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May 21, 2007 

Afghan parliament suspends outspoken female lawmaker after critical TV interview
The Associated Press May 21, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's lower parliamentary house voted Monday to suspend an outspoken female lawmaker, who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.

The lawmaker, Malalai Joya, 29, said in a recent interview with private Afghan station Tolo TV that the country's parliament was like a "stable or zoo."

"This is a word that fits — a cattle house is full of animals, like a cow giving milk, a donkey carrying something, a dog that's loyal," Joya said.

The video was shown in the legislature Monday, and angry lawmakers voted to suspend her, said parliamentary spokesman Haseb Noori.

No formal vote count was held, but a clear majority of lawmakers voted to suspend her for the rest of her five-year term by raising colored cards, Noori said.

Parliament's Article 70 forbids lawmakers from insulting one another, Noori said.

Joya, elected in 2005, said the vote was a "political conspiracy" and that she had been told Article 70 was written specifically for her. She did not say who told her.

"Since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga," she said, referring to the constitution-drafting constitution held several years ago.

Lower house speaker Yunus Qanooni told lawmakers that Joya's case would be introduced to "the court," without elaborating. When lawmakers asked why, Qanooni said, "If there is any issue, the court will explain it."

It was not immediately clear if a court could overturn Joya's suspension.

Joya, a women's rights campaigner from Farah province, rose to prominence in 2003 when she branded powerful Afghan warlords as criminals during the Loya Jirga.

Many commanders who fought occupying Soviet troops in the 1980s still control provincial fiefdoms, and have been accused of human rights abuses and corruption.

After ousting the Soviets, the militias turned on each other in a brutal civil war that destroyed most of the capital, Kabul.

Some faction leaders, like former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a deeply conservative Islamist, have been elected as lawmakers. Others, like northern strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum, were appointed to the government by Karzai.

Sayed Alami Balkhi, a lawmaker from the northern province of Balkh, said the speaker of the upper house had sent the lower house a letter Sunday, saying Joya had humiliated and attacked both houses.

"If the lower house does not take a decision about her, we will take a decision," Balkhi quoted the letter as saying.

Joya's outspoken ways have earned her many enemies in Afghanistan. In February, during a rally to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war crimes, thousands of former fighters shouted "Death to Malalai Joya!"

Last May, Joya called some lawmakers "warlords" in a parliamentary speech, prompting some lawmakers to throw water bottles at her. A minor scuffle broke out between her supporters and detractors, and Joya later said some legislators had threatened to rape her as payback.

Joya said Monday that if she could not remain in the parliament, she would fight against "criminals" independently.

She said if anything were to happen to her — a reference to a possible assassination attempt — that "everyone would know" that people she has criticized would be responsible.

"I'm not alone," she told reporters. "The international community is with me and all the Afghan people are with me."
via the International Herald Tribune
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BUSH, NATO head pledge to reduce Afghan casualties
21 May 2007 18:27:59 GMT By Steve Holland
CRAWFORD, Texas, May 21 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday pledged to try to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan but blamed the Taliban for using human shields.

Ending talks at Bush's Texas ranch, they also said they would work to ease Russia's concerns about a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe aimed at countering threats from rogue states.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has protested the rising civilian death toll from U.S. and NATO operations trying to defeat a spring offensive by the Taliban.

Afghan officials say dozens of civilians have been killed in recent weeks. The growing death toll has triggered protests by Afghans demanding Karzai's resignation and the expulsion of American troops from Afghanistan.

"The Taliban likes to surround themselves with innocent civilians," Bush said. "They don't mind using human shields because they devalue human life."

Karzai has said Afghanistan could no longer accept civilian casualties, and a U.S. military commander apologized for the killing of 19 civilians by U.S. soldiers during an attack in March.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has about 37,000 troops in Afghanistan, including about 15,000 from the United States, according to the Pentagon. Germany has called for a review of the way Western forces operate in Afghanistan.

"Every innocent civilian fatality, death, is one too many," de Hoop Scheffer said. "But in a conflict, it is, from time to time, unavoidable."

He said NATO forces still had the support of a majority of the Afghan people, and that he had discussed the issue in a telephone conversation with Karzai a few days ago.

NATO forces were in a "different moral category" from the Taliban and insurgents who behead people and commit suicide bombings, he said.

"We still have very much the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, because they do see -- they do see -- that their nation, their own nation, has no future under Taliban rule," de Hoop Scheffer said.

Bush hosted the NATO secretary-general at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, giving him a mountain bike tour of his property on Monday morning.

CONVINCING PUTIN
The leaders agreed to work to allay Russian President Vladimir Putin's concerns about U.S. plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe.

Russia said this month it would no longer inform NATO states about movements of troops on its territory, freezing its commitments under the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty because of the dispute over the missile shield.

"I will continue to reach out to Russia," Bush said.

He noted that he sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Russia recently to make sure they understood the missile shield was not directed at them, but rather at other countries that could "affect the peace of Europe."
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NATO chief to discuss Afghanistan with Bush
by Laurent Lozano / May 21, 2007
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer were expected to hold talks at the president's Texas ranch Monday on fighting the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

On Sunday, Bush drove a pickup truck to meet De Hoop Scheffer's helicopter as it landed at the sprawling ranch.

But two have serious topics to discuss, topped by the recent strong showing by Taliban fighters and civilian deaths in Afghanistan, which threaten to erode support for US and NATO troops backing the Kabul government.

Bush is expected to seek reinforced allied commitments to participating in the US "war on terror" campaign in Afghanistan, if not Iraq.

Also likely on the agenda are Kosovo, expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the US effort to position a strategic anti-missile defense system in Europe, according to the White House.

De Hoop Scheffer arrived amid heightened tensions driven by Russia's objection to the anti-missile shield's expansion to Central Europe.

"I wouldn't be surprised if those issues came up," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Bush and the NATO diplomat were to have further meetings early Monday.

Afghanistan could dominate the discussions, due to the recent surge in attacks by Taliban forces and a spike in civilian deaths in the fighting.

About 37,000 NATO-led troops are in Afghanistan, including 15,000 US soldiers. Another 12,000 US soldiers operate separately under their own command in the country.

Bush wants allies to provide more manpower and equipment in Afghanistan and to lift restrictions some impose on their troops engaging in battle as the Taliban pursue their spring offensive, which has generated some 1,500 deaths this year, most of them rebels but including scores of civilians and nearly 60 foreign soldiers, according to an AFP estimate based on reports.

On Sunday, a man strapped with explosives blew himself up in a crowded market place in the town of Gardez, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Kabul, killing at least 10 people in the second major suicide bombing claimed by the Taliban in two days.

The attack followed one in the northern city of Kunduz on Saturday that killed six Afghans and three German soldiers.

But concern about mounting civilian casualties has also focused on the increased use of air power by US and NATO troops.

Over the past month, Afghan officials reported 50 civilians killed in US air strikes in fighting in the western province in Herat, and another 21 in south central Helmand province.

The deaths have drawn criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and sparked concerns among NATO members.

Last Monday, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said he had complained to NATO about the increasing civilian casualties.

"We must ensure that operations do not develop this way. It would not be a victory to set the (Afghan) people against us," Jung said, after talks between EU defense ministers in Brussels.

"We have to be very concerned about it," said Fratto.

"It's tragic that in the effort to provide peace and security in a country that non-combatants, children, become killed or injured in these activities, and so it's a very high priority for us."

"We don't want to see any erosion of support in the civilian population in Afghanistan."

But he pinned the blame for the civilian deaths on the Taliban: "I think it's important for everyone to understand that this is a clear express tactic of the enemy in Afghanistan to put civilians in harm's way."

Another subject likely to come up is the future of Kosovo, where NATO peacekeeping troops have been based since 1999, and which is generating more tensions between the United States and Russia.

Fratto said that Rice will probably talk about her recent Moscow visit during dinner.
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25 killed in southern Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press / May 21, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan - Suspected insurgents ambushed a U.S.-led coalition and Afghan patrol in the volatile south, sparking a battle and airstrikes that killed 25 suspected insurgents, officials said Monday.

The coalition said the joint forces were attacked while on a patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Sunday. An estimated 50 Taliban reinforcement fighters came by foot and boat along the Helmand River from surrounding areas, the coalition said in a statement.

Coalition airstrikes bombed seven compounds, resulting in three secondary explosions from suspected weapons caches, it said. It said there were "several" confirmed militant deaths during the 14-hour battle and no reports of civilian injuries.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said the clash and airstrikes in Sangin killed 25 suspected Taliban, including a group leader identified as Mullah Younus.

NATO is pushing ahead with Operation Achilles, its largest ever operation involving some 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers. Achilles is centered in northern Helmand province, the country's opium heartland and a Taliban stronghold.

In eastern Nangarhar province, a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle in the district of Dara-I-Nur, killing two policemen and wounding seven others, said police chief Gen. Abdul Ghafar Pacha.

Meanwhile, a British soldier died Sunday of wounds from an accident at a British military base in Sangin, the British Ministry of Defense said.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber walked into a crowded market in the eastern city of Gardez and blew himself up, killing 14 people and wounding 31, officials and witnesses said.

The attack damaged around 30 shops, shattering windows and destroying the stores closest to the explosion.

Witnesses said a convoy of foreign troops appeared to be the target of the Gardez bomber, but that it already had passed when the bomber struck.

Maj. William Mitchell, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said there were initial reports of injuries to ISAF soldiers, though he didn't have further details.

Six people died at the scene of the blast, police said. Another eight later died in hospital, said Ghulam Hazrat Majedi, the doctor in charge of the Gardez hospital. He said two of the 31 wounded were in critical condition.

Nasar Ahmad, a 30-year-old shopkeeper whose three cousins were seriously hurt in the blast, said he saw a U.S. convoy driving through the city just before the explosion.

Shah Mohammad, 19, said all those killed or wounded by the blast were Afghan civilians.

Violence in Afghanistan has increased sharply in the last several weeks. More than 1,600 people, have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on U.S., NATO and Afghan officials. The dead have mostly been militants, but about 300 civilians also have died in the violence.
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UN Concerned About Afghan Minister's Status
May 21, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The UN today called on Afghanistan's government to resolve a constitutional dispute that has spawned questions about Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta's status.

Afghanistan's parliament voted earlier this month to dismiss Spanta for failing to convince Iran to rethink a forced repatriation of illegal Afghan refugees.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai countered that he would keep Spanta in office until he received clarification from the Supreme Court about the legislature's right to vote to dismiss Spanta.

UN spokesman Adrian Edwards said the UN's view is that under Afghanistan's constitution, only Karzai can dismiss ministers.
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U.S. blames Taliban for Afghan civilian casualties
By Steve Holland Sun May 20, 4:56 PM ET
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The White House expressed concern about rising civilian casualties in  Afghanistan on Sunday but blamed Taliban fighters.

"You have to keep in mind that this enemy we're fighting -- part of their strategy is to put civilians in harm's way," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

U.S. and  NATO troops are trying to defeat a spring offensive by the Taliban, but dozens of civilians have been killed in recent weeks in operations, according to Afghan officials.

"It's tragic that in the effort to provide peace and security in the country, that noncombatants and children become killed or injured in these activities," Fratto told reporters. "We don't want to see any erosion of support from the civilian population in Afghanistan."

The rising civilian deaths in Afghanistan were on the agenda for talks between  President George W. Bush and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who was arriving at Bush's Texas ranch for a working dinner with Bush, Secretary of State  Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

More talks are planned for Monday followed by a joint news conference.

Besides Afghanistan, the leaders were likely to discuss Russian President  Vladimir Putin's concerns about U.S. plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe.

Russia said this month it would no longer inform NATO states about movements of troops on its territory, freezing its commitments under the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty because of the dispute over the missile shield.

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has urged foreign troops to avoid civilian casualties while hunting militants, to stop searching people's houses, and to coordinate attacks with his government.

But the growing death toll has triggered protests by Afghans demanding Karzai's resignation and the expulsion of American troops from Afghanistan.

Germany has called for a review of the way Western forces operate in Afghanistan.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has some 37,000 troops in Afghanistan, around 15,000 of them from the United States, according to the  Pentagon.
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Tankers for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan attacked in Pakistan
Xinhua / May 21, 2007
At least 10 tankers, carrying oil for the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, were destroyed early Monday morning when two missiles hit them at a Pakistani border area, witnesses said.

The private NNI news agency quoted the witnesses as saying that the tankers caught fire at the Pakistani border town of Torkhum, in North West Frontier Province.

No one was hurt in the attack at 4 a.m. local time.

Witnesses said that the missiles were fired at tankers, standing at a parking lot near the border.

Three missiles were also defused. A team of bomb disposal squad was called from the provincial capital of Peshawar to defuse the missiles.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack but Taliban in the past had claimed carrying out similar attacks.

Locals said that the missiles were fired from a small mountain.

Officials said that the missiles were fired through remote control.

The attack could not affect the cross-border traffic and it remained unaffected.

It is the second attack on oil tankers, carrying oil for American-led forces, in three weeks.

Eight oil tankers were destroyed when missiles hit them in Landi Kotal area of Pakistan's Kheyber tribal region.

Torakhum is one of the official border points between Pakistan and Afghanistan and is also the major trade route.

Dozens of containers and tankers, carrying goods and oil for U. S.-led forces in Afghanistan cross the border point daily.

Taliban have repeatedly warned Pakistan drivers not to carry goods and oil for the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to avoid their attacks.
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AFGHANISTAN: Higher pay rates for poppy workers in volatile south
LASGHKARGAH, 21 May 2007 (IRIN) - Standing in the middle of a large field, Khair Mohammad, 27, uses a sharp razor to lance chest-high poppy plants in the outskirts of Lashkargah, the provincial capital of the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Lancing should take place in the afternoons in order to sun-block the seeping opiate from drying up quickly. Early the following morning workers hang plastic bags from their necks and collect raw opiate either with the same razor or their fingers.

Mohammad earns about US$15 a day for 12 hours onerous work under a scorching sun. "This is a lot of money," the young poppy harvester said, "I will work hard for one month and my family will be better off for months".

Mohammad said he came to work in volatile Helmand from his native Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan, because he could not find a job there. "Thousands of men have come from Ghazni and other provinces to work in Helmand and neighbouring areas where poppy is cultivated on a large scale," another harvester, Rozi Gul, told IRIN in Lashkargah.

In 2006, over 2 million people worked in poppy fields throughout Afghanistan, according to the UN. Provincial officials in Helmand province say thousands of workers also come from neighbouring Pakistan to work in the poppy fields.

"Like it or not Afghanistan's poppy fields have regional and global economic implications," said a government official who declined to be identified.

Higher pay rates

In Helmand and its neighbouring provinces farmers have cultivated more poppy than ever before, but growing insecurity has affected the poppy job market in the region.

"People [labourers] fear to come to Helmand because of the conflict. That is why we are paying higher rates than last year," said Khair Mohammad, a poppy farmer in Helmand.

"In Nangarhar and other relatively calm provinces a poppy labourer is paid about 400 Afghanis [$8 per day] while in Helmand it is double [that figure]," said Shirish Ravan, an official with the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) in Afghanistan.

Production rising

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, according to the UNODC, and Helmand alone produces over 35 percent of the country's opium.

According to UNODC statistics, in 2006 Afghanistan produced a record 6,100 tonnes of opium and grew poppies on 165,000 hectares of land - an area roughly the same size as two-thirds of Luxemburg.

The UN's drug agency estimates the country will produce more opium in 2007 than it did last year.

Of the $3.1 billion that Afghanistan's opium industry produced last year, only 24 percent reached Afghans including local farmers, labourers and traders, the Afghan government said. The bulk of the country's illicit capital goes to regional and global smuggling networks that have multifaceted relations with organised crime and "terrorist" groups, analysts say.

Health risks

Back on the poppy fields, lancing-and-robbing is an arduous task, which requires a poppy field labourer to work half-bowed for hours. Many labourers complain about lumbago and pain in the legs.

Moreover, extensive exposure to raw opium pushes many labourers towards drug addiction, Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN) has found.

Some labourers use their fingers, instead of a flat razor, to collect raw opiates. It is common for harvesters to lick their fingers, a spokesman for MCN said.

Labourers also inhale a strong opiate odour during working hours which exacerbates their vulnerability to drug addiction. "I always feel dizzy while I work in the field," a labourer admitted. Another worker said he started using opium regularly after he first worked on poppy fields for over a month in 2006.

It is unclear whether all poppy labourers realise the risks they are taking in their job, but Ravan from UNODC says: "If they had alternative opportunities, I don't think they would do this intensive and risky job."
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A better way to deal with Afghanistan's poppy crop
Opinion USA Today / May 21, 2007
Afghanistan provides more than 90% of the world's heroin, which is made from poppies. The amount has skyrocketed since the Taliban regime that sheltered Osama bin Laden was toppled in 2001.

The poppy boom feeds heroin addicts in Europe and in the USA. It also provides income for the resurgent Taliban, which is battling American and NATO forces and which has decided that its religious strictures against drugs don't preclude it from cashing in on the heroin trade.

So what to do?

The United States is pushing Afghanistan to spray poppy fields with a crop-killing herbicide, much as is done with coca in Colombia, and develop new sources of income for the poppy farmers.

This approach might sound reasonable, but it threatens to make a deteriorating situation even worse. Here's why. The American and NATO forces in Afghanistan rely on intelligence and support from Afghans. Yet the Afghans' resentment is rising as civilians increasingly get killed and hurt in operations against Taliban forces. Just the threat of spraying poppy fields is increasing that anger, because spraying could destroy the livelihoods of as many as 3 million farmers and drive them into the arms of the Taliban.

There might be a better way to bridge the clashing agendas of the wars on terror and drugs.

The Senlis Council, a group based in Europe and Afghanistan, proposes legalizing and managing the poppy crops, turning them into medicines such as morphine. It wants to adapt a program that largely eliminated heroin production in Turkey in the 1970s with the support of President Nixon and Congress.

Like the Bush administration in Afghanistan, Nixon at first insisted on spraying the poppy fields. But Turkish leaders refused because of a revolt from their farmers. The compromise included guaranteed markets for the morphine. Within a few years, Turkey was no longer the premier source for heroin.

The Senlis Council is proposing pilot projects under which the morphine factories would be set up in Afghan villages and monitored by village elders and outside groups. The factories could provide employment and income for the villages - and plow some profits into alternative industries.

It's true, as critics point out, that legal opium fetches about one-third the price of opium sold on the illegal market, and the Senlis proposal envisions Afghan opium being sold relatively cheaply for medications in developing countries.

But the United States and the international community are already spending billions of dollars on development in Afghanistan. Some of that money could be used to help bridge the gap and wean the poppy farmers away from risky, illegal production.

Defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan will require pragmatism, creativity and the support of the Afghan people. Giving "poppies for peace" a chance might just pay dividends in the U.S. war on terror.
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Canada may supply Afghan military with Leopard tanks
David Pugliese CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen Monday, May 21, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Canada is in discussions with NATO to provide Afghanistan's fledgling army with Leopard tanks so it can better fight insurgents.

Military officials say future plans call for the Afghan National Army (ANA) to switch from its Soviet-designed equipment to gear that is more compatible with the NATO nations fighting in this south Asia country. Defence sources here confirm that Canada is interested in supplying some of its older Leopard tanks to the Afghans and initial discussions have begun on that potential deal.

NATO nations would be expected to donate equipment to the ANA.

U.S. Army Maj.-Gen. Robert Durbin, who heads the effort to help develop Afghanistan's army and police forces, said any move to supply the tanks would be handled through NATO. "So we've had some interesting discussions," said Durbin. "Canada is one nation. You've got Germany. Even New Zealand has Leopards."

Asked whether plans could involve the Canadian Forces turning over the Leopard tanks it already uses in Kandahar to the Afghan army, Durbin responded, "that might be one option that could make sense."

The general added, however, that he would not be involved in such a decision.

The Canadian Forces shipped 17 Leopard tanks to Kandahar in the fall of 2006 after troops requested more firepower to use against insurgents. The Conservative government recently announced it would lease more modern Leopards for the Afghanistan mission from Germany. It will also buy 100 Leopard 2s at a cost of $1.3 billion. That price tag includes a 20-year maintenance and upgrade deal.

Some Canadian soldiers who have worked with the Afghan army in operations against insurgents said the plan to provide the ANA with more modern NATO-type equipment makes sense.

Warrant Officer Chuck Graham said such a move would make it easier for coalition forces to resupply Afghan troops as everyone would be using the same equipment. He said although the Afghans are natural warriors, one of the main challenges is shaping them into a professional army.

Graham also predicted it might be sometime before the ANA was ready to switch from Russian-designed to NATO tanks. "As far as going from the (Russian) T62 to the Leopard, I think that's a ways down the road," he said.

Afghanistan is in the process of beefing up its army and police force. The Afghan army is expected to have around 70,000 personnel and 82,000 police by 2008.

Afghanistan's defence ministry is also working on fielding an air corps made up of 150 to 200 helicopters and planes. Future plans call for the Afghans to play more of a role in leading the fight against the Taliban and other insurgents.

"The Afghans want to do this," explained Durbin. "They want to stand up on their own two feet. They want to take the lead."

The Afghan army is also creating six new commando battalions of about 650 soldiers each. The battalions would be given the best equipment and most advanced training. The men, most of them combat veterans, have been specially recruited for the units.

Durbin said the Afghan army would decide where the commandos would be used but he suggested that it is most likely they would be sent to southern part of the country where insurgents are the most active. All six battalions would be in place by the end of 2008.

That could provide some relief for Canadian and other NATO troops, he suggested. "So maybe (in the) spring 2009 you're going to see an even more significant ability of the Afghan national security forces to stand on their own two feet and take on this fight," Durbin said. "That would be a timeframe where maybe we can have the flexibility to make some strategic decisions about how much of a footprint NATO would be comfortable having in Afghanistan."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the Canadian mission in Afghanistan ends in 2009. But officers here doubt the Conservative government will walk away completely from Afghanistan since Canada has sacrificed too many soldiers and spent billions of dollars on the mission.

They expect the government to further extend the mission but it is not clear how many troops that would involve.
Ottawa Citizen
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'Relative stability' seen in Afghan town
By Tom Blackwell , National Post (Canada) Monday, May 21, 2007
NAKONEY, Afghanistan - Dust whips across the desert floor as the troops of Canada's Charlie Company wrap up "operation Midas" - a NATO show of force in a village reportedly rife with Taliban.

Tired soldiers - who had earlier either hiked two kilometres or humped up a mountain in the 3 a.m. darkness - are headed to their vehicles and the welcome ride back to base.

Then word gets out: an intelligence report is warning that four motorcycle-riding Taliban have set out to seed the route home with deadly IEDs or mines. "I'm tired, I'm hot and I'm sweaty and now I'm gonna have mines under me?" asks one frustrated artilleryman.

The ride in his LAV III is edgy, with troops constantly alerting each other to suspicious objects or people at the side of the road. Finally, the convoy reaches the safety of Sperwan Gahr forward operating base.

The operation and its suspenseful ending typifies what appears to be one of the first, qualified success stories in Afghanistan's tumultuous south. In a district where Canadians fought some of their fiercest battles in half a century last year - losing close to a dozen troops - the Taliban is largely a spent force.

Residents who had fled in the face of the fighting, leaving their communities ghost towns, have flooded back into the Panjwai.

And the Canadians are now focusing more on reconstruction and less on security.

"In this area, where there was fighting last year, we have realized the fruits of our labour," said Capt. Andrew Vivian, the upbeat commander of the Sperwan Gahr base, known to the Canadians simply as Sper.

"Where there was intense fighting last year, there is relative stability."

Yet, at the same time, the Taliban have not completely gone, and those who are left still pose a clear menace. Vivian's men have driven over, but not detonated, powerful tank mines left on local roads, while an Afghan National Police outpost was attacked recently. A rocket lobbed at another Canadian forward-operating base nearby killed an interpreter and injured another last week.

Meanwhile, intense fighting has erupted just across the Arghandab River in Zharey, the neighbouring district of Kandahar province. During Charlie company's operation, troops could hear the pounding of Leopard tank shells fired at Taliban positions after they attacked Canadians there.

Still, in Panjwai, it is not just the foreign troops who are marvelling at what a difference a few months makes.

"The Taliban are very weak right now," said Neyez Mohammad Sarhaddi, the district leader, in an interview. "They can only do activities like laying IEDs, not face-to-face fighting. They are very powerless."

During a break in the weekly "shura" or council of district elders, he urged Canada to stick with Afghanistan until the country "gets power and is strong."

"If the Canadian Forces want to go back to Canada, it would be very sad for us."

Sarhadi's district may have a cursed past; the scenery, though, is picturesque, a blend of desert, craggy mountains and belts of surprisingly green farmland that yields poppy, grapes and marijuana.

Villages look as they would have hundreds of years ago - low-slung mud buildings and walls which blend in seamlessly with the surrounding soil.

A year ago, that landscape was aflame, as Canadian and other NATO troops repeatedly engaged the Taliban between May and September.

The Taliban eventually collapsed, its fighters having died, melted away into the civilian population or escaped to safer havens.

Since then, almost 90 per cent of Panjwai's residents, who had fled to Zharey, have returned to their land, said Sarhadi, the district leader.

Canada's combat muscle, meanwhile, has been supplemented with the military's kinder, gentler side.

A branch of the Canadian-run provincial reconstruction team has set up shop in the heart of the Panjwai to distribute aid, though it is still housed in a military garrison and staffed by soldiers. Village councils decide on projects they want funded by Canada, then forward their request to the district shura.

If all the elders, and Sarhadi, endorse the project, it is passed on to Warrant Officer Jim McLean, who tries to implement it.

The $100,000 doled out since April has funded repairs of all-important irrigation canals, mosque renovations and road upgrades.

At the weekly shura last Thursday, elders sat, cross-legged, in two long rows on a patio outside the district centre. There was a complaint about the Afghan National Police, one of Canada's local security allies, whose officers were said to be demanding goods on credit from local shopkeepers, then not paying their debt. One of the elders said merchants have been advised to deny credit to the policemen.

The controversy aside, the men then pressed around the district leader, Vivian and McLean, handing over their petitions for Canadian-funded projects.

The army seems to be getting some direct payback for its work here.

Locals in some villages have actually interrupted the Taliban as they were laying IEDs, telling them to go elsewhere, said Vivian.

"They'll put their lives on the line. They walk up and take a close look at something that could blow up in their faces," adds McLean. "All anybody wants in this country, and I've talked to a lot of people on the local level, is a better life for themselves and their families."
Well, perhaps not everybody.

Operation Midas was launched after Sarhadi warned the Canadians of extensive Taliban activity in Nakoney. Next door in Kanjakak, insurgents reportedly murdered four people this past week, said Vivian.
The operation began at midnight as a convoy of LAV III armoured cars, Nyala patrol trucks and other vehicles left on a three-hour, back-roads trip through the desert to a staging area. Once there, forward observers made a treacherous climb in the dark up a nearby mountain, from where they could call in air support if needed.

A platoon of Charlie Company soldiers, wearing night-vision goggles in the pitch black, trekked across the desert and set up in ruins just outside Nakoney.As dawn arrived, Afghan National Army soldiers approached the village from the other side and swept through, looking for possible insurgents.

They found some likely candidates - but in the end there was no confrontation.

For Vivian, though, Op Midas was a success, and Canada's rocky Afghan mission may be turning to gold.

"Progress is definitely being made," he said later. "And based on what I've seen here, within Panjwai district, we will prevail. There is no question."
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Polish troops prepare face Afghan Taliban
May 21, 2007 at 1:27 PM
WARSAW, Poland, May 21 (UPI) -- About 1,300 well-trained Polish troops are being prepared to face Taliban forces in southern and eastern Afghanistan, Polish Radio reported Monday.
Polish troops as part of NATO forces in Afghanistan are completing drills to reach peak combat readiness and formally begin their mission of patrolling the region in early June, the report said.

Polish Radio quoted military analysts as saying Polish troops should be ready by then to participate in military operations and to deal with anti-foreign military hostility from local Afghanis.

Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek, an adviser to the Afghan defense ministry in Kabul, said he expected Polish soldiers to carry out their tasks capably since Poland is sending its best and most experienced soldiers.
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Opposing view: Current strategy is sound
Legalizing production would make Afghanistan a narco-welfare state.
Opinion USA Today / May 21, 2007 By Thomas A. Schweich and R. Gainer Lamar
The proposed legalization of the Afghan opium crop does not withstand even modest analytical scrutiny:

* The price of opium on the legal market is $16-$49 per kilo vs. roughly $138 per kilo on the illegal market. Afghan farmers would have no incentive to switch to the legal market — which pays a third as much as the illegal market.

To address this fact, legalization advocates propose a system of massive subsidies to make up the price difference. Currently, less than 15% of the Afghan population is involved in the opium trade, but with a guaranteed high price, the whole country would grow poppy. Considering that the crop is already worth $755 million to those few Afghans who grow poppy, a dramatically increased supply would raise the cost of a buyout to many billions of dollars per year, with no end in sight. Afghanistan would become a narco-welfare state with American taxpayers picking up the bill.

* Not only is the legalization idea prohibitively expensive, but it would create an economy dependent on one commodity. This approach contradicts all our experience with effective development, which thrives on economic diversification and a free market.

* Almost insurmountable hurdles to legalization remain. In India, one of the oldest legal opium producers in the world, 20%-30% of its closely-monitored crop is diverted to the illegal market each year. How could Afghanistan, a much less developed country with a much bigger crop, prevent major diversion into the illegal opium market?

* Advocates of legalization also argue that more opium is needed to address an alleged world shortage of painkillers. According to international experts, including the United Nations, there is no shortage of raw material for painkillers. In fact, there is an oversupply.

* Efforts to change the system for legal opium, which is governed by U.N. agreements, has already met strong opposition from existing supplier countries.

The current strategy — education, demand reduction, alternative development, eradication, interdiction and prosecution — has reduced or eliminated poppy in Pakistan, Laos, Thailand and other nations. It requires time and political will. Let's not divert the world's attention from sound policy toward pie-in-the-sky solutions with no chance of success.

Thomas A. Schweich is the U.S. coordinator for Afghan counternarcotics and justice reform. R. Gainer Lamar is his adviser.
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Soldier dies in Afghan accident
Sunday, 20 May 2007 BBC News
A British soldier has died after "a tragic accident" in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has announced.

An investigation has been launched after the soldier, from the 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, died at the British base in Sangin.

The MoD said no further details would be released until the Royal Military Police investigation was complete.

A spokesman added that the death was not the result of enemy action. The soldier's family has been informed.

The MoD spokesman said: "The Ministry of Defence deeply regrets to announce that a British soldier from 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment has died as a result of injuries sustained in a tragic accident at the British base in Sangin, Afghanistan.

"The circumstances of the accident will be the subject of an investigation and no further details will be released until that investigation is complete, but we can confirm that the soldier's death was not the result of enemy action."

The death is the 55th among British forces in Afghanistan since the start of operations in November 2001.

The incident, in Helmand Province, comes during a visit by Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells, who is meeting British troops.

The last soldier to be killed in Afghanistan was Guardsman Simon Davison, 22, who died on May 3 after being wounded during a gunfight with Taleban fighters near the town of Garmsir in Helmand.
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Fighting Afghan polio
Edmonton Sun (Canada) / / May 21, 2007 By CP
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Health officials launched a different sort of Afghan offensive yesterday as a brigade of volunteer soldiers armed with clipboards, chalk and tiny bottles of vaccine fanned out across the city, hunting an invisible enemy that preys on the poor and the young.

The World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Canadian International Development Agency are among the partners in an ongoing effort to push polio out of Afghanistan, one of only four countries in the world where conflict and poverty have conspired to allow its resurgence.

Two recently confirmed cases in the southern part of the country prompted yesterday's start of a special round of vaccinations.

Volunteers braved the perils of Kandahar city by going door-to-door and administering two drops of oral vaccine to every child under the age of five, said Arshad Quddus of the WHO's Kabul office.

"The objective is to interrupt the transmission of this virus, which is only now confined to the two provinces in this country," Quddus said in an interview at Kandahar city's dilapidated Mirwais Hospital.

"If we can interrupt the transmission in these remaining two provinces, there is a very bright chance for Afghanistan to become polio-free."

Over a rickety table at the hospital's main entrance, a steady stream of parents surrendered wailing children to a friendly, wizened old man, who gently squeezed open the mouths of the less co-operative youngsters, dispensing his vaccine with a toothy grin.

He then used a black felt-tip pen to crudely mark a tiny fingernail to identify a vaccinated child.

BURKA-CLAD VOLUNTEERS
Beyond the relative safety of the hospital gate, burka-clad volunteers banged on rusty tin doors and asked family members to round up youngsters, using chalk to make Pashto markings on the wall to indicate an immunized household.

Others in the entourage cast edgy glances up and down the dusty, mud-walled alley, well aware that Kandahar remains in the grips of a security alert in the wake of last week's deadly Taliban bombings, which targeted police and government officials.

"It's very challenging work, particularly considering the security situation," Quddus said. "One of the biggest challenges is inaccessibility in some of the seriously security-compromised areas."

Polio is a highly contagious, incurable viral infection of the nervous system, which can cause crippling paralysis or even death within hours of infection.

At its peak, polio paralyzed and killed up to half a million people every year, before Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine in 1954.

Afghanistan is home to an estimated 7.3 million children aged five and under. The current campaign aims to vaccinate 1.2 million of them in the provinces of Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand, including 350,000 children in Kandahar city alone.

Many of those in the city are orphans or living on the street, which poses its own challenges, Quddus added.

"We try to make sure to catch all these children, who are probably at a high risk of being missed," he said. "We have teams at the bus station, we have teams in the markets and in the streets, to vaccinate those children, and we have special teams for the nomads."

Indeed, even a country as racked by war as Afghanistan seems at times overrun with children.

They chase barefoot after coalition convoys or tug on sleeves at the weekly bazaar, trying to lure off-duty soldiers to their trinket-laden tables.

In the villages, they lurk warily behind the billowy folds of an elder's shalwar pants, emerging only to accept an offer of candy or a toy.

They're the lucky ones.

"A great many of them are just in the streets, and they scrounge, or they starve," said John Manley, a former deputy prime minister in Jean Chretien's Liberal government and now a member of CARE Canada's board of directors.

"It's just another of the countless problems this country faces ... It's a problem that doesn't have a lot of people working on it, as far as I can tell."

CARE CANADA
Manley spent much of last week in Kabul, grounded by sandstorms that thwarted plans to look for potential projects for CARE Canada to support in and around Kandahar, a part of the country where it has relatively little activity.

During his visit, he consulted a focus group comprised of local women about what they considered the most pressing aid priorities.

"One of the top items was classes in literacy," Manley said. While only two or three out of the group of 25 had literacy skills, all of them had children in school, "including all of the girls," Manley added.

"This is pretty good progress, considering where we were five years ago, when no girls were in school."

Orphans were also high on the group's list, he said. "That was one of the other concerns - what about the children with no parents?"

Just down the road from the rusty MiG fighter that guards the gate to Kandahar Airfield, a 30-year-old man named Hekmatullah - like many Afghans, he uses only one name - operates the Shaheed A. Ahad Karzai Orphanage, which runs largely on determination and coalition generosity.

In the last five years, the facility, which operates as an elementary school during the day and an orphanage by night, has swelled to about 360 day students and 40 dirt-poor children who are permanent residents. There are 32 staff members, including 12 teachers.

Three years ago, the U.S. provincial reconstruction team began rebuilding the facility with the help of the Afghan National Army.

Last year, Canada's PRT provided chairs, tables, freezers and school supplies, and recently delivered a shipment of blankets and shoes, said Canadian Forces spokesman Lieut. (Navy) Desmond James.

"In orphanage, they can make their future, they can get a good education, and they could be saved from drugs and other bad activities," said Haji Ghani, a local Kandahar resident who supports Hekmatullah's work.

"The orphanage should be supported by the Afghan government and Canadians as well. It is a very important place and it needs very much attention from Canadians."

For Manley, it's one more reason why Canada shouldn't be in a hurry to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. CIDA has already invested more than $1 billion here, including $5 million for the polio campaign, and the investment demands continued nurturing, he said.

Manley said he's been frustrated with the character of the political discourse surrounding Canada's mission in Afghanistan, and called on all sides to abandon the partisan bickering and give the issue the careful consideration it deserves.

"It's not something for passionate debate, but something to be carefully reasoned out and discussed with our allies in terms of what we should do," he said.

"We spend a lot of time trying to determine Canada's place in the world. When we find one, we shouldn't be too quick to abandon it."
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84 prisoners released from Herat jail
HERAT CITY, May 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): As many as 84 prisoners, arrested under minor crimes, were set free from jails in the western Herat province on Sunday.

Officials say the prisoners were released in line with a presidential decree giving amnesty to prisoners jailed under paltry crimes.

Col Muhammad Seddiq Himmat, head of the prison department in Herat, told Pajhwok Afghan News those people were released under the presidential decree issued by President Hamid Karzai on the Mujahideen Victory Day on April 28.

Himmat said those people were jailed for their involvement in smuggling, robbery and other such crimes. They also included six women, he added.

He said all the freed people had spent half period of the sentence, awarded to them by courts, in the jail. Around 1,000 more prisoners are currently languishing in jails in Heart, he informed.
Ahmad Qureshi
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NEPA chief warns to move court against govt
KABUL, May 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Director of the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) Mustafa Zahir has warned of legal action if the governmental continued its non-cooperation with the agency.

Speaking at a conference on environmental protection here on Sunday, Mustafa Zahir complained the government was not helping NEPA in environmental protection.

Besides others, the conference was attended by Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament Muhammad Younus Qanuni, senior government officials and representatives of NGOs.

Drawing a grim picture of the environmental situation, Zahir said the concerned governmental organs were responsible for the state of affairs due to their non-cooperation and support.

He said three decades of war, destruction of forests and import of low quality fuel were the main air pollutants in the capital city and the country.

Zahir said law on environmental protection was approved four months back by the parliament and was sent to the relevant ministry for implementation, but no action was initiated so far.

He said the Ministry of Public Health was the only organ that extended support to NEPA in its activities to ensure clean environment in the country.

Speaker of the Wolesi Jirga Muhammad Younus Qanuni assured the House would take action on Zahir's complaint. In this connection, the Speaker reminded the participants the unseating of two ministers over the refugee issue by the Parliament.

By approving the environmental protection law, he added, the Wolesi Jirga wanted to support the agency to ensure clean environment in the country.
Mustafa Basharat
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MPs again failed to elect 2nd deputy speaker
KABUL, May 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Contestants for the second deputy speakership at the Lower House of Parliament were dropped as none of them managed to get the required number of votes in the three rounds on Sunday.

Of the five candidates, Shah Mardan Qul got 57, Abdul Jabbar Shilgari, 47, Safoora Elkhani, 41, Sayed Hussain Aalimi Balkhi, 30 and Sediqa Mubarez 17 votes in the first round.

The presence of two invalid and five blank ballot papers helped Qul and Shilgari to proceed to the second round of the contest in the House.

However, secretary of the House had to announce the third round as none of the two hopefuls got the required 50 per cent votes from the 187 MPs present in the House. 

In the second round, Shilgari bagged 78 votes while his rival got 68.

In the third and conclusive round, the presence of six invalid and 39 blank votes forced the secretary to invoke the rules of the Wolesi Jirga by asking both the contenders to quit the contest.

Taking notice of the blank votes polled by some MPs, first secretary of the Wolesi Jirga Abdul Satar Khawasi said every member had the right to give his decision about a candidate.

Failure of the candidates to get the required number of votes showed that the members were not interested in filling the post of the second deputy speaker, observed Khawasi.

Election for the administrative commission of the Wolesi Jirga was held in January this year. Of the four positions, three had already been filled as the MPs had elected three persons with majority vote. However, the fourth position of second deputy speaker is still laying vacant.

Earlier, MPs Ahmad Behzad and Fawzia Kofi had also failed to get the required number of votes to won election for the second deputy speakership.
Makia Munir
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