was behind the flow of weapons, Karzai suggested it was unlikely.

"There's no reason that any of our neighbors should support the Taliban," Karzai said. "We don't have any such evidence so far" regarding possible Iranian government involvement, he said, adding that relations between the two nations were improving.

"Iran and Afghanistan have never been as friendly as they are today," Karzai said.

At the news conference, Gates also said U.S. commanders have been relieved that an expected spring offensive by the Taliban has been less intense than some feared. He said it was thwarted by an "Afghan alliance offensive that has put the Taliban off their game."

Gates later flew to the southern city of Kandahar, accompanied by Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defense minister. They held closed meetings with senior American commanders, including Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, who is in charge of training Afghan security forces, and British Maj. Gen. Jacko Page, the top NATO commander for southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban was expected to make a strong push this spring.

In their joint news conference in Kabul, Gates and Karzai said they regretted the number of American air strikes that have taken the lives of innocent Afghan civilians, and they pledged to work together to reduce such incidents.

Gates, while acknowledging the problem, said the Taliban share blame for deliberately placing civilians at risk in order to stir sentiment against the American military and the Afghan government.

"Avoiding civilian casualties is very important in terms of winning the loyalty and the support of local populations," Gates said. "At the same time, I think it is important to stress ... that the Taliban deliberately puts civilians in harm's way."

Earlier in the day, during a stop at Camp Morehead, the head of the Afghan National Army said his country is pushing the United States to accelerate training and equipping his army so the Afghans can fight the Taliban on their own.

Gen. Bismullah Khan, the army chief of staff, told reporters traveling with Gates that the goal of attaining independence on the battlefield is essential.

"We don't have air support," he said through an interpreter, expressing frustration at the lack of an Afghan air force. "That is a very serious problem. We are looking forward to the day when we can fight the enemy independently."

He was asked how soon the army could reach that goal.

"We asked for it to be as soon as possible," he said. "I will ask the secretary of defense to expedite the process so we can do this. The only way to defeat the enemy is to become independent."

He mentioned that the United States has committed, with the help of allies, to building an Afghan national army of 70,000 soldiers by the end of next year.

"But it's not going to be enough," he said. "We'll ask for more."

Gates, making his second visit to Afghanistan as defense secretary, came to this training camp some five miles southwest of Kabul to confer with U.S. and Afghan commanders training Afghan special forces. Despite a rise in insurgent violence this spring, Gates said he remains convinced American and NATO forces are making steady progress against the Taliban.

For months, Gates has expressed concern about possible reversals in Afghanistan, which still lacks a self-sustaining military and suffers from the unmet expectations of building an effective central government.
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Afghanistan's Karzai Downplays Iranian-Taliban Link Ken Fireman
Mon Jun 4, 8:51 AM ET
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said that relations between his country and        Iran have never been better and downplayed suggestions that the government in Tehran is aiding the Islamist Taliban movement.

U.S. military commanders recently have said weapons of Iranian origin are turning up in        Afghanistan. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who attended a joint news conference with Karzai in Kabul today, repeated that accusation, while saying it wasn't clear whether the Iranian government was responsible.

Afghanistan doesn't have ``any such evidence so far of involvement of the Iranian government'' in supplying the Taliban, who are waging a military campaign against Karzai's government, the Afghan leader said.

``We have a very good relationship with the Iran government. Iran and Afghanistan have never been as friendly as they are today,'' Karzai added.

Iran has contributed to Afghanistan's reconstruction efforts and has an interest in seeing a stable Afghanistan, Karzai said. ``There is no reason any of our neighbors should support the Taliban,'' he said.

Gates and Karzai, who spoke to reporters after conferring at the presidential palace, both said the battle against the Taliban was winnable, while cautioning that victory would not come easily or quickly.

``I think absolutely this is a winnable fight,'' Gates said. It is also a long-term undertaking.''

Civilian Casualties

They also agreed on the need to hold down civilian casualties. Gates said that the Taliban was to blame for such casualties because it deploys its forces among civilians, putting them at risk.

Earlier in the day, Gates toured a training camp for Afghan army commandos in rugged, hilly terrain about 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of Kabul.

Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Farid Ahmadi, who will command the first battalion of Afghani commandos when they graduate from the camp, expressed optimism about the course of the conflict with the Taliban.

``They don't dare face us in frontal attacks,'' said Ahmadi. ``But they use roadside bombs, mines and suicide attacks. We adapt. We have the upper hand.''

Ahmadi, 36, has had a varied military career. He said that, as a teenager during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, he trained with the Soviet Army in a camp near Moscow. He fought against the Taliban during the 1990s and now has trained with U.S. forces.

Afghan Responsibility

The Afghan National Army's chief of staff, General Bizmullah Kahn, said his forces are eager to take greater responsibility for the fight against the Taliban.

The general said plans have been laid to have 70,000 Afghan soldiers fully trained by December of next year. He added that more trained forces will be necessary before the Afghan army can assume full responsibility for the conflict.

``Seventy thousand won't be enough,'' he said through an interpreter. ``We have asked for more.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Ken Fireman in Kabul at kfireman1@bloomberg.net
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Afghan army says needs more help from Pakistan
By Kristin Roberts Mon Jun 4, 3:36 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan is not getting enough cooperation from neighboring Pakistan as it battles a Taliban insurgency, the chief of the Afghan National Army said on Monday.

"We have a relationship, of course, under the coordination of the United States," Gen. Bismillah Khan said. "The cooperation that we need, unfortunately, we don't get."

Khan made the comments as he toured a commando training center on the outskirts of Kabul with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is making his second visit to Afghanistan since taking over the Pentagon in December.

Khan said the two countries need a better exchange of information and more joint training exercises.

Relations between the uneasy neighbors, both U.S. allies in its war on terrorism, have deteriorated in recent months. The worst violence in years erupted three weeks ago in a disputed border area in Afghanistan's southern Paktia province.

Afghanistan said Pakistan invaded its soil and killed 13 Afghans. Pakistan said Afghan troops started unprovoked firing on border posts.

The two sides have blamed each other for the resurgence of the Taliban, driven from government by a U.S. invasion following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Khan said the Afghan National Army would reach its targeted strength of 70,000 soldiers by 2008 and would be fully operational by 2011. But he said 70,000 was not enough.

Khan said he would ask Gates to speed up equipping and training his army.

Taliban violence has picked up in recent weeks following a traditional winter lull in fighting, despite the presence of nearly 50,000 NATO and U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Taliban suicide bombers strike several times a week and have recently moved into relatively peaceful northern areas of the country. The Taliban has said it has trained hundreds of suicide bombers.

NATO and U.S.-coalition air strikes that have killed scores of civilians have sparked protests and calls for the resignation of President Hamid Karzai.

Gates was scheduled to meet Karzai at the national palace on Monday.

Gates' one-day visit is aimed at assessing coordination within the U.S.-led coalition to ensure Afghanistan does not spiral into the kind of violence seen in Iraq.

He said on his arrival in Afghanistan late on Sunday that security and development were "slowly, cautiously" headed in the right direction.
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Pakistan expects better relations with Afghanistan
Islamabad, June 4 (Xinhua) Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said Monday that his visit to Afghanistan was very successful and will pave the way for good relations between the two countries.

Talking to a private television channel, Sherpao said that dialogue with the Afghan leadership was held in a cordial atmosphere.

Some positive developments took place during the visit, he said, adding that the consensus between the two countries on holding a Jirga or tribal conclave in the first week of August was one.

The official APP news agency quoted Sherpao as saying that this Jirga would have a far-reaching impact on relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He said the Jirga would be an appropriate forum for people-to-people contact between the two countries and that it would help remove misunderstandings.

Leaders of both countries would address the event, adding to its importance, he said. 'It would be a historic step and we are waiting for it,' Sherpao added.

He said that Pakistan wanted a peaceful and progressive Afghanistan and while it had taken a number of steps in this direction, there were still some problem areas, which would be removed by new initiatives.
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Over 300,000 immunised against tetanus, measles in Kabul
KABUL, 4 June 2007 (IRIN) - Over 300,000 mothers, 15-50 years old, and a similar number of children between nine months and five years of age, have been successfully vaccinated against tetanus and measles in Kabul, the country's Ministry of Public Health has announced.

Part of larger efforts launched on 20 May in 12 provinces, the six-day campaign was later extended until 2 June in Kabul in a further effort to reach a targeted number of women and children.

"There were some logistical shortcomings, coupled with shortages of professional staff that demanded the drive's extension," Dr Bismillah Aziz, a World Health Organization (WHO) official in Afghanistan, explained.

According to preliminary results, 60-70 percent of eligible women were vaccinated against tetanus, while up to 85 percent of children were vaccinated against measles, Aziz added.

Some 3,500 medical staff conducted the final round of the national campaign in door-to-door visits and at community centres such as mosques, a WHO press release read.

Unexpected refusals

The UN had sought media assistance to bolster public information efforts and encourage parents to vaccinate eligible women and children after vaccinators faced unexpected refusals from many Afghan families in Kabul.

"Some women do not know about the advantages of these vaccines to their own and their children's health and safety which caused a kind of negligence towards this campaign," Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Health, said.

But despite the refusals, Kabul was still being viewed as a success amongst the 34 provinces of the country, where vaccination campaigns have often been plagued by problems.

Helmand

"In the tetanus and measles immunisation campaign conducted in Helmand three months ago, only 50 percent of eligible mothers and 85 percent of children were vaccinated," Mohammad Qaseem, an official of the southern province's public health department, said.

"Afghan women, particularly in rural areas, suffer a series of socio-traditional restrictions in appearing before male doctors. We could not find adequate female vaccinators in order to reach all the women in Helmand," Qaseem conceded.

Kandahar

In the neighbouring province of Kandahar, the vaccination effort reached only 55 percent of women and 75 percent of children, according to provincial health officials.

"Insecurity, a lack of public information, a shortage of professional medical personnel and harmful propaganda by insurgents are the problems that have affected our efforts in some parts of the country," the Ministry of Health spokesman said.

In the volatile southern provinces of the country, Taliban insurgents have repeatedly attacked health facilities and even kidnapped health workers, thus impeding the delivery of health services to many rural communities.
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Malaysia Ready To Help Efforts To Transform Afghanistan - Abdullah
Bernama (Malaysia)
PUTRAJAYA, June 4 (Bernama) -- Malaysia is willing to share its experience to assist the future transformation of Afghanistan as the war-torn nation strives to create an enabling environment for effective private sector contribution to its development process.

In making the offer, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Afghanistan could draw lessons from the Malaysian experience and decide what would be best for it.

Just like Malaysia, he said, Afghanistan could shift from an agriculture-based economy to labour-intensive manufacturing before eventually moving to high-technology as well as skills and capital-intensive manufacturing.

Abdullah said this in his keynote address via a live video conferencing linking Putrajaya and Kabul which hosted the "Enabling Environment Conference - Effective Private Sector Contribution to Development of Afghanistan" on Monday.

He said that since agriculture was presently the biggest provider of employment, it would be logical to reinvigorate the war-ravaged agricultural sector in Afghanistan.

The prime minister said that Malaysia would expand its cooperation with Afghanistan and provide places for trainees from the country under the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme.

"We can focus on training modules which have relevance to the question of modernising the agricultural sector in that country," he added.

He noted that Malaysia had considerable experience in the development of small and medium-scale enterprises and would be ready to share this knowledge with the Central Asian country.

"It should be possible for Afghanistan to find for itself a niche in the international market place, especially for niche products such as hand-woven carpets," he added.

Pointing out that mineral deposits represented another potential source of wealth for Afghanistan, he said that an enabling environment was certainly needed before foreign entrepreneurs could invest in the mining sector.
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Sixty Taliban drown fleeing troops: Afghan defence ministry
Sun Jun 3, 4:31 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - About 60 fleeing Taliban fighters were confirmed dead after their boat sank in southern        Afghanistan, the defence ministry said Sunday as the        NATO force announced another of its soldiers died in action.

Police meanwhile killed 12 "enemies" late Saturday, the interior ministry said, as both the Afghan military and Taliban insurgents announced new operations.

The 60 Taliban were fleeing one of the new military campaigns on Friday when their makeshift boat sank in the Helmand River, defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters.

He said Friday that the military had "observed from the air that Taliban got on board the boat" which sank.

"According to reports we received, all of them onboard were Taliban and were killed," he announced Sunday. "They were running from our troops to safe places across the river."

Besides the new Helmand operation, troops from the Afghan army, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US Special Forces had last week started new campaigns in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces, Azimi said.

"These operations are aimed at providing security in the area so the reconstruction can take place," he said in Kabul.

This year has already seen some of the most intense military action against insurgents linked to the extremist Taliban movement that was driven from government in late 2001.

The insurgents, said to be allied with foreign fighters and opium traders, have also stepped up their action despite the killing last month of their top commander, Mullah Dadullah, by Afghan and foreign troops.

A spokesman for the Taliban called on Afghans Sunday to keep clear of foreign military bases and convoys, warning of new attacks on troops.

"We call on Afghans to stay away from foreign forces because a big (Taliban) operation is due to be launched. This will include ambushes, suicide attacks and roadside explosions," Zabihullah Mujahed said.

"If any civilian gets hurt, it'll be their responsibility," he told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.

Militants ambushed ISAF soldiers with gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades on Saturday, killing one of the foreign troops and an Afghan interpreter, the alliance said. The attack was in the northeast province of Nuristan, a regional official said.

Seven other foreign troops were wounded, ISAF said in a statement Sunday that did not give the nationalities of the soldiers.

The latest death takes to 75 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them in hostile action and about half of them US nationals.

Seven were killed when a helicopter was brought down in the south on Wednesday last week. The Taliban has said it shot down the Chinook but ISAF has not confirmed the claim.

In other violence reported Sunday, police killed 12 "enemies" in the eastern province of Khost late Saturday, the interior ministry announced. The militants had attacked a police checkpost, it said.

A spokesman for Daduallah's replacement, his brother Mansoor Dadullah, told AFP meanwhile that an Afghan doctor and three nurses captured late March would be beheaded if Dadullah's body was not handed to the Taliban by Tuesday.

The government of Kandahar province showed Dadullah's body to the media before burying it at an undisclosed location mid-May.
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New wave of military operations against Taliban
Sun Jun 3, 6:36 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan security forces supported by        NATO-led and US-led troops have launched a wave of operations against Taliban militants in insurgency-hit southern        Afghanistan, the defence ministry said Sunday.

The insurgents meanwhile warned civilians to stay away from foreign forces, saying they were planning their own new campaign of ambushes, suicide attacks and roadside bombings.

A defence ministry spokesman told reporters in Kabul the operations launched last week were in the southern provinces of Ghazni, Helmand and Kandahar. All have seen intense Taliban activity in the past weeks.

"These operations are aimed at providing security in the area so the reconstruction can take place," General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told a news conference.

Operation "Kulang" (pickaxe), involving hundreds of Afghan troops and British forces operating under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), was underway in districts of Helmand, Azimi said.

The offensive caused 60 Taliban fighters to flee across the Helmand River Friday, he said. Their boat sank and they were all killed, he said.

Two Afghan soldiers also died, Azimi said.

A similar offensive code-named "Hadalat," meaning justice, was launched in neighbouring Kandahar -- the former stronghold of the Taliban, Azimi said.

It involved Afghan and Canadian troops and US Special Forces.

In Ghazni province, hundreds of other Afghan and ISAF troops unleashed Operation Maiwand -- named after a troubled Kandahar district where the British were defeated by an Afghan army in 1880.

Four rebels have been captured since the launch of the offensive on Saturday, the general said.

The province has seen a spike in violence in the past few months, with a suicide bombing last month which killed 10 Afghans while militants killed five relatives of a policeman in an attack late Thursday.

A spokesman for the Taliban meanwhile called on Afghans Sunday to stay away from foreign military bases and convoys, warning of a wave of attacks on the troops.

"We call on Afghans to stay away from foreign forces because a big (Taliban) operation is due to be launched. This will include ambushes, suicide attacks and roadside explosions," Zabihullah Mujahed said.

"If any civilian gets hurt, it'll be their responsibility," he told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.

The Taliban insurgency was launched soon after the hardline, Islamic movement was driven from government in late 2001. It is said to have been joined by other Islamist militias, foreign fighters and opium traders.

About 50,000 foreign soldiers are in Afghanistan to help the local security forces tackle the insecurity.
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Surfing for porn in Afghanistan
Regina Leader-Post (Canada) Tom Blackwell, CanWest News Service Monday, June 04, 2007
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- At the Internet cafes popping up around this once culturally oppressed city, the computer cubicles usually have little doors that Web surfers can shut behind them.

The reason is simple, says Abdul Qader, a former Toronto resident and owner of one Internet cafe.

In the birthplace of the Taliban, which barred people from as much as listening to the radio or taking photographs, most of the cafes' male Muslim patrons are visiting Web sites best viewed in private.

"The young generation use it for the sex," Qader concedes with a chuckle. "I think the word 'sex' is used here more than anywhere else in the world."

Despite the city's reputation for piety, he maintains, the interest in pornography should come as no surprise. This is, after all, a land where extra-marital relations are virtually a capital offence, and only the most daring woman exposes her chin for all to see.

"We are a sexually deprived nation," states Qader, who spent a few years as a refugee in Canada in the mid-1990s. "At 25 years, a husband cannot even see his wife ... This is a basic human, psychological need. Especially the young ones, they are curious about how it is."

Even so, Qader admits, his own business has made the "ethical" decision to have no privacy doors on its computer kiosks.

Internet cafes started emerging here a year or two ago, and are still a phenomenon primarily of the young and educated.

But their mere presence -- and their proprietors' democratic approach to their use -- is a graphic sign of change in Kandahar, where the Taliban first introduced its almost surreal brand of Islam. The fundamentalist government banned movies, videos, dancing and even music, which one mullah said "creates a strain in the mind and hampers the study of Islam."

As the Internet revolution belatedly comes to conservative southern Afghanistan, users are e-mailing family in other countries, digging up information for school studies, and communicating with western organizations for which they do work.

Mohammed Ihsan, 17, is another booster of the Net, which he was using this week to study up for a chance to compete in an international biology olympiad. Clad in the same combination of long, flowing shirt and baggy pants sported by virtually every Kandahar male, Ihsan said he also enjoys fashion and news sites.

But he acknowledges that some parts of the information highway should be off limits here.
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Film About Family's Flight From Taliban Wins Peabody Award
By Susan Kinzie Washington Post Monday, June 4, 2007; Page B04
All night Sahar Adish's family members had heard the rumbling of tanks moving out of Kabul. The next morning they woke up and saw that everything had changed. Bearded men in long robes and turbans were driving into the city. And in school that day, the principal came into her classroom and told the children they should go home.

It was 1996, Adish was 9 and religious fundamentalists had seized power in Afghanistan. On the radio and loudspeakers, her family heard about new restrictions imposed by the Taliban. Her mother could no longer be a teacher. And girls could not go to school.

"We were in shock," Adish said. "To just stay home, for nothing. It didn't make any sense. And our future was totally unknown."

She's now a senior at the University of Virginia, and today she will be honored for her film about how her family defied the Taliban and fled Afghanistan, seeking safety and an education.

Her story is part of "Beyond Borders: Personal Stories From a Small Planet," nine short works by young people from around the world, and will be presented with one of the broadcast industry's highest honors, the George Foster Peabody Award. "Beyond Borders" includes films shot by a boy in a barrio in Colombia who uses rap to escape the violence, by a child soldier in Sierra Leone and by a girl raised in a polygamist family in Utah, each linked by the ideas of fear and security.

In "Sahar: Before the Sun" (Sahar means "dawn"), Adish tells her story, which begins with a happy, well-educated family in Kabul. Her father was a prominent geologist, her mother a teacher trained in chemistry. Through the years of artillery fire and street fighting, they kept telling their daughter and three sons to study, that an education was the most important thing.

When the Taliban took over, Sahar Adish and her mother had to stay home. But Kamela Adish secretly began teaching her daughter. As months went by, other parents began to send their daughters; about a dozen children joined in the lessons in the apartment. Their mother was afraid, Sahar's brother Honishka Adish said. They were all afraid, but she kept teaching. "She did it because she did not want to keep my sister in the dark," he said.

One day in 1998, two men came to the door. When they saw so many children studying, the men started beating them, as the children tried to run away. They seized Sahar's father.

After several days, he was released with a warning that he and his wife would be killed if the classes resumed.

Some hours later, in the middle of the night, the family fled. That was the last time Sahar Adish saw Afghanistan.

After a few years as refugees in Pakistan, the family members asked for help: They wanted to come to the United States so the children could be educated. The International Rescue Committee brought the family to Charlottesville in 2002.

Within days, the children were enrolled in school in Virginia. Sahar Adish wasn't scared, just excited; even though it was weeks into the high school term, she signed up for advanced chemistry, pre-calculus and an advanced English class.

"It was like a beautiful dream," she said.

Her parents took housekeeping jobs, worked long hours and studied English late into the night.

What happened to the family in Afghanistan is sad, said Austin Haeberle, the creative director at Listen Up! youth media network who produced "Beyond Borders," but it's also hard to watch a scene of Sahar's father getting an order to deliver hand towels. He now works at a hotel.

Sahar Adish was still in high school when she and three other teenagers made the film, said Shannon Worrell, the founding director of Light House youth media center, which is a member of the Listen Up! network. She's now a striking young woman of 19, studious, fluent in English and with a sense of humor that sneaks up on people because she's so earnest about academics, Worrell said, adding: "She just has an incredible kind of optimism . . . she's radiant."

Honishka Adish just graduated from the University of Virginia. Their mother hopes to be a teacher again someday. And Sahar Adish, a biochemistry major, is spending her days in the library, studying for the medical school admissions test.

Someday, she hopes, she'll be a doctor -- and take her skills to Afghanistan.
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Afghans use Canadian funds to clear land of mines
CTV.ca News Sun. Jun. 3 2007 9:44 PM ET
Canadian seed money is helping the Afghanistan government implement an ambitious plan to help the war-ravaged country become landmine-free, an initiative that could help revive its economy.

In January, Ottawa committed $8.8 million to help agencies reduce the area covered by landmines -- an estimated 720 million square metres -- by 70 per cent by the end of 2010.

The funds are helping the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan with minefield survey and clearance, stockpile destruction, mine risk education and victim assistance.

More than one-third of the money has been allocated to Operation Hamkari, which focuses on the Kandahar districts of Panjwaii and Zherai.

Panjwaii, which was controlled by Taliban forces until last year, is one of the most heavily mined areas in Afghanistan.

Efforts to rebuild the district have been hampered because much of the land is heavily mined, preventing businesses from building, and farmers from planting fields.

The operation is slated to clear approximately 2.9 million square metres of contaminated land, and educate 27,000 Afghans, including children and youth, about the dangers of mines.

"The Taliban used to harass and kill us because we worked for the government," said the leader of demining team. "Now it's safer so we can start clearing the land."

The first mines were laid in Afghanistan some 25 years ago when troops from the former Soviet Union occupied the South Asian country. Since then, an estimated 1.5 million people in the country have been killed or maimed, most of them children.

Reducing the hazards would take pressure off of treatment centres, which can get overwhelmed.

"There are 30,000 registered with us, and still more come every day. We have started turning people away," said a worker at a facility recently built to treat victims of landmines in Panjwaii.

Despite international funding to help build wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs, the reality is that aid remains sporadic.

Demining agencies say there is simply not enough money to pay the salaries of employees.

Working remote areas also leaves them more vulnerable to attacks from the Taliban, which makes the dream of a mine-free Afghanistan a fragile work in progress.

The funding is part of Canada's total contribution of nearly $1 billion over 10 years aimed at helping rebuild Afghanistan.

With a report from CTV's Steve Chao in Kandahar
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