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March 18, 2007 


Taliban says Italian journalist handed to Afghan elders
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban said they had handed an Italian journalist captured two weeks ago to tribal elders after two Taliban members were freed, but would take him back if a third was not released.

The Italian news agency ANSA reported Sunday that veteran correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo, 52, had been freed but his employer, Rome-based La Repubblica newspaper, said it did not have confirmation.

Italian and Afghan officials also could not confirm the report. "We'll consider him free when he's safely in Italian hands," an Italian foreign ministry spokesman in Rome said.

The ambassador in Kabul, Ettore Francesco Sequi, also said he had no evidence of his release.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP that Mastrogiacomo and his Afghan translator were handed to elders in Helmand province after the government freed two members of the group, Latif Hakimi and Ustad Yasar.

But the Taliban also wanted another man, spokesman Mohammad Hanif, arrested in October, to be released.

"Today, Hakimi and Yasar were released and we too handed over the journalist and his Afghan friend to the tribal elders," Ahmadi said.

"If Hanif is not released, we'll take back the journalists," Ahmadi said.

"Once Hanif is released, the elders can take the Italian anywhere he wishes to go -- we'll let him go."

The interior ministry and an intelligence agency spokesman said Sunday they were not aware of any agreement to free any Taliban in custody.

The Italian embassy in Kabul also was unaware of any such agreement.

Mastrogiacomo was captured in Helmand on March 4 with two Afghans, a translator and a driver.

A media report Friday cited a purported spokesman for Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah as saying one of the Afghans, a driver, was executed late Thursday after being found guilty of spying for foreign forces.

Ahmadi would not confirm this to AFP but did not mention the third Afghan Sunday.

Ahmadi told AFP on Friday the deadline for the Taliban's demands to be met for the freeing of the hostages had been pushed backed to Monday evening.

The demands were the release of certain Taliban members and the withdrawal of Italian troops. Italy has about 2,000 troops serving with the  NATO-led International Security Assistance Force battling Taliban and other militants.
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U.N. worker injured in Taliban ambush
Sun Mar 18, 5:00 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A two-hour clash between suspected Taliban militants and police left two officers dead in western  Afghanistan, a spokesman said Sunday.

The Taliban attacked the highway police checkpoint Saturday night in the Bakwa district of Farah province, and two police were killed in the subsequent gun battle, said Baryalai Khan, spokesman of the provincial police chief.

Separately, a U.N. mine-clearing worker was wounded by suspected Taliban militants during an ambush on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces north of Kabul, the coalition said Sunday.

The militants fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at Afghan and coalition forces on Saturday in the Tag Ab district of Kapisa province, said a statement from the coalition.

No Afghan or coalition forces were wounded or killed in the attack, it said.

A U.N. vehicle carrying the mine-clearing worker, which was traveling separately from the convoy in the opposite direction on the same road, was hit in the attack.

Denise Duclaux, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Mine Action Center for Afghanistan, said the Afghan deminer was returning from a work site back to his base camp when his vehicle drove into the fighting.

The deminer was hit in the shoulder and treated by a paramedic traveling with him, Duclaux said, adding that his condition is stable.
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Taliban chop drivers' noses, ears in Afghanistan
Sun Mar 18, 3:15 AM ET
ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas chopped noses and ears of at least five truck drivers in eastern  Afghanistan as punishment for transporting supplies to U.S.-led troops, officials and residents said on Sunday.

The drivers were part of a convoy headed for a coalition military base when they were attacked in the province of Nuristan on Saturday.

"The number of drivers who had their noses and ears cut varies, it is between five and eight," Ghulamullah, the police chief of Nuristan who uses only one name, said citing locals and officials in the area.

Several trucks were destroyed in the attack.

Ousted from power in 2001 in a U.S.-led invasion, the Taliban have launched what they call a holy war against Western troops and the government in Kabul.

The militants have in the past killed a number of drivers for supplying goods and fuel to the troops.
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AFGHANISTAN: Rights watchdogs urge regulation of US-led military operations
18 Mar 2007 12:13:20 GMT
More  KABUL, 18 March (IRIN) - An international rights watchdog and Afghanistan's leading rights group have called on the US and Afghan governments to create a legal framework to regulate US-led military activities in the country. The calls come as a result of an increasing number of civilians being killed in military operations.

"There needs to be a specific legal structure for the coalition forces' activities in Afghanistan," Fareed Hamidi, a commissioner for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said in Kabul.

According to AIHRC, Afghanistan's constitution and the six international human rights treaties that the country is signatory to are too vague to regulate multilateral military engagements in the country.

"Countries that have contributed soldiers to international forces in Afghanistan should take responsibility for their actions," said Hamidi.

His comments followed recent US military operations in two provinces which resulted in more than 20 civilian deaths, according to international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) and media reports.

On 4 March, US forces were accused of indiscriminately firing on people in the eastern Nangarhar province, killing 16 civilians and injuring 30 others.

In another incident on 5 March, US warplanes dropped a bomb on a house in the Kapisa province in the north, killing a family of nine.

However, US forces have denied any wrongdoing, saying in both incidents insurgents used civilian shields while attacking coalition forces.

"Obviously, the Taliban should be blamed for their choosing to fight from civilian locations. They are responsible for non-combatant casualties," said Colonel Tom Collins, a spokesman for international forces in Kabul.

No official data is available on the number of ordinary Afghans who have been killed or wounded in US-led military operations in Afghanistan since the Taliban was ousted in October 2001.

According to HRW, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed or injured in insurgent-related violence since January 2006.

Significant number of civilian casualties

"Many of these casualties were the result of insurgent attacks, but US-led coalition and NATO operations were also responsible for a significant number of civilian casualties in 2006," HRW said in a statement.

On 16 February this year, HRW complained that the US military continues to operate in Afghanistan without any legal framework.

Afghan MPs and citizens are increasingly criticising President Hamid Karzai for his government's inability to protect civilians in US-led military operations.

"Karzai rules by US support, but he does not have the leverage to compel the US to act responsibly and restrain doing perpetual mistakes," said Attullah Ludin, an MP from Nangarhar province.

In December 2006, Karzai admitted that attacks by the Taliban and collateral damage in US-led military operations were a "dual misfortune" for his government.

The US has set up a compensation fund for victims, which provides condolence payments to families who suffer losses in US military operations.

But money alone cannot win the hearts and minds of Afghans, said Ludin, and international forces should be held responsible for civilian casualties.

Ludin said he was disappointed over what he called "lack of commitment" among coalition forces "to avoid future blunders".

"We do not want dollars. We want assurance that civilians will not be targeted under any circumstances any more. We want coalition forces to take responsiblity for their shootouts and bombings of civilians," said Ludin.

International humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of civilians and the use of all means and methods of warfare that fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians.
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Afghanistan: Kabul's Relations With Its Other Neighbor, Iran
By Amin Tarzi
March 16, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The Afghan government and ordinary Afghans are quick to say that most of the destabilizing factors in their country have a foreign origin -- and Pakistan is most likely to be blamed.

But recently, more attention is being paid to the possibility that Afghanistan's neighbor to the west -- Iran -- may also be pursuing its own agenda in Afghanistan to the detriment of Kabul.

Iran and Pakistan became actively involved in the internal affairs of Afghanistan during the mujahedin's resistance against Soviet forces and the subsequent communist regimes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

Pakistani Involvement

Both countries also became host to millions of Afghan refugees. During the jihad period -- as the anticommunist resistance is referred to by Afghans -- Pakistan hosted and manipulated the mostly Sunni Muslim and Pashtun mujahedin groups, while Iran managed the mostly Shi'ite Muslim groups.

With the collapse of the communist government of President Najibullah in 1992, the Pakistani-backed groups initially took control of most levers of power.

Gradually, however, Iran, and -- even less obviously, India and the Russian Federation -- cultivated their own relations with new clients to oppose the domination of Pakistan over the future of Afghanistan.

With the advent of the Taliban phenomenon in 1994, Tehran began not only to actively support the loose grouping of former mujahedin parties and communist strongmen -- the United Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (popularly known as the Northern Alliance) -- but also gave refuge to Pakistan's one-time favorite Afghan client, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, as a potential card to be played.

Tehran Opposed Taliban

Whereas during the jihad period Pakistan and Iran chose their clients based somewhat on ideological, cultural, and religious considerations, in the post-Taliban arrangements Tehran's adamant opposition to the new arrangements in Afghanistan meant that anyone standing against the Taliban was a potential asset.

Then, as now, Tehran believed that the Taliban phenomenon was a Western -- mainly U.S. -- undertaking being used not only to oppose Iran but also to defame Islam.

After the ouster of the Taliban regime by the U.S.-led coalition in late 2001, Iran played a constructive role by convincing its clients to cooperate with the new arrangements and to take an active part in reconstruction. They focused especially on areas close to its border with Afghanistan -- most notably Herat Province.

From the beginning Kabul tried to balance its ties with Iran despite the presence of U.S. and later NATO forces on its soil, something that Tehran has continuously opposed.

As the pendulum of relations between Kabul and Islamabad began to swing, mostly towards antagonistic levels, the Afghan government began to view India -- but also Iran -- as potential balancing factors in Kabul's threat-perception scenarios.

Worried By Iranian Influence

Despite the official stance of the Afghan government, popular views of Iran's attempts to influence Afghanistan -- both strategically and culturally -- have begun to surface recently.

Among many Afghans, mainly Pashto speakers, there is a feeling that Iranian culture and the Persian dialect spoken in Tehran is seeping into their country and is having an irreversible effect on the Afghan cultural identity.

Beyond the linguistic influences, Afghans quietly though in ever-greater numbers talk of a long-term Iranian program to bring their country into the sphere of Iranian influence, especially once the foreign forces leave Afghanistan.

Afghan officials in western provinces that border Iran have discussed incursions by Iranians, violations by Iranian aircraft of Afghan airspace, and support of terrorists in camps operated by Iranians. But there have been no formal or public protests against Iran, even though the Afghan government has made many public complaints of reported interference by Pakistan.

Training Camp In Iran?

Abdul Samad Stanakzai, a former governor of the western Farah Province, expressed concern in January over alleged Iranian interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

In an interview with Herat-based Radio Sahar on January 30, Stanakzai claimed that Iran is training "a large number of political opponents of the [Afghan] government" in a refugee camp in Iran called Shamsabad.

"Iran's interference is aimed at influencing our national identity and destroying it in the long term," Stanakzai added. Broadcasting the story, Radio Sahar commented that whereas "key [Afghan] government officials previously complained about interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs by neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan, they have avoided blaming Iran."

In mid-February, General Daud Ahadi, the commander of Border Brigade No. 5 in Nimroz Province, pointed to at least three separate violations of Afghan airspace by Iranian helicopters.

State-run Radio Afghanistan reported two such violations on February 18, adding in a commentary that "the Iranian side on occasion has caused border problems between Iran and Afghanistan that has resulted in violence."

Border Clashes Reported

Nimroz Governor Gholam Dastagir Azad told the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press on March 9 that "Afghan and Iranian border police clashed" along the border between the two countries and one border policeman from both sides was killed and one Afghan policeman was injured.

According to Azad the clash was caused by a "misunderstanding."

In another development, since February Afghan officials have mentioned that Iran is erecting a wall along the border with the Kang district in Nimroz Province, ostensibly to prevent drug smugglers from entering Iran.

Nur Mohammad Haidar, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Border and Tribal Affairs, told Kabul-based Tolo Television on February 14 that if the "Iranian officials want to prevent drug smugglers and illegal immigrants from entering" their country, they can find more effective preventive measures "in coordination and cooperation with Afghan security officials...than erecting a wall."

Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Satar Ahmad Bahin told Tolo that since the "wall is erected inside Iranian territory, it is not Afghanistan's business." He added: "We have nothing to do with it."

Kabul's total rejection of Pakistan's plans to erect barb-wired fences in selected areas of its border with Afghanistan -- and also inside Pakistani territory -- and its reported acceptance of barriers by Iran, could present diplomatic and legal obstacles to Afghanistan's policy of opposing the Pakistani plan.

Siding With Iran

Kabul's choice of putting its lot with Tehran and New Delhi while seeing only evil intent in Islamabad is -- at best -- a short-sighted policy which not only ignores geographical realties on the ground but also discounts the long-term strategic goals of Iran and, to a much-lesser degree, that of India vis-a-vis Afghanistan.

Another factor which makes Iran a liability to Afghanistan's medium-term stability is Tehran's opposition to the presence of NATO and other foreign forces in Afghanistan.

In a recent commentary titled "People of Afghanistan: Hostages of Occupiers and Terrorists," the hard-line Tehran daily "Jomhuri-ye Islami" restated Iran's claim that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are creations of the United States and that Washington's strategy is based on a "long stay in Afghanistan. But in order to justify this usurpatory presence," it needs an "explanation and pretext."

The commentary concluded that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda "have acted as a fifth column" for the United States not only to enter Afghanistan, but also to legitimize its presence there.

Unlike its reported involvement in Iraq, Tehran has not created much noticeable trouble to foreign forces stationed in Afghanistan. Instead it has concentrated most of its efforts on cultivating political allies among diverse Afghan political groupings and injecting Iranian culture into Afghanistan.

However, not causing trouble does not mean that Iran lacks the ability to do so, if such a policy would suit Tehran's dealings with the West. Perhaps the "misunderstandings" in Nimroz are just that -- or they could be a message to NATO states of Iran's ability to interfere in Afghanistan.
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Well-trained Afghan army key to Canadian war withdrawal
Graham Thomson CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal Sunday, March 18, 2007
CAMP SHIRZAI, Afghanistan -To see Canada's exit strategy in Afghanistan you need to come here to the entrance.

It is here in Camp Shirzai that Canada is helping train a new Afghan National Army in the hope it will eventually take over from Canadian troops and allow them to go home.

Almost every day Lt.-Col. Wayne Eyre of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry passes through the entranceway into the camp that is home to 3,000 Afghan troops - many of whom who live in neat but depressingly Spartan barracks that are positively middle-class compared to the living conditions of many Afghans.

Eyre is commander of Canada's 64-person training squad with the cumbersome title of Operational Mentor and Liaison Team - better known here by its unmilitary-sounding acronym, OMLT, which is pronounced "omelette," a flippant nickname that makes professional soldiers cringe.

And Eyre is every inch a professional soldier - tall and lanky with a moustache and shaved head who has read every book on Afghanistan history he can get his hands on to help him understand what he is up against.

Afghanistan is such a dysfunctional land it hasn't had a national army in living memory. Its armies over the years have been largely regional and tribal based. What's being built soldier-by-soldier at Camp Shirzai and other camps like it across Afghanistan isn't just a military force, it's a new way of thinking.

"This is the first truly federal institution in Afghanistan in 100 years," says Eyre.

Americans help train the recruits, the British train the non-commissioned officers, the French the officers and in the province of Kandahar it's the Canadians' job to put all the parts together into a professional army. Other nations have their own OMLT soldiers in various provinces.

The army has become something of an experiment in nation building. Troops from the south who speak Pashto are deliberately mixed in with soldiers from the north who speak Dari. Members of tribes who have squabbled in the past are joined together in battalions to learn to work together. Like everything else in Afghanistan it is a slow, cumbersome process. After centuries of war, Afghans might be traditional warriors, but they are not professional soldiers.

"We have to take them to a level where they can conduct autonomous operations," says Eyre. "What I mean by autonomous as opposed to independent is they'll still liaison with coalition elements but they can go out, they can plan, they can organize the operations, the logistics on their own. ... It's all small simple victories."

This week one simple victory came when Afghan soldiers ran their first logistics convoy to resupply their forward bases. Last month, their artillery soldiers supported coalition troops in the field.

The army is widely respected by Afghans who hold a contrary opinion of the Afghan National Police force that is often accused of corruption. Soldiers are better trained and better paid than police, although the starting pay for a private is the equivalent of just $100 US a month.

It's all baby steps and sometimes the steps are backwards. Soldiers routinely desert for a variety of reasons including homesickness, spotty pay and the ever-present danger of riding in unarmoured pick up trucks or manning exposed positions.

More than 10 per cent of the soldiers in the battalion working with Canadians, for example, go absent without leave - a disturbing number at first glance but not so bad when you consider that before the Canadians came, 40 per cent would routinely be AWOL.

"Canadians are a pleasure to work with," says Afghan General Khair Mohammad through an interpreter. "Canadians are sacrificing for our future, fighting for our future. Canadians are now part of our history, we have one history. ... They are good people."

Like most Afghans, Mohammad is quick with a smile and a handshake and has a background that is a complex patchwork of contradictions and pragmatism. Trained as a soldier by the Russians during their invasion three decades ago, he initially fought against fellow Afghans before joining the mujahideen to battle the Russians.

Now, he is fighting alongside Canadians and other coalition forces. One day, he hopes to do the fighting on his own, allowing Canadians and others to leave.

When does he think that will be?

"When NATO and the international provide good training, good equipment, modern weapons and also a good salary," he replies without specifying any date or length of time. In the vernacular of military speak in Afghanistan this is what's called a "conditions -based" answer as opposed to one that is "time based."

The implication is that the more resources, energy and money the international community spends here, the faster the international community can pull its soldiers out.

No matter how much we invest, it will take time.

"It's not going to happen overnight," says Eyre. "You're not going to have the typical Canadian fast solution where it's done by the end of the year."
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Broken Afghan consensus
Commentary
By Arnaud de Borchgrave The Washington Times (USA) March 17, 2007
Sixty percent of Afghanistan's 30 million people are under 20 -- without the foggiest notion of what democracy stands for. Thirty-seven countries are involved in normalization and reconstruction -- with different agendas; some 2,000 nongovernmental organizations or NGOs (out of an estimated 25,000 worldwide) are now represented in Afghanistan. A former Afghan minister, speaking privately, said, "They spend over half their time coordinating among themselves.... The Afghan tango is now known as one step forward -- and three steps backward."

The Shia suburbs of Kabul are now under the control of Iranian or pro-Iranian agents. The capital city has mushroomed from 400,000 at the time of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America to 2 million today. Some 500,000 acres of public land was seized and sold for the benefit of the entrenched bureaucracy. To control this vast country of 30 million would require several hundred thousand troops. The U.S.- and allied-trained Afghan army numbers 20,000 instead of the 35,000 projected by now.

The consensus forged in the heady days of liberation in December 2001 is broken. Fear of the B-52 bombers is gone. And today's Afghanistan is totally insecure, so much so it has already been promoted to the ranks of failed states -- except for an all-pervasive opium culture that keeps Afghanistan from sinking into total chaos.

The illicit opium poppy industry is, according to a former minister in President Hamid Karzai's government, "a pyramid structure. If ever there were a management prize for the perfect supply chain," it would go to what generates from one-half to two-thirds of Afghan gross domestic product. He said there are "25 mafia dons at the top of the pyramid who control the key power levers. The Interior Ministry is owned by the drug industry." In Helmand Province (40 percent of the country's opium production), Taliban fighters protect poppy farmers from eradication efforts -- and extract millions of dollars for their services.

Managing relationships with the United States, NATO, the European Union, Iran, India and Pakistan, Russia and China is beyond the capabilities of the Karzai government. The game of nations is played below the president's radar screen. The U.S. hopes to diversify Afghanistan's regional relationships by coaxing Gulf states to become stakeholders -- but the "Gulfies" are otherwise engaged by the uncertainties of the Iraq war and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

An estimated $8 billion a year is needed to dig Afghanistan out of its narco-state status. But the funds aren't available. And only an estimated 20 cents on the dollar is used for what it was intended. Afghans cannot be bought, said another former minister (not for attribution), "but they can be rented." And much rental money has been dispensed in the three Afghan provinces that share borders with Iran -- by Iranian agents. Clandestine U.S. "recon" operations are also run from these provinces -- into Iran.

Russia complains about being left out of Afghan affairs, which is hardly surprising. The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan throughout the 1990s and killed thousands of Afghans in a vain attempt to establish its dominion. But Moscow says it still has many friends in the former anti-Taliban Northern Alliance that resisted Talibanization in the northeastern part of the country, and which liberated large parts of the country when the U.S. launched the invasion in October 2001.

Many NGOs provide and perform services neglected by government-to-government aid. But it's very dangerous work. Volunteers from all over the world have been killed and injured by Taliban guerrillas and pro-Taliban civilians. Most now remain in major cities and pay local staffs for fieldwork.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies' most recent report on the state of Afghanistan was based on 1,000 "structured" conversations in half of the 34 provinces, 13 surveys, polls and focus groups; 200 expert interviews; and the daily monitoring of 70 media sources and 182 organizations. Principal findings are:

(1) Afghans are losing trust in their government due to escalation in violence.

(2) Public expectations are neither being met nor managed.

(3) Conditions have deteriorated in all key areas targeted for development.

Afghans are more insecure than two years ago; insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns spawn ever more violence. Security forces are unable to combat warlords and drug lords, frequently one and the same. State security institutions are plagued with corruption and retention problems as rank-and-filers switch sides for better pay. Local mafias and their militia frequently overwhelm local governance entities set up by the Karzai government. Democratic judicial structures are also stillborn, stifled by criminal networks and bribes, or camouflaged to practice Shariah law.

The overall situation is infinitely more complex today than when Afghanistan was liberated in 2001. Staying the course is meaningless in today's Afghanistan, which requires massive infusions of foreign aid and a multiyear commitment that would require NATO troops and billions in aid for many years to come.

The uniqueness of Afghanistan's predicament was highlighted by one of CSIS' recommendations: Shift 50 percent of the development budget to the 34 provinces and distribute direct assistance through the Hawala system. Hawala is the centuries-old way of bypassing banking circuits by using word of mouth between two parties that trust each other. Transnational terrorists, Taliban and drug lords have been using hawala since long before Western security agencies took an interest in its inner workings. And it wouldn't take long to co-opt or silence government hawala circuits.

CSIS also says restoring progress in Afghanistan requires dramatic changes. The Afghan army is not truly national; the desertion rate rises when soldiers are dispatched too far from home base. And NATO member parliaments anxiously debate where and how NATO commanders in Afghanistan can utilize their troops. Mighty Germany won't let its Afghan contingent do any fighting. Only U.S., British, Canadian and Dutch troops are authorized to search and destroy.

The United States is boosting its troops by 3,200 to 27,000, the highest level of the war. Meanwhile, Taliban's much-touted spring offensive is only days away.

Pakistan and Afghanistan should be a single theater of operations as Taliban enjoy privileged sanctuaries in the tribal areas on the Pakistani side of a mythical frontier. But NATO and U.S. troops cannot chase Taliban fighters back into Pakistan without triggering a chain reaction that could easily lead to the fall of President Pervez Musharraf -- and the control of the country's nuclear arsenal passing into unknown military hands and their anti-American, pro-Taliban political allies.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
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Torture, radios, and why the U.S. won't let go
COLIN FREEZE From Saturday's Globe and Mail (Canada) March 17, 2007
On a chilly Minnesota night in 2004, FBI agents invited an immigrant truck driver to step out of the April air and warm up in a waiting car. They proceeded to bring him in for questioning, telling him they knew he'd served as a mujahedeen sniper in Afghanistan.

“How much trouble am I in?” was his reply, court records say.

The agents told the man, a U.S. resident by way of Lebanon, there would be no trouble – if he answered their queries truthfully. The conversation lasted all night as they inquired about his life in 1990s Afghan training camps.

Then the interrogators switched gears: They wanted to know about a Canadian-run export enterprise. They suggested he worked for the business in 1996, sending walkie-talkies out of New York to Islamic radicals lurking in Afghanistan's remote refuges.

Since 1997 – and with heightened zeal since the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington – counterterrorism investigators have been trying to connect a Canadian two-way-radio export enterprise with al-Qaeda.

The probe, ultimately dubbed Project A-O Canada, led to the arrest and torture of Maher Arar, the telecommunications engineer wrongly smeared as a terrorist. It has left a Canadian exporter, Abdullah Almalki, trying to clear his name, and it has spawned the prosecution of the Minnesota trucker, held since 2004 in a maximum-security U.S. prison awaiting trial.

The charge? Lying about those ubiquitous radios.

The real fear: An al-Qaeda sleeper agent setting up shop in Canada.

The Globe and Mail has spent months investigating Project A-O Canada and its tangled aftermath – the complex web of personal and police interactions that have remained an unsettling mystery.

In 2001, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which has no powers of arrest, passed its probe on to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For the Canadians, the investigation led to no criminal charges north of the border. It led instead to Mr. Arar, who has received $10-million in damages and an apology from Ottawa.

For the Americans, the probe seems never-ending. Mr. Arar, 36, remains on the U.S. watch list, for reasons never publicly explained. And in Minnesota, the government is pressing its case against the trucker, Mohammed Kamal Elzahabi, 43 – even bugging his prison cell.

In the U.S. view, the Elzahabi case is about radios the way the 1930s prosecution of gangster Al Capone was about tax evasion. Minnesota court records show that, in 2004, agents rushed to arrest Mr. Elzahabi because they knew him as an Afghan-trained sniper and had heard he was moving north.

“There was concern that he, like others in his specialty, in his trade, might use Canada as a base to attack the United States,” FBI agent Harry Samit testified in Minneapolis last year.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in an interview: “If we have any individuals whom we have the slightest inclination of potentially being a threat, we will use anything at our disposal.” He added: “By the time I can prove the criminality, it's probably too late.”

The American way of counterterrorism is in stark contrast to the Canadian model, where investigators are far more constrained by civil-liberties protections. “Their job is exponentially much more difficult,” the U.S. official allowed.

Yet the terrorist threat remains, he said. “The only thing that has decreased since Sept. 11 is people's appreciation of the severity of the situation. Particularly,” he added pointedly, “in countries that have not been victimized.”

The substance of the Elzahabi case is not contentious.

In that post-9/11 world, the Mounties hoped to unearth a supposed al-Qaeda support cell that was allegedly shipping goods, including walkie-talkies, to Afghanistan. The prime target of Project A-O Canada was Mr. Almalki, now 35, an Ottawa-based exporter originally from Syria. He turned out to be a dangerous man to know.

The RCMP were tracking Mr. Almalki's every move, watching his associations, while financially savvy detectives were probing complex transactions of his export business.

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Almalki had prevailed on the Elzahabis – Lebanese friends from Montreal, including Mohammed Kamal Elzahabi – to help him out. Mr. Elzahabi's brother, Abdelrahman, had just opened a mechanic's business in New York. The brothers at Drive Axle Rebuilders, or DAR, developed a sideline – they would help the Ottawa exporter buy cheap electronic equipment in the United States, consolidate the packages in New York and ship them to Pakistan.

The enterprise would spell trouble for everyone involved.

In January of 2002, the RCMP raided Mr. Almalki's Ottawa house. Montreal residences associated with his friend and business partner, Abdelrahman Elzahabi – who split time between New York and Montreal – were also searched, The Globe has learned.

On the same day, the RCMP showed up on Mr. Arar's Ottawa doorstep. They didn't have a search warrant – and he wasn't home – but they wanted to ask him about the radio business. They had once spotted him talking to Mr. Almalki.

All this would prove controversial after the fruits of the RCMP searches were handed over to the FBI. “The documents detail purchases and shipments of radios and other electronics worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, all shipped to DAR in New York,” reads an FBI affidavit in the Minnesota case.

“Among the items shipped to Elzahabi's New York business were large quantities of portable field radios or ‘walkie talkies,'” the affidavit says. “...Field radios of the same make and models as was shipped to DAR in New York have been recovered in Afghanistan by U.S. military forces during military actions following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

The U.S. government provides no proof. Nor does it suggest the exports themselves were a crime. But lying to federal agents is illegal.

The FBI says the truck driver told them he didn't know much about the business. Yet agents say they recovered a 1996 fax addressed to a “Mr. Elzahabi” that proves he was intimately aware of the walkie-talkies. “Mohammed Kamal Elzahabi did knowingly and willfully make a false material statement,” the indictment says.

But the crux of the matter may lie elsewhere: fears that Mr. Elzahabi was an al-Qaeda agent bent on using Canada as a base. FBI agents told him it was in his interest to talk – which he did, for 17 days, in a hotel room rented for the occasion.

They had him forgo his right to a lawyer and sign a waiver saying he was not being mistreated. “I have met with the FBI and voluntarily detailed my background and associations,” he wrote. “...I have been staying in a nice hotel room in downtown Minneapolis.”

According to court documents, portions of which have been made public, Mr. Elzahabi told his FBI hosts a remarkable story.

In the 1980s, he attended an Islamic conference in the United States. It radicalized him. Like many young Arabs, he decided to join Afghans fighting the Soviets.

He joined a missionary group to facilitate his entry to the Afghan camps. Mr. Elzahabi lingered there long after the Soviets left. He took the name Abu Kamal al-Lubnani and became a sniper instructor, giving other Arabs small-arms training at the Khalden camp, a base for would-be mujahedeen fighters that years later would be taken over by al-Qaeda.

In the early 1990s, he met men who would go on to become notorious terrorists, even the eventual mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But later, when Mr. Elzahabi was asked whether he was part of al-Qaeda, “he would frequently tell us that he was not a member,” Agent Samit testified.

Court documents say Mr. Elzahabi was shot in the gut during the Afghan civil war, forcing a return to the United States for treatment.

While on the mend, he worked in the mechanic's business, DAR, run by his brother in New York. After that, he drove a cab in Boston. Three other former mujahedeen worked at the same company. One ended up jailed for an al-Qaeda bomb plot in Jordan. Another was killed trying to lead a Sunni insurrection in Lebanon. The other is jailed in Syria.

FBI Boston started investigating Mr. Elzahabi in 1999 but never came up with any evidence he was a terrorist. Agents lost track of him – he went to fight the Russians in Chechnya – before an FBI public-record search found him driving 18-wheelers out of Minnesota.

While the charges against him are relatively minor, he is being held in a maximum-security prison. And the government admitted this year to bugging and videotaping his cell.

“The presumption of innocence means nothing in this case,” his lawyer, Paul Engh, said. His client's prison time, the lawyer added, is already “well past” any sentence he would get if convicted of lying about walkie-talkies.

The men mentioned in connection with the radio business have had a mixed fate.

Take the trucker's brother, Abdelrahman Elzahabi, now 36 and living in Montreal. Properties associated with him were raided in Quebec; police have not said what they took. But according to bankruptcy records obtained by The Globe, he told creditors that his wife had thrown out all his personal files and even his pilot's licence. He had been forced to sell his 1985 Nissan and also a Cessna aircraft. Police, too, tried to ground him: It wasn't in his interests to board any commercial international flights, a source says he was told.

But the mechanic fared better than the other targets of the probe.

On Sept. 27, 2002, FBI agents stopped Mr. Arar at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. “During the interview, Arar admitted his association with Abdullah Almalki...,” reads a U.S. deportation document. “...Arar also advised the FBI that Almalki exports radios and one of his customers is the Pakistani military.”

Mr. Arar was declared an “al-Qaeda member” who was “unequivocally inadmissible” to the United States. He was flown in shackles aboard a CIA Gulfstream jet and sent to a Syrian prison – where he again met Mr. Almalki.

Six months earlier, the exporter had been arrested flying into his homeland voluntarily. Mr. Almalki said he was stuffed into a tire, his head, feet and genitals beaten. Mr. Arar said he was kept in a grave-like cell and beaten with electrical cables. Both men were eventually released back to Canada.

Mr. Almalki said there is no riddle of the radios.

“To any logical person it would mean all these years of investigation, all those years of torture – it was either there was no investigation all these years, it was just fake everything, or there was just nothing,” he said in an interview.

He doesn't hide the fact that he exported walkie-talkies and related circuitry. But he said he always did so legally, and he can prove his goods were shipped to Pakistan. “I don't know about Afghanistan because I never sold or dealt with Afghanistan related to any type of equipment,” he said.

He retains a 1995 invoice from one of his biggest clients, the Pakistani army. The paper shows the army's “Director General of Military Procurement” agreed to buy nearly $300,000 worth of equipment.

Some Pakistani generals were known to support radical Muslims in Afghanistan, but Mr. Almalki said he has no idea whether his wares were shipped across any border.

“What I sold to the Pakistani government, my responsibility or any responsibility on the face of the earth, would end by the time the shipment gets sent off to the customer,” he said.

The Globe contacted the state-owned outfit in Lahore that bought the goods. A representative said the 1995 shipment was too old to verify, but confirmed his company imported walkie-talkies in that period. He expressed surprise this could still be an issue for anyone.

“We have never been questioned by any local or foreign intelligence agency about the imports in question...” said MicroElectronics International marketing manager Munawar Ali, a retired air-force officer. “You are the first one who has asked for such information.”

For his part, Mr. Almalki said: “I've never had contact with al-Qaeda, never known anyone from al-Qaeda...”

He has never faced a criminal charge in Canada. But police say they are still pursuing him. Meanwhile, a new judicial inquiry, led by former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, is delving into the investigation and torture of Mr. Almalki. It will start taking submissions next week.

Last year, Mr. Engh, the defence lawyer in the Minnesota case, asked the judge to let him seek statements from the known targets of Project A-O Canada. The idea is to prove that Mr. Elzahabi never lied to the FBI – that he really didn't know much about the radios.

Judge John Tunheim cleared the lawyer to go to Canada to get a statement. In an interview, Mr. Almalki said he'd be happy to help debunk the FBI case, particularly the 1996 fax to a “Mr. Elzahabi” taken from his home in the RCMP raids.

“That fax was for his brother [Abdelrahman], not him,” Mr. Almalki said. “I'm not sure he [Mohammed Kamal] knows anything about electronics.”

Judge Tunheim turned down the defence request for a statement from Mr. Arar, who was deemed irrelevant to the case.

Still, the FBI may feel otherwise. Court documents filed in Minnesota show that the truck driver was asked questions about Mr. Arar during his interrogation. A defence motion suggests that the FBI is trying to tie Mr. Arar to the New York garage that reshipped the radios.

The Globe asked Mr. Arar and his lawyer, Lorne Waldman, whether they knew why.

“We have no idea why the FBI says this – Maher has never heard of a DAR in New York,” Mr. Waldman said in an e-mail to The Globe. Asked whether he knew Mohammed Kamal Elzahabi, the lawyer said only: “Maher says he had his car fixed at [Abdelrahman's] garage a few times when he lived in Montreal.”

Later, Mr. Waldman said his client doesn't recall ever meeting the other brother, Mohammed. It is not clear when the trucker's case will come to trial, adding another chapter to the recurring saga of the radios.
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Interview: NATO Commander Discusses Challenges In Afghanistan
March 16, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Less than two weeks ago, NATO and Afghan forces launched a massive offensive to stabilize Helmand Province. The man who is four months into the job of overseeing the NATO mission in Afghanistan, General John Craddock, the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe, spoke to RFE/RL correspondent Heather Maher.

RFE/RL: Reports from Afghanistan are that as civilian deaths and injuries mount, popular support for the Taliban is increasing, because local populations are turning to the Taliban for protection. The Taliban is now firmly in control of three districts in Helmand Province. How is NATO attempting to counter this?

John Craddock: I think the first thing that ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) is doing is telling the truth, and that may be a rare commodity. The fact is you will see reports of operations that ISAF has conducted that have resulted in the loss of noncombatant life, many of those are patently false, they are not true.

On occasion, indeed, there are bad things that happen because it's a war zone in parts of the country. And obviously ISAF does everything possibly to minimize that. There are rigorous rules of engagement, there are rigorous procedures we follow. But I will tell you ISAF does not participate in suicide bombers, they do not participate in these improvised explosive devices, and if one looks closely, there are more Afghan citizens wounded and killed from those types of attacks than from any inopportune ISAF engagements.

RFE/RL: Some members of the U.S. Congress have suggested that the United States has the right to pursue insurgents and suspected terrorists across the Pakistani border -- what is your opinion of that position? And secondly, what is NATO doing to cooperate with Pakistani law enforcement and troops in the tribal areas where the Taliban seems to be finding refuge and gaining strength?

Craddock: Well, let me address the first question; that's a U.S. issue and I'm a NATO commander. What the United States decides to do with regard to border operations will be either unilaterally or bilaterally with Pakistan. Now, from a NATO perspective, we have a military tripartite committee which consists of the commander of ISAF, high-level Afghan military leadership, and Pakistani [leadership]. They meet routinely, they have subgroups -- one of these is a border subgroup; there is an exchange of liaison officers -- both ISAF to Pakistan, and there are five Pakistani officers working with ISAF. We have very good [military to military and] ISAF to Pakistani relations. We want to continue to grow that, and it has been helpful to date.

RFE/RL: What is NATO doing to support Afghanistan’s fight against poppy cultivation and the trade in opium? You were quoted in "The New York Times" recently as having told your officers to "optimize those right(s) to the limit of the authority we have" and "push it to the edge because it’s important" -- how is NATO helping local authorities in their effort to stop the drug trade?

Craddock: In the [authority] we have provided to ISAF and the operations plan they have in place, they have available to them the authority to assist the Afghan authorities in some counternarcotics, counterdrug activities. We can provide logistics support, we can provide intelligence support, we can provide -- in the conduct of our operations -- support for trafficking, the interdiction of traffickers. So we have some authority there, and I've reinforced those with COM-ISAF (commander of ISAF). My guidance is that we use those authorities to the maximum extent possible, because we realize that there is a direct linkage between the drug traffickers and the Taliban and the insurgents. It finances much of that insurgent activity and we've got to break that linkage.

RFE/RL: What is the situation on the Iranian border? The Afghan authorities reported that two people were recently killed in a clash between border guards. Are there problems there?

Craddock: I am not aware of any problem there. There may have been some incident that again, I don't know if it was criminally related. I do know that the border [crossings] there, they're full of commerce; there are trucks going back and forth every day, and as I said, out in the western province of Herat, which is an economic engine right now, there is much cross-border activity. I'm not aware of any situation that would lead me to believe that we have at this time a problem out there on the border between the two countries.

RFE/RL: You have said that the NATO mission in Afghanistan is short at least two combat battalions, and also needs more aircraft, helicopters, and intelligence-gathering equipment. How optimistic are you that you’re going to get the help you need?

Craddock: Well, the trends are positive. We have gotten increased commitment -- both small units and some larger units. The United Kingdom and the United States obviously has put a, left a brigade in place of 3,200 [troops]. We continue to work this every day. Am I optimistic? I'm not pessimistic. I think once we can describe what's at risk here, and we describe the advantages and the flexibility gained, we may well have some contributing nations. Now, that could be member nations, or that could be partner nations who are not members of NATO, but who are partners in this effort.

RFE/RL: A caller to [RFE/RL's] Radio Free Afghanistan said if NATO can provide us with jobs, schools, security, etc. -- in other words, the basics of everyday life -- we wouldn’t join or support the Taliban or insurgencies. Is NATO attempting to do these things and, if so, are you finding success with your efforts?

Craddock: Well I guess that'll be when people write in and say thank you to those efforts. If you look right now at Operation Achilles, in the regional command south, I think the first thing you will see [is] that there is an enormous number of projects, both agricultural, providing infrastructure, providing social services, the building of clinics, building of schools, roads, bridges, digging [wells for] many of the people in the very small villages and towns there. That's the first thing that's being looked at.
The second thing is, is their security adequate to be able to do that? That's where the forces go in and establish a presence and then immediately these projects start to occur. So that is indeed the intent. The line of action is that we must reconstruct and ensure that -- and do we need the security in place to do it? Or if [that’s] not adequate, do we need to bring forces in to establish the security to create a presence of either ISAF or the Afghan national army or police, to be able to sustain that development?

RFE/RL: Some NATO critics say you’re losing the psychological battle in Afghanistan -- in which the Afghan people don’t support your efforts and are not convinced that your presence in the country is benefiting them. If you could speak to the people of Afghanistan, what would you tell them?

Craddock: Well, I think I would say that there are no shortcuts in the development of the country. It will be difficult and it will take some time. But we recognize the fact that there has to be an investment in today and that's these short-term, quick-impact projects, to be able to provide the door to opportunity to the long term, for the future.

Now, the last time I was there I was told there's a new phenomenon, and that is that around the country where we have PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams), there's some uneven investment. Some PRTs have many more people and resources and in other locations where there are these Provincial Reconstruction Teams the Afghan people are concerned and worried because their team doesn't have that same level, that same amount, of resources. And they feel like they're disadvantaged.

Well, the good news is that there's communication, and it's [that view] coming around the country. And they feel like, 'Wait a minute, there's some good things happening over there and over there, and we want to be part of that, too.' So our task now is to level that out, and where there have not been the [right] amount of resources provided, try to infuse, inject, and increase the amount of resources going into these other parts of the country so they feel also that they're part of this movement to the future.

RFE/RL: So you would say to people who are feeling ignored in Afghanistan to hang on, help is coming and things will get better?

Craddock: Obviously that's the intent. What we have to do, is we have to figure out how to do it sooner and we have to enable, enable the Afghan government, both at the national, the provincial, at the village level, to be able to provide those services. Give them the opportunities to do that, because in the long term, that's what governments and the people will expect from the government, which is an opportunity for tomorrow.

RFE/RL: On the issues of drugs, there are important members of NATO who are participating in the Afghan mission who openly say that fighting poppy cultivation and the opium trade is not in their mandate, and they look the other way. Is there an effort within NATO to overcome that attitude among its members so there is a more unified policy throughout the country on dealing with the drug problem?

Craddock: I think that the authorities that ISAF has are adequate to assist the Afghan government in the counternarcotic, counterdrug effort. Now, again, my guidance to the commander is, make sure that all of your forces understand those authorities and that they enforce them to the full limit. And when that happens, I think you will see an even application across the country. I don’t know that we need greater authorities. We do not have any authority to eradicate [poppy fields]. Fair enough. We don't have it. But we have authorities in other areas that can assist the Afghan authorities, whether they're police, or whether they're military, counterdrug, whatever. We can assist them, we need to use those to the maximum extent possible. Then, I think, we will see a positive difference.
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Bajaur Jirga promises Afghan border security
The News International (Pakistan)
KHAR: Authorities reached an agreement on Saturday with tribal elders near the Afghan border aimed at rooting out foreign militants and ending insurgent raids into Afghanistan, a political official said.

The agreement with a tribe in the Bajaur region is the latest that authorities have struck in the hope of ending violence in its tribal belt along the Afghan border. A senior political official in the region, Jamil Khan, said negotiations with the tribesmen in Bajaur's Mamound Agency had been going on for several months.

"Tribesmen led by elder Malik Abdul Aziz assured they would not shelter any foreign militants and would also not allow them to illegally cross the border," Khan told Reuters. Khan said the agreement with about 350 members of the Tarkani tribe was a verbal one reached with the political authorities.

Bajaur is a remote, mountainous region, opposite the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, where US troops have been battling insurgents and hunting their leaders. Critics said two earlier agreements in the Waziristan region, to the south of Bajaur, amounted to giving the militants free rein, and US officials say the pacts have not stopped cross-border raids on foreign and Afghan government troops. The deal was struck in the same district where a US air strike killed 18 people in January last year. US officials later said the strike targeted al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri but he escaped.
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IAF band to train Afghan military
18 Mar, 2007 Times of India, India
NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Force's Air Warrior Symphony Orchestra (ASWO) is set to teach military tunes and perhaps some Hindustani compositions to Afghanistan's armed forces.

The Orchestra will provide training to 10 Afghan officers for six months on developing basic skills like reading notations, playing instruments and even selecting the right kind of instruments.

"The Afghanistan government had requested its Indian counterpart to train some of its armed forces officers," ASWO Director Pramod Kumar Jena said.

The Afghan officers will be trained at Jalahalli in Bangalore, where the ASWO is based.

"We will also help them buy some instruments from here and might even donate some to them," Jena said.

A 75-member team of ASWO will visit Afghanistan in June as part of a friendly exchange programme. The orchestra had earlier trained a Sri Lankan military band but it has not conducted any training for the past 10 years.

During the IAF's platinum jubilee year, the ASWO will perform at various places, and bands of armed forces from other countries have also been invited to India, said Jena.

"At the ASWO, we play every type of music, be it classical or jazz, and have various percussion and other instruments," he said.

"Indian music is loved by people in neighbouring countries, including Afghanistan. It will not be a surprise if they express a desire to pick some popular Indian tunes. We will not mind teaching them those as well," Jena said.
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Afghan National Army Leaders Visit Keesler Air Force Base
WLOX-TV Biloxi - Mar 17 4:58 PM
Major General Mehrab Ali is the Chief of Communications for the General Staff at the Ministry of Defense in Kabul. This week, he's been touring Keesler Airforce Base, in an effort to gather information to build up the Afghan National Army's communications training program. The Major General expressed his enthusiasm over his visit to the base at a press conference.

"We are really excited that we saw your facilities, because those are at high levels we don't have, and we learned a lot from here," he says.

Keesler airmen and women shared some of the cutting edge communications technology used at the base. Flanked by fellow officers, the Major General was briefed on things such as putting up a communications tower. He was also guided on a tour of one of the base's dormitories.

"When we go back, all of those things we saw here, we will bring back to Afghanistan," he says.

 Keesler officers say that will help America in return.

"They're our allies. They help us as much as we help them, and the more we can teach them in developing their own personnel, in the long run that will benefit us," saysMaj. Terri Raines of the United States Air Force.

By Toni Miles
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