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March 10, 2007 


Afghan parliament passes amnesty law
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan -  Afghanistan's lower house of parliament on Saturday voted into law a revised resolution calling for an amnesty for groups suspected of perpetrating war crimes during a quarter century of fighting, but also recognizing the rights of victims to seek justice.

The revised resolution does not protect individuals from prosecution for war crimes, so long as their alleged victims are prepared to raise charges — placing the burden of proof on those who suffered rather than the state.

The vote by the overwhelming majority of the members present in the Wolesi Jirga came after President Hamid Karzai revised the initial resolution which called for an amnesty from war crimes for all involved in the three decades of fighting.

The decision also came a few days after Afghanistan's highest body of Islamic clerics ruled that parliament cannot issue a blanket amnesty from war crimes because only the victims of those crimes can forgive the perpetrators.

The revised resolution grants a general amnesty from prosecution to all groups — rather than individual members — who led the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and then plunged the country into a civil war that killed tens of thousands.

Among the alleged war crimes, it is claimed that thousands of civilians in Kabul were killed by indiscriminate shelling and rocketing during the 1992-95 civil war.

In a revision from the original text passed by both houses of the parliament earlier this year and criticized by human rights groups and  United Nations, the new resolution recognizes the rights of the victims to seek justice for crimes perpetrated against them during a quarter century of fighting.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has called for some officials, including Vice President Karim Khalili and army Chief of Staff Abdul Rashid Dostum, to face trial before a special court for alleged war crimes. In a report published last year, it listed Energy Minister Ismail Khan, Karzai's security adviser Mohammed Qasim Fahim, and lawmaker Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as among the "worst perpetrators."

The rights group said Omar and fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar should also be brought to trial.

The resolution applies only to those who accept Afghanistan's Constitution and the authority of the government, meaning it would apply to some former Taliban who have reconciled with the government but not to current leaders such as Mullah Omar.

In December, Karzai launched a plan to help the country come to terms with decades of human rights violations by documenting past abuses. U.N. officials said the plan called for people who committed crimes to be held accountable, but the government has yet to spell out what that might mean.

The Saturday resolution also called for the creation of a parliamentary committee tasked with holding talks with various insurgents groups fighting against Karzai's government.

A U.S.-led invasion in late 2001 toppled the hardline Taliban regime and ushered in an era of democracy, but it also has seen a number of powerful warlords elevated to high office or seats in parliament.
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Afghan warlord wants "joint front" with Taliban
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been trying without success to form a "joint front" with the Taliban and other parties against the government, his purported spokesman told AFP Saturday.

Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party) had been pushing the plan for more than a year but had had no response from the Taliban and was for the most part fighting separately from them, he said in a telephone interview from an unknown location.

The commander was also "absolutely against" talks with the government of President Hamid Karzai as long as US troops remained in  Afghanistan, said the man who identified himself as Haroon Zarghoon, Hekmatyar's spokesman.

The commander had been "misunderstood" in media reports this week that said he split with the Taliban and was open to negotiations with Karzai, he said.

"What Hekmatyar Saeb (sir) said was he had called on Taliban to join the Hezb-e-Islami and establish a joint front. So far we have not got any response from the Taliban and we can't wait for them," he said.

"We have mobilised our own mujahedin (holy fighters) -- whenever the Taliban is ready they can join us."

"Right now the Taliban are fighting their own war and we our own. In some areas we do have co-ordination, but mainly we fight separately."

Hekmatyar wanted the front to include the Taliban and "other parties," said Zarghoon, without identifying these groups.

The warlord, aged about 60, is on the US most-wanted list for trying to destabilise post-Taliban Afghanistan through terror attacks, mainly in the east of the country near the border with Pakistan. His whereabouts are unknown.

He and his radical faction -- which was fed weapons and cash by the US and Pakistan to fight the 1980s Soviet occupation -- inflicted severe damage on Kabul in the 1992-1996 civil war, during which he was briefly prime minister.

He has a history of switching allegiances and was at one point fighting against the Taliban, which took power in 1996 and was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2001.

Hekmatyar has previously also expressed willingness to fight with Al-Qaeda, whose fugitive leader  Osama bin Laden he has said he helped escape US bombing in the 2001 invasion.

"We don't have any ties with Al-Qaeda," Zarghoon said. "Actually we did help Al-Qaeda as our guests, moving them to safe areas following the US invasion."

"They've left Afghanistan," he said.

The warlord has also said he would be willing to negotiate with Karzai's government if the thousands of foreign troops helping his government withdrew.

"But as long as the US troops are here it is not possible," the spokesman said.

To "join the Karzai government is not part of our programme, it's absolutely not possible. Karzai's government is a puppet government," he said.
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Six die after Afghan attack on influential leader
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Six people have died after being wounded in the bombing of the armoured vehicle of an Afghan elder who played a key role in dealing with the Taliban, police said Saturday.

A remote-controlled roadside bomb ripped through the vehicle of Mullah Naqeeb, an influential pro-government tribal elder on Friday, injuring him and nine others, including two of his sons.

Six died later in the hospital, including one of the sons, provincial police commander Ismatullah Alizai told AFP.

A Taliban spokesman said the group was not involved in the blast, which was just outside the southern city of Kandahar, the city most hit by Taliban attacks. The spokesman blamed personal rivalry.

Naqeeb was a commander in the 1980s resistance to the Soviet occupation and negotiated the peaceful handover of Kandahar to the Taliban in their ascent to power in the early 1990s.

He was also instrumental in persuading the Taliban to give up control of Kandahar province peacefully as they were being pushed from power in a US-led invasion in 2001.
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4 policemen killed in eastern Afghanistan
The Associated Press Saturday, March 10, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan: A remote-controlled bomb exploded next to a police vehicle in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four policemen, an official said.

The attack happened in the eastern province of Khost, close to the border with Pakistan, said Arsallah Jamal, province's governor.

In the country's volatile south, meanwhile, an airstrike targeted a suspected militant allegedly involved in the movement of anti-aircraft weapons, NATO-led troops said in a statement.

"The air strike, using precision-guided munitions, targeted the suspected terrorists vehicle where he stopped to meet with other suspected terrorists in an isolated area," the statement said, without providing details on casualties.

The strike happened in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, where NATO-led troops on Monday launched their biggest offensive yet aimed at winning over a population long supportive of militant fighters.

NATO hopes it can establish security among a population now harboring Taliban militants, foreign fighters and drug traffickers, and rid the region of its shadow Taliban government. That would allow President Hamid Karzai's administration to make its first move into a lawless region overflowing with poppy.
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Overnight Blast Kills Three Afghan Clerics
March 9, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan police say three Islamic clerics were killed overnight by an explosion in the southeastern province of Khost, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reported.

Police said the explosion was at the home of one of the clerics in a village in Khost's northern district of Yakobi.

The other clerics were visiting when the explosion occurred at about 10 p.m. on March 8.

Yakobi district chief Gulqasim Jihadyar said authorities were still investigating the cause of the blast.
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U.S. military: Censorship was justified
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 10, 3:43 AM ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The U.S. military asserted that an American soldier was justified in erasing journalists' footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in  Afghanistan last week, saying publication could have compromised a military investigation and led to false public conclusions.

The comments came Friday in response to an Associated Press protest that a U.S. soldier had forced two freelance journalists working for the AP to delete photos and video at the scene of violence March 4 in Barikaw, eastern Afghanistan. At least eight Afghans were killed and 34 wounded.

"Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control what a journalist is permitted to document," Col. Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said in a letter Friday.

He added that photographs or video taken by "untrained people" might "capture visual details that are not as they originally were."

The AP disputed the assertions.

"That is not a reasonable justification for erasing images from our cameras," said AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll in New York. "AP's journalists in Afghanistan are trained, accredited professionals working at an appropriate distance from the bombing scene. In democratic societies, legitimate journalists are allowed to work without having their equipment seized and their images deleted."

Afghan witnesses and gunshot victims said U.S. forces fired on civilians in cars and on foot along at least a six-mile stretch of road from Barikaw following the suicide attack against the Marine convoy. The U.S. military said insurgents also fired on American forces during the attack. One Marine was wounded.

A U.S. soldier deleted the AP journalists' footage that showed a civilian four-wheel drive vehicle in which three Afghans were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The journalists had met requests from the military to not move any closer to the bomb site.

Other Afghan journalists said the military also deleted their footage.

Petrenko said that if people who are not part of the investigation entered such a "secured area" they could disturb evidence and other clues, "potentially fouling the conclusions of the investigation."

Petrenko said that taking pictures could also misrepresent what had happened in the incident.

"When untrained people take photographs or video, there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were," he said. "If such visual media are subsequently used as part of the public record to document an event like this, then public conclusions about such a serious event can be falsely made."

The AP also raised concerns about the military's efforts to restrict its coverage of the Feb. 15 crash of a U.S. helicopter in southern Zabul province in which eight soldiers were killed and 14 wounded. Two AP journalists and their vehicle were searched extensively in an effort to prevent footage of the wreckage getting out.

Petrenko justified that action on the grounds of "operational security" exercised when "equipment, aircraft or component parts are classified."

He maintained that the U.S. military had no intention of curbing freedom of the press in Afghanistan.

"We are completely committed to a free and independent press, and we hope that we can help encourage this tradition in places where new and free governments are taking root," Petrenko said.

"It so happens that on these two recent occasions, military operational or security requirements were compelling interests that overrode the otherwise protected rights of the press."
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Taliban commander threatens to kill Italian journalist
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A top Taliban commander threatened Saturday to kill a kidnapped Italian journalist within seven days unless its arrested spokesmen were freed and a date was set for the withdrawal of Italian troops from  Afghanistan.

Mullah Dadullah, speaking to AFP by telephone from an unknown location, said the militia had set a seven-day deadline for the demands to be met otherwise "we will slaughter this man," referring to La Repubblica correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

"Our spokespersons should be released and our news should be allowed to be disseminated without censorship," he said to an AFP correspondent who has spoken to the commander before. The Taliban website (www.alemarah.org) was blocked last week.

"We have no enmity with the Italians. If they set a date for their withdrawal, we will release the Italian," he said.

Mastrogiacomo, 52, has been missing in southern Afghanistan since Sunday last week along with two Afghans, believed to be an interpreter and a driver or guide.

The Italian embassy says that while it has had no direct contact with the militant group, it believes the three are in Taliban hands.

The Taliban initially said the men were spies for the British military under the guise of being journalists.

Dadullah said the Afghan driver among the trio had confessed to being an intelligence officer from the province of Helmand, where they were picked up, and to taking pictures of the Taliban stronghold where they were captured.

They were detained around the village of Bowlan, just outside the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, the commander said.

Dadullah said the Italian was being kept in "one of our several headquarters in Helmand and is in good health."

But he added: "If our demands are not met within seven days, we will slaughter this man."

Dadullah, said to be the Taliban's operations chief in southern Afghanistan, appeared to be demanding the release of Taliban spokesmen Mohammad Hanif, arrested in Afghanistan in January, and Abdul Latif Hakimi, arrested in Pakistan in October 2005.

Italy has nearly 2,000 troops in Afghanistan.

A similar demand for the withdrawal of Italian troops was made when Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello was kidnapped in October in Helmand province by men who said they were with the Taliban, although a spokesman for the group denied they were involved.

Torsello was released three weeks later and said he had not seen daylight throughout his ordeal.
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5 in Afghanistan held in German's death
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 9, 1:27 PM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - Police detained five men Friday in connection with the killing of a German aid worker in northern  Afghanistan, officials said. The five were detained in the province of Sari Pul, where Dieter Ruebling, 65, worked for aid group German Agro Action, said police spokesman Zemrai Bashary.

Two gunmen killed Ruebling and robbed his three Afghan colleagues after stopping their two vehicles near the village of Mirza Wolang in Sayyad district, said deputy provincial Gov. Qamarudin Shikeb.

"They took them out of their cars, searched and robbed the Afghans and took the German a short distance away, killing him with two bullets," Shikeb said.

Renate Becker, an Afghan expert for the Bonn-based aid group, said the attack appeared to be motivated by religion or politics, because the assailants stole only "a little money" and left the vehicles behind.

Ruebling was an experienced civil engineer who had worked on its projects in several countries and had been in Afghanistan only two weeks, the group said.

Colleagues said his death would hamper their work in the country.

"We are appalled by this attack," the group's head, Hans-Joachim Preuss, said at a news conference in Berlin.

It was the first time an expatriate worker for the group had been killed abroad since it was founded four decades ago.

German Agro Action, known in German as Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, carries out projects with local partners in the areas of agriculture and the environment, survival and reconstruction aid, drinking water, and children's and youth programs.

Northern Afghanistan is relatively peaceful compared to the country's south and east, where insurgents battle  NATO and Afghan troops trying to extend the reach of the Afghan government.

But in October, two freelance German journalists working for German state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle were found shot to death in a tent in northern Baghlan province. The journalists, Karen Fischer and Christian Struwe, were the first foreign reporters killed in Afghanistan since late 2001, when eight journalists died.
___

Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report.
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Eight arrested after German shot dead in Afghanistan
Fri Mar 9, 11:22 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Eight people have been arrested after a German aid worker was shot dead in northern  Afghanistan, a governor said Friday, adding it was not clear if the killers were Islamist militants or bandits.

In Berlin, German Agro Action (Deutsche Welthungerhilfe) said it believed its 65-year-old engineer was killed for ideological reasons.

Police were questioning the eight, who were picked up in Faryab province, which neighbours Sari Pul province, where the man was shot dead on Thursday, Sari Pul governor Sayed Iqbal Munib told AFP.

The gunmen robbed three Afghans who had been travelling with the foreigner before letting them go free, the governor and a German military spokesman said.

Munib said mobile and satellite telephones were stolen but the motive for the killing had not been established.

"We are still investigating. Maybe they were terrorists.... Robbers would not have killed him," he said.

The Afghan government said Thursday it believed the killers were bandits.

But Deutsche Welthungerhilfe told a media briefing in Berlin Friday: "This was no robbery. There was an ideological motive behind the attack."

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) under German command in northern Afghanistan said two German Agro Action vehicles had come under attack about 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of the town of Sari Pul.

One car escaped but the second was stopped. "The three Afghans were robbed and let free. The German guy was pulled out of the car and then shot," Commander Alexander von Heimann said.

The German's body had been moved to an ISAF camp at Marmal, south of the main city of Mazar-i-Sharif, and would be repatriated when possible, he said.

The murdered man, Dieter Ruebling, had been in Afghanistan for two weeks training villagers in construction work, his organisation said.

Northern Afghanistan sees little of the near daily attacks in the south and east that are carried out by Taliban militants and their Islamist allies, who target foreign and Afghan troops and aid workers.

But it has seen its share of violence against foreign nationals.

Gunmen shot dead two German journalists in the northern province of Baghlan in October in a case that has never been publicly resolved.

In one of the biggest attacks on aid workers who flocked to post-Taliban Afghanistan, three Europeans and two Afghans working with Medecins Sans Frontieres were killed in northwestern Badghis province in 2004.

Results of investigations into the case, which has seen a series of arrests, have not been announced.
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Elderly Afghan detainee wants justice
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 9 (UPI) -- An elderly Afghan man, released after nearly four years at Guantanamo, plans to ask a court in his country to punish those who linked him to terrorism.

Haji Nusrat was arrested in 2003 near a mountain village 40 miles east of Kabul by U.S.-led coalition troops, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. He was accused, along with his eldest son, of harboring weapons, plotting to kidnap U.S. troops and being a commander of a group with ties to al-Qaida.

At a military commission hearing, Nusrat's son, Ezatullah, testified that his father had suffered a stroke nearly 20 years ago and is unable to stand without assistance or walk without a cane.

He said the arms in question belonged to the Afghan Ministry of Defense which paid his father to guard them, adding that political enemies lied about his family's involvement with terrorism, the Chronicle said.

Nusrat, who told the newspaper he thinks he is between 75 and 80 years old, said he will seek justice in Afghan courts to punish those responsible for his detention.
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Afghan, Iranian Security Forces Clash On Border 
March 9, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Officials in Kabul say a clash between Afghan and Iranian border guards in western Afghanistan has left one Afghan and at least one Iranian dead, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reported.

The chief of border police for western Afghanistan, Mohammad Dauod Ahmad, said the gun battle in Nimroz Province on March 8 began when Iranian security officers crossed about 100 meters into Afghan territory.

Nimroz Province Governor Ghulam Dastagir Azad told RFE/RL that Iran is attempting to interfere in Afghan affairs:

"The clashes happened last night between the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran and our border police," Azad said. "One of our police officers was martyred and one was injured. A member of Iran's police also was killed and one was injured."

Nimroz borders Iran's southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan -- a drug-trafficking region where militants in recent weeks have carried out bomb attacks against troops from Iran's Republican Guard.
(with material from AP)
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German Lawmakers Approve Tornado Deployment in Afghanistan
By Brian Parkin and Karin Matussek
March 9 (Bloomberg) -- German lawmakers voted to deploy Tornado fighter jets to Afghanistan, deepening the country's military commitment in support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's fight against Taliban insurgents.

The coalition government gained enough cross-party votes in the lower house of parliament to dispatch the six jets next month, even as some coalition lawmakers withheld support, citing the threat posed to troops and the civilian population in Afghanistan.

Guido Westerwelle, chairman of the Free Democrats, the largest opposition party, said in a Deutschlandradio interview today before the vote that he would back the government motion to help prevent Afghanistan ``falling back to the barbarous Taliban-ruled era'', even though the deployment was ``not without risks.''

The on-going security risks in Afghanistan were underlined yesterday with the shooting dead of a German aid worker in an ambush in the north of the country. He was named today as Dieter Ruebling, 65, of Weikersheim, southwest Germany, a civil engineer who had been working as a consultant to the German aid organization Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, known in English as German Agro Action.

``We do not think that today's decision of parliament is related to the incident or should be, but it certainly overshadows it,'' Hans-Joachim Preuss, the organization's general secretary, told reporters in Berlin today. ``The raid is probably connected to the military intervention in Afghanistan as a whole.''

Surveillance

The security situation in the country as a whole has increasingly worsened, Preuss said. Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, in an interview today on Germany's SWR radio, said the aid worker's death added grounds for increasing surveillance in Afghanistan, helping ground troops and civilians alike.

The Tornado mission is Germany's response to NATO's request for help to search for insurgents from the skies and coincides with the launch of a U.S.-led offensive against the Taliban focusing on the south of Afghanistan. Germany, with about 3,000 troops situated in the country's north, last year suffered no troop fatalities in the region.

Some 4,500 NATO troops helped by 1,000 Afghan soldiers last week stepped up efforts to combat the Taliban. ``Operation Achilles'' also targets the region's narcotic producers.

`Maximum Effort'

U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair on March 7 stepped up pressure on European allies to do ``even more'' to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. He told reporters in Brussels today during a European Union leaders' summit that he used the meeting to try and ``impress upon people the need to make the maximum collective effort.'' That plea fell on deaf ears in Italy, with Prime Minister Romano Prodi saying he would deploy no more troops.

The German government, under pressure to dispatch troops to the south of Afghanistan, has said that peace-keeping and rebuilding work in the north is just as vital as fighting in the south.

The Tornado jets will be based in the north. Defense Minister Jung has said the mission will cost about 35 million euros ($46 million).

Christian Ruck, speaker on international development issues for the Christian Social Union, smallest of the three parties in the ruling coalition, spoke in favor of the Tornado deployment, saying the aid worker's death ``showed how our soldiers and development workers live in insecurity.''

``The Tornado mission won't bring any more protection for our German soldiers,'' said Gert Winkelmeier, an independent lawmaker. Instead, it is evidence of the ``militarization of German foreign policy,'' he said.
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Afghanistan opium industry down in north, up in south
By William J. Kole ASSOCIATED PRESS via The Contra Costa Times |
VIENNA, Austria - The international community is making significant strides toward ridding northern Afghanistan of opium, a U.S. counternarcotics official said Friday, despite setbacks in the Taliban-controlled south and forecasts of another record year of poppy cultivation.

Tom Schweich, the U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary for international narcotics, said rapid assessment surveys conducted earlier this year showed a "dramatic" decrease in poppy growing in Afghanistan's northern provinces.

In a few years, "we hope the entire northern half of Afghanistan will be opium-free," Schweich told reporters after meeting with Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

But Schweich conceded the situation remains bleak in southern Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation is up 10 percent to 50 percent in a half-dozen key provinces -- feeding concerns that the country is swiftly becoming a narco-state.

Marvin Weinbaum, an expert on Afghanistan at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., warned Friday that unless there is also a decrease in poppy growing in southern Afghanistan, "there is nothing to be proud about."

"We have to look at the bottom line here, not just at a few provinces," said Weinbaum, a former State Department analyst on Afghanistan. "The initial indications in terms of net production are that there will not be a decrease of opium production in Afghanistan."

The U.N. drug office warned earlier this week that 2007 cultivation could expand again after last year's record crop, which spiked upward by 59 percent. Experts say booming profits from the lucrative crop are being used to fuel the Taliban insurgency.

"Afghanistan is the No. 1 drug problem in the world ... the rise in opium production is alarming," Schweich said. "The drug trade is causing tremendous amounts of political corruption and is causing economic problems."

Surveys taken in the northern provinces of Balkh, San Pul, Samangan, Bamyan and Ghor show a "strong decrease" in cultivation of poppy that yields opium, the raw material for heroin, and several other provinces, including Parwan, Wardak, Logar, Paktya and Paktika, are considered "poppy free," Schweich said.

"It shows that it's working up in the north," he said, adding that decreases were recorded in provinces where local governors made it a priority to get farmers to grow other, legal crops.

In the south, however, surveys showed strong increases in cultivation "in virtually every area," Schweich said, adding that he toured southern Afghanistan about a month ago.

He said the United States and its allies were working to develop a network of informers who could help pinpoint storage locations for harvested poppy so those sites could be destroyed.

The security situation in the south has impeded efforts to discourage cultivation, wipe out fields and arrest and prosecute traffickers, he said.

Among the provinces registering a sharp increase was Helmand, Afghanistan's largest poppy-growing region and an area where the Taliban repeatedly has attacked NATO convoys.

This week in Helmand, NATO and Afghan troops launched the alliance's largest-ever offensive in Afghanistan.
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Italy asks for proof that Italian reporter kidnapped in Afghanistan is alive
The Associated Press Saturday, March 10, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan: The militants who kidnapped an Italian reporter in Afghanistan must prove he is still alive before any negotiations for his release can begin, Italy's ambassador in Kabul said Saturday.

Taliban insurgents claim they kidnapped Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a reporter with Italian daily La Repubblica, along with two Afghans who were traveling with him in Nad Ali district of Helmand province on Monday — a day after the newspaper lost touch with its correspondent.

"We do hope that people who hold Daniele (are) ready to start a dialogue based on one simple point, the proof that these people ... they hold the hostage in their hands and that they can provide the proof of life of Daniele," Ettore Francesco Sequi told reporters in Kabul.

There is no proof that the recent statements attributed to the Taliban even come from anyone linked to the kidnapping, Sequi said.

The reporter, a father of two, had been on assignment in Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold in southern Afghanistan, when the paper lost contact with him.

According to the purported Taliban spokesman, militants abducted Mastrogiacomo, Sayed Agha and Ajmal as they traveled through Nad Ali.

La Repubblica newspaper said Mastrogiacomo, 52, was born in Karachi, Pakistan, where his father was an engineer. He holds dual Italian-Swiss citizenship, but was traveling on his Italian passport, La Repubblica said.

Mastrogiacomo, who speaks English, has worked since 2002 as a staff correspondent in Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East and Iraq.
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AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Claim They Have Proof That Kidnapped Italian Reporter Is A Spy
Daniele Mastrogiacomo
Karachi, 9 March (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - A Taliban spokesperson told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Friday that the militant group had proof of their claim that kidnapped Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo is a spy for the British. "We have evidence that the Italian journalist worked with British troops for two years and therefore we are sure that he is a spy who was sent to get information about the Taliban’s positions and their strategies," Taliban spokesperson Qari Yusuf told AKI.

Mastrogiacomo, who is a veteran war reporter for the Rome daily La Repubblica, was allegedly kidnapped by Taliban fighters together with two Afghan nationals, Ajmal and Ghulam Haidar, while on an assignment in Kandahar, in the volatile southern Afghan province of Helmand

La Repubblica has denied that Mastrogiacomo is a spy and said the Karachi-born journalist had been working for them as a reporter since 1980 and had been reporting from Afghanistan since 28 February.

According to Qari Yousuf, the other two people that were detained by the Taliban were Afghans, one from Kabul and the other from the restive southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Qari Yousuf said that after conducting their interrogation, the Taliban said they had "confirmed" that the Italian journalist is spy and that now his fate would be decided by the Taliban’s Shura or consultation of leaders.

Meanwhile, Noor Rahman, an Afghan journalist, speaking to AKI from Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province blamed the Taliban for trying to mount pressure on journalists to deviate from their professional responsibilities and only give coverage to the Taliban, otherwise they threatened dire consequences.

"I cover the activities of all segments of Afghan society including the government but this is not acceptable for the Taliban," Noor Rahman told AKI.

"First they warned me to avoid the coverage of government officials who often speak against the Taliban. Then they planted a bomb in front of my home in Jalalabad which blew up and created a lot of terror. As a result, I decided to leave Jalalabad and have taken refuge in Peshawar (Pakistan)," said Noor Rahman who works for Pashto TV, AVT Khyber, and the Pashto daily Wahdat.

As for Mastrogiacomo's kidnapping, Noor Rahman maintained that it is a bid by the Taliban to gain political mileage before carrying out their expected spring offensive.

On Friday contradictory reports on Mastrogiacomo emerged from Afghanistan.

According to Italian daily Corriere della Sera, authorities were assessing the credibility of a video purportedly released by the Taliban which calls for the withdrawal of Italy's troops in Afghanistan and end to NATO bombardments in exchange for the release of Mastrogiacomo.

Meanwhile a Reuters' report citing Taliban sources said Mastrogiacomo would be freed if he could prove he was not a spy.
(Aki/Syed Saleem Shahzad)
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AFGHANISTAN: 'Taliban Video Message' Demands Italian Troop Pull-Out
Kabul, 9 March (AKI) - Italian government officials in Afghistan are assessing the credibility of a video purportedly released by the Taliban which calls for the withdrawal of Italy's troops in Afghanistan and end to NATO bombardments in exchange for the release of an Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported Friday. Mastrogiacomo - believed to have been seized by Taliban on Monday with two Afghans - does not appear in the video, which shows what appears to be an Afghan man making the demands in the Pashto language which is widely spoken in southern Afghanistan.

Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah in a taped message delivered to AFP news agency on Tuesday claimed Mastrogiacomo, a correspondent for Rome based La Repubblica, has confessed he is a spy working for the British. The Taliban have said they will try Mastrogiacomo under Islamic (Shariah law).

Mastrogiacomo is allegedly being held by Taliban fighters together with two Afghan hostages, Ajmal and Ghulam Haidar. La Repubblica said on Tuesday it had lost contact with Mastrogiacomo while he was on an assignment in Kandahar in the volatile southern province of Helmand.

The alleged kidnapping comes just as NATO and Afghan forces launch a major offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. Italy has 1,900 troops are deployed in Afghanistan as part of the NATO contingent which is providing support to government troops fighting the Taliban.
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Bin Laden 50 today? Taliban pray for his long life
By Saeed Ali Achakzai
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, if he's alive, celebrated his 50th birthday on Saturday, and his friends in the Taliban prayed for his long life.

The al Qaeda leader's long silence has fuelled speculation that the world's most-wanted fugitive may have died, though many in the international intelligence community reckon Islamist militant Web sites would circulate word of his death.

"He is alive. I am 100 percent sure," Taliban spokesman Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters, adding that senior leaders were in touch with bin Laden, reinforcing a widely held view that he is hiding near the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Khan said special prayers were offered by Taliban fighters in camps in Afghanistan to mark bin Laden's birth on March 10, 1957, in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.

"We prayed that Allah may give him 200 years to live," Khan said," by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

"When we woke up today, we offered collective and long prayers for him because he is a great mujahid (holy warrior)."

The most recent videotape of bin Laden was released in late 2004 -- subsequent tapes released were identified as old footage -- and around half a dozen audio tapes surfaced in the first half of 2006.

But a long silence since then has fuelled rumours that bin Laden is unwell, or dead, though the United States fears that the al Qaeda network he founded is rebuilding its base in Pakistani tribal lands, and has forged ties with affiliates in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Dead or alive, bin Laden is revered by some as the symbolic leader of a global jihad, or holy war, against the United States, following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 3,000 people.

"He is the man who raised voices against excesses being committed on Muslims all over the world," the Taliban spokesman said.

The Taliban were ousted from power by U.S.-backed forces in late 2001 after their leaders refused to surrender bin Laden following the al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

The attacks triggered the largest manhunt in history, with over 12,000 U.S.-led troops scouring the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan for over five years.

The United States also announced a $25 million reward for any information leading to the arrest or death of bin Laden, but leads on his whereabouts have been few and far between.

Intelligence on the movements of his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al Zawahri, is gathered more frequently.
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Yes, for once an Afghan war is winnable
The tide is turning against the Taleban
Anthony Loyd Times Online, UK March 10, 2007
Blazing their way through yet another firefight with the Taleban at Shurakay, on the west bank of the Helmand river last Friday, British Royal Marines were carrying more than just the weight of bandoliers, radio sets and grenades on their shoulders.

The legacy of past wars burdened them too: Doctor Brydon, wounded and alone on his limping pony, sole survivor of the British Army’s withdrawal from Kabul in 1842, stalked their gun-chattering advance along the Shurakay heights; the ghosts of Russian soldiers, slain during the Soviet Union’s failed ten-year occupation of Afghanistan, stared on from the surrounding ridgelines. Each spectral voice gave a warning that, despite the best efforts of the Marines, they were just the latest foreign soldiers with a walk-on part in another unwinnable war, destined for ultimate defeat.

From the outside, much of the news from Afghanistan does little to contradict this picture, providing an often confusing miasma of information complete with phrases such as “quagmire”, “wasted lives”, “failed cause”. The initial deployment of British troops to Helmand province last year certainly started badly. Given an opaque set of tasks, 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived in the province juggling contradictory plans for war fighting, reconstruction and counter-narcotic operations.

The British knew that the Taleban were a self-generating ball that would always bounce back, regardless of short-term defeat, unless the majority of Pashtuns in the south rejected the insurgents from within their own communities. To win the counter-insurgency campaign, the British aimed to cleave the Taleban from the local population through hearts and minds, as well as fighting operations.

Yet, as last summer dragged into autumn, the mission’s language was only that of the gun: reconstruction efforts in central Helmand, so crucial to winning over Afghan civilians with the promise of a better life, remained stymied amid heavy fighting.

However, the Taleban suffered a similar failure in their intent. The insurgents’ mistaken efforts last summer to concentrate their forces around Kandahar, the centre of gravity for southern Afghanistan — where in 1994 they had been well received by a population exhausted by civil war — were smashed by Nato attacks. More importantly, this time there was no groundswell uprising of locals in support of the Talebs.

There were a number of reasons for the Talebs’ inability to regenerate a popular jihad. The Pashtuns well remember the Soviet occupation, and most so far remain canny enough to realise that Nato’s presence and behaviour is totally dissimilar. The Soviets were an occupying force that alienated the entire country through their barbaric behaviour. By contrast, Nato was invited into Afghanistan to establish security by a president elected by the Afghan people. Though many of his former supporters are now sick of President Hamid Karzai’s ineffectual and remote leadership, Afghans have yet to lend their backing to the Talebs, whose tenure they recall as much for its feudal inefficiency as its austere disciplinarianism.

This year, with spring looming, the military situation has changed, and the advantage in southern Afghanistan lies with Nato. Despite US pressure, British commanders have dropped all pretences at poppy eradication in order not to antagonise the local population, most of whom have no other means of livelihood. Support for the Taleban remains feeble and localised. In Gereshk two months ago, British forces, returning from a big battle with the Taleban, were actually cheered by crowds of Afghans.

British tactics have changed, too. Rather than fight in static defensive positions, they now prefer to operate throughout Helmand using mobile columns in intelligence-led missions to identify, disrupt and destroy Taleb concentrations. Though the British still have a long way to go in understanding their enemy, their nascent accumulation of knowledge is showing results.

The force they are fighting is weakened. Though fierce, sometimes dedicated and expert in low-level tactics, the Taleban have yet to draw on the expertise of global jihadists fighting in Iraq. With a few exceptions, their attempts at asymmetric warfare have been crude and relatively ineffective. They have lost many experienced men and commanders over the past eight months. After a winter of fighting, usually on British terms, Taleb promises of a huge “spring offensive” ring hollow. They are far from beaten but they are no Viet Cong.

Victory or defeat lie not in force of arms but in the judgment of the Afghan civilian’s heart. So far, British battlefield successes have neither been matched by efforts of the Afghan Government to establish itself as a legitimate and credible power in the south, nor the timid and laggardly work of reconstruction agencies. So the Afghan heart remains undecided.

But the game remains in play, with much to win, and even more to lose. For time is not neutral. As each day passes without tangible benefit for the local people, the Taleban will grow a little stronger. The Afghan Government will have to move fast to capitalise on the opportunity given to it by Nato. If they can do so, then maybe, just maybe, history will not repeat itself in Helmand province, and the spectres of Doctor Brydon and the dead Russians will fade. Fourth time lucky, British soldiers may just win an Afghan war.
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Pakistan key to Afghanistan's future
Saturday, March 10, 2007 The Japan Times EDITORIAL
The Taliban are retaking the initiative in Afghanistan. The former militant Islamist rulers of that war-ravaged country have regrouped and are mounting increasingly bold and sustained attacks on the government in Kabul. There are many factors behind the Taliban's resurgence but a growing concern is the reported presence of -- and impunity enjoyed by -- Taliban fighters in western Pakistan. The government in Islamabad must redouble its efforts to eliminate the Taliban remnants that are using its territory to regroup and to destabilize Afghanistan.

The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating even as British-led coalition forces launch offensives against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province. While the U.S.-led alliance quickly routed the former Islamist government, it did not crush it entirely. Remnants escaped and they have gathered strength. More than 4,000 people lost their lives in fighting last year, making 2006 the bloodiest year since the Taliban government fell in 2001. In Congressional testimony, Mr. Michael McConnell, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said 2007 would be "a pivotal year for Afghanistan." Today, some 46,000 allied forces have been deployed throughout the country, yet there are calls for more troops.

The Taliban's confidence was evident when a suicide bomber blew up at the gate of the main U.S. base in the country during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. While more than 20 people were killed, the vice president was never threatened by the attack. Still it was a symbol of the group's growing verve and strength. This is an increasingly popular tactic by the Taliban: Suicide bombers were virtually unknown in Afghanistan. In 2005, there were 21 such attacks; last year there were 139. In late February, a Taliban spokesman said that the group sent 1,000 suicide bombers into northern Afghanistan to resume the guerrilla war against coalition forces. He said another 1,000 bombers were ready and more are in training.

Mr. Cheney was in Afghanistan to show U.S. support for President Hamid Karzai. U.S. President George W. Bush has just pledged to send 3,200 more troops into Afghanistan and promised billions of dollars in aid for reconstruction and Afghan security forces. Japan has provided more than $ 800 million in aid to Afghanistan since the invasion and last month pledged an additional $ 6.7 million.

Mr. Karzai believes -- and U.S. intelligence officials agree -- that many of the attacks on his country originate in Pakistan. In his testimony, Mr. McConnell said that al-Qaida is rebuilding its network from bases in western Pakistan. During his testimony, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, called the border region a "haven for al-Qaida's leadership." Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are alleged to be trying to establish an al-Qaida base in the area. During his brief visit to Pakistan, Mr. Cheney reportedly called on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to do more to capture and eliminate the Islamist militants that have found refuge in his country. Mr. Cheney reportedly warned Mr. Musharraf that failure to take action could endanger U.S. financial support for his government.

Last year, Mr. Musharraf's government struck a deal with tribal leaders in Northern Waziristan in which Islamabad would end its crackdown in the area, return weapons and largely withdraw its troops in exchange for the tribes halting cross border attacks. The deal improved the government's image -- it had been criticized for doing "the U.S.' bidding" and had looked ineffectual in the process -- in time for elections to be held later this year. U.S. officials believe the tribal leaders have not kept their end of the bargain.

Pakistan officials deny the charges that they have turned a blind eye to the militants or that they are even present on Pakistani soil. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao has said there are no al-Qaida training camps in his country. Mr. Musharraf maintains that his country is doing everything possible to eliminate the Islamic extremists; indeed, those efforts have cost the lives of 600 Pakistani soldiers. He considers Mr. Karzai's accusations a way of deflecting attention from his own government's failings.

Curiously, only days after Mr. Cheney's visit Pakistan revealed that it had arrested Mullah Obaidullah, the former Taliban defense minister and a senior leader of the guerrilla forces that are fighting Mr. Karzai's government. On the one hand, the arrest is an encouraging sign that Pakistan is prepared to take action against the Taliban forces on their soil. On the other, it is proof that the Taliban are in fact in Pakistan. More such action by Islamabad is badly needed: for Afghanistan's sake and for Mr. Musharraf's credibility.
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A catalogue of errors in Afghanistan
By Michael Scheuer Asia Times Online / March 9, 2007
Afghanistan is again being lost to the West, even as a coalition force of more than 5,000 troops launches a major spring offensive in the south of the country. The insurgency may drag on for many months or several years, but the tide has turned. Like Alexander's Greeks, the British and the Soviets before the US-led coalition, inferior Afghan insurgents have forced far superior Western military forces on to a path that leads toward evacuation. What has caused this scenario to occur repeatedly throughout history?

In the most general sense, the defeat of Western forces in Afghanistan occurs repeatedly because the West has not developed an appreciation for the Afghans' toughness, patience, resourcefulness and pride in their history. Although foreign forces in Afghanistan are always more modern and better armed and trained, they are continuously ground down by the same kinds of small-scale but unrelenting hit-and-run attacks and ambushes, as well as by the country's impenetrable topography that allows the Afghans to retreat, hide, and attack another day.

The new twist to this pattern faced by the Soviets and now by the US-led coalition is the safe haven the Afghans have found in Pakistan. This is the basic answer to why history has found so many defeated foreign armies littering what Rudyard Kipling called Afghanistan's plains.

The latest episode in this historical tradition has several distinguishing characteristics. First, Western forces - while better armed and technologically superior - are far too few in number. Today's Western force totals about 40,000 troops. After subtracting support troops and North Atlantic Treaty Organization contingents that are restricted to non-combat, reconstruction roles - building schools, digging wells, repairing irrigation systems - the actual combat force that can be fielded on any given day is far smaller, and yet has the task of controlling a country the size of Texas that is home to some of the highest mountains on Earth.

Second, the West underestimated the strength of the Taliban and its acceptability to the Afghan people. When invading in 2001, the West's main targets were al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar and their senior lieutenants, and because the operation specifically targeted a group of top leaders, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was not sealed, and so not only did the pursued troika escape, so did most of their foot soldiers.

Those escapees are now returning in large numbers, and are better armed, trained and organized than on their exit. It seems likely, in fact, that the force being fielded by the Taliban and their allies - al-Qaeda, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, among others - is at least equal in number to the coalition.

Furthermore, the membership of the force is not just a few Taliban remnants and otherwise mostly new recruits; rather, they are the veteran fighters that the coalition failed to kill in 2001 and early 2002. The Taliban forces are not new; they are the seasoned, experienced mujahideen who are - like former president Richard Nixon in 1972 - tanned, rested and ready to wage the jihad.

Western leaders in Afghanistan are also finding that many Afghans are not unhappy to see the Taliban returning. Much of the reason lies in the fact that the US-led coalition put the cart before the horse. Before the 2001 invasion, the Taliban regime was far from loved, but it was appreciated for the law-and-order regime it harshly enforced across most of Afghanistan. Although women had to stay home, few girls could go to school and the odd limb was chopped off for petty offenses, most rural Afghans could count on having security for themselves, their families and their farms and/or businesses.

The coalition's victory shattered the Taliban's law-and-order regime and, instead of immediately installing a replacement - for which there were not enough troops in any event - coalition leaders moved on to elections, implementing women's rights and creating a parliament, while the bulk of rural Afghanistan returned to the anarchy of banditry and warlordism that had prevailed before the first Taliban era.

Making matters worse was the fact that many of the actions the coalition did successfully undertake - especially elections and women's rights - added to the misery of rural Afghans by appearing to be attacks on millennia-old social, tribal and religious mores. As Afghans were faced with the reality of being in the thrall of criminals, and perceived their culture to be under attack, it is not surprising that the Taliban are finding at least a tepid welcome home.

The third problem for the coalition is the amount of time it has spent in Afghanistan. Now in the sixth year of occupation, Western leaders are confronted not only by a stronger-than-2001 enemy, but also by the resurgent insularity and anti-foreign inclinations of the Afghan people.

While not precisely xenophobic, the Afghans are historically hospitable and protective to a fault of visiting foreigners whom they have welcomed - witness their treatment of bin Laden - but have precious little tolerance for foreigners who, by intention or default, seek to rule them. Today, the Afghans perceive themselves to be doubly ruled, and doubly badly ruled, by foreigners: the US-led coalition and the pro-Western, nominally Islamic, detribalized and corruption-ridden government of President Hamid Karzai.

This perception of a "foreign yoke", along with spreading warfare, little reconstruction and endemic banditry, has created a fertile nationalistic environment for the Taliban and their allies to exploit.

Finally, the US-led coalition now faces the full brunt of a new era that was started by the prolonged and brutal Soviet occupation and its consequent jihad. Long on the periphery of Islam - almost a backwater - Afghanistan became part of the Muslim world's consciousness during the Afghan-Soviet war of the 1980s.

The war focused Muslims, and especially Arab Muslims, on the plight of their Afghan brethren and prompted them to send large amounts of money and arms, as well as fighters to support the mujahideen. The Afghans repaid this assistance by defeating the Red Army, thereby giving the Islamic world its first victory over "infidel" Western forces in several hundred years. The Afghans' victory was the turning point, and the totem for the maturing of a well-defined worldwide Islamist militant movement.

Today, many non-Afghan Muslims again perceive that the Afghans are being occupied and tortured by another infidel entity, the US-led coalition. This is especially the case because the Afghan war is occurring in tandem with the Iraq war, which broadens the sense that all of Islam is under infidel attack.

As a result, the flow from abroad of funds, arms and fighters to the Afghan insurgents - while probably not as large as the flow to the Iraqi resistance - is substantial, and can be seen in the improving combat performance of the Taliban-led forces confronting coalition forces.

Also suggesting this connection are the successful efforts to share expertise across the two theaters, with Iraq war skills in suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices being brought to bear in Afghanistan, while the Afghans' well-honed skills in attacking helicopters are emerging as part of the Iraqi insurgents' toolkit.

The future for the West in Afghanistan is bleak, and it is made more discouraging by the fact that much of the West's defeat will be self-inflicted because it did not adequately study the lessons of history.

"Efforts to occupy and rule [Afghanistan] usually ended in disaster," wrote eminent British historian Sir John Keegan in The Daily Telegraph in September 2001. "But straightforward punitive expeditions ... were successful on more than one occasion.

"It should be remembered that, in 1878, the British did succeed in bringing the Afghans to heel [with a punitive expedition]. Lord Roberts' march from 'Kabul to Kandahar' was one of [Queen] Victoria's most celebrated wars. The Russians, moreover, foolishly did not try to punish rogue Afghans, as Roberts did, but to rule the country. Since Afghanistan is ungovernable, the failure of their efforts was predictable ...

"America should not seek to change the regime, but simply to find and kill the terrorists. It should do so without pity."

Michael Scheuer served in the Central Intelligence Agency for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the Bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the once-anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.
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Italy's Prodi Says Afghanistan Policy Unchanged, Rebuffs Blair
By Flavia Krause-Jackson
March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said the country's policy on Afghanistan ``stays unchanged,'' rebuffing a U.K. request to boost the number of troops.

``Nothing has changed,'' Prodi told reporters in Brussels last night after a meeting with European Union counterparts. U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair had gone into the summit asking ``our NATO countries to do even more.''

Italy's lower house passed a motion yesterday to keep funding for 2,000 troops to stay in Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said after the vote that the number of soldiers stationed there would stay the same.

The measure approves more than 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in spending in 2007 on Italy's missions abroad, including Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan. Italy's Afghan contingent is stationed in Kabul and Herat.

Prodi's government nearly collapsed on Feb. 21 after some of his allies refused to back the Afghan mission. The Senate, where Prodi has a one-vote majority, must approve the legislation by the end of the month.

Moreover, tensions surrounding the vote increased this week after an Italian journalist working for la Repubblica newspaper was kidnapped by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
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Afghan team visits JCSC headquarters
Dawn (Pakistan)
ISLAMABAD, March 9: Brigadier General Ghulam Sakhi Asifi, along with 17 members of Afghan National Army Senior Command and Staff Course on Friday visited Joint Staff Headquarters.

The delegation called on Director General Joint Staff, Lieutenant General Syed Athar Ali, during the visit. The delegation was given a briefing and matters of professional interest came under discussion.

Meanwhile, Chief of German Armed Forces General Wolfgang Schneiderhan visited General Headquarters, Rawalpindi and called on Vice Chief of Army Staff, General Ahsan Saleem Hyat.—APP
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Afghanistan's starving children
Al Jazeera / March 9, 2007 By John Cookson in Kandahar
Al Jazeera has discovered that despite billions of dollars of aid being poured into Afghanistan in the past five years Afghan children are still dying because of hunger and poverty.

John Cookson travelled to Kandahar province in the south of the country were it is too dangerous to get aid through to the starving population.

In a refugee camp in the Panj-Wayee district Al Jazeera found that the population is in desperate need of a hunger relief programme, but aid agencies are unable to travel in the area because of the risk of attacks by the Taliban or bandits looking to kidnap for ransom.

Children in the camp are dying from treatable illnesses such as diaorrhea, but have had no medical help for a year.

"There is no work, there is no food, there is no money, our kids are dying beacuse of hunger," one man told Al Jazeera.

The 2,000 men, women and children who live in the camp originally fled a drought region but are unable to return because of the fighting between Nato forces and the Taliban.

Ironically, the winners in this story are the Taliban who are offering the men of the camp food and money for work of sorts, as fighters for the group.

"They are are easy recruits for the Taliban, to use them against the government and Nato by paying them," Aemal Sherirzad, of the Senlis Council, an international foreign policy thinktank, said.

In Kandahar hospital, doctors and nurses do what they can for the seriously undernourished children but 25 per cent of children cannot expect to live past their fifth birthday.

"I think if both sides stop war and go to the peace, I think it would be better for the people of this country," Dr Mohammed Siddique, a senior paediatrician, said.

The Save the Children charity says the situation in Afghanistan has arisen because many families do not understand basic good nutrition and poverty prevents the ones that do from providing healthy meals to their children and women of childbearing age.

In January, a report from New York-based Human Rights Watch said Afghanistan's international supporter had made "little progress in providing basic needs like security, food, electricity, water and healthcare".
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US sends spies into Pakistan to kill bin Laden
The Telegraph (UK) / March 9, 2007 By Toby Harnden in Washington and Thomas Coghlan in Helmand
America is stepping up its hunt for Osama bin Laden by dispatching additional CIA operatives and paramilitary officers to Pakistan to kill or capture the al-Qa'eda leader.

US officials said that the mission is intended to intensify the pressure on the terrorist leader, who turns 50 tomorrow, and perhaps force him into making a mistake. He is widely believed to be hiding in the region bordering Afghanistan.

Satellite photographs and details of communications intercepts were given to President Musharraf of Pakistan last week by Stephen Kappes, deputy director of the CIA, as part of a strategy to persuade him to give US intelligence agencies more assistance.

Mr Kappes, a Middle East specialist who has served in Pakistan, travelled to Islamabad to brief Gen Musharraf along with Vice President Dick Cheney. His detailed presentation showed evidence of al-Qa'eda building its strength on Pakistani soil.

"Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct," an American official said afterwards. "We are very much increasing our efforts there."

Mr Kappes also met members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and operatives from the CIA's Islamabad station to discuss co-ordinating efforts to track bin Laden.

The decision to send such a senior intelligence officer to brief Mr Musharraf is an indication of the Bush administration's increasing concern about the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Last week, Adml Mike McConnell, the new US Director of National Intelligence, told a Senate committee that bin Laden, who turns 50 tomorrow, is in Pakistan and actively re-establishing al-Qa'eda training camps there.

It was the most specific information about bin Laden given by a US official for several years and prompted speculation that surveillance photographs of the al-Qa'eda leader or his deputy might have been obtained.

Adml McConnell said of the Pakistani tribal area that "to the best of our knowledge the senior leadership, Number One and Number Two, are there, and they are attempting to re-establish and rebuild and to establish training camps."

Intelligence officials have indicated that bin Laden has previously chosen March to switch locations, moving to hiding places in the mountains once the snow cover begins to melt. He is likely to be at his most vulnerable when on the move.

Adml McConnell said he would focus with "great intensity" on al-Qa'eda in Pakistan. "There are a number of plans and activities that have been shut down or disrupted. And the intent on our part is to do that more and better, and hopefully at some point either killing or capturing the senior leadership."

News of the operation came as a British soldier was killed in a grenade attack on his base in southern Afghanistan - the 52nd to die in service in the country since the US-led invasion in 2001.

The Ministry of Defence said that the serviceman, from 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, died from his wounds after being airlifted from the town of Sangeen to the military hospital at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand province. His next of kin were notified but he is yet to be named by the MoD.

Bin Laden has evaded capture and assassination ever since President Bill Clinton signed a secret order authorising the CIA to kill him.

While President George W. Bush said after the September 11 attacks that bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive", US military and intelligence might have failed to carry out the order more than five years after the terrorist leader fled for his life after the invasion of Afghanistan and the collapse of his Taliban allies.

Now the Bush administration is redoubling its efforts.

"Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct," an American official said.

• Former US Navy sailor Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, has been arrested for supplying a pro-al-Qa'eda website with information on US ship movements and vulnerabilities, US justice authorities said.
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U.S. ambassador defends Pakistan's commitment to fighting Taliban, al-Qaida
The Associated Press Friday, March 9, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Pakistan defended that country's record in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida and said Washington as well as Islamabad needed to do more to counter their threat.

Ryan Crocker's remarks come amid growing frustration in the U.S. Congress at the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the failure of Pakistan to stamp out militancy in its remote border regions.

In an interview with Pakistan's private Khyber television, Crocker said the United States must accept that the Taliban are a tough enemy operating in inhospitable terrain and stay committed to its partnership with Pakistan.

"We face a determined, resilient enemy, an enemy who is not ready to give up its fight," Crocker said in the interview broadcast late Thursday. "There are no easy answers, there are no quick solutions. We have to stay engaged."

Crocker, who is transferring to Iraq after two-and-a-half years in Pakistan, said the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani security forces in operations against militants left him in no doubt about Islamabad's commitment.

A disputed peace deal that the government struck last September in the North Waziristan tribal agency contained "excellent points," he said, including the ending of crossborder attacks into Afghanistan.

Crocker said the deal, under which traditional tribal leaders are to enforce an end to militancy, had not yet been properly implemented. But he stopped short of describing it as a failure.

Critics say the peace accord has allowed militants in the area, viewed as a possible hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, to regroup.

The ambassador also praised Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's plan to use economic and social development to dry up extremism in the impoverished border region and said Washington would provide extra funds.

"It is not all about military options. You have to bring in these other options too. At the same time, I think we would all agree that efforts have to be made to see that militant activities inside the region and across the border comes to an end," he said.

"We all need to figure out how we can do more to eventually defeat this enemy, because as long as the fighting goes on, I do not think any one of us can say we have done enough," Crocker said.
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United States Steps Up Economic Aid to Afghanistan
New roads create opportunity, expand security, says State’s Boucher
By David McKeeby USINFO Staff Writer 08 March 2007
Afghan construction workers build a bridge across the Pech River in the Kunar province of Afghanistan February 4. President Bush has requested an additional $11.8 billion from Congress to accelerate Afghan reconstruction projects and security forces training in 2007-2008. (U.S. Army photo)

Afghan construction workers build a bridge across the Pech River in the Kunar province of Afghanistan February 4. (U.S. Army photo) Washington – As NATO forces in Afghanistan gear up to confront another Taliban spring offensive, the United States is stepping up parallel economic development efforts to undercut terrorism and drug trafficking, a senior State Department official says.

In March 8 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ambassador Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, discussed the U.S. strategy to help the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai further expand its authority into the ungoverned spaces of southeastern Afghanistan, a topic which also dominated his March 7 appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Central to this effort, Boucher said, is the President Bush's request for an additional $11.8 billion from Congress to accelerate Afghan reconstruction projects and security forces training in 2007-2008.

“The funding request reflects a strategy of extending government and the benefits of government to people throughout the country,” he said.

If approved by Congress, it nearly will double the $14.2 billion in U.S. aid delivered to the country since 2001 and allow implementation of a new six-point U.S. strategy for Afghanistan announced by President Bush February 15.  (See related article.)

Boucher said these new funds would support key infrastructure projects, such as building roads, expanding the electricity grid and improving access to clean water in southeast Afghanistan, a strategy that has gone a long way toward stabilizing other parts of the country.  But much work remains, he said.

“In the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, Afghanistan was one of the least developed countries in the entire world, and then it went downhill for 25 years,” Boucher said, “A lot of this is not reconstruction, it’s construction.”

Since 2001, he said, the United States has built thousands of kilometers of roads, including a national “ring road” that is nearing completion.  He said the road network speeds transport of goods and offers Afghanistan new opportunities for closer integration with its northern neighbors in Central Asia and southward into Pakistan and India.

In the next phase, Boucher said, the United States will partner with the Karzai government to expand road links into provincial capitals, then down into Afghan districts, providing local construction jobs and improved security, as well as setting the stage for further development.

NEW ROADS KEY TO DRUG CONTROL
In addition to promoting security, development and government services, road building is also an essential component of a comprehensive strategy aimed at stemming opium poppy cultivation, which funds militancy and undermines democracy by fueling corruption, Boucher said.

According to Boucher, much of 2006 Afghan opium production, which U.N. estimates credit for 92 percent of the global supply of heroin and related narcotics, was centered in restive southeastern Afghanistan, which was identified as an area of concern in the State Department’s recently released International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. (See related article.)

The experiences of countries such as Turkey, Thailand and Pakistan that have abandoned opium poppy cultivation suggest the process is far more complicated than ordering farmers to grow a different crop, Boucher said.  It takes not only time and determination, but also an intensive focus on transforming the rural economy through infrastructure and development.

Thanks to new roads and an Afghan-led campaign of public information, rural development, law enforcement and targeted interdiction, six Afghan provinces are already poppy-free, Boucher said. Eight more may be able to fully stop opium production by the end of 2007.

With electricity, some farmers can expand production of legal crops and others can start new businesses, Boucher said.  With roads, area residents can get their goods to market more easily.  Some family members can even relocate to cities where they can find work and send money home.

“Roads are how you expand government.  Roads are how you fight narcotics.  Roads are how you fight the Taliban and the insurgents.  Roads are how you give people new economic opportunity, the ability to grow other crops and develop new industries,” he said.

The full text of Boucher’s prepared remarks as submitted to the House Foreign Affairs Committee is available on the State Department Web site.

For more information on U.S. policy, see Rebuilding Afghanistan.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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Protestors want religious scholars freed
JALALABAD, March 8 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Hundreds of residents of Chaparhar district of eastern Nangarhar province Thursday staged a demonstration against overnight arrest of three religious clerics by US and Afghan forces and warned to continue the protest unless the US forces free the three religious scholars.

US and Afghan forces arrested three religious clerics during an overnight operation in Chaparhar district, they suspected the three arrested locals had links with al Qaeda and Taliban.

The demonstration, began at 8am and ended at around 12 o clock, in which the protestors chanted anti-US and government slogans.

The protest ended after the provincial council chief urged the protestor to calm down.

Mulla Muhammad Jan one of the protestors told Pajhwok Afghan News the American forces arrested Mavlavi Muhammad Aziz, Qari Ayaz and Mulla Muhammad Said from their houses in this district.

The foreign forces also desecrated holy Quran and other religious books, he added.

It was the sixth time in few months the US forces conducted operation in this district and arrested innocent people.

Col Abdul Ghafor spokesman of the provincial police headquarters told Pajhwok Afghan News the three people were arrested by government military commission and coalition forces for alleged links with anti-government militants.

The arrest of the three clerics comes days after US forces shot dead 16 civilians and injured over 20 more after a suicide attack on their convoy on Torkham Jalalabad road.
Abdul Moeed Hashimi
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Canada to help Afghanistan in civil aviation
NEW YORK, March 8 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Canada has expressed its willingness to help Afghanistan in developing its civil aviation sector particularly those related to air and ground control and safety related issues.

This was conveyed to the visiting Afghanistan Civil Aviation Minister, Niamatullah E Jawid, when he met his Canadian counterpart, Lawrence Cannon, in Ottawa on Wednesday.

Both the ministers discussed a wide range of issues related to co-operation between the two countries in the field of civil aviation sector and how Canada can help us develop our capabilities of international standards, the Afghan Ambassador to Canada, Omar Samad, told Pajhwok Afghan News, after the meeting.

Besides, Samad, Yahya Mir, the Afghanistan representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization accompanied Jawid at the meeting.

Samad said though no agreement was signed during the first ever visit of the Afghanistan Civil Aviation Minister; this laid the foundation of a strong cooperation between the two nations in the coming years.

During the meeting, Jawid emphasized the need to build the technical and managerial capabilities of Afghanistan in this sector and urged the Canadian minister to assess the possibilities of providing assistance in the areas of need.

Canada, which has not only stationed its troops in Kandahar, but also providing lot of aid to Afghanistan would continue with its effort to help Afghanistan build its capacities in the civil aviation and transportation sector, Cannon said.

Details of the Canadian assistance in this sector are being worked out, said an official of the Canadian Ministry of Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities.

Jawid, who arrived in Canada on Tuesday, would be also attending a crucial NATO meeting at Montreal during his stay here. The meeting has been convened to discuss the issue of possibilities of opening up the Afghan airspace, which is under restricted use due to security reasons.
Lalit K. Jha
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