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March 13, 2007 


Three suicide attacks in volatile Afghan south
By Mirwais Afghan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Three Taliban suicide bombers killed themselves along with a policeman and an Afghan civilian and wounded a dozen people in separate attacks in southern        Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

The Taliban have stepped up operations in their old heartland ahead of an anticipated spring offensive against government and Western forces. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for all the three attacks.

In Spin Boldak, a town on the Pakistani border, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpost, killing a policeman and a bystander.

"The man entered from the Pakistani side and blew himself up as police tried to search him," Abdul Razzaq, chief of the border security force in the area, told Reuters.

He said eight people were wounded in the attack.

There were two suicide attacks in Lashkar Gah, capital of the southern province of Helmand. In both cases the bombers killed themselves but no one else.

One attacker targeted a  NATO convoy, but only wounded two Afghan bystanders, according to the deputy police chief of Helmand, Mohammad Isa Iftikhari.

In the other attack, on an Afghan army office in the provincial capital, a soldier was wounded.

Last year saw the worst violence in Afghanistan since the Taliban were chased from power by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.

More than 4,000 people died in fighting in 2006, including about 1,000 civilians. Suicide bombings jumped from 21 to 139.

JOINT RESPONSIBILITY
Most of the violence has focused on eastern and southern regions bordering Pakistan.

U.S. and Afghan officials say that the Taliban organize and launch attacks from the safety of their sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the long, porous border.

Richard Boucher, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said border control was the joint responsibility of Pakistan, Afghanistan as well as NATO and U.S.-led forces and they were working in tandem to combat the Taliban.

"I think it is important to remember that the Taliban are under pressure from all sides, including from Pakistan," he told a news conference after talks with Afghan officials in Kabul.

"There've been steps in Pakistan to disrupt the leadership, disrupt the networks, to go after some of the training facilities. The goal for all of us is to do this and do it effectively from all sides."

Fighting is expected to be heavy in 2007 as the Taliban have announced that they have prepared thousands of suicide bombers.

American ambassador to Kabul Ronald Neumann said on Monday that U.S.-led forces were fully capable of repelling the Taliban's spring offensive.

NATO and Afghan troops last week launched their biggest operation so far to pre-empt the Taliban's spring offensive.

(Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai)
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Afghanistan better able to tackle Taliban this year: US diplomat
March 13, 2007
KABUL (AFP) - Top US diplomat Richard Boucher said Tuesday there was "some confidence" Afghanistan and its allies will be better able this year to tackle the Taliban insurgency that was at its fiercest last year.

"We faced some dangerous and difficult enemies and we will face them again this year," Boucher, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, told reporters after talks with his Afghan counterparts.

"But I think we face this year with some confidence because there are more policemen, more army troops, more NATO troops, more roads, more effective government, more prosperity and more opportunities than ever before."

The United States led the invasion that toppled the Taliban government in late 2001.

It is the largest supporter of the post-Taliban government, with 27,000 troops here tackling the insurgency and instability.

It has spent 14.2 billion dollars in Afghanistan since 2001 and plans to spend 11.8 billion dollars more in the next two years, most of it on building and equipping the Afghan security forces.

"We understand that a stable, prosperous, democratic, open Afghanistan will change the destiny of the countries throughout the region and make the people of Afghanistan safer, and indeed people throughout the world safer," Boucher said.

The Afghan government agreed at the talks to step up work on fighting widespread corruption and Afghanistan's world-leading trade in opium, and on establishing the rule of law and security.

The talks were in the framework of the "US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership" established last year.
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Taliban not that strong: US ambassador
Mon Mar 12, 11:51 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The Taliban movement in  Afghanistan will continue its attacks on Afghan and foreign troops in the coming months, but is "not that strong," the US ambassador said here Monday.

Outgoing US ambassador Ronald E. Neumann told reporters he expected fierce fighting in Afghanistan this year, especially in the southern provinces, but the country was increasingly able to cope.

"I still see Taliban as not that strong a movement when you compare ... to what you have going on in  Iraq. They can bring a lot of terror and they brought a lot last year and they will probably bring some more.

"This does not tell me this is a 10-foot movement -- it's tough, it's resilient, it's dangerous ... I just don't see it as being that strong."

Neumann said that while he could not see where the Taliban might rally more strength, the Afghan government and its international allies were becoming stronger with more foreign troops and the growth of the Afghan security forces.

"I think it is still a race but inch-by-inch the government is getting a little better," he said, adding though the insurgency would likely last "for some years."

The ambassador, due to leave in the next few weeks, said there would be big battles in the south and more ambushes and bombings in the east. "This is going to be a rough year, no question about it," he said.

Among the improvements he had seen in 18 months were that the "terribly, terribly bad" provincial governors had been removed and the eradication of opium poppies was this year already three times that of 2006.

Experts say the drugs trade -- with Afghanistan producing 92 percent of the world's opium -- is funding some of the violence.

Neumann also expected to see more arrests from among drugs traffickers this year.

Neumann said Afghanistan was now getting more cooperation from Pakistan in controlling the movement of militants carrying out attacks, although he insisted the neighbouring country could do more to control is tribal areas.

"We are getting more cooperation and I think we need a lot more cooperation," he said.
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Pak-Afghan Jirga commission agrees to forge joint mechanism for avoiding untoward incidents
Tuesday March 13, 2007 (0915 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Pak-Afghan Jirga Commission agreed to forge joint mechanisms to avoid misconception between the two countries ensuring peace and tranquility in the region.
The two-day Jirga meeting started on Monday in Interior Ministry. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Federal Minister for Interior led the Pakistani delegation while Pir Said Ahmed Gillani led the Afghan Jirga.

NWFP Governor Jan Muhammad Aurakzai, Governor Balochistan Awais Ahmed Ghani, Federal Minister for State and Frontier Region Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind, Federal Minister for Culture Dr Syed Ghulab Jamal are the members of the Pakistan delegation while Afghan delegation comprising of Haji Muhammad Muhaqaq, Fazl Hadi Shanwari, Ms Ameena Afzai, Haji Din Muhammad, Fazl Ahmed Manawi, Hassan Takhari, Abdul Khaliq Hussani, Asadullah Wafa and Farooq Vardak.

Federal Secretary Syed Kamal Shah, Additional Secretary Imtiaz Qazi, Additional Secretary for Foreign Affairs Khalid Khattak, Director General National Crisis Management Cell Brig. (Retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema, Joint Secretary for Interior Anwar Khan, Afghan Commissioners for Refugees Dr Imran Zeb and officials of Afghan embassy helped the Pak-Afghan Jirga.

The Jirga discussed various matters regarding to terrorism, Pak-Afghan border problems and other issue related to terrorists activities.

The joint communiqu will be issued today (Tuesday). The Jirga members of both countries will also meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri and Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao has stressed for promotion of Pak-Afghan contact to ensure a pragmatic decision for avoiding future incidents.

He said that Pakistan wished for stable and strong Afghanistan and assured for extending its wholehearted cooperation with afghan government in this regard.

He hoped that repatriation of Afghan refugees would be completed according to schedule.

He said that both countries should expand cooperation for effective and stable strategy against terrorism.

Chairman of Afghan Jirga also agreed to resolve the problem with Islamic brethren through peaceful means.
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Italian journalist well, indirect contacts made: Taliban
Tue Mar 13, 3:49 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A Taliban spokesman said Tuesday there had been "indirect contacts" with Italian officials about a journalist kidnapped 10 days ago whom the militants have threatened to kill.

The journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, was in good health, and being kept with two Afghans he was captured with on March 4, at a Taliban "base" in the southern province of Helmand, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.

"He's in a good health and being kept in a Taliban base," Ahmadi said in a telephone call from an unknown location. "We have been in indirect contacts with the Italians over this."

The Italian foreign ministry said Saturday it believed the 52-year-old was alive, based on news received from reliable sources.

Officials said they also had "credible" information about those responsible for the kidnapping, adding: "Contacts are ongoing in order to establish with certainty the intentions and expectations of the kidnappers."

Taliban operations commander for southern  Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, told AFP in an interview Sunday that the La Repubblica journalist would be killed in seven days unless Taliban demands were met.

These included a date being set for the withdrawal of nearly 2,000 Italian troops in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and the release of two Taliban spokesmen being held in the country.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Sunday that the country's soldiers would remain in Afghanistan despite the threat.
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Afghanistan: Pakistan launched border fencing
Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:03:17  PRESS TV, Iran
Afghan official says Pakistan has started fencing parts of its border with Afghanistan, with Kabul proclaiming the unmarked frontier is disputed.

"According to Afghan military intelligence, they have started fencing the border in an area opposite to Barmal," said defense ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi on Tuesday.

Pakistani officials denied they had done any fencing but said work was scheduled to begin soon.

Barmal is in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province.

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said in February his country would fence 35 kilometers of its northwestern border to stop Taliban fighters from crossing the borders.

"The Islamic government of Afghanistan strongly opposes this," said the Afghan foreign ministry earlier in a statement.

Afghan officials still refer to the border as the Durand Line, its name when it was drawn up in 1893 by British India, which once included Pakistan, to divide powerful ethnic Pashtun tribes.
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Afghan parliament speaker defends amnesty bill 
BRUSSELS, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The speaker of the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament defended his country's newly passed amnesty bill on Monday, saying it was misinterpreted in the West.

"Unfortunately certain elements have embarked on propaganda against it," Mohammad Yunus Qanooni told reporters after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the NATO headquarters.

It is not true that war criminals are going to be acquitted under the law, he said.

"Those people who have been involved in international war crimes are not going to be ignored," he clarified. Individuals can file lawsuits against whatever crimes they think have been done to them, he added.

The Afghan parliament's lower house, or Wolesi Jirga, passed an amended bill on Saturday that would give amnesty to groups involved in war crimes during more than two decades of war in the country.

The legislation triggered concerns of human rights groups that war crimes might not be reckoned with.
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Afghan parliamentary delegation continues NATO visit
Brussels, March 13, IRNA
Afghanistan's Parliament Speaker Yunus Qanooni will visit the Allied Command Operations in the Belgian city of Mons, where he will meet with SACEUR (the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe) General Bantz Craddock Tuesday and attend a presentation on the work of the Allied Command Operations as well as visit the Partnership Coordination Cell.

Qanooni, who is leading a delegation of Afghan parliamentarians, met NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and NATO ambassadors Monday and discussed NATO's role in the Afghan stabilization process.

Speaking at a press conference later, Qanooni called for constructive and friendly ties with neighboring countries in order to help create security and stability in Afghanistan.

Following their visit to Belgium, the Afghan delegation will travel to the Netherlands to meet with members of the Dutch Parliament as well as with its minister of defence and minister for development cooperation, according to a NATO statement.
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Kabul copes with lots of people, little water
By Mark Sappenfield The Christian Science Monitor March 13, 2007
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - This is a city under siege, not from the Taliban, but from itself.

Kabul is home to 3.4 million people but has no public sewage system. Piped city water reaches only 18 percent of people. Daily power cuts last from dawn until 4 p.m. in the winter – longer in the summer.

Once renowned for green gardens and quirky bazaars, Kabul is sinking under the weight of its own citizens. More than a million migrants have flooded into the capital city since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, seeking a job and a better life in the big city.

In all, the population of Kabul has nearly doubled in seven years, straining a metropolis still riddled by the bullet holes and bombed-out roofs of many years of civil war.

Larger than the next 10 largest Afghan cities combined, Kabul estimates its most basic needs require $55 million this year; its budget is $4.5 million. Residents complain, but they cope. Despite the smell of sewage and mile-long walks to get drinking water, Kabul finds ways to function.

Yet more than five years after the international community pledged to help rebuild this tattered capital, the hard work has hardly even begun.

"Thirty years ago, everything seemed to work here, but there were not the population pressures we see now," says Pushpa Pathak, an adviser to the Kabul Municipality. "And since then, there has only been destruction, not construction."

Thirty years ago, Kabul was a charming city of 750,000 that drew hippies and exotic travelers to its quiet streets lined with pines and poplars. By 1999, however, the population had hit 1.8 million, and from 1999 to 2004, the city grew at a rate of 15 percent a year, according to World Bank estimates.

The fall of the Taliban triggered a flood of newcomers – both refugees returning from Pakistan and rural poor who saw few opportunities in Afghanistan's villages. Though Kabul's population growth has slowed during the past two years, it still lingers near 5 percent – adding 150,000 people a year.

Yar Mohammad is one of them. He came here two years ago, unable to scratch out a life in the stony fields of the Panjshir Valley after his father and two uncles died fighting the Taliban. "I couldn't stay there, because I couldn't [find enough] work and it was hard to cover the expenses for the children," he says.

So he is here, trudging along the sloping, muddy street to his hillside home, his sun-blackened hands clutching a sloshing, 32-liter (8.5-gallon) container of water slung over his shoulder. Since there is no water at his house – and he doesn't always have money to buy water from the tanker trucks that rumble up the hill – he often spends 3-1/2 hours walking up and down the hill to fill seven containers of water at a government pipe. If that is closed, he has to go to another pipe two-thirds of a mile away.

The situation is a symptom of Kabul's chaotic growth. During civil war and Taliban rule, the city was first parsed among warlords and then ignored, creating an administrative void. Since the new government emerged six years ago, population surge has overwhelmed the city.

Some 80 percent of Kabul residents – including Mr. Mohammad – live in informal settlements never approved by any government authority. But at least even the poorest families have mud houses with doors and windows. "The housing stock is pretty good," says Soraya Goga of the World Bank.

But the municipal services for formal and informal settlements alike don't even meet 20th-century standards. About 9 of 10 Kabul residents live on unpaved paths or streets. One-quarter get their water from potentially polluted shallow wells. Two-thirds use underground vaults for sewage that must be periodically emptied.

Years ago, farmers came to take the waste for fertilizer. Now, as farmlands shrink and Kabul grows, the system has collapsed, and waste collects in the streets.

There are slow signs of progress. One foreign-funded $187-million program aims to bring the percentage of citizens with piped water to 30 percent. Another $468-million project will string power lines to Uzbekistan by 2009, easing power woes.

But there is no easy answer, either in the short or long term, say experts. Federal and local officials still fight over who runs Kabul, leaving the city in administrative gridlock. Moreover, the prize is a relatively small sum of money, since most business here is informal – therefore untaxed – and most aid is earmarked for security.

For a city essentially building its services from scratch, it is a daunting challenge. "In the formal areas, they were destroyed by war and never rehabilitated," says Ms. Goga. "In the informal areas, they never existed to begin with."

Up on the hillside, however, at least it is secure, and at least there are jobs. One man who declines to offer his name says he also came here after the fall of the Taliban. He has a home, and he owns a shop in town that sells construction supplies.

"We are a poor people, we are happy here," he says with a grin. More seriously, he adds: "In the small villages, there are sometimes rivalries. I am safe here."
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Path to peace, justice in Afghanistan
By J Alexander ThierScott Worden, The Christian Science Monitor Tue Mar 13, 4:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Like every country facing the aftermath of civil war,  Afghanistan is struggling to balance the need for peace and stability with demands for justice and accountability. Last Saturday, the lower house of the country's parliament passed a bill that encourages all factions, including the Taliban, to join in a process of national reconciliation. In return, these groups and individuals would be immune from prosecution for atrocities committed before joining the process.

Although President Hamid Karzai successfully negotiated a crucial amendment to protect the rights of victims of war crimes, the new amnesty law still favors the powerful warlords who sponsored the bill. Unless the government takes responsibility for standing up to the perpetrators of past atrocities, true national reconciliation may be impossible to achieve.

The amnesty issue arose last month when Afghanistan's parliament passed a hastily drafted "Charter on National Reconciliation" that aimed to provide a "comprehensive solution" for "consolidating peace and stability." These goals are worthy, but healing and unity were not the only motives behind the legislation. The bill was also a self-serving attempt by many of the country's top warlords-cum-politicians to escape prosecution for the horrific catalog of crimes – mass executions, torture, rape – that they perpetrated against other Afghans for nearly three decades.

It's a positive sign for Afghanistan's young democracy that the initial bill provoked an outcry. Despite a rally in the national stadium by the still-armed political leaders behind the measure, civil-society leaders and human rights groups protested that parts of the bill were unconstitutional and against international law. Then the usually conservative National Council of Islamic Clerics declared the bill un-Islamic because only victims have the right to forgive their tormentors under sharia law. Western diplomats also pressed Mr. Karzai to find a solution that promoted stability and respected international law.

After intensive negotiations, Karzai achieved a legislative compromise that acknowledges the sacrifice made by mujahideen fighters against Soviet occupation, while calling for a process that will rebuild trust in Afghanistan's divided society. The legislation invites all groups involved in the past three decades of war to lay down arms and rejoin society. This includes communists, Islamists, and royalists who fought a series of civil wars over the past 25 years, and the Taliban and other forces that are still fighting the government today. An unconstitutional prohibition on criticizing the jihad and its leaders has also been struck from the bill.

The most controversial and confusing aspect of the bill remains its amnesty provisions. On one hand, the revised bill offers general amnesty from prosecution to all former combatants who agree to abide by the Constitution and laws of Afghanistan. However, a crucial clause restricts this reprieve, stating that the amnesty "shall not affect individuals' ... criminal or civil claims against persons with respect to individual crimes."

Read broadly, this provision could mean that amnesty does not really protect any individual from answering for his crimes – so long as a victim is brave enough to bring a claim. But in Afghanistan, where many of those responsible for past crimes retain weapons and power, it is unlikely that a victim would press a claim without active support from the state. And in fact international law requires the Afghan government to investigate and prosecute war crimes.

The best way to ensure that the new bill becomes a force for reconciliation is to implement it within the framework of the Action Plan for Transitional Justice, enacted by Karzai last December. The plan sets up several mechanisms to foster forgiveness and accountability, such as a commission to vet high-level government officials and a program to build national monuments of remembrance for victims. But crucially, the plan states, "[T]here will [not be] amnesty for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations."

These are momentous decisions for Afghanistan's future in an unstable time. International experience has shown that amnesty has not worked to promote reconciliation where potentially guilty parties have simply tried to evade accountability. The original bill referred to the process of truth and reconciliation in South Africa as a model for Afghanistan, but they drew the wrong lesson. In South Africa, amnesty wasn't for everyone; it was granted only to those who publicly admitted their crimes and asked forgiveness. The threat of prosecution remained for those who did not cooperate.

In Afghanistan, lack of accountability continues to erode support for the government and creates fertile ground for the insurgency. Karzai must seize this opportunity to cement his leadership by transforming a self-serving attempt by warlords to avoid justice into a measure that truly sets a course for reconciliation and peace.

• J Alexander Thier and Scott Worden are advisers on the rule of law at the United States Institute of Peace. Mr. Thier served as legal adviser to Afghanistan's Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions from 2002-04. Mr. Worden served as a legal adviser on electoral and human rights issues in Afghanistan from 2005-06.
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Canadian soldier charged for shooting comrade dead in Afghanistan
People's Daily Online
A Canadian soldier has been charged Monday for shooting a comrade dead in Afghanistan last August, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) announced Monday.

CFNIS on Monday charged Master Cpl. Robbie Fraser of the 2nd Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Shilo, Manitoba, with one count of manslaughter and one count of negligent performance of duty, the agency said in a release.

Fraser was alleged to be responsible for the death of Master Cpl. Jeffrey Scott Walsh, also from the Shilo battalion, who was shot during a routine patrol outside Kandahar on Aug. 9, 2006.

Walsh's father said he was told that his son was killed after another soldier's gun discharged inside a G-wagon that his son was traveling in.

Fraser is now stationed at CFB Shilo in Manitoba, where both soldiers were based, officials said.

The charges have been made under the National Defense Act. CFNIS is an independent Military Police unit that investigates serious matters relating to National Defense property, Department of National Defense employees and CF personnel in Canada and abroad.

Last week, another Canadian soldier also died from an apparent accidental gun discharge. Cpl. Kevin Megeney, a 25-year-old reservist, was shot in the chest while in his tent on the Kandahar base. The incident has been described as an accident.
Source: Xinhua
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Govt. delivers $ 1 mln for Afghan deregistration    
Tuesday, 13 March 2007 Associated Press of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Mar 13 (APP): Pakistan Tuesday donated US $ 1  million to the  UN refugee agency for the recently-concluded registration of Afghan citizens living in the country and for their deregistration under new repatriation modalities starting in mid-April this year.

In this regard, Minister of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON),  Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind handed over a $ 1 million cheque to UNHCR’s  Representative in Pakistan, Guenet Guebre-Christos here at the Ministry of  SAFRON.

Talking to media persons, the Minister said the government is extending  all out assistance to Afghans in their honourable return to homeland.

About voluntarily repatriation of Afghans, he said more than 2.15 million Afghan citizens were registered in this large-scale exercise to provide Proof of Registration (PoR) cards to eligible Afghans temporarily living in Pakistan.

The card, the Minister said issued by Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), is valid for three years.

Sardar Rind said the government has reiterated that Afghans without PoR cards will be subject to the laws of the land, adding, they have been given  a six-week window till 15 April to voluntarily repatriate with enhanced assistance averaging $ 100 per person.

Some 750 Afghans have returned through this channel so far, he added. 

The voluntary repatriation of Afghans with PoR cards will start on April  16 and continue until 15 November this year, Rind added. 

To a question, the Minister said the government’s $1 million contribution will go towards the

deregistration process, during which returning Afghans will have their PoR cards invalidated before they receive the enhanced return assistance in Afghanistan.

Sardar Rind added that over 2.87 million Afghans have returned home from Pakistan since UNHCR started assisting repatriation to Afghanistan in 2002. 

He said that during last 27 years, UNHCR’s presence in Pakistan has been much appreciated, adding, “We would not have been able to take care of so many refugees without your support.”

The UNHCR Representative expressed her gratitude, saying, “Pakistan  has been a generous host to millions of Afghans  over the years, adding, today  We are making history by providing this unprecedented support from a host country”.

About registration process, she said the registration of Afghan citizens living in Pakistan was conducted at a cost of $ 6 million. 

With today’s contribution, the Pakistan government joins donors like the  European Commission, the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Now in the sixth year of this operation, UNHCR’s planning figure for 2007’s returns is 250,000 from Pakistan and Iran, she added.
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Risking Life and Limb to Help
By Susanne Koelbl Spiegel Online (Germany) March 13, 2007
The murder of a German aid worker in Afghanistan last week was a wake-up call for a number of organizations operating in the region. But despite the dangers, they have decided to stay.

It wasn't the first time that experienced development aid worker Dieter Rübling, from the southern German town of Weikersheim, had been attacked. "Aside from a few cuts that were bleeding heavily, he was not seriously injured. An examination of the vehicle showed that at least 15 shots were fired," read a report of an earlier dust up.

But last Thursday, the 65-year-old construction engineer was gunned down while he was working for German aid organization Welthungerhilfe (WHH) -- also called German Agro Action -- in Sar-i-pul in northern Afghanistan. It was a region that had been considered completely peaceful until then.

Rübling and four Afghan companions were returning from a visit to a construction site in a village 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Saripul when their two vehicles were stopped in a hollow. Two armed, masked men pulled out the five passengers, took away their money and mobile phones and drove them up a hillside. The Afghans were reprimanded for working with "Kuffar," or infidels, and were then released. They heard gunshots a short time later. It was 12:30 p.m. local time.

The details of the murder suggest that it was politically motivated. Had it been an ordinary robbery, the armed men would likely either have released all of their victims and stolen the cars or killed the entire group to cover their tracks. The attackers may have known the route and identities of the travelers. The aid workers were traveling in two rented cars and were therefore not immediately recognizable as members of an international organization. "We assume that this was an ideologically motivated crime," said Hans-Joachim Preuss, the secretary general of WHH.

Welthungerhilfe's mission in Afghanistan currently includes 25 skilled workers, most of them German, and about 600 Afghans. The murder is the first targeted act of violence against a German development worker since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Although Rübling's murder comes as a shock to other local aid workers, they agree that withdrawing would send the wrong signal, partly because it could encourage the murderers. "Show your face, show your flag and get out," advises Reinhard Erös of Kinderhilfe Afghanistan, a German aid organization headquartered in Bavaria. Erös, who already worked in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, is part of a successful effort to build schools in the country's Pashtun east. Sybille Schnehage, head of the aid organization Katachel e.V., which has already drilled more than 1,000 wells in Kunduz Province, also plans to stay. "You have to expect this sort of thing here. I always take four cars whenever I go anyplace," says Schnehage, a native of the north central German city of Wolfsburg.

In response to the murder of one its own, Welthungerhilfe summoned its staff to the Afghan capital, Kabul, for a meeting to discuss the situation. Nevertheless, the organization has already made its decision: "We will continue our work here."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER The New York Times March 13, 2007
In May 2004, Specialist Justin J. Lillis got drunk on what he called “hajji juice,” a clear Iraqi moonshine smuggled onto an Army base in Balad, Iraq, by civilian contractors, and began taking potshots with his M-16 service rifle.

“He shot up some contractor’s rental car,” said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Specialist Lillis, 24. “He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area” and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.

Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.

And in March 2006, in perhaps the most gruesome crime committed by American troops in Iraq, a group of 101st Airborne Division soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family after drinking several cans of locally made whiskey supplied by Iraqi Army soldiers, military prosecutors said.

Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones — 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions, according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions.

The 240 cases involved a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004.

Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems.

“It’s clear that we’ve got a lot of significant alcohol problems that are pervasive across the military,” said Dr. Thomas R. Kosten, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He traces their drinking and drug use to the stress of working in a war zone. “The treatment that they take for it is the same treatment that they took after Vietnam,” Dr. Kosten said. “They turn to alcohol and drugs.”

The use of alcohol and drugs in war zones appears to reflect a broader trend toward heavier and more frequent drinking among all military personnel, but especially in the Army and Marine Corps, the two services doing most of the fighting, Pentagon officials and military health experts said.

A Pentagon health study released in January, for instance, found that the rate of binge drinking in the Army shot up by 30 percent from 2002 to 2005, and “may signal an increasing pattern of heavy alcohol use in the Army.”

While average rates of alcohol consumption in the Navy and Air Force have steadily declined since 1980, the year the military’s health survey began, they have significantly increased in the Army and Marine Corps and exceed civilian rates, the Pentagon study showed. For the first time since 1985, more than a quarter of all Army members surveyed said they regularly drink heavily, defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting.

The rate of illicit drug use also increased among military members in 2005, to an estimated 5 percent, nearly double the rate measured in 1998, a trend that the study called “cause for concern.”

The study also found other health problems in the military, from the growing popularity of chewing tobacco to a 20 percent increase during the past decade in service members who are considered overweight.

Lynn Pahland, a director in the Pentagon’s Health Affairs office, said the rising rates of heavy drinking and illegal drug use among active-duty military personnel are particularly troubling inside the Defense Department. “It is very serious,” Ms. Pahland said in an interview. “It is a huge concern.”

In the military, seeking help for psychological problems, including alcohol and drug abuse, is considered a taboo, especially among officers competing for promotions. Several officers interviewed for this article said the Pentagon was not doing enough to reduce that stigma.

Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spending on programs to reduce alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity dropped to $7.74 million in the current fiscal year from $12.6 million in fiscal year 2005 — a 39 percent decline.

Some military doctors and other mental health experts said the Army’s greater use of so-called moral waivers, which allow recruits with criminal records to enlist, may also be a factor in the increased drug and alcohol use.

Getting liquor or drugs in Iraq is not difficult. One of the most common ways to smuggle in brand name gin or clear rum is in bottles of mouthwash sent from friends back home, soldiers said. Blue or yellow food coloring makes the liquid look medicinal. Some Army medics have been known to fill intravenous fluid bags with vodka, Army officers said.

In Iraq, liquor of a distinctly more dubious quality can be purchased from Iraqi Army soldiers or civilian contractors working on American bases, and Iraqi soldiers have sold locally produced prescription drugs to American troops for a tidy profit.

Commanders have not always regarded drinking as a problem. The Army “was a culture in the 1970s that encouraged drinking,” said a retired Army colonel. “You’d go out drinking together and you’d find your buddy hugging the toilet at the officer’s club and think nothing of it.”

Command tolerance for such behavior began changing in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, “if you had more than a couple drinks at the club, people started looking at you strange,” the retired colonel said.

But at a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said.

“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it,” said Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War. There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”

More than 90 percent of sex crimes prosecuted by the military involve alcohol abuse, defense lawyers and military doctors said. Roughly half of the marines charged with crimes in Iraq exhibit clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, a Marine defense lawyer said.

“They turn to alcohol and drugs for an escape,” he said.

The health study released in January was produced for the Pentagon by RTI International, a nonprofit research organization. Robert M. Bray, the group’s project director, first agreed to be interviewed for this article but later declined after a Defense Department spokesman said he was not available to comment.

In the past two years, though, top military officials have begun talking publicly about the danger that excessive drinking among the troops.

In 2005, the Army’s deputy chief of staff at the time, Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, wrote in an editorial in a magazine for Army leaders that the rising rate of heavy drinking and drug use “seriously impacts mission readiness.”

General Hagenbeck, now the superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, said more than half of soldiers discharged for misconduct had also been disciplined for drug or alcohol use within the previous year.

“When one soldier has an alcohol or other drug incident, it impacts the whole unit,” General Hagenbeck wrote.

That kind of ripple effect has played out repeatedly in Iraq, military defense lawyers said, as soldiers who drink or use drugs commit crimes and hinder their unit’s combat and support missions.

Specialist Lillis, for example, was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to 10 years in prison as punishment for his drunken shooting spree; he is in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. A military judge sentenced Specialist Rolan, who testified that he drank to relieve depression in Iraq, to 33 years in prison for killing a fellow soldier.

Two of the soldiers charged in the Mahmudiya case pleaded guilty to murder, and a former Army private described as the ringleader, Steven D. Green, is awaiting trial for rape and murder in a federal district court.

Last year, the Pentagon spent $2 million to initiate its “That Guy” campaign, (www.thatguy.com), which recommends that service members “reject binge drinking because it detracts from the things they care about: family, friends, dating, sex, money and reputation.”

The Pentagon is poised to launch another Web-based antidrinking campaign this summer.

Capt. Robert DeMartino, a doctor with the United States Health Service who is coordinating the project, said the hope is that service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will use the site to find help coping with post-deployment problems, including alcohol dependency.

Andrew Lehren contributed reporting.
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Distance Learning for Afghanistan
Government ministry tackles education problem by offering “open university” classes on television.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi (ARR No. 244, 9-Mar-07)
Farzana, 28, teaches in a girls’ school in Balkh province. She herself has only completed a 12-year school education since she was unable to go to university, as there are far fewer places than applicants. When she heard that she might be able to get a higher education via television, she was enthusiastic.

“My students can’t learn much from me because I’m not a professional teacher. If I can do study courses on television, my life will change completely,” she said.

The fall of the Taleban regime saw a boom in public education, and thousands of Afghan children returned to the classroom. Many are now leaving high school and looking for new opportunities.

But according to the Ministry of Higher Education, the state university system can absorb only 30 per cent of those who wish to continue with their studies.

Afghanistan also has two private universities, the Afghan-American University and Kardan University, but fees of approximately 5,000 US dollars a year, in the case of the former , are well beyond the means of most Afghan families.

So the Ministry of Information and Culture, which has now absorbed the Ministry of Youth Affairs, has decided to institute the Open University, a system by which students can follow higher-level courses from the comfort of their homes.

The programme of study is not intensive: courses are offered just once a week, for two hours, on the national television channel which reaches most of the country. The government has also promised to rebroadcast the courses on local and private stations.

Gul Ahmad Yama, president of the Open University, said that the first year will be a trial period.

“For the time being, we will offer only literature and history through the Open University, but over time we will be able to cover other essential subjects,” he said.

According to Yama, the curriculum is similar to that of more traditional universities.

“Students are assigned text books at the beginning of the semester, they study at home, and they can contact lecturers via the internet if they have problems or questions,” he said.

The Open University will meet international standards, said Yama, and will use lecturers from Kabul University, the Afghan Academy of Sciences, and outside the country.

So far about 2,000 students have signed up for the courses.

Once the trial period is completed and the university opens officially, it will award diplomas to its graduates. “Those who register must pass exams, like all students,” said Yama.

All the costs will be borne by the Ministry of Information and Culture.

“This university is open to everyone,” said Yama. “We have suffered through many years of war, and now we need to spread education and culture throughout the country. The best way to do this nowadays is to use the media.”

Television learning is a novelty for Afghanistan.

Ghulam Farooq Khpalwak, a lecturer at the engineering department of Balkh University in northern Afghanistsn, approves of using technology to promote education. In his 15 years of teaching, he has not seen anything like it.

“The professors who are taking part in this project are quite capable. It will help them gain recognition and it will raise the [knowledge] level of students,” he said.

It is also a valuable lesson to Afghans, he added. “They will see that there are many ways of learning besides the classroom.”

But Khpalwak cautioned against placing too much hope in the Open University.

“This system will have problems of its own, and we should not rely on it too much,” he said. “We have a lot of difficulties in our own universities –shortages of textbooks and teachers. - and the Open University will be no exception.”

The Ministry of Higher Education is even more cautious about a project in which it is not directly involved. According to deputy minister Suraya Paikan, the Open University is not a recognised educational institution and the certificates it grants will not be valid.

“This programme does not meet the standards set for higher education,” she said. “The Ministry of Information and Culture can only offer informative programmes. They have no authority to be doing higher education.”

Paikan acknowledged, however, that the initiative could play a valuable role in making information more widely available to people in Afghanistan.

“If [Open University officials] ask, we will offer them our teachers for lectures,” she said.

Yama admits that the programme is not yet certified, but insists that the Open University will eventually gain recognition.

“We are taking all the steps needed to establish a university,” he said. “When we get to the stage of asking the Ministry of Higher Education for registration, we will have everything ready.”

Young people are eager for the programme, regardless of the debate taking place among educationists.

Nazar Muhammad, 30, a resident of Baghlan Province, has not been able to get a place at university.

“I am very hopeful that I will be able to study through the Open University,” he said. “And I can do it without giving up my job.”

But a televised curriculum will be of little benefit in those remote parts of Afghanistan that have no access to television either because they have no electricity or because the TV signal does not reach there.

Jamshid, 31, lives in the Sayad district of the northern province of Sar-e-Pul. He would very much like to continue his studies, but fears the TV courses will not help him.

" I want to study and I’m very grateful to the government for paving the way, but as long there is no television here, it will be of little benefit,” he complained.

Yama recognises the project’s technical limitations, but at the moment he can do little about them.

“The Ministry of Information and Culture is trying to extend its influence all over Afghanistan, but we have limited resources right now,” he said.

Still, there are some people who will not let difficulties stand in their way.

Norulhaq, who lives in the remote Kohistanat district of Sar-e-Pul province, is going to study no matter what.

“If the government gives us this possibility, why shouldn’t we welcome it?” he asked.

“If we wait until television comes to our village, we will never have any opportunities. I am going to buy a generator and a digital antenna. I want to study now!”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR reporter in Balkh province.
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