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March 11, 2007 


Thirteen killed in Afghan border post clash
Sun Mar 11, 4:08 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Eight Afghan border security soldiers and five Taliban fighters have been killed in a clash in southern  Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, a senior official said on Sunday.

The fighting broke out in Arghastan district of Kandahar province after insurgents attacked a border security post on Saturday night.

"A major operation has been launched against the rebels in the area," Abdul Razzaq, chief of the border security force in the area, told Reuters.

He said two soldiers were also wounded in the fighting.

Southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, have remained strongholds of Taliban militants and have borne the brunt of the insurgents' attacks on foreign as well as Afghan forces.

Afghan officials often complain that insurgents organize and launch attacks from sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, acknowledges cross-border activities by the militants but urges foreign and Afghan forces in Afghanistan to also strengthen controls on their side of the long, porous border.

Last year was the deadliest Afghanistan has seen since the Taliban were ousted from power by the U.S.-led forces in late 2001. More than 4,000 people died in fighting last year, including about 1,000 civilians. Suicide bombings jumped to 139 from 21.

Fighting is expected to be heavy in 2007 as the Taliban have warned that they have thousands of suicide bombers ready for action.

NATO and Afghan troops last week launched their biggest operation so far to pre-empt Taliban's spring offensive.
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Italy wants status of kidnapped reporter
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The militants who kidnapped an Italian reporter must prove he is still alive before any negotiations for his release can begin, Italy's ambassador to  Afghanistan said Saturday.

Taliban insurgents claim they kidnapped Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a reporter with Italian daily La Repubblica, on Monday along with two Afghans as they traveled together by vehicle in Nad Ali district of Helmand province.

"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," said Ettore Francesco Sequi.

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

Italy's Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Saturday that it believes the reporter is still alive.

"Based on elements obtained so far through established channels for the case of journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, the Foreign Ministry has reason to maintain that our citizen is alive," the ministry said.

Meanwhile, a bomb exploded next to a police vehicle in the eastern province of Khost, near the Pakistan border, killing four policemen, said Arsallah Jamal, the province's governor.

Elsewhere, an airstrike in the country's volatile south targeted a suspected militant allegedly involved in the movement of anti-aircraft weapons,  NATO-led troops said in a statement without providing details on casualties.

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

Mastrogiacomo, 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. The Italian ministry said its contacts were continuing to verify the kidnappers' "intentions and the expectations."

Mastrogiacomo's disappearance comes four months after the release of Italian photographer, Gabriele Torsello, was kidnapped Oct. 12 while traveling by bus from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, to neighboring Kandahar. When he was released Nov. 3 Torsello said he did not know who was responsible for his kidnapping.
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Taliban threaten to kill Italian journalist: report
Sun Mar 11, 4:04 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - A senior Taliban commander has threatened to kill an Italian reporter accused of spying if the Italian government does not meet the group's demands, a Pakistan-based news agency reported.

In return for the release of La Repubblica journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, the Taliban have demanded the withdrawal of Italian troops from  Afghanistan and the release of three Taliban spokesmen.

Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban commander whose fighters are believed to be holding the Italian, said they would kill Mastrogiacomo if the demands were not met by Friday.

"If our demands aren't met, we'll slaughter the journalist on the seventh day from today," Dadullah told private Afghan Islamic Press on Saturday.

The Taliban earlier said they would release Mastrogiacomo, held on Monday on charges of spying for British troops, if he proved his innocence.

But a Taliban spokesman later said they had changed their mind after Italian lower house of parliament on Thursday voted in favor of keeping 1,900 Italian troops in Afghanistan.

The Taliban often execute Afghans they accuse of spying, hanging or shooting them in the head or slitting their throats.

The Italian government has called on the kidnappers to provide evidence that Mastrogiacomo is alive before any talks for his release can start.

Mastrogiacomo was picked up in the lawless southern province of Helmand on Monday along with two Afghan colleagues. The Taliban said he had confessed to spying for British troops.

La Repubblica denied the reporter was a spy and said the Karachi-born man had been writing for them since 1980 and had been reporting from Afghanistan since February 28.

Italian journalist Gabriele Torsello was kidnapped in Helmand in October and held for three weeks before being released unharmed.

A crew working for al Jazeera television -- three Afghans and a Briton -- were held overnight last month while traveling from neighboring Kandahar to Helmand.
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Taliban demand release of three spokesmen
The News International (Pakistan) March 10, 2007
PESHAWAR: The Taliban are demanding the release of three of their spokesmen in custody of the Afghan government in return for the Italian journalist whom they seized in south-western Helmand province four days ago.

Taliban sources said they are not making any demands publicly. But it is understood that the demand for the release of the three Taliban spokesmen has been privately conveyed to the friends and colleagues of Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was apprehended by Taliban fighters in Nad Ali district in Helmand. Two Afghans, freelance journalist and interpreter Ajmal and driver Syed Agha, accompanying him were also apprehended.

Contact was established between the Taliban and colleagues of the Italian journalist two days ago through satellite phone but the Taliban until now were adamant that the La Repubblica reporter was a spy. That view is now changing and the Taliban have indicated they were willing to reconsider their view if it was proved to them that the Italian national was a genuine journalist. The Taliban spokesmen now being held in a jail in Kabul include Latifullah Hakimi, Ustad Yasir and Dr Muhammad Hanif. The Taliban have been arguing that the three were not fighters and should be freed.
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Militants in Iraq Threaten Hostages, Demand German Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan
By VOA News 10 March 2007
A little-known militant group in Iraq has threatened to kill a German woman and her son who were kidnapped in Iraq, unless Berlin withdraws its troops from Afghanistan within 10 days.

In a video posted on the Internet Saturday, a weeping woman and a young man are held at gunpoint by a group that calls itself the "Arrows of Righteousness." 

Speaking in German, the woman appeals to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet the kidnappers' demands.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says the woman and her son have been missing from their home in Iraq since February 6.  It is not clear why they were in Iraq.  Officials in Berlin have refused to comment on the kidnapper's demands, but the foreign ministry says it is working on the case and evaluating the demands of the abductors.

Germany does not have any troops serving in Iraq, but has about 3,000 troops in Afghanistan serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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Islamist militants threaten attacks on Germany, Austria
DUBAI (AFP) - Islamist militants threatened to attack Germany and Austria if they do not pull their troops out of  Afghanistan, in a statement posted on Sunday on an Internet site used by Al-Qaeda linked militants.

"Germany's participation in the US war on Islam and Muslims will lead only to... endangering Germany itself," said the video statement whose authenticity could not be verified.

"We wonder where Germany's interest lies in throwing 2,750 troops (to Afghanistan)... to fight in defence of the lies of (President George W.) Bush and his gang," read a masked man in the videotape released by the so-called Voice of the Caliphate.

"In standing by the United States ... You have provoked those whom you call terrorists to target you," the man said in Arabic, with German subtitles appearing on the screen.

Germany has about 3,000 troops in the relatively stable north of Afghanistan, where it commands the International Security Assistance Force.

The statement threatened also to attack Austria if its government did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

"Austria was and still is one of the safest countries in the world... But if Austria came on to the list of countries targetted by the mujahedeen (holy warriors), the situation will change," it said.

"To Austria we say: Your troops in Afghanistan do not represent a real force or a real threat to our brothers, the mujahedeen, but they represent important support for Bush and his gang," it added.

Addressing the Austrian government, the statement said: "Don't destroy the security of a whole country, just for five soldiers you have sent to Afghanistan."

"This war is not yours. This war is between the mujahedeen and America".
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Followers Mark Bin Laden's 50th Birthday
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 11, 2007
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Followers of Osama bin Laden flooded Islamic Web sites with pledges of allegiance, videos and pictures Saturday to mark the al-Qaida leader's 50th birthday, reflecting his importance as a militant symbol even though he has not shown his face for years.

One user, going by the name Abu Yacoub, posted an old picture of bin Laden wearing a helmet and khaki military uniform while carrying a two-way radio in a deserted area, possibly from his fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union two decades ago.

''Osama bin Laden turns 50. God protect our leader, our Sheik Osama bin Laden. God reward him for his words and actions,'' Abu Yacoub wrote on a Web site commonly used by insurgents.

Another message titled the ''Manhattan invasion'' featured old footage of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and the wills of the men who hijacked the planes. Another follower posted a poem of dedication to bin Laden.

A spokesman for U.S. troops in Afghanistan expressed disgust over the celebrations.

''Instead of focusing on the anniversary of his birth, people around the world -- and particularly the people here in Afghanistan -- should take a moment to remember the innocent people who have been killed or injured by terrorist extremists like Osama bin Laden,'' said Maj. William Mitchell.

Like most things involving bin Laden, his exact birth date is unknown.

GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based think tank, said bin Laden was either born March 10 or July 30 of 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The FBI just lists that he was born in 1957.

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or the country's lawless border region with Pakistan. U.S.-led coalition troops have conducted hundreds of unsuccessful operations in the region to find him. Intelligence officials have suggested that the trail for bin Laden has gone cold, and there has been speculation over whether he is dead or alive.

The last time bin Laden appeared in a video was Oct. 29, 2004, in a warning to the U.S. that it would face another attack if it did not stop meddling in Arab and Muslim affairs. The al-Qaida leader appeared pale and thinner in the video.

A number of bin Laden audio tapes have been posted on Islamic Web sites since then, the latest in July, but his voice has sounded tired, fueling rumors that he was seriously ill.

Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, meanwhile, has become more public, appearing in four messages since the beginning of the year and more than a dozen in 2006.
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Associated Press Writer Fisnik Abrashi contributed to this report in Kabul, Afghanistan.
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A big push for Pakistan's Afghan agenda
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / March 10, 2007
ISLAMABAD - Warlord, mujahideen leader and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's announcement that he is severing ties with the Taliban and starting negotiations with the administration of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul is the first Pakistan card to be played before the start of the Taliban-led spring uprising.

While Hekmatyar will promote Pakistan's regional interests, his move is not expected to make any significant difference to the Taliban's planned offensive, as they had all its elements in place before Hekmatyar's decision.

For example, a few months ago Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) , instructed all important warlords in Afghanistan to dismantle the HIA's structures in their areas and merge with the Taliban's command. Thus they will remain in position and simply change hats.

The announcement by Hekmatyar caught many people by surprise. Yet it is to be expected from the mercurial mujahid with political ambitions who has always had his own agenda, even while his HIA fought alongside the Taliban in the jihad against foreign forces, mostly in eastern Afghanistan.

In this context, the recent decision by the Olsi Jirga, the Afghan lower house of parliament, to grant immunity to all Afghans involved in the country's 25 years of conflict is important, as it clears the way for Hekmatyar to enter the political stage.

The US considers Hekmatyar a terrorist, although it backed him against the Soviets in the 1980s. Hekmatyar was sidelined when the Taliban came to power in 1996 and only returned to Afghanistan from exile in Iran in 2002. He has been courted before by the US as providing a political solution to the country's woes, but the overtures came to nothing (see Afghanistan: Hekmatyar changes color again, Asia Times Online, April 3, 2004).

Hekmatyar's latest move coincides with lobbying by Pakistan with the West to open channels of communication with the Afghan insurgency. Pakistani policymakers, including Mushahid Hussain Syed, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has urged Washington to talk to the Taliban on a power-sharing formula. As Washington is not comfortable with the Taliban, Hekmatyar is being touted as a suitable candidate to help restore peace to Afghanistan.

The Taliban's upcoming offensive, which clearly has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led forces highly concerned, adds urgency to finding a political solution. NATO has already launched its own spring offensive and increased troop numbers in anticipation of the biggest battle in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of 2001.

Political wrangling

More than two years ago, a segment of the HIA, otherwise a highly ideologically motivated and organized group, separated from Hekmatyar but refused to denounce him. This renegade group contested the parliamentary elections of September 2005 and emerged as the single-largest bloc, with 40 seats in the National Assembly.

A number of former Taliban also secured seats, besides other Islamists and the pro-Pakistan Ittahad Islami Afghanistan led by Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf.

Nevertheless, these groups failed to make any inroads in Karzai's cabinet, which is dominated by the pro-India Northern Alliance, as is the Afghan National Army.

The situation changed last year, though, when the Taliban mounted its most successful spring campaign in five years. It claimed large swaths of the southwest after being welcomed back into the community by tribal leaders.

Almost overnight, Western policymakers began talking of possible power-sharing arrangements involving the Taliban, provided they laid down their weapons. Pakistan saw its opportunity to regain lost ground in Afghanistan and pounced. It was convinced that whether Hekmatyar or the Taliban come to power, as Islamist Pashtuns they would gravitate toward Pakistan rather than India.

"The time has now come that the West should realize there is a difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban," retired Major-General Jamshed Ayaz Khan, president of the Institute of Regional Studies, told Asia Times Online. "Al-Qaeda is undoubtedly a terrorist organization with a global agenda, but as far as the Taliban are concerned, they may be extremists, but they are part of Afghan society and represent a major segment of the Afghan population." Khan's Islamabad-based think-tank advises the government on major policy issues.

"The Taliban require separate treatment and consideration. Without striking a deal with the Taliban, peace in Afghanistan will only be a dream," said Khan.

Pakistan realized, though, that it had a problem with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, whom the West is most unlikely to welcome back into power in Kabul. The only way Mullah Omar can regain power is by fighting on, forcing the coalition to fight back in what could be a quagmire without end.

As a result, Islamabad worked on the Hekmatyar option.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Persian-Speaking Media Gather In Dushanbe  
March 11, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- An international conference of Persian-speaking media has started in Tajikistan.

More than 60 media representatives from countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia were expected to attend the three-day meeting in the Tajik capital.

The conference was expected to create an association of Persian-speaking journalists and to find common grounds for future cooperation.

An organizer told RFE/RL's Tajik Service ahead of the event that there is a "lack of news coverage in Farsi" and a "decrease of the influence" of the language.
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US Senators Question Administration Strategy for Afghanistan
Voice of America By Jim Fry Washington March 9, 2007
U.S.-led coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan say they have captured a bomb-making expert with links to al-Qaida. The capture of Mullah Mahmood in Jalalabad follows an increase in attacks last year on coalition forces and civilians. A U.S. Senate committee questioned what one senator called a failure of the Bush administration's polices in Afghanistan. The VOA's Jim Fry reports:

In Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, NATO targets Taleban insurgents in an offensive launched this week and dubbed Operation Achilles.

On a road in Kandahar -- a suicide bomber attacked a Canadian convoy, wounding five civilians. And U.S. officials say there has been an increase in bombings and a resurgence of Taleban and al-Qaida operations in the last year.

Such developments worry members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman Joseph Biden, who said, "The last year has been the bloodiest since the ouster of the Taleban."

Another senator, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, questioned Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher: "That strikes me as a pretty profound failure of our policies. Do you agree?"

Boucher replied, "We are there. We are trying to meet them. And I think we are better set up this year to deal with that than we were in previous years."

Q. "What does it say about our policies--"

A. "It says we have not finished the job."

Boucher says NATO has increased its presence in the country to 23,000 soldiers. The U.S. troop number is up by 3,300 this year -- also now at 23,000.

Military and government leaders say a NATO-led offensive in the south last year turned back challenges by the Taleban.

"We stopped them from achieving their goals last year," said Boucher. "But we have not established dominance or got them on the run yet."

Boucher says the Bush administration is seeking $2 billion from Congress this year for new roads and other reconstruction in Afghanistan. Attention also is turning to Afghanistan's lucrative poppy crop.

The U.S. claims that more than 90 percent of the world's opium comes from those fields. NATO forces will try to eradicate narcotics crops, but Boucher says much more help is required.

"You have to build a different rural economy. So it is not [that] you give them a different crop. It is: You give them a road and electricity and irrigation."

As winter turns to spring, there is concern now that the Taleban and al-Qaida will launch new military offensives from the eastern mountains and in the south. U.S. officials insist coalition forces are more capable this year.

Boucher told the senators, "The enemy's been spending the winter building bombs and designing tactics. It is going to be nasty. It is going to be difficult but I think we are better able to cope."

Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee expressed skepticism. But with terrorist and Taleban forces still present in the country, the U.S. lawmakers say failure is unthinkable.
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One Bullet Away From What?
By MARK MAZZETTI March 11, 2007 The New York Times
INSIDE Washington, the frustration of doing business with Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is matched only by the fear of living life without him.

For years, the notion that Mr. Musharraf is all that stands between Washington and a group of nuclear-armed mullahs has dictated just how far the White House feels it can push him to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives who enjoy a relatively safe existence in Pakistan.

The specter of Islamic radicals overthrowing Mr. Musharraf has also limited the Bush administration’s policy options, taking off the table any ideas about American military strikes against a resurgent Al Qaeda, which has camps in Pakistani tribal areas.

But just how fragile is Mr. Musharraf’s hold on power? And might the United States have more leverage than it believes?

The question of how to handle Mr. Musharraf is critical at a time when intelligence officials widely agree that the Taliban is expanding its reach in Pakistan, gradually spreading from remote areas into more settled regions of the country.

The fear within Washington that Islamic extremism has become a dominant force in Pakistan has been stoked in part by Mr. Musharraf himself. Some analysts say his warnings are used to maintain a steady flow of American aid and keep at bay demands from Washington for democratic reforms. He often invokes the dangers of Islamic radicalism when meeting American officials in Washington and Islamabad, and his narrow escape in two assassination attempts is frequently cited by President Bush as evidence of his tenuous grip on power.

While the Islamists would surely take power in any way possible, an examination of polling data and recent election results — however suspect in a less than democratic country — provides little evidence that Islamists have enough support to take over the country. If anything, they would likely control only select areas.

The last time Pakistan went to the polls in 2002, religious political parties received just 11 percent of the vote, compared with more than 28 percent won by the secular party led by Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister.

And that election may have even been a high-water mark for the Islamists, who were capitalizing on surging anti-American sentiment after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Even though the Iraq war has also inflamed anti-Western attitudes, these sentiments do not seem to have translated into electoral gains for Islamist parties.

Islamist politicians received a drubbing in local elections in 2005, gaining less support than expected in their power base in the tribal areas. In September, a poll by the International Republican Institute, a respected organization affiliated with the Republican Party that helps build democratic institutions in foreign countries, found that just 5.2 percent of respondents would vote for the main religious party, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, in national parliamentary elections.

Although the poll found that this party was the most popular in Baluchistan, the southwestern province where Taliban support is strong, Islamist leaders lagged far behind both Mr. Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto, as well as another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. It is also thought to be unlikely that a successful attempt on Mr. Musharraf’s life would mean wholesale changes to the power structure of Pakistani politics.

For decades, the military has been the most dominant institution in Pakistan. If Mr. Musharraf were to fall to an assassin’s bullet, American diplomatic and intelligence officials say, it is unlikely that there would be mass uprisings in Lahore and Karachi, or that a religious leader in the Taliban mold would rise to power.

“I am not particularly worried about an extremist government coming to power and getting hold of nuclear weapons,” said Robert Richer, who was associate director of operations in 2004 and 2005 for the Central Intelligence Agency. “If something happened to Musharraf tomorrow, another general would step in.”

Based on the succession plan, the vice chief of the army, Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hyat, would take over as the leader of the army and Mohammedmian Soomro, an ex-banker, would become president.

General Hyat, who is secular like Mr. Musharraf, would hold the real power. But it is unclear whether General Hyat would be as adept as Mr. Musharraf at keeping various interest groups within the military in line. American officials say that Pakistan’s intelligence service, the I.S.I., continues to play a direct role in arming and financing the Taliban’s re-emergence in western Pakistan, and there are worries about the relationships between some senior military leaders and Islamist groups.

The ties between Islamic militants and Pakistan’s security services are decades old, with the two sides working together most closely during the mujahadeen battles against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Analysts generally agree, however, that the military remains a largely secular institution that takes seriously its role as protector of Pakistan’s identity and would not allow Islamists to become the dominant force in Pakistan.

While many in Washington agree that the threat of Islamic militants has become something of a useful foil for Mr. Musharraf, there is a rift about just how the White House should be treating the Pakistani president.

Some counterterrorism officials at the Pentagon argue that to the extent that Mr. Musharraf’s government feels real pressure, it is from those within the Pakistani military who worry most about alienating Washington and jeopardizing the flow of military aid to Pakistan.

The money and military hardware from the United States is crucial for Pakistan’s armed forces to keep pace with archrival India. Because of this dependency, some officials argue, the Bush administration has powerful leverage to force Mr. Musharraf to crack down on extremism.

On the other side of the debate, some State Department officials say that while Islamic militants probably would not topple Mr. Musharraf, why roll the dice?

Mr. Musharraf might be frustrating to work with, they say, but he has the virtue of being a known quantity. And with Iraq spiraling out of control and an emboldened Iran flexing its muscle throughout the region, aren’t things complicated enough without taking a chance on a nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 165 million people?

“How many degrees of difficulty do you want to add?” asks one Bush administration official. “This is one equation that we don’t want to touch.”

Mr. Musharraf’s turn against the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his status as a personal target of the militants, won him a reputation as a man Washington could do business with. He developed a rapport with President Bush, and received rock star treatment during a recent book tour through the United States, even appearing on “The Daily Show.” (He shared tea and Twinkies with Jon Stewart.)

In the United States, he is considered the voice of moderation, but Mr. Musharraf has also navigated the often brutal world of Pakistani politics by keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. Although he speaks ominously about the Islamists’ rising power, he has regularly brokered agreements with them in the provinces as a way to gain allies amid the growing support nationally for civilian challengers like Mr. Sharif and Ms. Bhutto. Pakistan experts say this is smart politics, but the agreements have also effectively strengthened religious groups in the rural areas and made punishing Islamic militants in those areas more difficult.

“To the extent that religious extremism is a concern, it is a concern partly of Musharraf’s and the military’s making,” said Husain Haqqani, a professor of international relations at Boston University and an adviser to several Pakistani prime ministers. “And, he has been very effective in turning this around into getting more support from the U.S.”

The Democratic takeover of Congress has given the Bush administration its own useful foil in its negotiations with Pakistan. During a recent meeting in Islamabad with Mr. Musharraf, Vice President Dick Cheney said that the White House has no intention of cutting aid to Pakistan, but mentioned that Democrats had threatened to make aid conditional on a crackdown on Islamic militants in the tribal areas.

Congress is unlikely to ever stem the flow of aid to Pakistan. But invoking Congressional frustration with the country could play on Pakistani fears that the United States is engaged in an ever tighter embrace with India.

And within Pakistan, that is considered the greatest threat of all.
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Pelosi Cautions Bush Not to Veto an Iraq Bill
By CARL HULSE March 11, 2007 The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 10 — Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, challenged President Bush on Saturday over his threat to reject an Iraq spending bill if it calls for a troop withdrawal, even as the administration sought to shift money to pay for additional forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Go to Complete Coverage » With a House committee set to consider the approximately $100 billion measure as early as Thursday, Ms. Pelosi said a veto would suggest to Iraqi leaders that the United States was not serious about making them more responsible for policing their own country.

“With his veto threat,” she said in a statement, “the president offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily.” In his comments, Gen. David H. Petraeus spoke about the long-term challenges facing the troops in Iraq.

Traveling in Latin America, Mr. Bush sent the speaker a request Saturday to adjust the administration’s spending proposal by shifting $3.2 billion from “lower priority” programs to pay for about 4,400 troops to bolster the 21,500 increase already sought for Iraq. The added forces would be split between combat and support units.

The new request also seeks more than $500 million to send additional combat troops, linguists and military trainers to Afghanistan, according to the Office of Management and Budget, “in anticipation of increased combat operations against the resurgent Taliban.”

“This revised request would better align resources based on the assessment of military commanders to achieve the goal of establishing Iraq and Afghanistan as democratic and secure nations that are free of terrorism,” Mr. Bush said in his letter to Ms. Pelosi.

The request for additional troops is likely to figure into the coming debate over war spending. Nearly all Democrats oppose the buildup and some have complained that the White House did not factor the needed support forces into its initial call for 21,500 troops.

A spokesman for Mr. Bush said this week that the president would reject the legislation if Democrats followed through with their plan to require most American forces to be out of Iraq by September 2008, or earlier, if Iraq does not show progress in securing its territory.

Trying to build backing for the plan, Ms. Pelosi and her fellow leaders are drafting a proposal that can satisfy both moderate Democrats worried about a precipitous withdrawal and party members who want to spend money only on a pull-out. The emerging legislation will also have money for military health care and unrelated provisions that can attract votes.
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Media dragged into Afghan conflict
By Alastair Leithead BBC Kabul correspondent Sunday, 11 March 2007, 11:36 GMT
Propaganda has always played an important part in war, but in Afghanistan the battles between Nato forces and the Taleban are being fought not just in the deserts and valleys but in the media.

When the war is about hearts and minds, winning public opinion is the be-all and end-all, and there's quite a temptation to interfere in a country with a now thriving media.

A local journalist from Tolo TV was arrested and held by Afghan authorities for about 36 hours without charge, for talking to a Taleban spokesman who would ring in every day with his version of events - something which happens in most organisations, including the BBC.

Last summer, a document was circulated to journalists by intelligence officers, and they were urged to sign up to an order banning criticism of the Nato mission, or of representing the Afghan armed forces as "weak", leading news bulletins with "terrorist activities" or filming or interviewing "terrorist commanders".

The proposed rules and regulations came to nothing, but there was fear among the Afghan media that this was a glimpse of what was to come.

"One of the greatest achievements of this post-Taleban era has been a free press and I fear that is now in danger," said Saad Mahseni from the Afghan Moby Media Group.

A new media law is being discussed in parliament which he fears may contain loopholes that could restrict broadcasters and newspapers.

This week the Taleban's former spokesman, known as Dr Mohammad Hanif, spoke on television after his arrest by Afghan intelligence officials.

Professing not to be under duress, he explained how he was told to inflate Taleban figures on deaths and injuries to Nato, coalition and Afghan forces, but that is something well known by journalists.

For the Taleban to use these tactics is perhaps expected from an insurgency using information, intimidation and guerrilla warfare, often from civilian areas, to take on the world's most sophisticated armies.

'Investigative integrity'

But this week the focus has been on action taken by US forces.

Last Sunday, a suicide bomber struck an American convoy close to the eastern city of Jalalabad. The American soldiers opened fire in the aftermath killing at least eight Afghans and injuring 34.

Questions have been raised over the Americans' insistence that they were ambushed after the bomb blast and were merely returning fire.

Two freelance journalists from the Associated Press news agency were on the scene within half an hour and they filmed and photographed a civilian car, 100m from the bomb attack, where three Afghans were killed.

They were ordered by an American soldier to delete the footage from their cameras, which they did.

The US military has said this was justified, claiming it could have compromised a military investigation and led to the public jumping to the wrong conclusion about what happened.

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

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

Cover-up?

In disputing this, AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll in New York said: "That is not a reasonable justification for erasing images from our cameras.

"AP's journalists in Afghanistan are trained, accredited professionals... in democratic societies, legitimate journalists are allowed to work without having their equipment seized and their images deleted."

A photographer in Kabul for the New York agency World Picture News, Jean Chung, also said her photographs of a gate at the US Bagram Airbase which was targeted by a suicide bomber while Dick Cheney was in Afghanistan, had been forcibly removed from her camera.

"They grabbed my lens and threatened to destroy my camera," she said.

"If they say they support democracy and freedom they should not be so strict about it in Afghanistan - it goes against the American constitution. I feel they are trying to cover up a lot of things."

Civilian casualties are a problem for the international forces as the incidents and the way they are reported will make a difference to the way they are perceived by the Afghan population.

For journalists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to establish exactly what happened in some of the more violent parts of the country - where being on the ground is almost impossible.

An Italian journalist is still being held along with his two Afghan translators and there have been threats levelled at locals from the Taleban, and as the violence increases, as expected, this is only going to get worse.
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Pakistani-Afghan jirga commission to hold joint meeting
People's Daily Online, China
The Pakistani-Afghan jirga commission members will hold their first joint meeting in Islamabad on Monday, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan ( APP) reported.

To constitute a grand jirga commission will highlight the issues to be discussed in the meeting, while other issues include cooperation on war against terrorism, said the report.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai agreed on holding a joint jirga commission meeting during their talks hosted by U.S. President George W. Bush in White House in September 2006.

It was decided that the two-commission will work out modalities for the formulation of grand jirga and will give its proposals to the government.

Accordingly, the five-member Pakistani jirga will be headed by Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, while the nine-member Afghan jirga will be led by known Jihadi leader Pir Sayed Ahmad Gilani.

This is part of the joint political efforts of both Pakistani and Afghan governments for stopping illegal cross-border movement and securing peace on both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Source: Xinhua
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Jirga meeting postponed
By Our Staff Reporter (Dawn)
ISLAMABAD, March 10: The first meeting of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Jirga Commission could not be held according to schedule on Saturday after the Afghan delegation’s arrival was delayed.

Interior ministry sources said that the meeting would now be held on March 12, adding that the Afghan delegation was likely to arrive here on Sunday.

The first meeting of the Jirga had been called to address crucial issues, including a reported plan of Nato force to strike inside Pakistan.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who is the head of Pakistan’s Jirga Commission, will lead the commission along with his Afghan counterpart Syed Ahmed Gillani. NWFP Governor Lt-Gen (retd) Ali Muhamad Jan Aurakzai and Governor Balochistan Owais Ghani will also attend the meeting.

The source said there were fears that the basic purpose of the joint Jirga could be affected if the there were Nato strikes in Pakistan’s territory.

The Afghan Jirga has 18 members and 10 of them were visiting Pakistan for three days to hold the joint Jirga commission.
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Speaker of Afghan Parliament to visit NATO headquarters
Brussels, March 11, IRNA
The Speaker of the Afghan Parliament, Yunus Qanooni, heading a parliamentary delegation, is to visit NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday to meet with the Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a NATO statement said.

The visit comes only a few days after the ISAF and Afghan National Security Forces launched Operation Achilles in the northern Helmand, an area with a high level of Taliban activity.

Operation Achilles comprises 5,500 troops approximately, 4,500 NATO ISAF and about 1,000 Afghan National Security Forces.
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Coalition frees two mullahs held in relations with Taliban
JALALABAD, Mar 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The US-led coalition forces have released two of the three clerics arrested on Wednesday for links with the Taliban after hundreds protested on his capture.

Spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, Noor Agha, said the coalition troops freed them Friday afternoon after the suspicions on them of having links to militants were never proven true.

He said Qari Ayaz and Mullah Sayed were freed at 3:00 pm and Mullah Muhammad Aziz will also be freed soon.

They were detained Wednesday night from Chaparhar district that prompted demonstration of hundreds of residents on Thursday. They were shouting slogans against the United States and called for immediate release of the religious elders.
Abdul Mueed Hashimi
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Afghan stowaways end up at U.S. base
LONDON, March 10 (UPI) -- Eight Afghan boys who hid on the back of a Britain-bound truck in Europe were discovered when the truck reached a U.S. Air Force base, a report said.

"These poor kids must have been petrified when they were found. Security is constantly very high and everybody and every vehicle coming in and out is searched by armed soldiers," a resident of the Lakenheath RAF base in Suffolk, where the U.S. Air Force 48th Fighter Wing and 5,000 personnel are based, told The Independent.

The boys, between ages 11 and 16, were discovered as the truck delivering bread to the base underwent a routine search, the resident told The Independent.

"It would have been a terrifying experience to be surrounded by soldiers with their guns trained on you," the resident told the newspaper. "The soldiers would have taken their discovery extremely seriously and it would have taken a while before they were dismissed as stowaways."

It's believed the boys sneaked on the truck in France, the newspaper said.

The Independent said more than 3,000 children arrive in Britain alone each year seeking asylum. The boys are in the custody of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.
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