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November 19, 2007 

6 police killed in Afghan bomb attack
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 19, 5:23 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber struck outside a governor's residence in southwestern Afghanistan on Monday, killing six policemen and wounding 14 people, an official said.

Meanwhile in Kabul, authorities said they thwarted a suicide bomber who planned to target an Afghan army bus, arresting the suspect Monday morning.

The bomber in southwestern Nimroz province detonated the explosives strapped to his body outside the governor's house in the town of Zaranj as people were traveling to work, said the provincial deputy governor Maluang Rasooli.

Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad said his son was among those killed.

"I was the target of the suicide attacker," said Azad, who had moved inside the building shortly before the blast.

Six officers were killed and 14 other people, including nine policemen, were wounded, Azad said. The bomber was also died.

Insurgents have launched more than 130 suicide attacks in 2007 — a record number — including one in northern Baghlan province two weeks ago followed by panicked gunfire from bodyguards that left up to 77 people dead.

Government officials and international forces have been primary targets, but authorities have been particularly wary of attackers targeting army or police buses in Kabul after two such attacks this year.

Afghan security forces arrested a potential suicide bomber in Kabul after he attempted to board an army bus, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary told reporters.

The attacker was from the Pakistani city of Peshawar, Bashary said. Afghan and Western officials say many suicide bombers are trained in neighboring Pakistan and then cross the border into Afghanistan to carry out their attacks.

An Afghan soldier kicked the man as he tried to board the bus, and when the attacker fell down, he was unable to detonate his suicide vest, said Kabul police chief Mohammad Salim Hasas.

The officials displayed the defused suicide vest for the media and said the attacker was undergoing blood tests because he appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Hasas said the attacker's identity would not be revealed in hopes he would inform on other attackers.

More than 6,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.

In southern Helmand province, Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint on Sunday, killing two officers and wounding four others, said provincial police chief Muhammad Hussein Andiwal.
___
Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Kabul.
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Suicide blast kills seven including son: Afghan governor
Mon Nov 19, 4:29 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A suicide attack outside the office of the governor of Afghanistan's southwestern Nimroz province on Monday killed one of his adult sons and six of his bodyguards, the governor told AFP.

The blast happened at the gate of the provincial headquarters in Zaranj city soon after the governor entered. Nimroz is a relatively peaceful province sharing a long border with Iran.

"Just as I got into my office today, there was a suicide attack outside the compound. Apparently I was the target of the suicide attacker," Governor Ghulam Dastageer told AFP.

"Six of my bodyguards and my son were martyred in the suicide attack," he added. "Fourteen other people, including police and civilians, were wounded."

Provincial police chief Mohammad Daud Askaryar said four of the wounded were civilians.

"The attack was aimed at creating an atmosphere of fear in our province." he said.

Earlier on Monday, Afghan soldiers foiled an attempted bus bombing in the capital Kabul, preventing a would-be suicide bomber detonating his explosive-laden jacket, the Afghan defence ministry said.

Soldiers became wary when a man they did not recognise tried to get on an Afghan army commuter bus, ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"They realized that an unfamiliar person was trying to get on the bus," he said.

Some of the worst suicide bombings in Afghanistan have been on security forces' buses in the capital.

On September 29, a suicide bomber in an army uniform blew up a military bus in an attack that killed about 30 people and wounded many more.

A similar explosion on a bus taking police trainers to the police academy in mid-June killed 35 people.

There have been more than 130 suicide blasts in Afghanistan this year, most of them blamed on the Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001.

The worst was on November 6 in the northern province of Baghlan and killed nearly 80 people, 59 of them children, according to government figures.

In the latest series of suicide attacks against Afghan provincial authorities, the governor of troubled eastern Khost province, Arsala Jamal, survived a Taliban-style suicide attack late October which wounded five people.

The attack on Jamal became the fifth suicide attack since he became governor of the volatile province on the border with Pakistan 19 months ago.

In September last year the governor of Paktia province, Hakim Taniwal, was killed in a suicide attack against him -- he was the first provincial governor of the post-Taliban administration to be killed.

Eastern and southern Afghanistan see regular attacks linked to an insurgency launched by the Taliban movement after it regrouped in the months following its removal from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

In addition, Taliban insurgents attacked a police post near Girishk district of southern troubled Helmand province Sunday night initiating a fierce clash which left two policemen killed and three wounded, provincial police chief told AFP.

"Two police were martyred and three were wounded, we have not information on the number of casualties sustained by Taliban militants," Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack on the police post in a telephone call from an unknown location.

No one has claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks in Kabul and Zaranj but authorities blamed "enemies of Afghanistan," a term often used to refer to Taliban militants.
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Afghan army bus bomber foiled: ministry
Mon Nov 19, 3:33 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Alert Afghan soldiers foiled an attempted bus bombing in Kabul early Monday, preventing a would-be suicide bomber detonating his explosives-laden waistcoat, security officials said.

The soldiers became wary when a man in civilian clothes tried to get on an Afghan army commuter bus, the officials said.

"If he had succeeded it would have been a big tragedy," Kabul police chief Mohammad Salim Ahsas told reporters.

"When he tried to get on the bus a brave officer kicked him and threw him out. Then two brave police officers tied his hands behind his back."

An army general said 40 to 50 soldiers were on board the bus at the time.

Ahsas said initial investigations showed the would-be bomber was Pakistani and that he may have been on drugs at the time.

Some of the worst suicide bombings in Kabul have been on security forces' buses.

On September 29, a suicide bomber in an army uniform blew up a military bus in an attack that killed around 30 people and wounded many more.

A similar explosion on a bus taking police trainers to the police academy mid-June killed 35 people.

There have been more than 130 suicide blasts in Afghanistan this year, most of them blamed on the Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001.

The worst was on November 6 in the northern province of Baghlan and killed nearly 80 people, 59 of them children.
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UN: Gunfire 'onslaught' hit Afghan kids
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An internal U.N. report obtained Monday said bodyguards protecting parliamentarians fired indiscriminately into a crowd after a suicide bombing and that children bore "the brunt of the onslaught."

The report also said there was no evidence to show authorities had tried to identify those behind the shootings or bring them "to account for their crimes."

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said the report is one of many conflicting views inside its organization and has not been officially endorsed.

The report by the U.N. Department of Safety and Security, obtained by The Associated Press, said it was not clear how many people died in the suicide bombing and how many died from subsequent gunfire after the Nov. 6 attack in Baghlan province.

The report said that as many as two-thirds of the 77 killed and more than 100 wounded were hit by gunfire; however, some estimates said the number of people shot was much lower.

"Regardless of what the exact breakdown of numbers may be, the fact remains that a number of armed men deliberately and indiscriminately fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians that posed no threat to them, causing multiple deaths and injuries," the report said.

"It is believed that at least 100 rounds or more were fired into the crowd with a separate group of school children off to one side of the road bearing the brunt of the onslaught at close range," it said.

Though the U.N. report described the firing as deliberate, some witnesses told the AP that there was a blanket of smoke at the blast site so thick that they couldn't see who was shooting. Other witnesses, though, could see clearly enough to identify the gunmen as the lawmakers' bodyguards.

Adrian Edwards, the world body's spokesman in Afghanistan, confirmed the report's validity, but said it was one of several conflicting views inside the U.N. and that its findings had not been endorsed.

"What you are seeing at the moment represents part of the picture only. What hasn't been resolved is that there is widely diverging, contrary views on this, and until those have been resolved, there is no complete finding," he said.

According to Afghan authorities, most of the casualties were the result of the suicide attack. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary has said most of the victims were hit by ball bearings from the bomb, and not bullets.

The AP first reported Saturday that a preliminary U.N. report said as many as two-thirds of the 180 bombing casualties were from gunfire. The weekly report obtained Monday provided a more complete picture of the U.N. Department of Safety and Security's view.

It said that in the chaos following the suicide attack, bodyguards protecting the lawmakers opened fire into the crowd for several minutes.

"It has been confirmed that eight of the teachers in charge of this group of school children suffered multiple gunshot wounds, five of which died," it said.

The report said that further investigations "are being hampered by restrictions on witnesses and officials and that despite several arrests, there have not yet been any reports of who is responsible."

Among the dead were 61 students and five teachers, six members of parliament and five bodyguards. The deadliest previous suicide bombing in Afghanistan was in June, when 35 people were killed in a bomb attack on a police bus.

The attack happened as the lawmakers were being greeted by children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north.

Among the parliamentarians killed was Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the chief spokesman of Afghanistan's only opposition group, the National Front. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Afghan officials say they do not know who was behind the bombing. The Taliban has denied it was responsible. A government investigation is also under way.

Hundreds of children had crowded onto the tree-lined driveway leading to the New Baghlan Sugar Factory to greet visiting lawmakers when the blast went off. Witnesses and survivors describe bodyguards firing into the thick black smoke for up to five minutes after the attack.

(This version CORRECTS that bodyguards were protecting parliament members, not local lawmakers.)
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Listening to Afghans
Hekmat Karzai and Julian Lindley- French  Afghanistan Times November 19, 2007
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, surveying the wreckage of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan famously said, “We have been fighting in Afghanistan for six years now. If we don’t change approaches we will be fighting there for another 20 or 30 years.”   Whilst a very different operation to Moscow’s brutal occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, it is a sad fact that NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is slowly reaching the same point in the minds of some Afghans.  Put simply, the yawning gap between what the NATO capitals regard as success, and the reality on the ground is in danger of becoming an exercise in political and bureaucratic self-delusion.  Money is paid, projects are sanctioned, bureaucratic boxes are ticked and progress is declared.  Everybody is happy – except the Afghan people.  Far too many of the initiatives that are launched on behalf of the Afghan people pay scant regard to their views, perspectives and experience.  It is little wonder then that so many of them see little evidence of progress.  Therefore, if anything like success is to be achieved, it is time for the NATO Allies and Partners to go back to first principles and remind themselves that the Afghanistan mission is about poor Afghans, not rich Westerners.  To that end, a new and novel Jirga must be convened as a matter of urgency that for the first time properly seeks the views of senior Afghans from across the country as how best to proceed, including members of the moderate Taliban. 

ISAF has made some progress.  The Provincial Reconstructions Teams (PRTs) are conceptually sound.  However, with the best will in the world, armed forces are not the best instruments to lead complex change beyond the initial phase of forced entry.  The military can create the security space, but they are incapable of filling it.  Afghanistan’s most challenging province Helmand, is a case in point.  Nominally, under British ‘control’, it is led by a British diplomat.  Indeed, it is one of the very few PRTs led by a diplomat.  Unfortunately, he only has twenty-nine other civilian colleagues in support.  Such imbalance generates two contrasting dilemmas.  First, the over-militarisation of the presence on the ground which prevents the subtle management of necessary and complex change.  Contacts with key tribal elders too often take place within a military context, rather than a development context.  When relationships are going well much can indeed be achieved. However, when Afghans are killed in friendly-fire incidents the collective nature of Afghan society rapidly turns an ISAF uniform from an emblem of solidarity into a symbol of threat.  Second, decisions are taken in distant capitals that have more to do with Western political correctness than local needs and which lead to projects that the Afghan people regard with at best disdain and more likely contempt.  The most notorious example was the creation of a one million Dollar Women’s Park.  This was understandably met with derision by local people and undermined all-important credibility.  Still, a box was ticked in London.

However, the most pressing need is to move beyond the theoretical ‘Afghanisation’ so beloved of politicians, diplomats and military commanders.  Sadly, the international community at large has singularly failed to understand the culture, history and faith of the Afghan people.  For all the talk of progress the fact is that investment in the Afghans is the lowest per capita of any development programme by the international community since World War Two.  Indeed, the Taliban pay their forces three times as much as the Afghan National Army pay their own, funded by the burgeoning narco-economy and Middle Eastern money that continues to flow to Al Qaeda in copious amounts. 

Foreigners have always been treated with suspicion in Afghanistan, especially if their presence is defined by the gun.  Consequently, NATO has reached a critical juncture in the ISAF mission.  It has extended its ‘footprint’ across the whole country, but if the tread is to be sure it is vital that Afghans learn to see the presence as good.  That will mean striking a delicate balance between convincing Afghans NATO is there to stay, but not to occupy, that NATO must act against the extreme elements of the Taliban, but the road to dialogue is open, that NATO will leave, but not just yet.  To strike that balance will require a fundamental shift in the character of the mission backed up by demonstrable improvements in the daily lives and well-being of ordinary Afghans.  Such progress means listening far more intently to the people who matter in Afghan society as how best now to proceed, particularly in the south.  Specifically, the views of senior Afghans officials and tribal elders must be sought as to how best they think Afghans and NATO jointly can progressively civilianise the ISAF mission?  Most importantly, tribal leaders and elders must be invited to give their leadership over how best to proceed in Afghanistan, what works and what does not.  In particular, NATO and the Americans need a far better understanding of what role traditional institutions can play in Afghanistan’s future and then act on it. 

Afghanistan is winnable.  However, on the current trajectory the mission will bog down as the gap between what NATO is trying to achieve and what needs to be achieved becomes unsustainably wide.  ‘Success’ in Afghanistan will thus need proper and sustained investment in the Afghan people, rather than bureaucratic exercises in NATO capitals.  The three D’s – defence, diplomacy and development -- and Comprehensive Approach are all well and good in theory, but the devil as ever is in the detail.  And, that ‘detail’ is Afghan.  It is time to listen to Afghans.  After all, they are the people who know.

Hekmat Karzai is Director of the Centre of Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul, Afghanistan. Julian Lindley-French is Professor of Military Operational Science at the Netherlands Defence Academy. 
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Afghan boy dancers sexually abused by former warlords
Sun Nov 18, 8:22 PM ET
PUL-E KHUMRI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They are known as "bacha bereesh," boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.

It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses."

Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law.

In a society where the sexes are strictly segregated, it is common for men to dance for other men at weddings in Afghanistan.

But in northern Afghanistan, former warlords and mujahideen commanders have taken that a step further with competitions for their dancing boys.

"Every boy tries to be the first. They are dressed in women's clothes, have bells on their feet and have artificial breasts," said Mohammad Yawar, a former mujahideen fighter against the Taliban and resident of the northern town of Pul-e Khumri.

The practice, called "bacha bazi" -- literally "boy play" -- has a long history in northern Afghanistan, but sometimes it does not stop with just dancing.

"I very much enjoy hugging a boy. His smell and fragrance kills me," said Yawar.

The 38-year-old businessman said he recruited a 15-year-old boy three years ago to help him with his work.

"I have had him for at least three years, since he was only 15. He was looking for a job and I gave him somewhere to stay," said Yawar, showing the boy's picture.

"I don't have a wife. He is like my wife. I dress him in women's clothes and have him sleep beside me. I enjoy him and he is my everything," he said, kissing the photograph.

MARK OF PRESTIGE
Having the best-looking boy and the best dancer is a mark of prestige.

"Everyone tries to have the best, most handsome and good-looking boy," said a former mujahideen commander, who declined to be named.

"Sometimes we gather and make our boys dance and whoever wins, his boy will be the best boy."

Former mujahideen commanders hold such parties in and around Pul-e Khumri about once a week.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us. Whoever wants to show off, should have a boy," said Enayatullah, a 42-year-old landowner in Baghlan province.

"I was married to a woman 20 years ago, she left me because of my boy," he said. "I was playing with my boy every night and was away from home, eventually my wife decided to leave me. I am happy with my decision, because I am used to sleeping and entertaining with my young boy."

The men say they lavish money and gifts on their boys.

"I was only 14-years-old when a former Uzbek commander forced me to have sex with him," said Shir Mohammad in Sar-e Pol province. "Later, I quit my family and became his secretary. I have been with him for 10 years, I am now grown up, but he still loves me and I sleep with him."

Ahmad Jawad, aged 17, has been with a wealthy landowner for the past two years.

"I am used to it. I love my lord. I love to dance and act like a woman and play with my owner," he said.

Asked what he would do when he got older, he said: "Once I grow up, I will be an owner and I will have my own boys."

But Shir Mohammad, at 24, was already getting too old to be a dancing boy. "I am grown up now and do not have the beauty of former years. So, I proposed to marry my lord's daughter and he has agreed to it."

POVERTY
Many local residents have called for a crackdown, but are skeptical it will work as many of the men are powerful and well-armed former commanders.

Jahan Shah, who lives in Pul-e Khumri, said government and security officials should take tough action against unIslamic and immoral acts.

"If they don't stop this, it will become a custom and hundreds of other boys will be involved in it," he said.

Police and security officials in northern Afghanistan say they have been doing their best to arrest the men involved.

"It is sad to state that this practice that includes making boys dance, sexual abuse and sometimes even selling boys, has been going on for years," said General Asadollah Amarkhil, the security chief of Kunduz province.

"We have taken steps to stop it to the extent that we are able," he said.

Amarkhil said poverty, widespread in Afghanistan after nearly three decades of war, forced teenage boys into compliance.

"We have taken very strict measures to save the lives of the boys and punish the men," he said. "We are monitoring to find out where these men and boys gather, then go there and arrest them."

Those found guilty of abuse would be jailed for at least 15 years, said Baghlan chief prosecutor Hafizullah Khaliqyar.

"We have 25 cases of such immoral acts. They are being processed and we are trying our utmost to tackle the problem," he said.

Islamic scholars recommended harsher punishment.

"Those who do this are the devil," said Mawlawi Mohammad Sadiq Sadiqyar, a scholar and prayer leader in the main northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. "Under Islamic law, those who practice this should be stoned to death."

But some of the men say they are not interested in women.

"We know it is immoral and unIslamic, but how can we quit? We do not like women, we just want boys," said Chaman Gul, aged 35 of Takhar province.
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Canadian troops push into Taliban Afghan heartland
By Finbarr O'Reilly Sun Nov 18, 2:39 PM ET
SANGESAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Canadian and Afghan troops pushed into a Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan, fought off fierce counter-attacks and fortified an outpost on Sunday to stay in the area.

An Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman said at least 12 Taliban fighters were killed and another 15 wounded in the fighting for control of the Sangesar district, where fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar once lived and preached at a local mosque.

Canadian troops have fought the Taliban for control of the area, west of the biggest southern city Kandahar, for more than a year with each side seizing then losing the same ground several times.

But this time, dozens of tanks and armored vehicles followed the troops into the area to fortify two seized civilian compounds and stay in the Sangesar district.

The operation began on Friday night with around 100 Canadian and some 50 Afghan troops driving a spearhead into the area under cover of darkness and seizing the compounds. By morning the troops were surrounded by Taliban and fighting at close quarters.

"It was pretty hectic yesterday. At one point we were taking fire from north, south, east and west," said Canadian infantryman Jerome Deschenes.

Artillery and airstrikes were called in to break the Taliban counter attack. "We were in a really sticky situation," said Deschenes. "Thank God for the artillery and air cover."

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) released no figures on the Taliban casualties figures, but soldiers involved in the fighting said at least 10 Taliban had been shot dead and more killed by artillery fire.

HANGED
Military sources said "quite a few" mid-level Taliban field commanders had been killed in the fighting.

The Taliban commander in the area, Mullah Ulfat, said six of his fighters had been killed and three wounded but the rebels had inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan and foreign forces.

More than six years after U.S.-led and Afghan troops drove the Taliban from power for harboring al Qaeda leader after the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan still suffers from daily violence.

Analysts say the 2003 war in Iraq and its aftermath meant political and military chiefs "took their eye off the ball" in Afghanistan allowing the Taliban to regroup and relaunch their insurgency two years ago. At least 7,000 people have been killed since.

To the north of Kandahar, the Taliban hanged five Afghan policemen from trees in the Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province on Sunday, provincial police chief Juma Gul Hemat said.

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a convoy of foreign forces in the Girishk district of Helmand province on Sunday but no one was wounded, provincial police chief Hussain Andiwal said.

Elsewhere, two Afghan policemen and three insurgents were killed when the Taliban attacked a police patrol in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, the local intelligence chief, Mohammad Zamaan, said.

Further south, 11 insurgents and one Afghan soldier were killed when Taliban attacked a joint foreign and Afghan military convoy in the Shah Joy district of Zabul province on Saturday, said Qasim Khan a police official in the district.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Afghan and Ismail Sameem; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
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Big success or sad story?
By ALISON YOUNG- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution  11/18/07
For four years, federal officials have touted a U.S. medical training program in Afghanistan as a model of success that brought "top-notch" care to a major Kabul maternity hospital.

Yet privately, the Rabia Balkhi Hospital project has repeatedly alarmed scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were responsible for tracking care there, records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show.

The rate of normal-sized babies dying in labor and delivery at Rabia Balkhi jumped 67 percent last year, CDC scientists in Atlanta found. Worse, the newspaper's analysis shows these babies were nearly four times more likely to die when delivered by Caesarean section, a potentially lifesaving operation encouraged by U.S. trainers.

Afghan mothers were in danger, too. Eighteen died in childbirth there last year; two-thirds of the deaths involved c-sections, including issues with surgical skill, anesthesia, transfusions and misdiagnoses, records show.

Among them: an Afghan Air Corps pilot who bled to death in July 2006 following a c-section.

So when Afghan President Hamid Karzai's wife chose to give birth at Rabia Balkhi in January, the U.S. military sent an 11-member medical team and critical equipment to "backstop" the delivery, said Col. Donald Thompson, who was then the U.S. command surgeon in Afghanistan. The baby was born safely without a c-section.

CDC scientists have warned Washington for years that the project might be risking lives. Officials at the CDC and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health now question whether the training pushed Afghan doctors to perform more c-sections before they were ready and before the hospital had the necessary anesthesia, sanitation and blood supply.

Until recently, officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the project, have deflected criticism. Where others saw a project hobbled by poor design and management, they saw success in a dangerous environment.

Rabia Balkhi has been "an unqualified success," said William Steiger, director of HHS' Office of Global Health Affairs, in an interview. "Hundreds if not thousands of lives have been saved."

Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, who had touted the project during his brief presidential campaign this year, said he was unaware of serious issues raised by the CDC and others. "I'm very surprised and concerned about it," he said in response to the newspaper's findings.

U.S. doctors who worked at Rabia Balkhi have also warned the project lacked the authority and resources to turn the hospital around. They restated their concerns in interviews with the Journal-Constitution.
"Short of saying it was half-baked, I'd say it was not as energetic as it could have been," said Dr. Douglas Laube, who consulted on the project from 2003 to 2005. Laube is past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The hospital is cleaner and provides better care since the project began, experts agree.

Even so, Afghan doctors there still lacked basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology, a contractor's assessment found last fall. Most doctors, though improved as critical thinkers, still lacked basic skills to resuscitate mothers and newborns. Doctors consistently failed to make sure newborns were breathing after c-sections.

Training at the hospital, provided by a revolving door of doctors, midwives and others often serving three-month stints, has been piecemeal and at times poorly attended, records show. The project lacked a set curriculum for three and a half years. No U.S. obstetrics trainer has been on site for 12 months.

U.S. officials don't know about 2007 death rates at the hospital because the CDC wasn't there to collect data. Last fall, HHS cut off the Atlanta-based agency's funding to monitor care, saying others could do it.
CDC and other experts have long questioned whether the training could succeed given the severity of Rabia Balkhi's problems and the U.S. refusal to tackle much beyond training.

The hospital initially lacked soap and hot water. It routinely ran out of surgical gloves, antibiotics and other basic medical supplies. Its doctors' medical training was outdated and cursory — the equivalent in some cases of a second-year U.S. medical student's, some experts said.

But in response to inquiries by the Journal-Constitution, HHS has revisited the concerns and formed a technical advisory group to address the rising death rate. Advisers will travel to Kabul in December. Last month, the agency hired RTI International, a North Carolina-based research institute, to evaluate the project at a cost of $1 million.

"I'm very pleased they're taking this seriously," said Dr. Faizullah Kakar, Afghanistan's deputy minister of public health.

The project began in 2002, a few months after the overthrow of the repressive Taliban regime. It started with Thompson's desire to do something about Afghanistan's maternal and infant death rates — among the world's worst.

"I thought the deaths of the babies were so deplorable, I had to do something about it," Thompson said.

Thompson chose Rabia Balkhi for a U.S. project to train newly graduated Afghan doctors in obstetrics and gynecology. Donald Rumsfeld, then defense secretary, agreed his department would renovate the building.

Named after a famed poet, Rabia Balkhi had grown over the decades from a clinic to a 250-bed, two-story hospital in a congested bazaar. When the Taliban barred women from general hospitals in 1997, it became Kabul's only women's hospital. Last year Rabia Balkhi's largely female staff delivered 13,906 babies, down from 15,509 in 2004. No statistics were kept in earlier years..

Thompson boasted at the hospital's gala reopening in April 2003 that "we now have a new hospital for women to receive top-notch health care and a new training program that will provide the best of medical instruction."

Many visiting U.S. doctors and health experts saw it much differently. "Things are horrible there. Worse than imaginable," wrote Michael Gerber, visiting in May 2003 from CDC's refugee health branch, in an e-mail a month later to CDC headquarters.

Gerber's e-mail described "feces all over the halls, blood everywhere ... no drugs, no record keeping, no signs of the refurbishment save new paint in a few spots."

International relief experts in Kabul believed the U.S. presence at the hospital was attracting more expectant mothers and resulting in more deaths, he warned.

The U.S. program was "just totally unrealistic," said Dr. Pamela Hyde, an Oklahoma obstetrician who was there in 2003. She said the United States needed to bring in a whole team of doctors, midwives and administrators to run the hospital and teach the Afghan staff by example.

The Afghan health ministry had wanted HHS to take over Rabia Balkhi and stock it with scarce supplies, according to U.S. embassy cables.

HHS refused, saying the Afghans wouldn't become self-sufficient that way. Internal documents note that a top priority of the project was to support the newly installed Karzai government.

As a result, nobody had full authority to reform hospital practices, U.S. trainers and contractors said. The Afghan staff lacked critical management and care skills, yet many resisted change. U.S. trainers couldn't even require attendance at classes.

"I knew what should be done but for one reason or another it wasn't done. That is extremely frustrating," said Rick DeFoore, a management consultant assigned to Rabia Balkhi throughout 2006. "Putting a consultant in there to give advice is ... a Band-Aid and Neosporin on a major wound infection."

The project also struggled with structural problems for two years until, Thompson said, he "raised hell" and the Defense Department did more renovation. Sewage flowed in hallways. Often there was no heat or hot water.

"We would have been better off building a new facility," said Dr. Walter "Jerry" Saunders, who taught at Rabia Balkhi in 2004.

Today, the Afghan government wants to build a major hospital in Kabul for about $14 million — far less than the $23 million spent so far on the training project.

At times, HHS' narrow focus on training and what it would not pay for was ridiculous, said Dr. Qudrat Mojadidi, an Afghan-American who advised Thompson on the project in 2002 and 2003. HHS refused, for example, to buy fuel for the hospital's medical waste incinerator, he said.

"They were having 60 babies every 24 hours and all those placentas were rotting out there in the hot sun of Kabul," said Mojadidi, who paid $200 from his own pocket to buy fuel in 2003.

"Every week I'd send two or three e-mails with pictures attached" to HHS officials, Mojadidi said. "Finally [Thompson] sent me a letter saying what a wonderful job I was doing and how many lives I was saving. I wrote back and said: We're not doing anything."

In emails and meetings, CDC officials urged HHS to either suspend the training or make the hospital functional so training could be effective.

"We are extremely concerned about the grim situation," wrote Dr. Stephen Blount, CDC's global health director, in a May 2003 email to Steiger, the HHS official in charge in Washington.

But Steiger was not swayed, writing back that "serious miscommunication" threatened the project.

Nearly a year later, even Rumsfeld was exasperated. "I am terribly disappointed that apparently the midwife hospital in Kabul has not been followed up well. It is not doing a good job," Rumsfeld wrote Thompson in 2004. "We have to do better than that."

Thompson responded by citing successes — training, a new emergency room, fewer deaths. He wrote that "conditions at RBH are improving, and the care being provided to mothers and their infants there is better now than it has been in many years." Rumsfeld declined to be interviewed.

Thompson said Wednesday he believes the hospital "is a hell of a lot better than it was when we started." He said he doesn't remember hearing concerns from officials at CDC or others.

"I thought the program was well-received by everybody," he said. "All I wanted to do was make sure women were taken care of."

International Medical Corps, a California-based nonprofit hired by HHS in 2004 to run the training, rarely met its contract goals, records show.

Ideally, six U.S. or Western-trained health professionals were supposed to teach year-round. IMC met that goal in only six months.

At least two ob/gyns were supposed to be at Rabia Balkhi throughout the year. But the nonprofit met that goal in only 11 months since 2005. IMC in 2005 even brought in an ob/gyn who gave up his Florida medical license in 1998 after a series of disciplinary actions.

IMC officials, who blamed the incident on a lapse in procedures, said the man was dismissed after three weeks and did not treat patients.

IMC officials told HHS that difficulties in recruiting forced them to largely rely on Afghan trainers who might offer "lower-quality courses."

The years of disjointed training was evident in the care observed by Dr. Catrina Funk, an ob/gyn, and Dr. Jeff Whittall, a pediatrician, who worked there in 2006.

"Twice myself or Jeff walked into the OR and realized the patient didn't have a heartbeat on the table, but nobody else realized it because the patient didn't have a monitor," Funk said. Anesthesia doctors had new equipment kits, she said, "but they didn't necessarily know how to use them."

IMC Vice President Rabih Torbay said his group's work was hampered because HHS failed to make sure hospital staff, consultants and contractors — each working for a different employer — worked toward the same goals.

"What was lacking was someone who would bring all those pieces together," Torbay said. Last year HHS hired another contractor — CURE International — to help the hospital run its staff and order supplies better.

But CURE officials told HHS last month they want out of the project. In a letter to the Afghan health ministry, CURE cited problems with hospital leadership: "Under the existing circumstances, CURE ... does not expect any further long-term or sustainable outcomes from this project."

When the Journal-Constitution first asked about c-section deaths at Rabia Balkhi, HHS officials said they were unaware of CDC's concerns. "I don't know what they're referring to," Jeannine Greenfield, an HHS nurse assigned to run the project, said in April. "There hasn't been that dramatic a rise in c-sections."

IMC also initially disputed a c-section problem, saying collection methods skewed CDC's data. CDC disagreed.

Earlier this year, the HHS Web site claimed the project had reduced maternal and infant mortality at Rabia Balkhi by 80 percent to 90 percent. But after the Journal-Constitution questioned the statistics, HHS officials admitted they could not substantiate the claim and removed it.

"We had intended that statement merely to be an indication of the extent of improvements at the hospital, and not a precise measure," agency officials said in a written statement.

The hospital's labor and delivery death rate for normal-sized babies actually rose 67 percent in 2006, CDC data show, while the c-section rate for them climbed 45 percent. The hospital's post-operative infection rate increased 66 percent.

"The mortality rate is going up, the Caesarean rate is going up," said Dr. Brian McCarthy, CDC's point person on the project. "That raises a flag."

Another serious concern: Even successful c-sections put the women at risk of uterine ruptures in future pregnancies. In Afghanistan, the average woman bears seven children, rarely with a doctor present.
Project officials found many c-section deliveries were unnecessary.

"It was a big concern. From the very beginning we were talking about it," said Dr. Anna Thurairatnam, an obstetrician who served as IMC's program manager at Rabia Balkhi in 2006.

IMC alerted HHS to the emerging issue. A March 2006 report devoted a page with charts to a rise in maternal and neonatal deaths at Rabia Balkhi. IMC also reported an uptick in deaths and concerns about c-sections in September 2005.

Since last spring, HHS has recognized a need to investigate c-section deaths at Rabia Balkhi. The agency is sending teams to Kabul to help create a quality assurance program to improve care, and it plans to restore funds for CDC's help.

"Sometimes we think the wrong women are getting c-sections," said Dr. Peter van Dyck, the HHS official leading the advisory team. "Sometimes women who need a c-section aren't getting it. And some who are getting it aren't getting appropriate [post-operative] care."

Dr. Margaret Kitt of the CDC, who visited the hospital on the team's behalf in September, said it has improved significantly since 2003 and even since last year. Still, she said, "a lot more progress ... needs to be made."

"Things are very difficult and very fragile in Afghanistan," Kitt said. "I think this is a really important opportunity for everything to continue to move forward. We don't want to lose this opportunity."
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U.S. buys teaching gadgets instead of medical supplies
By ALISON YOUNG - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/18/07
Instead of helping Rabia Balkhi Hospital buy medical supplies needed to deliver 14,000 babies a year, the United States spent $1.3 million on computerized LeapFrog talking books.

The idea was to teach illiterate Afghan women about hygiene, prenatal care, immunizations and nutrition from talking picture books popular with U.S. children.

Never mind that rural Afghan people have never seen touch-screen technology. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave LeapFrog a no-bid contract after an offhand comment by the daughter of a supporter of then-HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, according to interviews and records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

It was more than a quarter of the money Congress gave HHS in 2004 to tackle maternal and child health issues in Afghanistan.

At the same time Rabia Balkhi in Kabul routinely lacked soap, hot water, proper operating room equipment and working incubators. HHS made a policy decision to focus only on training at Rabia Balkhi and refused to buy medical supplies.

In the past, the Afghan health ministry could only afford to supply its hospitals for about one week each month.

"After one week, we cannot buy gloves" or other supplies, Dr. Faizullah Kakar, the deputy health minister, said in February. Patients were being asked to bring their own.

In December 2004 Thompson announced the delivery of 20,000 LeapFrog books to Kabul. Then they sat in a warehouse for nearly two years until the Afghan government started distributing them. HHS officials said it took that long to field-test the books.

Meanwhile the devices' AAA batteries died; HHS spent another $9,800 to replace them last fall.

Thompson, in an interview last week, said he didn't think the books were purchased with funds from the congressional appropriation for Rabia Balkhi. "I still think it's a tremendous tool," he said.

HHS officials and Thompson defend the LeapFrog purchase and call the project innovative. But a $95,000 study commissioned by HHS found the books had dubious value.

Afghans who used the book learned from it, but fewer than 10 percent were willing to use it during a 2005 pilot project. Most found the device too complicated and preferred being taught by people.

"From a cultural perspective, it is not surprising," the report by the nonprofit group International Medical Corps concluded. "They have little or no experience with learning from books or electronic forms of media."

The study suggested the book might be most effective if used in conjunction with a live health educator. How did HHS decide to buy LeapFrog books?

Kimberly Weiner Greene said she made an "off-the-cuff" comment to her dad, Jerry Weiner, a friend and supporter of Thompson's.

Weiner was attending an Afghanistan brainstorming meeting with Thompson. During a break, Greene said, her dad called to chat.

"Without thinking about what I was saying, I said: 'What a no-brainer. We should make LeapFrog books,' " said Greene, noting HHS was looking for a way to get information to women in rural areas without doctors.

Users could just tap a pen on pictures in the book, she noted, and hear an Afghan speaking in their language.

Greene said she never expected HHS would actually do it. Thompson called a few days later to say he loved the idea, she said.

Thompson's former HHS spokesman, Tony Jewell, said: "If there's a good idea, it doesn't matter where it came from. It was certainly vetted."

William Steiger, director of HHS' Office of Global Health Affairs, called the books' educational potential "extraordinary." He said they'll now be used alongside a live health educator.

Dr. Najiba Zamani, an Afghan-American consultant for LeapFrog, said she was shocked that the field study questioned the books' effectiveness. "In my opinion, those women, they need this book," she said.
Zamani said she's seen Afghan women cry when they learn what depression is from the book and that help is available.

And she said the book's ability to raise awareness about "birth spacing," by talking about how carrots planted too closely together become scrawny and weak, provides a culturally appropriate way of addressing a sensitive sexual issue.

Was the book the best use of limited U.S. funds Kakar said the books will be useful.

"But when it comes to priorities, we have donors. They do things according to what they think is right," he said. "Our priorities might be a little different."
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Losing Afghanistan, One Civilian at a Time
By Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann
The Washington Post, Sunday, November 18, 2007; B04
The road between the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad and the Pakistani border is one of the busiest in the country, congested with gaily painted trucks, battered taxis, buses packed to the rafters and Afghans riding bikes. One morning in early March, a suicide bomber plowed a Toyota packed with explosives into the middle of a U.S. convoy patrolling that road, killing himself and injuring a Marine. That was bad enough, but what may be the key to Afghanistan's future was what happened next.

As pedestrians scattered in the resulting confusion and chaos, other Marines opened fire as their convoy sped away, shooting at vehicles and pedestrians over the course of some 10 miles, according to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. They left at least 12 civilians dead in their wake and injured dozens more. "They opened fire on everybody," one wounded bystander told a reporter, "the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot." A court of inquiry is scheduled to convene next month at Camp Lejeune, N.C., to determine whether the Marines acted improperly. Investigations by the U.S. military and the Afghan human rights commission have already concluded that the American convoy was not fired upon after the suicide attack.

The incident near Jalalabad is part of a disturbing larger pattern in Afghanistan. Last year was the worst year for civilian casualties since the fall of the country's cruel Taliban regime, and 2007 is shaping up to be even worse. The most alarming point: As of July, more civilians had died as a result of NATO, U.S. and Afghan government firepower than had died due to the Taliban. According to U.N. figures, 314 civilians were killed by international and Afghan government forces in the first six months of this year, while 279 civilians were killed by the insurgents.

So why on Earth are the NATO and U.S. forces and their Afghan allies killing more civilians than the Taliban? One explanation can be found in the relatively low number of Western boots on the ground. Afghanistan, which is 1 1/2 times the size of Iraq and has a somewhat larger population, has only about 50,000 U.S. and NATO soldiers stationed on its soil. By contrast, more than 170,000 U.S. troops are now in Iraq. So the West has to rely far more heavily on airstrikes in Afghanistan, which inevitably exact a higher toll in civilian casualties. Indeed, the Associated Press found that U.S. and NATO forces launched more than 1,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2007 alone -- four times as many airstrikes as U.S. forces carried out in Iraq during that period.

The collateral damage here goes beyond even the tragic loss of life. A September report by the United Nations concluded that Western airstrikes are among the principal motivations for suicide attackers in Afghanistan. Sure enough, suicide attacks in the country rose sevenfold from 2005 to 2006, to an alarming 123 attacks, and are already up by around 70 percent this year -- at the same time that pro-government forces are killing more Afghan civilians than are their Taliban foes.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has been blunt here, warning that the mounting loss of civilian life in Afghanistan is eroding the support of the very people whom Western forces are supposed to be protecting. According to a countrywide poll by the BBC, the number of Afghans who believe that their country is headed in the right direction dropped a precipitous 22 percentage points between 2005 and 2006, from 77 percent to 55 percent, while the number of Afghans who approve of the U.S. presence in their country eroded from 68 percent to 57 percent. Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly urged NATO and the U.S. military to act with greater restraint. Lately, he has become more impassioned. "Our innocent people are becoming victims of careless operations of NATO and international forces," he said at a news conference in June. That could put the entire Afghan mission in peril.

Of course, the fact that international forces in Afghanistan are causing an unacceptable number of civilian casualties does not exonerate the Taliban insurgents. The fanatics' tactic of using civilians as human shields in combat is well documented and deplorable. But research by Brian Williams, a historian at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, shows that Taliban suicide bombers -- unlike their Iraqi counterparts -- have been generally loath to target civilians, preferring instead to focus on Western and Afghan military personnel and bases.

This tragic trifecta -- a high number of allied airstrikes in Afghanistan, a growing gap between Taliban-caused civilian casualties and those caused by pro-government forces, and declining Afghan support for the international presence in Afghanistan -- means that the rules of engagement for NATO and the United States need to change. In July, de Hoop Scheffer proposed a good first step, announcing that NATO is planning to start using smaller bombs to reduce collateral damage and spare innocent Afghans. NATO is willing to wait for targeting opportunities that don't put civilians at risk, he said: "If that means going after the Taliban not on Wednesday but on Thursday, we will get him then." Moreover, last month, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged NATO countries to put more of their soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. Should that call be heeded -- by no means a certainty -- the influx of troops would also help lessen Western reliance on crude airstrikes.

All this makes good military sense. Indeed, Western commanders should literally take a page from the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus. The new Army counterinsurgency manual that he helped write contains sound advice for Afghanistan. An airstrike, the manual notes, "can cause collateral damage that turns people against the host-nation (HN) government and provides the insurgents with a major propaganda victory." Petraeus also points out that sometimes, the best response to an insurgent attack is "doing nothing." After all, "often insurgents carry out a terrorist act or guerrilla raid with the primary purpose of enticing counterinsurgents to overreact."

Let's hope that de Hoop Scheffer's patience and Petraeus's calm are woven into Western rules of engagement in Afghanistan. We should fight at the times of our choosing, not the Taliban's. And we should not fall into the old insurgent trap of provoking the occupiers into callous, disproportionate responses. Making these changes could mean far fewer dead innocents and a far more stable country.

The stakes are high. So far this year, more than 100 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan, the highest number since the fall of the Taliban six years ago. One obvious way to lower the U.S. death toll there in 2008 would be to convince Afghans that they have more to fear from their Taliban would-be oppressors than from the militaries of the United States, NATO and the Afghan government. Tragically, today, that is simply not the case.

Peter Bergen, the author of "The Osama bin Laden I Know" and "Holy War, Inc.," is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Katherine Tiedemann is a research associate at the New America Foundation.
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New Zealand extends Afghan troop deployment
Reuters November 19, 2007 at 3:40 AM EST
WELLINGTON — New Zealand has extended the duration of its troop deployment in Afghanistan for two years until September, 2009, Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday.

The tour of duty for the 120-member provincial reconstruction team in Bamiyan province, west of Kabul, had been due to end in September this year.

“A peaceful Afghanistan, able to provide for its people and prevent itself being used as a terrorist base, is in the interests of the international community,” Ms. Clark said in a statement.

She said New Zealand's reconstruction team was making a difference and was welcomed by the Afghan government.

Thirteen other personnel, offering training and medical services, will serve with various forces, which have been present in Afghanistan since a U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Ms. Clark said New Zealand would also send a warship to the Gulf region before September next year.

New Zealand troops have been in Afghanistan since December, 2001, with the reconstruction team present since September, 2003.

In July, a member of New Zealand's special forces was awarded the highest honour for bravery, the Victoria Cross, for a daring rescue of a wounded comrade in Afghanistan in 2004.

Earlier this month, a nephew of New Zealand's defence minister was killed in an ambush in Afghanistan, while serving in the U.S. army.
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Afghan game short of cash but full of optimism
By Jon Hemming Mon Nov 19, 8:50 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Short of funds and experience but bursting with confidence, Afghanistan's fledgling cricket team are already itching to take on the best sides in the world.

"If we had just 50 percent of the facilities that other international teams have, then nobody would be able to beat Afghanistan," declared national cricket federation president Shahzada Masood.

Buoyed up by what they claimed as victory in the Asian Cricket Council's (ACC) Twenty-20 Cup earlier this month, Afghanistan officials hope to attract aid to help the development of the recently imported but already popular sport.

Officially, the ACC final against Oman on November 2 was declared a draw because Afghan fans invaded the pitch in Kuwait before the umpire could pronounce the match over after Oman, needing three runs to win, had missed the last ball.

Afghans, however, celebrated the result as a victory.

Their enthusiasm impressed former England all-rounder Matthew Fleming, who ended a four-day fact-finding trip to the country for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) on Sunday.

"Clearly they are bursting with talent and interest is booming on the back of that victory," said Fleming at the national team's practice nets next to the bullet-riddled Kabul stadium where the Taliban used to hold public executions.

WAR REFUGEES
"This is my first time in Afghanistan and I had no idea what to expect but the first thing I saw was an area of flattish ground and they were playing cricket," said Fleming.

MCC wants to help to develop the game in the country. The relationship began with a match in Mumbai in March 2006 when Afghanistan thrashed an MCC XI led by former England captain Mike Gatting by 171 runs.

Two members of the Afghan team, Hamid Hassan and Mohammad Nabi, subsequently spent time at Lord's on the MCC's Young Cricketers scheme.

In June this year, fast bowler Hassan became the first Afghan cricketer to play at Lord's, appearing for MCC against a Europe XI.

The absence of cricket in Afghanistan was a sign that the Afghans, unlike neighboring imperial India, had never been conquered by the British.

While the hardline Taliban banned most traditional sports, cricket was one of the things they brought with them from the Pakistani refugee camps where many of their recruits originated.

A new wave of refugees fled to Pakistan to escape the ongoing violence and, in their turn, brought the sport back with them when the Taliban were toppled in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

ENGLISH TOUR
The Afghan national team have done well in competitions across Asia, including Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Kuwait. Last year, they won six of seven matches on a tour of England against local sides including university teams and county reserves.

In the last decade, the number of registered players in the country has grown to more than 12,000, according to the Afghan Cricket Federation.

The MCC is considering providing equipment and support for schools and helping the federation to complete the building of a pavilion and stands at the national cricket ground.

Where most games are played in a whirl of dust on patches of waste ground, Afghan cricket authorities have brought in soil and laid grass in an effort to create a showpiece national ground. But they have run out of money and it stands half built, the grass patchy and thin.

Despite the problems, national coach Taj Malik sees a bright future for the game.

"Cricket is a new sport here but now it is very popular," he said. "When we won the championship it was appreciated by the whole nation and everybody in Afghanistan now loves their cricket team.

"We are expecting to beat the big teams, we want to beat Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh first because they are in our region, then also we are hoping to play New Zealand," said Malik. "We are sure if we do not beat them, we can fight them."
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
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US launches justice reform programme in Afghanistan
NEW YORK, Nov 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United States of America Friday announced the formation of a public-private partnership for justice reforms in Afghanistan.

The US initiative to strengthen the fragile judiciary system of Afghanistan would be formally launched by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, next month in Washington, an official announcement said.

A novel initiative to seek the expertise of Americas legal community in building Afghanistans justice system, the partnership would be co-chaired by Thomas A. Schweich, US Coordinator for Counter- narcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan; and Robert C OBrien, the former US Alternate Representative to the UN.

The partnership will allow (US) firms to demonstrate their commitment to improving the justice system in Afghanistan by funding low-cost, high-impact projects promoting women's rights, access to justice, legal aid, professional development, and other important justice-related activities, the State Department said.

This is the first effort of the US to get involve in reforms and capacity building of the countrys justice system, the task of which is mainly with Italy. In July Italy had organized a conference on Rule of Law in Afghanistan, which among other nations was attended by the US too.

It is at this conference that the US had pledged $15 million in new assistance for the justice sector reforms. So far the US has given $145 million in the last five years.

The State Department said this sector is falling in financial assistance from the international community. Afghanistan is estimated to require more than $500 million in the next five years. At the Rome conference the participating nations had pledged an aid of $98 million.

The State Department said it's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs will work with the private sector in an effort to alleviate this shortfall.
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Bush sacrifices Afghanistan on the altar of Iraq: Reid
NEW YORK, Nov 17(Pajhwok Afghan News): As the war of word between the White House and the Democrat-majority Congress intensified, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, Friday alleged that Bushs obsession with Iraq has been at expense of Afghanistan.

Delivering his remark on the floor of the Senate on Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act of 2008 Senator Reid said: New evidence emerges every day that President Bush's obsession with Iraq has come at the expense of Afghanistan, once viewed as a success.

Commenting on the current situation in Afghanistan, Reid said: Now, the opium trade in that country is at an all-time high, violence is at its highest since the American intervention, and it was reported yesterday that the Taliban has vastly stepped up its efforts.

Bin Laden is still free, taunting and threatening the US with video tapes, and his Al Qaeda network -- according to the Bush Administration's own intelligence -- has regrouped and is stronger than ever, Reid said in his fiery speech.

We need look no further than the crisis in Pakistan as a reminder that the world can change overnight and our ability to respond nimbly to new challenges is essential, he said, adding that there has been no result of the increase in US troops in Iraq. Instead, the problem has increased, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, an influential Democratic lawmaker said Friday that the tribal areas of Pakistan might be an incubator for insurgents.

There is growing indication that the tribal lands of Pakistan are no longer just a haven for some Al Qaeda elements, they might even be an incubator for insurgents, both crossing the border into Afghanistan and perhaps even posing some threat to the government in Islamabad, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) said at a news conference in Washington.

Commenting on the situation in Afghanistan, the Senator expressed concern over the lack of progress and the increase in activity of the Taliban.
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ISAF donates construction equipment to Bagram
KABUL, Nov 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Members of the ISAF Bagram Provincial Reconstruction Team recently donated more than $1 million in construction equipment to locals in the community, says a press release issued here on Saturday. .

The seven pieces of equipment will be used to repair damage caused by flooding in the Salang Pass, keeping Afghanistan connected to Tajikistan through the winter.

The pass was built nearly 40 years ago by the Russians, said Army Col. Jonathon Ives, Task Force Cinncinatus commander. Since its creation, the pass has become a vital link between these countries.

More than 2,000 vehicles drive through the pass everyday, including trucks carrying fuel and clothing from the North. Afghanistan exports agriculture products and the route is also used to bring coal from Bayman Province to the eastern part of the country.

I visited the pass several months ago after flooding had wiped out entire portions of the road, Ives said. I saw the equipment the Afghans were using to rebuild the road.

The colonel saw that the people were working to repair the road themselves, but modern equipment could better facilitate their efforts.

The donated equipment included two large graders, a large flat-bed truck, two bulldozers and two hydraulic excavators, one with a bucket and the other with a hammer attachment.

The Afghans already have trained heavy equipment operators, but we will provide follow-up training especially with upkeep maintenance, Ives said.

This equipment will not only be used to repair the flood damage in Salang Pass, but it will also be used to keep the road passable throughout winter. 

The pass gets more than five meters (15 feet) of snow during the winter and this equipment means the trade route between these countries wont be closed during the winter, Ives said.

For this area we needed equipment badly to keep the road open during the winter, said Afghan Maj. Gen. Rajab.

Rajab who is also the Salang Pass Maintenance Group commander, through an interpreter added, This equipment can also be used through several areas to help with emergency repairs.

The delivery of the equipment came just one day before the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was going to meet with the provincial governor about how he planned to keep the Salang Pass open during the winter.
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Clinic inaugurated in Ghazni
GHAZNI CITY, Nov 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A clinic was inaugurated in Laghabat village in Dehyak district in the southern Ghazni province on Saturday.

District chief Haji Fazal Ahmad told Pajhwok Afghan News the clinic which will cost about $190000 will be completed in six months.

It will greatly benefit the people of the area, he added.

He said that clinic would be built with the support of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

"Patients of the area face great difficulties, because they can not afford to travel to capital city for medical facilities and there is no such facility in the area," He added.

Head of health section of PRT, Hoekman on this occasion said that after completion the clinic would be provided all necessary equipments.

"PRT has invested about one million US dollars in the health sector in the province," he added.
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ANSF provide Medicaid to 2,100 Afghans
KABUL, Nov 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghan National Security Forces, advised by Coalition forces, provided medical and humanitarian assistance to 2,100 Afghan civilians in various parts of the country, says a press release issued on Saturday.

It adds the assistance was provided in Kandahar city, Kandahar province and Tagab Valley in Kapisa province.

The ANSF-led forces treated more than 2,100 villagers, including approximately 1,500 women and children, during the two-day village medical engagement. 

"Common complaints among the treated villagers were muscular-skeletal pain, upset stomach and basic flu-like symptoms.

Most of the people who come here have problems that are preventable or easy to treat if detected early," said a Coalition medical officer.

 "We can give advice to local caregivers and provide them with the ability to receive the care needed that will make them feel better."

"An astonishing fact is that the amount of females treated outnumbered males by a ratio of three to one. This indicates a substantial increase in the sense of trust the Afghans have for the government of the Islamic

Republic of Afghanistan and the government's commitment to provide a bright future for Afghan citizens." said a Coalition Soldier.

"I'm very pleased with the outreach mission because it will bring hope to Kandaharis," said Brigadier General Sardar, Afghan National Civil Order Police commander in Kandahar province.

"This has been a huge accomplishment," said Sardar. "Many Afghan villagers have been provided with medical care that they otherwise would not have been able to afford."

In addition to the medical care provided, the ANSF-led forces distributed clothing, food, hygiene items, and approximately 100 radios to attendants identified by village elders as those who need them the most.

"The security and assistance you bring for our villagers is a gift,"said a Kandahar area village elder.
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